MIllion dollar ideas

GPS mapping of large convention centers.
Every building has a fire plan filled in the city hall. Scan these plans into a database, where the corners of the buildings are plotted into GPS coordinates, and designate the rooms or hallways as you would roads on a map.

"Go down the hallway 30 yards and turn left to the escalator. Your destination is beside of the vending machine area" 

Good night, Sweet Dreams.
Wherever you are, I hope you have a wonderful day. 

Insomniac Zach cooks : Simple Italian bread

2 3/4 cups of white flour + a couple spoonfuls for dusting
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup of unsalted butter (melted)
1 pat of butter, (not melted)
3 tbs olive oil. (get the good stuff) + 1/4 tsp for a coating
1 tps of dried and chopped rosemary
1 tps of dried flat leaf parsley
2 tbs active yeast or 1/8 cup of starter
1 tps sugar
1 cup of water
1  9x5' loaf pan

If you are using the yeast do this first. Activate the yeast by mixing it with the sugar in with 1/4 cup of water. When and if the mixture has started to bubble, continue on. If it doesn't bubble in 15 minutes, start over with another package until proofing occurs. Mix 1 1/4 cups of flour with the salt and butter in a large mixing bowl. Add water to the yeast or starter mix until there is 3/4 of a cup which you would then slowly mix into the flour mixture with a metal whisk. With your hands, mix in the remaining 1 1/4 cups of flour until a soft dough has formed. Kneed this ball for at least 10 minutes to make sure there is a homogeneous ball. ( You know you will get a workout, but it is so worth it) Now stop. Take a break, pour a glass of wine or something while letting this rest for at least 20 minutes. Dust a workspace with the remaining four and roll out the dough into a 12 x 7 ish rectangle. Lightly coat the rectangle with the olive oil over the whole upward facing side. Sprinkle some salt, a light touch of pepper, and the rosemary on the top half of the rectangle. Now, starting with the top half (the small end)  roll up the rectangle with the herbs going into the roll first. This doesn't have to be too tight, but the tighter it is, the more incorporated the flavors from the olive oil and rosemary will be throughout the bread. When you are done, you should have a log around 12 inches long and a couple inches high. Now, with the remaining pat of butter, rub the interior walls of the loaf pan until there is a nice greasy sheen on everything. Dump any remaining flour into the pan and shake around until the interior walls have a white coating. (This stops the bread from sticking, a non-stick pan does the same thing but doesn't taste the same) Pinch off the end of your dough log to make sure they are closed and place the outer seam facing downwards in the pan. You will have to massage the dough a little into fitting. Let this rise in the pan for at least a hour before you add the last of the melted butter over the top of the loaf and sprinkle parsley over the top. Just cover it with some plastic wrap or a towel for a nice nap. When the dough has doubled in size, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. This may sound silly and it totally optional, but when the oven has gotten up to temp, get a spray bottle of water and mist the interior of the oven and slam the door shut. This raises the humidity of the oven and makes for a thinner crispy crust. Put the bread log in for 30-35 minutes or until the top is a deep golden color. (Use the window, don't open the door and let all that humidity out) When it is done, take it out and remove it from the loaf pan. Let it cool on a rack or a plate with a couple chopsticks across the bottom so as the heat can escape.  Slice and enjoy.

"Never write while tired."

                              :Uncle Zach 

I hate unwillingly seeing the sun rise. Yes, it is beautiful to see the first glints of purple sky fading into the black of the western sky. Yes, it is a calm and peaceful time for quiet contemplation. Yes, I get to spend time  playing with Buffy on the front porch before the hustle of the day makes me ignore her. But it would be nice to do this under my own terms. It would be nice to want to do this with someone, someone that talks back. Tonight as I sit here on the porch, I contemplate drinking myself into a stupor just to be able to control when I go to sleep. If I hadn't stopped drinking to excess, this would be an option. I thought about reaching out into the internet support for insomniacs to see if anyone else wanted to talk, but the last time I talked to a stranger on the internet, the conversation became really disturbing. There are definitely some strange people out in the world. Instead, I just sit here on the couch of my living room reading what goes for Pulitzer prize literature now-a-days.
Why can't I sleep. This has never been this bad.....

Good night, Sweet dreams.

Stereotypes

Racial profiling is supposed to be detrimental to modern day society. But this weekend, I discovered that sometimes those generalizations are correct and even useful.

While my nephew and I were on Jekyll Island this past Saturday, we took off to the beach for some "Treasure Hunting". We walked from the fishing pier to the convention center beach with my new metal detector in search of pirate booty. In the 2 miles we walked, I watched black family after black family supposedly enjoying the ocean. In general what they would do is that the oldest kid would dare the others (Many others) to run into the waves, only to run back onto the beach after getting about mid-thigh deep. They all refused to swim. They all refused to get into the wave crash zone. Why would you travel to the beach, only to just sit your ass at the picnic areas and jam out to crappy music all afternoon long. They could have stayed their collective asses at home while not annoying everyone else that wanted to have a nice quiet day on the beach with family.

I am an equal opportunity offender apparently tonight. The Indian (dot-head) family that bought the Checkers in Commerce has run it into closure as of late. While talking to the previous owner tonight, I learned that they had financed the purchase, used cheaper lower quality supplies, and totally cut the upkeep to the building costs, and eventually defaulted on all their employee's final paychecks only to take all the money that could have kept the business profitable and run back to india with a fat paycheck. This totally pisses me off. I loved that store. I have great memories from my first job there. Now, when I reminisce of working there as I drive by on my way back to Atlanta, all I am going to see is a boarded up skeleton that is left.
White people are just the same as well before anyone thinks that I am racist. The rednecks at the fishing area all were crowding the handrails with their multitude of fishing rods, their ratty t-shirts of some long forgotten giveaway, and a couple stinky kids running around between the picnic areas.
Fine, no more bitching for the night. I am tired, a bit buzzed from a wine tasting, and falling asleep on deck. Braxton is asleep in his rack already.
Good night all. Sweet Dreams. 

Nissan Skyline R33 GTS-T - Vs - Worlds Fastest Mobility scooter - 1/4 mile

Good night, Sweet Dreams. Wherever you are.
I miss you. 

Truthful Tuesday

I’m afraid I may have gotten a bit of a sunburn on the top of my head... shoulders, neck, arms, back, ears, calves, and tops of my toes. The other day I was showing off a bit for some woman, that had been watching me from across the way, solely because I needed an ego boost and absent mindedly forgot to put on sunscreen before working in the sun. I was only out in the sun for two hours, shirtless, before I could feel the burn coming on.
Society needs to just remove the social standard that "you have to remove your shirt if you are swimming or working out" and let us fair skinned folk alone. I don't tan you bronzed face fuckers. If I'm pale, it means a couple things, I'm not in pain and I do not have to worry about skin cancer like you will. Mostly it means that I will not be the one looking like a knock off leather handbag when I'm 50.



p.s....... Owwwww.

I seem to only get LinkedIn endorsements from people who have never worked with me. It is not that I mind getting random allocations from someone that I helped flash their router to a more efficient OS a couple years ago at a party where they saw me drink an entire bottle of Dewars. God knows, if I could have rewritten their code more efficiently on a project that they were working on at that moment, I should be able to stone cold sober. It just seems as if they are giving a perfect example that Linkedin endorsements do not mean that much when job hunting.
Tonight when everyone else has fallen asleep, I may just have to endorse everyone I know on some random talent which hasn't been listed on their profiles.

Long weekend off!

Good night, Sweet Dreams.
Wherever you are. 

Bye bye glasses.

My contacts have arrived. Time to let my glasses rest for a while.

I have a question / rambling while waiting for a vacant shower.

I am currently working off that extra helping of Pannan curry from last night at the gym. Across from me is a rather nice looking lady with a black t-shirt with an iron-on sticker on the back that says: "ak-47. The reason you have a job. "
I hate talking to people in the gym. I hate being talked to in the gym. So, there is no way in hell that I would just go up to her and ask her about her shirt.
Is it supposed to be a pro-gun statement? An Ak is a soviet made rifle. How is the former soviet union protecting my job? Since I am working out on base, I thought that it may be a unit morale shirt, but no. There is no other markings on it other than the rifle. Maybe it is some kind of militia shirt, there are a lot of them on the redneck side of town.

Anyway. Weird.

The Old Spice Games

Charlie Kaufman Writing ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ Movie for Guillermo del Toro

I am definitely going to be seeing this!

Ego boosts are a wonderful thing.

Good night, sweet dreams.

Wherever you are. 

I cannot seem to rest tonight.I should be exhausted. I've been awake for thirty somewhat hours. Instead, I am laying here alone in bed and keep having this very uneasy feeling as if I should be doing something or have been missing someone important. 

Well.... There is nothing I can do at the moment but catch up on some reading.  

Have you ever decided to hate somebody based solely upon the fact that their name is incredibly stupid?

I ask this because my waitress is named Laquinta.....like the hotel!

Fourth of July weekend...so far

• Really boring office meeting on Thursday morning then taking off for a long weekend. 
• @Dobbins AFB for Sea Mom's Retirement party Friday. 
• Dinner with friends at Navy Lake site Friday night. 
• Coffee and newspaper crossword for dinner at Town Center Starbucks. 
• Saturday in Commerce for Lunch with Granny. 
• Playing catch with my little buddy before heading to Savannah. 
• 4 am: I am lost in the ghetto. GPS, you have failed me yet again. 
• 7 am: Waiting on harbor master to turn over registration paperwork. Fucker threatened to kick me out of the marina if I didn't bring him a hard copy. Asshole. 
• @ Bobo Seafood Market- Picking up Sea Scallops, Crab legs, and 5 lbs. of shrimp for Braxton during his visit next week. 
• Heading back to Cochran. I hate this part. I don't want the weekend to end. 

Coffee time:

God bless the person that put a timer on my coffee maker. 

"I, Zachary D Standridge did solemnly swear that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Those words do not have a lot of meaning to most people. The first time I said it out loud, I was a naive 21 year old POS that just wanted someone to pay for his college education. In the following years, I learned what the difference between a citizen of the United States and someone that just lives here is.  The people that take that oath every 4-8 years and mean it are giving their lives in order to defend the American way of life. The right to say what we want. The right to believe in one deity or another. The right to walk down the road and not be afraid of our own government. The right to express ourselves without fear of repercussions from those that swore to protect us. I believe in those rights. I believe that our forefathers died fighting for these rights because they had a dream that one day, the burgeoning rough country they were settling would be great.
But what should I do when the orders of the President of the United States and those appointed below him are unjust? The United States has become a police state that I just can NOT defend the actions of. Not only my writings here, not only my emails, not only my chat logs, but everything any of us do on social sites or the net in general are monitored from a tier 3 level. American citizens are snooped upon as if we all were terrorists. I am consistently searched whenever I travel by plane to the point that there is no way possible that it is random. My government supports by my tax dollars a separate culture of welfare which languishes in squalor yet sees itself as "ghetto rich" on the 1st and 15th of the month when the stipend checks come in for each little hoodrat child that they pop out and have no interest in raising to be a good citizen or someone that will make this wonderful country a little better than it was when they came into it. I sit on my front porch in the evenings after work and watch the city police race down my quiet street after some small crime in super charged high tech vehicles equipped with a wide variety of armaments that they have been trained to use at the drop of a hat. This afternoon, I watched a video of California's police shoot a mans dog, point blank, when the dog got loose from the car as the owner was being arrested for videotaping an arrest, which is his goddamn right to do so! The courts today that were setup to interpret the laws set forth by the legislative side of our forefathers bastardize each and every single law that they can in order to take away as many rights as they can without having to actually say, "Yes, you have no rights anymore.". Did you know you can have your blood forcefully taken from you if there is a suspicion of your intoxication level? Fuck that!
When I was younger, I used to love the police. I loved Firemen. I was raised in a family that has always volunteered to help out our community. My Uncle has worked his way up from just a volunteer EMT to the Fire Chief of my hometown. When I would visit the city hall as a child, I would sit with the mayor, a family friend at the time, behind his desk and imagine myself helping to make Commerce a better place. I don't think that the vision of a happy little town could be accomplished today. My faith in this great country has been diminished to the point that I am weighing my options of becoming an expatriate and move from here out for fear that someday that knock on the door would be for me just for saying my peace in a public setting.
I have worn a naval uniform for almost a third of my lifetime. I wear it very proudly. The people under me will never see me ask anything of them that I would not willingly do myself. I have bled with them. I have cried with them. I will continue to uphold the constitution and the rights that it gives us. For those inalienable rights are the foundation from which I have build my own view of this country and what it means to be an American upon. Our leaders, it seems, have just gotten away from the true meaning that it holds dear.
This country voted for "Change". It apparently has gotten it.

"So help me God."