In Memory of...

In memory of John Christian Jacobesen

September 2, 1961 - May 13, 2006






Derek and I had just moved into our new house. Well, new is misleading, the house was new to us, but it was built in approximately 1940. As is customary to how we like to party, we invited a select few close friends to come over for dinner and dessert at our new place. I planned on making a nice meal for all of us culminating in one of my world famous cookies and cream, hot fudge and caramel swirled New York cheesecake.

This was going to be my first round of entertaining at the new house since we had settled in. I was adjusting to cooking in my kitchen, the stove was different, and the oven seemed a tad temperamental for being brand new. Still, moving into an old house that had a brand new kitchen seemed like such a sweet victory.

Laurie and Kim were both excited to attend, and Chris J and Little Chris wanted to know what they could bring to contribute to the evening. Chris J was famous for his sweet tooth and seemed to have a fondness for chocolate. I knew that if I dangled cheesecake with chocolate before him, it was a sure thing that he’d keep his calendar clear. Everyone was committed to attend, and being that we were all couples, it was going to be quite the gay dinner party.

We set the date, and decided upon a nice barbecue steak dinner, cooked on our brick barbecue in our back yard. It was a fairly cool summer evening, so we opted to eat indoors rather than to hang out underneath the trees in the back of the house.

Dinner went flawlessly. The house really doesn’t have room in the kitchen for a dining area. Instead, we placed the dining room table in our living room. Since we entertain frequently, it only makes sense that we’d have the most important piece of furniture in the biggest room of our humble abode. The bonus to having the dining room table in the living room is that you can peer out the gigantic picture window that spans the entire front wall. Sometimes you can view the squirrels chasing one another across the neighbor lady’s bird feeder, or see the stray and random person walking along the sidewalk between our house and the street.

This evening was not to be so tame. As dusk began to creep further into night, Chris J was transfixed by an apparent argument that was taking place on the sidewalk within his field of vision. He perched on the couch as watched events unfold, transfixed by the happenings just beyond the panes of glass.

A domestic dispute was clearly afoot. Everyone suddenly had converged to watch, as if the window were simply a wide screen rendition of a “Cops: Special Portland Edition” episode. A police car showed up. Then another. Suddenly there were three cop cars in front of my house, preventing people from driving through the street. Cops were walking about, talking to the participants in the dispute.

Chris J wanted to go out and see what was going on, he was just beside himself. He had to know! Kim opted to go out and chat with the officers, since she could reasonably identify herself as a fellow officer, and was likely not to be accused of interfering.

Kim slips out the front door, chats for several minutes with some of Portland’s finest, and then returns to be debriefed by all of us. As best as anyone could determine the couple had been arguing, and it had escalated between the parties as other people started to get involved, take sides, and start playing the “he said things about you” game.

By this point our next-door neighbors were out on their front porch watching the events as well, they waved at us through our windows, and Chris J waved back excitedly. This was better than TV.

Eventually the events died down, and everyone’s level of excitement in the house began to return to normal. It was time for dessert.

As I began to slice the cheesecake in my kitchen, I realized that the cheesecake was soft set. It hadn’t firmed up entirely, likely because I didn’t bake it long enough in the new oven. I’d have to make a note of things for the future that the oven wasn’t quite baking like I had expected.

Cheesecake was served. Cheesecake disappeared. Chris J seemed to consume his in one fairly fluid and complete inhale. He loved it, as did we all. I offered him another slice, and he proclaimed most vehemently that he could not have another piece, as he was trying to watch his girlish figure. It was damned fine cheesecake though.

We chatted in the living room, relaxing after the euphoria that was cheesecake, and slowly descending into that dull food coma that tends to ensue when you’ve overeaten and overindulged in decadence. Idle chit chat was being exchanged, the drama of our home grown Cops episode had quelled, and we were all just enjoying the company that good friends share.

Chris J got up for a glass of water, and my dog dutifully followed him into the kitchen. Beau was probably hoping that Chris J would drop some crumbs or feed him something he wasn’t allowed to have. Even though Beau knew better than to beg directly, he was always hoping to be able to vacuum up something that was dropped inadvertently.

Kim stared through the doorway into the kitchen. From her vantage point in the living room she could clearly see what Chris J was up to. The rest of us were seated away from the opening of the door, and my back was to the kitchen.

“Fuck!”
The word resounded in my kitchen, and hung heavy across the living room.

Kim started to chuckle. We all got up to see what the commotion was about.


Chris J was busted. Beau’s tail was wagging wildly in approval. Apparently Chris J had decided he was going to sneak another piece of cheesecake. What he didn’t realize was that my oven had unknowingly booby-trapped his prize. As he lifted the cheesecake up off of the shelf of the fridge, and attempted to cleanly pull off another piece, the form gave way. An avalanche of cheesecake guts spewed down the side of the server, along the sidewall of the fridge, and onto the floor. I say “onto” the floor, but in all reality, Beau made rapid and complete work of removing any traces of cheesecake that had been in existence.

Chris J returned to the living room, grinning sheepishly from ear to ear. He had another piece of cheesecake on his plate and was making quick work of it. We continued to laugh, and the evening slowly faded into night. Eventually everyone decided it was time to head for home. We bid one another good evening, and ushered everyone to the door.

The lesson I learned from Chris J:


Life is far too short to not enjoy it, have that second piece of cheesecake, claim it, make it yours, and even if it explodes apart and falls onto the floor, you can still be graceful. Indulge, enjoy, rejoice.

Mentos - The Spewmaker

All right, I must be out of the loop, since the phenomenon has been going on for quite some time, but in case you missed it, apparently if you take a nice big 2 liter bottle of diet coke, open the top, and then dump in Mentos, the diet coke fountains up, out of the bottle, up to 20 feet high.


Not that I'm willing to recreate this experiment personally, I've witnessed all the videos online.


If you are so inclined to see what is going on, check out www.youtube.com

Perform a web search for diet coke, and mentos.

You won't be disappointed.

HPeeved

Derek was nice enough to buy me a new computer with some bonus money he got last fall.
Being that we didn't have much room in the "computer" room, we opted to move the computers downstairs into the semi-finished basement.

This necessitated the creation of computer tables / desks, workstations where we could situate the new computer, along with the old computer, and my school laptop. (And also Derek's laptop, which he uses for his online crack addiction...)

4 computers, one internet connection, many wires, much complicated madness and insanity.

I wound up having to install and situate a LAN router. Basically we had to get a box to negotiate all the computers together so that they can share with one another, and also reach the internet.

The downside, if we really wanted to share a printer, we'd have to purchase a "network" printer. The anemic ink jet Epson printers that I had been loyal to just weren't going to work on the "network". Having a single printer for each computer seemed silly, not to mention that it would take up a great deal of space.

In January, I broke down and started looking for a "network" printer.

I settled on an HP laser jet, an Officejet Pro, Model K550.

Expensive. $300. More than I've ever paid, since usually the Epsons are nearly free, they want you hooked so that you buy the ink, where all the true profit is. It seemed like a steep price. There were a few features that were nice though, it has a duplex mode. It comes with a mechanical apparatus internal to the printer that flips the piece of paper over. That is pretty cool. Saves on paper! It also has 4 different ink cartridges, so I guess that is better, because I might run out of black before everything else, right?

The bonus, HP was offering a mail in rebate of $60.

Ok, $240. Still pricey, but since a "network" print server was going to cost me nearly $150, on top of a new printer.... I took the plunge.

I despise mail in rebates.

Hate them.

You have to mail them in after jumping through all these hoops. Never get them back, never fill them in correctly, and often they get returned to you because you did something wrong, and never with enough time to turn around and mail them back in.

Or, they send you a notice that you did it all wrong, but they don't send it back to you, they just laugh and tell you that you suck, and you're never getting your money back. You can almost hear the bastards laughing.

The manager at the store I bought the printer from actually told me all about the rebate, and the cash register spit out an extra receipt, entirely for the purpose of the rebate.

Cool.

I took the printer home, filled out all the paperwork, took a copy of it with my nifty scanner, and printed it out in full real color on my new networked HP printer. It was so convincingly sharp in color that I nearly couldn't tell the original from the copy.
Great quality.

I was impressed, and very satisfied with my purchase.

According to the HP paperwork, it'd take 3 decades before my rebate would be processed and sent back out to me.

I mailed off the forms, not really expecting the money back ever. I bought the printer paying full price, knowing that likely I was ending up paying full price.

Several weeks later, I received one of those funny, folded, sealed self adhesive mailer documents. Working in payroll, I'm fairly familiar with a folded up check document sealed in its own self contained envelope. My company utilizes the same type of form for the paychecks and pay stubs.

Upon opening the letter, I was greeted with a failure notice.

According to the form, the rebate wasn't valid at the time I purchased it.

Confused, I looked over the paperwork.

UPC from the box attached as indicated? Yep

Copy of the store sales receipt attached as indicated? Yep

Model of printer clearly defined on the rebate form as one included in the rebate? Yep

Sales receipt dated for the time frame that the rebate form indicates? Yep

Confused, I called customer service for HP. Not really, it was a "help desk", a company clearing house devoted entirely to issues revolving around rebates. (Go figure that they'd need an entire outsourced company to deal with rebate disputes....)


In talking with several people, and a supervisor, I wound up with no satisfaction.

I was explained to that the rebate was only for online purchases of HP products.

"Sir, the rebate form was only available online, and was not valid for any purchase at a store at the time you made a purchase of the qualifying product. We suggest that you go back to the store that sold you the product, and make them refund you".

I explained repeatedly that the store gave me an HP rebate form, clearly from HP, clearly showing the model of printer, the date of validity, and the amount to be rebated to me.

They kept claming that it was for online purchases only.

Ok, then why would it ask for a dated "store" sales receipt? If I bought it online, it wouldn't be from a store would it?

If it came from HP's own website, the paperwork would seem fairly silly, no? HP already knew I bought the printer if I get it from their website? No?

After several disgruntled conversations, which usually terminated with me asking for someone in a position of higher authority, I reached my limit. I took all the information I could, and resigned myself to the fact that I'd never get my $60.

I really didn't think I would get it. Honestly. But I was kind of eager for the fight, the chase, the hunt, the kill.

I started calling HP, daily.

I wrote a nasty letter.

I sent several such letters.

I resigned myself to the fact that HP wins, and I lose.

After 4 weeks of daily phone calls, I ceased my assault.

I got my rebate in the mail yesterday.

$60.

That puppy is in the bank. I think I'm going to use it for ink cartridges. They are $15 per cartridge, and I need 4.

Worked out nicely.