Stephen's Den

“So what will you have to drink?” the waitress asked.
“Uuuh” Kameron looked at the menu then back up at her in confusion
“I’m sure they have Dr. Pepper” I rescued him, “he’ll have a Dr. Pepper and I’ll have a Vodka & 7-Up, Grey Goose” she nodded and left.
“You see anything you like?”
“Uh, well, if I could understand anything on the menu… and it’s so expensive”
“Well, this is your night, hon, we’re celebrating”

I had decided to take Kameron out to the nicest restaurant in town: Culpeppers. They serve some very nice food along with excellent service & atmosphere. We were celebrating because, after a month that seemed to drag on forever, Kameron had finally scored a job, and a good one too. I was proud.

Continue reading Pawned

“You have a bunch of yellow jackets out on your deck.” Kameron announced with a little Southern twang. Yellow Jacket, that’s the name of a road, right? Good thing he’d already explained the term to me. Yellow Jackets are common wasps here in America, big nasty yellow & black buggers. I had noticed a few of them flying around the apartment and had summarily evicted them. Stephen said they often came to visit him when he went out for a smoke.

So, it was with a mild sense of trepidation and curiosity that I ventured out to look at the source of the insects. There were two nests: one large one tucked away to the left (pictured above) and a smaller one straight up in the middle. After taking a few photos, I carefully opened the sliding door, depositing my camera inside. I picked up the outside broom and started sweeping cigarette ash off the balcony. I’m not sure whether I expected them to be watching but it seemed the right thing to do.

Continue reading Wasps

Our faces are an important part of who we are, it’s the first thing (we hope) someone looks at when they meet us. Like it or not, it’s the image we present to the world. On a man, very few other facial accessories are as important as facial hair (or lack thereof) it changes your apparent facial structure, accentuates or covers up other features. In short, a change to facial hair can really change a lot about how we look and therefore how we are perceived.

For years now, people have been bugging me to shave my beard off. None so outspoken as my friend & colleague Lara, who, when she first met me, decided she didn’t like me because of the beard. She soon warmed to my personality though, but has since been a stalwart advocate for a “clean shaven Witherden”.

Continue reading Shawn

Today is Arthur Hall’s birthday. “Who is that?” you well may ask. Well, that’s actually a surprisingly complex question. Another question you may ask (if you know me at all) is how the heck I remembered his birthday when I forget just about everything else. These are both valid questions. I’ll deal with the second one first.

I remember his birthday because he’s born on the 8th of the 8th (August) and one of the first birthdays I celebrated with him was back in 1988. (8/8/88). It was a very popular year for Asian couples to get married since 8 is considered very lucky by some. It’s hard to believe that it was probably around 20 years ago that I met him.

Continue reading Happy Birthday Arth

Stephen & I picked Kameron (Stephen’s ex, ex, now current bf, do please try to keep up) last Sunday. So, Kameron’s currently living with me for the time being till he finds himself a job and place to stay (not necessarily in that order).

It’s all a part of my cunning plan, you see. Kameron had been planning on coming down to Dallas to live with Stephen for a while, ever since they got back together some 5 months ago. That way, when I leave, Stephen is taken care of, mostly. Add to that the free pills, free shrink and (hopefully) free money in the form of disability payments and he should be set. Sadly, Kameron lived in Jackson, Tennessee which is about 520 miles by car from where I live in Dallas. He would have to make the move, but he’d never attempted a move this big before. He desperately wanted to escape from Jackson, though, his great escape if you will.

Continue reading The great escape

As I start writing this, it’s been 365 days, 00hrs, and 3 minutes since I started my Texas timer. So, at precisely this time last year, I was waiting vainly for my luggage to fail to arrive at DFW airport and was then whisked away on the wrong side of the road to look after a cat, 6 goldfish and a turtle.

It’s common at a milestone like this to look back and reflect on all the goings on: things that have changed, things that went well, things that went badly, lessons learnt and the like.

Continue reading Anniversary

Last night I became acutely aware that this blog of mine is read by many of my family members and friends. I also became aware that most of my recent posts have had very little to do with something these people really want to know about: me.

So, I thought I would devote this afternoon to giving you all an update on my goings-on. I have sat down to write this many times, but there’s just so much to write it’s daunting. I also have this desire to start at the beginning, but the beginning is so far away that it would take till next year for me to elaborate on it all. So, here goes, stream-of-conciousness-like.

Continue reading A personal update

As I have no doubt mentioned before, one of the perks of my job is I get to work with some very smart people. People who got degrees in pure mathematics because they were simply so geeky they couldn’t help themselves. So, what does a Maths geek do when he/she goes out into the workforce? Well, they program targeting systems for ships, perform calculations that allow us to know exactly where the bomb needs to be dropped, or, in the case of, George Dantzig (uber mathematics geek of the 1940’s) develop the simplex algorithm, for the very purpose of optimizing logistics for the US military during World War 2. Maths is sexy, and maths can kill.

So, it’s always exciting to have a discussion with one of the maths geeks at work. On Thursday, a colleague (who, I am told, actually has programmed some pretty dangerous stuff) showed me this cool construct which is his computer background: a Mandlebrot set. All the diagrams here, I drew myself.

Ok, so anyone can look at a Mandlebrot and say “wow, that’s pretty. But really, what does it mean? Why do mathematics geeks get all weak in the knees when they see one? Why doesn’t he have sexy women or cars on his background? To understand that, we need to delve deeper into the mathematics. Come on, join me, it’ll be fun, pretty and exciting.

Continue reading Complex Numbers

A few posts back, I promised more Barenaked Ladies. That’s the band, not actual ladies. BNL had quite a few popular songs, although most people don’t know all that much about them since most of their stuff is actually a little off the wall. One of their most popular songs was a quasi-rap called “One Week”. I recall with some fondness listening to my friend “V” singing along to the words:

How can I help it if I think you’re funny when you’re mad?
Trying hard not to smile, though I feel bad.
I’m the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral.
Don’t understand what I mean?
Well you soon will.

Continue reading Ode to Automaticity

As a promotion for the upcoming Simpsons movie, a number of American 7-11 stores were converted into Kwik-E-Mart stores. The Kwik-E-Mart, of course, is a fictional store within the Simpsons’ universe. I, of course, just had to go and see what all the fuss was about.

TV plays such an important role in our lives and culture nowadays that anything like this, anything related to something we’ve seen on TV immediately grabs our attention. Love it or loathe it, we are all influenced by it even if, like me, you haven’t watched any TV in over a year.

I guess the very fact that this store exists is a commentary on the relationship between TV and culture, or at least American culture. You see, the Simpsons satire so neatly reflects the true nature of things that while I was at the store, I had a lot of difficulty telling the “fake” goods apart from the “real” ones.

Items such as Buzz Cola, KrustyOs, Squishees and, of course, donuts were all on sale. The store was thick with pundits all here to indulge in America’s favourite past time: buying stuff. I, of course, should be one to talk. I bought half a dozen suspiciously pink “Homer” donuts and a six-pack of “Buzz” cola.