Category: ranting

I got pulled over by a cop this morning in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The reason? My plates (which are personalized) register as belonging on an Isuzu Rodeo—my old car. Not a problem, I did not get a ticket or anything. See I have new plates in my car, and a plate transfer form from the dealership because the whole buying a car in C’ville and having them register it in DC was a fiasco and I still have not had a chance to get down to DMV to finish the transfer. So no ticket just a ‘you need to take care of this.’

Best thing was the realization that this cop was just sitting in traffic running the plates of the cars around her. Good to know my tax dollars are at work, actually working even while sitting in traffic.

So I flew to Atlanta today for work. And lets just say the security while ever present was severely lacking in effectiveness.

I checked in at the desk and got a seating assignment first. No problem. Then I went through the security check point to go to the gate. I stepped through the metal detector and ‘BEEP!’ The agent there said; “step back through… oh, no. Doesn’t matter, your airline selected you for a random screening. OK. So they went through my laptop bag pocket by pocket and scanned my shoes and hand scanned me and checked my pockets. Annoying but OK.

So now I’m waiting at the gate when I hear my name called to come to the desk. I get up there and they are handing out seating assignments. So I tell the woman I already have mine – that I got it from the check in desk. She looks at it and says ‘OK.’ Then five minutes later she calls my name again. So I go over there and she says; “did I call you again?”

“Yea,” I say. Then looking down I said “that’s probably because my name is on that boarding pass right there.”

“That’s your name?”

“Yes.”

“Well this boarding pass has a different name on it.” She says pointing to the boarding pass I was given at the check in desk.

At this point my mind is saying; “you’re fucked. Somehow you made it all the way through security – having like 6 people look at your ID and boarding pass and none of them noticed the names where totally different. You must be a terrorist. You’re fucked.”

But no. The attendant just handed me the boarding pass with my name on it, trashed the other one and said, “I wonder how that happened?”

I feel so secure. Do you?

Saturday afternoon I caught up with G████ for a few hours. About time as I didn’t see the boy between like March of `03 and when I got him a job a few weeks ago. Slacker. Anyway, we met up a Buffalo Billiards in Dupont and played a few games and drank a few pints. But low-and-behold G████ needed to head back to the little woman.

As we were standing on by the metro and he was getting ready to go a couple stopped us and asked if we were from around the area. Seems they were visiting and looking for something to do. Someone had told them that the 9:30 club is a happening place and they wanted to know how to get to it. Well the 9:30 club is a great place but lets be real the day before the forth of July you better have tickets. So I talked with them for a moment and then settled on the Brickskeller as the best place to direct them to. And they asked if I wanted to join them. Well, any couple looking to get trashed and asking strangers to come along can’t be all bad. Right? Yea? no crazy sex thing thoughts for you. Bad reader! I would never be so lucky.

So off to the Brickskeller while G████ scurries back to the little woman. And at the Brickskeller? Drink after drink after drink. The bill was close to $200, we were there from 8:00 pm till closing. Talk about drunk! We argued about all kinds of stuff; music, politics, life in general. We got drunk enough that we were arguing just to argue after a while. It’s kind of refreshing to drink and argue with strangers but still be having a good time. It was a good night. And I was worried when G████ said he had to go that I would have nothing to do for the rest of the night.

I’ve found a new girl to obsess over… Well not really an obsession, more of a desire to get to know someone more.

A week ago last Thursday—that was the 17th for those of you keeping count of my pathetic existence, but then again how pathetic must you be? Where was I? Oh yes, a week ago last Thursday I was set up on a kind or blind date with a friend of the girlfriend of one of the guys at work, who he’d never met—does this sound like a bad, late night dating show yet? Since my dating life could not get much more pathetic I agreed to call the girl and go for drinks.

We agreed that since she lived in Fairfax I would meet her at Carlos O’Kelly’s [ carlosokellys.com ] (I didn’t even know it was a chain until I just looked up the website!) So, we met. Now that was kinda fun. She’s not really someone I would date but we did have a nice long discussion of ethics that began with the question; “Why are you a vegetarian?” Our conversation was interesting enough to get the attention of the table next to us—who told us so after buying us a round of drinks.

As we were, uh, ‘discussing’ ethics a large group came in and started pulling tables together. One of the girls pulling tables and chairs together looked familiar. I mentioned to my companion that I thought I knew her. “I think I work with her. But I don’t know, I don’t see much of her, all I know is her name.” A few seconds later when she turned around and looked in my direction I was sure.

“Hello.” I said.

“Um. Oh, hey! How are you?”

That, along with introductions and a few seconds of pleasantries was the end of my interaction with my coworker for the night. Except when I got to make fun of her for singing during karaoke—which was funny. Very funny.

So, end of story for a week.

Fast forward to last Thursday. The guys at work usually play flag football—I’ve played a few times, but we didn’t have enough people to play a good game lest week. So we went for a drink or two at happy hour. Since everyone needed to drive home as they all live in the boonies we had one drink then left. I went back to work because I was looking for a little more of a night out. I called a few people but no one was answering or they were not up for going out.

Wait, I know, I’ll call the hot chick from accounting. Well, actually I was too chicken to ‘call’ her. I sent her a text message—hey it’s what we do!.

You guy’s going out tonight? Mind a tag along?

Who is this? And where are you?

Sorry, forget not everyone has the whole company directory in their phone book. It’s beggs, I’m at work.

Hey. No prob. We’ll be there about nine.

So I killed a little time and then headed back to Carlos O’Kelly’s for karaoke. She and her roommates and friends were already there. I crashed their party, and got to know her and her roommates a little bit. I also got a tad drunk. But so did they. They’re a fun crowd. I had a really good time, hope to do it some more.

Now for the introspective pseudo-psycho babel and whingeing. I don’t know what I’m thinking. I do think she is really good looking. And from what I know of her I do like her personality. I would like the chance to get to know her better. But there are drawbacks to her. 1) she smokes. And as everyone who knows me knows I don’t do well with the smoking think. 2) I work with the girl. I mean she works on another floor and I never really see much of her, but still. 3) Now this is the big one—she has a child. I’ve dealt with that before and the results were less than spectacular—at least for me. I put myself in that position a second time and fucked up my whole life for several years. Now I’m looking at someone and saying “I don’t really have anything against trying it again. You know, you’ve got to get to know someone before you cross them off for something that is part of them.” So. I’m not really obsessed and I doubt anymore will come of this tail but I would like to get to know her better.

Crazy German weekend. I went out to Arlington on Saturday to watch the Germany v. Latvia Euro Cup game [ euro2004.com ] with Thilo. The game was a disaster, 0-0 draw, poor showing by Germany. But a few Guinness made it better.

Afterwards we headed back to Thilo’s apartment. Drank too much wine and talked about random things. The thing that came up in the end was the possibility of renting a house out in Arlington—near Clarendon (and by association Whitlow’s) [ whitlows.com ]. I like living in the city, but a little more space and a roommate I know would be nice. Added bonus would be the 15 minutes off the commute. We’ll see, have to find a place and decide soon.

While Thilo and I where discussing this my phone rang. It was another German—R█████ [ confusion.cc ] whom I met in London. He was on his way from Baltimore to my place.

So back on the Metro and back to DC. I made it just after R█████ and his Girlie Danielle showed up. We headed out and had dinner at Thaiphoon. Really good to see R█████ and catch up on on all the stuff going on over the pond. Lots of good conversation at dinner and after that back to drinking and watching movies. Stayed up way to late.

So I spent all day Saturday drinking and then got up Sunday to tromp around DC all day. We only saw a few museums but mostly just walked around. We did meet two interesting people.

In front of the National Gallery we met a woman who was a recently retired Foreign Service worker. She was interesting—totally insane—but interesting. Talking to her she never committed to a single thing. Evasive as hell about everything. I guess that’s what it takes to talk to world leaders without bold faced lying.

Inside the gallery we where looking at a Jackson Pollock [ nga.gov ] when the security guard asked us if “we saw the insect” in the painting. Um, given how crazy a Jackson Pollock painting is we all had to say “no.” So he pointed out the small “s” shaped smear in the upper right quadrant that ended in the painted body of a insect of some kind. Can’t tell if it was a cockroach or a fly, but it’s fully fully part of the painting now.

We talked with the security guard for about 30 minutes. Found out that he was in the military for a long time—served as an MP in Germany. He guarded Elvis during ‘the King’s’ tour of duty, and worked Check Point Charlie for several years. He was really cool to talk to. Made more interesting that I was with a German who could add context and even more color to the stories. The juxtaposition of Rob—a well educated punk who grew up in the last days of the Wall and this well spoken ex-military guard who worked in the shadow of the wall, it was surreal.

All in all a good weekend, but man am I tired. I need to call Rob but am too tired tonight.