The institutional mouthpiece of Kjel.org

Dinner tonight at the HQ was Thai take-out. The boy has a new favorite soup, replacing Campbell’s Noodle-O’s: Tom Yum soup (#11 on the Thai Orchid menu), medium spicy with chicken. An odd boy indeed.

The Jr. VP and I are in a phase of our relationship where we are battling for dominance. One way this manifests is that we have pretty regular stare-downs. Usually they end with him cracking up. We had an awesome one this afternoon; it ended after 45 seconds with him almost dying of laughter when he lost it. The CEO is that good. I didn’t break eye contact with him even once during the staredown. It’s games like this that make the drive home from daycare that much more fun for me and the lad.

From a story in the LA Times the other day:

Van Halen’s road plans have taken a rocky turn
For Van Halen, the stars seemed aligned for a triumphant 2007. Next month, the group will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the plan was to follow that with a summer reunion tour that would feature David Lee Roth back at the mike for the first time since the Reagan years. But, once again, the backstage soap opera of Van Halen is the story of the day. The Van Halen tour has been “shut down,” according to a top official at Live Nation, the huge concert promoter that finally surrendered in the face of the chaos surrounding guitar hero Eddie Van Halen. Roth, meanwhile, says he is unsure whether the mercurial guitarist will even travel to New York for the Hall of Fame induction on March 12.

Dammit. I know at least two boys (one 33 years old, the other, 2) who are going to be unhappy this summer if they don’t get to see a Van Halen concert. The CFO is taking the boy to see one of her favorites (Hell’s house band, aka the Wiggles) next month; I only let her take him on the condition that there was some sort of reciprocity. That reciprocity was going to be a David Lee Roth-fronted Van Halen. I (and by extension Jr.) might well be screwed if VH doesn’t tour and the lad and I miss out.

God I wish Def Leppard was touring this summer. They are reliable and insanely awesome and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise, but that’s besides the point. I’m sure Stinkboy would enjoy Leppard, but man he’d like to see Eddie and Dave together in 2007.

Is this is where we’re headed?. So long though as they stop with spears and don’t learn to build something better (like a 12 gauge, for instance) I still like our odds. Best to keep a close eye on this development I think.

For First Time, Chimps Seen Making Weapons for Hunting
Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the tools to hunt small mammals — the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans. . . . Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long, straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end. Then, grasping the weapons in a “power grip,” they jabbed them into tree-branch hollows where bush babies — small, monkeylike mammals — sleep during the day. In one case, after repeated stabs, a chimpanzee removed the injured or dead animal and ate it, the researchers reported in yesterday’s online issue of the journal Current Biology.
. . .
In a typical sequence, the animal first discovered a deep tree hollow suitable for bush babies, which are nocturnal and weigh about half a pound. Then the chimp would break off a branch — on average about two feet long, but up to twice that length — trim it, sharpen it with its teeth, and poke it repeatedly into the hollow at a rate of about one or two jabs per second. After every few jabs, the chimpanzee would sniff or lick the branch’s tip, as though testing to see if it had caught anything.

Damn you straight to hell!!

Suffice to say, the work in my kitchen did not go well; the CEO is pretty inept with these sorts of things. The only way I even got close to successfully completing the job was to have the Chief Sniper and his young apprentice assist. Thank you gentlemen, and young man, please allow the CEO to again apologize for some of the words that came out of his mouth that afternoon. Do not repeat those words, especially around your Mommy.

A wise man once said “If anything’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.” It was just that sort of attitude that prompted my, in hindsight, somewhat rash actions the other day. A tip from the CEO: If you ever are going to cut a garbage disposal out of your sink using a sawzall, you might consider taking steps to ensure that the rest of the plumbing is able to withstand the trauma and won’t crack or otherwise leak from all the vibrations. Just a suggestion.

Saturday night Kjel.org and the CEO’s sister (the one called Heavy B) and kids ate dinner at Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village. We had to park a little ways away so instead of having Jr. walk as would have normally I picked him up and carried him from the car to the bar. Turns out that this was a mistake.

As I was about to enter the Lab I stepped in a hole to the right of the entry just enough to turn my right ankle. It’s still a little sore, but the ankle is not my main problem. Since I was carrying the boy (and, for various reasons, I’m a little bit paranoid about killing him in a fall) during the .05 seconds where I thought I might actually hit the ground I violently jerked my entire upper body around to make sure that if I did go down, it was me cushioning the boy, not vice-versa. I provide a fair amount of cushion for him; it doesn’t work so well in the opposite direction. During my gyration I managed to really screw up my back somehow. I didn’t know I had an injury until the next morning when I bent down to harass the lad and found myself unable to stand back up. It only hurts when I stand. Or sit. Or lie down. Otherwise I’m fine, just fine. Please don’t touch me or cause me to move.

The CFO had an ultrasound this morning to find out Tank’s gender, among other things. Below is a picture of Tank and Stinkboy (imagine that the car is a souped up Subaru with a horn that plays something by Iron Maiden) in 25 years or so:

I guess that makes the CFO’s brother Uncle Jessie?

Dammit, I wanted to do nothing yesterday. Absolutely nothing. I’d even planned for it. I was gonna sit around on my ass and watch TV, maybe read a book. Play some with the boy perhaps. Maybe even get some lunchtime beers with the Chief Educator. What is that they say about the best laid plans? Oh yeah.

The stupid garbage disposal in my stupid kitchen gave up it’s (also presumably stupid) ghost on Sunday night. The CFO was quite insistent that it be fixed ASAP. For some reason she thinks that if I let it go more than a day or two the fix will never happen. I have no idea why she would think such a thing, but on Monday, it was off to the hardware store. I’d started online of course, as I really really wanted to buy a disposal from Amazon (the thought of buying a garbage disposal from Amazon makes me chuckle) but the one I wanted was out of stock. Luckily my pals at A-Boy had the one I needed. Badger 5, you’re going in!

Except first I have to get the old one out. Years of corrosion have made the metal ring lock holding it in place impossible to budge. I WD-40′ed the heck out of it, and using a few wrenches I put more torque on the thing than is really good to do; if a wrench had slipped I almost certainly would have broken my hand, or done a faceplant on the kitchen counter, or something equally as pleasant. I am going to try again tonight (maybe I loosened it yesterday?), but if the bastard refuses to move I am bringing in the artillery. The handtool equivalent of artillery anyway. So say hello to my leeettle friend!

Welcome, Mr. Sawzall. This should be a good time.

From yesterday’s paper about proposed changes to the regulations governing piercing in Washington state:

At Metro Piercing in Olympia, 18-year-olds Chyrl Clark and Kristin Dunbar, both of Yelm, said they thought 18 was a reasonable age limit for genitalia piercings. “When you’re little, you’d do crazy things and not even think about it,” said Clark, while waiting to have her nipples pierced.

A great quote in and of itself. Even so, I have a feeling if Ms. Clark and/or Ms. Dunbar had been 17 years old, they might have supported a lower age limit. . .

Sometimes the Jr. VP goes to a certain spot behind the HQ’s TV I’ve come to call “Poo Corner.” He wants a little privacy I think while he’s over there so I generally leave him alone. I’ve often had to tackle the CFO when she tried to intervene in Poo Corner too soon. Give the lad his space, woman!

At least this time in Poo Corner he didn’t have to afterwards deal with having his diaper put on backwards. On an unrelated note, thank you Chief Educator for babysitting Friday night. The CFO and I had a lovely time at dinner, and I’m sure the boy will quit calling you * and learn your actual name any time now.

* The CIA insists that the Chief Educator’s date’s name and/or title not appear in print or any electronic format.

The last two nights it has taken the CEO 30 minutes to get from my office’s parking structure to Front Street. The two are maybe 200 yards from each other. On a normal day the journey takes 90 seconds. If any of the four people who occasionally look at this website (that number includes me and the boy) know the driver of the CW delivery truck that was parked yesterday and the day before in the right lane of SW Market where it intersects with Front, please tell him this: If you are in the same spot blocking traffic again this afternoon, so help me God I’m gonna stop, get out of my car and beat you senseless, probably with a tire iron. The six hundred people in cars behind me will cheer, and I’m willing to bet on the fact that not a one of them will testify.

The Jr. VP plans to see two shows in 2007: the Wiggles and Van Halen. Both are tough tickets to get. Van Halen hasn’t released a schedule yet, but the lad and I both have our fingers crossed that Portland is on the list. Jr. never thought he’d get to see David Lee Roth play with Van Halen. Neither did Daddy.

The Wiggles on the other hand have announced their Portland show and Kjel.org has procured some tickets. Just two tickets though: the CEO is gonna sit this one out. I love the boy and all, but even I have my limits. I think he understands.

Pitchers and catchers reported for Spring training yesterday. It should really be a holiday of some sort.

Note to self: check to see if KATU is outside the HQ before I go out to get the mail.

If you are a person who buys Valentines Day cards ahead of time (like, say, before Valentines Day) the CEO hates you. Fred Meyer was picked clean, and I don’t want to have to scratch “Birthday” out of a card and write in “Valentines” again. Good thing the Castle Superstore is on my way home.

How is it that Stinkboy knows exactly how to throw a tantrum in the Classic Style? * I certainly never taught it to him and I’m pretty sure the CFO never did. Is it genetically encoded somehow in all toddlers? 98% of the time he is a very good little boy, but once in a while if you prevent him from getting his way he will go utterly ballistic. It’s unavoidable, since the lad doesn’t understand that when you take from him a fork that he’s been trying to stick into a power outlet, you aren’t taking it just to deny him his will and thwart his plans. He’ll punish you accordingly.

On an unrelated note, the Kjel.org adults are going out for dinner on Friday. The Chief Educator (sans date this time) is coming over to the HQ to babysit, solo. We haven’t yet told Stinkboy; no reason to get him too excited too soon. Or to scare him too early. The humor potential is high whichever way he goes. I’ll have to make sure my nanny-cam is well hidden and fully functional. By reading this Chief Educator you hereby consent to any and all use of your likeness, photograph, video and/or sound recordings which may be obtained during your time at the HQ.

* Classic Style: screaming, throwing self onto belly, kicking and pounding little fists on the floor. Pick him up at your own peril at that point.

I’m just a weird boy who likes to eat weird things and make weird faces for the camera while I sit in a box and read my book. Now someone get me some sushi!

Feeding the Jr VP used to be so easy. At first, all he wanted was milk, milk “provided” by Mommy. Then he got used to sitting in a high chair and eating baby food. Still pretty easy. He moved on to various baby sized snacks, like meat and cheese and crackers and bananas. Now he usually eats real food, and that is where some problems come in. Somehow Jr. decided pretty early on that he won’t eat certain normal things, but likes the weird ones. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich? No way is he choking that down. Give him a satay skewer with some Thai peanut sauce on it and he’d consider it. I can’t make the boy eat a chicken nugget (not even a McNugget), but on Sunday when I made braised lamb shanks and vegetables over polenta he couldn’t eat enough of it. Things came to a head last night. We were eating dinner (Vietnamese takeout) and Jr loved it; he was pretty peeved that we didn’t get him his own order. Stupid Daddy, how could you think that a two year old boy wouldn’t want his own plate of Vietnamese sausage? And only one extra container of the plum dipping sauce? Pretty chintzy Daddy.

At one point last night Jr. accidentally got a bit of the super spicy sauce on the bite he was taking. Jr. does not know that he then needs to drink something; instead he tries to wipe off his tongue with a napkin. So after that attempt he he still had a mouth full of spiciness but now also had a bunch of paper stuck to his tongue. Is it wrong to laugh at him in that kind of situation? If it is then the CEO doesn’t want to be right.

At least we still have pizza as the go-to dinner for tight spots. If we lose that one Kjel.org (the CEO at least) will be in real trouble. Braised lamb shanks is a much tougher go-to dinner . . .

Yesterday afternoon while I was making dinner some random woman (claiming to be a tree surgeon, of all things) walked across my lawn. Below is a close approximation of how the CEO looked when I greeted her. I might not have been wearing a hat, but otherwise the pic is pretty accurate.

She didn’t stay long.

Check out the grin on the Chief Photographer about 5-10 seconds in as he is photographing the bride. The man loves his work.

When the Jr. VP senses that Daddy trying (and failing) to make him laugh, he’ll look at me without smiling and say (in monotone no less) “funny.”

The Jr. VP insists on watching the news every night when we get home, and yells “news!” “news!” until I turn on the TV. He is two years old.

It has been decided that a Guy will be delivering dinner this evening; the various members of Kjel.org are beat. Is this week taking longer than normal? It sure seems like it to me.

What sort of Guy will be visiting us is yet to be determined, but I believe I know which way the boy is leaning. Pizza Guy! Pizza Guy! On a vaguely related note, if the CEO has never told you about the time a midget delivered a pizza to the HQ remind me next time I see you. It’s good stuff.

The Jr. VP is talking more and more these days, with about half of his comments in Spanish. He also is getting more and more clever at using his words to get what he wants. Example: the other night he wanted the CEO to turn on the dreaded Wiggles guitar. I thought he could do it himself, and told him as much. His response: “No se, no se”. You lying little punk. I’ve seen you do it before, and I know you know how to do it. You know your Daddy is afraid of that demonic thing, you just want to see me touch it. No dice, Stinkboy. No dice. You’ll never trick me into touching that evil guitar, even with your excellent Spanish strategery. Nice try though. Daddy does appreciate the effort.

The CEO arrived early at the Superbowl party on Sunday. The Chief Educator, * [the lady of the house] and the Chief Photographer were already hard at work preparing the feast. A very tasty part of that preparation involved unwrapping several batches of chicken wings cooked by the fine people at Fire on the Mountain. I treated the early arrivals to a bit of experimental bacon surprise: a standard bakery maple bar hollowed out, stuffed with cooked bacon and then resealed. Delicious, but also a crime against nature in some respects. A whole new avenue of research for me to further explore next year.

Ladies were allowed to attend the Superbowl party for the first time this year. * [the lady of the house] of course lives there so it’s tough to exclude her; she would have gotten a pass anyway. The inclusion of even more ladies however, while predicted to alter the typically unbridled spirit of the event, did not in fact impact the tone of Superbowl Sunday. Things were no less stupid than the partygoers had come expect, nay, demand.

For starters, there was a small fire. Someone (I’m looking your direction Chief Sniper) spilled a nontrivial amount of bacon fat in the bottom of the Educator’s oven, and then didn’t mention it to the next person who tried to cook: grease fire! Or at least a hell of a lot of smoke. During the first quarter visibility inside the house was markedly limited; we all had to huddle in closer to the TV to make out the picture. Luckily there was a certain engineer on the premises who just so happened to have an industrial sized blower with him (he had been testing the Educator’s ductwork earlier in the day). He saved the day, and I’m sure the neighbors were impressed by the volume and force of the bacon smoke as it vented into the outside world. Chief Educator, don’t forget to put the batteries back in your smoke alarm.

As the day went on certain individuals (I’m again looking in your direction Chief Sniper) became, shall we say, rambunctious. The particular gentleman in question had earlier imbibed an impressive measure of spirituous beverages and he had Ultimate Fighting Championship on the brain. A bad combination. He was looking for someone to take out his aggressions on since, to be fair, he’d been made fun of all day long by the crowd. As luck would have it the Chief Sniper’s lovely bride showed up before he could attack the CEO, but the Chief Photographer was not so lucky:

The Sniper claimed to be doing some stupid UFC move on the Photographer. It looked more to me like he was trying to reenact a scene out of Borat, but whatever. It made the Sniper happy and that’s all that matters. No judgment here; Kjel.org is a judgment-free zone. We all love you just way you are, Chief Sniper.

To recap, the Superbowl party was awesome as ever, and everything I wore or carried that day smells like bacon. The CEO felt slightly sick on Monday. I have no idea why.

* Title redacted on the direct order of D. Rumsfeld.

Yesterday was the first day in the nice new office for the CEO. Most of us here agree that the new place is pretty nice in the big scheme of things, but since we’re all now in cubicles of various shapes and sizes instead of our previous random haunts at the other place it’s gonna take a little getting used to. The new space is at SW 4th and Market and takes up a full floor of our building; yours truly is located on the far NW corner of the office. I have a decent view down SW 4th, with St. Mary’s academy on my left and the park in front of Keller Auditorium on my right. And I can just barely see the towers on the Hawthorne bridge if I get close to the window. By close I mean stand on a chair and shove my face into the window. On my tippy-toes. After putting two phonebooks under my feet.

All in all a pretty nice building in a pretty nice neighborhood, but I ask myself: where’s the Old Town charm? Yeah I have a better parking space and a better view, but I couldn’t find anything decent for lunch today, and the street people outside our place were far less interesting than what I was used to. And I seriously miss my regular meth dealer. And my crack guy; he was an ace. Good people those two. They’ll be tough to replace.

On Saturday morning the three of us are playing. The CFO decides to take a shower; she gets in before Jr. realizes she is leaving the game. He discovers she is gone and gets a little sad. “Mommy?” he says, while looking around the HQ for Mommy. He follows this up with a plaintive “Homer?” Finally, “Daddy?” At least I’m still in the top 3.

Initial experiments in the Kjel.org test kitchen are producing very favorable outcomes. The work I’m doing here today could change forever the way people think about bacon. On the downside I am pretty certain that each bite of this creation takes 2 to 3 weeks off the lifespan of the average person. I should probably bake some anti-cholesterol drugs in with it. Does anyone know if they make a maple flavored Lipitor?

The CEO is hard at work today in the Kjel.org test kitchen exploring some new theories of bacon I’ve recently formulated. I’m sorry I can’t go into detail beyond that right now; the work is top secret. Tomorrow my creation will be revealed to the world and the CEO will (hopefully) be hailed as a visionary in the world of pork, with fawning articles in the pork trade press, fame, fortune, groupies, and everything else that comes with it. It is quite possible however that my creation will be instead a pork flavored monstrosity, useful only for scaring the elderly and small children. The outcome is still very much in doubt — we’ll see how things play out this afternoon.

A classic picture of Seattle Supersonic Xavier McDaniel accompanies a story about NBA enforcers in the Seattle Times today:

Sucked to get on Xavier’s bad side.

Speaking of new favorites: The Jr. VP has a new favorite song. His favorite for a long time was Waiting For My Ruca by Sublime; he liked the dogs barking at the beginning. Lately though he’s been really into David Lee Roth era Van Halen. He likes to yell “Ow!” just like Diamond Dave so often does. I think that Unchained off 1981’s Fair Warning is probably his current favorite. How do I know? In the car last night Unchained comes on. There is a 20 second or so guitar intro, then the first lyric is Dave screaming All Right! Jr nailed it, screaming All Right! in perfect time with Dave. I looked back and he was doing a little dance in his car seat too. We have a winner I think for New Favorite Song.

I mean it: Widmer’s “W 07″ may well be the best beer out of a bottle the CEO has ever had, and for better or worse, the CEO has tried a lot of bottles of good beer.

The CEO loves the IPA, and in particular the giant floral, citrusy styles that the Pacific NW is lucky enough to occasionally produce. Some of the big Fulton Brew Pub IPA’s have always been favorites, and Tugboat has always made great stuff in that same lemony vein, but the W 07 takes the idea of a citrusy/bitter beer and runs with it even further. An exceptional brew. Plus, the CFO completely hates it which is usually a good sign for an IPA: no wussy girly beer this one. And it means I don’t have to store them in my secret beer fridge to keep them safe from her.

I plan to lay in a good stock of it for Sunday, so if you play your cards right you might even get a complimentary glass (filled to the tasting line only! No outside mugs! No exceptions!) if you and I happen to be watching football at the same house that afternoon. I bet it goes well with bacon. But what doesn’t?