Man someone took my phone u hav the wrong number

My assignment was to collect the missing reports at the end of the month, so today I was working on it.  Begging via e-mail, telephone, and text message.

One sister responded to me with an unusually terse answer.

Me to (619) 555-0436 Add - San Diego, CA

6/8/10 5:27 PM 106 minutes ago

Me: Hello, Xochitl, may I have your FS report? --Steve 4:54 PM

(619) 555-0436: Sure 4:54 PM

"She just says 'Sure'...",  I thought.  "That's it?"

Usually people will respond with their figures.

So I replied with some encouragement to go ahead and give me her report.

Me: Thanks, can you text it to me or e-mail me? Or leave it as a voice mail? --Steve 4:58 PM

(619) 555-0436: Im not quite sure, i just got run over la jolla and im bleedin internally on the sidewalk so if im alive tomorrow il send it on k! 5:00 PM

Okay, now I'm in panic mode with adrenaline in my blood.  Think, think...

The original reply of "sure" was strange.  Perhaps Xochitl doesn't have that phone number any more and it belongs to someone else?

Yet in my mind I was visualizing my dear sister laying on the sidewalk, bleeding.  What should I do?

The first thing I did was call what I knew to be her home number, her land line.

Busy!  Of course.  Her husband is probably just getting the news.  I have to help, somehow.  Must notify others so we can support her.  We'll be visiting her at the hospital tonight.  Hopefully.

Yet there's an element of doubt.  I should call her to make sure.  Yet perhaps the paramedics are working on her now, and won't appreciate having her cell phone ring and interrupt them.  I had better text her, first.

Me: can I call you right now? 5:08 PM

Still in panic mode, I only waited about 20 seconds until I made the decision to just ring the number and see if she answered.

Ringing...  someone picked up!

It was the sound of a man groaning in pain, terrible pain.  Well, at least I now knew that it wasn't Xochitl.  Definitely not her voice.  A man's voice.  Groaning in agony.

"How are you?" I said loudly into the phone, making sure I was overheard by the man laying on the sidewalk in torment from his injuries.  He groaned on... then the sound of the phone hitting heavily against garments...   had the emergency people taken the phone away from him?

Silence now.  Waiting to hear...

"Are you okay?" I said.

Silence.

Then, in the distance, laughter.  More laughter.  And a voice, straining against his own laughter,

"He's still on the phone!"

Silence... and then a disconnect.

Walking back over to the computer screen where my Google voice text conversation was taking place, I saw that I'd had a response to my request to call.

(619) 555-0436: I don't care. [expletive] my life 5:11 PM

Now that I knew it was all a theatrical production, I decided to join right in on the fun and exercise my rarely-used improvisational skills.

What follows is the remainder of the text conversation, complete with time stamps.

Me: Please stay calm. I've just called 911 and although they can't track you directly, I gave them your phone number and they're calling the service provider 5:16 PM

Me: who will be able to get to you. Just stay calm. Can you dial 911 yourself? That will speed the process... in any event, help is on its way. 5:17 PM

(619) 555-0436: U got the wrong numb 5:18 PM

Me: Just please keep your phone on. Is the battery strong? Even with the phone off the phone will emit a weak signal, if you're in La Jolla the police should be 5:18 PM

Me: I'm on with 911 right now and they are attempting to ring you too. Please pick up unless you've aleady called them. WAIT hang tight they say they have a fix 5:19 PM

Me: on your location. Hit and run I 5:19 PM

(619) 555-0436: Man someone took my phone u hav the wrong number 5:26 PM

(619) 555-0436: 5:27 PM

NOTE:  Other than my modifying the actual phone number and removing a foul word, the above text conversation is copied exactly as it appears in my Google voice text record.

Failure is Fun

Oh, how sweet the smell of failure in the morning.

As I struggled through the exam, I remembered the time during the online course that I watched a simulation of some feature of Access 2007, the database portion of the Microsoft Office 2007 Suite, and laughed out loud.

"What?" I had thought, as the demonstration played out onscreen. It was funny because it was all gobbledygook to me, and I wondered "who can understand this stuff?"

Yeah, funny at the time, but now as I floundered during the timed 50-minute online test, it dawned on me that those who hope to get a job using Access 2007 probably can understand "this stuff", or at least they'd better.

Mercifully the fifty minutes of sweating went by fast, and soon the truth was at hand, visible for me and Shane, the CertiPort test administrator, to see:

It felt strangely good.  It smelled good.  The smell of failure in the morning.  The sweet smell of failure.

Why?  Because all my life, fearing failure, I usually avoid anything that I suspect will result in failure.  

"Hey, let's do this certain thing! Where's Steve?"

Hear the screech of my tires and see my rapidly diminishing taillights.

So failure is rare for me since I never attempt anything too difficult.

This failure made me feel a certain pride.  I tried something that I had no real chance of succeeding at.  Study and study and more study gave me an overconfident feeling based simply on the time I'd "spent" on it.  Yes, it was hilarious to see all the "mumbo jumbo" in the lessons.  Sort of a shock to find that they don't give you a passing grade just for showing up.  This paragraph is all messed up and confused.  What I'm trying to say is that I'm happy to have a Failure because it means I had a Try.

Failure is fun!

Owl Be Back

Thursday night/Friday morning, Sean and I did a shift of night security at the stadium, from Midnight to 3:00am.

Normally, no one in their right mind would really want to do such an assignment, not if they were planning to attend the District Convention that very Friday morning.

However, as we roved the darkened stadium with our flashlights, I was reminded of what a privilege such an assignment truly is.

The sky was lighted by the full moon which made the fluffy night clouds glow brightly as they slid past as if on an invisible overhead glass table.

Still and quiet ruled. The nearby freeway was mostly vacant. The trolleys were all sleeping afar off in their yard by the ballpark. The only other people in the stadium were those brothers watching the equipment in both sound tents, the ones assigned to stay in the two administration offices, the two trucking rovers, and of course perhaps two or three stadium security people who watched camera monitors in their office near Gate A.

We roamed from the pitch black tunnel circling the field seating to the main walkway of the uppermost section, the View level.

Standing on that high walkway, under the massive 45-degree overhang of the highest seating level, Sean and I watched the moon as it shone down through a gap between two fast-moving clouds. Waiting for it to disappear behind a cloud, it was a strange sight to see the cloud seemingly pass by behind the moon. I'm not sure how or why the moon continued to look so crisp and clear as it shone through the cloud, providing such an illusion.

Then we noticed a black shape flapping up from the darkened trolley station, flying up underneath the stair-stepped seating structure. It seemed to disappear into a crack or opening just out of our vision. There was no sound of flight, and so we both came to the same conclusion at once:

"Owl!"

Then immediately we heard the sound of what must have been owl chicks excitedly welcoming mom back to the nest.

I had never heard baby owls before. It seemed a mixture of both high squeaks and low chirps, mixed together much as delicious ketchup blends the tastes of sweet and salty.

After a moment, the silent dark shape swooped back down from the concrete structure and glided back down to the vicinity of the trolley station.

Sean and I and walked quietly over to where the sounds of the chicks were coming from so that we might get a better glimpse of Mommy Owl when she returned.

Looking up we could now see some pretty big openings where the View Level sat upon its reinforced stair-stepped support. Probably expansion joints to allow the concrete to acknowledge the difference between the heat of the day and the cool of the night.

Was it five minutes we waited? Then suddenly she came back, flying up from the train station. This time, however, she must have seen us, for instead of a direct route to the nest, she flow a wide figure-eight across the edge of the stadium. How beautiful! Though she was still to us just a dark silhouette against the bright white clouds, it was obvious that she carried in her talons a pretty good-sized rodent. (Poor innocent rat!)

She flew up into one of the expansion joints, and the chicks started up again with their squeaky chirping. She flew out after just a few seconds, and into a nearly adjacent opening. Then a second later she came out and occupied an opening several steps up and away from that of her nest.

This time she came out to the edge and just stared down at us, watching us intently as she rocked slightly from side to side.

After we stared back awestruck for a couple of minutes, knowing that the magic had to end eventually, Sean risked shining a strong beam of light from his Mag-Lite torch upon her face.

She looked like a monkey! A vertically oval face, white framed by brown, intent dark eyes watching us-- I had to remind myself that she'd flown up there, and that her silent flight had quite early on betrayed her owl-ness to us.

Realizing her concern over who the heck we were, we spoke softly to her, admiring her beauty and wishing her a pleasant night, and then quietly walked away.

Glancing at my watch I noted the time, 2:15am.

Book Review: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

This morning I finally finished reading The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

It's not a long book, in fact it only took me two days to read it.

Yeah, it's good, but my question is this:

Why did the publishers choose the particular photograph of the author that appears on the back of the dust jacket?



He looks like an angry, crazed mass murderer.

Cracker

Early this morning on the bus from Rancho San Diego into El Cajon, there were three passengers, a man and two women, all sitting up near the front by the driver, engaged in a spirited conversation.

From my seat at the very back, I couldn't make out what they were saying, however based upon what happened later I surmised they were discussing convicted sex offender Leonard Earl Scroggins, who was recently captured in National City.

It bears mentioning that all three of the passengers would easily qualify as "Caucasian", and the bus driver herself was a white woman.

After several minutes of the conversation, which I wasn't paying attention too, suddenly the loud voice of the driver was clearly heard, as she interjected her own strong opinion.

"It's how they're raised," she said, waving her finger back and forth in admonishment, "it has nothing to do with the color of their skin."

The male passenger continued talking, and I think I heard him say "Yeah, it's how they're raised, and..."

The bus driver lady cut him off and waved her finger more emphatically at him in her mirror.

"It has nothing to with the color of their skin," she repeated.  "Look at John Gardner.  He's white!"

The guy responded with something that I just couldn't make out, but the driver was not satisfied.  As she pulled up to the next stop, she continued:

"It has NOTHING to do with the color of their skin.  It's how they're raised!  I have three mixed boys and they'd never do anything like that, I'll guarantee you.  It has nothing to do with the color of their skin!"

A black passenger got on, a man, and walked through the ongoing conversation seemingly oblivious to the subject.  He sat in the middle of the bus.  The next passenger to board was Hispanic, and he sat down in the front.  He was listening, and evidently got the gist of what was going on.

The white male responded to the bus driver by saying, "It's how their raised, yes, it's how their raised," in sort of an acquiescent acknowledgement of the driver's strong words.  As he spoke, the Hispanic man was looking at him.

"You're a racist?", he said, with sort of a chuckle as if it was hard to believe that racists still existed in Southern California.

The white man simply repeated the words of surrender, "It's how they're raised", and looked out the window, hoping the conversation would end.

Which it did.

Kurtosis

Today, just moments ago, I learned that Excel 2007 has an Analysis ToolPak that can be activated.

This allows you to analyze a table in a spreadsheet and determine several things, including something called "Kurtosis".

This really aroused my interest for two reasons:  (1) I have a good friend named Kurt.  He let me ride his off-road Segway.  The word reminds me of Kurt because it has the letters "kurt" in it, and (2) I've never heard of such a thing as "Kurtosis".  What is it?  I am really curious.

Here's the definition I found on wikipedia: 

In probability theory and statistics, kurtosis (from the Greek word κυρτός, kyrtos or kurtos, meaning bulging) is a measure of the "peakedness" of the probability distribution of a real-valued random variable. Higher kurtosis means more of the variance is the result of infrequent extreme deviations, as opposed to frequent modestly sized deviations.

What?????   My curiosity is slowly evaporating in the heat of this "over my head" feeling that's coming over me.

I'm going back to my Excel 2007 lesson now.

All the Souls

What do animals really think and feel?

Much has been written on the subject.

I don't have anything to add.

Yet I do wonder.