April 2007 – Page 2 – blog.tristanPipo.com (Archive)

3 Guys + 1 Couch + 1 Truck + 2 Bedroom Condo = 7 ummm things

I was trying to think of a good title for this blog post. Since the couch journey also involved a trip to hooters. Having never been to hooters it was an experience. But I will tell this story in order. See the male in me wants to put a nice cleavage picture right here.

hmmm Should I do it. I am sure google would reveal something. Or many somethings.

I have a great deal of female readers I will keep that on the down low.

So anyways I purchased this couch at a furniture store but they didn’t seem to have any in stock and had to order it again. So I was put on a back order and that was a good time. The first time I sat in this couch I looked at the price tag and was like I don’t care I need to have it.

It’s rated as Chocolate Leather. It has Dual recliners and laying down on it is sorta like the feeling of that relaxing sensation that you have after an orgasm. Laying on this couch is like that feeling as long as you are on the couch. So a few weeks passed after ordering this bundle of joy. I did the pay 1/2 now and pay the other 1/2 later. I could have paid the whole thing off but if for some reason the whole deal got stiffed over I would only need to fight for half instead of the whole deal.

So anyways nothing really happened on this issue for a while. See I wish I had a microphone and could play the Jeopardy Theme right here.

Then the cell phone rings. From a number I don’t recognize and I am like should I pick it up then my work phone rang so I let it go to voicemail. When I answer my personal phone my goal can be to fool you into thinking a voicemail has picked up. Then I pause to see if the other person starts talking. If they don’t I say Hello? Then they are always like “Oh I thought it was your voicemail I was totally going to leave you one. There was no beep” We have a good chuckle and get on with the witty banter of what are you doing this weekend. But that wasn’t the case this time.

So I get a phone call and I can’t pick it up that weekend but I said I can pick it up the weekend after that one. I was going to the Ocean Easter weekend. Which was pleasant. I got prime rib. Also went to Nick’s Birthday Party. Instead of hunting Easter Eggs we hunted small bottles of Beer and Wine and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.

Widmer Drop Top Amber

Every Monday Night I get together with Nick and Justin. Nick is a Real Estate Agent here in Kitsap County. If you need the hookup and want to move over here. And let me know how to get a hold of your people and I can have my people call your people. Justin is Nick’s brother and he is an independent contractor. He has a truck and wanted to take advantage of that fact. So I offered lunch and Gas. So we planned out our Journey for the following weekend.

Ahh Monday Nights. We get together and watch Heroes normally. But there hasn’t been a new Heroes in a while. New ones next Monday. Last 5 episodes of the Season. So we get together and watch that show. But if it’s a repeat or no show it’s all about Red Dwarf. The great British Comedy. Which I have talked about many times before.

So anyways last Saturday rolls around. I get up at 9:30am and shower and didn’t shave because well hanging out with dudes so why bother. Got some clean clothes that I wouldn’t mind ruining. Went over to Nick’s House. He cooked us Cinnamon French Toast. It was marvelous. We sit around and talk and BS about pointless guy stuff. Guy bonding is always interesting. I ponder if ladies would view it when ladies are bonding. If we were looking from the outside in on them we would be like WTF? Or Why is this important? But anyways the male female communication barriers I will save for another day when I run into that issue.

So we get into the truck and I was like “Hey Guys. Are you ready for some hardcore iPod action?!” so we pop on Alonzo Bodden. Who is a great black comedian. His just a friend bit is rather comical. I have attached his bit at the bottom of the page for your listening pleasure.

So we are driving down the road and laughing and chillin out. Trying to figure out what we are going to do that night. We have been talking about going to laser tag for a while in Port Orchard and we finally decide we are going to do it. So that settles that nights plans.

So this is the part of the trip where we are just driving. Listening to Comedians be funnier they we could be at the time. Talking about life and so forth. Then my phone rings again. Some number I don’t recognize and it was a local area code so I figured oh probably someone I know that I haven’t added to my new phone. I pickup up the call and it was someone I had been ignoring trying to get tricky on me. Instant awkward luckily I could say I was busy with the guys and got off the phone quickly.

So we get to the furniture store and pay and test out some recliners. Oh maybe I should get one of those later. We drive around back and load up the couch into the back of Justin’s truck.

(This is what I cannot stand about Thursdays they are so insane on the busy factor I started this blog post at 7:36am. It is now 12pm and I am not even close to being done because I am just so busy)

So we tie it down wrap a tarp over it and it is all protected and I was like hey guys instead of pizza we should go check out hooters. Since Justin and Nick were Sans girlfriend and I am single at the moment they were down for the idea. So we go in and lunch was on me so we walk in and it wasn’t the fanciest of places and we get seated by some lovely young woman.

Now looking at the Hooters Uniform it’s a white tank top with short orange shorts and stalkings of some kind. Looking around the restaurant I was surprised to see women there enjoying or not enjoying the dining experience. Now one thing we observed is that if you are a table with a female seated around you the waitress will sit down at the table. But if it’s just males the waitress puts her arms on the table and leans over and gives everyone an equal view. There was an empty seat at our table she could have sat down. But just an observation. They would walk by and talk to the guys but the couples they wouldn’t walk as close to the table or talk to them nearly as much. We figured it was a respect issue.

After a great deal of wings and long island ice teas we paid the bill. A trip to hookers for 3 guys cost me $87. We were liberal with the Tip $20.

Nick and Justin were feeling slightly guilty at the end of the experience and they purchased Tank Tops for their girlfriends to justify the trip. We all found it comical but the girls seemed delighted from the overheard phone calls they were getting presents.

So the drive back to my condo is rather blah so we can >> remember that on VCR remotes? The Fast Forward >>.

Here is a video that pretty much summarizes what we were thinking out our first attempt to get the couch through the front door.

So anyways we all saw the first picture of us just trying to get it through the door. Well come to find out the couch is 39” tall and a standard door frame is 36” wide. So no matter what we tried to do we couldn’t get it through the front door. We crushed our feet and Nick in the process of the door attempt. The only other way was to get the couch up onto the balcony. I took some pictures with my phone and put them on my flickr page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tristanpipo

Or Here is the Photo Slideshow
http://flickr.com/photos/tristanpipo/tags/couch/show/

Now you have various views of my stairs and the space to the balcony. This is an amazing feet of engineering that we came up with. Since my larger balcony has dual sliding doors it opens up a great deal further and would allow us to move the couch in a great deal easier. But the problem we had to deal with was this incredibly heavy couch and lifting it onto a balcony that is way above our heads as we climbed down the stairs.

So we planned this out a bit. We took the tow straps and tied two of them around the frame that we would be first attempting to lift onto the balcony. We had Justin on the balcony and tossed him the two straps. I was in the middle because I was the tallest and Nick was propping up the end. Justin was pulling the straps. While me and Nick had to lift this couch above our heads. Justin was at this point leaning over the balcony until we could get him some grip on the tow straps.

So I pretty much have most of the weight of the couch above my head. Nick is balancing the end and Justin is pulling it as I walk down the stairs my arms stretch out and I really start to feel that acid burn in the muscles until we get the couch onto the balcony railing.

Nick then Runs around and I move up the stairs to help push the couch and then Nick and Justin are up on the railing holding it and they start to walk it into the condo and we set it on the floor and we are all exhausted.

1st Attempt at Moving the New Couch

Well I finally got the new couch. I will take photos with my phone of what we had to do to get the couch into the condo. But the first attempt to get it through the front door didn’t work out so well. The second attempt was a marvel of engineering and pure idiocy. But it worked and nobody was damaged. So come on over kick your feet up on the dual recliners and relax a while.

46” LCD 1080p TV is ordered but won’t be delivered for another 2-3 weeks. *Blast* =)

iTunes Issued Me a Refund

I was minding my own business today. Then my Motorola Q starts going off that I have an e-mail. So I go check it out and find this in my Inbox.

Dear Tristan,

A few months ago, you downloaded the single “You Know My Name” by Chris Cornell. Unfortunately, you were charged $1.49 rather than $0.99 for the song.

Please accept my sincere apologies for this mistake. You are a valued customer and I’m very sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused you.

As a gesture of apology, I have issued three free song credits to your account. The next time you buy individual songs, your song credits will be used as payment until they all have been used.

To see the credits, refresh your account information by signing out and back in to the iTunes Store. The sign in/sign out features are located under the Store menu of the iTunes application.

Your song credits should appear next to your account name. If you have any further questions or require additional assistance, please contact our customer service team by replying to this email.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Fretheim
Customer Experience Analyst

I hadn’t noticed this charge that was higher on my account so I went and searched through my iTunes Recipts and saw that it was an issue. So my props to Apple and iTunes for actually I have never heard of iTunes giving you a refund on anything. Just thought I would share that iTunes yet again proves they are awesome.

Say That Again Please

No.

For some reason this morning I have that very stupid Sir Mix Alot song in my head where he is listing off every major city and state and is like Jump On It. I would kill to have a neon suit and walking around with a cane pointing at people. Hey You! Jump On It!

Anyways random thought this morning. I usually reserve those for Twitter. But most people I talk to about Twitter are like What the Hell is Twitter. I can’t really describe it. It’s like an Away Message on AIM. That you update and you can get updates on everyone else. They pop up on my Mobile and I am like oh cool somebody wants an e-mail. But anyways enough about that.

So last Sunday was Easter. A rather pointless holiday if you ask me. But I got a killer brunch in a Casino. Then I had to drive 3hrs home from the lovely Ocean Shores to go to my buddies Birthday Party. So happy 24th Nick. Some picks of our lovely experience are up on my flickr page which you can find on the right.

So we didn’t do an Easter Egg Hunt. We had a Beer Bottle, Play Doh, Choclate, and Squirt Gun hunt. Which is a great deal more fun. A group of 23-25 year olds hunting around a yard for beer bottles. Truly a great experience. Far better then Jesus, Eggs, and Bunnies.

I picked up this great new book. I highly recommend it. It’s called “Linux Administration Handbook – Second Edition” By Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Trent R. Hein and a whole list of other authors listed on the cover but they are not in bold so therefor not important.

It talks about Linux in a rather comical easy to understand read. It’s somewhat basic in it’s concepts but if you need a quick brushup or a quick reference guide I totally recommend this book. It talks about all the major distros of Linux and you get a nice indicator in the margin about what distro of linux it’s talking about. It hits on Red Had Enterprise Linux, Fedora Core, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Debian GNU/Linux and my favorite Ubunutu. So if you want to learn something and have some basic Linux knowledge and have $49.99 plus tax laying around. Except for Junniper because she is immune to all taxes so we all shake our fist at her. And Delaware but I have yet to see any hits on the Google Maps for this page from Delaware. Oh Delaware. Where are you?!

This Thursday has been so crazy I am really burnt out. I get my new couch this weekend. I really need to catch up on sleep.

Jump On It!

http://www.virb.com/tristanpipo

Jury Duty Made the Paper

Looks like the local newspaper the Kitsap Sun. Discovered my little rant about Jury Duty on their Crime and Justice Blog.

http://blogs.kitsapsun.com/kitsap/crime/archive/2007/04/jury_duty_a_lot_like_kindergar.html

I got contacted by the editor of this blog a week ago and asked if he could link my blog. Well this has prompted some feedback about my use of language. I understand that I have no concept of how to use to and too. This concept I have never grasped well. But lets get in a debate about anything else and I am good to go.

Not much of a life update at the moment. Working on other blogs and I will get the easter update going on. But check me out a bit. I keep twitter updated and working on VIRB and I even updated the Flickr Page. E-mail has been a little out of control. Just life has been really busy.

The new couch will get picked up Saturday. Miss Everyone. But I felt incredibly proud for my Jury Duty experience being picked up by the local newspaper. Kinda bizarre being referred to as a Kitsap County Man. But I guess I have earned that title at the nice age of 23.

May 20th I hit 24. What do I want for my Birthday? There is an upcoming blog post.

I found this picture on del.icio.us Made me laugh.

Post #844 – Jury Duty Recap!

So here is the layout of my day yesterday since I was rejected as a juror. It was kinda like the feeling where you spend hours hanging out with a girl only to find out the entire time you were hanging out with them they go with someone else. You kinda want to say Fuck You for wasting my time. But you feel slightly enlightened by the experience.

So work schedule changed slightly so I have been getting extra sleep. =) But yesterday I go to sleep in until 6AM. Instead of 5AM. Was out the door by 6:30am. Now the courthouse was in an area I was not famaliar with. The Kitsap County courthouse is in Port Orchard, WA. Everytime I think of Port Orchard I think of Gorst,WA which I call the Armpit of Kitsap. Because it’s where Highway 3 turns into Highway 16 and people freak out because they need to merge over. Plus you have to slowdown because it’s just a giant turn.

So I went to the website to figure out how to get to this place. I had Google Maps and Live Search on my Mobile Phone. Both had different directions and the Kitsap County Website had different directions.

So let me show you Gorst. If you have Google Earth Installed. Shortcuts are provided for you.

Here is the armpit of Kitsap County, Gorst, WA.

If you are the Google Earth Enabled Gorst, WA

And here is the location of the Courthouse.

Google Earth Link – Port Orchard Kitsap County Courthouse

So anyways I find a parking spot in the free parking section which is located around the block from the courthouse. This time it’s about 7:40am and the do not open the building until 8am. For some reason that morning was really cold. I saw a sign driving in that said 29F. Which was slightly shocking. But observing everyone else that was walking up to the door it would have appeared that I was the youngest person among the crowd.

So 8am comes around and they let us into the building. You get a security screening airport style. I set off the little metal detector and then I got frisked and then magic wanded. They found no metal. Only thing I could ponder is that I have a Fossil Wallet that has a little bar of metal on it. Then I get stuck on a scavenger hunt to follow the signs. Down never ending hallways. It reminded me of the credit sequence in I Heart Huckabees where he is running down and navigating a series of hallways. If you have never seen that movie. I feel a great deal of pity for you. It’s great and Noami Watts has great legs. King Kong was good for the fact you get to see Naomi Watts in basically underwear the entire movie. Other then that I can’t say anything pleasant about King Kong.

So Jury Duty is a lot like kindergarten. They assign you a number and you are always lining up in a line by number. Then you walk into a room as quietly as possible. But before we get to that point. You are sitting in a room and they make you watch a film about Jury Duty and what you should expect to see. After that we got to sit around until they were ready for us. I hadn’t had any coffee yet so the free coffee they had for us ran out. There was no coffee. I got stuck with Decaf Tea. No sugar. I am not a sugar man but I needed something to wake me up. Sugar can spike you up a bit. But I didn’t get the pleasure of either.

Jury Duty in the state of Washington pays $10 a day and 48 Cents a mile. I had to drive 38 miles one way. So if they don’t take taxes out I made $46.48 for my time. (38*2)*.48= $36.48 + $10 = $46.48 So I get that check in 2-4 weeks. Seems like a really shitty rebate check. When I bought my Powerbook I had a $250 rebate.

So then the bailiff came in and we all went into the hallway to line up. I was lucky #2 so I got to sit in the Jury Box. I was sitting next to some guy and this woman that smelled like she was a chain smoker and she looked like she was going to snap any minute.

The Judge started to read off this sheet about what they are looking for and how the process was going to work and basically a recap of everything. All the attorneys and judge have a sheet that basically says what your job is. Like during questioning they saw I had an engineer like title and they were asking me all these questions about logic. Not much about theory. But basically I really was not spoken to much.

But the general questions they asked to everyone I was the only one who was not married. I was the only one who didn’t have any children. I thik that was the demise of my time served. But they kept me there until the end of the day to be released.

So they asked a lot of questions like what do you think Reasonable Cause is? Where you had to speak and talk about what you thought it was to you. There were other questions like what you thought about drugs. I got asked this one. My response was “I have never done a drug in my life. But I don’t see that it’s the governments decision to decide what we put into our bodies. But if we commit a crime that affects someone other then ourselves then I think we have laws in place to handle that situation” Which spawned a lot of “I agree” from the 45 other people in the room.

But other then that was the only question I had been directly asked by the lawyers. The rest was just spent enjoying the experience. I wanted to be picked to experience what it’s like to go through the trial process. But also glad that I was released.

All and all it was an interesting experience. Work covers up to a week of Jury Duty per year. So I was lucky that I didn’t miss out on anything. It’s not exactly what I would call a perfect day. But the Chow Mein that I met up with Chris for afterwards was great.

Pan Fried Noodles and they cooked it in a bit of curry sauce. It was amazing. I forget the name of the place in Bremerton where we consumed. I will need to look that up.

All and All I wouldn’t recommend Jury Duty to anyone. Lucky you can only be picked once a year.

Jury Duty

I am on Jury Duty notice all this week. Today Tuesday. My number got selected and I get to go in and be run through the process. I will let everyone know how it goes. Updates via Twitter on the sidebar or you can check out.

Twitter.com/TristanPipo For the most up to date information. I don’t think they will appreciate me updating the world while sitting in there. Stupid Addicting Q.

Be nice to miss work on a weekday for once. But sucks being stuck doing something not fun. Any thoughts on Jury Duty? This is my first time.