eric nuzum dot com

The nut doesn't fall far from the tree

Katie and Mattie
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

Like any woman, Katherine has a small list of her mother's traits that drive her completely crazy.

Many of her favorite stories are about the times that Katherine has brought friends home to visit her family. Her mom goes a bit over the top--delicious food rolls out constantly, guests' laundry is done for them, and they are fussed over almost 24/7. It's her mother's way of showing how happy she is to host them and how much their friendship with Katherine means to her.

I think it is sweet (mostly because I am a regular beneficiary of this kindness). It makes Katherine nuts.

I think the real reason it irritates Katherine is mostly because whenever she is home and asks about her mother's wonderful home cooking or needs help with something, Katherine's mother tells her to do it for herself.

Our friend Matt is visiting us this week. While I love him like a brother, he is probably on Katherine's short list of favorite people on the planet. She was heartbroken when he moved to New York two years ago for work. He's currently considering relocating back to DC for a bit for a project and Katherine couldn't be happier.

How does she show it?

This morning Matt woke up to pancakes, eggs, and bacon, all prepared for him by Katherine. Afterwards, she gathered up his laundry and later returned it to him later cleaned and neatly folded. She has a big dinner planned for tonight.

Whenever I point these things out to Katherine, she replies, "I hope you like my mother, because in 30 years you are going to wake up and realize you are married to her."

I love you back...

Blinding freedom.
Originally uploaded by tom_collins

After eating some bad tunafish or something, the folks at We Love DC have declared me to be their official mascot.

Quote:

"Not just because I keep linking to his stuff (the dude entertains me, what can I say?) or because he works for my radio station of choice, but because the heavens have aligned and shown him to be The [WLDC Blog] Chosen One."

I'll stop there, because then they quote me, which (if included) would be me quoting them quoting me, and then it would feel really weird.

Here's a link to the whole post.

I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm sure I won't look very good on a t-shirt.

Wait, does this mean I have to wear fake fur and show up at their softball games? Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Its all voodoo to me

voodoo doll found outside my door
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

The other morning as I headed into work I stopped cold in front of my office door. There, in front of it, was an eight-inch voodoo doll. No idea what it was or how it got there.

Weirder yet. It was kind of a "nice" voodoo doll. As in it didn't have any pins stuck in it or nasty evil things written on it.

Even weirder still, it was wearing a black dress, checkered pants, and had spiky black hair.

What could this be? I wondered. What does it mean? Who put it there? Was this voodoo doll put for me to use against someone (and someone with checked pants, a black dress, and spiky hair, to boot)--or was this someone else's attempt to put some bad mojo on me!

Rather than some kind of mystical warning or puppet of pending doom, it looked like a character from a Tim Burton movie. So I wasn't scared or anything.

But I was intrigued.

As people would walk by, or in and out of my office, they would remark, "Umm, what's up with the voodoo doll?" I'd tell them about its mysterious origins--and then they'd get really interested in the "where" and "why" as well.

Scuttlebutt about Eric's voodoo doll spread further around our floor all day, then finally in the late afternoon someone was discussing it when my boss walked by.

"Oh, I put it there," she said.

No one asked her why. Maybe they didn't want to know--or feared that our voodoo priestess boss would leave them a voodoo doll too for being nosey.

Later I asked her about it.

"I bought it for my son and he was scared by it," she said. "So I thought you could put it with the skulls and Grim Reapers and stuff on your shelf."

It is true, I do have a collection of skulls and Grim Reapers and stuff on my shelf in my office--which always makes those coming in for evaluations a bit nervous.

I asked her why she didn't tell me she was doing it.

"I thought it would be more interesting that way."

She was right.

I'm sure this is supposed to tell you or me something

Wordle takes the text of your Web site and creates a relational word cloud of the important words it finds. Here is the word cloud for this blog (click to enlarge):

I'm not sure if this say more about about me, as someone who wrote it, or you, as someone who reads it.

My new office...with a view of the Capitol

view from my new office
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

This week I moved offices. My new office is about twice the size of my old one (which isn't saying much, as it was very tiny). I'm on the same floor, but on the front side of our building, which is a big deal.

The view out my window couldn't be any more different. Instead of watching bums defecate on the sidewalk and the comings and goings at the (now defunct) Korean brothel on K Street, now I get to look out at the hustle and bustle of Massachusetts Avenue.

But the best part: my office has a view of the Capitol.

Well, technically.

The picture above and to the right (click to enlarge) is the view out of my new office window. Look just to the left of the center of the photo. You'll see a church steeple. Slightly to the left of that steeple is a pointy thing rising above a long flat roof.

That "pointy thing" is the Freedom Statue on top of the Capitol building.

 Here is an enlargement with the statue peaking above the roof (click to enlarge).

(The red circle was added by me--the Capitol isn't glowing or anything.)

Now, the building with the flat roof is the General Accounting Office (GAO), which prevents me from having a full view of the Capitol dome. The GAO are the folks that tell us how much of a debt we're running, how soon Social Security will implode, and how screwed-up our government is. So my vote: let's dispense with the buzzkills at the GAO, demolish their building, and improve my view!

So, there you have it--my office has a Capitol view.

Perhaps I should have been a real estate agent.

Today is Annual Underwear Day

my 2009 underwear
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

I have many ideas, but very few of them are any good. One of my better ones, just about as close as I ever come to genius, is Annual Underwear Day.

Most people (not me) are doing laundry, getting dressed, in the gym locker room, or standing on stage in front a room of antsy and bored paying customers--and have an embarrassing revelation: they have hobo underwear. They notice, or--even worse--someone else notices, that their undergarments are covered with holes, tears, loose seams, discolorations, etc... You know, hobo underwear.

I am not one of these people. I never have these revelations. That's because I have absolute confidence in the condition of my underpants.

How is this, you wonder? Well, that's the genius of Annual Underwear Day. Once a year, or at the first sign of wear on any of my undergarments, I throw out all my underpants, go shopping, and replace the entire stock. No guessing, no fussing, etc... Just out with the old, in with the new--once a year. I do the same thing with all my socks (usually shortly after replacing my underwear). All the socks go--on the same day, replaced with all new ones.

I started doing this about five or six years ago. At first, my wife was very resistant to the idea, mostly because it included a provision that forbid her from buying me any underwear, for any reason, during the course of the year. She doesn't like being told she cannot do something, even when that thing is buying underpants for her husband.

She has eventually warmed to the concept, mostly because I invite her to come along and edit my buying choices. This year she came up to me to review my choices before checking out and only had one thing to say:

"You need more green," she said.

Whenever she goes clothes shopping with me, and the clothing in question has a green or greenish color option, she always tries to get me to purchase it. She read somewhere that green brings out the color in blue eyes, and she has taken this as one of her life missions.

"This is underwear," I said. "How is wearing green underwear going to bring out the color in my eyes?"

She grabbed two of the pairs I'd picked.

"I don't like these," she said sweetly. "Why don't you pick out something green to replace them?"

I did.

(My previous self-tributes to the genius of Annual Underwear Day can be found here).

New PoP guest post

DC USA Main Entrance at Night
Originally uploaded by otavio_dc

I have a new guest post up on the Prince of Petworth blog.

If you aren't from Northwest DC, you probably won't get the context. The post is about the bane of my existence: the "Pay Here" machines at the DCUSA parking garage. DCUSA is a mall-like structure in my neighborhood that holds a Target, Best Buy, Staples, and several other retailers that normally would have no business locating their stores this deep inside the city.

As part of the lure for the stores, the city built a 1,000 car parking deck underneath DCUSA. The awesome part is that the city subsidizes its operation, so it only costs $1 to park there (as compared to $6-$20 in most other city parking decks). The other awesome thing is that few people drive, so there are always lots of convenient parking spots. The downside is that parkers need to pay at an automated "Pay Here" machine to exit. It should be the simplest thing in the world. Unfortunately, as you'll read, it isn't.

That's because most people are idiots.

Quote:

I think the "Pay Here" machine should function like the ancient contraptions in the Indiana Jones movies. Push the wrong button or do functions in the wrong order or outside of an acceptable time limit and a large impaling spike will explode from the floor, poison darts fly out of the wall, or a giant stone ball will roll out of a trap door in the ceiling, crushing those who find "Please insert ticket in machine" too complex an instruction.

As usual, I expect the commenters will have nasty things to say about me, which is why I enjoy doing these.

[Link] to the whole post.

Dispatch from my preteen diary: January 6th

Now the next installment of musings from my diary at age 11--which was a long time ago. You can see the whole series here.

From January 6th:

Today we had a sub., her name was Mrs. Auer (hour). She was big, fat, and ugly! Micheal Fettmen wrote a picture of her and it is on the bottom of the page. Doug Leaner said the head was to big!

The Canton Synfony Cortit came to school for the second time.

The frist time was about a month 1/2 ago.

That's all for now!

Obviously, there was no spell-check on my diary (and I'm not sure I'm all that better of a speller now).

Forgetting about poor Mrs. Auer for a moment (I'm sure she'd be thrilled to know the lingering affect she had on her students, as well as her legacy here), the Canton Symphony paid a recurring role in my youth.

For a small Midwestern town, Canton actually had a pretty kick ass symphony orchestra. Odd, I know, but true. Even more odd, the Symphony's concert space, Umstattd Hall, which was also the auditorium and theater for our high school. Again, the space was much better than you'd expect.

Anyhow, as part of their deal with the school system, the Symphony would perform in schools and provide free tickets to students. These freebies were always for Monday night concerts (the most lightly attended) and would always be in the first few rows.

I was too naive to know that the first few rows of a concert hall almost always had the worst acoustics (too close to the musicians to hear the orchestra sound blend correctly--and you couldn't see very well). I didn't care, I loved it. I would go to almost ever performance for the entire season, every year. Once in awhile I would see other school kids there, but often I was the only one person sitting in the front two rows. On one or two occasions, I talked a girl into coming with me. I guess it was to demonstrate my sophistication and worldly taste.

It was the beginning of my weird relationship with classical music. My father enjoyed classical music and often played it at home. I had all this exposure to it was a kid. I worked at and eventually became the program director at a significant public radio station that aired a lot of classical music. I've often enjoyed it, but never loved it--it was never part of my DNA.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, since moving to DC I have not been to a single classical or orchestral music event, despite dozens of them taking place every day.

I'm sure I'll come back to it at some point. I always do.

Things I love about my wife

I can tickle my brain
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

• I love the sound of her laughter--nothing makes me happier or feel like everything is alright.
• I love watching her get worked up over something and talking very loudly (which happens often).
• I love the color of her hair.
• I love that she sets goals for us and is insistent that we commit to them.
• I love listening to her talk to her friends and family.
• I love watching her with Lolly.
• I love her sense of style.
• I love when she expresses "our" feelings on a subject we haven't discussed.
• I love the kindness and warmth you see in her eyes.
• I love seeing her be brave.
• I love her talent and looking at something she's created.
• I love that she respects my opinions, yet isn't shy about challenging them.
• I love that she is easily moved to tears.
• I love her pride in her heritage.
• I love that she likes to put little stickers on things to claim them as her own.
• I love introducing her to people.
• I love that she gives me all the freedom I could ever want.
• I love that she's started to listen to public radio (by choice).
• I love her ability to remember things (this would also be on my list of "Things that annoy me about my wife").
• I love her appetite for people and am inspired by her interest in them.
• I love how much she cares about my family and has her own relationships with them.
• I love that she turns to me to help her figure out the right thing to do--and is always willing to help me with the same advice.
• I love the way she looks in a dress.
• I love the attention she gives to details.
• I love that she's let me watch her grow into the woman she is.
• I love that she loves me back and tells me so many times a day.
• I just love her.

(Thanks to my cousin-in-law Tonya for inspiring such a list by writing about my cousin Donnie)

Framed

trying--and failing--to be clever
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

In my office at work, I've collected random photographs of my wife, dog, family, and friends. They are often stuck inside the corners of frames holding other photographs of my wife, dog, family, and friends. 

One of my co-workers spotted this issue and thoughtfully gave me a multi-photo picture frame as a holiday present (which I promptly broke while taking it home to fill with pictures).

For awhile I've been planning to get a digital picture frame for my office. So this past weekend I noticed that they were on sale at Best Buy and thought I'd pick one up.

When I got it home, I started to comb through pictures of my wife, dog, family, and friends--when I realized I had a problem. A very large number of my personal photographs contain someone flipping the bird at the camera.

I, myself, have a long tradition of camera flipping. For years part of the routine of family photos has included double checking to make sure I am not sneaking a middle finger into pictures with my Grandmother (seriously).

Well, you reap what you sow, I guess. I chucked photo after photo off my list because someone thought they'd be clever by doing what every one of us does when having their picture taken.

The worst part was Monday, when I brought it in to work and discovered that I hadn't eliminated all the middle finger photos. I was in the middle of a meeting with several people in my office when the photo above faded in.

So, yesterday I had to bring home my memory card and look at each photo, carefully, just to make sure they were all gone.

I found two others. Hopefully that's it.