12:58 a.m. - September 11, 2005
The Dork Hall Of Fame Inducts A New Member
Well, I think I just sealed my induction in the Dork Hall of Fame.
Oof, what a week. I�m a big ol� dork. In fact, I would change my name to �Yeahimadork� if this one didn�t exist already. (Go click, I�ll wait�)
How can I claim the title of the King o� Dorks (at least temporarily)? Well, I�ll tell ya:
Tuesday: Liz has girl�s night out. They are going to Little Mexico (fab place, really!) and then to a movie. I get to take Katie to dance class, and I have to bring Kristin (obviously). We switch cars since I don�t have a base for Kristin�s car seat installed in my CR-V. I just grab the spare set of keys for Liz�s Accord, and leave my keys at home. My key chain has the house keys. Liz locks the house. Trouble, as you see, ensues.
I get back from dance class, and realize as I�m pulling in the driveway that I have no house keys. I try to call Liz six or seven times on her cell phone. Nothing. So, I drive around downtown, find a place to park, unload the kids, and find Liz at Little Mexico and get a house key. Of course, this was in front of �the girls� so I�m sure I�m the topic of conversation for most of the rest of the margaritas.
Thursday: I�m watching the New England / Oakland game. There�s also a discussion going on, and someone says something I don�t want to hear. I act in a petulant frenzy, and fling what�s in my hand across the room. It was the remote to the TiVo. Boop-she-doo-be�shattered. Well, not totally, but enough to do the song cue.
I attempt to put the remote back together and I succeed, allegedly. I try to get the remote to operate, and nothing. Nada. Zip. Well, crap. I munged something in the electronics, I think. So I call DirecTV. I say, �The remote fell on the floor!� Which isn�t a lie, technically, but when I told this to The Candidate later she was filling in all of the blanks to a tee, so I�m sure the customer service rep on the phone probably knew what the 411 was! As soon as I said those words, the rep said �It�s broken, and we�ll send you a new one for $15.�
So all this weekend, we�re remoteless. Which isn�t that bad, except we can�t rewind and fast forward, which is probably the single most coolest thing about TiVo. Plus it�s rigmarole to change channels.
For penance, I cancelled NFL Sunday Ticket. Well, that and a budget examination. Plus, I needed a brownie point or two for acting like Katie, and I don�t think even Katie could fling a remote in a petulant frenzy and cause it to boop-she-doo-be-shatter.
Friday: Oh, a red letter day in dorkdom. After work I make a run to the grocery store (always gots to go Krogering to stock up for the weekend breakfasts, etc.) It�s a bit hot and humid but I won�t be out long. I�m wearing my purple dress shirt (This thing is PURPLE. I love it!) with a snazzy gold tie and khakis. I turn off the iPod, put it away, gather the list and coupons and other accoutrements, and proceed to Kroger with maximum efficiency. As I am walking to my car, I realize I do not have my car keys. I have my clip-on sunglasses, my wallet, my cell phone, and my groceries, but no keys.
I get to the car, and it�s locked. As well it should be, since my iPod is in the car. I spot my car keys, and they�re in the cupholder between the front seats of my CR-V. Right where they should be, of course, yeah. So I have to call Liz, and she has to pack Katie and Kristin in the car and unlock my car for me. Meanwhile, I�ve got $70 worth of groceries and I�m out in the parking lot at Kroger looking like a total dork. I�m pitting out my purple shirt, and people are looking at me like I�m some freak. No, I�m not a freak at all; I just like loitering around my car with my groceries in my cart for no apparent reason.
(I got beer on this trip. Labatt�s in a bottle. Because of the blue laws they were warm and not cold. If they were cold, I could have drunk the whole 12 pack in the lot).
Well, Liz and the girls arrive, open my car for me and watch me load my car with groceries. They went for ice cream. I went home to put the groceries away. Sigh.
I proceeded to put the groceries away, and I thought my key fouls for the weekend were done. But no! When Liz and the girls get home, they tell me I left my keys in the door. That�s three key fouls since Tuesday, but I only got key probation. Sigh. Only a dork would commit three key fouls in that short of a time frame.
Saturday: It was a rough night � as Katie had a nightmare that kept a lot of people up until 2, and then Katie, of course woke up at 7. So I�m groggy, and I go out to get the plethora of papers we get on a Saturday morning.
I covered a high school football game Friday night. My game story is in the new local paper, and when I�m reading it I realize that I made a fairly minor, yet significant error, in my story. Argh! I�m sure no one really noticed but me, but I, of course, am still kicking myself for it. Ouch! Ouch!
Then I went to the first Wabash football game of the year. It�s pretty hot and steamy, and the press box at Wabash is without air conditioning, so after a while it gets a bit gamy and people get a bit cranky, me included. However, the crankiness isn�t why I�m cemented my dorkdom � two other incidents did.
First I noticed that one of our freshman players had a different font of numbers on his jersey than the rest of the squad. Out of 95 players on the team, I noticed that his numbers looked different. D-O-R-K. At halftime I asked the equipment manager about this, and he said, �If we didn�t do that at the last minute, we wouldn�t HAVE a #18 for today�s game, idiot!� (Did I say it was hot and people were cranky??)
(A sidebar to really cement my dorkiness � I do care about uniforms and continuity. Uniforms that teams wear are fascinating, especially when they are unique, or when certain players deviate from the uniform in subtle ways. So I look out for crap like that, when 95% of the fans in the stands wouldn�t notice it at all.)
Part of my duties, besides being PA announcer, is to help the stats crew. I have a keen eye for detail and I was told to check the game stats. At first glance, they looked good, but as I was walking home with the stats packet (and yes, Mr. Dork here was reading the stats while walking down the street, sigh) I noticed something that didn�t look right. So I investigated in the play by play of the game. It turns out there was a typo in the entry of a play that caused some yardages to freak out, but it wasn�t noticeable until you dove into the numbers.
So I call Sid, and he made the correction. The image of me standing in the middle of campus with a stat packet in one hand, talking on the cell phone about one play that occurred in the middle of a 46-6 game just so the stats would be 100% perfect should cement my nomination for dork hall of fame.
So, what else could go wrong and make me look like a dork. One more thing could and did.
I decided to try and finish up some liner notes for a CD collection I�m making for a special friend. I get to about halfway through the liners, and hit �save� in word just so I don�t lose anything.
Word hangs up, and it�s just sitting there. And sitting there. And sitting there, with the little graphic illustration of a file being saved.
Since I am Mr. Patience, I cancel out.
Wrong choice, grasshopper. Eight pages are gone. Zapped. Eaten. The file, she is empty.
It�s punishment for my dorkiness. Well, dorks also write extensive liner notes to CDs they burn for people, don�t they. But I�m so tired and worn out and need to get these done that I may have to forego the liners. Sigh.
Maybe Sunday will be better. Let�s hope, and let�s hope that I�ll graduate from dork, and perhaps just be a geek or nerd next week!
