Liza's been out of school for the last week or so, having had her tonsils out. Mike's been telling me his childhood horror stories with his tonsils, all of which made me alternate between laughing and being mortified at his experiences. I have my tonsils, but not a third of my teeth. I wonder if there's a correlation to that tradeoff.

Mike came down the mountain to pick up the tiller, and, much to both my surprise and delight, brought Liza with him. Mike and I were going to head over to the frozen yogurt place that Katie introduced me to, and holy moly, is it awesome. My favorite is the original with graham cracker crust: tastes like a light, cold keylime pie. Mmmmmm.....

So, we went off to the yogurt place. I kept trying to get Liza to talk, because I thought her voice had changed. Kiii-iiiitt! Sure enough, Mike confirmed that her voice had changed because of the tonsils.

On the way back home, I noticed Liza's homework on her lap. She had just pulled it out of her backpack, when "Kathleen" caught my eye. I asked her, "Why did you put 'Kathleen' on your homework?"

She turned to me and, in a way I thought you had to be at least a teenager to perfect, rolled her eyes at me. "That's my name, Kitt."

Well, aren't I put in my place?

Mike explained that she's been waffling between her first and middle names, not quite sure which name she wanted to use. Nothing like defining yourself young. I would, however, like to honor her choice: if she's going to be Kathleen, I'll switch what I call her, just give me some time to do it right. So, I asked her, "What should I call you then?"

"You can call you whatever you want," she answered.

I reached over, grabbed her in the biggest bear hug I could manage, and asked, "Does that mean I can call you 'the Awesome Daughter of My Good Friend?'"

"NooooOOOoo, Kiiiiii-iiiiiiitt!"

Ah, that's the Liza voice I love.

Yes, I still crack me up.

Went over with Brian to look at a place in downtown Mountain View today. What surprised me most about the place wasn't how great it was. Rather, I was surprised at how few other people interested in the HackerDojo showed up.

Which is to say, other than Brian, who organized the tour, the real estate agent and me, zero.

The place was/is really cool. There's enough space to have two classes going on at the same time, but the acoustics probably wouldn't lend themselves to such an arrangement. The space had a large number of neat features, the railings, the woodwork, etc., but is too expensive for the amount of space. The building also fails to lend itself to hardware projects: just try to put a CNC lathe on the carpeted, second floor, I dare you.

I went to the bank today to deposit a group of checks. My bank was recently the victim of a crappy merger, with everybody knowing how much I despise my new bank, so I'm even less interested in actually going to the bank than I was before.

So, off I go.

I stood in line for all of 20 seconds before a teller waved me over to his counter. As soon as I arrived, he said, "I'll be with you in a moment," as he turned away from me to put away a stack of coins.

I stood there, in front of an (I'm not kidding) eight inch stack of $1 bills, slightly annoyed. If you need to finish up with what you are doing, I thought, don't wave me over to your counter, f---ing finish what you're doing THEN call me over. There wasn't anyone in line behind me, I can wait 10 more seconds for a teller who is actually ready and available to assist me.

Whatever, fine. I stood there and watched he tuck his pile of coins under thecounter and the pile of bills into his box. I handed him my two pile of checks: one business, the other personal.

He started with the pile of personal checks, which consisted of four dividend checks, none of which was for more than $5.00. He took each one, examined it, held it up to the light, shoved it under a black light, flipped it over, flipped it back, held it quite close to his face to stare at it, then set it down into a separated pile. Mind you, none of this was done quickly. He looked to be maybe 24, but moved with the swiftness of a geriatric, arthritic turtle.

After spending close to 3 minutes examining the four checks, he turned to the woman next to him and asked, "How long do checks last? Six months or one year?" When the the woman answered "Six months unless it's printed otherwise," he picked up one of the checks, held it close to his eyes to read it, flipped it over again, the DID BASIC ARITHMETIC ON HIS FINGERS to calculate the check was seven months old (a calculation that took me 2 seconds to figure out the check was 6 month, 23 days old, no fingers needed), and put the check on the counter in front of me.

"I can't take this check. It's too old."

In the next 2 seconds, I impressed myself with the incredible amount of self-control I displayed, to not scream at the fucktard, YOU JUST WASTED 10 MINUTES OF MY TIME FOR A FUCKING FOUR DOLLAR CHECK THAT YOU ARE REFUSING TO DEPOSIT? It's a fucking four dollar check, just like the one next to it. It's a mother fucking dividend check for four dollars, you moron. Your employer made 2 BILLION dollars in PROFITS last year, it can take the risk of a goddamned mother fucking 4 dollar check."

Instead, I blanked my face and watch him turn to the remaining three checks, shuffle them into his hand and begin to sort them. AGAIN.

The thought of having this idiot spend 20 minutes writing up a new deposit slip was more than I could stand. "Tell you what," I snapped angrily, causing the woman next to me to quickly look up at me, "just hand me the entire deposit back." I grabbed the offending check, reached over the counter with my hand outstretched, and waited.

"Uh... okay." EVEN THAT he couldn't do quickly.

The next deposit, this one containing checks, kid you not, in the thousands, no, those didn't receive the scrutiny of the four dollar check. No, those went right through, though still fucking slowly. All the way until the total.

When he walked away.

He walked away from his area, from the monitor which was still on, from my pile of checks sitting on the counter, FROM THE KEYS I could have reached over and picked up without being caught on camera. He didn't tell me where he was going. He didn't tell me why he was stepping away. He didn't tell me anything, he just walked away.

A minute later, he walked back. By watching and listening, I deduced my second set of checks were of a sufficient amount that he needed an override to not hold my funds. I was standing there wondering why the fuck the godamned teller needed a fucking override on my account. Holds should be independent of the teller I see, and based on the history of my account and banking trends. I deposit that same exact amount of (rent) money every month, what the fuck?

He eventually walked back, printed my receipt and handed it to me. I don't know if he felt or understood my rage at that moment, over the waste of my time with this guy (three other people went through the counter next to me as I endured this transaction). He might have felt something, because he was quite startled and hesitent when I said, "May I ask your name?" and he answered James.

Okay, the fuckwit's name is James.

I wanted to say, "watch this, James, as I deposit this fucking four dollar check in the express deposit box, where the next teller will FUCKING DEPOSIT IT YOU FUCKING MORON."

Instead, I just stomped over to the box, stuck my whole deposit into an envelope, and dumped that envelope into the deposit box.

I will keep depositing that check until either they accept it and cash it, or I'm satisfied I've used up at least $5 in employee time.

My dogs are melting.