Software Rant

I'll avoid the tired "containers are just encapsulation, man" rant. I might normally make the whole "nothing new under the sun" point if it weren't for the fact that the I'm currently mired in how wrong I think the "microservices are just SOA" crowd is. Just be glad that people are interested in the new thing and hope that they make it shinier.

I dislike having to install things on my laptop. Not everything, of course, but I don't want to install something for every little thing I want to play around with. Everything starts with install Ruby, Python, Go, D, Node.js then let them install who knows what (because everybody has to reinvent the package manager), who knows where, and create whatever inter-version incompatibilities they feel like. Then I wind up on StackOverflow trying to figure out the installation and debugging tricks those communities take for granted.

Sadly I still wind up with most of this shit on my box thanks to a handful of awesome tools like Ansible and Vagrant. I know it's ironic but I still have to draw the line somewhere.

WiFi Rant

So, I'm working at Google now (if you say congratulations I will punch you in the taint) and taking the bus to work. The bus has very shitty WiFi so to pass the time I either read e-books or watch downloaded content. XFinity has the best DVR option for this since their Android app will let you download anything you've recorded for offline viewing–fucking bad ass. Netflix and TiVo (and YouTube I believe) think that super awesome, streamy, creamy WiFi is everywhere. It's not and companies that don't support offline viewing hate America, freedom, and teenage Jesus. You really don't hear enough about teen Jesus…

Then I thought it'd be great to download some of the blog post backlog I have in Feedly (my RSS reader currently because fucking Google shut down Reader). That'd let me catch up on some of the stuff that falls under the "sharpening the tools" category of time wasting. Unfortunately 95% of the stuff in there comes from InfoQ which, to their credit, have video AND slides synced in their presentations. This means simply downloading video alone isn't good enough. What's a boy to do?

"Someone Beat Me to it" Rant

Someone else already wrote something to download InfoQ presentations for offline viewing. Since it's written in Python I took it for a test drive in a VM to avoid unnecessary dependency baggage from invading my system. The sumbitch works like a charm. It pulls everything into a folder and creates an HTML page you can use for offline viewing.

Fine. So I don't get to do that as a fun mini-project. I could still do something cool with Docker. For this post I don't care if Docker (or Rocket) will save the world. I care that I can encapsulate a bunch of shit into a container that is lighter weight than a virtual machine and treat it like a command. The inspiration came in the form of someone else's post that takes it even further with X11 applications. Baby steps.

Well some motherfucker beat me to that, too. Luckily though he used a bad naming convention and I couldn't get his container to work. So I built my own any way.

What Did I Accomplish?

I now have a bash script that wraps the slightly onerous Docker command to launch my container and download an InfoQ presentation for offline viewing. Yay! I also got to increase my public GitHub footprint (never a bad thing).

I learned that Docker handles host to container file permissions badly, Docker security has a long way to go, Docker Hub has some pretty nice continuous integration options for GitHub projects that have Dockefiles, and finally that I think it's better to waste 458mb of disk space to avoid putting more Python stuff on my laptop. Not a bad Saturday afternoon.

1/ no icons to identify clearly the products, this starts at their download webpage: see http://downloadcenter.trendmicro.com/index.php?regs=uk

2/ Trend Micro documentation is so lame that it's still using fonts for print!

Nobody will ever print a 785 pages such as OfficeScan's Admin Guide

see http://downloadcenter.trendmicro.com/index.php?regs=uk&clk=latest&clkval=3802&lang_loc=2

Thus it's not readable at all on screen as the eye can't grasp it easily.

It's moreover without that much graphics as most of their software interface is text based!

Even the logo of the company is just made of a T and a O in italics with a red circle behind.

This shows how poor on this domain they are.

And for each products there is 6 documents at least instead of just one, which brings a lot of confusion to customers.

Imagine the mess for their supports teams…

And thus the slow response time from them to their customers…

/ This company is lazy, very badly organized: conservatism and disorganization are the essence of Trend.

You see that from their website and information it gives.

A couple of cruises ago we spent almost half the cruise not realizing the two sides were different. Around the third or fourth time the host tried to service the room while we were taking a mid day nap we realized what idiots we are. That got me to thinking about how you could improve these door hangers both for the guests and for the room host. For the guest you want something that makes it even more obvious that the two sides have different meanings. For the host you would like a method of differentiating the message being communicated by the door hanger that can be discerned from a greater distance or from a more extreme angle that doesn't allow reading it. Of course you have the different images on the hanger but that's not terribly visible when looking down a hallway of a couple of hundred doors.

I think using a different color for each side would work even better. Since we're not communicating the intent of the different sides solely through color I think were still good in terms of accessibility and color blindness (I should also note the lack of Braille on the different sides of the door hanger). I would naturally pick red and green if not for the horrible memory of a former manager and a firmware engineer arguing for hours about the inherent ambiguity of the two colors when multiple nationalities and cultures were involved. Anyway, here's a stab at what my "improved" version would look like.

I just don't get why (maybe if) Spring does not provide this level of integration out of the box.

That said, getting JAXB XmlAdapter's to be treated as Spring beans (and support Autowiring) was also a somewhat painful XML-based exercise. So Jackson integration is no worse, I guess.

Thanks!

FUCK TREND, WE HAVE A SMALL BUSINESS SERVER WE ARE SMALL & STRUGGLING, BUT BECAUSE SOME RETARD LAZILY LISTED US A SPAM INSTEAD OF DELETING OUR EMAIL (THEY SIGNED UP FOR) WE ARE NOW ON A GLOBAL FUCKING BLACKLIST THAT'S APPARENTLY ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OFF UNLESS WE ARE AN ISP. FUCK YOU TREND YOU SUCK COCK!!!

KEEP IN MIND OUR ADDRESS IS STATIC, THIS IS WHAT THEY SENT US WHEN WE ASKED TO BE TAKEN OFF THE LIST…
This email is designed to help you solve the problem.
If you are an ISP, you can

1. Add the rDNS of this IP to clearly indicate static.
ex: mail.mail-abuse.com (O)
99-47-70-150.dynamic-IP.mail-abuse.com (X)

2. Add a statement in WHOIS information indicating the space is
statically assigned.

If you are an end user, please check your email configuration (STEP 1 below). If that does not stop the IP from being blocked, you can contact your ISP for further action (STEP 2 below).

STEP 1: CHECK YOUR EMAIL CONFIGURATION

Here are two things to check about your mail configuration:

Email Client
============
Check that the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) setting on your email client (such as Outlook Express or Mail) is using the outgoing mail server for your ISP. Most ISPs require that you use their mail server to avoid spamming incidents.
WE DON'T WANT TO & SHOULDN'T HAVE TO WHEN WE ARE A BUSINESS YOU FUCKTARDS!!!

Email Server or Proxy Server
============================
If you run a mail server on your computer, or if your local network uses a proxy server, set the SMTP Gateway setting on the mail server or proxy server to your ISP's outgoing mail server. This will force your mail server or proxy server to send all outgoing mail to the ISP first, and then the ISP will relay it to its final destination.
OH GET FUCKED, LETS JUST BLEED MONEY JUMPING THRU YOUR FUCKING TIME WASTING HOOPS THAT ANY SPAMMER WORTH HIS SALT CAN AVOID YOU MAGGOTY FUCKKNOBBED COCK DRIBBLING FAGGOTRY SHITGOBBLING WEAK-KNEED ARSESUCKING WHORES

====
Note: If you are a RoadRunner business customer, you may need to contact your ISP to get your business IP marked as static. They will then let Trend know of the change.
FUCK OFF!!!

If things aren't working I'd recommend firing up the debugger and setting some breakpoints in your Jackson related classes to see if they're being called at all.

If however that part is working then the TechnicianService is managed by Spring and is what is responsible for somehow accessing the database–probably via an autowired DAO that has a SessionFactory or EntityManager or whatever.

My Code:
@Component
public class DeserializeTechnicianById extends JsonDeserializer {

@Autowired
private TechnicianService technicianService;

@Override
public Technician deserialize(JsonParser jsonTechnicianId, DeserializationContext arg1) throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
try {
Integer technicianId = Integer.parseInt(jsonTechnicianId.getText());
Technician technician = technicianService.getTechnician(technicianId);
return technician;
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
throw new RuntimeException("The request technician doesn't exists");
}
}

How did you build the Deserializer to access the hibernate object?
i didn't understand that part :S

Greetings

For reference here's a reasonable facsimile of what the file looks like. Let's pretend this is some sort of interesting survey. Bonus points if you can figure out a question that would make sense for these answers.

FIELD1|FIELD2|CUSTOMER|FIELDN
"Once in college but it wasn't my idea."|3|"CUST1"|"blah blah"
"Like your mom."|14|"CUST2"|""
"Blame it on the dog."|15|"CUST1"|"Frankenberry"
"That wasn't chicken."|9|"CUST2"|"Definitely the mouth."
"Never professionally"|26|"CUST3"|"And then she stepped on the ball!"

What we want is three files: one for each customer. We drop the split file in a different directory for each customer to keep things a little neater and we name the file with the customer code prepended to the original file name. All nice and orderly.

As with many things involving text files this winds up being stupid easy using Awk. I'm showing it here mostly so I can find it again and because this type of command line file processing always makes me giddy. The comments should do a good enough job of explaining things.

#! /usr/bin/awk -f
BEGIN {
  if($CUSTOMER < 1) {
    print "Usage: split -vCUSTOMER=[split column] [files]";
    exit;
  }

  # Set the input and output field delimiters
  FS="|";
  OFS="|";
  "mkdir -p split" | getline;
}

{
  # If this is the first line of a file...
  if (FNR==1) {
    # Grab the entire first row as the header
    header=$0;

    # Close open files from the previous file (if any)
    for(customer in customers) {
      close(customers[customer]);
    }
 
    # Clear the array of customers / output files   
    delete customers;
  }

  if (FNR!=1) {
    # Grab the customer code and strip out the quotes
    customer=tolower($CUSTOMER);
    gsub(/"/, "", customer);

    # Store the output file name.  This is the customer code followed 
    # by the original file name.
    outputFile="split/" customer "/" customer "_" FILENAME;

    # If this is the first time this file we've seen this customer code...
    if(customers[customer]=="") {
      ("mkdir -p split/" customer) | getline;

      # Overwrite any previous output file and print the header
      print header > outputFile; 
      # Track the fact that we've seen this customer code and store the output file
      customers[customer]=outputFile;
    }

    # Append the current line to the output file
    print >> outputFile;
  }
}

I'm sure someone could do this more succinctly and without some of the odd things I've done in there (maybe parameterize the delimiters or the output directory structure), but I kind of like it. It's already proved useful for a number of other cases for me. Also the fact that it's relatively tiny and super fast is all the answer I need if one of the co-workers asks why I didn't write it in Java.

So I'm watching this documentary about an incredibly smart micro-manager (in a good way) that turned the Gap around and is slaying it at J. Crew. He and the interviewer are in front of one of the J. Crew retail stores and Mickey Drexler spends 5 or 6 seconds trying to open the door for the store:

Now I can't fault him because even though the tiny text above the handle says "push" the handle screams "pull." Donald Norman goes over this in The Design of Everyday Things (another in a long line of books I recommend highly). You can see some of his thoughts on door handle design here:

You may not be equally amused as I was at the idea of a design / fashion obsessed CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation not being able to open a door to his own store in under 6 seconds but for some reason the whole thing made me absolutely giddy, especially since it pointed to an example of the practical application of the lessons I had learned from Norman's book. This all has practical application potential in my day job as well: buttons need to simply look "pushable", there needs to be a visual cue for click to edit, the manual won't save you from poor design (see the small text above the door handle), and your poor user has no idea there's a context menu lurking behind that rather innocuous looking area of the UI. But, I digress.

Here's another instance that always makes me smile:

This is an instance where intentionally difficult usability is appropriate. The exit door for a school for handicapped children is made hard to operate. Making it extremely easy to use could have dire consequences (with no "undo" operation available to save the day).

I'll leave the "what we can learn from all of this" wrap up text as an exercise for the reader. For me it's just read more books and watch more non-fiction television. It helps me get my point across with what I consider to be cool phrases like: there are some doors that CEOs can't open.

In software development you rarely understand your problem domain perfectly, if ever. You learn what your customers want through trial and error. Sometimes your organization has made such poor attempts at delivering the product people want that you can't help but throw away what you've currently got and try again with what you learned from your previous attempt.

Managers usually hate to hear such talk from developers. Developers always want to rewrite things. But in some rare cases they're absolutely right. Refactoring is great if you're even remotely close to what you want to do. But what if your product is built on bad assumptions of epic proportions?

Could CVS have been refactored incrementally to arrive at git? Could Windows have been refactored to create Linux? Could MacOS have been refactored to create OSX? Could Internet Explorer be refactored to create Chrome? When do you come to the realization that what you want, what you need, is so far away from what you have that you can't get there from here? When is the cost of making changes to your current product artificially inflated by the technical debt and faulty abstractions to the extent that it's better to throw it all away?

That's the advantage your competition has. You've shown them your near miss at a great product. If the people in your organization advocating a rewrite were magically transported into a competing startup that was creating a competing product from scratch would you be at all worried? If the answer is "yes" then you should use the advantages you have (those very same people plus a more intimate knowledge of the problem domain and where you went wrong) and do something about it. Plus if something in your product actually proves useful you can copy and refactor it into the new product.

There are certainly risks but the rewards are incredible.

Okay now that we have our contrived scenario I want to serialize the collection of roles on a user so that they're a JSON array of IDs of said roles. That part is pretty easy. Let's just make all of our persistent entities either extend some BaseDomainObject or implement some interface with getId and then write a generic JSON serializer for Jackson:

package com.runningasroot.webapp.spring.jackson;

import java.io.IOException;
import org.codehaus.jackson.JsonGenerator;
import org.codehaus.jackson.JsonProcessingException;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonSerializer;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializerProvider;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import com.runningasroot.persistence.BaseDomainObject;

@Component
public class RunningAsRootDomainObjectSerializer extends JsonSerializer<BaseDomainObject> {

    @Override
    public void serialize(BaseDomainObject value, JsonGenerator jgen, SerializerProvider provider) 
            throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
        jgen.writeNumber(value.getId());
    }
}

Awesome if that's what I want. We'll assume it is. Now if I submit this JSON back to the server I want to convert those IDs into real live boys, er, domain objects. To do this I need a deserializer that has access to some service that can find a domain object by ID. I'll leave figuring out ways to genericize this for multiple domain objects as an exercise for the reader because frankly that's not the part I'm interested in.

So how do I control how Jackson instantiates deserializers and make sure that I can inject Spring beans into them? You would think it would be very easy and it is. Figuring it out turned out to be unnecessarily hard. The latest version of Jackson has a class for this and even says that's what it's for. So let's make us an implementation of a HandlerInstantiator that is aware of Spring's ApplicationContext. Note that you could do this entirely differently with an interface from Spring but who cares? Here's what I did:

package com.runningasroot.webapp.spring;

import org.codehaus.jackson.map.DeserializationConfig;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.HandlerInstantiator;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonDeserializer;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonSerializer;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.KeyDeserializer;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.MapperConfig;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.introspect.Annotated;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.jsontype.TypeIdResolver;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.jsontype.TypeResolverBuilder;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component
public class SpringBeanHandlerInstantiator extends HandlerInstantiator {

    private ApplicationContext applicationContext;

    @Autowired
    public SpringBeanHandlerInstantiator(ApplicationContext applicationContext) {
        this.applicationContext = applicationContext;
    }

    @Override
    public JsonDeserializer<?> deserializerInstance(DeserializationConfig config,
            Annotated annotated,
            Class<? extends JsonDeserializer<?>> deserClass) {
        try {
            return (JsonDeserializer<?>) applicationContext.getBean(deserClass);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            // Return null and let the default behavior happen
        }
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public KeyDeserializer keyDeserializerInstance(DeserializationConfig config,
            Annotated annotated,
            Class<? extends KeyDeserializer> keyDeserClass) {
        try {
            return (KeyDeserializer) applicationContext.getBean(keyDeserClass);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            // Return null and let the default behavior happen
        }
        return null;
    }

    // Two other methods omitted because if you don't get the idea yet then you don't 
    // deserve to see them.  phbbbbt.
}

Great now we just need to hook up a custom ObjectMapper to use this thing and we're home free (extra shit that would probably trip you up as well included at no extra charge):

package com.runningasroot.webapp.spring;

import org.codehaus.jackson.map.DeserializationConfig;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.HandlerInstantiator;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig.Feature;
import org.codehaus.jackson.map.annotate.JsonSerialize;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.hibernate.HibernateModule;

@Component
public class RunningAsRootObjectMapper extends ObjectMapper {

    @Autowired
    ApplicationContext applicationContext;

    public RunningAsRootObjectMapper() {
        // Problems serializing Hibernate lazily initialized collections?  Fix here.
        HibernateModule hm = new HibernateModule();
        hm.configure(com.fasterxml.jackson.module.hibernate.HibernateModule.Feature.FORCE_LAZY_LOADING, true);
        this.registerModule(hm);

        // Jackson confused by what to set or by extra properties?  Fix it.
        this.setSerializationInclusion(JsonSerialize.Inclusion.NON_NULL);
        this.configure(DeserializationConfig.Feature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES, false);
        this.configure(Feature.FAIL_ON_EMPTY_BEANS, false);
    }

    @Override
    @Autowired
    public void setHandlerInstantiator(HandlerInstantiator hi) {
        super.setHandlerInstantiator(hi);
    }
}

Now you just have to tell everything to use your custom object mapper. This can be found elsewhere on the web but I'll include it here in case of link rot:

package com.runningasroot.webapp.spring;

import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageConverter;
import org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter;

@Component
public class JacksonConfigurer {
    private AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter annotationMethodHandlerAdapter;
    private RunningAsRootObjectMapper objectMapper;

    @PostConstruct
    public void init() {
        HttpMessageConverter<?>[] messageConverters = annotationMethodHandlerAdapter.getMessageConverters();
        for (HttpMessageConverter<?> messageConverter : messageConverters) {
            if (messageConverter instanceof MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter) {
                MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter m = (MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter) messageConverter;
                m.setObjectMapper(objectMapper);
            }
        }
    }

    @Autowired
    public void setAnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter(AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter annotationMethodHandlerAdapter) {
        this.annotationMethodHandlerAdapter  = annotationMethodHandlerAdapter;
    }

    @Autowired
    public void setObjectMapper(RunningAsRootObjectMapper objectMapper) {
        this.objectMapper = objectMapper;
    }
}

I think you can also perform this bit of trickery inside of an application-context.xml. But whatever works for you works. I think Yogi Berra said that.

Of course you still need to annotate your getters and setters with special Jackson annotations:

@JsonSerialize(contentUsing=RunningAsRootDomainObjectSerializer.class) 
public Collection<Role> getRoles() {
    ...
}

// Some deserializer with some hot Spring injection going on in the back end (if you know what I mean)
@JsonDeserialize(contentUsing=RoleListDeserializer.class)
public void setRoles(Collection<Role> roles) {
    ...
}

So there you have it: an example of a Spring Jackson JSON serializer that serializes the contents of collections of domain objects as an array of IDs and then deserializes JSON arrays of IDs into domain objects to be put into a collection. Say that three times fast.

One of the more interesting things about the $1 billion purchase price is that Instagram has 13 employees and 35 million users. That's just so crazy to me. It also ends up being yet another argument against the "bigger box" method of solving scalability issues. Eventually you cannot simply add more RAM to fix things. Trying to solve your problems that way is like trying to solve world hunger by breeding a single, giant cow.

But what happens when the code is truly horrific? For example: you wrote your own FTP client, your own templating engine, you have mutating getters, there's database access in your pages and data objects, you cut and paste DDL statements into SQL clients and call it "upgrading the schema", etc. We can argue about whether some of those things are truly bad but from my perspective they're pretty rotten. Throw that into a 100k+ line code base with many active customers and too few developers and then you've got some real fun.

In these situations I can envision a more ideal code base pretty easily. Update the libraries and start using them, fix the schema that no longer matches the problem domain (if it ever did), start pushing things into neat little tiers, get rid of that shitty build, run a continuous integration build server, use Chef or Puppet to manage configuration, scale your shit horizontally and get all elasticy with the cloud, etc. Pretty soon I've built a shining city on the hill in my mind. The only problem is I'm still calf deep in shit and I need to go back to standing on my head just as soon as my lunch break is over.

My solution has always been to burn everything to the ground and start over. It's not a popular position even among software developers. "Let's just slowly fix everything that is wrong," they say. It sounds good but progress on paying down your massive technical debt always seems to take a backseat to a shiny new feature (with its own share of technical debt). Pretty soon you're not even paying the interest on that debt. Nope. Burn it all down. Or at least build a new bridge next to the old bridge and then blow the old bridge up. Maybe you can even be nice enough to divert traffic first.

The "fix in place" crowd always sounds like this to me: "I bought a new motorcycle. It's a Honda. I kind of want a Harley instead. Can you turn it into a Harley while I ride it around? Thanks. xxxooo"

At least I'll always have these rants before the void. Thanks for listening.

I've got a ton of books on technologies that aren't in widespread use any more. I'd donate them but even Goodwill doesn't want stuff like that. When you think about it it makes sense. So where do they go? The landfill? I like to pretend I'm much more environmentally friendly than that.

Some hangout for geeks needs to step up and offer a free appetizer or something for anyone that brings in a tech book that was published before, say, 2000? That seems like a reasonable cutoff. Then all the geeky people can laugh at the titles lining the shelves above their tables. "PowerBuilder? Oh, shit! I wrote something in that once!" (Apologies to Sybase, but you really need to give up on that shit.)

If you're interested you can see the video on my YouTube channel or via the embedded player below:

It's a machine that dispenses temporary tattoos. I think it'd be a brilliant idea to get a tattoo buddy (everyone needs one of those) and we both buy a tattoo out of this machine. We then get it whatever comes out of the machine permanently tattooed. It may be a dumb tattoo, but now it has a good story.

Incidentally, I'm hoping to get those flaming cherries. Nothing says "bad ass" like a good set of flaming cherries tattooed on my hip. Grrr, ladies. Grrr. Okay. So who's in?

It's all a combination of things. The parents say something crazy. If it's something truly bizarre with a unique phrasing that I want to get verbatim I'll take a quick note in my phone. For more standard craziness my wife and I usually keep repeating it back and forth to each other for comedic effect. On top of it all I have a pretty good memory for these little gems.

When I eventually write the blog post I use the notes, rely on my memory, and ask my wife to help me with what really happened. The conversations are pretty accurate. Sometimes three or four conversations get condensed down to one to concentrate the wtf-ness of those moments. I'm mostly chronicling them and trimming out the boring bits.

My mom was checked into the rehab center on Friday. Since it was basically the weekend they didn't do much of anything. They did a general assessment on Friday and took her for a couple of walks on Saturday and Sunday. In addition to that they occasionally stuck her leg into a machine that would alternately straighten and bend her leg. She had the same thing in the hospital. It seems like a great option for people that just want to lay there and let a machine do all the work.

With all that action the parents tended to get quite bored. I guess after 50+ years of marriage you kind of run out of things to talk about. My dad was miserable at the rehab place until he found out there was a TV he could watch. Unfortunately the buttons on the front confused both of my parents.

Mom: Why don't you see if the golf is on.
Dad: Well I hate to do that. I should be talking to you. Ain't I?
Mom: Well–
Dad: How do you turn this damn thing on?
Mom: Isn't there an "on" button?
Dad: What the hell are these arrows?
Lisa: That symbol there means "power." Try that one.
Dad: Okay. That's different. Okay. I can't change the channel. There's no sound. Oh. I can only change the channels one direction.
Lisa: You're using one volume button and one channel button. The channels are the two on the left. The volume are the two on the right.
Dad: There's ol' Tiger. Heh. Wait. Why's it in Spanish?
Mom: What's that mute button do?
Lisa: It mutes it. Here, let me try. There. Back in English.
Dad: I probably shouldn't watch it. I mean I'm here to visit you, ain't I?
Mom: It's fine.

I hand my mom my phone and show her how to play Freecell on it. Suddenly, everybody's happy.

The Genetics of Baldheadedism

Since everyone is happily occupied I turn my attention to the book I brought along. After a few minutes my dad snaps out of his fascination with golf on TV and starts talking to me.

Dad: When did you get bald headed?
Me: What?
Dad: I'm not bald headed. Your brothers ain't bald headed. No one in my family is bald headed.
Me: I don't know. It's thin. I don't think I'm technically–
Lisa: They say it comes from the mother's side.
Me: Oh, god. That's a myth. There are several–
Dad: No one in your mother's family is bald headed. Virginia, do you have any bald headed people in your family?
Mom: No! Nobody is bald in my family.
Dad: Well you got one now. Your boy is bald headed.
Me: Can we say "bald headed" less? Maybe I'm adopted.
Lisa: Bald headed.
Dad: Adopted? Sure. Maybe you're the milkman's. He wasn't bald headed either, though.

Three Little Indians

One of the great things about semi-private rooms is that you get to be close to your fellow humans. In this case my mom's room had three other patients in it. I'll now refer to them by race for two reasons: 1) you are aware of who raised me, right? and 2) it's easier than making up fake names for them.

A black woman was in there after knee replacement surgery. In this case it was a replacement of a previous replacement. She seemed to be able to get around pretty well. Another Hispanic woman was in there after some sort of car accident. The third woman was an older white lady that had fallen three times in the last week at home.

The Hispanic lady and the white lady were both on "fall watch." They put a strap across your bed that will sound an alarm if you try to get up (or roll around too much apparently). The Hispanic lady was also having some diarrhea issues. While reading my book I overhear her hit the call button.

Intercom: Yes?
Hispanic Lady: I have to poop.
Intercom: Okay. Just a minute.

At this point it sounds like she starts to try and get up from the bed (there's a curtain between us) and the fall alarm starts going off to let the nurses know she's making a break for it.

Intercom: Is everything okay, ma'am?
Hispanic Lady: Ugn!!! I'm going to poop!
Intercom: We're sending someone now. Just a minute.
Nurse: Ma'am, please get back into bed.
Hispanic Lady: I'm going to poop!
Nurse: Ma'am just wait. Don't!
Hispanic Lady: It's too late. It's out already!
Nurse: Oh, god! Wait! Just wait!
Hispanic Lady: Aaaahhhhh!!!

At this point the whole room goes quiet (except for the sounds of my stifled laughter). Suddenly the room is filled with the smell of shit. Lisa hurriedly shuffles out of the room. My parents seem baffled at why I'm turning beet red and clutching my sides. Am I wrong to laugh?

Wrap It Up

My mom finally gets a little rehab on Monday. It consists of walking her around a bit and making sure she can walk up a couple of steps. They determine that she's ready to be released. Tuesday morning we head to the rehab center and wait around about an hour for them to do the final paper work. From there we hit Jim's Restaurant for some fine cuisine and equally stimulating conversation (mostly about my dad's opinion that Obama is the devil and that it ain't racial profiling if they're Mexicans).

After that we get her home and watch her get around a bit during some routine tasks. Everything looks pretty good and we head to dinner. Lisa and I continue to watch rather than help so we can determine how well she can handle things. Overall she looks good and assures us she can handle things. With that in mind we decide it's time to head back home to enjoy TVs at normal volume and beds that don't cause us physical pain.

If my update history on this blog is any indication please be sure to check back here a year from now for the next exciting episode.

On the fourth morning after her knee surgery my mom is released from the hospital and we take her over to the rehab center. It winds up being fairly close to the hospital and quite a bit easier to get to. They're expecting her so the check-in goes smoothly. She gets to her room (which she shares with three other patients) and the staff starts the questioning.

Of course one of my frequent gripes with my parents is how poorly they communicate things. While in the hospital my mom's IV would empty and the machine starts to beep letting anyone nearby know that the device needs attention. So my mom hits the "call" button and says, "I've got a beeper!" Plain as day, yes?

Doctor: What day was your surgery?
Mom: Tuesday.
Doctor: Did you have a catheter?
Mom: The woman next to me had a catheter.
Me: I think he just wants to know about you.
Mom: Well she did. Your father also had a catheter when he had his gall bladder out. That was something, let me tell you. Here we go. You know?
Doctor: Okay. No on the catheter. I also want to go over your medication list.
Mom: I need Ex-Lax. It wasn't listed.
Doctor: Okay. I'll order it.
Me: Um, she doesn't take it regularly. I think she just wants a single dose because she hasn't gone since the surgery.
Mom: No, I went this morning. I need the Ex-Lax just in case.
Doctor: Uh, okay. Any other medications not listed?
Mom: Ginger root. I take it for arthritis.
Doctor: I haven't heard of that. Is that a prescription?
Mom: No. But it helps with the little nagging tingles. You know?
Dad: You probably haven't heard of the white raisins and gin either, have you?
Doctor: Um.
Lisa: Sheesh. What kind of doctor are you?
Doctor: Um.
Me: This was all part of her double blind study. I'm surprised you haven't read about it.
Doctor: Heh. Yeah. I bet it was multi-site, too. Okay. I'm not going to order the ginger root–
Me: Or the gin I suppose.
Doctor: –or the gin. But if you have ginger root I didn't see it.

Once we get all of that settled we hang out for a while and eventually decide we need to get my dad to dinner.

You're After My Cheddar

We head out for the normal 5pm dinner. It seems if you stray from the very small selection of restaurants that my parents normally frequent you're going to deal with a night full of complaining. With that in mind we decided to eat at Cheddar's which is in the regular rotation. In fact we ate there three nights in a row. As always the dinner conversation is fascinating.

Dad: So mother tells me you've been walking every day.
Me: Yep. We walk a couple of miles every day.
Dad: Every day?
Lisa: Yes.
Dad: Two miles? Every day?
Me: Yes. You know once mom gets that other knee done it'd probably be a good idea for you guys to start getting some regular exercise.
Dad: Someday maybe you'll get to be 75 and you'll see there ain't much point to doing that once you get to be a certain age.
Me: Oh, I don't know about that. Did you know that people over 70 that walk regularly have a reduced chance developing Alzheimer's?
Dad: Is that what you think?
Me: Well, it was in a medical study.
Dad: And you believe that?
Me: I prefer to say I'm convinced by the evidence. Given the family history of Alzheimer's and diabetes I've been trying to exercise more and watch what I eat.
Dad: There's diabetes in the family. I've got it, your uncles have it, your brother Andy has it. You can't avoid it.
Me: I have a genetic predisposition. I can greatly reduce my chances of–
Dad: Aw, bullshit. Well, I hope you're healthy when you get hit by that car.
Me: Good point.

There's no convincing some people. The next day at Cheddars we settle back into our routine of having odd conversations. I order the Monte Cristo even though I had it the day before. It was a pretty tasty sandwich. Lisa orders the same on my recommendation.

Me: Shit. If I had known you were going to the order the Monte Cristo I would have gotten the Shepherd's Pie.
Lisa: Oh, sheesh.
Dad: Why's that?
Me: I don't like ordering the same entrée as someone else at the table.
Dad: You mean you're that paranoid? Where do you get that?
Me: I don't think paranoid is the correct word. I don't know. I think it comes from having three brothers. I overvalue my individuality in some cases. I used to hate it when mom would buy us all the same shirt. I hated wearing the same clothes.
Dad: Well I guess me and your mother were terrible parents then!
Me: Wait. What?
Dad: Well I'm sorry you had such a horrible childhood. I didn't know it was so bad.
Me: I think you're just being silly now.
Dad: Is that why your brothers are so paranoid? Because you all had the same shirts?
Me: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Dad: I'd hate to see how paranoid you'd be if you had the same pants.
Lisa: This sandwich isn't that good.
Dad: Careful, you're going to make him paranoid.

We finally wrap up "dinner" and head back to the house for the night. While there I discover a side project of my dad's. He's planning on making a clock out of an old saw blade. He's made a frame for the blade and everything. And then for some reason he painted some sort of Satanic symbols all over it.

I'd ask but the whole thing makes me…paranoid?

My parents are creatures of habit. They eat at some Chinese buffet three days a week (always on the same days), Red Lobster on Sunday, Bill Miller Bar-B-Q on Saturday night after church, etc. Well on Wednesday they apparently eat at a place named Zorro's Buffet with my uncle Ralph. It'd be a shame to break the tradition so Lisa and I load the old man into the car and head over to Zorro's despite the reviews found online. Living dangerously means sometimes you roll the food poisoning dice and lose. We manage to find the place despite my dad's help. The sign outside proudly proclaims that it is a "Las Vegas Buffet."

I confess I've never been to Vegas but this is definitely not what I pictured. The food is a bit lackluster. Sure they have all of your elegant TV dinner favorites like genuine Salisbury streak, tacos, taquitos, pepperoni pizza, and chicken nuggets as well as a plethora of salad types (including green and Caesar), but somehow I expected more. With both my dad and his brother more options equals higher quality. All they could do is talk about how many items the buffet had (which really wasn't all that many). They tended to overlook the potentially unsafe temperature of the food or its generally unappetizing appearance and flavor. There sure was a lot of it though. I would definitely say I had all I could eat. Or stomach.

The most interesting moment for me came at dessert. My dad loaded up ice cream, chocolate pudding, etc. The observant reader might recall that he and his brother are diabetics. My wife brought that up and my dad reassured her by saying, "by the time I check my blood tonight it'll be back to normal." I'm not 100% sure that's how you're supposed to watch your diet but what would I know?

A Long Time Ago…

After breakfast/lunch/dinner we get to the hospital to see how my mom's doing.

Me: Hello, hello. How's it going?
Mom: Fine I guess. Couldn't sleep last night. Do you know they came in at 3am to fix that television?
Me: Your television doesn't work?
Mom: No, the woman in the next bed.
Me: Well I guess that's just when they could get to it.
Mom: She wanted to watch the Spurs game.
Dad: I don't know why anyone would want to watch those Spurs. They're all black.
Mom: I wasn't watching them. She was, so I was.
Me: You've got your own television. Just watch something else.
Mom: I don't know how to turn it on.
Me: I showed you before. Or call a nurse in to do it.
Dad: Your mother and me are from a different era. I didn't have indoor plumbing or a refrigerator until I was 12 years old. Did you know that?
Me: And that's why you can't work a television?
Dad: What did he say?
Mom: You call the nurses and it takes them too long to get here.
Me: You really need a hearing aid.
Dad: What?
Mom: YOU NEED A HEARING AID.
Dad: I don't need no hearing aid.
Me: It's about quality of life. Wouldn't you rather hear what's going on around you?
Dad: Half the stuff people say ain't worth hearing anyway. Wylie Odom paid $2500 for a hearing aid and that thing never worked.
Me: There's so much flawed logic in that sentence I don't know where to begin.
Dad: What?
Mom: HE SAYS YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT.
Dad: So I should pay $2500 for a hearing aid that doesn't work?
Lisa: When was this?
Dad: I don't remember. He's been dead around 8 years now.
Me: Well I'm tired of repeating myself because you refuse to look into getting a hearing aid. From now on I'm saying everything once.
Dad: What?
Mom: HE SAYS HE'S ONLY SAYING THINGS ONCE FROM NOW ON.
Dad: Well nice talking to you then.
Me: I wish I could say the same.

At this point he storms off to find the bathroom. When he finally comes back in he picks up with:

Dad: You know Carl got us some cheap hearing aids and they work just fine in church until they play that damn organ so loud. Why should I spend $2500 on a hearing aid when Wylie Odom's never worked worth a damn?
Me: You got me there.
Dad: What did he say?

I Can't Eat Any of This

After the hospital it's time to eat again (since it's 4pm). These people eat constantly. Tired of eating at crap buffets Lisa suggests Carino's. My dad has eaten there before and liked it. Despite that he insists that he's never been there. Once there he says he can't eat any of the food on the menu and that he'll just have tea.

We finally manage to convince him to order some chicken and make a few substitutions. After eating a couple of salads and most of his food he seems happy enough. He even lets me get the check, after arguing with me for 10 minutes about it.

It's Like a Book for Your Face

The next day we eat again somewhere (I forget where) and head into the hospital. To pass the time I try explaining social networking to my parents.

You see, every time we go out to eat to one of their regular spots the wait staff asks them all sorts of questions: how's your grass doing, do any fishing lately, where's your wife, who are these people with you, etc. I told them that if they got a Facebook account they could broadcast all these small talk updates to their loyal fans and even get them back in return. They could find long lost friends. You know the drill.

Dad: I don't want them goddamn people on that Internet knowing my business.
Me: You only post what you want to. It's not like it finds stuff out about you automatically.
Dad: Well them people don't need to know it anyway.
Me: Then don't post it.
Dad: I don't want strangers in my business.
Me: Your updates can be private. Only people you approve would see them.
Dad: They don't need to know that bullshit.
Me: They're free to ignore it. A lot of people do. Or don't post it. Whatever. You already tell these people this information over lunch. Take that waiter at Red Lobster for instance.
Dad: That's ol' Ian.
Me: He could follow you on Twitter or Facebook or whatever and see that mom's in the hospital. Or that you caught some fish. Or whatever.
Dad: He ain't got a computer. He's a Scotsman.
Me: Wow.

I then went on to try and explain a bunch of the stuff I had just read in the book Socialnomics (highly recommended), but it was all downhill from there. I think my parents must wonder if I'm making all of this stuff up as I go along.

Is That How You Count to Three?

In the midst of all of this my mom finds out that her three days in the hospital is actually four days–the day of the surgery doesn't count since we're playing doctor's rules. This really seems to piss her off. But wait, there's more. She's then told that the doctor doesn't want to send her home after the hospital. It's recommended that she go to a rehab center to help get her back on her feet.

Now, all of the nursing staff is amazed with her progress and insist that she's probably ready to go home. She could also refuse to go to the rehab center but probably shouldn't since she wants this surgeon to do her other knee (probably in 3 months). So she just gets more pissed off and figures she'll have to go. This means our 3 day emergency visit because we don't think my dad can fend for himself has likely turned into a 10 day visit. Score!

Of course the fact that G.I. Joe taught me that "knowing is half the battle" has not escaped me. If she had consulted a doctor besides Dr. Andy, M.D. (not a real doctor) then she might have been more prepared for this. In turn we might have been able to prepare for it a bit more as well. And that would have been a good thing. Maybe next time.

For as long as I can remember my mom has had bad knees. My dad would likely say, "it was you damn kids what wrecked your mother's knees and gave her that high blood pressure." The wife and I have been prodding both of them to get "new knees" for years. It's all the rage with old people. My mom finally broke down and decided at the age of 74 that it was time for her to get her new knees. They refused her request to do them both at once but happily scheduled surgery for one of them.

Now my dad has been getting more and more forgetful and worse and worse at driving. According to my mom she was going to have surgery and be in the hospital for three (3) days. She figured my dad would be just fine getting around on his own. The wife and I thought all of this sounded a bit dodgy so we decided to come down for the week to help out. And that is when things started to get interesting.

Paging Dr. Andy

We got in on Monday, the night before the morning of the surgery.

Me: So what exactly are they going to be doing? Do they cut off your leg and reattach it with like some Terminator shit or something?
Mom: Some what? No. I don't know.
Lisa: You don't know what they're going to be doing?
Mom: Well I assume replacing my knee.
Me: Yeah, there are a few ways they can do that. You don't what they're going to be doing?
Mom: Well your brother Andy said they would resurface it.
Me: Andy's not a doctor. Why do you always call him about medical questions? I could just as easily make up some bullshit for you. You should have called me. Why didn't you ask your doctor what was going to be done?
Mom: Well, it's one of those. You know?
Me: Huh?

So we got up bright and early and took her to the hospital. We got there at around 6:30am. Surgery went great and eventually she made it into her semi-private room at about 2:00pm. Please keep in mind that she fully expected zero help from anyone else. My dad was supposed to be on his own for the "three days" she was expecting to spend in the hospital. So of course they scheduled an ophthalmologist appointment in downtown San Antonio for 3pm the day of her surgery.

Turn Here

If you've ever driven in downtown San Antonio you know it's a rat's nest of one way streets and never ending street construction. My dad wasn't all that sure how to get to his eye doctor from the hospital in which my mom was staying so we used my Android phone and Google Maps to get turn by turn directions to the hospital. We got almost all the way there when the fun began:

Google: Turn left in 100 yards.
Dad: I know where we are now. Take the next right.
Lisa: Um, that's a one way street.
Dad: Alright. Take the right after that.
Me: Well the phone says we should be going left…
Dad: Nah. I can see the Nix building right there. Well, not the Nix building but that green building there. That's the building near the Nix building where we park. The doctor is right around the corner from there.
Me: I think we should probably just listen to the directions. It's usually pretty good.
Dad: Right here. Turn right.
Lisa: What should I do?
Me: Fine. Whatever. Turn right. I guess he knows.
Dad: Aw, hell. We need to get over there. To that green building.
Lisa: I can't go that way.
Me: So the phone–
Dad: Here. Turn here.
Me: –has these directions and stuff. They're pretty good…
Dad: What the shit? Where's that green building? I can't see it.
Lisa: Well this street ends I've got to go somewhere.
Dad: The green building is gone.
Me: I'm going to turn the navigation stuff back on. Can we just try listening to it and not second guessing it?
Dad: If I can find that green building again I know where it is.

We finally listen to the phone and get to the place within a minute or two. My dad finally sheepishly admits that we probably should have listened to it all along. He says he's not used to coming this way in the first place.

Incidentally the Nix building has valet parking and a pretty cool man lift that employees can use to get to the two floors above (where the cars are parked). My dad nearly does a faceplant stepping off of a curb that is a foot and a half high. Luckily I manage to grab him by the arm in time. We head up to the office (which is entirely too nice with too nice of a view) and get his business done. It turns out this was a follow up appointment to get the results of some previous appointment. It boils down to them telling him he's fine. They schedule another appointment in 6 months for whatever reason.

Once we're done with the eye doctor it's time to eat again. We hit a Denny's on the way and I have one of the worst sandwiches ever: the Grand Slamwich. It has this sickeningly sweet maple bread on it. Once again I'm punished for trying something new.

C'mon Baby Just Pump It (Louder)

We get back to the hospital where my mom is recovering. It takes a lot of convincing but we finally manage to assure her that she needs to use her patient controlled analgesia (PCA) whenever she begins to feel uncomfortable. She's pretty skeptical because it's loaded with morphine. "When you father had that morphine in the hospital it made him crazy." I resist the temptation to push the button on the PCA every time I'm near it and assure her that different people react differently to different medications. Go figure.

She gets her first post-op meal and shows off her Jello tongue. Priceless.

What Has Gone On Before

In April of 2009 (approximately one year ago) my dad thought he had food poisoning. I know it's hard to believe given the high quality cuisine to which he typically restricts himself. After a few days the symptoms never went away. He begrudgingly went to the doctor and was advised that it was his gall bladder and that it should be removed. They scheduled surgery and removed the gall bladder. The symptoms still didn't go away. He was then checked into the hospital and put on IV antibiotics. He was discharged after a week. After he was home he found that the symptoms were back. After yet another trip to the doctor he found out that he had an infection in his pancreas. He then underwent surgery to have the infected area "scraped" away. He came out of surgery in pretty bad shape and spent 15 days in ICU completely doped out of his gourd. He still doesn't remember anything from that period. After ICU he went into a rehabilitation facility for month. After that he finally went home. The basic before and after is something like this:

During this whole time I sent my wife, Lisa, down to San Antonio to help my mom out while all of this was going on. I came down on the weekends as work allowed, calling frequently (because, as my mother will tell you, I'm a very good boy). For a while there was genuine concern that my dad might not make it. Luckily he did but I don't think he's been the same since this incident. He forgets more than he used to, hasn't gained back the weight, is still fairly unsteady on his feet, and passes the most toxic gas I have ever smelt in quantities far in excess of what humans were meant to pass.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Airport

Fast forward to December of 2009 when Lisa and I were finally going on a much needed vacation. We were going on a one week Caribbean cruise aboard Disney Cruise Lines followed by one week at the fabulous Walt Disney World Resort. This is our standard vacation because we lack imagination and Lisa has some bizarre fetishes involving the costumed characters.

Before we could even get to the vacation part of the vacation we had to have my parents drive us to the airport. My dad was the wheel man for this now infamous journey. To the dialog:

Me: Can we just take 410 to the airport? It's much more direct than the other way you like to go.
Dad: What's that?
Mom: THEY WANT TO TAKE 410 TO THE AIRPORT.
Dad: What's 410?
Mom: THE ROAD. 410. TO THE AIRPORT.
Dad: We're going to the airport?
Me: Yeah. Can you just go 410? It's a lot quicker.
Dad: Which way is 410?
Mom: Go to the right.
Me: To the right.

He then turns left which is the way he likes to go.

Mom: YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!
Dad: What? Which way am I supposed to go?
Me: To 410. The right.
Mom: THEY WANT TO GO VIA 410. THEY SAY IT'S EASIER.
Dad: What's 410?

He then turns into one of the side streets, loops around, and comes out onto the street we were just on. He then turns left again instead of right.

Mom: YOU'RE STILL GOING THE WRONG WAY!
Dad: Well why don't you tell me which damn way you want to go, Virginia.
Me: Forget it. Take us back to the house and I'll take a fucking cab.
Dad: What?
Mom: THEY WANT TO GO 410! IT'S EASIER!
Me: If you can't find the fucking airport after living here for 50 years I'd rather just take a fucking cab to the airport.
Dad: Hey! Watch the language.

At this point he starts driving faster and more aggressively. He takes the next turn at a pretty unsafe speed. I genuinely want to take a fucking cab to the fucking airport (profanity required).

Lisa: Um, that's a cop behind you by the way.
Dad: What?
Mom: SLOW DOWN! THE POLICE ARE BEHIND YOU!
Dad: Which way now?
Me: There's the house. Just pull in there and I'll take a goddamn cab to the goddamn airport.
Lisa: Just go whichever way you know how to get to the airport.
Dad: What?
Mom: GO STRAIGHT! THAT'LL GET US TO 410. IT'S EASIER.

We finally get to the airport and yes it was via 410. It didn't feel any easier for some reason. The wife and I had a lovely adventure in many far away lands and we may have even found a magic ring that turns the wearer invisible. I honestly don't remember. The End…..?

I have yet another co-worker, this one a Chinese lady that can be seen here in her natural "talking on the phone" pose:

Anyway, she informed me that many women in China get that done after pregnancy. I told her I thought she was mistaken but that according to what I've read online, "many women in Thailand get vasectomies." She didn't seem to get it so we launched into a 5 minute "who's on first" style routine.

I decided a few weeks ago to visit my parents since it had been a while. We called the day before and reminded them to turn on the air conditioner. Even though we live in Texas and the weather had been in the high 90s to low 100s, they had decided that they weren't going to run the air conditioner. I could understand this if money was particularly tight, but it isn't. They still go out to eat a couple of times a day. It turns out that my mom was mad that the electric rates had gone up. But that still wasn't why she wasn't running the air conditioner. No, it was because they raised the electricity rates on her church. So, in protest, she was partially boycotting the electric company by turning off her air conditioner and living in extreme discomfort. At night they take turns sitting in the bathtub to cool off. Worse yet, they turn off the lights because all of the windows are open and they don't want everyone to see them naked. So, you've got two 70 year olds getting in and out of the bathtub in the dark. I'm sure the utility company will cave to their "demands" any day now.

These Computers Keep Breaking

As soon as we arrive, I find out that both of their computers have something wrong with them. My dad hit the phone line with the weed eater. That knocked out the DSL. When the phone people came out to fix it they "did something on one of the computers." That took care of that one. The other computer "has problems if you leave it alone and don't bring it down completely." Yeah. Next:

Mom: Your cousin gave us one of those fax copiers things.
Me: A printer/fax/scanner/copier in one?
Mom: I think so. But one of them doesn't work. If you get it working I want to give it to Carl for faxes.
Me: Does he get a lot of faxes?
Dad: NO, HE AIN'T GOT A FAX MACHINE.
Mom: Well, no. But with this he could.
Me: Then it sounds like I won't be able to get it working.
Mom: Oh, and our old scanner stopped working. It won't light up any more.
Dad: TRIED TO GET ONE OF THEM BULBS BUT THEY DON'T HAVE THEM.
Mom: We bought a new one but it doesn't have the thing for this computer but they said you could get it on the internet.
Me: Like buy it on the internet?
Dad: NO, YOU CAN GET IT ON THE INTERNET.
Me: Download it?
Mom: Maybe.
Dad: YEAH. DOWNLOAD IT.
Me: Why not just wait until I came and have me pick a scanner out for you?
Mom: Oh, we don't want to bother you with that.
Me: That plan might not be working out.

The computer that the phone guy messed with turns out to be really easy to fix. It's just that the dial up networking keeps popping up. Done and done. One computer in one night seems good enough for me so I'm done with working on computers for the day.

Next, I try to figure out why my parents won't play the Wii I bought for them. I'm always hearing these stories about old people loving Wiis. My hope was that they'd be playing the living shit out of it and I could buy them Wii fit to further whip them into shape. Unfortunately, they're still playing the SNES. I can't pry them off of that piece of shit. I gave them an N64, a Playstation 2, and a Wii. Nope. They love that fucking SNES. I decide that I at least am going to play the damn thing. After turning it on I notice that the picture on the television isn't all that great. In the process of trying to fix it I get shocked half a dozen times. Since I no longer have feeling in my index finger I decide I may as well go to bed.

Los Barrios

As usual, by the time Lisa and I wake up on Saturday my parents immediately begin hounding us about where we want to go eat lunch/breakfast. I had seen a place called Los Barrios on the Food Network show Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Lisa and I had been wanting to try their famous puffy tacos so we pulled up a map and printed it out.

The car ride over is the typical white knuckle affair of my dad alternating between riding the ass of the car in front of him, trying to match the exact speed of other cars trying to merge into his lane, and second guessing the directions I got from Google Maps. Eventually we make it there and have a pretty good lunch. The puffy tacos are okay. I don't think I'd get them again but my dad seemed to be extremely impressed with their quesadillas. The parents sounded like they would go back so in all likelihood we will, since it's so hard to find places they don't bitch about (family trait).

At the end of the meal my wife tries to pay and my dad is very insistent that he will be paying for the meal. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and on the way tell the waiter to just put it on my credit card. I get back to the table quite pleased with myself. When my parents find out what I've done the drama beings. "What did you do!?" my mother exclaims. "Goddammit, why did you do that," my dad asks. The whole thing last several minutes and is just so darn precious.

After getting back to the house I try and figure out what is wrong with the other computer. It seems to lock up if you let it idle too long. I finally figure out it's the fact that the screen saver is activating. After installing Windows updates and upgrading the graphics driver I successfully change the expected up time of the computer from 30 minutes to roughly 30 seconds. That's right. It now blue screens immediately on boot up if I'm not in safe mode. A number of video artifacts on the screen lead me to believe it's either a problem with the RAM (which is shared by the graphics card) or the graphics card itself. I download and run memtest to rule out the memory. I figure the next day I'll just run to Best Buy and get a PCI (it only has an old fashioned PCI expansion slot) graphics card.

Adventures at Denny's

Meanwhile it's already time for dinner somehow. I'm still kind of full from lunch. My parents ask us where we want to go. After a lot of exchanges in the form of "anywhere is fine", we settle on the lowest common denominator of all restaurants–Denny's.

The whole evening is action packed. First, I find out that Carl now has his own house. My wife and I both express amazement at this fact. After much poking and prodding it comes out that my parents bought the house for him and he is somehow maybe going to someday pay for it or something. But not only does he have a house, his crazy girlfriend from Arizona is living in the house even though he doesn't want her to. She's called the cops on him a couple of times. One of those times she called the cops on him she actually got arrested because of an outstanding warrant. Brilliant!

She was bailed out by some ex of hers that came to get her from Arizona. For some reason she won't leave with the ex. The cops supposedly tell Carl that he can't throw her out even though he "owns" the house and they aren't married. This is the same line of bullshit that I heard about Andy and his crazy wife, though at least they were married. I again insist that this is not the law and that they should probably have Carl get a lawyer and have her thrown out. And again my advice is ignored.

During dinner I'm also informed that the wife of my other brother, Brian, is now allowed at my dad's funeral. Odd dinner conversation to be sure. First, I'm not sure when it became my responsibility to fight off the angry mob of people clamoring to get into my dad's funeral. Rest assured it's a job responsibility I won't take all that seriously. Next, I didn't know he had a list of people that weren't allowed or that I was supposed to be keeping up with it. Since I don't particularly give a shit, I decide to just drop it.

"Now, when we die the remainder of that house is supposed to come out of Carl's share," my dad explains. I say I don't really want to deal with it and that Brian is more than welcome to sort it all out. "Brian won't talk to Carl," my mom says. I ask why and my dad loudly says, "Because Carl called Brian's wife a nigger."

As has happened so many times in my life (because of incidents just like this), I am very suddenly acutely aware of the number of black people in the vicinity. I count five, one of them our waiter and of course our food hasn't arrived yet. Shit. I briefly ponder how I can subtly communicate with our waiter that, while I'm perfectly fine with him dipping his balls in my parents' food, I don't really consider myself to be "with them." I don't get the opportunity and manage to gain comfort by convincing myself that 1) nobody heard it, 2) black men's balls probably aren't poisonous (my dad would probably disagree), and 3) despite my parents' best efforts I somehow turned out okay. This is where I'm supposed to talk about how many black friends I have. We'll skip over that and just move on.

Movie Night

After we make it home my parents decide they'd like to watch a DVD that Lisa had brought with her. My parents hadn't yet seen Ratatouille and it seems like the kind of movie they'd find "cute." I hear my mom say from the other room, "Well, Robert will have to fix the DVD player first. It doesn't play." Great.

I begin trying to untangle the mess of cables in their entertainment center. They've still got the satellite receiver in the mix even though they no longer use it. It's a real satellite dish by the way, not a DishTV. They've had it around 20 years because my mom got mad at the cable company and decided to boycott them. Sound familiar?

While I'm trying to figure out how to get their DVD player playing to the TV they both sit there asking me what I'm doing, which is a big help. Apparently the VCR, DVD player, and satellite haven't been used in a few years so they're not sure how they were set up or even if they ever really worked. And despite the fact that old people are blind, they all keep their houses as dark as possible which makes figuring out their wiring setup an exercise in frustration. When I try to turn on the light on the ceiling fan I get shocked again. My index finger is in a constant state of tingliness.

While trying to rewire stuff one of the coaxial cable's ends comes right off. That could be a problem. I ask my mom if she has another cable. "That bag has some stuff in it." I look in the bag and find two phone cords, a wall jack for a phone, and a power supply to some unknown device. She continues to look and screams back, "I found one but it's one like what you had." I finally give up and plug the DVD player directly into the RCA jack auxiliary inputs on the front of the TV. We start the movie.

Before the opening credits finish rolling my dad is out of his seat and headed toward the kitchen. He's going to take his medicine, find something to eat, and "go from there." Of course he couldn't do this during the 20 minutes I spent trying to fix their AV setup. No, he wanted to constantly ask me what I was doing. I pause the movie for several minutes and my mom finally says to go ahead and play it. She says "he can just listen to it from the other room." Of course, he's mostly deaf so I don't think that'll be an option. I've had enough and wander back to the bedroom jot down some notes for this blog post.

Dude, You're Getting a Dell

The next morning, Sunday, we head to Best Buy to find that the only PCI graphics card they have in stock is $135. That just seems ridiculous. My wife says, "Fuck it. Just buy them a new computer." We look at several options. We should be able to get them a whole new machine, sans monitor, for about $400. Of course both the lowest priced models (an HP and a Dell) are out of stock. We finally settle on a $500 Dell, buy it, and head out. I'm paying some for convenience but at this point I don't really care.

When we get to the car my mom asks me if I bought a whole computer. If so she'll pay for it, etc. I tell her it's a graphics card–they're bigger than she thinks and they're very wasteful on the packaging. I'm pretty sure she didn't believe it. We get back to the house and I have the new computer up and running in about 15 minutes. Incidentally, Vista is not nearly as bad as you constantly hear. I will remain a Linux person, but I just thought I'd let you know.

I tell my mom that she has a new computer and that it's an early Christmas present. She insists she should pay for it so I say, "Fine. I want your SNES and a promise that you won't buy another one." She actually refuses! She won't trade me a game console from 4 versions past that would cost $15 today for a $500 computer. Plus, you can get some of the SNES, N64, and GameCube games for the virtual console on the Wii. Mark my words, they will play that fucking Wii.

Lisa and I load up the car (including my new old computer with a non-working graphics card), say our goodbyes, and head out. Another family visit is in the books.

I'd mention this on the CastaBlasta site but they have comments turned off. That's too bad.

At the end of January, Lisa and I decided to take another vacation to Disney World. The plan was to spend a week out there with a friend of hers from the Boston area and her English boyfriend. We usually drive down to the parents' house the night before and fly out on a Saturday. For the second time in a row I thought it would be cool to drive down on a Thursday, work remotely on Friday, and fly out on Saturday. It makes the whole trip a little easier on me, the wife, and the dogs.

We got in Thursday night and my mother lets it slip that my train wreck of a brother, Carl, is supposed to arrive shortly after we leave for vacation. While talking to my dad she mentions that she's not sure if Carl is still coming on the 1st. This is all news to me. I ask, "So, Carl is coming on the 1st?" She goes into lie overdrive and says she doesn't know and pretends that this whole things is all very short notice to her.

Carl was last known to be in Arizona with his crazy girlfriend, panning for topaz or some such. The last I heard he would never be back and wouldn't be welcomed if he tried to return. I finally find out that Carl is planning on moving back to Texas without his woman. He's also planning on bringing his big dog with him. This disturbs the wife and I a bit as we have three very small dogs and I'm sure that Carl's dog won't be the best behaved of beasts.

I again emphasize that I'm not happy about this whole Carl situation. My mom says he can put his dog in the garage while my dad screams, "You think your mother doesn't know what's going on!? Why do you have such a problem with Carl?" That's probably a good point. It's not like he has a history of being a dumb ass…

Carl decided to move back to Texas after a visit over Christmas. He Greyhounded his way in, spent some time fishing at the coast, and then headed back. When he got back, he got stuck at some bus stop, called his girlfriend to pick him and was met with her laughter and general refusal to come get him. That's when he decided to come back home and leech off the parents more directly. Here's a picture of one of his fishing trophies from Christmas:

That's a handsome man. Of course, my parents show me this as a print out since they insist on printing everything (occasionally they rescan these pictures for some reason). The picture looks like shit, probably due to the large quantities of discount refurbished ink they buy, despite my insistence that that crap is ruining their print quality.

Why not write a book?

My mom then drops the bomb that she's thinking of writing a book. As background, my parents manage several rental properties that they've acquired over the years. They rent to disreputable poor people that like to destroy rental properties, as nearly as I can tell. The idea of the book is very unclear–it's either supposed to be a "how to" guide or a joke book. I point out that those are very different things and am generally ignored.

The "book" as it currently stands is a collection of stories she's collected over the years as a landlord. I think it should be called, "So You Want to be a Slum Lord," but I don't think that title is going to win out. When I ask what she plans on doing with it my dad screams, "She's going to get it published!" She currently has 11 hand written pages of directionless text. My dad then goes off on some tangent telling my mom that she needs a ghost writer because she can't write. They bicker back and forth for the next 30 minutes or so.

I'm Trying to Work Here

I get up Friday morning and try to work remotely using their slow ass DSL connection. The speed is made that much worse by Lisa sucking down all the bandwidth by using Second Life. I finally tell her she needs to get off in order for me to work. I spend the morning on a conference call with the insane people I work with. The meeting was scheduled for 1 1/2 hours and went up going 2 1/2 hours because no one can stay on track. We spend the last 20 minutes listening to the sales guy monologue about trying to put some research item to bed. He goes around the participants trying to elicit an "amen" and winds up with a handful of definite maybes. Very productive.

At noon I end the call and break for lunch. Me, the wife, and my crazy parents load up in the car to go eat. The wife suggests a place to go for lunch and my mom finally lets it slip that we're supposed to meet some relatives for lunch–an hour ago. I don't think they'll still be waiting on us and insist that my mom call them to find out. She calls, gets their voice mail, and then just hangs up. My parents decide they'll just drive to the meeting location, run in, and tell them that I don't want to eat with them. So I say we can just eat with them, though I'm not particularly happy about being duped into eating with more crazy people. I emphasize that we could just call them and let them know we're not coming. My dad flips out and starts screaming, "She did call! Jesus Christ!"

"Yeah, but she didn't leave a voice mail," I say.

My dad responds in his usual calm manner with, "They wouldn't have listened to it anyway! Goddammit! Jesus Christ!" We arrive at the cut rate buffet we're supposed to meet them at. Lisa finally gets fed up with me being related to raving lunatics, says she's walking to the nearest fast food restaurant, and wishes me good luck. At this point my dad calms down and we all convince Lisa to stay and eat with the family. I'm sure she's grateful for that.

We then proceed to eat crappy food while one of my cousins keeps calling me by a different brother's name. "Long time no see, Brian." She then insists that she's met my wife despite the fact that I haven't seen this cousin since I was a child. The whole group, uncle and two cousins, then jibber jabber incessantly until I finally eat my fill and drop numerous hints that I need to get back to work. Here's a bonus pic of the uncle p0wning Super Mario Brothers 3:

Dinner Time

I finish off the work day and find it's time for dinner. My parents like to eat dinner around 5pm or so. While discussing where to go, my parents drop numerous references to the fact that we don't like their new favorite Chinese restaurant. It's good to see they noticed. They decide to go to one of the Chinese places we actually like. Unfortunately, Lisa doesn't like the dinner menu there because it has some of the normal lunch items missing, has some seafood added that she won't eat anyway, and has a jacked up price that my parents complain about all through dinner. My dad then gets obsessed with the missing item issue and begins demanding a detailed list of exactly what items they're missing.

Lisa won't talk to him when he's in the middle of one of his rants so I have to try and explain. The best I can do is, "I don't know, but they do. She's not wild about their seafood and it's no longer worth the price if you're only eating the same stuff (if available) from the lunch menu." 20 minutes later he starts asking again, out of nowhere. I say, "This shit again? Do I really need to answer this again?" Insert awkward silent drive here.

After eating, Lisa needed to stop by the grocery store to pick up some stuff for the dogs. We went to HEB and convinced my parents to stay in the car since it'd be quicker. As we're about to exit the car my mom gives us some HEB gift card she bought from the church and says, "This might have something on it still." It wound up having 99 cents on it and took an extra 5 minutes to use because the cashier was confused by it. But on the plus side, I saved 99 cents. Woot!

Now That's Entertainment

When we get back, I hang out in the living room while my parents watch 1 versus 100 on full volume. While watching they scream answers at the television as if it's some two way communication medium and Bob Sagat will somehow value their input. A couple of times the contestant used a "help" when they didn't know the answer. My parents start screaming at the television berating the person for wasting one of their help options. Ironically, they then continue to scream out what winds up being the wrong answer at the television.

Disney World, Take Me Away

I head to bed, get up early the next morning, and take a white knuckle ride with the parents to the airport. We fly out, land, and spend a nice relaxing week at Walt Disney World. One of the highlights of the trip wound up being the Pirate and Princess Night at the Magic Kingdom. Disney closes the park, charges another ticket price, and has pirate / princess related activities and photo opportunities. A lot of people dress up for the party and we were no exception. Much alcohol was consumed, much fun was had. All of this despite the fact that the parents tried to put their "crazy" stink on the whole thing.