Author: Dave

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we don’t care about the old folks


Going through this stack of dusty papers that is the mail, I found a check from our credit card folks, $5.47. That’s good money now! I figure that’ll buy me half a bottle of Mega Man; I’m out, and feeling slightly off-mega. Somewhere between aggro and super, maybe… but definitely not mega. Bought some lottery tickets today, the check more than makes up for what I spent, so that makes me feel vindicated or something. I decided to buy them because the jackpot is all jacked-up, somewhere upwards of two-hundred million dollars. Went in with a couple buddies from work. Good guys too, it’s a shame I’ll have to off them if we win. If I win, though, I’ve decided to take up writing in my spare time. Writing, and swimming in my Money Bin.

Monday night though, we had tomato soup and grilled cheese, what I like to think of as an old “hobo standby.” I like it though, Sharaun makes it sometimes when she’s pressed for time or doesn’t want to run to the store, and I don’t mind because it’s tasty and I can launch black flotillas of pepper on the surface of my soup. She was busy working on some stuff on her computer, so I played with Keaton until about eight before putting her down. Her cold is getting worse, I think. Her right eye is all goopy, collecting at the corner in nice gooey eye boogers I lovingly scoop out with my fingers. She still acts like a trooper though, with nary a sign of discomfort.

The rain continues to come in sunny California. I like it. Last night I listened to it pelt the windows and tick down the drainpipes while I waited for sleep, I had that tent fantasy again, willed it, actually. It was still coming down this morning, I used my umbrella to walk from the car into the building at work. Umbrellas, though, as I’ve mentioned before, are useless in my opinion, and every time I use one I think about how I’d rather have a nice long London-style “Mac” to stay dry instead. Like I said though, I like the rain. It makes my grass green, forces lazy days inside. I like the way it makes the streets and sidewalks shiny and dark and uniform in color, like they all got a coat of lacquer and are fresh and new. I like the sun better, though.

Gotta get to scrubbin’ folks, dishes are calling. Goodnight.

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sweating out the bennies


I’ve got a pretty spotty entry today, but link to some pictures so maybe that makes up. Just got done doing the dishes from dinner, spaghetti and a green salad, quite good. I’m now drinking some white wine while Sharaun and Melissa watch the Oscars. I’m adrift in sea of gown-critiquing, heartthrob throbbing, and the occasional look up from the laptop on the off chance Natalie Portman is on the screen.

Sitting here on a Sunday afternoon in the shirt I wore yesterday, well, at least partly yesterday. It’s still got some chocolate frosting smeared into the fabric on my right breast, I can smell sweet whiffs of it every once in a while. Keaton’s sleeping and Sharaun is at a baby shower luncheon thing so I have the place to myself. I’m using my time wisely, writing and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek. I tried to listen to some music, but found I’m in one of those moods where nothing sounds right, nothing quite fits. So, Star Trek it is.

Saturday was Keaton’s 1st birthday party, and I think it went off swimmingly. I’ve posted some picture to her gallery here, which you can peruse here at your leisure. Incidentally, this is the 1st batch of photos taken with our camera, and I’ve also upped the size at which I “shrink” them to for web usage (1024×768 instead of 800×600). Anyway, my folks flew in for the party, and I think they got some good Keaton-time over the days they were here. I like seeing them with her, love to watch the way she makes them happy, especially my mom. Tuesday is her real birthday, a day on which, on year ago, I sat hunched over this very laptop in a hospital room, writing out the event in real time. It really is hard to think that she’s a year old now…

Spent a good two hours reading On The Road last night before bed (I think book titles, at least from what I remember from 10th grade, are supposed to be underlined, but on the web that’s reserved for hyperlinks, so I put ’em in italics). At some point, as Sal Paradise finally spent his first night in San Francisco and he says, “Boys and girls in America, have such a sad time together.” I had no idea the Hold Steady’s album took it’s name from the book, and was pleasantly surprised to “discover” a bit of cultural cross-pollination for myself. After patting myself on my literate back, I read on. I’m still excited about the book, still looking for moments to steal when I can read a little more. Even the stink of my own shit is made more bearable by plowing through a couple chapters. I’m hoping that whatever book I pick next in my “educate myself” 2007 read-a-thon doesn’t bring me down.

Goodnight.

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keystone chops


Tonight, Sharaun and I went out for our Valentines Day dinner. (I wanted to write that sentence as, “Tonight was Sharaun and I’s Valentines Day dinner,” or “Tonight was Sharaun and my Valentines Day dinner,” but I have never known how to say “someone and I/my” as a possessive so I chickened out). Anyway, we had traded babysitting with some friends of ours, watching their toddler while they did their Valentines and they’d in turn take Keaton while we did ours.

The dinner itself was so fraught with buffoonery that it was remarkable. First, our order was laughably wrong; next, our bill was incredibly incorrect; next-next, they charged my dinner to someone else’s card, his dinner to mine, and returned the wrong credit cards to each of us (of course, the other guy didn’t notice, signed his receipt, and left with my card); next-next-next, they refused to apologize or do anything other than attempt to “charge me later if the other guy calls when he notices he has the wrong card.” It was one insane example of incompetence after another, thirty minutes of it, while we were left to simply rot at our empty table. Finally, I got up and told them I was leaving, and canceling my credit card. I left them my name and phone number in case they wanted to talk about it, but stated that I planned to dispute any charge from them that evening that made it through prior to my card being canceled.

As old ladies on Andy Griffith say, “Well, I never!”

Got a bug today over lunch and went out with the weed spray to do some killin’. I also pushed the fertilizer spreader thing around to try and green-up my sullen yard. You’d think that the same lack of winter rain which has left my grass brown and crunchy would also mean no weeds. But, no, the weeds are in full bloom. It’s as if their roots drill deep into the Earth and have tapped some hidden spring, they’re always healthy and verdant, thriving even in this drought. The lawn, on the other hand, suffers miserably. I’m back to running the sprinklers in the morning to try and put some life back into it, which is something I’ve not done this late in winter (early in spring?) since I’ve had the place.

Compared to my neighbors, I’m somewhat disgusted with my lawn. Some of theirs look painted on, brilliant deep green and as thick and lush as new shag. Mine is weed-speckled and thin, whispy and here-and-there, looking on the edge of death. In the summer it usually picks up, but it’s still no prizewinner. I’m convinced that my lack of a green thumb is not to blame, but rather my unfortunate choice of lot. The corner lot, erected on a seeming bed of compacted rock with little to no soil at all in between to retain water. The lot itself a product of clearing the land above and below for other lots, a pile of crap beaten flat yet still pitched at a fierce slant, with a large burm and hollow right in the front yard. I’m convinced the grass can find precious little soil in which to root, and that what soil there is drains either too fast or not at all depending on the lay of the land. I’m also convinced the irrigation system was poorly designed. It’s an all-over mess. It’s not because I suck at things green, I promise.

May or may not post Friday, as I’m taking a vacation day and may not be inclined. Goodnight.

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reevaluating invincibility


Tuesday evening and Sharaun’s at a volleyball game. I put Keaton down to bed about 15min ago, and am now enjoying some Malajube whilst writing up tonight’s blog.

Before tonight, I was off to a slow start on Kerouac’s On The Road. The long introduction was interesting, but stole some of the immediate thunder I had expected. But, oh man, once I got into the book proper I was spellbound. Kerouac’s writing seems just barely strung-together enough to tell a story, like it was written in some mad fit (I know, it was) as if he was afraid it all had to come out at once or else be lost (I know, he did); but at the same time it’s so beautifully detailed and descriptive that I’m almost there with him, belting back whiskey on a flatbed racing across the west. I’m only six chapters in but I can barely put the thing down. I can’t wait until he gets to San Francisco. That said, then, I’ll go ahead and write this up snap-quick so I can get to reading, maybe get my voracious on. Here we go.

I think it’s time for me to reevaluate my invincibility. Over the past couple years, the number of times my body has succumbed to sickness or ailment has risen sharply. I used to be untouchable, completely impenetrable to disease. Recently, though, I’ve had to take a day off work here, another there, and have lost a few good weekend days to sleeping and sniffling. Is this what happens when you get old? Instead of ignoring the signals my body gives me, should I now pay attention to them and react accordingly? What crap. When did I become weak? This morning, I woke up with a sore shoulder, apparently my body didn’t like the way I slept on it, it ailed me all day, pins and needles. I remember when I could sleep in the reclined front seat of a Nissan Sentra and wakeup no worse for wear. Then, my mouse-hand has been protesting some movements lately, almost like the years of totally un-ergonomic use I’ve forced it to endure are coming to bear. Sometimes, I even get heartburn after eating a burrito (extra large, extra-extra spicy, please). What’s worse, I get super sleepy around 4pm every day. Oh Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?

A thought occurred to me the other day whilst pondering some work stuffs. I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase “good old boy” used in reference to the way some organizations are run. Usually what’s meant by this is that a small network of back-slappin’ buddies run the company, promoting and demoting according to how well others fit into their “good ol’ boy” mold. So that regular Joes sometimes feel like their chances of being favored or given the big job or being promoted are hindered because they didn’t go duck hunting with the clique on the weekend, or some other such nonsense. Anyway, what I was thinking was, that this whole notion of a “good old boy network” probably isn’t that wrong, and furthermore shouldn’t be that surprising.

Dealing with people is tough, there are so many assholes, so many who are ungrateful, so many who are under-appreciative and over-demanding, so many who are abrasive, impossible to relate to, unpredictable, unprofessional, abstract, difficult. The old adage rings true, you know, “birds of a feather…” I wonder, though, if this “flock together” pack-mentality may be the subconscious (and sometimes all-too conscious) reason behind the classic “good ol’ boy network?” By surrounding yourself with an army of like-yous, you have to deal with a lot less. You know a lot better where the lines are, know what’ll motivate and what’ll correct. It makes me think, however, that the school of “relationship based management” may have hit on something. Developing relationships with the people you work with and who work for you is probably a good way to avoid the “easy out” tendency to populate the ranks with you-clones. Whatever, all I was trying to say is that maybe those folks who look at the good ol’ boy network with envy are just the square pegs…

It’s been well-established now that I love ARGs (Alternate Reality Games). I think my first real experience with the genre was the with the whole Lost Experience thing, which seems late when you consider the “I Love Bees” stuff and many of the other “armchair treasure hunts” which have gone on, but arguably I was smitten all the way back when the Smashing Pumpkins did something very similar with their album Machina, and I was way into that. I also got into the whole Lonelygirl15 thing for much of the same reasons. The idea that you can participate with others in a real-life Hardy Boys type mystery adventure is awesome to me. So, when I found out that the Nine Inch Nails, a collective of whom I’ve been a casual fan since high school, are slowly “leaking” tracks from the new album “Year Zero” as part of a viral marketing slash ARG thing, I was thrilled. Not only do I get awesome tunes, I get to follow a neat post-apocalyptic storyline to boot.

Goodnight.

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running away


Monday, a free day off and the culmination of the three-day weekend. Monday, and I’m stuck inside with a terrible case of the shits. Started yesterday, got to feeling sick and spent most of the day in bed sleeping, a real drag. Whenever I do that, I get to feeling guilty because I leave Sharaun with everything, when normally the weekends are times when she can expect to rely on me for break from 24/7 baby-care. So I lounged around all day, not eating because I hadn’t the appetite, and not reading because my head felt soggy and focusing on the tiny words made everything swirl. I did, however, continue to contemplate this idea of writing in my spare time. I know, I already do, but not here. I mean trying to piece together a real manuscript. I think that, if I do decide to write something, it’ll be largely based on my own experiences growing up – it just seems like I have the most potential words there. I’d likely fabricate some, appropriate others, and exaggerate here and there – but, then again, that is my life so… no change there. I don’t know… whatever.

Lately I’ve been revisiting a certain daydream: Sharaun and Keaton and I have gone hiking/camping, and the morning after our we first pitched camp and spent our first night in the backcountry, we wake up to torrential rain. The rain traps us in our little tent, but it’s fine because we have plenty of food and water and supplies. We have books we can read ourselves and to the baby, we have snacks, clean diapers, everything. And so we while away the day in our little self-sufficient cocoon (the problem of using the bathroom blissfully solved for the purpose of the daydream), playing games and talking and listening to the rain as we stay warm and dry. I always picture that milky light of a gray rainy sky filtered through tent fabric, imagine cuddling up with the family, resigned to our fate, trapped for a day of forced-timeout. Another womb fantasy, I’m full of them.

I’ve sat here now for ~20min trying to think up another paragraph. That means I’m done. Goodnight.

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friday


Mmmm… entry of randomness that could’ve gone up yesterday had I not worked until 10pm. That went over well on Valentines day, as you might imagine. Flying home from out of state and getting right on the computer to work. Not to mention I went into that damned factory at 6:30am this morning to get some more catching-up done. Well, I’m caught up now, for the most part – but it sure didn’t get me laid for Valentines Day. What a shame, work before cooter… what have I become? Read on, though, my friends… there’s plenty of stuff here to keep you busy for ~5mins.

Got in one of those “I have too much stuff” moods tonight. Tore through the few CDs I held onto when I did my massive CD dump for laser eyes and threw away everything but the very bare essentials. Even then, I plan to sell these essentials via eBay or some other online wares-hawking place. Used Craigslist for the first time tonight also, as a seller, that is. Getting rid of the massive CD shelves which once held all those beloved bits of plastic… gotta squeeze every last drop out of that part of my CD-hoarding life. The ease of selling things online is somewhat of a rush, and I start looking around the house evaluating the tons of shit we have as warehoused merchandise, priced to move. I’m gonna sell it all, gonna make room, shed some goods, make some bread. Y’know, I think I’ll also donate some books to the library. Surely I can write that that off next year, and who needs these things taking up space anyhow? That’s right, I’m mad!

Speaking of my laser-eyes, I’m made a follow-up appointment to go in and have them checked next week. Well, one of them at least – mostly because it’s all kinds of fucked up. OK, that’s harsh, but something is wrong. Since the surgery, my eyes have been pretty dry, even to the point of annoying discomfort at times. But over the past few weeks my right eye has been acting really odd. At first it just felt irritated, overly-sensitive or something, like there was some dirt or an eyelash in there. Then, I noticed my night-vision in that eye was a bit off, whereas both eyes had previously been laser-awesome. Since this week however, I can definitely tell a difference in my right all, and not just at night – this is an all-the-time kinda difference. It’s not that the vision is that unclear, but compared to the hawkish wonder of my left, it’s like having a layer of vaseline on the right. Hope it can be fixed. I have free “touchups” until May, not that I’m thrilled about the prospect of getting it surgered again…

Tomorrow is the first day of a three-day weekend, which I’m quite excited about. Not to mention, my folks get into town on Thursday, so I’m taking Friday off – which means I have a total of three working days next week. This is good, because things are so damn busy; but this is also bad, because things are so damn busy. That weekend is Keaton’s first birthday party, it should be good. Well, providing she gets over this flu-ish thing she’s rocking right now. Nothing like an impromptu bath at 2am to clean off a vomit-covered baby. Poor thing, she’s such a trooper, must have my tolerance for pain. On the other hand, she’s going to be one year old!! Cast your minds back with me down memory lane, and look how she’s changed….

I think I’m going to write a book. No, seriously. It’ll be a semi-non-fiction account of my life, with some more exiting bits misappropriated and assumed from others’ lives, TV, etc. It’ll be everything I love, telling stories about the things I used to do, it’ll be the reason I started this blog. I want to write tersely and rough, just simple sentences. Kind of like the Mike Fahey entry from the other day (not his real name, by the way, for those who may have been concerned). I really like that one – I think I want to write a book kind of like that. I bet I could write something I’d be proud of in a little more than a year… keeping only the best bits. I wonder if I could make any money? I guess I’d have to learn to write first.

I’ve got a friend at work who’s just starting to get into the Beatles in earnest. I mean, pretty much everyone is aware of the Beatles. Beatles-awareness, you might say, is somewhat ubiquitous if you’re at all up on the history of pop culture or music. You can’t avoid the Beatles, but you don’t have to like them. Oh, you might know the “nah nah nah” from Hey Jude, but that doesn’t mean you’re making a “study” of the group. My buddy is, though.. making a “study” of it, I mean. And, being a humongous Beatles nerd myself, I’m so jealous of his first-time-hearin’ ass.

The other day he has the gall to tell me he “really listened” to Sgt. Pepper, for the first time on headphones, over the weekend. Oh, the humanity!! Can you imagine my heart tearing as he waxed on about his appreciation for the diversity on the album? I can only hope for that feeting moment when I remember how amazing it was to hear the stabbing intro to “It’s Getting Better” for the first time, but it’s gone for me. I know it all inside and out. Every fart on tape, every missed lick, every doffed hi-hat. I still love every groove, savor every harmony, but that Beatles-virgin cherry-popping feeling is gone. Enjoy it, my friend… enjoy it while you can.

Goodnight.

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flying home today


It’s cold here and snowing, which is kind of nice, actually, being that I’m just visiting and don’t have to live here. We drove home from the bar tonight in the snow, the Kia got loose a couple times on the backend with the roads so slippery and icy. The plows were out, it was cool. We drank microbrew and ate brisket and talked skiing and international travel and nerdy engineering stuff, we all played at bigshots, pretending we had high-power information and made high-power decisions. We all knew that if the snow swallowed us up forever, though, that the machine would churn right along with nary a hiccup. It’s OK, we’re not that delusional, more like functionally-delusional. I fly home tomorrow, Valentines Day, surprisingly Sharaun didn’t bust my balls to much about that. We weren’t planning on celebrating that day anyway, we have babysitters to coordinate and whatnot, we’ve got strings now. Anyway, I’ve got a first class upgrade again, so it should be nice. Customer meetings went well too, so all-in-all it was a profitable trip.

I watched X Files until midnight last night, I wanted to go to bed but the hotel room was freezing and I wasn’t tired. I’d finished my book and called Sharaun, so I didn’t have anything to do but not-sleep. I was cold even under the covers, and the thermostat only has two settings: freezing or sauna. In the end, I opted for sauna and just tossed the covers aside. I tried to get to bed early, since I had to wake up and iron my shirt, but it didn’t work. I still like being in a hotel room though, always have. Reminds me of the freedom and fun of family vacations when I was younger, the hotel stays were always some of best times.

Goodnight.