Author: Dave

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Monday in Florida and it’s hot. I’m sure it’s been hotter, and muggier… but as I was packing Keaton’s things into the trunk of the car afore we left Sharaun’s grandmother’s house (where we spent the night last night), I was sweating. Seems like, with this Florida heat, I alternate between loving and hating it. The other day at the beach, for instance, I recall thinking that the wet heat was rather enjoyable – almost like a free sauna. Something about the humidity and the thin sheen of sweat it fosters make me feel “clean.” Then again, that same thin sheen of sweat and oil also makes me feel like I need a washing up. So it cuts both ways, I suppose. I think I can see, though, why so many old folks move down this way – the heat is good for the joints, and the humidity makes my skin feel good. I figure I could be old here…

Looks like we may get another afternoon thunderstorm here in central Florida today. The thick and dark clouds are rolling across the sky so quickly that they alternately block and don’t block the sun like they’re sending some kind of divine morse code message. For a while there I thought I might jump in the pool while Keaton napped, but then the clouds rolled in and I thought better of it. I’m home alone with Keaton, if you couldn’t tell. Sharaun’s gone to get a pedicure or some such womanly nonsense with her mom. I took advantage of the situation and hooked the iPod to the stereo for some jams.

Some guy knocked on the door, and when I answered it he stood there in a well-worn t-shirt, torn jeans, and bare feet. The bike he’d rode up on lay on its side down the footpath, and he had a small hacksaw and a pair of hedge clippers in his hand. “You guys by and chance want your bushes trimmed up there?,” he asked, motioning to the hedges around the front of my in-laws’ place. “I’m trying to earn some money to get my kid some food to eat,” he finished. “I’m sorry man,” I say, “I don’t live here and honestly don’t know if they’d want it or not.” “No problem,” he says, and moves on. Admirable, says me. No sedentary cardboard-sign holding for that guy – just some feet-on-the-street effort to try and make a few honest dollars. After I’d sent him off, I almost wished I’d just given him a few bucks… but, I didn’t.

The final details of the John Muir Trail hike Anthony and I begin exactly a week from today came together over the weekend with the response to a mail I’d sent to Vermilion Valley Resort inquiring about long-term parking of our exit vehicle there while we hiked. The resort is the planned terminus of our hike now, for many logical reasons, most of all being that it’s the only really “convenient” exit point accessible to vehicles around the length of trail we’d like to cover. We plan to leave Anthony’s car there for the week. The folks at the resort replied that it’d be fine, at the modest rate of $2 per night.

The plan now is to drive down to Anthony’s folks place (much closer to where we want to be) on Saturday, staying there that night. Then on Sunday, a local friend of Anthony’s will follow us on the three hour drive to Vermilion Valley Resort at Lake Edison, where we’ll leave Anthony’s car, and then that same friend will drive us another three and a half hours up to Yosemite where we’ll pick up our passes before he drops us off to spend the night in backpackers camping that last night. We’ll be near Curry Village that last night, so we’ll have a chance to eat one final “real” meal and purchase any last-minute items we may find we’ve forgotten at our last gear check. We plan to depart from Happy Isles trailhead sometime around six or seven that morning – with the best intentions to maximize our mileage on that grueling first uphill day.

If all goes well, Anthony we’ll rejoin his waiting vehicle back on the shores of Lake Edison some seven days of walking later. That is, unless we die or give up before that; in which case – who knows how we’ll get to a vehicle.

Well, Kyle’s coming over at six o’clock to pick me up and ferry us over to Orlando for The National show tonight. Hoping the show will be good, as I’m pretty beat from running around like crazy over the past week – and I’d hate to be bored to tears and an hour from a bed at 1am tonight. The company should make it worthwhile though, I always have liked hanging out with Kyle.

Raining now in Florida. Later.

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into the weekend


Some surprise me-time for a Friday in Florida.

Sharaun and her mom took off shopping, leaving me at the house with Breck and Doug and Keaton. I spent the morning flipping channels on the television and playing with Keaton. It’s now just after lunch, and Keaton has a mixed bellyful of turkey, cheese, nectarine, and rice cakes. I, on the other hand, am still contemplating my mealtime options. At first, I considered heading out for some chicken wings with the brother-in-law, but he denied me when his wife decided to cook grilled cheese sandwiches. Economical: yes; buffalo wings: no. I figured, since it’s 9am-ish back on the west coast, it’d be a good time to write a bit in preparation for posting sometime later today.

I was thinking today, how the full reality of being off from work for nine weeks hasn’t truly set in for me yet. Right now, with the trip to Florida panning out like our “normal” vacation visits here, my mind is fooling me into thinking that I’m just taking a run of the mill style vacation. The only indication of something bigger that I have comes when I think about how I should probably log in and check my work e-mail at least a couple times while I’m here. It’s something I routinely do while on vacation, just spend about 15min doing some quick dispositioning and deleting to save myself from a work-landslide upon return. But, when those thoughts come now – I’m quickly reminded that this is no ordinary vacation, as I have no desire to even see my e-mail until sometime in November. It’s a wonderful realization, actually, but it still doesn’t comprehend the full gravity of the time off. I’m thinking that may sink in somewhere along the John Muir Trail, or maybe in a massive tent during Oktoberfest. Either way, I hope it sets in soon – because I’m ready for the wave of awesome I think should wash over me the moment it does.

Wednesday we take Keaton to Disney World. We’ll acknowledge now that she’s likely a tad young to really appreciate the place, but we’re at least hoping that she can enjoy seeing the characters and perhaps get a kick out of some of the kid-friendly rides. Sharaun’s sister got us the hookup and we get into the $75-per-adult, $65-per-child park absolutely free (if you’re an accountant, that saves us something upwards of $200 on admission alone, not to mention the parking). And, from a selfish perspective, I myself am hoping to be able to check out the revamped Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and of course hit the Haunted Mansion – a favorite of mine since childhood. I’m not sure either of those rides are Keaton’s style, as I don’t know the rules on lap-children – but I figure, at worst, Sharaun and I can take turns (hopefully the lines won’t be bad during a midweek visit). I’ll be sure to post some pictures of the action once we’re back in California.

OK, that’s enough for today. Until Monday I guess, later.

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another fine day


Another fine day in sabbatical land. We went to visit my Uncle Tom today, spent a few good hours hanging out and visiting, and also managed to watch Dr. Strangelove, a movie I’ve always meant to see, but have only managed to catch bits and pieces of over the years. As I suspected, it was great.

Anyway, Sharaun’s cooking some spaghetti tonight and the whole family is gonna come over to mange. Should be a good time, and it’s one night we don’t have an obligation (every night from here until we leave is booked at this point).

Before we go on, I did manage to post two new galleries full of pictures:

I was so happy to read about the new iPod, which comes in a massive 160GB model (double what I have now), and is now dubbed the “classic” model to differentiate it from the also-new iPod “touch,” which seems to be just an iPhone sans the phone. As a solemn promise to myself, I decree that I will be carrying this new iPod with me to Oktoberfest. That’s how serious I am about getting it. Just think about how much media I can get on that thing, I can have all sorts of “good… but not good enough to take up space on my iPod” albums on there now, just in case I get the urge to listen to ’em. I will buy this. Perhaps even this weekend in Orlando, where I’m pretty sure there’s an Apple store (providing they’re not sold out).

Meanwhile, plans for our remaining days in Florida are coming together. It always seems like we end up blocking off time for this and for that, with little room left for improv. That’s the hard part about “vacationing” in the place where you grew up. The visits with friends and relatives, while not compulsory, always seem to fill up the calendar quite quickly. This coming Monday, my old buddy Kyle and I decided to catch The National in concert over in Orlando. I liked the National’s album Alligator, but have had a hard time getting into their 2007 effort. Maybe seeing them play some of the numbers live will cast them in a new light. I’m excited about that, actually, as I think the last “real” concert I saw with Kyle was a Bob Dylan / Carlos Santana double-headliner – a bit of a stylistic mismatch, but two heavyweights in their own right. Still, I feel now that I was too young to truly appreciate the show (plus, I remember having a killer headache that wrecked much of the evening for me). Should be fun to make the pilgrimage and see a gig.

I’ve been trying to work out WordPress’s “post via e-mail” feature lately. This neat functionality allows you to send an entry to an e-mail address, and have it auto-magically appear on your blog. WordPress checks the mail via POP3 and posts whatever’s in there. I had it working before, but had no real use for it. Now that I’m on sabbatical, and that I have a more thumb-typing friendly BlackBerry, I figured I may actually get some mileage out of it. Problem is, I switched hosting companies recently, to GoDaddy, and, for some reason, GoDaddy doesn’t like the WordPress POP3 methods. The PHP times out, it’s apparently a semi-known issue with GoDaddy. What’s worse, WordPress doesn’t support SSL connections (this means no Yahoo mail and no Gmail). I also can’t use free POP-able mail services that send e-mail advertisements as part of the deal, as anything new gets autoposted. Anyone know a good, free, non-SSL, POP3-readable, e-mail service that has good spam blocking capabilities? Lemme know.

Until later.

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doin’ what i want


Our second full day in Florida was another nice and lazy one, spend nursing yesterday’s sunburn and still shaking out all the lack-of-sleep cobwebs from Monday. Sufficiently decompressed and recuperated, I began calling all the old buddies and relatives, setting up rendezvous later in the week for dinners and lunches and catching ups. Yesterday we hit the beach in the morning, and met up with my oldest buddies for a few pints and some mexican food in the evening – twas a good night, which saw us home in time to play with Keaton for a half hour before putting her down (having left her with the grandparents while we drank and dined).

This weekend we’re getting together with Sharaun’s sister and brother and heading up to the alma mater Gainesville to see the Gators play in The Swamp. Tyler’s gonna cart up the smoker, and we’re gonna get out on campus early for the 6pm game with a pork shoulder over some hickory. A day of reminiscent tailgating, pulled pork, and football – just like old college Saturdays. I’m actually super-excited about going to a game. It’s something Sharaun and I have been talking about doing ever since we graduated, but it’s always been sort of elusive, as I figured it would require a trip to Florida just to make it happen. Thank goodness for the awesomeness of sabbatical.

Well, I’m off to take a nap (I can do that, any time I want to). I’m about 50% done with a huge batch of pictures I’ll be uploading later this evening, if all goes right. Here’s something to whet your appetite, though. It’s a picture I snapped recently when we went to the beach, and Keaton was mobbed by the paparazzi. It happens; she’s that cute, y’know.

Until later.

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a walking zombie in florida


Monday I was a walking zombie in Florida. After a 3am riseandshine and a cross-country aeronautical journey with-child, we were all fairly sleep deprived. I tried to write, I did, but gave up when I realized I had only been repeatedly banging out semicolons and randomly clawing at the laptop screen. Fatigue is a blog killer.

Tuesday now though, and I can write when I want. No more have-to-post by midnight on sabbatical. No more cramming each entry into three hours every evening. Just write as I go and post when I want. Sure, you, readers, lose some predictability, but let’s be honest – over the past couple weeks this thing has been pretty predictably blank, am I right. I am to fix that with the time I have now.

I brought five books with me to Florida. I’m hoping I can at least manage to read one of them. I guess, I’m actually hoping I can read some of the real books, as two of the five are just guidebooks – one for the Muir Trail, one for beer drinkers in Munich. I also brought Kerouac’s On the Road (I never finished, it… “paused” at “part two” and never restarted again), the second half of the Book of the New Sun series, The Sword and the Citadel (which, again, I never got to after reading, and loving, the first half…), and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I’d really like to use at least part of these nine weeks to improve my books-per-year ratio for 2007. It’s already September and I’ve only got four under my belt – and that’s downright awful.

And, with that, I’m gonna cut this off early. We’re headed down to the beach today I think, then likely calling up old friends to arrange some catching-up time while we’re in town. I don’t want to feel like we’re booking a press tour or anything, so I’m shooting for a good amount of lazy days like this. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Until tomorrow.

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last day at the sawmill


Today is my last day at the sawmill until November 5th.

Let’s just ruminate on that last statement for a minute: Last day at work until November 5th. Uh-huh, roll that around in the old noodle for a bit: Until November 5th. No more work until November 5th.

Maybe I should put this another way: There is this place I’ve gone five days a week nearly every single week since I left college. After today, I won’t have to go there for nine weeks. I know, it may seem like I’m blowing it out of proportion. But, to me, it’s that big. Nine weeks to spend with Keaton, nine weeks to spend with Sharaun, nine weeks to spend with me.

I’ve decided that, in the future, when I hear a song that reminds me of those last days leading up to tomorrow, I want it to be “Sandy” from the recent Caribou album, Andorra. Seriously, you must hear this song. It gets my vote right now for best bassline of the year, that bouncy thing could be a song unto itself. And how about the choppy breakbeat fills behind the choruses? Insane, right? Sounding like something lifted from the Odyssey and Oracle sessions and modernized for today, I am ready to rock this as the happy-goodtimes track that closes the summer. You want to hear it now, right? Seriously, you should. Go listen to it here. If you like it, let me know… love in the comments.

Goodnight.