another day, another digit

Aaaaand today marks day #10,000. Five digits, baby. The greatest number of digits I'll ever have, unless I manage to live until November 3, 2255, and which point I'll hit the 100k mark.. I'm not optimistic about that event taking place, though.

having missed pi day and square root day, i am excited to catch this one

Today is not my birthday, or even my half birthday, but it is a pretty cool day that has to do with my birth: Today marks exactly 9,999 days since I was expelled from my mother's uterus and forced to live a life of toil in order to survive. And by a life of toil, of course, I mean having to spend time awake instead of sleeping in warm liquid, and having to eat my own food rather than have it delivered to me through a tube in my belly.

Sigh. How great my life was ten thousand days ago.

socks revolution, day 35

All is well on the socks front.

socks revolution, day 6

I went out and bought a dozen new black socks today, eliminating my need to sort any socks at all, save for my brown and green ones. But those are easy.

socks revolution, day 3

I think I've pretty much completely acclimated to the ankle socks now. I'm wearing jeans today (vs. khakis yesterday), and the exposure problem doesn't seem to be an issue. Maybe the solution is to wear dress socks (which are crew length) with my khakis, and my regular (ankle) socks with jeans and shorts. Which reminds me, I think I need to revolutionize my dress socks, too. They're even worse to sort than my (old) white ones.

socks revolution, day 2

I'm now used to the feeling of wearing ankle socks, but I feel I look sloppy when I cross my legs and part of my bare leg is exposed between my pant leg and my shoe. I briefly considered the possibility of wearing ankle socks with shorts and crew socks with long pants, but this would defeat the whole purpose behind the socks revolution (not having to match up socks).

Does anybody have any suggestions for me?

socks revolution, day 1

It felt strange putting my socks on this morning and not tugging beyond a few inches. My legs felt naked, bare, exposed. Vulnerable to attack. I hope I made the right decision.

socks revolution, prelude

Ladies and gentlemen, I have done something radical.

I have just bought 20 pair of new socks to replace the motley rabble of white socks I've spent a lifetime using. The rabble consisted of countless varieties and ages of socks, requiring me to pair them up individually (no quick task), when putting away my laundry. The new socks are all exactly the same, which means I don't have to pair them up at all; I can just toss them all into a drawer with no folding, no sorting, and no problems. It'll be amazing.

I've never had all uniform socks before, and I haven't had a new pair of socks since I was in high school. I feel very extravagant, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little guilty about this luxury.

But now for the radical part:

Being that it's 2009 (The Best Year Ever™), I decided to make a drastic change. I went with ankle length socks. After wearing exclusively crew socks for 27 years, this is quite a change. Will my socks always feel like they are falling down? Will the elastic last longer due to less stretching? Will my legs get cold more easily? These are all questions I must face, and to which I will soon know the answers.

Either way, though, I think I made the right decision. 2009: A Year of Changes ™.

the end of an era

Well, my little study is over. Steve the Chef finally learned my real name. It went down like this:

him: "Hey, how you doing Charlie?"
me: "Pretty good, how are you?"
him: "Hey great, thanks." [looks at my nametag] "Oh, Caleb! Why did I call you Charlie?"
me: "Haha, you did?"
him: "Initially, yeah."
me: "Heh, I must've not been listening."

When I was a little guy, my great grandfather used to call me Charlie sometimes (don't ask). Consequently, it didn't strike me as odd the first few times Steve called me that, and by the time I realized that he's not my great grandfather and probably isn't using Charlie as a nickname, it was too late to correct him. So I elected to let him keep it up, for the sake of science. Unfortunately, there was nothing actually scientific about my observations, as I recorded no frequencies, kept track of no dates and times, and basically observed no components of the scientific method. Woops!

i did it because it was itchy

You know how when you give blood, they wrap that sticky bandage around your arm and tell you to keep it on for four hours? Well, today I found out why they want you to keep it on so long. If you only wait three hours instead of four, you might be greeted upon its removal by a spurt of blood from your vein that may or may not get all over your shirt and make you look like a sloppy heroin addict. It is most unfortunate that I learned this information through direct experience, instead of just reading about it in a blog like you did.

by the way, which one's pink?

I work in a retirement community, and I've been called many wrong names over the two years I've been here. Evidently I am interchangeable with any other male employee who has dark hair and was born between 1975 and 1990. First I was Diego. Then Lazar. Then Chuck. I'm even Danny on ocassion, even though the real Danny is 6'5" and blond.

The problem is even worse on the phone, presumably because people don't have a face to go with my voice, and many seniors have poor hearing. I've been Kevin, Trevor, Kenneth, Calvin, Gabe, and about five or six others that I can't remember now (I used to keep a running list next to the phone). It was not uncommon to have a conversation like this three or more times in a day:

"Transportation, this is Caleb."
"Kevin?"
"No, Caleb."
"That's what I said. Kevin."
"No, not Kevin. This is Caleb."
"Oh! Hi Kenneth!"

A lot of changes take place in the brain as we get older, particularly with regard to memory, so I'm very gracious when the seniors get a little mixed up and think I'm someone else. I wish I could say it's just the seniors who do it, though. There's a chef here who's been calling me Charlie for the better part of a year, despite the large print name tag I wear every day. I've never corrected him, opting instead to see how long he carries on before someone else sets him straight. I guess you can say it's my own little field study, n=1. So far, it doesn't look like there's any end in sight.

"well open up the stick with your wife barrel"

I had Chinese food last night, and I got this fortune in my cookie. I think they accidentally got my fortune mixed up with someone else's.



Somewhere in Jersey, some Guido got a cookie that told him "YOU'D RATHER JUST SIT AROUND AT HOME AND READ FARK WITH NO PANTS ON".

predictions for 2008

This is it! 2008 is going to be a great year; I can feel it! And even if it's only so-so, it'll seem like the year of jubilee coming after the most mediocre year I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, 2007 blew. But 2008 is going to rock. Hard.

And here's what will take place:

* I will get a new job. This job will be full time, and will pay enough that I only have to work the one job, and not two jobs. I will have time for hobbies, I will have a social life, and I'll actually have some of my paycheck left in the bank by the next payday. I've heard of that concept before; I think it's called "saving".

* Brent, of course, will contract yet another STI.

* Someone I know will get engaged. This seems like a pretty safe bet these days; it's like there's a contagion going around, and at least one or two friends get infected every year.

* I read at least one book in its entirety. This is a much more realistic prediction than last year's.

* Big energy breakthrough.

* I make a new friend or two, who turn out to be really good ones. Yeah, I predicted this last year and was wrong, but this year I'm getting a new job and a social life, remember?

* Caleb makes some music. And not the kind that comes from eating lots of beans and cabbage.

* Caleb eats lots of beans. Doubtful on the cabbage.

* Charles is a gentleman caller to a young lady. For at least 45 minutes.

* Someone fairly unlikely gets discovered and given no less than 15 minutes of fame. This is someone I know, not just some random fool like that bro who got tased.

* Absolute madness, mischief, and mayhem of the highest degree.

predictions for 2006...

* Brent gets a woman.

* Abe Vigoda still alive.

* Talk of impeachment, pointless squabbles follow.

* Somebody I know gets engaged. Probably someone nobody would expect.

* I get my college degree, but not without complications.

* Someone from the past returns to shake things up a bit.

* Conspiracies revealed in multiple levels of government, indictments follow.

* A respected actor, a beloved comedian, and an international icon will all die. People will freak out, saying, "They always die in threes," ignoring the plethora of famous people who die all the time by themselves.

* More great disasters, thousands more killed.

* Caleb gets a full time job, a bachelor pad, and an STD.

* Brent gets three STD's.

* Someone gets fired.

* A wish comes true, but so does one of those "be careful what you wish for" wishes.

* I win the respect of an adversary, but probably make new adversaries in the process.

* I make a new friend, who turns out to be a pretty good one.

* I exercise fairly regularly.

* A good shirt gets ruined in the laundry.

* Get Smart released on DVD.

* Something huge happens in Europe.

* Big news concerning toilets.

* Madness, sheer madness.

I haven't mooned anyone in a very long time. Like, almost a year.

Baby, Have A Space Head
An epic poem by Caleb Benjamin Ruggiero

Still feeling a little sick
Although it's mainly just congestion now
And constant need for water
Don't you love me anymore?

Huffing Vicks® straight from the jar
I even put some in my nostrils
Then I read the label and it said not to do that
Don't break my heart, baby.

My bottle is 1.5 liters
I go through about six a day
Talk about thirsty!
You used to be so sweet
Baby, you used to have a space head.

I don't like being sick
And I don't like the ache of losing that such a loss brings
Why don't you do me like before, baby?
Baby, why don't you have a space head.

If I was a paranoid person, I'd be crapping my pants right now.

I was laying on my couch, listening to some nice mellow music, and on the verge of falling asleep, when I was abruptly jarred awake by my cell phone, which was set to ring at the highest volume possible.

The number on the caller ID wasn't anybody I knew, but I could tell by the prefix that it was a Verizon cell phone from the part of town I live in. I figured it was one of my friends calling from someone else's phone. I answered, even though I'm already 100 minutes over my contract this month.

I'm really still not exactly sure what happened next, but apparently, I was intended to be a booty call of some kind, forwarded by a radio station I had never heard of, as an answer to this girl's attempt to request a song, or something like that. She had no idea why they'd send her to me, I had no idea why they'd have my number, and direct young girls to it, and I don't think either of us really understood what this booty call business was all about, or how we got tangled up in it. We asked each other dumb questions like, "who are you?" and "what's going on?", and once both of us were confident that we were talking to each other only by some sort of bizarre mistake, and not because one of us was dicking with the other, we laughed briefly (hers sounded like a very uneasy laugh), commented on the strangeness of the situation, and parted ways.

I told her I hoped she enjoyed her booty call.

She said it was very gratifying, and then closed with, "Bye, person I've never met!"

"Bye, person I don't know," I replied, but I think she'd already hung up at that point.

For all of you who have expressed concern about my dad this past week, I apologize for being so late in updating you on his situation. As usual, I've been busy with school and stuff, and when some free time actually came my way, I had much more productive things to do than spend it writing HTML.

So anyway... Dad spent last Friday night at the hospital, as I said, and came home Saturday. The tests indicate that he didn't have a heart attack, which is a good thing because that means there's not necessarily going to be tissue damage. They still don't know what the heck was wrong with him, though. Tests are still being run on his blood, and we should have the results in the next few days. In the meantime, the doctors say it could have been anything from a lung infection to really nasty indigestion.

As far as my neighbor goes, I haven't seen her coming or going in a few days. All she does now is walk around the garage, and around the front yard... but she doesn't actually drive anywhere! I think she might be on to me...

I went to bed at around midnight last night, and I slept til 10:30 this morning. That was pretty sweet. I would've slept in even longer, but I was awakened by a call from my mom, telling me that my dad was in the ER. It seems he had a heart attack, but they won't know for sure until tomorrow. They need to run a blood test to check for biomarkers, which are enzymes and stuff that show up in the blood following cardiac arrest. If they find these biomarkers, then that means he had a heart attack. If they don't, then I have no idea what else could have caused a sudden feeling like "someone punched a hole through my chest" that then radiated to his jaw. So I'm hoping for the heart attack option.

In other news, I'm becoming obsessed with my neighbor. I watched her pull into her driveway tonight, like that black guy watched Nicolas Cage in Gone In 60 Seconds. "Time to see if she drives over the grass!" I said as I stood in the dark street, probably looking like a real pervert.

What happened next remains a mystery to me. My neighbor pulled into the driveway, parked in the garage, and went inside her house... but I couldn't see whether she drove on the lawn or not. But even if she didn't, she sure came close. You know that portion of the driveway where it becomes the sidewalk? I think she drove over that part. So I can definitely see why I shouldn't park there.

But I still need to see her leaving the house in order to verify my original hypotheses that (1) she only backs up in a straight line, and (2) she somehow manages to drive on the lawn when backing out. Once I am able to verify these hypotheses, I will be able to further develop my theory that my neighbor is a crappy driver.

In the meantime, I think I'll park as far away from her house as possible.

Leering voyeuristically in the window with binoculars,

-Caleb

There was a trailer parked in front of my house today when I got home from school, so I parked across the street in front of my neighbors' house. Later in the day, I happened to be out front, and my neighbor approached me and requested that I move my car. "I can't get out of my driveway," she told me. "You've gotta move it like, two feet. Or I'll take your front bumper off." Hmm, I thought as I examined my parking job. My front bumper was just in line with the edge of her lawn. Does this mean she drives over her grass every morning when backing out of the driveway? Probably. But even if I happened, for some reason, to be parked half way into her driveway, she should easily be able to avoid hitting me. It's just a matter of looking behind you and turning the wheel. But she seemed pretty confident that she would be trapped – a prisoner in her own home – if I didn't repark my car. So based on her insistence, I've concluded that she drives on her lawn when backing out, and she only knows how to reverse in straight lines.

And the moral of the story is: my neighbor is a crappy driver. If you see a white minivan on the road, keep your distance.