Today is Towel Day across the globe, mayhap the universe.
What is towel day you ask?
Towel Day is the celebration of the life and works of author Douglas Adams. He’s the guy that wrote my favorite book The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
“Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.” Douglas Adams
The story begins on Earth – Arthur Dent’s house is about to be demolished, he had just found out this news the day before, seems the plans for this particular bypass had been stored in a deep, dank, dark basement with no electricity. He had been up all night drinking and was quite upset that he wasn’t able to get this nonsense stopped. (more…)
I arrived in Phoenix a week ago today and all seems to be going well. The weather has been really nice mid 70s – 90s and all of it comfortable heat – everyone keeps telling me I’ll wish I had never moved her in the summer.
My one bedroom apartment is really all that I need and moving in means I had to do some shopping. I’d go buy all the important things like the shower curtain and liner and not realize until I arrived home that I forgot the shower curtain rings and i’d run out again to get those and remember a slew of other things too. At this moment I think I have almost everything I need – maybe I could use a frying pan and a spatula… but I’ll be ok for a good while. For the first few days I didn’t do a lot outside of shopping, eating and driving around – oh, and I tanned by the pool every day, which is really a nice thing to be able to do.
Everything is cheaper here – except gas. It’s an amazing concept, but when people make less money they have to sell things for less i guess.
I didn’t have my Passport, which I need to get an AZ license, until yesterday (I shipped it UPS instead of taking it with me like a doofus) so I don’t have that yet. I do have a nice car that is quiet and gets me from A – Z very well. The amount of emails I’m getting now from Allstate and VW makes me wish I had stayed carless. I’m sure I’ll figure out the settings for that soon.
I tried out two meetings so far, one on Thursday night and one on Sunday. Each had things that I liked about it and each had things I didn’t – the Thursday night step study was the winner so far, I plan to keep looking but that one is close and the people friendly.
Monday was the first day of work so of course I didn’t sleep well. I was at work at 7:00 – a 15 minute car ride and my day starts at 7:30 there. The boss and the other new person were there to meet me and they showed us the ropes of how to open up (making coffee, drawing drapes, turning on the printer) and before you knew it we were taking notes in the board meeting. To be honest I didn’t take many notes I was really interested in what they were talking about. For lunch the boss got us tacos and burritos. The day went by really fast and before I knew it it was quitting time – 4:00 p.m. It had been a really great day and then I checked my voicemail (See this story). So it was an up and down day mostly up.
My Desk at Work
Tuesday I spent good quality time with my boss going over how I’m going to help her – she’s never had an assistant before and she’s excited and wary about it. I put some of those cares to rest right away by giving here items that she had been expecting but didn’t ask me for and then pointed out three errors on the website and in email signatures that should be addressed ASAP. They said the appreciated it I hope so I was only trying to help and get used to everything.
Wednesday, today I started to discover how unorganized the office is – there are all kinds of documents in the “Forms” folder that don’t resemble forms at all and the “Inventory” folder has mostly letters about events. *sigh* Well at least I wont be bored.
My protector at work
As it stands today I’m pretty happy here in AZ. I know the weather will change and the job will get incredibly busy in the summer – but i’m ready.
If you follow me on Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook or Four Square (there might be too many of these social networking sites) you probably already know what I did for my birthday trip. If you don’t you can find out here, even those of you that think you know what all I did might want to read along as I didn’t get to express everything in photos and hashtags.
This summer I had asked my two best friends Suzanne and Pat to go with me on this trip, but circumstances didn’t allow for that to happen so I made them into Flat Pat and Flat Suzanne ala Flat Stanley and Flat Stella Fame.
I left Wednesday December 5th from Washington National Airport, the day before I had tried to check in on my Delta app on my phone but it wouldn’t work – when I checked in online I discovered that it was a Delta Flight operated by Alaska Airlines. That was a new airline for me but they gave me Delta miles for the trip so it’s all good. Nothing different about the plane really – but the crew were all, or at least appeared to be, Native American. The flight was uneventful – a little turbulence, a few screaming babies and lots of BO. We landed in LAX in enough time, deplaned and made it to the gate with plenty of time – the connection was delayed of course so we sat at the gate (not on the plane) for an hour extra I’d say. While waiting I noticed ZZ Top was in our waiting area, several people were bothering them and I tried not to stare too much. Once on the plane I asked Billy Gibson to pose with Flat Pat and Flat Suzanne and he did! wow, cool guy.
ZZ Top is cool
Landing in Las Vegas was normal, the lady taxi cab drivers daughter’s birthday was also December 6, that was pretty cool. I arrived safely at the Tuscany Suites and checked into my room (G203). It was around four I was hungry and made dinner reservations at the hotel’s Italian restaurant. I gambled a little and was in bed by 9 (I had been up since 5 East Coast time).
I was up early on my birthday, December 6, and had pork chops and eggs at the hotel’s 24 hour restaurant (bad coffee, bad pork chops, and undercooked eggs – there is a region difference when you ask someone to make you eggs over easy, I’ve found that here in DC and apparently in this little restaurant over easy means something different than it does in WI, very undercooked so in the future if I ordered there again I’d order eggs over medium, but I digress). Then I sat in the hot tub for a good while – but the pool was too cold to sit in (its advertised as heated, but I doubt it was) and tried to take a nap, but it didn’t take. I walked down to the strip and then through Caesars shops and I did spend a good while liking posts on my Facebook wall and responding to emails and texts from friends and family.
Thursday afternoon my date arrived and we CENSORED…. before getting dressed and going off to see the Cirque Du Soleil show Ka at the MGM Grand. I was very excited to see it and had gotten tickets a while back. First things first, we were about 12 rows back from the stage and I think I would have rather been at least 25 rows back. I had a lot of preconceived notions about the show that didn’t materialize, but still enjoyed it immensely. I also think we were seated right near some speakers and it was very loud (you kids get off my lawn). Glad I saw it but would have likely enjoyed the Beatles Love more.
Then we went to our dinner reservation at Craftsteak also at the MGM Grand. Craftsteak is a Tom Colicchio, of TopChef, restaurant. I had Organic Lettuce with Lemon Vinaigrette, Ribeye steak and Fingerling Potatoes followed up with the Farmers Market Fruit (consisting of Blueberry, Blackberry, Dates, Clementine, Dragon Fruit, Figs, Finger Lime, Kiwi, Passion Fruit, Pear, Persimmon, Pomegranates, and Raspberry)
Farmers Market Fruit
OMG so delicious… all of it. I really can’t express in words how flavorful, beautiful and just all around great this was for my birthday dinner. The kicker for me was the painted cows on the walls – it reminded me of the cow that visited the crew at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and I was certain I’d eaten one of the cows that was on the wall. It was the perfect place to have a 42 Birthday dinner. Quite expensive, worth every dollar. My date dropped me off with a kiss and he was on his way, it was a nice day for a birthday.
Friday morning I tried to have breakfast with my friend Danny and new friend Larry but they wanted to hear a speaker and I really need breakfast to function properly…. after breakfast I met them in the banquet hall for the end of “AA History” then we had a decent break and heard “How to live with crazy people”. Most of the rest of the talks that weekend were on steps. Two of the speakers on the original schedule didn’t make it for personal reasons.
Danny being silly
I had a few meals with Danny and Larry one at P.F. Changs and one at CheeseCake Factory.
Overall my room was ok, it was very big and had two double beds. It had a decent shower and a tub. The TV did make static like noises ever few minutes for some reason and there was a high pitch beep every 5 or ten minutes that would last a minute too. The staff was nice and efficient.
I was in the gift shop looking over the shoulders of a few women in front of me at the available snacks. One of the women noticed me and apologized for being in my way – I assured her I was fine and just trying to decide which nuts to buy. Her eyes lit up and she asked if I wanted some peanuts. I said I usually get almonds. She then started to talk about these peanuts and how good they were, pulled them out of her purse opened them up and said that I would really love them and proceeded to pour a nice sized handful in my hand. They were pretty good peanuts, very crunchy. But I think it was weird to have a woman give you a handful of nuts in a gift store…
At lunch with Danny and Larry at the CheeseCake Factory we were carrying on and a woman next to us kept looking at us and smiling. We started to talk to her, seems she was also at the conference. It was a nice lunch and we made a new friend.
Some of the folks at our table for the conference included an ex-prison guard, a guy who moved from Florida to Alaska a few years ago (he did it on purpose) and a newcomer who wouldn’t shut up that I wanted to inflict physical harm upon. Great fun.
I played some roulette at the casino and while I didn’t win, I certainly enjoyed it. One woman came up to the table, put $100 on black,which hit and she then walked away with $200 – smart lady.
I met a nice guy named MiMichael from England who was there at the conference, hope to hear from him soon.
There were folks from the Chippewa Valley that made it to this conference as well: Mary Jo, Michelle, Al S and two other fellas. That was nice to see too.
Monday I was up bright and early for my flight, I had heard that there were horrible long lines at the Las Vegas Airport as it turns out it was pretty empty and before I knew it I was at my gate for my flight to Memphis (one stop). Even before we landed in Memphis I had received an email that my connecting flight would be delayed an hour, by the time our flight landed I received a few more emails and a voicemail. The updates and delays went as far as a five hour delay but ended up being only three hours, thankfully. The Delta agent was quite nice posing for a photo with Flat Pat and Flat Suzanne as well.
Delta Guy and my delayed flight
I arrived home around 8:30 or so, Mouse was here waiting for me at the door and was a loving purr machine for a few minutes before remembering I had left her and then she was a bit more aloof. This morning she loves me once again. I have the best roommate, Gary, who takes care of her sometimes when I’m away.
All in all, it was a great birthday trip, but I think next year I’ll be happier lying by a pool in Ft Lauderdale like normal.
Today we are officially 42 days away from my 42nd birthday – that’s the more important birthday a person could have… well a person who loves the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and I certainly do.
42, as you may or may not know, is the answer to Life the Universe and Everything. See when a group of pan-dimensional beings created a computer named Deep Thought which takes 7 1/2 million years to compute the answer they got exactly what they asked for the answer said Deep Thought: 42. Obviously they were a bit confused by this answer and their planet was patiently waiting for an answer with festivities and awe… Fortunately for them Deep Thought knew they wouldn’t be satisfied with the answer and told them of a great computer that could give them the question that would fit the answer to Life the Universe and Everything. Deep Thought even helped them design that computer and that computer is called “Earth”.
Now Earth, according to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy a truly wonderful, totally amazing piece of technology – at first with the following description: “Harmless”. But after Ford Prefect had visited the planet he managed to add to the description, thankfully, and it now says “Mostly Harmless” (obviously the writers had seen the US Congress in action).
Well as it turns out the day before Earth was to finally release the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything it is destroyed to make way for a hyper-space bypass – if you’re not expecting these kinds of things to happen, you’re really not prepared to live in the universe with the rest of us.
Now there really were really only two instances that anyone actually said they knew what the Question was… one was Marvin the depressed robot, one of the most wonderful characters in all literature, who said he could see the answer imprinted on Arthur’s brain (see Arthur was on the planet/computer Earth seconds before it was destroyed, fortunately for him he got to listen to Vogon poetry instead of dying horribly… well I guess that’s really a matter of taste, like any poetry really. And in the book Life the Universe and Everything Prak, a man who knows all that is true, confirms that 42 is indeed the answer and one would assume that if Prak knows all that is true he would also know for certain what the question was.
Anyway, back to my birthday which as I mentioned earlier is 42 days from now, I plan to celebrate in style. I’m flying to Las Vegas for a conference about the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. (You should note that the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, references the number 42 in the chapter There is a Solution – coincidence? I think not. I have tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil show Ka at the MGM Grand and reservations at Craftsteak and a date local guy there.
I will have a freshly inked tattoo from my friend Matt at Jinx Proof tattoos in Georgetown – Matt is designing it and is fully aware of the importance of 42 and it’s significance to the universe so it might incorporate a lot of things including, but not limited to: two white mice, at towel, the words “Don’t Panic” (which are written on the cover of each Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy)… well, we’ll see what he comes up with in a few days.
So happy start to my birthday celebration to one and all, I know you’ve all been waiting for this day all your lives and I thank you for being so patient. If we don’t make it through the end of the year (perhaps they’ll come and destroy our planet to make way for a hyper-space bypass) I hope to see you all at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe if not before then.
Below you’ll find a few cultural references to the number 42 (from wikipedia):
On the Internet
The number 42 and the phrase, “Life, the universe, and everything” have attained cult status on the Internet. “Life, the Universe, and Everything” is a common name for the off-topic section of an Internet forum and the phrase is invoked in similar ways to mean “anything at all”. Many chatbots, when asked about the meaning of life, will answer “42”. Several online calculators are also programmed with the Question. If you type the answer to life the universe and everything into Google (without quotes or capitalising the small words), the Google Calculator will give you 42, as will Wolfram’s Computational Knowledge Engine.[18] Similarly, if you type the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything into DuckDuckGo, the 0-click box will read “42”.[19] In the online community Second Life, there is a section on a sim called “42nd Life.” It is devoted to this concept in the book series, and several attempts at recreating Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, were made. In Facebook Chat there is an emoticon for 42 created by typing :42: .
Shortly after Adams died in 2001, the Darwin Awards Forums announced that, in his honour, the number of posts required for a member to get out of “newbie” status would henceforth be decreased from 50 to 42.
In the OpenOffice.org software, if you type into any cell of a spreadsheet=ANTWORT(“Das Leben, das Universum und der ganze Rest”), which means the answer to life, the universe and everything, the result is 42.[20]
ISO/IEC 14519-2001/ IEEE Std 1003.5-1999, IEEE Standard for Information Technology – POSIX(R) Ada Language Interfaces – Part 1: Binding for System Application Program Interface (API), uses the number ’42’ as the required return value from a process that terminates due to an unhandled exception. The Rationale says “the choice of the value 42 is arbitrary” and cites the Adams book as the source of the value.
The random seed chosen to procedurally create the whole universe including all the regions, constellations, stars, planets, moons and mineral distribution of the online massively multi-player computer game EVE Online was chosen as 42 by its lead game designer in 2002.[21]
Ken Jennings, defeated along with Brad Rutter in a Jeopardy match against IBM‘s Watson, writes that Watson’s avatar which appeared on-screen for those games showed 42 “threads of thought,” and that the number was chosen in reference to this meme.[28]
Today my friend Rosy turns 42, it’s a special Towel Day (25 +5+12 = 42) and Men In Black 3 comes out – I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were Vogon ships headed our way right now preparing to read poetry to us before we’re demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, it could happen… I’m sure of it.
DON’T PANIC!
… a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books, I re-read it probably once a year and laugh out loud several times.
Share and Enjoy
Mostly Harmless
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
This was basically just a meaningless post meant to fill the void of internetness and remind you about Towel Day. I hope you’re a hoopy frood and know where your towel is today!
