Recondite Quips and Hockey Fight Clips

"I never allow myself to be influenced in the smallest degree either by atmospheric disturbances or by the arbitrary divisions of what is known as time. I would willingly reintroduce the use of the opium pipe or the Malay kris, but I know nothing about that of those infinitely more pernicious and moreover flatly bourgeois implements, the umbrella and the watch."

--The "I've gotten dried off as many times as I've gotten wet" character Bloch, from Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time

Extremely Slight Risk of Death

"Our Brotherhood values courage over technique because we believe that the risk of death is a necessary component of spiritual growth, that consequence inspires one to greater honesty (technique merely allows access to more terrain upon which to express our values). The heart of climbing as I know it magnifies the transitory nature of life; partners died, I nearly did, I became aware, I learned who I am, and I learned to respect life and life lived now. When I climbed close to the threshold of my ability, when the threat of death urged me to give all of myself without reservation to the task, then courage won over doubt and I felt purified. In these moments, risk compelled me to overcome limitations I had accepted simply because others suggested them, and I grew." --Mark Twight

Theoretically, I could die!

I Love Facebook!

It's too bad I deactivated my account. Without it, how am I supposed to tell all the people I haven't seen in twenty years and will probably never see again that I'm eating fish sticks with Thousand Island dressing on them?

A Short Rant

When my government imprisons people indefinitely without a trial, it harms me! When my govenment tortures people, it harms me! When my government murders people using unmanned drones like it's a fucking video game, it harms me! It harms me far more than some dumb-ass kid hiking through the Pamirs or wherever with flip-flops and a Kalashnikov.

We Live in a Respectable Apartment

which really sucks. At our old apartment, it was very unusual to not hear someone banging on a half-clogged catalytic converter with a hammer every Saturday afternoon. Sometimes I would be shooting pucks (which I can't do in my new, respectable apartment) off the plastic sheet I placed on my back patio (which I don't have at my new, respectable apartment) and I would just sense that something was wrong. So I would go inside and ask my wife, "Babsey-babe, how come it's like a morgue outside?" She would open the door, close it, and say, "Because no one's banging on a half-clogged catalytic converted with a hammer." Now we're at our new, respectable apartment and nobody ever bangs on a half-clogged catalytic converter with a hammer. Nobody bangs on anything with a hammer. I think the reason why nobody ever bangs on anything with a hammer is that none of my respectable neighbors know how to bang on anything with a hammer. They have people for that! It also may have something to do with the paragraph in our lease agreements that expressly prohibits the banging on of anything with a hammer. The language is very clear. It says, "Tenants are prohibited from banging on anything with a hammer." Other than that and the fact that the lady who used to sell me tamales out of the trunk of her car at the old place doesn't come to our new, respectable apartment, I can't complain. The rent is $150 a month more but at least I was able to sell my truck for $500 less than I could have if the catalytic converter wasn't half-clogged. God, I miss my old apartment.

And my truck.

Policy Memo - Urine or You're Out!

Creating great gibberish requires a kind of natural creativity that cannot come naturally. For this reason, DMG Gibberish Solutions encourages all employees to take whatever cognitive enhancers they require in order to achieve a sufficiently gibberative state. We do not do drug testing for new hires or for those involved in accidents within our facilities. Unfortunately, accidents involving our company vehicles have become so frequent and so severe that we are forced to implement our new Urine or You're Out! policy. We cannot afford to replace our entire fleet every two weeks as we have been doing. Under this policy, employees involved in an accident while driving a company vehicle must return to work as soon as possible for urine testing or face termination. The test will take place at the fenced side employee parking lot. The employee must piss over the chain link fence for at least five seconds. If the employee is not sufficiently soused to piss over the fence for five seconds, he will not have an adequate excuse for wrecking the company vehicle and must enroll in a defensive driving course paid for by the company. Employees drunk enough to pass the urine test will be deemed to have had an adequate excuse for the accident and will be allowed to return to work. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Controlled document. Not for distribution.
DMG-72154

The New Pretzl from Petzl

Thanks, Soubriquet. You're a frickin' genius!

Lower Mulberry Shenanigans

My friend Ryan and I floated the Mullberry from Turner Bend to Cambell's Cemetary yesterday. The 11-mile stretch has some nice rapids but you earn every one of them. The pools are long-long! Just to entertain ourselves, we hoisted this tree up and jammed it on another tree to make it look like a flood placed it there:

DMG Responds to Kayaking Rumors

Springdale, Ar., Nov 09/FirstWire/DMG Gibberish Solutions (NYGE: DMG) responded today to rumors that it is giving up whitewater kayaking in favor of rappelling and other more terrestrial activities. The company insists that, while it hasn't paddled anything bigger than Fisher's Ford since May, it has absolutely no intention of quitting paddling. DMG's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer Dave Renfro said, "We missed the best whitewater day of the year three weeks ago because we had made a previous commitment to demo climbing shoes at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. We did not buy climbing shoes. Furthermore, the reports that my company attempted to barter it's drysuit for a collection of trinkets and beaded jewelry are categorically false."

DMG Gibberish Solutions is a leading supplier of gibberish for the playground padding, personal floatation, and mulching industries and is listed on the New York Gibberish Exchange.

Cool Product Pick of the Week

Unlike most, this week's cool product pick really is cool! I finally had a chance to try out the Petzl Pirana rappel device that the UPS guy brought me. It's made to fit tightly on the Attache model carabiner also from Petzl which I already had. Unlike a traditional figure-of-eight, you can load the rope onto the Pirana without removing it from that carabiner, making it much harder to accidentally drop it. You can also vary the friction by routing one or both of the rope strands behind the two little ears on the bottom. In the photo, I'm using what Petzl calls "Fat-ass Mode" to get the maximum friction.

Minimalist Ascension Rig

All you need to ascend a rope is a pair of locking carabiners and a prusik loop. They stow pretty easily on your harness:

I had the best luck with asymmetrical "D" carabiners. I also used 6mm prusik cord which worked nicely on my 9mm rope. Getting the length just right took a bit of experimenting. It ended up reaching just above my shoulder when I stepped on it:

With a three-wrap prusik hitch and a girth hitch around my foot, it is just long enough to give me room to grab the rope above the rappel device and below the prusik hitch.

Instead of a second chest prusik, you can use two carabiners with a garda hitch. It will act like a ratchet. This is what the garda hitch looks like loose:

When you pull the slack through with your brake hand, the hitch walks up until the load strand wraps around the spines of the two carabiners causing them to clamp down on the brake strand. Try it sometime. It is rock solid!

It's a bit hard to photograph yourself ascending with a garda hitch so you'll have to trust me that it works. The key is to take big bites with the foot prusik. Wrap the brake strand around your hand so it doesn't slip and haul the slack through powerfully as you stand up in the foot loop. It takes practice. After a few trips, I rappelled halfway down the huge 20-foot cliff I found, tied myself off, set up my minimalist ascension rig, and ascended back up. You need to tie the garda hitch below your descender, obviously:

This can all be done with gloves on. From here, you have to stand in the foot loop while you remove the rope from the descender. This is a busy task so no photos. Once your snug against the garda hitch, you can take a break and shoot a photo of yourself hanging five feet from certain death.

I wouldn't want to haul myself up El Capitan using this rig just because of the friction pulling the slack through the garda hitch, but as a self-rescue device, you really can't beat it. It's cheap and it doesn't tear up your rope.

The Healing Waters of Lee Creek

My friend John and I floated Lee Creek from the usual ACC takeout down about ten miles to what they call Natural Dam. Because of water levels and some other reasons, this section that didn't get cleaned during the 2nd Annual Lee Creek Cleanup Day in September that drew about 200 volunteers. I don't know how much two guys in one canoe can do to clean ten miles of river bank, but we did our best to get the really ugly stuff. We met a landowner about half way down who was kind enough to dispose of the used tire and other trash we collected. That lightened up our load so we could pick up more stuff. It was my first time ever in a canoe and the third time for John's 2 1/2 month-old border collie who has no idea how incredibly lucky she is. At the end of the day, it was much less about picking up trash and much more about two friends and a dog enjoying a beautiful stretch of river that doesn't get paddled very often. We we're the only ones on it because no one else wanted to "waste" a day of great whitewater somewhere else just to paddle ten miles of Class I. It hardly felt like a wasted day.

Recondite Quips and Hockey Fight Clips

"Pneumothorax: If you don't know what it is, don't carry the 16 gauge needle to treat it."
--Canyoneering Adventure Blog

A Fact:

If you're a liberal, Japo-Hungarian Muslim with vegitarian leanings, it doesn't pay to open your mouth in Arkansas on game days.

Cool Product Pick of the Week

Aside from the obvious use for this product, it can also be used to keep a banana from getting crushed in your backpack.

Real Arkansas Kayaking Blog!

My friend Matt has started a blog with some really great kayaking trip reports from Arkansas and other places. Unlike me, Matt is not a complete fraud. He actually does go kayaking occasionally. You can check him out here.

Matt doing an ender at Fisher's Ford. Photo by Jeremy Meyer.

Rappelling on a Munter

I haven't done anything worth blogging about in months and I certainly haven't done anything worth blogging about today, but I did go rapelling. My kayking friend Tom, swiftwater rescue expert and guru to all things roped, said the hot ticket for low-speed cliff jumping was 9mm NFPA static rope on a Pirana descender from Petzl. I found the rope and the special carabiner that works with the Pirana in town but I couldn't find the Pirana. I ordered one but it hadn't come in yet and I didn't want to waste a perfect day off waiting for it. Fortunately, I have internet and the internet says you can rappel on Munter hitch:

It doesn't look like much but it does work! It also twists the rope (just like the internet said it would). After a few rappels, I had the confidence to leap past the overhanging lip without choking up on the rope allowing me to recontact the rock with my feet instead of my knees. Much more comfortable! On my fourth trip, I stopped mid-abseil to try locking off the Munter with a mule hitch like I saw on the internet. The internet was right again! It's important to hold your tongue just right when you're suspended five feet from certain death aiming a camera:

My rope was already developing a pronounced twist after that descent so I decided to call it a day. I'm approaching this rappelling thing the same way I approach all my adventures: I'm using such extreme caution that it is virtually impossible that I will suffer any injury worse than a sprained pinky, and probably not even that. Yes, my adventures are so unadventurous that they are almost not adventures at all, but they sure are fun! Here I placed the backpack far beyond my rope and used a wide-angle lens to give the illusion that the cliff I selected was taller than it really was. It was actually about five feet tall:

Nothing too exciting, but I did get to build an anchor for the first time and prove out my gear under fairly non-lethal conditions. My project for next time is to ascend using prusiks. If that goes well, maybe I'll have the guts to tackle a ten-foot-tall cliff!

Visual Packing List Revisited

Some of you may remember the visual packing list I posted back before I exercised the Nuclear Option and deleted 400 blog posts. I've since made a few improvements thanks to some excellent instruction at our last canoe club meeting. I've exchanged the sealed sandwich container within a drybag for a 750ml Camelback bottle with duct tape wrapped around it. I've also exchanged the flashlight for a headlamp and put the toilet paper, fire starter, and water purification tablets in baggies. I've added money, a Sharpie, and some marking tape which I've wrapped around my sealed match container. Perhaps the biggest improvement is getting rid of the disinfecting wipes, gauze, and other first-aidsy crap which is useless on a flooded creek during a downpour. Smear some antibiotic on the wound, seal it with duct tape, and get the hell out of there! I'm much happier with my new setup. Things will be drier and easier to access plus it frees up room in my drybag for Capilene and warm beer.

I Felt Like Such an Ass at the Kennedy Funeral

I Pledge Allegiance

to get out of the United States of America, to leave the Republic for the Philippines, at fifty, with my 401-k (minus ten percent) and a bicycle.

Pointless Summertime Musings

In our public schools, the buzzword is tolerance. We must all learn tolerance, or whatever. If we are an intolerant people, then I suppose becoming tolerant is a necessary step. It is not the destination, though. My dream is not to live in a world where we tolerate our fellow man in spite of his differences; my dream is to live in a world where we love our fellow man because of them. The differences between men add value to my life.

The same goes with paddles.

If I learned one thing in my days of fossil-fuel-powered sports (thank Whoever for helping my transcend those boorish, earth-destroying activities), it is that you never change more than one thing at a time. I didn't re-jet the carburator, change the cam timing, advance the ignition, and go to a hotter spark plug just because the engine in my Datsun hesitated a bit coming off idle. Paddles is different, though. With paddles, every adjustment costs $250. I measure twice, adjust once, adjust completely, and relish the huge difference for the value it adds to my life.

A 45-degree, orange paddle with a standard-sized bent shaft is to a 30-degree, green paddle with a small-sized straight shaft as baseball is to cricket. They both go good with beer. My orange-paddle roll had not failed me a single time since that dark swim on the Frog nearly a year ago. I was determined to never let that happen again. I practiced and practiced until I had convinced myself there was no possibility of me ever missing a roll again. If I had a paddle in my hands--any paddle--I would be able to roll! I tried my brand-new green paddle out in the treacherous waters of Beaver Lake today and swam three times in an hour. It felt like I was using a tennis racquet. It was a very humbling experience.

As I was diagnosing the exact cause of my roll meltdown, I got to thinking about paddle-diversity and tolerance and stuff. The worst thing in the world would be for me to hate my new paddle or be afraid of it just because it is different. I don't really want to tolerate it's differences either. What I want to do--what I choose to do--is to love my new paddle because of it's differences. If I can't roll with my new paddle, it it not the paddle's fault. My green paddle has no duty to change itself to be more like my orange paddle just to avoid my discrimination and unfair treatment. Instead, I have a duty. I have a duty to learn to roll again using a fucking tennis racquet.

Are we really that different?

Policy Memo - Scriptural References

In the past, DMG Gibberish Solutions has used oblique scriptural references to add weight and haughtiness to ideas and concepts it deemed important. New focus group testing has shown that this approach no longer works and often has the opposite effect. It annoys those who don't ascribe to any particular faith and offends those who do. For this reason, the Five Pillars of Operators Paint Machine (OPM) will now be called the Five Tenets of OPM and the Ten Commandments of Single-minute Exchange of Gibberish (SMEG) will be called simply the Ten Rules of SMEG. We will continue to refer to the Seven Chakras of the Dave Mows Grass Production System (DMGPS) as the Seven Chakras until an adequate substitute word can be found. If you find similar scriptural references in any DMG documents or publications, please let your supervisor know so we can have the language updated to reflect the changing Zeitgeist. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Controlled document. Not for distribution.
DMG-54127

Job Posting - Brain Cell Operator

Our Playground Padding Group (PGPG) is expanding operations in order to keep up with increasing demand. We are in need of four brain cell operators, two for day shift and two for nights, to man two new brain cells. Each operator will be responsible for both the left brain and right brain in one cell. Two years manufacturing experience required with gibberish production experience a definite plus. Job involves long hours of thankless toil under inhospitable conditions. Qualified applicants will have suffered. Please post resume and gibberish sample to www.davemowsgrass.blogspot.com if you love gibberish!

DMG Gibberish Solutions is an equal opportunity employer.

My Favorite Song

is the Song of Regret. I sing it in the shower.

A Better Bulkhead

Sorry factory bulkhead.

Everything comes out!

Note the exquisite craftsmanship that Wavesport and Dagger are so famous for. Some deburring may be in order but don't weaken the bulkhead by hogging the slots out any bigger than they already are.

The fact that the two mounting holes for the center pillar are drilled off-center will not jeopardize the safety of the boat. Nor will the unused hole on the right. They may be such a distraction to the paddler that he sometimes misses crux moves on the river and ends up in a bad way, though, especially if that paddler is a machinist by trade and a little bit anal.

Put the thin factory foam pieces and the multi-adjustable foot entrapment death snares in the bin where they belong.

Now we're ready to start!

Reassemble the bulkhead two holes further forward and without the Mickey Mouse adjustable plates. Now's the time to bend the aluminum bars to they fit snug to the hull.

Show empathy and goodwill to the person who originally assembled the boat by not correcting the listing pillar. Put it back in and forget about it.

A file folder makes a good template. Do not rush this step!

Three-inch-thick foam will not fit over the bulkhead so there will not be any chance of a foot entrapment. You'll have to find some other way to trap yourself underwater.

A knife with some spine will cut the straightest

Another step that shouldn't be rushed.

A little contact cement...

...and Bob's your uncle! Have your kid stand stand over the bulkhead to check for any hull flex. If everything checks out OK, you're ready to piton!

Policy Memo - Paint Schemes

In the past, OPM (Operators Paint Machine) teams have been directed to paint all machines white regardless of the original color. Having one color makes the shop look more uniform and it exposes dirt, which has been a primary driver in our effort to create a cleaner, safer workplace for all of our operators. As we paint more and more machines, though, the tyranny of white has become unbearable. DMG Gibberish Solutions believes that nothing fucks up the feng shui of a busy brainroom faster than a bright white machine surrounded by yellow and black stripes. The safety yellow and black are required by law so the only way to avoid them would be to move our whole operation to Djibouti, an option we are considering. The bright white we can change right now. From now on, OPM teams will paint machines off-white instead of white. Machines already painted white will remain white until they are selected for another OPM event, at which time they will be painted off-white. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Controlled document. Not for distribution.
DMG-15427

My New Lunch Box

No more broken, soggy pop tarts on the river!

Dave Mows Grass on Changing Habits - Redux

I just realized how poorly I made my point about toilet paper. I was trying to say that I have $.99 to buy toilet paper with but I can't bring myself to do it. I mean, who needs toilet paper in Arkansas? I'd rather have the buck!

UF Mike Wants to Know if I Play the Pipes

No, I just inflate them and stand next to steel buildings.

Dave Mows Grass on Changing Habits

Well, I've sold some stuff, the overtime is kicking in, and I find myself actually having a little bit of money. It's not much, but it's enough to begin rebuilding my vanquished savings account and still buy a $.99 double cheeseburger at McDonald's, or a $.99 Drowning Pool song at iTunes, or a $.99 roll of toilet paper at WalMart. I used to be able to drop $500 on a whim for something I didn't even want. Now I can't even pry a dollar out of my ass for a basic necessity, and I couldn't wipe if I did. I guess my habits have changed.

An eBay Prayer

Oh, God of my Misunderstanding, please give me the strength to resist buying this BMX bike frame with the money I made selling my bagpipe music books.

I'm Thinking of Writing a Book

A collection of autobiographical fiction articles along the lines of Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams except about kayaking instead of mountaineering. Of course, Jon Krakauer did actually solo Devil's Thumb and did actually wave off a rescue helicopter on Mont Blanc du Tacul. He did climb a 350-foot frozen waterfall in Valdez, Alaska and he did go higher on Eiger's Nordwand than any human has any business going. Of course, I don't have the balls to climb crazy peaks like that. I'm a kayaker so my book will be about rivers I don't have the balls to run. Maybe I'll tell the story of how I didn't quit my job, sell everything I own, and move to Chile to fulfill my lifelong non-fantasy about becoming a guide on the Futaleufu. Or I could talk about the first descents I didn't bag in Mindanao the last time I went to visit my wife's family. That might sell. I mean, who wouldn't want to read a humble vignette about how poorly my sea kayaking skills stacked up against those of the fishermen I didn't stay with in Greenland? It'll be a bestseller!

Policy Memo - Hot Tickets

Being as shorthanded as we are, it's becoming a challenge to serve all of our customers in a timely manner as business increases. We often need to expedite certain jobs to take care of our best customers or new customers we can't afford to loose. We identify these jobs by stapling an orange hot ticket to the work order. The problem we're having lately is that about two-thirds of our work orders have hot tickets stapled to them. This frustrates our brain operators who have no way of knowing which of the hot jobs is the hottest. For this reason, we will now limit ourselves to two hot tickets per right brain and two per left brain. This means that each brain cell could have as many as four hot tickets but only two per brain, the job that is running and the job that is first in the queue. For extremely hot jobs initiated by me, we will still use the informal "dave job" designation that has emerged but dave jobs will also receive a hot ticket. We will no longer have the dave job plus the two hot jobs in the same queue. These new procedures will help us clarify priorities so we can produce the most critical gibberish first. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Controlled document. Not for distribution.
DMG-15426

I have no idea what custard is

but I'm suspicious of any food that has to be frozen to taste good.

Makes great bunkers!

CEO's Blog - July 2nd, 2009

Well, it's July again and another fiscal year has dropped. As you all know, we've been drawing down our inventory for the last several months in order to achieve an artificial accounting result for the quarter. I don't think we fooled anyone but it's always worth trying. Anyway, now is payback time. Following a few soft quarters, we've seen an uptick in demand across the board and our ReThought product is taking off. A surprising marketing idea from Steve in the brainroom has also brought in some new customers who are using our gibberish as mulch. It's going to be assholes and elbows rebuilding our inventory while keeping up with this increased customer demand so expect to work every weekend unless you hear otherwise. But not this weekend. This weekend, we are taking three days to celebrate the birth of our great nation. Put your militant Christian, right-wing, ultra-nationalist reactionary hats on and go blow some shit up! Don't get drunk and drive though because we need every one of you back here on Monday, in one piece, and ready to produce great gibberish. Thanks to everyone for making FY09 such a marginal success!

~Dave

Internal Memo to Upper Management - Pricing

As you know, our Re-Thought© line of post-consumer, recycled gibberish has been very popular with an increasingly "green" public, accounting for nearly 40% of sales. We are currently pricing Re-Thought© 50% higher than our standard product even though the cost to produce it is exactly the same. We must aggressively defend this higher margin by allowing no one outside the upper management group and purchasing department to ever find out that our standard product is made of the same 100% post-consumer, recycled material used in Re-Thought©. That means no one! One tiny leak to a family member or a trusted colleague could rout our profits and damage our credibility with our customers forever. No one will buy our gibberish. Let's keep DMG Gibberish Solutions strong by keeping our mouths shut, shall we? Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Maximum security document. May not be physically or electronically duplicated in any manner. Not for distribution outside the big room.
DMG-45130X

This is what Happiness Looks Like

Does this look any better, Steve? A little parsley?

Policy Memo - CLUBing Intervals

With the challenging economic conditions we are experiencing and the resulting slowdown in business, many of our brains are running slowly or not at all for much of the day. It no longer makes sense to CLUB our brains every day as we have been doing. Until further notice, we will only clean our brains on the days we run them and we will lube them bi-weekly instead of weekly. Brain operators will still fill out their CLUB charts every day. DMG Gibberish Solutions understands that overservicing our machines is wasteful and can be just as damaging as underservicing them. We believe this change to our CLUB policy will maximize brain availability and allow us to better serve our customers. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Controlled document. Not for distribution.
DMG-12405

Policy Memo - Pronunciation of Fiscal

DMG Gibberish Solutions believes the use of the term "physical year" in place of "fiscal year" has become so widespread and familiar that it no longer causes communication problems. Listeners understand that both terms do indeed refer to the fiscal year. For this reason, DMG Gibberish Solutions will discontinue immediately the stoning and public humiliation of employees who use the wrong term. While acknowedging that modern usage has changed, we still strongly encourage the use of the proper word fiscal when refering to the fiscal year. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Controlled document. Not for distribution.
DMG-25640

Policy Memo - Standing Around Talking

DMG Gibberish Solutions believes standing around talking is the existential need of every human. Our employees spend as much as a third of their days with people they don't know outside of the office or brainroom. For them to work well together, they need a context and understanding of each other that can only be developed by talking about things not directly related to the work in front of them. For this reason, supervisors and leadpersons are encouraged to keep on walking when they see brain operators standing around talking, particularly if their brains are running. If they return ten minutes later and the same operators are still talking or if their brains have stopped, they should deal with it as they see fit. We need our thinkers to be as productive as possible and they won't be if they are not allowed to be human. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Dave Renfro, CEO

Controlled document. Not for distribution.
DMG-20645

A Big Thanks

to everyone who has visited my blog over the last several years. Your friendship means the world to me and I will miss your kind and funny comments. This year has been a personal reality show in which I've been forced to cut something out of the lineup every week. Please know that this blog outlasted my business, my music, my tools that I loved, my ambitions of one day having a career instead of just a job, and my dog. It even outlasted fishing! But alas, the blog must go. Right now, I'm down to just three hobbies: Kayaking, raising my son, and keeping my ass out of bankrupty court. I'm hoping the show gets cancelled before I have to pick a winner. In the mean time, I'll leave you with a few of my favorite posts and with the promise that I will stop by to visit from time to time. Thank you so much for your friendship and for everything else!

S.Y.O.T.R.

~Dave

Here's to You, Healthy Prostate Man!

You know who you are, standing there with your your hands on your hips and every strand of your silver hair in perfect place. Your continuous stream mocks my bifurcated, paruretic trickle. So does your single, exaggerated shake and the slowness with which you wash and dry your hands. But why hurry, when your prostate is the size of a walnut and just as hard. You are a deluge of truck stop confidence and I raise my gallon-jug of water to you... just as soon as I finish!

You Are a Production Worker

This is the one, immutable truth that underlies your entire existence. You can no more change this fact about yourself than you can change the length of your penis. Strapping on an associate degree from some dipshit online university will not make you any larger or more potent than you already are, and it will not increase your pleasure. Do not be confused by personal quirks like your natural understanding of difficult mathematical concepts or the fact that you occasionally write well. Stack all your quirks end-to-end and they would not reach one escalator flight in the monster edifice of your production worker being. Put on a collared shirt and go to quality conferences if you like, but understand that you are going to a dude ranch. You are not exploring your personal potential; you are punchin' doggies, because you are about as close to being a statistician or technical writer or "quality professional" as you are to being a fucking cowpoke! The "exploring your potential" lie is ambition fucking with you. Your potential is what it is and you have already reached it. Ask yourself these questions: Can you write well every day? Can you design effective experiments every day? Can you recognize waste and design countermeasures to eliminate it every day? Now ask yourself this: Can you do production work every day? I don't need to tell you the answers. You are a production worker. It is your who, your what, your where, your when, your how, and your why. It is your Five Whys! You are a production worker. Make peace with this fact and you will make peace with yourself. Do it now.

Yesterday, January twenty-fourth, 2009,

a date which will live in infamy, our epidermis was suddenly and deliberately attacked by histamine and cytokine forces of the Empire of Urticaria. We will not be driven by scratching into an age of dermatographism if we remember that we are not descended from fearful sebaceous glands. We shall defend our skin, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight in the stratum basale, we shall fight in the stratum spinosum, we shall fight in the stratum granulosum and in the stratum licidum, we shall fight in the stratum corneum;we shall never surrender. That, and we're going to stay out of the swimming pool at the Jones Center for a while.

The Urticarians can kiss my rosy-red ass!