Category Archives: Dave, Sandwich Webbish

The Dave Sandwich Beta, Volume 1

Dave Sandwich, Volume 1 – Rescuing Each Other

Jasper (wakes): ‘Whu? sammich? ‘ (lifts and turns head. sigh. best big beggar eyes. Dave’s over at the desk. rolls back over.)
Dave: ‘Hey there sixteeeeeeen. heard you, waddya want? Jazzie … who’s the kid? … Who’s the bud? … Who’s the Jass? … how about a biiiiisssss … (reaches into pocket) … Bisky?’ (nice 20ft biscuit toss to living room … lands within reach)

And so on…..and so on. Life is satisfactory lately in the house of D & J. Let me tell you. We have our health, and we have each other. And … we are busy! We are currently engaged in some interesting thought experiments, which I plan to share with you here. (by way of explanation of the above: for no reason I can remember, I have always used ‘sixteen’ as a word to bridge the inherent divide between me and my numerous canine pals. It seems to get in; it seems to make them relax and smile. It’s versatile, endlessly expandable, easy to remember (increasingly handy around these parts), and all the dogs I’ve ever had have just seemed to like it when I say it.  Especially when they turn sixteeeeeeen! You should see their eyes light up!)

At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

D & J’s moderately exciting announcement: We’ve are tentatively steering this creaky, mutt infested ship from Alpha (embryonic stage of assumed ITF*) into BETA. Because we’re just brave guys, and we feel like it. We’ve been working hard, and some tentative confidence is building. However: We ask that as you explore, please be patient, be gentle, be curious, and please be especially forgiving of: typos, accidental pees, sudden drop-offs, bad smells, probably from rolling in something, and also the frequent ‘just not funny. Not. What were you thinking you Dave?’ category. Sorry about that last one. I’ve always hated that too. The certain, fatal sound of dud.

Around here – you’ll usually know it right away when it’s funny: it’s like the perfect ping of a 20-oz Estwing framing hammer making contact with the head of a 20p spike (yum), and … like …  a piece of firewood thumping against the side of a pig. I can hear that hit the floor in your house from here, like some camel’s turd as she was just passing through. If I was there with you right now,  I’d do you a big favor: I’d pick it up and throw it out the window onto your neighbor’s geraniums. (That guy who said he hated my blog. ha ha*wink. high five i know, i’m such a jerk sometimes). If I had a whip, I’d hand it to you myself, and you could whip Jasper with it right now instead of me, lol. Hey Jass, you there? 

Anyway, back to the funnier stuff…

Jasper: (lifts head, turns) ‘where are you going with this?.’
Dave: ‘go back to sleep. I have to finish this. How bout that crate again? Crate?.’
Jasper: (lowers head and disappears into the night)

Final, I swear, note: the following annoyances and minor issues have been duly noted: blabbering, useless sidetracking, misdirection, sudden forgetting of topic, sudden and absurd changes of topic; stupidness, stupidness again and again, really bad jokes, ridiculous reaches for even worse jokes, complete lack of faith, utter irreverence, and overall laziness. Also complete absence of verbal restraint (on the part of the man). Also, we know, we know – just way way too many words. Way too many.

Trust me (my job description here does after all include typist, web guy, head vacuumist, head chef, vehicles guy, tech guy, weapons guy (cool swiss army), and, finally: to be the ‘real’ door answerer (after door alert guy has finished decimating most recent visitor and retreated),: we are always busy throwing bad words away as fast as we’re making ’em up. I can tell you that with certainty. I’m the one actually at the controls, after all. I’m right here at the keyboard (pic below, exciting! btw I am pointing my finger right at YOU. And I know what you did, lol. Or I’m gonna find out). 

Anyway, again words are all over the floor around here like post-it notes, and still, look at how many are left on this darn page. I need scissors or something. Anybody out the in cyberspace seen a robotic digital scissorhead shity-idea-eating monster with decent taste that I could rent? Call us.

Anyway, look at this word mess. Over there, ny first blog idea for Dave Sandwich. It’s now framed:

Dave, the amateur blogger first try: ‘It was a really great day this morning for Jasper and me. the sun really shined bright today, yay! Gunna go tweet this now, can’t wait lol 🙂 I did screw up the amazing video we were going to post of Jass taking a high speed dump onto a squirrels frozen carcass in the snow. We just posted a cute pic instead. But I still got over59 likes.

And all over the floor, random frags: ‘ What a virulent, loud, nuclear encrusted turdshlocker that guy is’.

But … I think we’re safe as long as jasper is around, munching up these tossed out, silly bits of rejected WordStorm. Unlike me, he has great self-control and an even more voracious appetite . (During what’s now known as the ‘corncob-rattling-around-in-a-tin-can’ episode we had a year ago that lasted a mysterious, undiagnosed, poop-less week, Chris, my most loving veterinarian, where all the ladies just love Jassie, called his appetite ‘Committed, robust, and highly imaginative’. (Maybe he should be the writer and I should be the vet). My reaction was: that’s my boy, just like his Dad! I mean, he. just. loves. to. eat.

My best buddy has a particular fondness for stuff that’s being thrown out: wasted words; wasted emotions; he has a particularly eager nose for old rotten stuff like excessive self-indulgence, greed, ignorance, especially when any of those are stuck in a Dave Sandwich with power, money, fear, suspicion, or violent intent, and set on a sunny windowsill in a Ziploc bag for 2 days. Stinky. You think leftover haddock in the microwave at work is bad.

But Jasper? He can eat that crap for days. Chomp chomp chomp. But I just can’t anymore. Can’t live on BS. As far as I’m concerned, that’s like, I don’t know: A candy cane PB & J with extra anchovies on 2 slices of a overripe tomato and toasted. With mayo. And tasty morsels of melted Charleston Chew. Just, way wrong. Way. And I’m simply too old and tired for that.

When Jasper is done eating anything that is wasted, there is nothing left, and the world is shiny again. He seems to fix everything. Hell, he fixed me. Maybe he can still fix this blog by continually sniffing and eating any words in the blog that start to smell. Just assume he’s kind of doing that all the time in the background. Sniff, sniff. Munch, munch … our hairy little editor. We are all counting on him. Because I can get on a ridiculous roll sometimes. If I go too far on an idea, and freak you out? Jasper is your safety valve. Click on hies picture, pet those ears in your mind, and all will be alright again.

Thanks in advance to animal lovers everywhere, and in particular,  the loving folks at Mary’s Dogs who rescued little then Sterling, his sister, and his Mom, and brought him to me at a time in my life when I needed him the most. How did they know? I named him Jasper Johns Cale after Jasper Johns and J.J. Cale, two American artists who I greatly admire. And their names make good dog names too. Sometimes I call him JJ. Not often anymore.

I’ve already thanked the fabulous veterinarians who looks after my boy, but there’s that link again. Also, Jasper wants to give a big shout out to our dear friend Tracy at Camp Bickford, and her crew of lovables. (That’s where Jassie goes to stay when I’ve gone anywhere for more than a day.) Don’t take this the wrong way, Trace, as I’ve never told you this – but I’ve always thought he was a little too hesitant about jumping in the truck when I come to pick him up. What exactly have you been telling him about me? Not those crazy old work stories? Don’t turn him against me, please!

So, from our house to your house, as this beautiful, sniffable, snuggle-able, hike-able day breaks, before we go outsise, JJ and I would like to offer – this one really is personal – A big, special, slobbering, butt-scratching, suddenly-pooping, bone-dancing, biscuit-chasing shout out and a heartfelt thank you – to dog lovers everywhere. To all my Facebook friends who finally showed me the light. I get it – my politics and ideas are just random, avoidable noise, without the love of this beautiful creature. All any of them want to see, and I mean all – is pictures of that my wonderful, handsome dog’s face. We all need a cute dog in our life, so I’ll be happy to share my life with mine with you. He will be here, laying on the blanket, decimating his favorite chew toy, 24/7. Are you okay with that? If I also have a need to tell my stories, I’ll try to do that in between the cracks, and keep out of sight. And we’ll try to keep the swearing to a minimum. At least I will. I don’t speak for the boy, he’s got his own ideas.

I think dogs are some of the best beings on earth.  They make people better people. How could they not? How can you be in a bad mood when your caught in the sudden, shiny goodness of a wagging, quivering, squealing beam of dog love? You simply can’t. When you get out of bed in the morning, and your buddy comes to your bedside wagging – as he always, always does, without fail – you will now in that moment how your day is going to go. You will just know, because you cannot hide from a dog. He will know. He will smell you out.

People who love their dogs are the best. Jasper, actually, is really the best of them all. In a very real, factuaI, non-fakenewsie sense – and I mean this from the bottom of my heart – I saved Jasper’s life, and then he saved his Dad’s life, and we’ve agreed to owe each other on that forever, and call it even. I can no longer imagine life without him.  I never want to again. That’s why I keep the snowshoes by the door, kilos of biscuits in the cupboard, giant bags of kibble in the pantry, bundles of bones on the in the basket by the door, and Nature’s Little Miracle right under the sink. I’m his daddy. That’s my job. Me and Jasper? I think we actually are one of nature’s little miracles. Stick around, and I just might prove it to you.

The boy and I are so looking forward to sharing our stories – and the wild hairy joy of a life with a dog –  with you and your mutt. Hang around, this could get messy.

With a woof an a lil’ woohoo,

D & J

Last touched: 03/07/17 8:13 am

D.S., Whiteface NH 3/6/2017

** ITF – Immediate and Total Failure 

Dave Sandwich Live Beta, Volume 2

back to Volume 1

So … Why do this Dave Sandwich web/writing project now?

Mostly because I never before had the time required. I have had to to work on other things full time, for most of my life. First, starting at 16 years old, that work was as a house painter with my Cousin Neil in Boston and Cambridge; then I transitioned to banging nails, eventually opened my own cabinet shop in Waltham MA; I moved to NH in 1984, bought a cape house and 15 acres, got a part time carpentry job, and continued my building and RE career in Meredith NH for 12 years, from 1984 to 1996.

Then in 1996, the result of many odd coincidences I’ll got into later, I ended u starting the the 2Square Carromboard Co, and for a fabulous, busy 5 years I  was truly ‘the first US Manufacturer of International Standard Carrom Boards’, in my Meredith NH workshop. I was also a world-trotting international carrom player and competitor. Eventually, however, my carrom dream began to suffer the weight of too much physical work, too many broken deadlines, not enough income, too few tournament glories, and general entropy. Also, critically, my sporting career began to overlap – and conflict, in many cases –  with my other passion: all things computer and software and web, which had  basically ben latent until the day Tim Berners Lee (creator of the www) first shined his little flashlight into my brain, and whispered this:

‘Psssst … hey Dave: every piece of information in the world will soon at your fingertips, and – get this – you now own your own TV station, music business, self help empire, and publishing house. Have fun, Dude.’

The light went on in my head the moment I heard that whisper, and it has never gone off.

Dave’s Geek Years

But I still needed money, like everyone else. So I’ve had an interesting and rewarding Web career. In some kind of order, my skill acquisitions and job situations:

Begin, 1988: Mac+ fonts fun; Corel Draw; Quark, Compuserve and Prodigy; HTML 1; Photoshop and Illustrator; cool late 90’s job at boutique tech firm, Merrimack; Cold Fusion; PHP; ASP; A ski accident, a sudden window, and a year at PSU on deep research in Database Theory, Linux, and Java Programming; ; Early self started ‘Omworks’ web sites for friends’; decision to get out of building web sites for friends; realization that ‘Web Designer’ was no long a cool job; Now not a job at all; cool job as webaster at startup in Meredith; Taxonomy and Design; Web Systems Management and first lessons in corporate opacity, inefficiency and social BS; company lays off 15% of workers so somebody can get rich; Dave laid off for no reason by moderately incompetent, oafish boss (Bubba);

Work break 2003-2007 – Build remote, mountainside, Squam-viewed, off-grid 3000 sq. ft 4 bath dream home for wife and self to heal; begging and borrowing and stealing and grinding for 3 years; live happily in beautiful house; write first draft of Kung Fu-ey stoner thesis on carpentry’s mystical lessons. Decide it sucks. Put it in drawer; take it out again and now decide for sure it;’s really the entire ME that sucks; put back in drawer; and….

And Back to Work: get re-hired 3 years later at same old company becaue I run into Katie at the deli and she tells me about opening; kind of bummed to have to work again (so much for the writing great new boss; great new bosses quality means he is immediately promoted elsewhere; get a series of moderately incompetent management-type bosses who don’t know a thing about web site but want to make their mark; Build web enabled, PHP/MySql, 400-dollar-overhead-a-year Global Service Process and Field Service Parts Tracking and data analysis without really asking my boss for permission, with the help of kindest co-worker in world and best coder,  who is still doing his job and now mine; everybody loves my CMS for 2 years of happiness; managers love the data I output; Bubba becomes boss again (?); Jerry and new disruptor global VP (Jack) think Salesforce is better and go that way without asking Dave’ s advice; at Salesforce summit, Dave is informed that he will build, spec, configure, and launch the SF project and train everyone to use it; Dave leaves next day; Dave works out his anger and goes to Plan C.

I think that gets us to the end of one thread, and the beginning of another …