Author: Dave

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what’s with the ladder?


Friday night I had a great dream. I dreamed that some friends of mine had come over to take a look at the paver-stone porch I’d built (with help) in our backyard, as they were considering such a job themselves. As we all bent and stooped to inspect my work, I noticed a small hole near the border of the stones, right were they end in a curve and give way to the grass. Looking more closely, I could see that, under the stone porch which I’d pieced together a stone at a time, there was a vast opening. Using the supernatural physics of the dream world, I poked my head in to get a better look.

Opening up before me was an immense white room, its cavernous emptiness broken up only by sparsely-placed alabaster white columns reaching up some 20-30ft at spots to support a ceiling of, you guessed it, pavers. Once in the room, the fact that the space was easily a thousand times greater than that of my porch above seemed to melt away (like facts often do in dreams, I guess). I couldn’t take my eyes of the impossible canopy above me, the underside of my paver porch above looked much like it did topside, but down here seemed supported by nothing for long spans between the aforementioned columns. The whole thing was curved and warped, seemingly unable to stay together, but defiantly there nonetheless as undulating waves of tightly-woven bricks pitching up and down and left and right into the emptiness. I could see the sand I’d swept into the cracks to help “set” the bricks in place but knew that there should be no reason the structure should be able to support itself with such huge open spaces underneath.

Making the picture even more odd, at spots there were long “fingers” of assembled bricks, fitted tightly together with sand and arcing off from the roof to delve downward into the cavern. The fingers followed the warped curves of the brick ceiling above them for a bit, then got thinner and thinner until ending in a point. They, too, hung impossibly in the air above me, supported by nothing other than the point where they grew from the brick rooftop. I realized while looking at them that they were mistakes I’d made while laying the porch above, spindly brick tentacles showing where’d I’d gone off-course and later corrected myself.

As I walked around wondering how the whole thing hadn’t yet caved in, I came upon a humongous bowl-shaped sagging which was supported at it’s lowest point not by one of the white columns but instead a 10ft yellow ladder. It was the largest and most precarious dip I’d seen in the whole warped construction, and it looked to be held up as an afterthought with a ladder from someone’s garage. I remember thinking of how often I’d walked on the porch above with Keaton, and thinking we could never do it again for fear it might crumble beneath us and send us flying to the white floor so far below.

Interpret. Goodnight.

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constructive criticism


Busy busy hump day for me, lots to think about lots to do. Now I’m sitting at home blogging while Sharaun watches the M-TV and complains that, somehow, I’ve made the whole couch smell “like a giant fart.” I don’t know how that’s possible, maybe she’s mistaken the reeking foulness of this hip-hop shite on the tube for something else. Blech, will popular “urban” music ever be able to recover from the worn-out self-masturbatory mantra of sex and money?

Well, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group released its much-anticipated report today. You can read the entire thing here, if you’d like – but why do that when you can read my very own “best of” picks from the document right here? So sit back, and let me do the reading for you (or, take some initiative and read it yourself… it’s 160 pages long, but the text only covers about 30% of each page and there’s lots of fluff). Be warned, I didn’t really try to pick all negative bits… it’s just that the report is largely gloomy and there’s not much positive other than hopeful recommendations that the administration will act according to its recommendations.

On the current situation in Iraq:

The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved.

The situation in Baghdad and several provinces is dire. Saddam Hussein has been removed from power and the Iraqi people have a democratically elected government that is broadly representative of Iraq’s population, yet the government is not adequately advancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services. The level of violence is high and growing. There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive.

On the current level of investment and cost of war:

The United States has made a massive commitment to the future of Iraq in both blood and treasure. As of December 2006, nearly 2,900 Americans have lost their lives serving in Iraq. Another 21,000 Americans have been wounded, many severely.

To date, the United States has spent roughly $400 billion on the Iraq War, and costs are running about $8 billion per month. In addition, the United States must expect significant “tail costs” to come. Caring for veterans and replacing lost equipment will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Estimates run as high as $2 trillion for the final cost of the U.S. involvement in Iraq.

On the consequences if the current direction is not changed:

If the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe for Iraq, the United States, the region, and the world.

A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq’s government and a humanitarian catastrophe. Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al Qaeda could win a propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished. Americans could become more polarized.

Despite a massive effort, stability in Iraq remains elusive and the situation is deteriorating.

On “staying the course”:

Current U.S. policy is not working, as the level of violence in Iraq is rising and the government is not advancing national reconciliation. Making no changes in policy would simply delay the day of reckoning at a high cost. Nearly 100 Americans are dying every month. The United States is spending $2 billion a week. Our ability to respond to other international crises is constrained. A majority of the American people are soured on the war. This level of expense is not sustainable over an extended period, especially when progress is not being made. The longer the United States remains in Iraq without progress, the more resentment will grow among Iraqis who believe they are subjects of a repressive American occupation.

Summary of the Study Group’s recommendations:

Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. We believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another. If they are effectively implemented, and if the Iraqi government moves forward with national reconciliation, Iraqis will have an opportunity for a better future, terrorism will be dealt a blow, stability will be enhanced in an important part of the world, and America’s credibility, interests, and values will be protected.

The behest:

The ability of the United States to shape outcomes is diminishing. Time is running out.

If you read the whole thing, you’ll notice I pulled some quotes “cafeteria style” from different portions of the document, but don’t get it twisted… I’m not misrepresenting the spirit of the thing. How much must it suck for the president to read this thing, for him to be briefed on it… talk about “constructive criticism.”

Goodnight.

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is it butt-doctor time?


Traffic is on XM as I sit here and write. Half-past 7pm now and I just wrapped up sending some late e-mails for work, trying desperately to get a handle some things which’ve been consuming me of late. This week has been a good one at work, one of those ones where I get to use my brain to dream up what-if type stuff and go figure it out. I like that kind of stuff. I find, interestingly enough, that I get my best thoughts and ideas after I’ve removed myself from work-proper and have a chance to reassess a situation mentally with the benefit of some brain downtime. For instance, I regularly plan out e-mails or courses of action while showering in the morning or brushing my teeth at night. Tonight, a doozy hit me on the drive home from work. What am I even talking about? Let’s get on with it…

This about-to-be-thirty thing is an odd beast. I’ve never been one to spend a lot of time thinking about age, my brithdays generally pass without much fanfare or rumination on my part. This year, though, I’ve been surprised how much pause I’ve taken to consider my three-decade milestone. Not a lamenting or dreadful kind of pause, just a different line of thought than normally accompanies each passing year. I suppose it’s because, although it’s really quite arbitrary, there is some recognized “milestone” a big birthdays like this. For me, it’s less about “woe is me, I’m going to be old” and more about looking back or taking stock. And, since part of “taking stock” is doing those little “how’m I doing” self-evaluations, my mind also turns to those arbitrary life “checkpoints” that everyone keeps track of in their heads. Married? Job? Kids? Check, check check.

This year, however, also seems to come with some degree of self-judging on standards which are newer to me. Things like how healthy I am, and how well I take care of myself. I haven’t really been more than superficially concerned with things of this nature before, as evidenced, I’m sure, by my portly frame and general yen for excess. Turning thirty, which, if I’m lucky, isn’t even a third of my existence, and having Keaton, I’m starting to think about things like my own longevity and its effect on those around me. I’d hate, for instance, to have to leave this sphere for nothing more than too many Double Whoppers and too few jogs round the track. Now, don’t think I’m going all reality-TV on you here or anything, words are one thing – but changing a lifestyle, that takes work y’all. I will, however, seriously consider shaping up when I hit forty – promise.

C’mon board the animal train, c’mon everyone. Learning about animals, is really lots of fun! Colors, sizes, what they say, if they’re fast or slow. Learning about animals, there’s so much to know! Toot! Toot! -Christmas with a baby.

Goodnight.

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concussed


Man the moon is big and full tonight, like it’s right up there in the sky in our backyard. Sometimes I want to sleep outside, like just on the ground in a sleeping bag or something. Not in my backyard, mind you, no that’d be dumb. I mean camping, or getting outside. Too cold now though, gonna have to wait until it’s a little warmer.

Today at lunch, Sharaun and I got caught up talking about when Keaton grows up. We were watching a TiVo’d episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos, which was showing clips of kids hurting themselves jumping their bikes off homemade ramps and landing on their asses while trying to jump curbs on skateboards. It got me thinking about when I was a kid, and how my brother and I used to pull my mom and dad outside into the front yard to watch us careen our own bikes down the sidewalk and off a ramshackle ramp we’d assembled from bits of plywood and bricks. It’s not like we were jumping over a pit of alligators or anything, just launching no more than a foot into the air for a split second, but we had our share of mishaps: ramps flattening mid-ascent, botched landings, and broken bikes – all which ended up in scrapes and bruises. All this before it was “vogue” to outfit your children in pads like linebackers, too.

As a parent now, I know there’ll be a day when Keaton wants me to watch her do a cherry drop off the high bars on the playground (that’s if schools even accept the liability of high bars anymore). The day will come when she wants me to watch her rollerskate down the driveway, or ride her bike while clapping her hands. And, as a source of validation, I’ll be expected to beam with approval and pride while stifling my fear of broken bones and skinned knees. I bet this is hard, although it must get easier as your child grows older. Sure makes me look a little differently at all the stupid stuff my parents used to watch us do when we were young though…

The bloggers-collective are slowly starting to scribe out their 2006 “best of” lists, and, as it happens, I spent a lot of time working on mine today and tonight. Today, running through the shortlist in my brain and re-listening to the albums on the iPod at work; tonight, writing up my thoughts, adding album artwork images to the post, tracking down and pasting in relevant links. It’s coming together nicely, and I think I may even be ready to post before leaving for Florida (or, if I’m facing a slow week of writer’s block). Look for it… if you’re cool… that is.

Goodnight.

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took a couple days off


Took a couple days off last week, had a couple evenings too packed with post-5pm work residuals and, more importantly, supping with friends. Lately I’ve been valuing our friends a lot, I think it has something to do with the ease at which our whole transition from childless-to-parents went with the clique. I love the little things about having a solid group of friends: hearing the unlocked front door open and wondering who’s coming in, the comfort in being able to speak casually, passing Keaton around the room, and, of course, sharing food and drink. The communal meal seem to me like something that’s been at the heart of human interaction from the beginning of time. Seriously, tho, we’ve got some great friends. Let’s go.

Wasted some time Sunday morning trying to help figure out the latest in internet mystery vogue. I first saw it over at reddit, but apparently it made it’s debut on some Russian website – where a psychiatry professor posted it as a problem for his students to solve. What is it? It’s a painting, one which the professor says contains “sure signs” that the painter has a mental illness. The challenge to the students, and, by proxy, the the internet at-large once the word got out, was to identify the signs and illness. Here’s the original version of the painting, from a Russian webboard – where the comments number into the multiple thousands. Leading theories suggest obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, paranoia and depression. Problem is, the professor who posted it said he’d come back with the answers in a few days and has since dropped out of cyberspace. Take a look, thoughts? Anyway, I bet the thing will have been “solved” in the reddit comments by the time this post goes live anyway.

Sunday evening I made the near-final step in my CD-ripping project – tossing all the Beatles CDs I’ve verified as MP3s. It was a very hard thing for me to fill the recycling bin to the top with the fruits of my college obsession with Beatles bootleg collecting. Oh, I saved all my factory-pressed discs, as I have some very rare ones, but I pitched all the CD-R copies of albums (hundreds and hundreds) that I traded for over the course of six or so years. As I dumped the piles of discs into the bin, I saw certain ones go by that I could recall spending hours and hours on: crafting homemade artwork in Photoshop and paying money to print it on the laser color machine at Kinkos, printing and affixing cd label stickers, etc. Hard to throw it all away, but liberating in a sense too…

Updated Keaton’s pictures today, like a good dad. Check ’em out.

Goodnight folks.

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and i still ain’t right…


Chlorine gas is extremely toxic and deadly. So toxic and deadly, in fact, that it was used by the Germans in WWI as a chemical weapon. However, you don’t have to read a history book to “experience” it, you can make some in your shower today! C’mon, don’t be scared – I did.

Last night, I told Sharaun I’d clean the bathroom and shower if she’d do the dishes. Seemingly happy with this lopsided trade (I’d take dishes any day), she agreed and I set about plugging my iPod into the little portable speakers Pat got me as a gift to provide me with some music to clean by. I took care of the bathroom first, since it’s little more than a small closet with a toilet. Hit that with some 409 and bleach-based toilet bowl cleaner, to sparking results. Then it was onto the shower, where I decided to make a first pass at the soap scum with my old shower-cleaning standby – Lime-A-Way. If you’ve never used Lime-A-Way before, let me tell you that it’s some amazing stuff. Not to turn this into a product testimonial or anything, but my results with Lime-A-Way have been nothing short of fantastic – it making light work of even the most caked-on soap/water stains. So, I squeezed a good amount of Lime Away on the shower walls, let it drip down, and took a small hand brush to the whole thing. The scum came off with gentle rubbing, leaving the walls smooth and gleaming. Next, I used more Lime Away on the floor to remove soap scum and grime there – again with excellent results. Repeat with the glass shower doors and now all the major surfaces were taken care of.

After that, it was down to the minutiae: Where the shower walls join the floor, the grout lines tend to get extra dirty and mildewy, so I decided my best course of action there would be to trace them with a squirt of some bleach-based gel cleaner (intended to cling under a toilet bowl rim) and let it sit for a few minutes before taking an old toothbrush to them. But, before I did this, I remembered that it’s not a good idea to mix household cleaners, lest one create some noxious fumes through some unintended chemical reaction. So, I dutifully rinsed the entire shower several times with water poured from my little cleaning bucket. As a final pass, I turned on the shower itself and manually ratcheted the head around to douse off any residuals from the Lime Away bath. Thinking myself safe, I squirted a line of bleach-gel around the bottom outline of the shower and left it to simmer. I should mention that, earlier in my cleaning process, I had opened the window above the shower and turned on the exhaust fan in the bathroom, just to avoid the fumes from the Lime-A-Way alone (in retrospect, I think this was the best idea I had all night). Upon returning to the shower, I crouched down and began my toothbrush-scrubbing pass at the grout. Soon enough though, I my nose began to run. Soon, I started finding it difficult to get a decent lungful of air.

About that time, I did in fact realize that there was some chemical agent in the air which was causing me to experience these things. However, hoping it was just the “strong scent of cleanliness,” I decided that, rather than abandon the area, I’d instead pop my head up to the window and inhale a deep breath of fresh outside air before diving back down, breath held like a freediver, to finish what little scrubbing was left. I did this maybe three times before I was done brushing the grout (which, I might add, turned out spectacular), and as I finished I noticed that it was still difficult to get a “decent” breath and that my nostrils were somewhat irritated. The “smell” in the air was an acrid, burny smell reminiscent of the community pool at the Y where my brother and I took swimming lessons. I should have known, and, in reality, kinda did, that whatever traces were left of the Lime Away were reacting with the bleach in the gel – this was obvious. You can call me stupid, that’s to be expected, because I knew very well that something was amiss – yet I continued to labor just the extra few minutes to finish the job.

The next day I told Pat about my experience on the way to lunch. “You’re an idiot,” he bluntly messaged. “Yeah, I know,” I replied. “You should do some research on what exactly you did to yourself, just to know how badly you’re now damaged,” he said. And so, that’s how I ended up spending 15min post-lunch scouring the internets for some reference to the caustic results of mixing Lime-A-Way with bleach. What I learned was that, while Lime Away does not contain ammonia (which, in combination with bleach, produces chlorine gas), the combination of it and bleach is not recommended. Initially, I couldn’t find any explicit advisories against mixing the two, although I did manage to locate a couple references – which I found to be comical, and thus worthy of inclusion here – to the negative effects of combining the them.

This one, from a university’s “safety report” of on-campus injuries and/or incidents:

Dept.
Student Union

Date of Injury
10/27/2002

Description of the Incident
Employee was cleaning the well of a food warmer. The employee mixed bleach, Lime-Away and water, and the mixture released fumes which the employee inhaled. The employee had shortness of breath, cough and irritation to throat/chest.

Root Cause Explanation
Bleach and Lime-Away are incompatible chemicals and should not have been mixed.

And this one, taken from the blog of a fast-food joint manager:

I sighed. “Okay, Clueless Boy. I’m just going to ask one thing from you. I need you to fill the mop bucket for me with Bleach and hot water. Then you can go.” I continue my hurried cleaning. The water is running in the background. Then I smell this acrid scent. What is that? I start coughing. I look over at Clueless Boy. There is this cloud emanating from the mop bucket, along with the horrible smell that is making my eyes water. What is going on?

Then I see the Lime Away in his hand. Lime Away and Bleach do not mix well. There are warnings on the labels. There are big signs all over the wall near the mop sink that say “Don’t mix Lime Away and Bleach. It is bad.” Do you know why there were big signs all over the wall?

Because Clueless Boy was the second employee who tried to kill me. You would have thought he would have listened when I was talking to a coworker about the near death experience I had encountered the night before. Maybe he would have figured it out when I had the discussion with the staff that night about the dangers of Lime Away and Bleach.

You really would have thought he would have grasped the concept when I had asked him to make the signs to post on the wall, though.

Later during the day, Pat suggested that I Google “bleach and acid,” thinking he’d perhaps hit upon the nature of my self-inflicted gassing. Sure enough, there are scary internet warnings all over the place about the dangers of mixing phosphoric acid with chlorine bleach. Since Lime Away = phosphoric acid, this is exactly what I had done in my very own shower the night before. You can even read the “Do not mix with chlorinated detergents or sanitizers” warning on the Materials Safety Data Sheet for Lime-A-Way. It’s even on the bottle of Lime-A-Way itself.

During the day Tuesday, I experienced a variety of nastiness which I attributed to my exposure, including a headache, tight chest, dizziness, weird pressure changes in my ears, and upset stomach / heartburn. I’m not entirely sure if any of these things had a whit to do with my self-gassing, but considering the litany of symptoms which can arise from low-level exposure, I think I got off rather lucky either way:

Exposure to low levels of pure chlorine gas is irritating to the respiratory tract, eyes, and skin. Exposure can cause sore or swollen throat, coughing, choking, sneezing, pneumonia, chest tightness and pain, headache, dizziness, watery eyes, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting, vomiting blood, severe abdominal pain, skin blisters and irritation, difficulty breathing, and pain or burning in the stomach, nose, eyes, ears, lips, or tongue.

8pm now and I’m done blogging (and I still ain’t right!). Goodnight.

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rainy weather prelude


Monday and it was back to work for me…

These two-ish weeks between Thanksgiving vacation and Christmas vacation are always a bear. A difficult-to-concentrate time bookended by memories of, and lookings-forward to, days spent away from work. In highschool, I recall our guidance counselor counseling against letting “senioritis” creep in during those last months, weeks, and days prior to gradation. And while my near two-week Christmas vacation is hardly as big a respite from the millstone as graduation seemed to be at the time, it sure possesses some of the same Siren-song draw. I sit at work and think about hanging out with friends and family in the uniquely temperate weather of a December in Florida… it’s an affliction.

Sunny California is currently busy making a mockery of its state motto, tossing up a knobby middle finger of cold and rain. Honestly though, I like the winter weather, and am glad for it.

Note: Somehow, this afternoon when I wrote that initial sentence, I had intended it as a segue into the rest of this paragraph where I talk about the fact that I haven’t yet put away all the Halloween decorations. Now, however, having written the intro sentence a few hours ago and coming back now to finish, I have no idea how a prelude about rainy winter weather was supposed to lead to that topic. So, without attempting some fancy link between the two, I’ll go right into the Halloween topic now.

I still haven’t put away all the Halloween decorations. Chiefly among them, the 100lbs+ coffin is still sitting in the garage, impeding our way in and out of the house and forcing me to ease the truck in ever so delicately to avoid crushing it’s presswood walls by pulling in too far. Seeing that thing there every day, still unstored for next season, and remembering back to how much trouble this year’s decorations were – I’m beginning to dread the annual Halloween setup, ending up in the same kind of love/hate relationship I have with Christmas decorations. If I don’t get that coffin lashed up to the rafters soon, I’m going to end up hating it so much that I won’t want to bother repairing and reusing everything for next year.

Read this article with a bit of cautious interest today, hoping my decision doesn’t make my vision all milky someday down the road…

Goodnight.