The institutional mouthpiece of Kjel.org

The CFO and Jr. have returned to the HQ. The CFO even was kind enough to bring me a big bag of jerky from the beach. There’s something about those beach people: they love their jerkey. Good folks, beach people.

Tomorrow we head north to see the Mariners. I have a feeling the experience will be a bit different than the last time we went — I’ll report Sunday. CEO out.

Mariners making move in AL West
Seattle crosses .500; just two games out of first
PHOENIX — The postgame music in the visitors’ clubhouse at Chase Field told the story, the hip-hop beat blaring the anthem: “Hey, it’s a new day.” Is it ever. The Mariners are over .500, within two games of the American League West lead and enjoying every minute of it. “We’re playing happy,” second baseman Jose Lopez said after a 10-3 victory Wednesday over the Diamondbacks. “Coming into the dugout, coming into the clubhouse with the music playing, it’s happy.” A team that a month ago couldn’t buy a smile is playing loose, hitting on all cylinders and winning at a pace Seattle hasn’t seen in a long time. With two games remaining in June, the Mariners are 17-7, the most wins they’ve had in a month since June 2003. They’ve crested .500 at 40-39 — the first time they’ve had a winning record since they were 3-2 on April 2 — and have clinched their seventh win in the past eight series.

The CFO and I will be at the game Saturday, hopefully to see the M’s take over first place in the AL West. Who’d thunk it in May? Not me.

If I could I would hop on a plane right now just so that I could be at (one of ) my favorite London pubs to watch the game. Chief Educator, I am going to kick you in both shins when you get back. You too, * [Chief Educator’s date].

*Title redacted for national security reasons.

I like to think that certain Americans in Germany have been pulling their weight too.

ENGLAND’s massive army of World Cup fans is drinking Germany dry, it emerged yesterday. Breweries warned beer could run out before the final because of huge demand from our supporters. In Nuremberg, organisers revealed 70,000 England fans who flooded the city drank 1.2 MILLION pints of beer - an average of 17 pints each. Astonished bar keeper Herrmann Murr said: “Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time. “His bar at a fans’ tent in the city ran out after they drained all 32 of his 50-litre (11 gallon) barrels. Herr Murr calculated Britons were shifting beer at a staggering rate of 200 pints per minute. City official Peter Murrmann said: “The English proved themselves world champs. They practically drank us dry.”

After much thought, I’ve decided that Kjel.org will no longer play with live hand grenades. We are going to stick to chainsaws and flamethrowers only.

GAZA CITY (AFP) - Two Palestinians were killed and another seven, including a baby, wounded when a grenade accidentally exploded in the southern Gaza Strip. Family members were playing with a grenade in the town of Khan Yunis when it exploded, killing 23-year-old Qassem Massud and his one-year-old niece, medical and security sources said Wednesday. All the casualties were members of the same family.

Holy crap. I just now went to read about baseball at espn.com only to learn:

Peter Gammons suffers brain aneurysm, in surgery
Longtime ESPN Baseball analyst Peter Gammons suffered an aneurysm in his brain Tuesday morning near his home on Cape Cod, Mass. He was airlifted to a Boston hospital, where he is currently undergoing surgery.

Gammons has always been one of my favorites, even if I think he is flat out wrong about the M’s and the AL West a lot of the time. Get well soon, sir.

The CEO made it back from Tierra del Mar safe and sound. The house that the CFO’s family rented was lovely and almost too nice. We did all the usual beachy things, like eating great feasts, walking on the beach, reading on the deck, flying kites, cocktails and games in the evenings. A very nice couple of days indeed. Jr was overjoyed, as several of his favorite things were present: Grandma and Grandpa, his favorite uncle and his uncle’s hound, and a huge sandy beach to play on. When he gets down to the sand he is no longer the Jr. VP; he becomes Captain Insane-o. Running, screaming, waving his arms, diving into the sand — he does it all. The cold water scared the Captain for all of about 15 seconds; it quickly got to the point where he would make a break for the surf at any time and dare you to stop him or come in and get him. I was just happy that he never found a jellyfish, and that a jellyfish never found him.

Note the path of the footprints: the Captain was practicing his fancy running. He did four or five faceplants while I was watching but he didn’t seem to care. Really, what boy doesn’t like sand up the nose?

Here is the Jr. VP showing us how he is going to trap a bird or perhaps a small dog (a bow-wow, as he refers to our canine friends) as soon as we let him go back down to the beach.

The CFO, the Jolly Bengali and I played some golf at the super classy Neskowin Beach Golf Course (Dress code: shirt and shoes required), and then headed over to the Pelican Brewery for lunch. Unbeknownst to us, the Brewers Summer Games were going on, so of course we had to watch a bit and sample some of the tasty beverages that were on hand. Above is the CFO on the beachfront patio at the Pelican — yeah, it was a pretty nice day.

On Sunday morning, I left the CFO and family at the beach and headed back to Portland. I had to work Monday, and there was some stuff I wanted to get done Sunday afternoon. Little did I know that my best laid plans were for naught. . .

I usually head back to Portland via Tillamook and then Highway 6, but Sunday I thought I’d go home through McMinnville instead so that I could pick up some steaks and jerkey from my favorite butcher in Dundee. The drive to Lincoln City and then Highway 18 was going great until I was about a mile from the Grande Ronde casino. 15 miles back, a DMV Incident Response truck had passed me with lights flashing, so I had a sinking feeling that there was something bad up ahead. Man, it sucks to be right all the time. Below is an early account of what happened:

Oregon State Police are investigating a deadly crash that shut down Highway 18. It happened between Sheridan and Grand Ronde Sunday morning. Police say a pickup crossed the center line and hit another truck, then hit two motorcycles. Both motorcycle drivers were killed, and a passenger on one bike was taken to the hospital. No one in the pickup was hurt. The highway was closed in both directions while officials start their investigation. One lane could reopen by 2 p.m. ODOT says travelers should plan on using an alternate route.

I listened to almost the entire Mariner game while burning a quarter tank of gas to travel 2 miles in two hours on Sunday. The CEO was not the happiest he’s ever been.

The view from the front of the Subaru.

The view to the rear.

And, to top it all off, the butcher shop was closed by the time I made it to Dundee. Awesome.

After my six hour drive from Tierra del Mar to Portland, I really didn’t feel like getting any work done. So I didn’t. I got in some quality couch time though, and tonight perhaps I’ll do some of the stuff I’d planned to do Sunday. Or maybe not. It may depend what’s on TV, or if the newest Netflix shipment has shown up . . .

I can understand why urban crime rates go up during heat waves. It’s 89 degrees inside the HQ right now (99 outside), and I really feel like stabbing somebody. When stuff like typing, operating a doorknob, or even aiming the remote causes me to work up a sweat, the CEO’s natural propensity for violence comes to the forefront. In the same way that smoke calms angry bees, air conditioning soothes the savage CEO. We don’t have air conditioning. Probably for the better that the CFO is still at the beach.

I hate you, Chief Educator:

It’s not by accident that Munich hosts the annual Oktoberfest beer festival. The city is home to no fewer than six big-league breweries and ranks as the third-largest producer in the world. Beer halls and beer gardens are found at every turn, but no trip to Munich would be complete without a pilgrimage to the Hofbrauhaus in the Platzl pedestrianised area just off the Marienplatz. It may be a tourist trap, yet the wheat beer and ‘helles’ (light beer) are still reasonably priced and the sing-along atmosphere generated by the oompah band cannot be beaten. Munich cuisine is hearty, unpretentious stuff, with sausages of all shapes and sizes, roast pork (Schweinebraten), pickled cabbage (Sauerkraut) and dumplings (Knodel) on most menus. Incidentally, many of the city’s best value-for-money eateries are brewery-owned.

Kjel.org is headed to the beach today: the CFO’s parents have rented a house out there for the week. Looks like they picked the right week to do it, too, since Zaffino claims it will be 97 degrees in town on Sunday. Unfortunately, the CEO will be back to the HQ on Monday, and for that day Zaffino is claiming 100. I’m just hoping he is as good at picking 100 degree days as he is at picking blizzards. . .

If it is that hot I’ll probably set up a tent in front of my (open) refrigerator and spend most of my time in there. Shirtless, of course. And most likely pantsless. Please remember to call before you come over.

Below is a picture the Chief Educator and CEO at the beach a few years ago. I don’t anticipate getting quite so, ah, spirited this weekend with the CFO’s family.

I call this one “Two Idiots”

Well, that was a bit of a letdown. I’m just thankful that I didn’t travel all the way to Germany to watch the game. Speaking of which, I was over at the Chief Educator’s house the other day. After bringing in his garbage cans, setting his DVR player, rummaging through his bedroom drawers, and siphoning some gas out of his truck, I’d worked up quite a thirst. The only (non-alcoholic, anyway) thing to drink in his fridge? A black-cherry Fresca. Dammit, this isn’t even worth stealing was my reaction. I left the place unlocked, so if there is anyone out there who actually likes black-cherry Fresca and might want it, you know where it is.

If this hypothesis is correct then the CEO should be impervious to most disease. And if he makes it to age three, the Jr. VP should be immortal.

Rat study shows dirty better than clean
WASHINGTON - Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick. The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people’s immune systems aren’t being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body’s natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen.

Goddamn you Chief Educator:

Nuremberg is famed for its delicious ‘Bratwurst’, smallish, slim pork sausages roasted over wood fires and then served with either sauerkraut (pickled cabbage), potato salad, onions or radishes. Helpings are always plentiful and accompanied by a glass or two of the city’s excellent brew — particularly Tucher, Patrizia and Lederer — you cannot go wrong. The city has a host of atmospheric speciality sausage restaurants, the best being Bratwursthausle on Rathausplatz, Bratwurst Roslein on Obstmarkt and the Historische Bratwurstkuche (Zirkelschmiedsgasse).

Dear Chief Educator:

I am so frakkin jealous I can barely type this. World Cup soccer is awesome. Traveling to Europe is awesome. Combining the travel and the soccer creates awesomeness at a level damn near immeasurable. On your journey remember always that you are an emmisary of Kjel.org. As such, don’t be afraid to be an ugly American: the CEO would be ugly if he was there. And just because * [your date] speaks the local jibberish, don’t let that stop you from speaking English. Everyone in the world understands English if you just speak it loud enough and slow enough.

Say hello to Detlef Schrempf for me,

The CEO

* Title redacted for reasons of national security.

Australia vs. Brazil, halftime. Univision has girls in swimsuits dancing to the samba and talking about soccer; ABC has Brent Musberger talking about soccer. Guess which broadcast the CEO watched? It didn’t matter that it was in Spanish — I got the gist of it I think.

The Jr. VP has learned that when he wants some Maiden or Mix-a-lot, he doesn’t need to actually touch the stereo: the hidden secrets of the remote control have somehow been revealed to him. I wonder where he would have seen someone using a remote?

Don’t turn your back on him for a second: the Jr. VP now has the ability to climb on anything at any time, and then laugh at you when he gets to the top without being stopped. The other week it was just the white chair; now its highchairs, stools, kitchen tables, dressers, you name it. At any time now I fully expect to turn my back for 45 seconds and find him outside up on a ladder, giggling at me. It’s not all bad: maybe I can show Monkey Boy how to clean the gutters at the HQ.

I’m looking forward tonight to having this guy fling my dinner around a bit before I devour it. I just hope I don’t injure myself in the process.

1. I really, really hate broccoli. I’d forgotten how much I hate it because the only time I’ll ever eat it is if some sort of insanely spicy sauce is involved to cover up the taste. On Saturday, I was reminded. The CFO’s mom made us chef salads for lunch when we were paying them a visit. I unthinkingly took a bite of raw broccoli. I tried with all my might to force it down, but I literally gagged. The CFO thought I was going to throw up. For a brief moment I thought so too. I was able to pull myself together, and played it off that “something had gone down the wrong pipe.” I’m not sure anyone bought it, but it was better than saying “the lunch you prepared almost made me barf.”

2. The stupid University of Washington had it’s stupid commencement on stupid Saturday, at the same time I was (quite stupidly) trying to get to the CFO’s parents house in the same area of Seattle. Gridlock!

3. There was a beggar at the freeway exit on Friday afternoon. On Saturday afternoon at the same exit he was nowhere to be found. Taking the weekend off I guess.

4. I have a Spyderco pocketknife that I love, very similar to the one pictured above. (I call him Mr. Stabby. I have another knife called The Pimpsticker. More about him later perhaps) I was relating the story of how I acquired Mr. Stabby to the CSO: I was fishing in the Tolt River, just outside of Carnation, when a glint of metal caught my eye. I reached down into the river, and there he was, my own personal Excalibur. I mentioned that some other fisherman must have dropped him, but the CSO then brought up an interesting point, namely, that when she needs to dispose of a piece of evidence throwing it into a river is her go-to method. I need to do some research and see if anyone was knifed in Carnation in June of 1994.

5. Everyone on the road is an idiot but me. Several times this weekend I saved people from their own idiocy, like the jackass who I just knew was going to ignore the yield sign in his lane, so I pretended I had one in mine. Had I not we would have collided at about 50 mph, and I’d be explaining to some grieving widow how her beloveds last moment on earth was marked by a tremendous level of stupidity. Then there was the guy by the UW that did a U-turn directly across my lane, and whose life was saved only by the CEO’s cat-like reflexes on the brakes. If I had been driving my old car, the one with the, ah, adventurous braking system, I don’t think he lives.

I would not be surprised if the clean up crew comes up a bit short. :

Beer Truck Tips, Kegs And Cases Strewn Near WSU
PULLMAN, Wash. — A truck carrying beer tipped over on Highway 195 just outside of Pullman Monday, leaving 50 kegs and numerous cases of beer strewn across the road. The Washington State Patrol says the driver escaped with minor injuries and no one else was hurt. The highway, the main route to Washington State University in Pullman, remained open as crews worked to clean up the mess.

Sincce May 30, Ichiro is batting .536: not something you see everyday. The CFO and I will be at a game in a couple of weeks to cheer him on, and perhaps throw something at Willie Bloomquist.

*cool Ichiro graphic lifted from today’s PI.

The Jr. VP has made a formal declaration. I shouldn’t have played ring toss with him.

Kjel.org traveled to Bellevue this weekend to celebrate the anniversary of the CEO’s birth, and to see the parents. We arrived Friday afternoon to shocking news: a swarm of yellowjackets had invaded my parents property, and had set up headquarters in the metal firepit on their deck. I discovered that just one day prior to my arrival, my dad, not knowing about the hive inside, picked up the firepit lid and was stung on the face. Bastards. This would not stand.

I consulted with Kjel.org’s ex-Pullman rep about our offensive options. We considered water (specifically a high pressure nozzle), but decided that it would be fire this time for for the buzzing yellow vermin. After donning my safety glasses, I stealthily approached the firepit. The metal lid was slightly ajar and the occasional bee was going in and out. I quickly dumped in about a pint of unleaded and then ran like a criminal. The bees didn’t like it, but after about 10-15 minutes they calmed down enough for me to approach again. I stuffed a rolled up newspaper (soaked in gas) into the small opening between lid and pit. Again, I had to run as the bees by now were sensing that something bad was afoot. I gave them a minute or two to cool off, and, armed with lighters in either hand, approached the nest.

It was at this point that the ex-Pullman rep earned her new title: Chief Safety Officer of Kjel.org. As I was preparing to touch off the gas bomb we’d constructed, the CSO suggested that maybe we ought to have a hose on hand, seeing as how the firepit was sitting on a wood deck and all, and, as she also pointed out, in the event that I was attacked by a swarm of hot bees she could use the hose to provide covering fire. Good thinking, CSO. A hose was procured and set up in an overwatch position.

It was time. The CSO had my back with the hose. The CFO and some other rabble were in a bunker inside the house, documenting the event via digital camera (pics soon I hope). I had to make several approaches, as the bees by now were feeling quite defensive. Finally, I made it to the newspaper fuse and got the fire on it. Once it was burning I retreated quick-like, as (a) the bees were pee-yossed , and (b) I thought that a Michael Bay sized fireball might be in my very near future. Neither happened. The newspaper burned down to inside the firepit, and then there was a remarkably quiet crump as the gas inside went up. I was halfway expecting the lid to fly off, but in retrospect I think that the oxygen supply was restricted enough to prevent an explosive ignition. Still, nothing else flew out of the firepit after that point.

I hadn’t counted though on the several dozen foragers that had been outside the nest during Armageddon not getting the hint that it was time to move on. After the fire, I lifted the lid off the pit and saw the remains of the hive structure. Within an hour quite a few of the remaining yellowjackets had clustered on it, trying to figure out what the hell had happened to their home. At that point I did my usual when confronted with the insect menace: chemical weapons were deployed. The results were breathtaking, and I am happy to now proclaim the CEO’s parents place yellowjacket free, and only mildly toxic. Happy Fathers Day dad, a little bit early.

Every year a Navy vessel of some sort is parked at the seawall for a few days, in clear view about 80 yards from my office. They always manage to line up so that their Phalanx gun system is trained directly on my window. On some level its a bit disconcerting to have a 20 mm Vulcan cannon aimed at my desk, but even so, I still always look over there and think something along the lines of Sweet, it’s a fricken gatling gun! Kick ass! I need to get me one of those for the Subaru!

For some reason, this time of the year every year I am able to collect free lawn chairs off the street along a certain route downtown. People just start leaving them there, sometimes also marked with tape or chalk of some sort. I don’t get it, but every June since I’ve lived here I’ve been able to avail myself of a new lawnchair or two in this fashion. This is an odd town in many ways.

Kjel.org recently has been doing some estate planning, primarily to ensure that should the CFO and I both unexpectedly keel over at the same time, Stinkboy will be set up. The secondary goal of course is to see if I can make it so those greedy IRS bastards get NOTHING and like it, but I’m not sure that’s entirely feasible.

Anyway, should the CFO and I bite it any time soon, I’d like to imagine that there will be some amount of sadness among the auxillaries. Since I’m always thinking of other people, I worry about this; I hate to see folks sad. As such, I’ve decided that the reading of my will should be as funny as possible. Jokes, funny pictures, hilarious anecdotes — all will be included. Not everyone’s will has a section entitled Shout Outs to all the Kjel.org Homies, but the CEO’s does. Also, if there’s anything I own that you want, now is the time to speak up — I’m drawing up a list. Using my vast fortune I also plan to endow several charitable trusts, most dedicated to providing cured meat products to underprivileged Educators on SuperBowl Sunday.

There is one catch though for anyone expecting anything. My attorney was somewhat, but only somewhat, suprised when I indicated my desire that any beneficiary of my estate must spend the night in a haunted house (and survive) as a condition of inheritance. The lawyer and I are now just working on the details; please email the CEO if anyone knows of a scary haunted house that may be available for rent.

As the TV, newspaper, radio, and internet have duly informed me, today is 6/6/06. I’m not quite convinced that Armegeddon is on tap for today, but I did listen to some Iron Maiden in the car this morning to commemorate the event.

For me, the bigger story is that today is the 62nd anniversary of the D-Day landings in France. The CFO and I have been to Normandy and poked around the landing beaches, forts and memorials. All are interesting, but I think the most impressive D-Day site has to be Pointe Du Hoc. On D-Day U.S. Army Rangers landed at the base of the Pointe, and then assaulted the German fortification on the cliffs above. Although the Navy and Air Force had bombed the crap the out of it, the fortifications on top were still largely intact when the Rangers arrived and started to climb. The CFO and I walked over the entire site, complete with shell holes and remaining pill boxes, and peeked over the cliffs as the Germans would have on D-Day: there is no possible way that the attack should have worked. Those guys had some serious cojones, to say the least.

If you’ve never read it, you owe it to yourself to check out Reagan’s speach at Point Du Hoc on June 6, 1984. There’s a reason he was known as the Great Communicator.

While cruising down I-5 toward the factory the other day, the CEO had an epiphany. I get those sometimes. Here she is:

Going forward the CEO plans to ignore all posted speed limits and drive whatever the hell speed I want to, so long as it is safe to do so of course. I can afford a ticket or two, and after thinking it over I’ve decided that I would gladly pay a few hundred dollars to never again have to watch my speedometer when I’m out on the open road.

One baby step closer to the CEO finally being above society’s silly “rules” and “laws.” And “norms,” “mores” and “social conventions” too.

Guess who was recently spotted on CNBC? An old friend of the CFO from back in the day.

There was a time in 1999 when the CTO (the current Ohio rep for Kjel.org) and I found ourselves in London for a week without much to do. We of course immediately headed to the pubs. One day, after finishing up a particularly productive session in one of London’s finest, the CTO gets the idea that the talking head mentioned above works for CNN out of London. She actually worked (and still works) for CNBC in Singapore, but you can see how it was an easy mistake to make. The CNN office just so happened to be right around the corner from where we were. Anyway, the CTO and I, two beery, slightly unkempt Americans, walk into the CNN office and insist that we have an appointment with Miss F (or “Mish F” as it may have sounded at that point) and that we were expected upstairs. We just knew that she would be pleasantly suprised to see us if she was in. Of course she would have been thrilled to have us in her office. We were lucky not to get arrested.

If I recall that very same day we’d earlier tried to break in to the Russian consulate, with some small measure of success. It was a good day.

British police vowed to show football hooligans the red card if they try to travel to the World Cup. From Friday, uniformed and plain clothes officers will be patrolling every sea and airport across the country, to spot potential troublemakers.

What they don’t know is that the worst hooligans are coming from the USA. Oregon, more specifically. The Chief Educator and some other rowdies are pictured below; I’m not sure where * [his date] is.

*Title redacted for national security reasons.

Tracy was wearing her Marge Simpson dress again. I got a picture this time: