The Engineer and I Archive

Kurt actually changed the windshield wipers on his car!! – It’s good for another six years now.

My birthday was phenomenal. – Horribly embarrassing at times, but very fun. It started after lunch when one of my co-workers marched up to me with what at first looked like a backpack. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as she unzipped it and pulled out a violin. I flipped around, “Oh NO! – Oh, I could kill you.” was what I apparently said about four times. She had me hold her music sheet up as she played “Happy Birthday” to me. I turned every shade of red humanly possible and less than halfway through I started to cover my face with the music sheet.

I sent an email to Kurt and carbon copied it to my co-worker with the subject line “I give my permission” and in the body wrote, “You may kill her…she brought her violin to work and played ‘Happy Birthday’ to me”. Kurt replied with, “Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! All is forgiven for ruining the surprise about the Aerosmith tickets. Bravo!”

Ahhh the Aerosmith tickets… On Friday my co-worker received an email from her husband telling her that Aerosmith tickets for February 15th would go on sale on Saturday. Both of us were incredibly excited. I sent an email to Kurt to see if he would want to go. I didn’t get an answer all day so I told my co-worker that I would ask him when I got home. She was house sitting that weekend so I told her to give me a call.

When I got home I asked Kurt about Aerosmith. He said he didn’t want to go because it’s at the Tacoma Dome and that venue sucks, it’s too far away, and the concert is on a Wednesday. I went upstairs pouting. A few minutes later I went downstairs again, “What if we made it an anniversary thing?” I asked referring to the concert again. “No, it’s ten days from our anniversary.”

“But we could take Thursday off work”

“No”

I went upstairs pouting again. A few minutes passed and Kurt came upstairs. I asked him if he had made the reservations for Buca Di Beppo yet.

“No I don’t have the number” He started to go over to turn on his computer.

“I already have it on my screen – Here, it’s right here.”

“No.”

“But it’s already on my screen…”

“Stop being such a control freak!” he snapped. Control freak? I couldn’t figure out why Kurt was being such an ass (more so than usual). I went downstairs to pout some more. Later that evening Kurt wanted to go somewhere. I told him that I was waiting for my co-worker to call.

“Why?”

“Because we were going to go to the concert together.”

“AAHH! – God Damn it! – I hate her!”

“What?”

“Happy Birthday” he said dryly, “I was going to surprise you with tickets.”

So Monday evening came around, and we had eleven people show up (including myself) to dinner at Buca’s. I had so much fun, even though someone leaked to the waitress that it was my birthday. She came by with a candelabrum containing five candles. She said I get five wishes. I looked up over at Kurt, and loudly announced to the whole table, “I don’t think Kurt wants FIVE.” I slouched and started to pat my belly. Kurt leaped up and ran to the candles acting as if her were going to blow them all out himself to prevent me from my wishes.

I tried to blow out the candles, but none went out. One of the guys yelled, “Oh come on I heard you could blow harder than that.” Then someone else said, “No wonder Kurt is always so stressed out!” The waitress told that person, “I can’t believe you said that!” I told her to have a seat and stick around. – That’s nothing!

It was a great night with many stories told, one about the first time we ever went to Buca Di Beppo’s, and some about me. Two that came up about me were the cat traveling Northwest Airlines story and the rum & grapes story.

Kurt and I went on a motorcycle camp out with a bunch of friends. Kurt and everybody else rode to the place and I took my truck with the dogs.

I had not eaten all day, so once I arrived I started snacking on grapes. That night it was decided that we would have “biker stew”. None of us brought any food, so we all went to the store to grab a can of soup to add to the pot. We also made a trip to the liquor store and I bought a pint of rum. The soup sounded gross to me, but I got a bowl and tried it…NASTY. I didn’t eat more than a couple bites and went straight back to grapes. That night we all started drinking and so I mixed up some rum & coke for myself. I drank almost the whole pint. Just before we all decided to turn in Kurt and I and another friend made a trip to the bathroom. Now the whole time I was drinking I had been sitting, so I didn’t realize that my legs had turned into rubber bands – Kurt had to almost carry me to the bathroom.

After I was done we went back to the tent. I lay down for a bit and could feel the earth rotate so I got back up, unzipped the tent and curled up to Petie. “Oh Petie” I sat there hugging and petting him as he tried to lean away from his drunk “mommy”. Kurt came out of the tent for moral support (I’m not sure if for me or Petie), and then it happened. The next morning the friend that had hiked with us to the bathrooms described what he heard as, “It sounded like someone was just pouring water out.” He was a little confused by the sound and then it suddenly hit him, “AAHH where’s my earplugs!” When I got up in the morning I felt fine. I saw where my uuhh mess was and it was nothing more than a wet area with “grape shells”. It looked like thousands of some kind of little reptile had hatched there.

The first time we went I don’t think there were any reservations made, and there was a very long line.

There was a group that we saw making their way up the line asking, “How many in your party?” When they came to us we told them our number (I think there were six of us). “Oh perfect!” They explained that they had reserved the Pope’s table, which requires a party of at least 12, and half their people were out sick. They asked us to join them and we accepted.

We sat at the table. Their party sat at one half and ours on the other. This restaurant is a family style one. Each dish may feed anywhere from two to six people, so the waitresses have to help coordinate the amount of food ordered. Together our parties had to explain to our waitress that we were actually two separate groups and show where the dividing lines were. She referred to us has her “happily divided table” the whole night. – She had no idea, and at this point neither did we.

Once we were all finally settled in and the food was ordered the other group began the “getting to know you process”. They found out that there was a birthday girl in our group, and they told us they were also celebrating a birthday. Their birthday boy was a meek stick figure with an almost sickly pale dirty-hippy-vegan look. I’m betting he smelled like dirt.

Our drinks came first. For our side it was beer, beer, beer, rum & coke, whiskey, and beer. Then their drinks came in…water, water, ice tea, lemonade, water, and water. Some one from the vegan group asked us how we all knew each other and one of the guys said, “We’re all co-workers.”

“Oh where do you work?” They ask. And then Kurt happened.

Kurt of course can’t help himself, so without missing a beat he says, “They work together in the gay porn industry” pointing to two of our guys. Dead silence. There was pretty much no further communication between the two groups. Then we heard one woman in their group ask another person, “So are you still at the seminary school?”

“No I’m on sabbatical.” He says. There was much snickering from our side.

Our food came first and our side went silent except for the sounds of dishes being passed, scraping silverware against dishes, and other scarfing of food like sounds just short of pigs rooting in mud. Then their food came. When all the dishes were set down they quietly bowed their heads and gathered in prayer. Some of us stopped, looked up, briefly wondered if they should stop out of respect, and then blocked the thought and continued eating away.

At the end of dinner their birthday boy presented our birthday girl with a card, and in it he wrote his number. – Creepy!

Last night Kurt and I had “game night” with some friends. We played list 8 of the game Scattergories and had rolled an “n”, so all answers must begin with this letter. Number five for list 8 was “Bad Habits” to which Kurt privately wrote on his sheet “nagging”. Number 11 on list 8 was “Leisure Activities” to which I privately wrote on my sheet…“nagging”. Who says we don’t compliment one another?

Last night Kurt and I went out to dinner and were discussing parenting methods and of course Kurt said something very Kurtish. I told him we should create a spoof website with all the alternative methods of parenting that he comes up with and we could even list his potato peeler as the ultimate answer.

After 9/11 Kurt approached a circle of co-workers talking about what they think should happen to Osama Bin Laden if/when the US catches him. They asked Kurt and he gave his answer… Kurt said that Osama should be buried up to his neck. Then one at a time each person that had a loved one die because of Osama should be left alone in the room with him for five minutes. They can’t have any weapons except a potato peeler with a cork at the end so as to prevent a quick stabbing death to the eye. All of Kurt’s co-workers shuddered and quickly dispersed.

Kurt thought that having the potato peeler story on the site wouldn’t make any sense because no one remembers that Osama is the one we were supposed to catch in the first place. He then went on to give his idea for a political cartoon…

Dubya and OJ out golfing. OJ asks Dubya if he’s seen Osama. Dubya says no and then asks OJ, “Have you found the killer?” OJ says no and they both ride off in their golf cart laughing and continue with their game.

While I was chatting with Kurt I was opening the bills and writing an email to him with the amount and due date so that he can pay them online. As we’re talking… ok so we’re mostly listening to each other breathe, but in between all that Kurt said something mean (in jest) and I told him, “Fuck You!” to which he replied, “ok” as usual.

Then I told him just for that comment I’m going to send him a bill.
Kurt says, “Why should I pay I’m not getting anything right now?”
so I said, “consider it like Netfix”

Today I was talking to Kurt and he told me all about the Easter celebrations going on in Spain. He said that there Easter lasts for five days. He said that on Sunday each town will have their own parade/party and the whole thing is televised on TV.

So I said, “Wow do they televise it on radio too? They should really consider televising it on the internet!”

So a bit of my Valentine’s Day conversation with my live-in non-hubby who is currently in Spain went something like this:

Kurt said something along the lines of, “It’s funny how bush waged war on a country that had no weapons of mass destruction by convincing some people that they were a threat and the one country that has openly stood up and said, “We have nukes!” Bush just blows them off saying that’s just the typical rhetoric from North Korea.”

Knowing full well that he used the word funny as a way of speaking and not meaning the situation is actually funny I dryly replied, “I don’t think it’s funny at all.”

“What? You don’t find that hilarious?” He says sarcastically.

“No not at all.”

“Oh someday you’ll laugh about it.”

“Somehow I don’t think my shadow will be smiling!”

This is an email conversation between Kurt (my boyfriend) and two of his friends.

From Kurt:

There is a commercial on the radio for Harley. They say, “Getting 50 mpg, the gas money you’ll save riding to work will darn near pay for the monthly payment.”

Let’s examine this fictitious person. He of course drives a Hummer H2 that gets an average of 8 mpg. He buys a Heritage Softtail Classic (MSRP $16900). Going price for one of those in July is $19000 plus $500 shipping and prep plus 8.9% tax makes the total price $21235.50. That’s assuming he doesn’t spend $5000 extra on chrome and Screaming Eagle pipes like most guys do. At a 72 month loan with $1000 down at 6.9% his monthly payment is $385. With gas at $2.00 per gallon, he would have to commute 77 miles round trip, 5 days a week in order to break even.

The Normal Friend:

Only an engineer would go through all the trouble to figure that out…Most people wouldn’t even be listening to the commercial, they would be talking on their cell phone and/or putting on make up and trying to change lanes and pick their nose all at the same time!

Engineer Number 2:

Christ, I feel like I’m taking the SATs again. =(
If a train leaves Boston at 5:30pm going 87 mph with 234 women and 126 men and 35 of the men are New Yorkers, how many Red Sox fans will be assaulted on their way to Los Angeles?

Engineer Number 2 sends a second email:

I get $344/month, rather than $385, (Bank loan calculator, $21,235.5 / 72 mo / 6.9% / $1000 down) for a payment which works out to 68.8 miles per day. (What does that make me, that I’m checking his math?)

However, you can’t ride/drive any vehicle for free, so on top of the monthly payment, we have to add gas for the HOG as the total monthly cost of ownership (I’ll generously neglect maintenance and repairs, since Kurt generously neglected chrome and Genuine Harley-Davidson accessories which always accompany a Harley purchase) and then compare that to the price of driving the H2 for a month in order form him to break even. So really, it comes down to the difference between how much it cost to drive the H2 vs. how much it costs to ride the Harley being equal to the monthly payment. At 50 mpg and against a monthly payment of $344 (since I couldn’t duplicate the $385), that works out to…carry the one, 81.9 miles per day round trip. Worse (91.7 mi a day round trip) if you use Kurt’s $385 a month payment. Of course, this assumes that the H2 is paid for and that he doesn’t trade it in for the Harley.

Or have I just wrapped myself around the axle? Shit. Aaaaand, I’ve gone cross-eyed. Yes, I’m fully wrapped.

Your turn to check my math, Kurt. =D