2007 April | BoWilliams.com

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Apr 252007

“Yeah, so this over here is the only building left out here that I used to work in that’s still occupied or existent–another one burned down, and the rest of them are empty–and there used to be these three big heat exchangers there on the east side, and one night one of them malfunctioned right at quitting time and it was looking like a big job and we had these UNIX boxes that controlled them and one of them was acting up, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t a hardware failure because it seemed fine when it was running, so I rolled up my sleeves and went to work and finally found where the control program was sending it the wrong signal, and anyway, my boss had called me earlier that night and told me to call him no matter what time it was when I got it working, and he appreciated me staying on and all, so it was like 2:30 in the morning and I called him and told him it was back online, and he said ‘thanks, you just saved me $50,000,’ and I said ‘no, I actually saved you $100,000, because…’”

…and I quit listening to that particular thread about then. Continuing:

“So yeah, we had some water damage, and of course the settlement wasn’t enough, is it ever?, but anyway I’ve just about got it all back together except for the base molding, and I know this guy who’s a great source for exotic woods, like the kind of stuff you won’t find at Home Depot or Lowe’s, and I thought it would be cool to see about making my own molding with a router out of this wood that I wouldn’t ever see anywhere else, and I…”

…and I quit listening to that particular thread about then.

I was aurally assaulted in this manner perhaps a year ago, and it all followed on the heels of me saying “nice to meet you, Lou.” (I’ll call him Lou.) I have not embellished. This is what the guy said 15 seconds after I met him. I would soon discover that he was like that all the time. He could not be quiet for five seconds in a row in the presence of another human being.

I’m amazed that some people are so poor at interpreting nonverbal cues like increasing conversational distance, breaking eye contact, and the like. Lou was possibly the most tedious person I’ve ever met. If you tried to interject with something intended to close the conversation politely, he’d talk over you. Eventually I just started walking away. He didn’t even process that correctly until you got far enough away that he was having to raise his voice so you could hear him.

I’ll readily admit that I have a pretty positive opinion of my skills with the spoken word. I like to be “the funny guy” at parties, meetings, or whatever, and I usually pull it off. But–and I know this will come as a shock to many of you, so be prepared–once in a while people just aren’t that into what I’m saying. So you know what I do then? I get drunk, mutter “I’ve had enough of this shit,” and start hiking back to my apartment (at night, five miles up a six-lane thoroughfare).

(Well, at least I thought that was a good answer one night at 22 years old.) But today, I shut up.

Occasionally I felt sorry for Lou. Correctly or not I’ll never know, but I interpreted his nonstop talking as a sign that he didn’t have many friends, or anything going on in his life sufficient to give him internal contentment. Most of the time I just thought “hey, you’re a grown man, and we weren’t friends for the first 98% of your life, so we don’t need to be now.”

The silicon-based assault on English

Family, Language, Memories, Professional 2 Responses »

Apr 242007

Several years ago I worked with a fellow I’ll call Mike. Mike was six or eight years older than I and an upper middle manager type; the sort of fellow who was going to appear on promotion-to-VP candidate lists for a year or two and eventually get there. I didn’t report to him, nor was he in my chain, but he was over the development organization with which I interacted daily.

Mike was a bit awkward socially. He had a good command of English, but he didn’t value conversational niceties at all, so he wasn’t any good at them. (This didn’t make him a very popular guy with several of my colleagues.) But what I noticed about him one on one was that he would frequently and deliberately pause during conversation, and something polite would inevitably follow such a pause. It was like he was spinning up his hard drive to find what he knew he was “supposed to say,” and then he’d say it. I found this endearing, because the spirit I read into it was “I don’t care about this stuff, but I know others do, so I should make an effort.” Sheesh, that’s more sincere than someone who’s just polite by habit, isn’t it?

The one thing that drove me crazy about Mike’s communication was that he wrote all of his email in all lowercase, e.g.: “i’ve been looking at this problem, and i don’t think it’s a showstopper. let’s make sure it’s documented in the readme and let it go.” It made me wish he’d spin up his hard drive for that too.

When it became clear that email was going to be ubiquitous–so, say, 1997 or so–I remember thinking “well, good. At least this new concentration on the written word will promote good grammar and spelling.”

Ha! I’m a little embarrassed that I ever thought such. Not only did that not happen, but now we have things like a texting contest won by a little girl who estimates she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month. That’s about 16 per waking hour, or more than one every 4 minutes. What would you guess her grammar and spelling are like?

More importantly, don’t kids go to school and play outside anymore?

I suppose there may come a day when that obnoxious cyber-shorthand, or whatever the hell the cool kids call it, becomes acceptable in formal English. If so, my children may suffer for it. I’m extremely proud of Nathan’s language development, and Aaron’s coming on strong. But given my vocation and avocation, you might guess that we try diligently to speak English properly around the house, so that’s what the boys are hearing and practicing. Daddy’s not at all hip to this new crap. It’s an assault on meaning, it’s baby out with the bathwater, and I’m not playing.

Of course, the pragmatic side of me realizes that if they need it, they’ll pick it up. I just hope they don’t need it. For it to ever be that important would not say good things about the state of English.

These roads lead to WmWms

Administrative, Menagerie 5 Responses »

Apr 242007

OK, my bud Jeremy at afterglide.com does this from time to time to hilarious effect, and my bud saintseester just did it, and hers were funny too.

So here are some recent searches that led someone to this blog. No idea what some of these folks have in mind, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?

pig windshield alabama
name rolls off tongue means strength beauty
v8 juice heavy metals
your hands are cold meanings
can it be cheeseburger time now
bat boone no more mr nice
proper grammar or myself know
third and fourth toe are spreading apart
what is a nappy headed bo
george carlin feminine hygiene
calculator desert creationism
bob barker soylent green
harley jane kozak smoking
how do people collect up gas?
grandmother optical illusion
weed dipped in mountain dew

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Family, Leisure, Memories 5 Responses »

Apr 242007

Lea and I (mostly Lea; thank you, dear) planned our annual trip to Gulf Shores today. We like to go just outside of peak times, and this is the last opportunity we’ll have to do so for quite some time. Nathan starts kindergarten this fall, so soon we’ll be at the mercy of the school calendar.

Gulf Shores is one of many reasons I love my home of Alabama so much. If you come to the beach down this way but usually go to Florida, give the Alabama coast a shot sometime. It’s a complete beach destination with beautiful sugar sand, incredible restaurants, and easily attainable division between touristy stuff and seclusion.

We handle said division by staying about ten miles down Fort Morgan Road. Stop a half-mile short of driving into the Gulf of Mexico and hang a right:

Everyone who stays at any of the places down there is after the same thing (or golf), so even though there are a fair bit of people around, it’s pretty quiet. And when you want the outlet shopping and the bungee-jumping and the live music, it’s not far.

Here are our favorite restaurants in the area:

If upscale ambience is your thing, Mikee’s is the last place you want to go. It’s a complete dive, about half as nice as the average Shoney’s. The upside is that it’s also priced about like the average Shoney’s, the service is good, and the food is the best we’ve found in Gulf Shores at any price. The barbecue shrimp is especially recommended.
We also go to Lambert’s Cafe, “that place where they throw bread at you” in Nathanspeak. It’s up the road a piece in Foley. It’s good country cooking, with sweet teas the size of depth charges; “pass-arounds” with a server who comes around with a pot of a tasty side dish (black-eyed peas, macaroni and tomatoes, that kind of thing) and asks if you want some (at no additional charge); and the signature touch: some of the best rolls you ever ate, thrown at you from as far as 50 feet away. No alcohol served, so best for lunch if you like a cocktail with dinner.
The Original Oyster House is coming on strong. We ate there for the first time on our last trip, and it was a fine experience. The fried alligator with hot tiger sauce appetizer was marvelous. Suspect we will pay them a validation visit this time around.
I blogged about the Bates House of Turkey, an outstanding all-turkey restaurant, before. It’s not in Gulf Shores, but you’ll probably drive by it on the way. It’s in Greenville, a block off I-65 at exit 130. I hated to drive by it going and coming on my power trip to the Mississippi coast last month, but it was all about ETA! (It was also 7:00 in the morning on the way down, now that I think about it.)

Hmmm, I’ll have to be sure to get a lot of walking in. I’ll be all right with arrested weight loss on the trip, but I don’t want it reversed.

Alabama vs. the Yellow Jackets

Family, Sports 2 Responses »

Apr 222007

Nathan has largely moved to “real” Lego bricks, but he still dabbles in the Duplo from time to time. This is his football field, complete with goalposts and players. Alabama is playing “the Yellow Jackets.” (Charles pulls for Georgia Tech.) I don’t know who has the ball, but it looks like Tech has punched a pretty good hole either way:

Nathan told me the tallish red and blue bit by his arm is the “giant Pepsi can where the guy throws the football in the hole when the teams aren’t playing.”