Weekend in Review

Strange Fruit

Things were going well. My fellow supervisor, who didn't work last week's game, had just commented to me that I must've straightened them all out last week because we didn't have nearly as many drunk students trying to talk us into letting them in without their student IDs this week. And then...

At just about two minutes before kick off, all of our ticket scanners simultaneously went offline. Students can print their tickets at home, and we scan the barcode on them to verify that they haven't been photocopied, photoshopped, or any of the dozen different tricks students use to beat the system. So, no scanners, no scanning; no scanning, no entry. No entry, several hundred enraged drunken students.

I grabbed a bullhorn and told them that the scanners were down, but would be back up shortly. I said that print-at-home ticket holders could walk down to the gates a little further south of us. I told them that holders of "hard tickets," those printed at the box office and not at home, could still enter through our gate.

As I was speaking, the cannon was fired. They fire the cannon at kick off. Suddenly those hundreds of enraged drunken students were acutely aware that they were missing the game. You know, the game between their team, the number one team in the country, and a highly ranked in-conference opponent. They instantly ratcheted up their rage level by a few clicks.

They screamed. They booed. They flipped me off. They came up to me and yelled, with spittle flying, words like "ridiculous," and "outrageous," and "refund." I nodded, I smiled, I apologized, I pretended I was getting a call on my earpiece so I could turn away. I repeated my bullhorn message.

While I was talking, the box office supervisor quietly closed the gate that was closest to me. My first thought when I turned and saw those bars was, "Eek! Don't leave me out here alone!" Apparently, my supervisor partner was standing on the opposite side of our gate and couldn't see me anywhere and couldn't hear me on the bullhorn. He, too, thought he'd been left to the wolves and had his own moment of certainty that he'd be lynched.

But in the end, we moved many to other gates, whose scanners were still working. Whatever the problem was with the wireless network to which our scanners were, and then were not, connected, was quickly fixed, and the entire ordeal lasted only about 10 minutes. But it was an exciting 10 minutes!

On the down side, there was much finger-pointing after the fact, and I was afraid perhaps I hadn't handled it as I should have. On the plus side, my bosses all reassured me I did everything right. The "strange fruit" reference, while entirely inappropriate for me to use in even a slightly humorous context, comes from one of those bosses asking me the next day if I'd had a restless night's sleep dreaming of strange fruit. She had to explain it to me.

Another plus is that I learned a lot about how the scanners work and what to do next time in case of a network failure. And I learned a lot about myself and how I will react in an unexpected situation.

Oh, and the biggest plus: I found a much more efficient way to piss off much larger numbers of drunken students simultaneously, rather than waiting for them each to come through one by one without their IDs.

Smoochy, Smoochy

Saturday was also the 16th Anniversary of Aerie's and Rodius' First Kiss. We were both exhausted from our days, but we still managed to fit in a traditional Kissiversary Margarita. Happy Kissiversary, Honey!

Little Devil

So that was my Saturday. On Sunday, I worked a fun community Halloween event. Student groups volunteer and set up booths with games and candy, and kids and their families come to the event, in costume or not, to "trick or treat" the booths, get their faces painted, explore a real fire truck, visit the haunted house, and more. Aerie took Thumper, and though I didn't get to participate because I was working, she tells me he had a blast running loose among all those kids. He also got to eat two whole mini peppermint patties, which for a kid who doesn't get much in the way of candy or other sugary treats, was quite a big deal.

And on a side note, if there's any doubt about the effect of sugar on children's behavior, I think my son offers, if not empirical evidence, then at least anecdotal: every time he gets a big dose of sugar, he loses his mind. His sleep patterns are disrupted, his eating patterns are disrupted, and his normally sweet, funny nature takes a disturbing turn toward the aggressive, violent, destructive, and just down right bratty. So though Aerie felt like she was getting the stink eye from other parents and from volunteers at the event for denying him any more than those two little patties, she was absolutely right. I wonder how many behavioral problems in schools and elsewhere would be greatly reduced if sugar wasn't so prevalent.

Wow, look. A long blog entry. And it ended all preachy and whatnot. Man, I should really get back to work.

Synchronicity

Thumper used to know trucks. Cars and trucks. We see them on our jogs all the time, and "Carsh!" he says. "Tuck!" he says. Then I took him to the UT campus, where there are buses, buses everywhere. "Tuck!" he said. "Bus!" I said. "Tuck!" he said. "Bus!" I said.

And now there are no more trucks. A pickup goes by. "Bus!" he says. "Truck!" I say. A delivery van goes by. "Bus!" he says. "Truck!" I say. An 18-wheeler roars past. "Bus!" he says. "Truck!" I say.

But today, we went to the Austin Children's Museum. They have a whole new exhibit on transportation that features the back half and engine of a Cap Metro bus. "Bus!" he said, spinning in circles and pointing frantically. "Bus!" "Yes," I said. "Bus!" He ran up to perfect strangers, kids and adults and anyone he could find. "Bus!" he said, pointing and pointing. "Yes," I said. "Bus!"

And when he'd worn himself out, I carried him back to the car. Just as I was unlocking the door and dropping the diaper bag in, a Cap Metro bus rumbled towards us. "Look, Thumper," I said, pointing. "What's that?"

He looked at the bus. We looked at each other. A beat went by, and we both smiled. It was a good joke. "Bus," we said together. "Bus." And then we laughed.

Bath Time Lessons

It's bath time, and I've washed and rinsed the boy. Now he's just playing. He's on his knees fiddling with the faucet, and one of his nesting bath cups is floating in the water. I hear the sound of a stream splashing into the cup. He looks down and asks, "Poop?"

"No," I reply. "That would be pee."

And thus another life lesson is successfully passed from father to son.

How Your Kids Are Spending Their Saturdays

If you sent your kids off to the University of Texas at Austin, and you failed, in their first 18 years on this planet, to impress upon them that they do not automatically deserve to be exempted from the rules simply because they are cute and funny and scantily clad and willing to throw your money around and just that much more charming and witty when they've got a few drinks in them, there's a good chance your kids are spending their Saturdays explaining to me with almost admirable persistence why I should let them into the stadium even though they, for a multitude of reasons they are more than willing to explain to me, repeatedly, do not have their student IDs.

If you are a drunken student, let me reiterate: a student ticket requires a student ID. A student ticket requires a student ID. A student ticket requires a student ID. Turning students away, the part of the job I found hardest at first, is rapidly becoming my favorite part. It's just getting funnerer and funnerer. If I was inclined to take bribes, I could've cleared $110 and a lap dance tonight. I'm not going to let you in anyway, but here are a few tips all the same:

1. Bring your student ID.

2. Don't buy somebody else's student ticket.

3. After I've said no, don't make your first rejoinder, "How much do you make in an hour? I'll pay you $10 right now."

4. Discourage your friend behind you in line from commenting, "Come on. She's really hot. Just let her in."

5. Don't keep telling me how much you paid for your scalped ticket.

6. When I've calmly made it clear in every way that I know how that I'm not letting you in, don't demand to speak to my supervisor. And when I instead wave a police officer over, avoid this exchange:

Officer: You're obviously intoxicated, so I'm going to make this easy. You can go home, or you can go to jail.

Drunk Student: I'm not... I just don't see why you can't... But I'm just saying, you know... [Swaying] I'm not drunk.

Officer: I'm going to try this just one more time, so listen carefully to what I'm saying. You can go home, to your own home and your own bed, or you can go to jail.

Drunk Student: I'm not the one causing a problem here. I just don't see why you can't do the right thing.

Officer: [Handcuffing Drunk Student] OK, I guess you want to go to jail then.

Drunk Student: What, now you're going to arrest me?

But hey, you know, I've got to be there one way or another, so I might as well be entertained. Go ahead and bring it.

Boo!

I finished my current copywriting project, and my database baby is just sitting around waiting to go live tomorrow, so look! A new header! I used Keren's Abstract Brushes Vol. 1, and her Flies as well. Happy Halloweeny!

It's a Big Week for Me

I worked the So You Think You Can Dance touring show tonight. Do you know about this? I had no idea it was a big deal. It was a sold out show. Seriously. It boggles the mind.

But that's not why it's a big week for me. It's a big week because my baby's getting born this week. On Wednesday, at noon. The database project in which I have a personal stake goes live. I worked SYTYCD, but my bosses just planted me in front of a computer to work on the database. I never know where I'll work for an event until I get there, but tonight, surprise! they needed me more for this than for that. I usually get a higher rate of pay for database work than I get for ushering work, but I didn't even care today that I was getting ushering pay for databasing. I just want it finished. I've been telling my bosses for a couple of months now to get on it, to play with it, to practice, to explore, to give me feedback. Did they do that? No, they did not. There were football games; there were concerts. They didn't have time. Three days before go time, suddenly they're hot to trot. They've got changes. Now they've got changes. But hey, at least it's finally going live. Glory be.

You see, when you usher at the arena, you travel back in time to some time in the late '70's, when people know that there are such things as computers, but these computing machines generally don't affect their daily lives. Here's the time-honored signup procedure for getting onto an event that you want to work:

1. Show up at the building at the same time as 200 other ushers. If you can't make it, you're screwed.

2. Write your name on a sheet of paper, next to one of a couple hundred consecutive numbers.

3. Sit around. Shoot the shit. Catch up on the gossip. Feed your toddler lunch. Let him run around and charm the retirees who make up a large percentage of the ushering population. If he's in a crappy mood, you're screwed.

4. Watch the boss draw a number out of a hat. Hope that it's yours, or close behind yours. Close ahead of yours and you're screwed.

5. Line up with everybody else. The lucky stiff with the drawn number is at the head of the line with each consecutive number coming behind.

6. Slowly trudge past a table full of colored sheets of paper representing available events. Some have only two or three available spaces; some have dozens. Sign up for the ones with available spots, if they happen to be on days that you can work. If there aren't any, you're screwed. When the few perfect-for-you events fill up, you're screwed.

7. Stop by the building one or more times a week for the next month to see if anyone's taken themselves off of one of those colored sheets of paper so that you can put yourself on. If they haven't, you're screwed. If somebody else beat you to it, you're screwed. If you live, oh, let's say "hypothetically" twenty miles away from the building, you're screwed.

So, there you go. That's the system my database replaces. It will mean that we (and by "we" I mean "I") can sign up for events from home. The next month's events will still open at noon on a particular Wednesday, but now we can all fight for spots from the comfort of our homes while our toddler sons take naps. This will be particularly helpful to me now that my own toddler son prefers to be unconscious at noon rather than eating lunch and charming retirees. And doubly glorious: we can simply open a browser window to see if any spots have become available insteading of driving 40 miles round trip to find out that no spots have in fact become available. I may or may not be able to actually get onto more events this way, but I am sure that I will save money on gas. And maybe I won't feel quite so screwed.

Bargain

I tried to talk myself out of it. I really did. But the boy was practically leaping out of the carriage the moment he set eyes on it. It's missing the steering wheel and the gear shift, but it was only $25. I think the previous owners added the plexiglass windshield, because retail images of it don't seem to have a windshield, and it doesn't quite look like a factory install. I guess it sold at Costco for $150, and at Target and Amazon for $280. But I dropped $20 for an hourly rental pick up truck to get it home, and $15 on eBay for a steering wheel that's meant to be mounted on playground equipment. So $60. Not bad. I'm a sucker for Goodwill. I give you: the Battat Activity School Bus, in all its glory.