I love Halloween. Though NOBODY invited me to any cool H'ween parties this year. Boo on them. But I can look back fondly on the crazy 'ween I spent on Bourbon Street in New Olreans last year. I should dig up some pics and post 'em. Mmm...I can taste the Hurricanes.

So usually about 4 bags of candy bars are about enough for me to give the kiddies two bars each, but I'm getting slammed tonight. And to the kid who showed up in a blue zipped up sweatshirt and announced he was a blue monster--TRY HARDER!! You'll never get anywhere in life with that attitude. If your parents won't help you with your Halloween costume now, they sure as hell won't pay for you to go to college. Better get used to making fries and reeking of beef tallow.

But seriously, I love those little fuckers. To be a kid in a blue sweatshirt again...

No, this isn't a post about sexual exploration in college. It's about breakfast. The contents of my freezer yielded another pleasant surprise, as I craved a hardy, unhealthy, old-fashioned, meat-filled breakfast this morning. Usually I keep my breakfast and lunch relatively light, like a banana and soup, respectively. But today I found the ground deer sausage. Jackpot. I breakfast-ized it up a little more by adding some coriander and sage, whipped up some biscuits from scratch, and slathered them all with maple syrup. Tasty! I have plenty left too. Mmm...perhaps that will be my dinner, as well. Better not skip my workout today!

As you may recall, I started a new job a little over a month ago. Yesterday I learned that our network/hardware/sysadmin guy resigned...to go work for the company I just left, Pearson. It never ceases to amaze me the coincidences I run across at times. One of the guys I gave as a reference when I was interviewing for my current position turned out to know my now-boss. It just goes to show, never burn a bridge! You never know when it'll come back and bite you.

Rarely do I reuse or repost my own work, but I just sent an email with a passage I felt was rather inspired. I think it's all the more fun that you don't know the context in which this was written (and yes, it's fictional!). Also note that I confess to coming back and editing this post to anal retentively change minor punctuation and sentence structure issues. I'm a geek that way (among others).

"But afterward, I rewarded myself for a job well done. I shook my own hand, patted myself on the back, and coaxed myself on with gentle, soothing words of encouragement. I told myself that I was special, unique, and worthwhile, and drank myself into a somewhat belligerent stupor. Before I knew it, I was in the neighbor's yard cursing him and his involvement with the Marxist regime called the Pastry Chef's Union (local 1209) and throwing store-bought eclairs at his windows--I know how much he hates them. I took sick pleasure in smearing the processed cream filling (mixed with far too much refined sugar and color additive) on his door to spell "Union Puffs Go Home" I then covered the cream with bourbon, lit it on fire and laughed as it carmelized and bubbled into the paint. I danced in front of the flames, shrieking in glee and rising anguish until I sobbed and collapsed to my knees into a pool of half-melted, shitty-tasting supermarket bakery whipped cream. It was then that I knew I'd gone too far and that it was too late to turn back."

Just got home a bit ago from a sneak preview of North Country in Ye Olde Eagantowne. They were waving their metal detector wands around and searching bags making sure people didn't have recording devices. Thankfully they totally missed the 7 oz of heroin I had inserted into my rectum. But about halfway through the movie, I'd wished I had put the heroin in a baggie or condom or something. Evidently rectal tissue absorbs drugs quite quickly.

It's a joke, people. Lighten up.

Prior to the previews, I made my typical "preemptive strike". i.e. A preventative trip to the bathroom so I wouldn't have to manually clamp off the end to make it through the movie. I had quite a bit of water with dinner. On the way back, I figured they'd have to wand me again, and was resigned to it. Whatever. Well this old dude about 2 people in front of me throws a fit. "I'm not going through there again! You can't wand me." The security guy remained much more calm than I did, and explained that everyone had to go through the check every time they came back into the theater, but the old dude wasn't havin' it. "You can't make me go through again! Just let me by" ad nauseum.. I was thinking this guy is launching his little tirade fit in some sort of defiant protest of the eroding of his civil rights or some crap. But then a full 2 or 3 minutes into the argument, he says he can't be wanded because of his pacemaker and asks if they can just pat him down or search him. The look of exasperation on the security guy's face expressed what everyone within 15 feet of this argument was thinking: Why the FUCK didn't you just say that to start off with instead of making a scene and holding up the line, you old coot? What a dipshit.

That's really the bulk of my story, but North Country is good. Honestly, I probably would have had absolutely no interest in seeing it if it weren't for the fact it was based on something that happened in Minnesota and was also shot here. But I was more than pleasantly surprised. Mining, sexual harassment, and for some reason there was rampant smearing of feces. All the time with writing on walls with feces. Covering people in feces. Cleaning up feces. Did that part really happen or did the writers just like feces?

Oh, but be thankful you didn't have to sit through the live satellite interview they showed right before the movie. Charlize Theron and the director, Niki Caro were interviewed by some effusive, ass-kissing drip of a film critic whose name I don't remember and doesn't matter. But if this guy had is nose any farther up their collective ass, all you'd see was his shoes hanging out. Then they allowed some of the people in the various locations where the preview was playing to ask questions. Is it just me, or is everyone in America huffing paint? The questions coming out of these people's mouths were as dumbfoundingly pointless as the critic's existence. "Is it daunting to make a movie about true events?" "Do you like Pez?" "Can I touch your boobie?" Yes, no, and talk to me after the show.

Yes! I now have a functioning shower again upstairs. No leaks, no drips, nada! But now I have a hell of a mess to clean up. :-(

Comment from Kendra Monday, October 17, 2005 at 12:02 AM: thankfully its for you to clean... you should invest ina rosie robot to be your maid

Ugh...hopefully today was the last hardware store run (until my vanity/sink replacement project, of course). I replaced the shower pipe and yet again need to give things a couple hours to cure. Hopefully I can seal this shit up and start cleaning up my work-related mess in the bathroom.

Crap! Now all my other leaks are fixed, but my shower pipe is leaking like a Wal-mart bag full o' raw meat. I think I'm just going to have to redo the shower pipe completely. I'm tired of dealing with it, so I'm off to dinner with my friend Mary. I'll fix it tomorrow. At least I have running water. I like showering and flushing the toilet.

Like anyone who owns a house, particularly an older one (mine was built in '68--not ancient, but old enough!), I have a looong list of projects and improvements I'd like to complete. Well since starting a new job in Golden Valley, the possibility of moving a bit closer in the spring has crossed my mind. I'm taking a wait and see attitude on that, but I'm going to spend the next few months sprucing the place up just in case.

Wednesday night, I started project #1. Replace the fixtures for my tub and shower in the upstairs bathroom. Now this might sound rather easy, but part of the reason for wanting to do this was the fact that several tiles behind the tub faucet and hot/cold water knobs were cracked. Not only does this look like total crap, but it's a symptom of a bigger problem. The drywall behind it was rotten and crumbling from years of assorted leaks, including water now leaking from the shower running through the half-assed patched cracked tile.

I decided to start with just removing the broken tile and worrying about replacing the fixtures later. But I would at least have to unscrew the tub faucet and hot/cold knobs. Grab a hammer, wham, blam, you do the math! Easy enough. But the situation behind the tile was much worse than I'd thought. Mold or mildew or something nasty caked the drywall. Not good! I was going to have to pull out a hell of a lot larger section than I'd thought. So I started popping tiles, pulling out soggy, rotten drywall like crazy.

This is great, but I now need a surface to put the replacement tiles onto. Instead of using another piece of drywall to just get soggy and moldy, I replaced that section with a piece of wonderboard. Wonderboard is almost like a thin slab of cement filled with a matrix of fibers. It's sold in sheet form like plywood or particle board. You cut it by scoring it (scratching a line into with a special tool to cut some of the fibers and weaken that point) and breaking off the section you want.

Now I should have prefaced all of this by explaining that I'd turned the water off while I was working just in case. All I need is to somehow accidently crack open a pipe and send water all over my basement directly below the bathroom. The problem is that whatever dipshit did the plumbing in the house only put in one cutoff valve--the main cutoff in the basement. So turning the water off is all or nothing. It's either all on or all off.

Nine-thirty pm rolled around, and I decided it was time to wind down for bed. I wanted to shower off all the mildewy cruddy gunk, so I turned the water back on. I heard a *ping* and water gushing upstairs. What the hell??? I quickly turned off the valve again and ran upstairs. Evidently the plug where the cold water knob connects in my tub had chosen now to pop off after 40+ years in there. My guess is that the seal had weakened over the years, and the pressure from the soggy drywall and tile was just barely enough to keep it seated in there. Pressure gone. Plug gone. Water out. Jeremy pissed.

Ok. so what do I do now??? I have no running water and no way to plug this damn thing. I tried using a clamp to keep the plug in there as a stop gap measure, but it leaked like crazy. I had no running water!! Crap!! So I ran to Home Depot, about 10+ minutes from my house to get a screw-on pipe cap.. Closed!!! WTF?? For years this damn Home Depot stayed open until 10 during the week. They had changed their weekday hours to close at 9 pm instead. Crap. I'm screwed. On the off chance they'd have something I could use, I drove to Wal-mart, which is just a few blocks from Home Depot. Jack and shit.

Ok, no need to panic. I thought about calling one of my friends, who I know would be more than happy to let me stay or at least use their shower in a situation like this, but I decided it wasn't all that dire. I went to Cub Foods to pick up a few items I needed anyway, and washed my hands, forearms, and face in their restroom. There. Now I'm sanitary. And living like a hobo.

I headed home, packed a bag with toiletries, a towel, and laid out my clothes for the next day, went to bed, woke up, headed straight to work, and showered in the locker room. That's right. As luck would have it, there is a locker room and shower facility in the building next door to where I work (the building is part of the same property). I got through the day, ran to the hardware store a couple miles down the road over lunch, and headed home to start anew.

This time I was not screwing around. I tored into this damn thing and decided I was going to get it ALL done. I ripped off pipes like a whore who wasn't paid. Cutting pipe lengths. Elbow joints, holes drilled, adhesives applied, stock footage of factory workers making macaroni. Things popped and clicked. Oh sure, I twice realized throughout the evening I was missing things and had to run to the hardware store nearby and later to Home Depot, but progress was being made. And by 12:30 am, waaaaaaaay too late for me on a week night, I stood proudly over a completely refajiggered shower, including all of the work necessary for the new fixtures!! Out friggin' standing.

Problem was that I needed to let the adhesives for the pipe cure for at least a couple hours before turning the water back on. So I went back to Cub, washed my hands, picked up a couple celebratory powdered donuts, and headed home and to bed.

I slept in until 7 am. I was exhausted after spending over 7 hours of the previous night running, pushing, drilling, turning, squeezing, squatting, lifting, cutting, and cursing. The alarm went off, and I immediately headed downstairs to turn the water back on. I checked the pipes. Hmm...2 leaks. One on a joint on the hot water pipe, and another where the nipple (hee hee...I said "nipple") for the tub faucet attached. The tub faucet nipple was easy. I had forgotten to put teflon tape on the threads and also hadn't tightened it enough.

The other leak was going to be more of a problem. I left it, showered up, turned the water supply back off, and headed to work.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of typing this (and let's face it, this is a boring story!), so I'm going to leave out some detail. But after working more on it last night, I realized today that I will simply have to redo the joint that is leaking. I cut the pipe out, and will have to run to the hardware store.

This time, I'm doing it right and will install cutoff valves on the pipes leading to the shower!

In the meantime, I've started putting the replacement tile on. It's finally coming together. I'll probably post some before and afters when I'm done.

Next project: replace the vanity in the bathroom, install a new countertop, sink, and fixtures. Stay tuned!

So it's after 1 am, and I'm still up because I have been working on fixing various and assorted pipes such that they do not leak and I am able to turn the main water line back on in my house. Whoever the dumbass is that didn't put any other cutoff valves between the main and the rest of the house should be shot.

I will post more later, but basically I haven't had running water since about 7 pm Wednesday.

Note from Jeremy: Prior to January 2, 2006, this blog was hosted at MySpace.

Find a violator of Jeremy's MySpace Pledge? Turn them in! Add comments here with your best examples of violations or send them straight to me, and I'll post them here. Don't believe what years of being beaten up on the playground supposedly taught you. Squealers are winners who shall prosper and lord over mankind as only gods amongst men (and women) are capable. So what are you waiting for you loose-lipped, spineless tub of crap?

Let me get things started. Many thanks to the person who pointed out a blatant violation of #2 right here (*cough* it was me!! *cough cough*). Take the time to read through the comments on all of this girl's photos for a good chuckle. For purely scientific purposes, we shall categorize her as "hot" and perhaps even "boobalicious". I particularly enjoy the comments on her photos from a poor fellow named Renato. Renato violates not only the tenets of Jeremy, but the tenets of acceptable netiquette by not being a fan of turning off his caps lock key or correct punctuation. Quotable gems from him include "YOU CAN POSE LIKE THAT FOR ME" and "I'D LIKE TO TAKE IT OFF WITH MY TEETH, THEN I LICK YOUR WET JUICY HOT STUFF". Quite the group of Lotharios posting on this girl's photos. If Lothario means man who regularly masturbates while crying.

A nice young lady (a fellow former North Dakotan I might add) on MySpace mentioned that she would like to use some info from one of my postings (or use it as a basis for one of her own). That's totally cool with me. I consider any blog or image I post on here to be freely redistributable with the following exceptions and stipulations: 1. Just give credit where credit is due. Credit me as the original writer/poster and maybe throw back a link to my blog: http://www.afterglide.com 2. Don't use my stuff for commercial purposes. However highly unlikely this one may be, I just wanted to cover my bases. If you intend to make money off of it, no dice, Chester. Or at least I want a taste. ;-) 3. Don't use it to badmouth me, insult me, etc. 4. Obviously #1 and #3, I don't have much control over. It's just a courtesy thing.

Got back earlier tonight from a trip to Grand Forks for a little get together at my aunt and uncle's house. Saw some of the cousins, and saw my cousin Heather's 10-month old son Hunter, her second child, for the first time (wasn't it just yesterday we were toddling around pretending we were Smurfs on our grandparents' farm???). Hunter's an active little guy and is teetering on the brink of walking on his own. He's a little stinker though. I underestimated him and allowed some minor damage to one of my aunt's ceramic ducks to occur while I was keeping an eye on him. I thought I could "mitigate the damage" he could do, as I put it, by kind of letting him play with some of these figurines, but also holding onto them. He could move them around, but not tip, drop, or break. Umm...nope! He managed to snatch up one of the little ducks and drop it onto the another figurine, snapping the head right off. Oops! Very clean break though. Should be good as new with a little glue. Since I have no kids of my own, and honestly haven't been around very young kids much (other than when I WAS one!!), 'twas a lesson learned. You can't mitigate the damage. You either prevent it or clean it up later. *grin*

Ok, so pardon me while I have a fanboy geek moment here, but I just got back from seeing Serenity at the theater in Eagan, and it kicked ass! Joss didn't pull any punches--if you've seen it, you know what I mean, and if you haven't, I don't want to say anything more for fear of spoiling it for you.

To those of you who wonder what the hell I'm talking about, go out and rent, borrow, or buy the DVD set of Firefly. It was a short-lived sci-fi show on Fox a few years back that they completely fucked up the marketing for, showed out of order, then just dropped it like a baby you've stopped loving. The movie Serenity picks up a few months after the last ep of the series and follows and resolves a few questions, but leaves a few others open (hopefully meaning more movies!). But it's self-contained enough to please the non-fanboys and girls. Quite a few hilarious one-liners in there, too.

Anyway, if I go on with this geeky rant any longer, I run the risk of never being able to find a meaningful, or even casual relationship with a woman ever again. ;-)