Silflay Hraka

I woke up this morning to the sound of chirping. Not the chirping of birds but the chirping of the fire alarm. It was the kind of chirping you get when the battery in the smoke detector starts to go stale. As always seems to be the case with these things, the battery decided to give up the ghost some time around 5:45 this morning. Why the battery can’t die at a decent hour of the day is a mystery to me. It seems like this isn’t the first time I’ve woken up in darkness with the smoke detector reminding me to change its battery.

Using the logic of the barely wakeful, I try to convince myself that it will stop soon, of its own accord. No need to get out of bed. The battery is clearly dying. Maybe it will soon die to the point that I don’t have to deal with this until later.

I tried diligently to ignore it but the little chirrups come with a regularity and sharpness that brook no delay. It’s amazing how annoying the damned things can be. Every 30 seconds produced a short, sharp, urgent note. “Awake! Awake! Fear, fire, foes! Awake!” Isn’t once every 5 minutes a sufficient reminder? Apparently not.

After three or four minutes of shrill insistence, I groggily made my way out of bed to do what every red-blooded American man does when faced with a dying electronic device at some ungodly hour of the morning - disable the damned thing until it could be dealt with at some future reasonable hour.

Apparently the architect knew my sort and planned accordingly. The smoke alarm in my bedroom is planted above the door, approachable only by individuals of prodigious height or by those resourceful enough to have a ladder at hand. Who has a ladder in their bedroom to deal with situations like this? Obviously, someone wanted me to go through quite a bit of trouble to disable the smoke alarm. Someone wanted me awake.

Fortunately enough, I am the kind of person to have a ladder in the bedroom for just such an occasion. I like my sleep and I like it dark when I’m sleeping. That’s why I had the ladder handy. I’d been stuffing t-shirts into the space above my curtain rod so I could block out the light from the spotlight outside. Some people might buy a valance for just such a purpose. I stuff t-shirts. Redneck engineering, that is.

I can’t help it. I get it from my dad. There’s the proper tool for the proper job and there’s the way we do things. It might not be glamorous, but it works. Mostly.

At any rate, I grumpily move the ladder from the window to the door, climb up and try to remove the battery from the smoke detector by touch, trying to keep my eyes closed so I can remain in my restful state. Knowing that there is some kind of reset button, I push it and hope that will do the trick, making it cease and desist in its efforts to awaken me. Pushing that button produces a piercing squeal that jangles every nerve in my body. I decide quickly that I will not do that again. Instead, I pull and twist until the cover finally comes away. I expected the battery to be easy after that part but, to my surprise and dismay, I can’t find the battery. I open one eye to see if I could spot it but it was not to be found.

“Oooohh, don’t make me cut on the light”, I say to the room at large. Maybe I was talking to God. Maybe I was talking to the smoke alarm. Whatever. I just didn’t want to have to turn on the light to deal with this. I was asleep and I was going to stay that way.

This is when I spot the other smoke alarm in the hallway, by the way. Remember this. It will be important later.

I finally figure out that there’s a panel covering the battery and figure out how to prise it open. The battery falls out into my hand, I climb down, place the battery on the dresser, fly back into bed and resume my somnolence.

*chirrup*

…

*chirrup*

“I’m sleeping,” I tell myself. Again I try to convince myself that it will stop soon. I removed the battery for chrissake. How can it continue to beep with no battery?

*chirrup*

D*mmit. I must’ve removed the battery from the wrong unit. It must be the one in the hallway making the noise. The sound is so illusive, however. It really sounds like it’s coming from the room.

Foulness is growing in my soul at this point but there’s no recourse but to deal with the noise. There’s no ignoring it or sleeping through it. Once again, I force myself out of bed to deal with it. I move the ladder through the door and into the hallway. I climb up, twist the cover, pry off the battery cover, let the battery drop to the floor, climb down the ladder and head for bed.

*chirrup**chirrup*

I freeze in my steps, unbelieving. I’ve just taken the batteries out of the only two smoke detectors I can find in my home and something is still beeping. As a matter of fact, two things are now beeping.

*chirrup*chirrup*

I’m beyond peeved at this point. I’m also pretty much awake and just know I’m not going to be going back to sleep at this point. I’m guessing some genius put a backup battery in the damned things just so he could defeat resourceful battery-removing dreamers like me.

*chirrup*chirrup*

Every 30 seconds. *chirrup*chirrup*. *chirrup*chirrup*. It’s enough to drive someone bat-shit.

Back to the hallway. Grope around on the floor for the fallen battery. Continue groping until it’s obvious that I’m going to have to turn on the light to find the battery, something I’ve been doing my best to avoid up to this point. “Fine,” I grunt to the lightening gloom. I cut on the light, grab the battery, climb the ladder, stuff the battery back in, close the cover, climb down and…stuff the battery back in and…why won’t the battery go back in? Why won’t the f*cking battery go back in?? It just came out of there, for crying out loud, it should go back! I mean, it didn’t just come out, it fell out, without me doing so much as lift the cover! It’s not fair! I just want to sleeeeeep!!

*chirrup*chirrup*

Treating the alarm rather roughly, I do finally manage to shove the battery back into place. I close the cover and manage to silence one of the tweeting birds. Sounding much like Yosemite Sam falling off a cliff, I manuever the ladder back through the door, grab the battery to the original culprit, shove it back into place and vow to live with it until the alarm goes off. It’s either that or shove a screwdriver through the thing. Don’t think I didn’t consider it, because I did. Several times.

I climb down off the ladder, climb back into bed, jam a pillow down over my head and do my best to ignore the chirping. It’s 6:00 a.m. by this point and I only have 30 minutes before the alarm goes off anyway. And that’s when I notice the silence. It had finally stopped. I could finally relax. I manage to calm my breathing and my nerves and find the edge of blissful sleep again. All is right and well with the world.

And then my alarm goes off.

Figures.

Update: 2:33 a.m. That was the time on the clock when the d@mned smoke detector decided to start chirping again. Why it can’t start that crap at 8:00 p.m., I don’t know.

This time, I was strong. I did not get out of bed. I threw a pillow over my head and prayed it would go away.

It did not. But I stayed in bed until 6:30 anyway. Tonight, I go for batteries.

Deja vu: Sony uses rootkits, charges F-Secure

Sorry, all. I’ve been in Santa Fe for four days for a conference and haven’t been able to post. Here’s a picture of the Sandia Mountain range as viewed from the bank of the Rio Grande to tide you over until someone can post something else. Notice the moon hanging at the top right. I thought that was a nice touch.

Because I haven’t had a full physical in something like five years, my doctor suggested I have some basic blood work done when I last visited. I got the results in the mail the other day and one bit of good news is that I’m free from Hepatitis, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases starting with H, S and G. I did test positive for Rubella, but that is apparently a sign that I was immunized at some point as a child.

The other good news is that my triglyceride and cholesterol levels are incredibly low. Triglycerides are 38, HDL is 40 and LDL is 76. Total cholesterol is 124. Not bad, not bad.

Except I think I can do better. I think my HDL (good) cholesterol levels can be higher in relation to my LDL levels. So I’m embarking on an effort to raise my HDL.

Things I can do to raise my HDL cholesterol:

• Exercise more. I haven’t been running as much as I am wont to do, nor have I been hitting the gym as I used to do. An easy way to make a difference.
• Drink a glass of red wine every night. I already do this three or four nights a week which is probably why my cholesterol is low already.
• Eat a piece of dark chocolate every day. Once again, I do this already. One square of 70% - 85% dark chocolate every day.
• Drink a glass of orange juice every day. The above site suggests I could see a 21% increase in HDL over a period of four weeks. This is something I don’t do so it could make a difference.
• Eat more fish. I get two or three servings a week.
• Eat more oat bran. I eat wheat toast and wheat bread several times a week. I guess this counts. I also eat a lot of granola cereal. I don’t know if that counts or not. That’s worth a 15% increase.
• Eat half of a raw onion every day. This is not something I’m doing. I don’t know that I can. But it’s worth a 30% boost in HDL. I might try it.
• Eat a lot more fiber. I guess that means back to the apple (or three) a day.
• Eat a lot of curry. Curcurmin supplements could raise HDL 29%. At this point, I’ve lost count of how high my HDL should be. It should be at least 80 if all this stuff works. I don’t think 80 is normal for HDL. I’d be a freak of nature.
• Lastly, I could resort to taking niacin. It’s worth a 30% increase in HDL. And it makes for such lovely stories.

Anyway, the plan is to go back to the doc in three months for a full physical and see how things have changed. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted.

Okay, Do NOT go see Spiderman 3. It’s bad. It’s bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. It’s way beyond bad. It’s truly, monumentaly HORRIBLE.

I went to the 10:15 showing and couldn’t make it past 11:30 before I had to leave. That includes 15 or 20 minutes of previews, so I didn’t even make it an hour into the film.

The story is bad, the writing is bad, the acting is bad and the direction is bad. It’s all around bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Be forewarned. It’s worse than “Batman and Robin”.

I’m not kidding.

It’s bad.

Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84.

Been meaning to post this all day. I am not a huge fan of Vonnegut having read only one of his novels. “Slaughterhouse-Five” was the favorite book of an ex-girlfriend and I read it at her behest some years ago. I post this more for her sake than his, as I’ve been reminded of her every time I’ve seen the headline. She was a good girl and I’ve had opportunity to regret her from time to time.

Anyway, rest-in-peace to a man and a memory. May better things await both.

I’m stuffed. Stuffed, stuffed, stuffed, stuffed, stuffed. After another long day spent shopping topped off with dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. You’d think we’d never seen food before. We gorged. We knew we were over-eating but, in true American fashion, we continued to allow the meseros to bring skewered meats of all flavors and textures. And when we were done with the meats, we partook of the fruits and the desserts and the coffees and debated getting fresh plates for more meats, just because we could.

Thankfully, we didn’t start over again. We practically rolled out of the restaurant and each of us has been griping about an overfull tummy every since. We sit and wallow in lethargic silence, watching television and catching up on the news. I feel we are soon for bed and I for one look forward to it greatly. Unfortunately my place of respite, the fold-out sofa, is occupied by my fellow wallowers.

Tonight’s television fare is much different than last evenings. Yesterday was “Jackass 2″. Tonight is “Bridget Jones’ Diary 2″. I shudder to think that I may have to turn in my man card after this trip.

I do have one important tidbit of information to share, however. I have purchased my first wall ornamentation. Actual pictures to hang upon my actual walls. I am moving to a higher plane of bachelorhood, one that involves being able to decorate my own home. It’s been a long time coming. Those of you in Atlanta will have to come by and give me your opinion of my selections.

On that note, I bid you all good evening. I’m struggling to compose even this simple bit of prose through the fog of spitted animal flesh I consumed this evening. Wish you’d all been here to share it with me.

Here we are in lovely Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a few days of rest and relaxation. Many people blessed with a few days at the beach with friends would leave the laptop behind and cut all ties to the outside world. Those would be other people. There are no fewer than three laptops here at the condo and we’ve got a free wi-fi connection. So far we’ve had a few drinks, been to Broadway at the Beach and spent countless hours surfing the Internet and reading the news at each other. It’s like there are four of us and we’re all married to each other.

Actually, I don’t think we’d have it any other way.

While I enjoy being at the beach and being away from work, I miss Atlanta and I miss my new-found social life. It doesn’t help that I’m the only guy here with three women. Okay, that doesn’t sound right. It’s not that I mind being the only guy with three women. It’s just that the odd man out always gets a little extra abuse. But they’re old, good friends and we all understand each other and nobody takes anything personally.

Right now we’re home watching “Jackass 2″ and recouping from a day of shopping at Broadway at the Beach. We don’t have a lot of recouping to do to be honest. We slept in until 9:00, lazed around until noonish, went out for lunch and a trip to Target, went to Broadway at the Beach, did a lot of window shopping, had dinner at Margaritaville and came back home. We’ve not even stepped on the beach and I’ve only seen the ocean from afar, but it’s been coldish so there probably won’t be much beach-combing.

The drama of the trip to this point has been my drive down here from Atlanta. It’s a 6 hour trip on a good day and yesterday was not a good day. For one, I planned on leaving work at 1:00 p.m. and got hit with last-minute tasks and didn’t get away until 2:00. A one hour delay isn’t too bad so I wasn’t too upset with that.

The bad part didn’t happen until I got to the South Carolina border. It started to pour down rain and I heard this knocking sound coming from under the car. It was loud and very abnormal. I thought I might try to keep going and see if I could make it all the way without having to find a garage but I was four hours away still and didn’t feel good about the noise.

I pulled off in Aiken, SC, did a visual inspection of the front driver’s side tire (the source of the noise as far as I could tell) and, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, got back in the car to continue. I decided to see if I could find a garage before getting back on the Interstate but didn’t like my chances at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday.

God was on my side, however, and I found a little out-of-the-way garage a few miles away from the Interstate. There were several mechanics hanging around jawing and I asked if they had time to look under the car to see if they could identify the source of the noise. The conversation went something like this:

Me: (breaking out the deep Southern accent as a defensive maneuver) “Hey, fellas. How ya’ll doin’? Man, I’m glad I found you guys. I got this knockin’ coming from the left-front tire and I have to make it all the way to Myrtle tonight. Somebody have a time to take a look at it?”

Fella #1: (walking up from the passenger side of the vehicle) “Don’t need to look under the car. You gotta’ flat tire.”

Me: …

Fella #1: “How long you been drivin’ on that tire? It’s flatter’n hell.”

Me: (calculating…then lying.) “Uh…three or four miles I guess. I pulled off the exit as soon as I heard it.”

In reality, I’d probably driven up to 10 miles with this noise. I was going 75 miles-an-hour down the Interstate when I first noticed the noise and noticed that the car was shaking a bit. I slowed down to 70. I mean, I didn’t want to do any permanent damage to the car or anything. I thought perhaps a lug nut or two had come loose. I thought maybe I had a busted CV joint. On the driver’s side. I did not think I had a flat passenger side tire.

Okay, I probably didn’t go 10 miles. Maybe 5. But I was going fast, so I can’t be sure. The tire didn’t just have a hole in it. The belts had collapsed. Looking back on it, I feel certain that God was looking out for me as that tire should’ve exploded and I probably should’ve been in a horrible accident. This provides me with one more piece of evidence that I am favored of God and, because of this, I am bullet-proof.

Anyway, 15 minutes later, I’m back on the road and the car is surprisingly quiet. It made me wonder if that tire hadn’t been in bad shape for a lot longer. I feel much more confident about the long ride home, however.

So, here I sit, watching Jackass and blogging at the beach. Life doesn’t get much better than this. All I need is a pretty woman to share it all with. I mean, one that isn’t just a friend.

Maybe next time.

I’m at the store the other day, agonizing over which peanut butter to buy. I’m going back and forth between “Crunchy” and “Creamy”. I can’t decide whether to go with “Jif” or “Peter Pan”. I’m usually a “Jif” guy but I seem to have good memories of Peter Pan as well. It’s down to those two brands because I gave up on the store brand some while ago.

I’m also usually a Crunchy peanut butter guy, but I’m willing to branch out and experiment. I’m also thinking that I have most of a jar of Jif Crunchy back at the house. Breaking free from the constraints of the past, I grab a jar of Peter Pan Creamy.

What do I get for my troubles?

Salmonella.