Doug Goodman

"Black Friday is like the zombie apocalypse.  Either you're one of them, or you're inside hiding, hoping your loved ones haven't been trampled by crazy people."  My wife posted this to her Facebook wall with the request that I come back alive and not undead.  But really, my Black Friday experience wasn't all that bad.

Okay, so I heard that a woman trying to buy an X-Box pepper-sprayed the people around her like she was a wolf defending a recently killed caribou.  And I have heard of people getting mugged for toys/money while out on Black Friday.  But I have been Black Fridaying it for the past 4 to 5 years, and I've just had a different experience.  It seems that instead of thugs and psychotics, I see mostly ordinary soccer moms and dads out looking for presents.  The frantic behavior doesn't seem to kick in until after Black Friday when people realize they have shopping to do and that perfect ImagiNext T-Rex that they really wanted to get their nephew for Christmas is completely sold out in the continental United States and won't be shipping from China for at least another month.  Yeah, that was me five years ago.  I decided to start shopping Black Fridays or get used to looking for alternative gifts.

The crazy part is the before, actually.  That's because on Thursday I sift through a bunch of Christmas lists and compare them to a bunch of flyers and look for the perfect fits.  My relatives who have visited us on Thanksgiving can attest to this erratic behavior, and I freely admit it.  But I gotta strategize.  It's not just about which store to go to, but when will the toy be available? 9pm? 10 pm? midnight? 5am?

Once I have my strategy, it's time for a little nap (usually augmented by turkey and wine).  Then I get in the car, grab a few Throwback Pepsi's (no corn syrup, just glorious sugar), and head to Toys R Us. 

Call of Duty: Toys R Us

The line at TRU was lo-o-o-ong.  It stretched a couple of blocks, and there were probably three to five hundred people in line.  I got there a little early, broke out the cellphone, and started keping tabs on the progress of the final Texas/A&M game.  A store member came around and let us know that Toys R Us would open on time and people would be let in 50 at a time.

I overheard people worrying about lots of things in line.  They worried about how long they would be in line, whether the item would still be on the shelf, and whether or not all this was worth it.  Nobody was worried about the alien invaders who took over the local Toys R Us, killed its crew, then sent out unbelievable Black Friday deals that would lure all the townspeople to the store, where they would stand in line and wait to be let in, 50 at a time, and then the aliens would slaughter everyone as they came in looking for game systems and remote-controlled cars.  Or maybe that was just my overactive imagination hopped up on sugar and caffeine.

An hour later, I was inside and hunting for a couple of sweet deals.  Everybody there was very nice and cordial.  The lines weren't horrendously long, I wasn't killed by aliens, and no zombies tried to eat me (if they tried I would have beheaded them with a nearby Nerf sword).  The only downside was I couldn't get a cart, so my arms were very jello-y (real word) by the time I got to the cashier.  Otherwise, I left TRU having saved $70.

Scariest moment of the night was me walking to the van, Christmas presents in hand, and some guy walking out of the shadows with a big grin on his face.  He wanted me to know "we" (I was wearing my Longhorns shirt) had won the game.  Last minute field goal.  I guess there are some things about this rivalry I will miss, like complete strangers wanting to share a victory in a dark and unlit area.  If I had brought pepper spray, there would have been another case of customer "resource guarding" on Black Friday.

Battlefield:  Best Buy

Best Buy was different.  As soon as I got in line, I could tell the differences.  For one, the crowd was younger.  They also looked like they had been waiting in line a lot longer.  There were lots of people in chairs and huddled together under ponchos, but it hadn't rained in 24 hours, which was weird.  They also looked geekier and more fan-boy.  It made me wonder if George Lucas was going to be at the store.  Or Olivia Wilde. 

Like the TRU line people, the BB line people had their worries, too.  Most of it was Red Bull exageration I think, because the guy on the phone in front of me was calling a friend and described the line as being one thousand to fifteen hundred people long where we stood.  He was probably right if you took away a thousand.  Amateurs...

There was another key difference between the Toys R Us crowd and the Best Buy crowd.  At Best Buy, there were a lot of chain smokers.  At Toys R Us, there was very little cigarette smoke, but somebody was definitely smoking weed.  Now that I think of it, maybe that was why everyone was so cordial and nice at Toys R Us!  Maybe that was why I was thinking of aliens, too...

At Best Buy, there were a couple of issues.  The way Best Buy had their lines set up, I had to enter another line and swim downstream through all the people waiting to purchase something that you needed an orange sheet to purchase.  I left my cart in the aisle.  By the time I got back, one of my purchases had been pilfered.  (Because I don't want to reveal the present to anyone, I will refer to it as "Electric Cow Ears." I couldn't find it back on the rack, so I went to get back in line.  But by then the general line pretty much wrapped all around the store.  There was nobody from Best Buy manning the lines, and so I went to so many lines, it felt like FEMA after a hurricane.  Then a Best Buy person showed up to fix the line problem.  Fortunately, that meant that everybody AFTER me had to go to the back of another line (suckers!) and I could merge with the current one.  I probably saved hours by not having to go to the back of that line.  Of course, there is a rumor that those people are actually still in line, stuck in a kind of purgatory between heaven and hell, err...cashiers and the end of the line. 

On the plus side, right before the cashiers was a row of Electric Cow Ears, so I was able to get the gift at the discounted rate after all.  On the downside, I probably spent three hours at Best Buy and only saved $30.  And there was no George Lucas or Olivia Wilde appearance.  I think that disappointed me the most.

World of Black Friday-Craft

So it wasn't all that bad.  I haven't done a dollar-by-dollar tally of the savings, but I probably saved a couple of hundred dollars by sunrise.  I could have saved more if I had been buying big-ticket items like TVs and iPads instead of Electric Cow Ears. 

If you look beyond the illegal drugs, the scary Longhorn fan, and the long lines of Shoggoth (I couldn't resist inserting a little Lovecraft), it was a very unpredictable and boring Friday night.  Which is the part that affects people the most.  "In a world of instant results" and all that.  People hate standing in line for longer than thirty seconds, even if it means you can save money.  I have a higher tolerance for it, I guess.  Maybe it was all that ultramarathon training I did in my twenties.  I got used to the idea of doing the same something for nine to ten hours, and let's be honest, my speed as an ultramarathoner was probably a little faster than standing in line at Best Buy. 

Will I do it again?  Probably.  Will next year be as crazy as this year?  Probably not.  But there's nothing wrong with standing in line unless aliens are using the local Toys R Us to slaughter townspeople.

Because the last Space Shuttle, Atlantis, just landed, I am up early and watching JSC celebrations on my television.  There was a beauty to Atlantis rolling to a stop in the black of morning with the spotlights behind it.  It made me think of my time working at Mission Control.

Don't get too excited.  I am a tech writer, so I never worked console and I never had to engineer a fix in the middle of Flight or play a role in which my performance had ultimate consequence.  But there is a reproduction room in Mission Control, and it is staffed 24/7 while the Shuttle is flying.  That is where I worked for a couple of weeks in 2000/2001.  (I can't remember if it was STS-101 or STS-102).  Curse my memory!!

I worked the graveyard shift from 10-6 because I was young and that was the only option available.  What I remember most about working at MCC was just how cool it felt, like you were a part of something special, even if it was only in a small way.  Up till that point I had worked offsite in a semi-large nondescript office building covered with windows.  So working Mission Control was my first time to actually go onsite.

To get to work I would drive down Saturn Lane.  It was dark already and there was a rejuvenating breeze in the air.  The kind of wind that makes you feel good even when you want to feel bad.  The breeze drove away Houston's ever-encroaching humidity, and I will always remember just how nice the weather was then.  To get to work you had to pass the giant Saturn V rocket in Rocket Park.  That thing is enormous.  Because it is now covered up by a building, you don't get a feel for the proportion and size of the rocket, but it is immensely huge.  The building barely covers it.  Driving past the Saturn V every day (err...night)  was a visual reminder of the kind of work that was being done.

But it got cooler.  Working in the repro room you were responsible for handling all copy requests, but you also had to deliver a copy of the daily mission update to everybody working in the building.  This was done around 5 am usually and was always exciting because you got to enter the Flight Control Room and see all the important people working at the consoles, which had interesting names like CAPCOM and FIDO and THOR.  You also dropped off materials at the MERs, which were the rooms full of engineering teams that backed up every person on console.  The MERs had long tables full of every kind of food imaginable, so it looked kind of like a celebrity rider list.  (Though I would wager the engineers worked harder than some of those entertainers.)

Best part had to be visiting the old Apollo room.  You get a real sense of history walking around that room with all the green consoles and the vaccuum tubes.  That is where I went on my breaks, just to sit there and enjoy it for what it was. 

I only worked Mission Control for a couple of weeks, and after that I went on to work for the Cockpit Avionics Upgrade, the Integrated Problem Reporting and Corrective Action team, and now I am in Shuttle Archives.  I have visited or worked in many more buildings and seen many of the very cool and interesting things at JSC, but nothing has compared to the couple of weeks I worked at MCC. 

I bought a couple of patches once of flights that I associate myself with.  I bought an STS-99 patch because I worked on some of the Shuttle Topography documents.  I also have a 102 and 101 patch.  One of them I have because I edited a book that flew up in space with my name in it.  (I like to make the bad joke that I have never flown in space, but "Doug Goodman" has been to space and orbitted the Earth about a hundred times.)  The other is for my brief visit in Mission Control.  Hindsight being 20/20, I should have written down on them which is which...

Now Atlantis has landed, and the word I hear is "bittersweet," and that is a good word to use.  I am thankful for the memories I have with the Shuttle program, but I am also waiting and wondering when will we go back up, and to where?

Had a health setback today.  First, though, the background.  I have a condition called gout.  Basically, it means I don't digest certain foods very well, like wheat, red meat, or beer.  Instead, my body creates tiny crystals that find their way to my joints, where they grow.  My big toe used to be where the crystals would form.  When I have these crystals, it is really painful.  The pain doesn't go away quickly either.  It usually takes 3 to 5 days to recover.

A few months ago I read about a study where people gave up cokes/sodas.  The study found decreased uric acid levels in the blood.  (High uric acid levels = crystals = pain.)  Specifically, the study suggested reducing high fructose corn syrup from your diet.  The only way for me to get off the corn syrup was to break my addiction to caffeine.  So four months ago I had my last coke.  I will have Sprites and some root beers from time to time, but for the most part, I avoid sodas.  I drink lemonade or Gatorade (G2) instead.

Dropping the caffeine was hard.  I had migraines for days and bad headaches for about 3 weeks.  I told myself this only meant it was a strong addiction, so all the more reason to quit.  I haven't had a coke since.  That's 4 months without cokes.

Unintentionally, I started weaning myself off of allopurinol, too.  Allopurinol is a drug that flushes uric acid from the body.  For the first 2 months, I took my daily pill like I always did.  For another month, I dropped to a pill every couple days, then to a pill a week, and about 3 weeks ago I took my last pill.  I was feeling great.  Like my condition was cured.  I went to see my doctor to verify that the uric acid levels were down.  I gave some blood, had a talk, and my doctor even showed me what my uric acid levels were the other times I visited.  For each one of those blood tests, if I remember correctly, I was limping around and having a gout attack.  My uric acid levels were 8.2, 9.0, and 8.3.  What does this mean?  That I had high uric acid levels.  Normal range is 2 to 6. 

So the setback?  I got a call from the doctor's office saying the results were in.  I had a 10.1.  I am shocked.  I have never had uric acid that high.  I remember when I registered a 9.0.  I had a huge flare up and was limping around.  How I am walking around with no pain and with a 10+ uric acid level, I don't know.  My wife says this is good news and shows that there was a connection between the uric acid and the cokes.  She is right, I know, but I was discouraged to think that I have to "get back on the pill."

I need to watch my diet, though.  Admittedly, I have been eating wheat, red meat, and drinking beer like someone who has been denied these foods for 8 years.  Eight years.  I can't believe it.  But maybe if I can return to my gout diet, the uric acid will go down.  Maybe.

Woohoo!  Time to pop the champagne and celebrate!  I can't believe it's been a year since I first put this place up.  When I first started this website, it could barely qualify to be called a website.  I look over the past year and see a lot of the progress it has had, like adding a photo gallery, links section, and reconstruction of the About Me section (not to mention the sidebars!), and I am happy.  One year ago I didn't have much in the way of direction or focus, I just knew I wanted to put something out on the web, but now with my writing more focused and the addition of the human remains work, I feel this place has a real purpose. 

Since starting this website, my car has been totalled, I have lost my cadaver-dog-in-training, and we have rebuilt a fifth of my house.  Oh yeah, and I was nearly laid off.  I have also acted as a lead on a Nasa project, though, and I now have a new cadaver-dog-in-training.  My children continue to do more things and amaze me, and my wife is still the coolest person on the planet.  What a year...

Still, there is more work to be done, like adding new graphics, and then there is the 100th blog post coming up.  Not sure what I should do about that, but it seems something should be done.  Okay, reflection time is over.  Back to work...

Farrah, Michael, Billy Mays, Ed McMahon, Steve McNair...

That's a lot of people for a couple of weeks.  Makes me want to wash my hands more.  God speed them all, but did you notice that none of them died of H1N1?  It looks like cancers, heart disease, and violence are still the big killers...

Done.  Finido.  The fence is up.  The latch I bought for the gate isn't working right.  I think there is a nut that is either missing or wasn't assembled correctly.  I will return it later this week.  For now, though, I have locked the gate so that the dogs can't get out.  They are outside barking at passers-by and whining to come back inside.  (That makes it all feel "normal" again.)

There is more work to be done on the house.  The siding needs to be replaced/repainted, and then there is the carpet/water damage on the first floor.  But having the fence and the roof up is good for the soul.  It does something psychologically knowing that people walking up and down the road can't waltz through your backyard.

I'm going to relax and take a few breathers for the rest of the weekend.  On to the Super Bowl!

Woohoo!  It feels good to have the new website up and running.  This is something I've wanted to do for a while, and I'm glad to see it's already paying off.  The site just looks a lot cleaner to me.  However, there are many more changes that still need to be made, so keep coming back to see the new updates.

This morning I was in a collision.  A kid/young man in a Honda hit the 4Runner with enough power to knock it 90 degrees and into the street ditch.  We both were able to walk away from the collision, which is a great thing, but I was on my way to pick up more lumber to work on the fence.  So I've been rained on when I tried to dig holes, had allergies whipped up by winds yesterday, and now going to get lumber I've been in a collision.  This is the fence from hell. 

They say that in such situations, time slows down.  For me, it didn't.  Once second I was driving to Home Depot, the next I was in a ditch. 

They also say that these are the kinds of experiences that build a writer.  I've never bought from that catalog.  I would rather live a life without injuries and collisions.  This was my first collision where I was driving.  I was in one other collision that I remember, and that was way back when I was in college and my brother was driving.  His car was totaled, too, and for a while his life took a nosedive.  I'm worried the same might happen to me - mostly because of what happened to him, but also because of the bad timing.  We're still making deductibles on the house.  To add car payments on top of that, plus trying to put something down on a new vehicle...it's less than ideal.

I'm reminded of the new Metallica song, My Apocalypse, which goes:

Crushing metal, Ripping Skin
Tossing body mannequin
Spilling Blood, Bleeding Gas
I definitely felt like a mannequin.  Fortunately, I was wearing my seat belt, but my glasses went flying, and a friendly witness who stopped went and found them for me.  One of the worst sights was seeing the car pulled out of the ditch by the tow truck.  With one tire squashed to the side and lying limp, it seemed very unfitting for a car my family has loved.  We've had this car since 2000.  But more on that later.  For now, I thank God for my safety.

Hmmm...I am beginning to see the resemblance between Dominion and this fence.  They both are taking much longer than projected, and I keep having to tweak them both, too.

This weekend, I hoped to finish all the railing.  But I spent most of Saturday morning putting in posts.  By the time I bought and cut a few rails, sunset had passed me by.  Today I finished the top railings, but if I go back to my original plan, it was to have three railings per section.  So that's a lot more railings that have to go up.  Why three?  I want to put in a wrought (sp?) board.  Not only does it look nice, but it will make weedeating easier.  So as I'm cutting board after board, I remind myself that it will be easier come Spring, it will be easier come Spring.

Today, the rails went up fast, considering that I finished 75 percent of the fence (top rail) today.  The problem was the corner posts.  There isn't enough room for two boards, so I had to specially cut the boards to fit in an "L" shape on the board. 

I think this week I am going to lay down a lot of foundation work so that over the weekend, things should move fast.  I need to mow the lawn (it hasn't been mowed since the hurricane), and I need to measure and mark where the other railings will go.  Then, I still need to remove old fenceboards from four or five sections.

As for Dominion, I am down to the last ten or so pages of the re-read.  I anticipate that the word count will be inflated by 500-1000 words once I make the changes, and then I want to get back into adding pages.  I don't think it's feasible to think I'll make 2,000 words a day, but a 1, 000?  That's a good goal.

Woohoo!  Done with the posts.  It rained again today.  All it seems to need for rain around here is for me to decide to put in a post.  But they're all finally done.  Now it's on to the railings!