There are times when I really hate that dog. She's developed a habit in the last month or so of whining. She whines all the time: when she wants breakfast (which is always about 2 hours before either of us are even thinking about waking up; when she's in her crate wanting food; when we're eating dinner and not feeding her. Her food obsession seems to be worse as of late, which is surprising as she eats a half dozen apples with a few pears thrown in.

Kris and I were heading over to Andy's last night, for dinner, hot tub and rat water shooting. I've been on a pie kick these last few weeks, and made four personal sized pies for dinner tonight. After packing up the food bags, and setting the pies on the dining table, I walked outside to put the first load into the car. When I walked back in, Kris was yelling at the dog. A few seconds later, I realized why.

She started eating the pie.

Uncooked.

From the table.

I hate that dog.

Okay, I think it's time that I begin my search for a new best friend. Of course, no one is going to replace Kris as my best best friend, too much history and love there. But, there are big gaps in what Kris likes to do, and what I like to do, what he's interested in, and what I'm interested in (you can read that as "not WoW" if you'd like). I know that many of the things I like to do are much easier to do with a friend, having someone to share the experience with, so, at this point, I'd like to find that someone or several someones.

Let's see (I almost feel like I'm looking for a date), I'd like my new best friend to:

1. be smart.

   Clearly this is important. I want to be able to talk to my new best friend. Smart in the areas I'm smart in would be great. Smart in other areas would be just fine, too. Smart in engineering and the hards sciences? Now we're talking.

2. be technical.

   I think this is an extension of the smart, but smart comes in several flavors. There's common sense smart. There's street smart. There's book smart. And, among other smarts, there's technical smart.

   Technical smart is a flavor of the "I may not know the answer, but I know how to figure it out." attitude. Part resourceful, part determined, part inquisitive, part logical.

   I may have defined this wrong.

3. be a computer person

   Yeah, I'm looking someone who speaks computer. Being able to program isn't a requirement, but, hey, if you can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Qmail, Exim and Postfix, or can compare and contrast Django, CakePHP and Rails, well, then, hey, computer person? Check!

4. enjoy tech conferences.

   Having someone to share experiences with makes the experience much more enjoyable. I like going to tech conferences, but am really done with going alone. Sure, I meet new people at the conferences, but really, I'd like to go to one or two with someone, and meet up with them, discuss what I heard, plan what I'd like to go to next, tell stories, hang out, and, hey, if needed, put his drunk ass into a taxi and dump him back to his room before wandering (sober, of course) back to mine.

5. play ultimate.

   I really thought with Kris' retirement last year that I was one my way to being done with ultimate. Now I'm not so sure. I've had a good time this year, though frustrated at times. The frustration stems from my lack of strong commitment to being in shape, staying healthy and improving my skills.

   Having someone to go throw with on a regular basis, hey, that would totally help.

6. like hiking.

   With or without dogs, heading out into the mountains and forests and hiking iis a wonderful experience, made better when done regularly.

   Yeah, hiking. Good thing.

7. be close.

   Yeah. GD. Geographically Desirable. A good thing. Communal dinners are great. I'd want my new best friend to be able to come to them, maybe host a few, even cook, too. That ultimate thing is harder when the friend is far away. Yeah, hiking, too. Though, the tech conferences we could meet up there.

   So, I guess this one should really be "lives in the San Francisco South Bay Area." Gee, now THAT didn't limit my selection pool or anything.

Of course, that's not all I do, playing ultimate (frisbee), programming, or sitting around being smart. I mean, I do other things, too. Bonus points if my new best friend had interests in

1. gardening

   Yeah, I have a good sized garden in the back and side yards. It's about to become bigger, too. There's something pretty wonderful about picking apples, pomegranates and lemons and making desserts with them. Or lettuce and peppers and the like and making a salad. Mmmmmmmm....

2. philosophical discussions

   In high school and college, back before I knew nothing of the world, and way before I realized just how much of the world I didn't know, I used to sit around with friends and have these deep philosophical discussions about nothing and everything. Paul is willing to help me out in this with "taking" the death class with me, yet having someone to talk to face to face is different than chatting over IM.

Of course, there are a lot of things I don't care about in my new best friend. I can think of, as a start:

1. gender.

   Though I can talk more easily to men, and don't understand most of the issues my women friends have, I find myself cherishing the time I spend with my women friends more and more. So, gender? Male, female, used to be male, used to be female, whatever.

2. children.

   So my new best friend might have kids. I don't. Whatever. If s/he's willing to leave the kids with the spouse and head off to the tech conference with me, hey, let's go. And if s/he needs me to watch the kids when s/he heads out for some much needed alone time, hey, I'm there.

3. religion.

   I'm not religious. I'm philosophically curious about why people are religious, but I'm not religious myself. Which is not to say I haven't been around organized religions (though in limited capacities, mostly with the Christian variety). I used to be able to quote the entire Roman Catholic mass, minus the Gospel and Sermon. Not so much any more, though. Now I'm just mostly perplexed as to why people are willing to subjugate their connection to whatever higher being they think exists to what someone else says is a better connection, namely his. Makes no sense to me.

   However, as long as my new best friend doesn't push religion on me, I'll talk to him about religion and his beliefs, and promise not to push my "until you've met that higher consciousness, you can't possibly know what you're talking about" skepticism on him.

Now, if you think you might be interested (and how can you not be, I mean, seriously, have you read about my life for the last four years?), you should know that you have some mighty big shoes to fill. Past and current feet inside those shoes include:

Megan Smith and Kris McQueen: Megan's got the girl side of things: listening, hanging out, kids, random dates, and Kris has much of the everything else. Megan's Mark fills in with the ultimate, but none of them like to go to tech conferences, or talk website building stuff (though Mark seems willing to discuss triple pointers with me, if I wanted to pursue that programming conversation).

Andy Crews: Andy used to fill the hiking and ultimate, and certainly has the smart and technical parts down just fine (think "intimidates the crap out of me," and you'll start to understand on that one), oh, and the gardening, but doesn't talk about the same technical things. My eyes glaze over when he starts talking about his job: I think I understand every word he says, they just won't string together into a coherent technical thought.

Lisa Timmins/Ben Klasky: These are the big shoes to fill, oh, boy, are these the ones to fill. Ultimate, dynamic, smart, outgoing, hiking, active, inquisitive. Although they didn't share the same technical interests, they were both aware enough of what I did to ask insightful questions. They were the first people to just "walk right in" using our open door policy, to my delight. They've been gone from my day to day life for years now and I still miss them immensely.

Mike Gull/Kate Bergeron: Where Mike couldn't fill in, Kate did. Between the two of them, they were close to the person I'd call best friends forever. Mike was, of course in the same place technically, AND I could drag him, and sometimes Doyle, to conferences. Not as many as I would have liked, but some. Both would go hiking. Kate played ultimate, coached with me at Santa Clara, and oooo boy, both are smart. I can't say we ever had deep philosophical discussions but there were enough to realize what great people they are. I'm STILL bummed they moved away from four doors down the street. That was pretty awesome, having them near.

Cal Henderson/Andy Smith: Back during what Mike called my second childhood, these two filled in for all the technical events I went to. I could guarantee if I went to some function, one of the two of these men would be there. Didn't matter if I didn't know anyone else, if one of these two was there, I'd be set.

At this point, I get a "hello" out of Cal before his ex drags him away without responding to any of the four introductions I attempted. I suspect this means she knows who I am. Andy is still as warm and fun as always, but I've lost touch with him. Sad.

Yeah, so, there you have it.

Any chance you'd be interested?

Maybe I should post this to Craigslist...

What is it like to change your last name when you marry? As much as I love Kris, as much happiness and joy (and frustration) and entertainment and fun he brings me, I can't imagine taking his last name as my last name. I decided a while ago that I would adjust my name so that I have his last name as my middle name and drop my first name, which isn't much as it's only a letter. Maybe losing one letter isn't exactly the sacrifice I could make it out to be, but it will change my initials from MKH to KMH.

Huh, look at that.

KMH looks really weird.

I don't understand, however, taking his last name as my last name. Which isn't to say I begrudge any of my friends the name change. If they want to take his name, have at it. I have a male friend who changed his last name when he married, though not, admittedly, to her name. They both chose a new last name, figuring if one had to change her name, he would, too.

Society accepts a woman's name change to her husband's last name at marriage. It's still a mostly accepted action. Exceptions occur when a woman has a professional identity (published work, doctorate degree, established), yet even then not changing a name is done with an apology ("I was already established under my maiden name.").

Yet, this doesn't make sense. Why would I want to lose my identity, my name, the name my mother or father gave me? Why would I subjugate my name, regardless of how much I loved him? Why would I go through the effort of erasing my life up until marriage with the name change? The more established you are, the harder it is.

Regardless, it's an effort the woman does, to lose herself in her husband's identity.

Why?

Or rather, why bother?

Of course, if my last name sucked, I guess I'd be interested in changing it.

Can someone explain it to me?

With the current uproar on the $150,000 spent on clothes in the last few days for the woman who has done more to harm women in politics than any other woman this century, I couldn't help but think about what I would do if someone handed me $150,000.

Without even thinking about it, I'd drop $100,000 into paying off at least part of one of my mortgages. Paying down a debt when both the interest rates are most likely going to go up, and the tenants aren't paying rent anyway seems like a no-brainer to reduce the financial burden and give me some breathing room.

That other $50,000?

In about this order:

1. Pay off the car
2. Pay off the loan for the roof on the Indiana house
3. Prepay my and Kris' Velocity membership for a year
4. Remove the wall between the kitchen and the living room, opening up that space and fixing the tiny tiny kitchen problem.
5. New electrical in the house
6. New plumbing in the house

I think I'd run out of money before I managed to get to the new plumbing in the house. My laptop's screen has started to deteriorate, showing both bad pixels and dead spots. Given the laptop helps me earn my livelihood, I probably should put a replacement in that list. And at some point, I'm going to have to buy new clothes, I'm sure. Just not yet, and not $150,000 worth.

Of course, with $150,000, I could buy that Flip video thing, if I weren't so anti-consumerism at this point.

I don't know how I could have possibly sucked more at practice tonight. Doyle and I had a bad site deployment at work, causing us to stay at the office until after practice had started. Er, until WAY after practice had started. I think Mark said the team had 95 sprints to run because of our tardiness, which had me pretty much completely mortified. I told him I'd rather take my cleats off and not practice than to cause the team that many sprints. He just laughed.

After an abbreviated warm up, I went in, and was scored on. Okay, get my feet under me, try again. Next point, disc moves up the line, I get scored on again. Oooohhhhhhkaaaaaaay. I stepped off the field for a good number of points. After a team rest and a few more points, I was back in again. I was having problems being in a good place on the field, but saw a good opportunity when only Paul and I were downfield and Paul cut long. I cut in and went as hard as I could, Steffi close on my hip. Pickett threw an easy throw to the open space I was running into, and I went hard to it, intending to pancake the disc.

And whiffed with a clap of shame.

The disc hit me smack in a high rib, giving me another lovely bruise to match my other recent bruises and dropping to the ground.

Sigh.

Four points later, and was handling. Shirley came down the field quickly and poached into the open lane. I received the disc, but the thing is, a handler needs to move the disc downfield. I stalled the disc, eventually dumping the disc to Paul and dashing over to the opposite side of the field to clear.

I don't know. Bah, I don't know if I could have played worse tonight.

On the other hand, the heckling of Nick's staying at another hotel at Nationals seems to have paid off. We were able to convince him to at least attempt to convince his girlfriend that the two of them should stay with the team. Unfortunately, the convincing would require more than one teammate to move out of his selected bed space. I have faith in the team, especially since Andy commented, "It's Nick's first time to Nationals. He has to do it right and stay with the team."

Yeah.