The institutional mouthpiece of Kjel.org

The CEO’s production has been down on all fronts and for that I am truly sorry. Unfortunately Charles Montgomery Burns is correct:

“Family, religion, friends. . . these are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business. When opportunity knocks, you don’t want to be driving to a maternity hospital or sitting in some phony-baloney church… or synagogue.”

Monty left “website updates” and “running a smalltime gambling operation related to college football” off of his list, but otherwise he was spot on.

All will be well soon, I promise. After Labor Day anyway.

BAD SANTA.

Santa was made to feel quite dirty the night this picture was taken: Halloween 02 party at the Chief Bride’s I think? For some reason that evening certain “ladies” (who were definitely on Santa’s naughty list — Ho Ho Ho indeed) kept trying to win Santa’s favor. Santa was made quite uncomfortable to say the least. Every day I thank Jebus that the CFO was also at that party and able to protect Santa, and that the whole thing didn’t instead occur back in 1993 or thereabouts. Mr. Claus would have been utterly defenseless back then.

Note to self: buy the Jr VP a Santa suit as a gift for high school graduation. He might not understand the gift at first, but he’ll thank me later. . .

Thank Gaia that Kjel.org will (hopefully: Dubya, could this wait until Friday afternoon please?) be out of town when Chimpy McBusHitler detonates his fascist A-bomb in our peaceful city. Unless these brave warriors for peace quoted below manage to stop him first. I love this town.

A fine 24 hours last weekend:

Friday night

The CEO (and date), the Chief Educator (and date), and Mr. Pancho Libre (and date) convened in NW Portland and ate muchas tasty Spanish food and drank tasty Spanish wine. Raw beef (carpaccio), raw fish (ceviche), and (cooked) squid stuffed with sausage; it doesn’t get much better than that. Except maybe for the sea scallops wrapped in Serrano ham — that was pretty good too. Gracias to the CFO’s brother (and date) for the babysitting.

Saturday morning

I got up at the crack of dawn (roughly 9:00 AM) and went over to the Chief Educator’s house. Three other let’s-go shoot-some-shit-and-see-what-happens firearm enthusiasts were already present. We piled all the gear into the Chief Sniper’s truck and off we went towards the mountains. There was a quick pit stop on the way; certain members of our party were whining about their lack of coffee and grub. I didn’t mind: to paraphrase Ben Franklin, The McGriddle is Proof that God Loves us and Wants us to be Happy. It’s as good an argument for God as any other I’ve heard.

We went up Hwy 26 toward the coast but then at the top turned off at a super secret logging road only I and the CTO know the location of. At this point the Chief Sniper started to worry me a little bit. He is a pretty sane driver on the pavement, but off road he was something else entirely. As we are bouncing along like a competitor in Mickey Thompson’s Off-Road Challenge, we crest a hill only to find that a tree has fallen partly across the road. It is 50 feet ahead of us; we are going 50 mph. No time to stop. Could this be curtains for the CEO? Almost. The Chief Sniper proceeded to skillfully maneuver his truck under the highest section of the tree and avoided even scratching the paint. Or killing himself and/or one or more of his passengers. Well played, Chief Sniper.

We arrived at the end of the logging road and set up shop: it was time to draw some targets and then get to work. It probably comes as no surprise to you, Gentle Reader, to hear that many, many evildoers (or at least artistic representations thereof) were dispatched that morning with hundreds and hundreds of hollowpoints. Zombies, monsters, the Devil himself and many of his lesser demons and imps (like Paris Hilton, and her little dog too) were all thoroughly ventilated. On to the pictures:

Some of the tools of our trade, whatever that trade may be.

The CTO setting up some targets on the berm. “OK, who drew the picture of a snooty looking guy wearing a beret and a striped shirt?”

The Chief Educator ranging the Chief Sniper on a particularly difficult shot. This may have been shortly before the Chief introduced Potatohead Skeletor to his new best friend. Meet Mr. Hollowpoint, spudly!

And the Chief Sniper returning the favor for the CTO:

Soon it was time to prepare Osama bin Melon and his lieutenants for their destiny: explosion due to extreme lead poisoning. The Chief Sniper prepping the victims:

Leave it to the Chief Educator to miss a watermelon with a shotgun. Twice. He redeemed himself on shot #3: One of Osama’s henchmen was turned into a 30 foot wide mushroom cloud of melon guts and Midori flavored mist when the Chief finally successfully applied lead to melon.

Kids, if you are going to shoot a shotgun always make sure you have it firmly shouldered before you pull the trigger, instead of just resting it loosely on your upper arm. If you don’t, and instead handle the shotgun like a ginormous idiot, you get something like this. The CEO’s bicep:

The Chief Sniper, worn out from a long morning of shooting his enemies.

Our shooting spot was a thorough disaster when we left, and anyone coming upon it later must have wondered just what in the hell had happened out there. Of course before we left we picked up everything we could that wasn’t biodegradable, but that only scratched the surface. Four watermelons, some eggs, a few tomatoes and God knows how many potatoes met their end that day on site, most in very explosive fashion. The Chief Sniper also thought it would be a good idea to shoot some expired canned foods and sauces. It was. So factor in the fact that enchilada sauce had been sprayed over the whole shebang, adding significantly to the olfactory (and gooeyness) factor. All in all, a glorious scene. Photographs couldn’t do it justice. Unless you have a camera that incorporates Smell-O-Vision — then you might have been able to get close.

Saturday afternoon.

After our trip to the mountains me, the Chief Educator and CTO caught a late lunch back in town. The place we chose to eat just so happened to also serve beer! Imagine that! It’s our lucky day! We managed to drink several pints of IPA on the patio of said establishment, and in the course of accomplishing that we also downed cheeseburgers and tots. And lo and behold it happened to be Happy Hour, so it wasn’t even too expensive.

Saturday evening.

After my burger I figured I’d better get home, since the CFO had been alone with The Heir and The Spare for the better part of the day. As it turns out she and them were fine, and had had a real nice time visiting a friend of the CFO out in Sherwood. The Jr. VP was in a good mood and we played and played and played. And then after putting Jr. to bed I caught the second half of one of the most enjoyable Mariner games of the year so far, with the M’s winning, and Mariner-geek cult hero “Red” finally getting the formal recognition he so richly deserves. A fine 24 hours indeed.

Full write-up coming soon. This for now:

Parenting tips I can get behind, from an article whose author has for some reason chosen to remain anonymous:

I’m a better mother when I am stoned.
We’ll see how this works, I thought to myself, feeling a bit guilty about breaking my rule against toasted childcare. But it turned out I could not only manage taking care of my son while I was high; I could excel. As I had nothing in particular I needed to accomplish at the shopping center (except saving my sanity), I decided to let my son lead the way. Rather than taking his hand and dragging him along behind me as I usually do on shopping trips, I let my son decide where we would go, what we would look at and how much time we would spend in each aisle. He delighted in calling my attention to each shiny object, and I delighted in listening to his descriptions. “Look, Mommy! This frog has spots!” “Mommy! Come here! It’s a spinny top!” And when he said look, I really, really looked. Earlier, I’d wanted to kill this kid, and now I was hanging on his every word and absorbing his every observation.

I suppose this makes some sense. I mean, gin and peyote make me a better father, so why not this?

Tomorrow the zombie horde will Feel My Wrath!! The wrath of the Chief Sniper, Educator, and CTO as well. Pictures next week. Or possibly film on the eleven o’ clock news Saturday, depending on how things go.

Last night on the drive home from ’school’ Stinkboy and I were listening to some classic Southern Fried Rock. The first words out of the lad’s mouth when he greeted the CFO at the HQ? “Mommy, I was born a ramblin’ man!” A pretty standard sentiment for your average two-year-old I think.

Were the CEO ever to have shat himself (recently anyway — knock on wood) I’d like to imagine that I also would have woken up when I did the deed and/or when I was subsequently re-pantsed. Not so with the Intern. He remained asleep during the entire process*, and later might be confused when he wakes up wearing different pants than those he fell asleep in. Reminds me of the CEO’s morning last Tuesday, but that’s neither here nor there right now. . .

* Not entirely true: there was a small growl when a certain cold diaper wipe met the Intern’s naughty bits the first time around (the Intern primarily express his feelings through grunts, growls, and the occasional small shriek). But the second time the wipe was deployed? Nothing but snoring. Loud, loud snoring. That’s my Little Dude.

The CFO is not at all pleased by the Jr. VP’s recent infatuation with a certain squirtgun we have here at the HQ. It was one thing when Jr would point a block or a stack of Legos at you and make weird noises (sounds sort of like cheoow! cheeow!); the CFO could imagine that the lad was pretending he had a phone or a remote or something else relatively harmless. Tougher to make that rationalization when the lad is threatening you with a squirtgun that looks like an Uzi (albeit an orange and yellow plastic one) and making that same noise. The CEO isn’t really a fan of “rules” (I prefer to stick it to The Man instead of the other way way around) but I think a “no shooting Mommy” rule at the HQ might soon be instituted. Also an “if you shoot Daddy expect him take a hose to you and then give you a swirly” rule will be imposed I think.

Once again, the Rock Gods have given me a reason to live: Van Halen (featuring Mr. David L. Roth!) is playing the Rose Garden on Dec. 1. The only question is whether of not to take the Jr. VP. I’m leaning toward yes.

The CEO had a long week and I was beat; I was known by the Jr. VP as Daddy Sleepy all weekend. It sucked — Daddy Sleepy has so, so much work still to do on so many fronts. I was too exhausted to do most of it. The CEO accomplished exactly 34% of what he needed to get done this weekend. Tomorrow at work should be exciting, to think nothing of all the strictly Kjel.org related tasks that need attending to. I need to start eating better or something. Or get a butler. Or possibly take up meth. At least my tiredness didn’t stop me from getting sandwiches and going to the park with Mommy and the lads over the weekend.

High point of the weekend: (other than the CEO mauling three punk skater kids who insulted the Jr. VP when we were at the park. I don’t care that when he is running on the bigtoy you think the Jr. VP looks like, quote, “a spaz”. You say something like that out loud and you earn two tickets to the gun show, courtesy of the CEO. To the skinny blond kid with the Vans and skull earring: I’d ice that knee tonight if I were you.) a few newlyweds-to-be came over for din-din. Big thanks to the Chiefs Educator and Bride who Saturday night brought to the HQ Bamboo Grove’s Kamehameha Feast ™ (or whatever it was called). The CEO has since eaten enough meat to feed several average Hawaiian villages, several times over, for several weeks. I am now even more drought and famine resistant than I was before. Thanks again. And for the Terminal Gravity too; I also had several of those.

Look, I’ve bitched before about people I’ve had to sit by on airplanes, but at least none of them (as far as I know) was smuggling a monkey under their hat. Or was it a monkey stow-away, testing human airport security? Hmmmmmm.

Passenger hides monkey under hat, smuggles it onto airplane
NEW YORK (AP) - A man smuggled a monkey onto an airplane Tuesday, stashing the furry fist-size primate under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail, an airline official said. The monkey escapade began in Lima, Peru, late Monday, when the man boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell. After landing Tuesday morning, the man waited several hours before catching a connecting flight to LaGuardia Airport. During the flight, people around the man noticed that the marmoset, which normally lives in forests and eats fruit and insects, had emerged from underneath his hat, Russell said. “Other passengers asked the man if he knew he had a monkey on him,” she said.

Man it would suck to have a monkey on you and not know about it. I’m not sure whether the other passengers were considerate to mention it, or if the monkey might have been one of those things that would be more polite to just ignore, like you would an unruly nose hair or an undone zipper.

The CEO has been a busy, busy man lately, what with taking care of the new baby, the CFO, and still making enough time to play with the Jr. VP. And oh yeah, my actual employer expects a thing or two as well and missing several days of work last week didn’t help much.

I’ll have some pictures from the beach trip soon and perhaps even an account of the Jr. VP vs. the Pacific Ocean Battle Royale that I was fortunate enough to witness. For now though, just this important warning:

I drove to the beach on Thursday, which is much, much nicer than driving there on the weekend. There was almost no one on Highway 6 and the CEO had the red Suby up to cruising speed (about 82 or so). At some point on the curvy, one-lane road a thought occurred to me: “I am going kinda fast. I better put on my seatbelt.” Mind you, up until that point I hadn’t actually felt like I was in danger in any way shape or form, nor had I had any sort of driving mishap or even the threat of one. As I reached for my seatbelt I took a hand off the wheel and my eyes off the road for a brief second. That’s when I drifted to the right a little bit. To my right was a cliff. With a river at the bottom. And lots of hurty looking rocks in that river. I sensed that something was amiss and glanced up from my seatbelt maneuver. CEO’s brain: Oh Fiddlesticks!* I’m dead! Close, but as it turns out I wasn’t. I was able to get the Suby to change course in time to avoid a plunge into the Wilson river, but only barely. Remember: seatbelts kill. I’m going to cut them out of the Suby at the first opportunity. I urge you to do the same in any vehicle you own.

* The CEO may not have actually thought Fiddlesticks.

The CEO is finally back. The rest of Kjel.org returns tomorrow. The trip to the beach with the CFO’s family was nice and I’ll have a full report in the next few days. One thing though I will say now: it was nice to see the Jr. VP. I know that most people view the CEO as the strong-n-silent type, a meat and beer fueled emotionless automaton, a reserved yet barbarian he-man, set loose upon the civilized world to wreak whatever havoc I will. But not on Thursday.

No, at Tierra Del Mar on Thursday it was very, very, very nice to see the the Jr. VP drop everything he was doing, greet me with a scream Daaadddddy!, fight his way out of his grandma’s grip and run and jump into my arms when I showed up at the beach. Where were you, Daddy? Missed you too, amigo pequito. It’s OK Daddy, I gotcha. Want to hear a secret?

I did. More about the trip later perhaps. Maybe not though.

Kjel.org (except for the CEO) has been at the beach for the last few days. The CFO’s parents rented a house in Tierra Del Mar on the Oregon coast, and everyone but me has been relaxing out there since Monday. Me? Thanks for asking. I’ve been relaxing at the HQ. Video games, underwear (as in the CEO is not wearing pants), gin-n-tonics and Pockets, Hot. I can also now watch movies with swearing, violence, guns, nudity, and/or puppets or all five instead of a movie about a kidnapped fish. I’ve been taking full advantage.

While I miss the rest of Kjel.org (quick shoutout to the Jr. VP: You’re my special boy! Be nice to Mommy! Please don’t bite the Intern or Mommy!) I’d be lying if I said that a couple days of quiet at the HQ wasn’t nice. And everyone knows that the CEO never lies.*

I have it on good authority that Kjel.org’s primary flora vendor and his lovely family will be in Pacific City over the weekend as well — Stinkboy’s head will explode with happiness at seeing his friend, young miss Pinkdog Junior.

I’m headed out to the coast tomorrow to join the brood and since those coast people haven’t yet discovered this internet thingy, no updates until Sunday evening at the earliest. If I can get back to the HQ. Last time I left the CFO at the beach getting home was like something out of the Odyssey; I’m hoping to avoid an epic journey this time around. I would though like to (again) kill a Cyclops. Maybe in McMinnville this time? The Amity one? Dead, after last year’s efforts.

* Tax returns don’t count. Nor do background investigations on the CEO’s friends performed by the Fedederals. Or done by the local cops. Also for harmless white lies. Or lies to cover up transgressions, either business or personal. If you really need to know what does or doesn’t count as a lie to the CEO please send to the HQ a self addressed stamped envelope and I will send you a copy of the most recently updated Schedule 43C-2, the current list of acceptable lies at Kjel.org. Or at least in the CEO’s opinion. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.