The institutional mouthpiece of Kjel.org

Tomorrow evening the CEO will be here; Thursday night will find me here. The rest of the day? Work. And I am not talking Katrina reconstruction, I mean real work, the kind of which that can only be done in upmarket hotel conference facilities. I’m only there for two nights. I could have conceivably stretched this to four nights, but I have a thing or two going on at home right now and need to get back.

I’m not overly disappointed; I think that I’m now about 15 years too old to properly enjoy New Orleans anyways. Oh well, I’ll always have London. And Amsterdam. And Paris. And Munich. And Vancouver BC. Los Angeles, Prague, and New York too. And who could forget Dublin? I won’t even bother to list the second tier cities I’ve had drinks in. So tomorrow, I can finally cross New Orleans off my list, only now, it will be done with a couple of free cocktails provided by vendors at the conference I’m headed to — 15 years ago it would have been done with nine gallons of beer and a few jello shots. I could have been in the background of one of those Gone Wild in New Orleans DVD’s watching college girls take their shirts off. Or, more likely considering the amount of booze that would have been consumed, spent the evening with my shirt off being filmed by the producers of COPS. Really a win-win. Man it sucks to be an adult.

I was reminded this afternoon that tomorrow is “Bring the Brood To The Factory Day” or some such nonsense. No biggie for the CEO, I thought, mine are too young and even if they weren’t I’m not bringing them in anyway. I gots me some work to do . . .

As I left work today I was informed that the dozen or so kids visiting the office tomorrow are going to go around and meet the managers in different departments to try to get a sense of what we all do. “Oh and by the way, have something ready for the children tomorrow — they’re coming to see you at around 10:30.” So, uh, these youngsters are like what ages again? “Looks like a range of 6 to 16.” Oh. I’ll do my best to make it quick.

What 6 year old doesn’t want to discuss the intersection of Federal trademark law with the retail domain name aftermarket? Or discuss fascinating developments in DNS and/or domain name related jurisprudence? Also, contract drafting strategies and compliance task force formations are interesting as all hell I’m sure, but even more so if you’re between ages 6 and 16. Don’t even get me started on the unalloyed joy of a nice technology license renegotiation. I’m not sure I could get that across to the kids so I hesitate to even try.

Anyway, 10:30 in my office tomorrow is going to consist of a one minute puppet show for the younger kids trying to explain what is a trademark, featuring diners eating at Baba Fresh in SW Portland and discussing why they are there in the first place (hint: the name had something to do with it), followed by a 90 second talk about if, why, and how my ownership and use of HannahMontanaIsHot.com could be problematic from a trademark point of view. The discussion will be strictly limited to considering the question from a trademark law standpoint. I think the kids will be glad to be done with my part of the manager talks. The smart ones, anyway.

Kjel.org has made an offer to purchase a house in the Garden Home area of Portland (SW 49th, property more or less abutting greenspace and then Woods Creek) and said offer was accepted. We had a professional home inspector tour the proposed facility last week and he prepared and submitted a report to the Organization. Fortunately nothing too earth-shattering was contained in that report, but we have amended our offer slightly because of it. It’ll be a cold day in hell before the CEO again lives in a house without a fully optimized central AC system. Get that fixed and we got ourselves a deal.

If you own property in town Portlandmaps.com is one of the most useful websites ever; use it to learn all kinds of interesting things about your neighbors and your neighborhood in general. A few days back I learned that a certain property owner lost a zoning battle with the city back in the 90’s, and is now stuck with several undevelopable lots that just so happen to sit between the new HQ and Woods Creek. Short of the City deciding to rescind the conservation district it has already formed and then decide to build some roads over a wetland, the woods behind the new HQ will never, ever be developed. City of Portland, I hereby apologize for any previous slights that may have appeared on this website. If you can keep that land next to the new HQ undeveloped you can change the name of the street where I work to FucktheCEO Parkway and I still won’t complain.

Trust me: as a former 11 year old boy, there is nothing better than having your own patch of attached ‘wilderness’ to explore and play in. The lads will get the area between our house and 45th. The CEO also plans to stock our little beat of Woods Creek with fish so that should be fun too. Our own private trout stream. As far as I can tell from looking at the topo maps Woods Creek starts at about the Castle Superstore, or possibly the Starbucks. Prime salmonid habitat I’m sure. Blinky, is that you?

A portable storage unit is being delivered to the current HQ on Friday. That’s when things are really going to get serious. I anticipate seeing parts of my garage that have gone unseen since 2004 or so. I’m hoping for no surprises. If anyone wants to come over for a little while on Saturday afternoon and help me move some of the heavy stuff, feel free. I can’t be held responsible for what you may or may not see however. And there is an outside chance that I might ask you to sign a non-disclosure agreement before the fact. Let’s just hope that we don’t find, er, anything weird. I’ll just leave it at that.

Overheard tonight at the (current) Kjel.org HQ while waiting for the CFO to get home:

Intern: [on ground, being sat on by Stinkboy] EEEEEE!!! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!! EEEEEAAAAAhhhhhhhhhh!!

CEO: [glances over at the pair, notices the AK’s predicament] Stinkboy! Get off your brother, you’re smashing him! Remember, be gentle — he’s just a baby!

Jr VP: [with a have you always been this stupid Daddy? look on his face, very calmly] But Daddy, I’m a Baby-Smasher.

I think that part of him fully expected me to respond with Oh, sorry to intrude. Go about your business then. Good day sir. He’s an official “Baby-Smasher” after all. Who am I to judge?

I judged; with some effort the lads were separated and no one ended up getting injured. It’s only a matter of time before a member of Kjel.org has one or more bones broken after that person is jumped on/trampled by/body slammed/hit with a bat/kicked/and-or pegged by rocks thrown by another Kjel.org member. I just hope that when it happens the CEO is not involved in any way.

More dialogue from today. Keep in mind that to an extent we try to limit the Jr. VP’s movie watching to times when the lad is extra stressed (like if a babysitter is at the HQ) or times when the CEO is extra stressed (such as when I have to watch the boys solo at the HQ for an extended period of time). Neither was the case this evening:

Jr VP: [3 boys in a car pulling out of the parking lot at ’school’] Do you like movies Daddy?

CEO: [Daddy preoccupied with trying to take a left on Vermont without killing the lot of us, not really listening] Sure, whatever.

Jr VP: [hoping to sell me with his enthusiasm] Great! You’re right Daddy! Let’s watch a movie when we get home! Yay Mr. Incredible!

I almost let him watch one just to reward his effort at strategery. I didn’t though — he’s got to actually out-strategerize the CEO before he gets to watch the random weeknight movie that I caught him angling for tonight. The over/under on Stinkboy actually succeeding with such a gambit is 5 and one half months. Smart money is on the under.

There is a post office near my office that has lines out the door every April 15th. Why do people procrastinate so long on something so important? I paid my taxes over a year ago!

Pulled the trigger on a deal this morning. When it all comes down to it, a Shooter’s gotta shoot. New HQ in 4-6 weeks if a few things break correctly.

Kjel.org is already busy, but it is gonna get worse. Much worse. I wouldn’t expect a whole lot out of us during the next 6 weeks, and if you would like to help in any way, shape or form, please don’t hesitate to offer, but don’t make an offer unless you can back it up — pretty good odds that we’ll take you up on your offer, and then ask for more.

Have you ever stood in front of a deep chasm and thought about trying to jump it? The other side might look so, so nice, but where you are right now isn’t all that bad either. The consequences attached to attempting the leap and not making it are quite severe. But it is not really that big of a jump, and if everything comes together as you think and hope it will you’ll get a huge running start so of course you’ll make it . . .

Do you ever realize that no matter how hard you try you can’t really know or control the future? Up until recently the CEO didn’t. Irrespective of how I set the the throttle and spin the wheel on the Kjel.org command bridge I’m never entirely in charge of the USS Kjel.org’s destination or even its course. I like to think that I drive this ship but in a lot of ways this boat goes wherever the wind sends us, directions unpredictable to me in any meaningful way . . .

Taking the unpredictability of the future into account do you then go back to the first idea and think that the fact that the CEO is considering the jump then confirms (many people have harbored the thought for a while) that the CEO is in fact a grade-A idiot and now it’s starting to show? Show more glaringly, anyway?

Put another way, as the kids today might say with their text messaging and interwebs and whatnot: OMFG! ROTFL! IMO CEO iz a dpshit! WTF iz he doin? He’ll be totlly pwned!!1!!

Wish us fair winds and following seas – Kjel.org is about to take a leap I think. Will update asap with news if there is news to be dispersed.

Kjel.org is in the process of trying to relocate the HQ. It is one hell of a process. Next time we decide to sell a house we own and move to another I am just gonna burn down the one we are in and start over with the next one. Our previous home was insured for a suprisingly large amount, why do you ask?

As part of the get-ready-to-sell-our-house process various tradesmen have been coming by the HQ in recent days to repair, fix and/or skillfully hide certain defects in the structure. Today a gentleman from Power Plumbing (Kjel.org-stamp-of-approval-receiving-company, by the way) came by and did a few things, including repairing several of the CEO’s previous, er, repairs. I am very pleased to announce that I again have the option of daily showers available to me.

I left my office early the other day to meet Mr. Max Power (not his real name) at the HQ. We shook hands. I introduced myself; he also had my name on the work order. It didn’t matter. I saw him glance at his clipboard once or twice and then he said “Well Chief, why don’t you show me the problems?” Over the course of the afternoon my actual first name came out of his mouth not once. I was “Chief.” He was a hard old guy, with a physique accurately described as ropy. Since I’m soft and generally a wuss I didn’t feel like pushing my luck by teaching him a new word (ie my name). “Chief” was fine.

The old boy knew his business: he got some stubborn drains to drain, replaced various Nixon-era valves around the HQ that were no longer, shall we say, watertight and made several pieces of plumbing at the HQ no longer look like their most recent repairs had been done by a liberal arts major with limited mechanical ability and an even shorter attention span. The repairs are now actually done, and I didn’t even have to cut off any parts of my house with a sawzall this time. Worth every penny to have them done The Right Way. The other options on the table were The Wrong Way, which is pretty self-explanatory, or the Kjel.org way, which is remarkably similar to the Wrong Way, but slower. While not my usual, I think I chose correctly here.

The CFO gets home tonight. I know three boys who are going to be quite pleased. And I hope my instructions to Stinkboy to just keep his big mouth shut about certain things have sunk in.