Author: Dave

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never a good idea


Sunday afternoon and I’ve eschewed a hundred things so I can sit on the couch in the sunshine. I’m not feeling quite 100%, my sinuses really acting up – so badly that I’m thinking my sinus infection of a few weeks back may not have been completely quelled by my round of antibiotics. All through my open windows I hear the sound of a neighborhood mowing, that doppler-effect sound of each pass up and down their lawns as they make something of their Sunday time and I nothing of mine.

The multiple mowers, and high-seventies temperatures, though, make it a done-deal, summertime is on its way… slowly but surely we’ll get there again. Had a good weekend though, despite the congestion. Spent all Saturday with Keaton while Sharaun went snowboarding, it was really nice. We walked down to a local park, met up with some friends, ate fried chicken, tossed the frisbee, and played around in the grass (pictures coming soon). That evening we headed out to Ben’s birthday party, where I drank some beer and smoked some Djarums. Man those Djarums are just never a good idea.

We ate dinner with friends Sunday night, one of my favorite things we do regularly. Even with Keaton, we swap dinners with friends on average three times I week, I’d guess. Most of our friends on this rotation are the kind of friends whose places I feel completely comfortable at. The kind of friends where, if I fall asleep on their sofa and snore while taking an unplanned nap, it’d be nothing out of the ordinary. We’re lucky to have friends like that, I think… We’ve been able to cultivate a nice little network of good peoples. OK, enough of the sappy shit.

The news said the temperatures this weekend reached eighty degrees. I’m not sure about that, but I am sure that we had some amazing weather. It’s the kind of weather that makes me think about camping. In fact, this weekend would have been prime for it, if the weather up in the hills was anywhere near as warm as it was here (which I’m sure it wasn’t).

Thing is, I’m looking at needing some kind of family getaway vacation thing sometime soon here… as work has really been weighing on me the past couple weeks. Problem is, I don’t think anything is going to change in the next few weeks. Not even the prospect of making my more-than-a-year since return to China and Taiwan seems like a decent break. But I need one, oh I need one.

I hesitate to publish this, but there’s nothing else and it’s words. Goodnight.

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weekend minus one


Friday tomorrow, and we have an “off-site” event at work, which means it’s gonna be just a little more than a half day and then an afternoon of early beers and some snooker. I think it’ll be a nice way to ease into the weekend. As for the weekend, I don’t have many plans. Sharaun is leaving me with Keaton all day Saturday while she goes snowboarding. I’m thinking we’ll maybe walk to the park or something. At some point I have big plans to mow and fertilize the lawn, and maybe install a screen door.

My website was down most of the day today, some database issues on the host side which I hope they’ve now worked through. Not that I’m losing millions in trade for every minute of downtime, but I’m sure Sharaun’s grandmother in Florida thinks her computer is broken when she goes to look at Keaton’s new pictures and gets a 404. I really think that blog comment spam is what may be causing my somewhat frequent database issues, as my host limits the number of database “connects” I can have in any given time-chunk. Every time a spam comment gets written to the database (which still happens, even though Akismet catches them and relegates them to an unpublished “spam” queue for later review), it counts against my “max connections” ceiling. Honestly, that’s the only thing I can see pushing me over the limit. Also, though, I think my host has weak database support on my current plan (where I share a single server with hundreds of other users’ websites, and we’re all getting a slice of the same MySQL pipe on the backend). I could upgrade to a virtualized dedicated server – but that costs dough. Anyway, sorry for the nerd-talk.

My beard is progressing nicely and is now rather fuzzy and voluminous, little hairs jutting this way and that in a nice thick tangle. Whenever I’m in the car, I strain my neck to admire it in the rearview. I love watching the water drip off it in streams during my morning shower, and the fact that the fuzz of it obscures the bottom lobe of my ear in the mirror. I have these visions of the pictures from this summer’s future camping trips, where I have this massive jumble of beard hanging off my chops, like the mountain man I always dream about but will never be. Sometimes I wonder if, come the day I decide I want to shave it all off (never?), Keaton will recognize me the same. I know she’ll know who I am, but I can’t help but think she’s gotten used to unshaven daddy as the one true daddy – any other daddy might just be an impostor.

I’m all pumped because Sharaun and I and a bunch of friends all got tickets to see the Arcade Fire play at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley in June. There are still tickets left, so get ’em and join us there – the whole venue is general admission so it should be blissful anarchy trying to jockey for the good seats. Yay! Arcade Fire in an outdoor venue on a nice June night… I can’t wait.

Goodnight.

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lock my tear-drenched heart away inside a steel box


A hodge-podge of stuff today. I almost didn’t write, started falling asleep watching that Discovery channel “The Tomb of Jesus” documentary (not because it was boring, but because I was all alone and reclined on the couch). But, then Sharaun got back from the gym and I got up and forced myself to do the dishes and I got a second wind. So here I am then, let’s go. Oh, before we start, I updated Keaton’s gallery – check it out.

My throat is sore and raw, and I have a raspy cough. I know that it’s not sick though, it’s allergies, and it sucks. When I was a kid, I had asthma and allergies. Asthma bad enough that I remember gaspingly wheezing for air in the back seat as my parents drove me to the emergency room, and allerigies bad enough that my parents had to take me in each week to get a shot in the arm.

As I got older, both the asthma and allergies waned in strength, and by the time I was a teenager in Florida – I was pretty much allergy-free. At the time, I thought it was just the natural “growing out of it” that many allergists will advise you is probable as you age. Now, however, after my return to California, and my allergies’ return to me – I’m beginning to think it’s more likely I “geographied” out of my allergies than I did grew out of them. For now, friends, they are back with a vengeance. A mere seven years back in California and they plague me come Springtime. What do you know, another tick in the “pro” column for the good ol’ South.

Straightening the other day after bending down to retrieve a little toy monkey for Keaton, I smacked the top of my head on the underside of the little niche where our TV lives. Man it hurt. I immediately put Keaton down and grabbed my poor skull, considering, as all men do when in severe pain, what the best curses would be to communicate my feelings, and in which direction and how hard to throw the little plastic monkey that was responsible. In the end, I just groaned and squeezed the monkey tight – not wanting to go all Hulk out-of-control with Keaton watching. My head was bruised, and my teeth hurt from clacking together, but I lived. I did, however, somehow end up with a smallish pimple-like thing right where I bumped my noggin. I find this painful, disgusting, and embarrassing. Who gets a zit on the very crown of their dome? Right there where I’m my baldest, right there in plain view, dead-smack on the perihelion of my melon.

I think I need to change my strategy at work a bit, need to add a little more “dick” to how I manage. I say this because I think it’s a semi-fault of mine to be a little too friendly and kind, and I’ve found that lately those traits have been getting in the way (somewhat) of the “hardness” with which I want to communicate some things. I don’t want to be a jerk boss, no, I’d always like to be the nice boss – but I think I need to flex some muscle, bring some thunder, in order to shed that schoolboy image of someone who can’t get all iron-fisted when the need arises. Yes, I think this is something I’ll have to do. Learn to be brusque, learn to be curt, firm, and more unwavering in the face of strong emotion. What I’m saying is, I have to learn to lock my tear-drenched heart away inside a steel box when necessary. Come then, the new age of me – the dick.

Goodnight.

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springtime


It’s after dinner and I’m sitting here drawing my too-long index fingernail across my front bottom teeth, scraping the film of a good meal into little curls which I’ll then think about, and eventually just decide it’s easier to swallow. Sharaun went easy tonight and let me have chilidogs for dinner, although I did have to eat a salad to “balance” it. I just put Keaton down to bed. Speaking of Keaton and sleeping, we lost her morning nap about a week back – she just refused to go down. So, she’s a one-nap baby now, although it’s a nice long one around 1pm so it’s not so bad. I’ve hit a serious stall on my reading, last time I checked in with Sal Paradise he was on his way back to New York after an amazing-sounding shack-up with a Mexican farmgirl. I want to get back to it, but I’ve been otherwise occupied. Tonight’s the night though, I think.

Spring is coming. My lawn is starting to get green and the trees on the block are starting to sport buds on their winter-grey limbs. I’m excited for the day when the weatherman says that the rains are over and I can pull the the hammock and patio chair cushions out of the garage. I’m ready for the not-so-hot precursor to summer months, when we can start earting dinners outside again, music drifting through the screen door, Keaton crawling around in the grass. I’ve decided I’m going to put a screen door on our front door as well, so we can have the house “open” and get a nice breeze running through. This is typical in Florida, but I don’t see it much here in California, maybe I’ll start a trend. Anyway, the coming of spring and summer have my mind turning to camping again, and thinking about how much fun we’ll be able to have (and how much extra work it’ll be) now that Keaton’s a little more mobile and a little more cognizant of her surroundings. Yeah, springtime… bring it.

Goodnight.

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one day though, things could change


Today, my heart is sad. I’m sitting here listening to Built to Spill’s classic Ancient Melodies of the Future, and feeling pitiful. No particular reason (a lie, to be sure), but still I do. Maybe it’s because I came home from work (well, the bar post-work, to be sure) and Sharaun and Keaton weren’t here. No, not it. Maybe it’s because I feel like I haven’t had a decent amount of quality time with Keaton lately, like her mom gets to spend so much time watching her change every day and like I’m missing something, missing her growing. No, that’s not it either. Whatever it is (I know what it is), it sucks. I’m just not much for talking tonight, was tight-lipped (for the most part) at the bar with my cronies, and now I’m here spilling words into this text box on a webpage… it’s a function of my being. One day though, things could change (you never know when). Ahhh… how splendidly juvenile. Let’s on with it then.

I keep having this recurring dream: I’m in someone’s house, I don’t know the person and it’s clear to me that I’m there without their knowledge, i.e. I’ve broken in. No one’s home, and I’m busy stealing foodstuffs and essentials. I’m scruffy and unkempt, and the clothes I’m wearing are dirty and worn. It’s at this point I realize I’m ravenously hungry, and furthermore that I’m here because I’m desparate. I’ve been hiding out somewhere; outside, by the looks of me, and I’m here breaking and entering on an urgent mission to restock my necessities. The house and the stuff I’m stealing changes, but the theme doesn’t – I always end up having to make a hasty exit as the home’s inhabitants return while I’m busy pilfering. Last night, for instance, I was filling a sack with bags of dried split-pea soup mix, and I was ecstatic to have found it. I was also stealing a large pot from under the kitchen counter, and was filling it with rolls of toilet paper from the bathroom when I heard the front door open. It’s funny how clearly the sense of fear and urgency comes though in a dream, entirely mind-generated. I hit the backyard and was out the gate in the fence as the owner was discovering their loss, fleeing back into the woods somewhere. An easy-guess interpretation: I’m hiding from something, or scared to face something. Not sure what that may be though…

Helped a friend make a website this weekend, and, while I’d never misrepresent myself as a web-design guru, the exercise did give me a chance to learn some new GIMP/Inkscape techniques. Working from a template, we created a similar layout from scratch (admittedly, it’s a dead-simple design with no frills, and I used deprecated table-based layout techniques), and I think it came out pretty nice. Simple, clean, but gets the job done without going too crazy. Yeah, I know, it’s laughable in terms of “real” design, but as long as it books rooms and makes money – I’m happy. So anyway, if you’re into fly-fishing or just an outdoor escapist like me, go give them some trade.

Goodnight.

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life gets in the way


Took a hiatus from writing last week, work was busy and I was occupied in the evenings. Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging, I guess. Actually, I have nothing to write tonight, and am just not in the mood – but I had some crap stuff that I forgot to delete last week I figured I’d use to fill the space. This weekend I spent a lot of time vacating multiple pieces of hardware from our “computer room” and consolidating them into a brand new single computer which now lives in the built-in niche in our kitchen. I didn’t like the built-in niche when we bought the house, figured it too small for a proper computer desk (it is, really), but now I like it. Sharaun likes it too, since she can be out here with Keaton. Anyway, now we can turn that room into a real guest room.

People, please, please stop calling me asking how to install the pirated software you downloaded from BitTorrent. If you have no idea how to unRAR or unZIP a file, if you can’t comprehend having to burn a .bin/.cue file to a CD before using or (or God forbid using a virtual drive to read the ISO), or if you have no idea how to navigate a folder tree in Windows or understand where the hell something you just downloaded or extracted went on your drive – pirating software isn’t for you. If you can’t understand the concept of a keygen, don’t know what a readme is, or have know idea how to run a patch in the root directory – give up and pay the damn $30 to do your taxes.

Just because the software is out there for free, and you can call me to walk you through the installation process (something that will take 10x the time it would were I there with you) doesn’t mean you are entitled to use it for free. In fact, if you have no idea what a RAR file is, you have no business trying to bootleg software… so give up. And please, stop calling me and making me ask things like, “Did you unRAR it? Where did you extract it to? What do you mean you don’t know? Go back and do it again, pay attention. No. That’s in your My Documents folder. Where? It’s under your username… what? OK, double-click on My Computer… No, you’re gonna need to patch that DLL. Just put the file called patch.exe in the directory. What? No, where extracted it. Oh, you don’t see extensions, and you have to show hidden/protected files. Go to Properties…” Ugh!

Keaton seems to be getting over her double ear infections quite nicely, with the help of some foul-smelling medicine we have to keep in the fridge. Her eyes have stopped gooping and her nose is less runny (she’s still got a nasty cough, though). Lately, I’ve been noticing her “getting older.” The way she plays with me, the little things she does when she’s wrapped up in her own world, she just acts older or something – more like a little kid than a little baby. She’s going too fast.

Goodnight.

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it’s shameful, it’s disgusting


Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging. Like tonight, I fully planned to shirk this thing, didn’t get home until 11pm and was tired. Then I remembered I had the binned paragraph about babies/cardboard/consumerism and I thought about going in and filling in around it – I again decided no. Then, laying down, I had the walking though, figured it was good for a paragraph, and went with it. So here I am then, listening to “Disco 2000” from Pulp’s absolute classic Different Class, literally one of my favorite albums of all time. Highschool all over when I hear it. Today was Keaton’s real first birthday, as measured by the sun and moon and tides, and wouldn’t you know it – she’s sick with a runny nose, puffy eyes, and a rattley cough. Poor birthday girl.

I think I’d like to try an experiment, wear a pedometer for a week and see how far I walk, on average, each day. I would expect the results to be nothing less of pitiful. I think of all the walking the human race must have had to endure to get where we are now. Walking through deserts, across ice-bridges, over perilous mountains – all with nothing more than two feet and a hunger. It shames me that me, some long-downline descendant of the great walkers of human history, walks so little in any given day. I can probably count the instances in which I’m required to walk: around my house in the morning after waking up; from the car into work and up to my desk; maybe a restroom break before lunch; lunch; to the car on the way home; and finally around the house again before retiring at night. It’s gotta be staggeringly low, and that’s the sum total of my daily “activity.” It’s shameful, it’s disgusting. Looks like the alliterative “Synthia” was onto something…

Ever since having a baby, our status as “consumers” has risen alarmingly. I’m weekly toting empty cardboard boxes out to the recycle bin, and even with all the “break down boxes” training from my days in fast food I still get lazy and try to stuff them in just as they are. Sometimes, when the bin is full, 90% air and 10% fully-assembled cardboard boxes, I’ll just pile up the new boxes on the bricks outside. Often hoping for rain so it’ll turn into a mush that’s easier to squish into the bin. But, they still come, box after box after box of diapers, wipes, toys, whatever. Week after week we consume, more and more and more. Keaton flies through diapers. We put one on her, she pees in it or poops in it and we take it off. It goes in the trash, the trash goes to the curb, and Keaton’s pee and poops end up in the landfill that’s about 10mi from here, a stinky hump on the flat horizon, flocks of seagulls hanging around the line of trees planted as cover. Sometimes I think there’s got to be a better way.

Quick check: Looks like I didn’t win the lottery. Back to work tomorrow it is then. Today’s piece of flashback humor: mistaken identity II. Goodnight.