Randomousity

Sometimes you just don't have a topic to write about. So you get a post like this where you just list some random things going on.

• Yesterday my boss was promoted to a Director of our company. We found out while he was out of the office and he came back in the middle of one of our meetings. Upon him entering, I stopped the meeting mid-sentence, stood up and yelled CAPTAIN ON DECK. Our entire office staff jumped to their feet and saluted. This was not pre-discussed. We just all think on the same wavelength and our office atmosphere is such that the reply was along the lines of "screw all of you guys." What does this mean for me? Not a damn thing. Yet.
  
• I was going to really make an effort to fulfill Mike's tag/book list/thing but I only get to read on planes and in airports so here's my half-assed version.
  

One book that changed your life: The Making of An American Landscape. This book forced me to survey my surroundings no matter where I am and think about what others were thinking when they designed something in particular, like Central Park or rock gardens, or worship halls. I find that whenever I people watch I find myself thinking of this book which forces me to think about how people socially affect the landscape they interact with. Close runner up: Who moved my cheese?


One book you read more than once: Strike one. I don't have time to repeat books. I'm lucky if I can finish one.


One book you'd want on a desert island: Well, that depends. Am I alone on said island? What's the temperature? I'm thinking a set of encyclopedias would be nice to burn and keep me warm for a while at night when the sun goes down. (I know that's not the point of the question, but I'm a realist. Read a book or freeze to death?)


One book that made you laugh: America The Book. Jon Stewart for President!


One book that made you cry: Strike two. Maybe Old Yeller a long time ago. I was like 4!


One book you wish had been written: I don't get the fascination with Harry Potter by The Delawarean. Seriously. I don't understand the fad. When I was 3 Disney came out with Fantasia. Substitute a mouse for a kid with glasses. Same thing.


One book you wish had never been written: The 9/11 Commission Report. I wish there was never a need to write that.


One book you're currently reading: The Tin Man. Good airplane material. I like action books.


One book you've been meaning to read: (This is so cliche, but...) The Da Vinci Code. Everyone in the world has read this and I refuse to see the movie until I read the book.


Tag five others: Strike three. Homey don't play that.

• I rented a storage unit in northern DE the other day. I plan to slowly migrate my junk north during each commute to my office.
  
• I never realized how different cultures are. A Chinese coworker was walking through the new office construction area with me and commented how in China they don't use dry wall. Most things are brick and everything is done by hand. He was amazed at the aluminum studs and how fast construction was done.
  
• This is why I own a Jeep. (It doesn't get really impressive until about the 1:40 mark).
  
• I was in a bar/pub in St. Louis the other day and 5 U.S. Marines came in wearing dress uniforms. A somewhat drunk patron yelled GO ARMY! in an attempt to show support. They paid him no mind. I kindly leaned over and informed them that they were Marines and that there is a difference. The guy then got up, went over to their table, apologized, thanked them for serving and paid for half of their tab. That's what I like about St. Louis.
• I'm stoked about moving up to northern DE. I will finally be able to start the life I planned on starting six years ago when I moved to Dover.
  
• I'm hungry. Must go eat.
  

Size does matter

I'm happy to announce that due to the kick-ass team of coworkers I have here in Delaware, my office is growing. My company already has offices all over the country but, we only opened this office June of 2005, and already we are expanding. And each and everyone of us busts our asses in that office. Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows how many hours I actually put it. Now multiply that for everyone in my office. I can honestly say we have the best GIS team in the entire company. It makes my job easier knowing that I have developers that can back up the promises I make to clients.

Anyway, back to the expansion. I have been somewhat responsible for overseeing this effort. Fortunately for us, the office space directly next to our current office is empty, so all it's going to take is a little demolition and construction (which is actually about 70% complete). But perhaps the best part about this is that since we needed walls built, we could essentially pick the size of our individual offices.

(Insert ear-to-ear grin here.)

Sooooo... I did what any normal person who wants a comfortable working space would do. I made my office big enough to play full court basketball in! Seriously, it's freakin' huge. But, I'm not the boss (yet). So I had to make his just a tad bit bigger than mine. (office envy) I have windows stretching the length of the whole office, but he has floor to ceiling windows and a corner office. So essentially he has no outside walls. He could also put a pool table, a hot tub and a wetbar in there if he wanted to.

And as for the others who worked equally as hard as I did? Well they got nice windowed offices too. You won't find a single cubicle in my office. Not as long as I have any say about it. Cubicles are the anti-Christ.

Now I just have to find some nice young, hip, trendy office furniture to simulate that Google-type working atmosphere so we can create the next Google Earth.

You read my mind

I try and be as original as possible with my postings, but once in a while you stumble across something that simple cannot be put better any other way.

Case in point, Mike's recent post about an image he found on flickr (which actually belongs to the site Worth1000) and the commercials that relate to it. Here's the image, but like I said, he explained it perfectly, so go read it. Now.

Must have been a woman's idea

In my quest to find a home in northern Delaware, (which from this point forward will be referred to as The Neverending Story) I've noticed a recurring theme with a great number of houses I've looked at.

There seems to be a lust for converting one's garage into an additional bedroom. An I'm not talking about 1 bedroom houses here either. I'm talking about houses with 3 existing bedrooms and a perfectly fine garage, converting it to another bedroom. Take the house below for example.

This was a nice little 3 BR, 1 BA house with a nice one car garage. Perfect for, oh, I dunno, say ME. But then they had to go close up the garage and stick another BR in there. And I'm convinced that this trend started as a woman's idea. Because no man in their right mind would willingly just give up a garage.

To a man, a garage is so much more than just a place to park your car. It's a work bench, an automotive repair center, a tool shed, a sporting goods equipment locker and probably the most important, it's a refuge from a nagging wife and kids where a man can go and relax and pretend he's "working" on something. Aside from serving as the focal point for all manly activity in the house, the garage serves as an educational center enriched with family bonding capabilities. How else are young men supposed to learn to work on cars with Dad and cut wood with power tools? A garage is where a man becomes a man! I learned all of my automotive knowledge by pulling things apart in my old garage and putting them back together. It's where I parked by bicycle when I was a kid! How can one just extinguish a garage without thinking about the repercussions on future generations?

Now, I realize that as people with actual families need more space, the garage is probably the cheapest and easiest way to expand a home, but for God's sakes people garages are becoming EXTINCT!!! This trend of "garage-less" lifestyles is spawning generations of metrosexuals and people who can't do things for themselves.

What is to become of us? Where is society headed? I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know that when I needed questions like these answered when I was young, I headed out to the garage to ask my Dad...