Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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the first green thing

It's OK to be scared.
I found this site to be absolutely amazing. It contains a pictorial play-by-play from a young Ukrainian woman’s motorcycle ride through the irradiated areas surrounding Chernobyl. She has some kind of clearance in order to get to the areas in the photos, and carries a small radiation meter with her. Even though the English isn’t perfect, you can tell this woman writes well. Such a sad story, and even today the details aren’t fully known. The Soviet Union was too proud to let the world know how bad things were. Anyway, check out the site, the last few pages at the kindergarten are almost too much. Poor people. As usual, the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has an excellent entry on the Chernobyl disaster, and some links near the bottom to more pictures from the 4000sq. mi. “dead zone.”

Every time I drive by large office buildings at night, I always try to glance in the ever-lit windows. Something is fascinating about looking into an empty office building that’s still lit like it’s the working hours. Every time I do catch myself staring through the night into a lit and empty cubicles, I find myself looking for two people doing it on a desk. No really – I look because one day, I will catch two late-night employees getting some office-booty on the boss’ desk. Just like if I always look at closed garage doors with lit garages inside, I’ll eventually witness a stabbing-in-silhouette. If I keep my nighttime office-window and garage door vigil, I know one day I’ll see a clandestine affair or Rear Window murder.

Friday night Sharaun and I decided not to answer the phone, and to have a night to ourselves. It was great. Not that our phone rings off the hook or that we’re ever the social butterflies, but it is nice to just ignore the world and enjoy one and other for a little. We cooked a pizza and headed out to catch the remake of Dawn of the Dead. The movie was cool, good campy horror – albeit a little overly blood-soaked. Even though you could basically take the plot of Maximum Overdrive, replace the machines-gone-wrong with the rabid zombies of 28 Days Later, and you’d have this flick. Not saying it’s bad, just tried and true horror. And I’m serious about the Maximum Overdrive thing too – there’s an unlikely armory, a quest through sewers, and a last-ditch flight to an island.

Our trip to the movies on a Friday night really made me feel really old. If you don’t know, the movie theater on a Friday night is like the sole oasis in the teenybopper desert. The place was simply crawling with 15 year old girls with bare midriffs, doggedly pursued and ogled by pants-saggin’, crooked-ballcapped boys. It becomes instantly evident that none of these kids are here for movies. This is simply a convenient place for the teen masses to come together to talk, flirt, and hold “look at me” contests.

Am I really that old? I mean, I found myself walking by large herds of these giggly, too-cool-for-everything teens and just resenting them for being there. I had to physically restrain myself from wagging my index finger at the young whippersnappers as I passed. Ugh. Has it really come to this? Honestly though, during the movie we sat in the midst of these punks. They talk, answer phone calls, run up and down the aisles, talk back to the movie, and totally make me want to throttle them. Lord, I know I was exactly like these kids; I know it. No wonder old people hate teenagers, they ask for it. Yeah, so I’m exaggerating – but not by much. If there is such a thing as karma though, teenagers will wreak massive amounts of havoc on me, because I’m cosmically owed it.

Moving on, the rest of the weekend was good. Saturday we helped move Melissa into her new place as Anthony’s roommate. It was OK, except for the part where Anthony left my cellphone on the back of the truck, causing it to fall out in transit and be run over by multiple cars. Some kind person driving next to us informed us of the cell phone incident, and we pulled over to pick up the pieces. Surprisingly, the thing still works – so I was able to transfer off all my data. Now all that’s left is to get a new phone and upload my data and SIM card, and I’ll be back running.

Sunday I spent working around the house. I planted this beautiful Japanese maple that Pat gave me. Pat and Cynthia recently joined the new homeowners club, and this potted tree was a holdover from the previous owner. They decided they didn’t want the tree, which due to it’s health and size is likely worth several hundred dollars, and they donated it to my barren backyard. It’s the first green thing in my backyard that’s intentionally growing, and it looks great. I also mowed my lawn with Anthony’s lawnmower. I had to use Anthony’s lawnmower because I snapped the fastening nut on the blade of mine while trying to remove the dull blade. So, off to the repair shop goes the mower. On another note, I’ve decided to just throw money away for a while. Who needs it?

Tonight Sharaun gets paybacks for all the crappy shows I’ve dragged her to by making me accompany her to see N.E.R.D. and the Roots in San Fran. I’m not too terribly excited, but I am interested to see what a “hip hop” concert is like compared to the indie freak fests I’m used to. Hopefully we won’t get shot.

Dave out.

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humping invisible sticks

You are standing in an open feild west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a mailbox here.
I love Zork. I even once started making my own text adventure game using the wonderful and free TADS system. I got one brilliant room finished before I lost interest. I’d like to try again one day, yeah. If you’ve never played Zork before, you are not a true computer nerd. This online Java version even supports saving and loading of game states so you can play anywhere and take your progress with you. Beware though, you can get addicted pretty quick.

Today I am not at work, I’m at home and it’s awesome. I took a vacation day since the drywall guy was coming out to do some repair work for my home warranty. Turns out he was a really nice guy, and took pity on me when I showed him my poorly-repaired laundry room ceiling. You know, where Wes put his foot through? Anyway, in addition to fixing the warranty items he came out for, he fixed the laundry room ceiling for $40 cash. Beats the $150 minimum charge that most drywall guys charge. And now he’s gone and I have the rest of the day to myself. I told myself last night that I would use some of this time to get some cleaning done around the house, but that hasn’t happened yet.

I migrated Sharaun’s PC to the freeware program last night, and moved my own one step closer by swapping a hacked Norton AntiVirus for the free AVG. No more stealin’. Oh, except for mp3s? I will “steal” those forever. Right now I download on average about 7 gigs a month of mp3, they have their own external 120GB drive to live on. Granted some gets tossed out once I learn it’s crap – but I keep the majority of it. Sometimes I download stuff I know I won’t like, just because there’s so much bustle about it online.

For instance, in general I’m not a hip-hop fan at all. Now, I do make the occasional exception – I loved Jay Z’s Black Album and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, for instance. But for the most part I pass on the hip and the hop. (Oh, and don’t bother with the Grey Album folks – it’s mostly hype). But when I saw Pitchfork give Madvillain’s new album the uber-rare 9+ rating and call it “inexhaustibly brilliant” while daring me to find “a better hip-hop album this year,” I had to try it out. So, I grabbed it (no, I don’t use P2P and I’m not a’scared of the RIAA, get on the NNTP train people). Surprisingly, I like it. The beats are intricate and the Carlinesque 7-words style filth that so dominates mainstream rap and hip-hop is completely, and thankfully, missing. Granted, it’s chock full of marijuana imagery? but what undie hip hop isn’t? Imagine, songs with beats and rhymes not about “humping invisible sticks” and “sweat dripping down balls.” This album reminds me of the stuff we’d pick up after reading about it in the back of High Times, you know – the purple-haze-days of Dr. Octagon and Y’all So Stupid. What?! Rap sucks.

The weekend calls me away, I’m out.

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rock renaissance

Cool at 12. Even cooler at 70.
$1700. That how much damage a stupid dump truck spilling gravel can do to your car. I mean, I’m sure it could be worse than that – but that’s how much damage a stupid dump truck spilling gravel did to our car. A while back though, I got smart and lowered our deductible to $250 for comprehensive – it used to be $500. It only raised the rate by a buck a month to do it, and it’s way worth it. $250 is not a break-me unexpected out-of-pocket expense, but $500 is a lot closer to that break-me limit. So, now we drop $250 on the stupid deductible. Not only that, my brother called today asking for money… again. Last year we sent him about $1200 that we’ll never see again, and this year Sharaun told me no more. He only wanted $100, which to me isn’t even worth the wire fee to get it to him. Wes suggested I tell him to check out one of those Check-and-Go paycheck advance places, I think I’ll do that. Money sucks sometimes.

I’ve been experiencing somewhat of a classic rock renaissance lately, pulling out all the music that taught me to love music. Right now I’m listening to Sgt. Pepper, perhaps the best album ever made – certainly the most influential and probably the most important. I can remember the first time I heard it, on the way to the Merritt Island Mall one summer night. Middle school was all about going to the mall for no reason. We would walk around, go into stores and not buy anything, stop at the arcade and maybe play a game or two, and get a slice of pizza from Sbarro and a smoothie from Nature’s Table. It was all about just “being there,” making the rounds, talking to the other cool kids who had perfected the art of loitering. Yeah, so sometimes we’d cash in our dollars for rolls of pennies to throw at old people, but that was a rarity.

Anyway, Kyle’s mom was driving Kyle, Kyle’s sister, and myself to the mall. I was madly in love with Kyle’s sister (well, as “in love” as a guy can be in the 7th grade). The song “It’s Getting Better” was on, and I remember thinking it was the best thing I’d ever heard. Combined with a feeling of 7th grade puppy love and a burgeoning sense of teenage independence, Sgt. Pepper was the perfect soundtrack. I had the album on vinyl, and would often put it on the stereo in my room at top volume. I’d open all the windows, lay down on the floor in the middle of all four speakers for the best stereophonic effect, and fall asleep in the sun. How could things get any better? For a few years there, my life was wholly consumed by music and girls – no debt, no job, no responsibilities. Bow my head slightly, tap my fist twice against my chest and raise a peace sign to the sky – that’s for you middle school.

To the present day, the weather is once again awesome today. I’ve heard tell that it may rain this weekend – but I can’t believe it when it’s so nice out. Honestly, it’s hazardous to go out for lunch – just getting out in the sun and seeing the sky propels my “I wanna go back to work” stores to critical levels. What, I’ve said that same thing nearly every day for a week now? Damn. Hoping that my upcoming trip to Taiwan and day off this Friday will help balance out that feeling a bit. Speaking of Taiwan, looks like I’ll be there for just over a week this time. I’m excited, since several people I know will be in town around the same time – and since I always like to travel. I only hope that I can make the most out of the trip, maybe see something I’ve not seen before. Plus, one more trip and I’ll just about have enough flyer miles for a free ticket to Europe.

I have more, but my fingers just aren’t willing. Dave out.

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second guessing

OD'd.
Both a relaxing and productive weekend, the perfect mix really. Spent Saturday on the lake, in the first “taking advantage of friends with boats” outing of the year. The weather was really nice, but the water was frigid – so we mostly just enjoyed being out there, although some of the hardier did do some wakeboarding (not me). Sunday was spent doing subterranean sprinkler repair in the front yard. Got a lot done, and got a lot of nothing done too – the ideal balance.

With the dirt now cleared from the backyard, I’ve been doing some serious research into the project-completion budget. Right now the big one is the patio. Been looking at pavers and concrete, and estimating cost. I think with concrete we can get away for just under a grand, not sure about pavers – but I suspect they’d be more. I guess the patio will have to wait until we save up a bit. I estimated the sprinklers and irrigation at about $300 after supplies and tool rental, so that seems a lot more attainable. I think I’ll mark off the porch area and run sprinklers and drainage this weekend. Sod, trees, and foliage come last – but those are still a few paychecks off. If Sharaun gets that afterschool tutoring gig for an extra $400/mo and our refi nets us $400/mo as well – things could move faster than expected though.

Speaking of the greens, seems my rule about money stills holds true: “There’s no such thing as extra money.” Why? Sharaun was driving behind a truck on the way to work today and it let loose a bunch of gravel. Cracked her windshield top-to-bottom and chipped/dented the hood all up. Right as I’m thinking we may have a little extra scratch in the next coming months too. Figures. Total estimate for backyard completion – $4000. That means the whole backyard will have cost me about $8000 when it’s done. Not too bad I guess, but not the cheapest thing in the world either.

This weekend I re-read my last entry – and decided that I don’t like it. It ended up sounding like some glorification of my stupid youth. Sounded to me like some high-school kid writing about some “awesome drugs” he took last weekend at a party, and how he was “so effed up.” Anyway, I want to steer clear from using those stories as a crutch for filler – and make this thing more topical and relevant to today. Sure some of them are funny, but reading back they kinda make me look like some recovering junkie. Anyway, that stuff is old ‘n’ busted, today is the new hotness. So shape up blog! I got plenty of stuff to write about: I own a house, I’m opening up an online retail store, I have a wife, there should be plenty to keep the entries coming.

Dave out

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pigs: can’t catch a frisbee

We don't need no education!
The other day I got a letter in the mail from the Oxnard, CA police department. Seems that I double parked my grey Toyota in the 600 block of Mendoza Ave. last November. Now they want the $60 I owe them for the violation. Only one problem, I don’t own a grey Toyota and I’ve never been to Oxnard. So, I called them up and explained, and they dismissed the ticket. They explained it away as the ticketing officer’s fat fingers miskeying my plates. Whatever, that guy with a license plate close to mine sure got lucky. And I was thinking, couldn’t I just call up on any ticket and say I don’t own this car or this plate? I mean, he didn’t ask me a damn thing – not my name, not where I’m from, not anything. Just said “OK,” and dismissed the ticket. I’ll have to remember that, because it seems a lot better than actually paying a ticket.

I’ve been mapping out my plan of attack for the backyard, updating my backyard layout file and reading up on irrigation and sod. It’s amazing how much you can learn on the internet. I learned how to build my retaining wall on the internet, how hydraulics work on the internet, and how to make a Flying Crank Ghost on the internet. I also buy movie tickets, make appointments at the DMV, pay my bills, and balance my checkbook – all on the internet. I’ve made camping reservations, hiking reservations, airline and rental car reservations, hotel reservations – all on the internet. I’ve bought all manner of goods on the internet, I’ve found long out-of-print books and albums on the internet. I’ve even used the internet to sell stuff I no longer want. The internet has replaced maps, phone books, travel agents, long lines, middle men, newspapers and magazines, textbooks, checkbooks, and the embarrassment of renting porn. What would I do without ye, o’ glorious net of inter?

Did you guys know that a cow can go from a walking animal to a refrigerated side of beef in less than six minutes? I know people who have seen how meat is processed and gone vegetarian because of it. But really, I wonder when in the cow-to-meat process they find the product acceptable and not disgusting? People are fine buying packaged meat in the store, steaks and ground beef placed on white styrofoam and wrapped in cellophane. So at what point in the cow-to-steak transformation does the product become palatable to most?

For me, I could care less. I actually have a strong desire to learn how to properly clean an animal. I’m sure that somehow relates to my crazy need to feel equipped for a “desert island” survival scenario – but the point is that when I see a cow walking around, I can see a steak that’s not cooked yet. I have no problem associating the walking breathing four-legged animal with the meat that I cook and eat. I think some people see a cow as a cute animal, and a steak as something that comes from the grocery store. They forget all the blood and skin and muscle that used to be around that meat. It may as well have been formed spontaneously in a “meat machine,” where nothing with eyes had to die to create it. But something with eyes did die. It died when they shot a nailgun into it’s head, hamstrung it and slit it’s throat to bleed it out, and then sliced it ass-to-throat to let it’s entrails spill out into a huge drain in the floor. Still want a hamburger for lunch? See, I do.

I also think it’s interesting which animals we deem edible and which ones we don’t. When it comes down to it, I’m sure horse meat and dog meat and cat meat have a taste all of their own – and maybe they’re yummy. But I think as humans, we tend to not eat animals that show some form of intelligence or can be “affectionate” to us. Horses are smart, dogs are smart, cats are dumb as rocks but they show affection just like horses and dogs. So we don’t eat ’em. They can recognize us when we come home from work, they remember us – so we spare their lives. Cows are infinitely dumb, so they get turned into food. Chickens: dumb, turkeys: never purr when you pet them, pigs: can’t catch a frisbee – you’re all on our list. We’re gonna kill you and eat you. Take a hint from the lucky ones and get smart or start nuzzling us – then maybe we’ll elevate you to “don’t eat” status.

Soylent Green is people! Dave out.

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an honest-to-goodness dump truck

I saw this old guy on the web, and he needed some more exposure. Here he is.
Another gorgeous day in Northern California. If I don’t get some camping and hiking in soon I think I might lose it. This weather is just taunting me to get outside and get things done. Speaking of getting things done, the dirt-pile is gone! I thought it would never happen, but every last bit of rock and dirt is outta there. Before I go into the story, I just wanted to let you guys know that, as I write, I’m listening to one of the best albums ever made. Once upon a time in 1968, Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Stephen Stills got together to make a record. What resulted is, to me, a freakin’ masterpiece of free-form blues rock awesomeness. Honestly, I could listen to this album over and over and over. 1968 must have been amazing. The White Album, John Wesley Harding, Disraeli Gears, Super Session, Led Zeppelin (yeah, I know it was the first week of ’69, but that’s close enough), Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Traffic, Electric Ladyland, Astral Weeks, Bookends, Spirit, and so many more I’m probably leaving out. Yeah, what a year – and the Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stills album Super Session is just dripping with that sound. Turn it up.

So back to this weekend and the great dirt-removal project. All my planning and orchestration was wasted. I schemed with friends to borrow wheelbarrows, 2-ton trucks, dump trailers, shovels, and other implements of destruction. The plan was to use manpower to fill up the dump trailer, then drive the whole thing to the landfill and repeat until done. We got out there at about 8am on Saturday morning with shovels and picks and wheelbarrows – and starting filling up the trailer. After about 2 hours work it became painfully apparent that the shovel and wheelbarrow route wasn’t going to cut it. Around 10:30am I rented a Bobcat. I swore I wouldn’t rent one again, because I get nervous driving them around in my backyard. But the size of the project made it a necessary evil. The Bobcat filled up the trailer right quick. We hopped in the truck and headed to the dump. The trailer was extremely heavy, and the brakes on the truck could barely stop us. It was a little scary. Once at the dump, we backed into the dirt-dumping area and hit the hydraulic lift switch on the trailer. Of course, nothing happened. Turns out the trailer couldn’t handle the weight of the dirt. So Anthony and I spent the next half hour shoveling ? of the load out by hand. We were finally able to get the trailer to dump, and we took of back towards home.

One the way home, the realization that we wouldn’t be able to finish with the Bobcat/trailer model began to sink in. We dumped 9100lbs of dirt on that 1st run to the landfill, since a yard of dirt weighs roughly 3000lbs – we had only gotten rid of 3 yards? and by the looks of what was left that was only about a 10th of the entire job. Not to mention a round trip to the dump was an hour and a half excursion when you counted waiting in the line of cars to get in. It was obvious we’d need something with a bigger hauling capacity to get the job done right. So, I called up and rented an honest-to-goodness dump truck.

You know they let just anyone rent a friggin’ 10-ton dump truck? I mean, I was thinking – why not rent one and fill it with bombs and blow something up? Or go on a Vice City style rampage through the city streets? Anyway, the dump truck held 5 yards and could handle from 20-30 bucketfulls from the Bobcat. We were furthered screwed by the dump’s weekend hours – they closed at 4:30pm. By the time we got the dump truck filled up for the first time, they were already closed. That’s when I got the idea to call a buddy who had mentioned that he needed some fill. Turns out he wanted anything I could bring him, so we took it all up to his place. The trip was quicker than the dump too.

In the end, we removed about 28 yards of dirt. Five dump-trucks full and one dump-trailer full. Managed to get all the rented equipment returned on time, and finished the project to the tune of ~$450. More than I wanted to spend, but less than the $1k+ estimate I got from some professional hauling companies. Plus, it felt good to get it done under my own (and Anthony’s) power. As I was pulling out of the driveway this morning, I stopped, put the truck in park, and went to take a peek over the fence at the dirtpileless backyard. It just feels good to look at it. Next on the list is forming up the patio and trenching for drainage and sprinklers. If only we had unlimited funds? ’cause I can always come up with another project.


Pat pushes dirt around while I drop a load.		        
Anthony drove the ‘cat most of the time, here he is on break.

One thing I like about owning a house is that it’s given me the opportunity to learn how to do a lot of things I would’ve otherwise probably never tried. I’m not saying I’m a Mr. Fix It or a DIY posterboy, but I have gotten a little better with my mechanical skills. I’m nowhere near some people I know. A buddy of mine at work recently bought a house too, an older one that he’s really doing a lot of work on. Talking to him, it seems like he’s not afraid to do anything – he just takes a run at it and it normally comes out great. He recently redid the kitchen, and is talking about rewiring the whole house. Crazy. Maybe I’ll get a little more confident as I get some more completed projects under my belt. The backyard thus far has already done wonders.

Listen to Super Session y’allz. I implore you. Oh, and I don’t care what you think about the Stills – I love that album. Dave out.

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drinking wrong since day one

GIS for sunshine.
Today a buddy at work sent me a news story about the Hubble telescope’s latest findings. The folks who run the telescope had it do it’s “deepest” probe ever of the universe. Looking as far out into space as possible and gathering data from that point allows scientists to see light from events that happened just a few hundred million years after the big bang. It’s pretty insane to think that we’re looking out across a massive amount of distance to point X, to collect light that has itself traveled a massive amount of distance just to get to point X – and this effectively enables us to see back in time.

After chewing on it for a while, and thinking I understood for a while – I think I totally out-physics’ed myself. If the universe is constantly expanding from the big bang, then that’s the reason we’re so far away (distance-wise) from that point of origin. So now we’re using a telescope too look back over a long amount of distance towards that point of origin. However, light from the events that happened billions of years ago at that point of origin have been traveling outward since the events happened. So as we look back over distance to point X, we’re capturing light that has managed to travel to that point X from the point of origin. The farther back in distance we can look, the earlier we can intercept light emitted from events that took place at distances even farther away. Right?

But, we were also a part of those early events right? In some way, at least. How did we manage to get so far away from them that we can look back on them? Why did we get to our current point in the universe before the light that we’re now looking back on? To simplify it, let’s say that the big bang happened and our galaxy as we know it now was created right off the bat. We’re right at the point where everything exploded into stars and energy, surrounded by those events. How did we then manage to drift so far so fast to some point that we can now look back on the light of those events? How did we so well “outrun” the light from those early events? My lack of understanding comes from a severely physics-challenged mind.

I do know that listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor! and A Silver Mt. Zion puts you in the perfect mindset to think about the beginning/end of the universe. You know, confronting your own mortality and insignificance and whatnot. Good music that most people would hate, or as Sharaun calls it “that stuff you listen to that makes me want to kill myself.” Can you guys believe we can look back in time?! Jumping to what Sharaun’s essay trumped for yesterday.

Sunday afternoon and one of the most beautiful days I’ve seen in a while. Not a cloud in the sky and the perfect temperature. I’ve got all the windows in the house open and some Stills‘ “Logic Will Break Your Heart” on the stereo. I know, britpop is old ‘n’ busted, but for some reason I love this album – even if it is Canadian britpop. It reminds me of my brit-soaked last years of high school – and hints somehow at Nada Surf’s underappreciated “Let Go.” Wow? the OC is playing Death Cab and I’m listening to britpop again? maybe my whole musical microcosm is turning inside-out.

This morning I caught up on some much-needed house cleaning while Sharaun was at her game. Now I’ve got to create an “instruction sheet” for using the hack on my Pioneer CD burner – since it sold last night for $250. Then it’s off to a matinee show here in town at Old Ironsides starring the Stars and Dears. We were actually supposed to do that same show last night in San Francisco, but Sharaun discovered on Friday that they would be in Sacramento the next day. Considering the cost of gas to the city and back, and eating out on the way there – we decided we’d actually make money by skipping the one we’d already paid for and taking in the show locally tonight. (From the future – the show was good).

I think I’ve been drinking beer wrong since day one. When I was in middle school and I got my first real taste of beer, I can recall thinking it was completely horrid. I think it was the bitterness of it that put me off at first, I just hated it. After much practice though, I came to love the beer as I do today. Last night we were enjoying some at Anthony’s, and my nose started getting stuffy – like it often does when I drink beer for some reason. I started thinking about why my nose would be affected from one beverage over any other, and I decided it had something to do with the way I swallow beer. And get this, I think I discovered that I’ve been drinking beer completely wrong for like 12 years. See, back in my na?ve youth, the bitterness of beer bothered me so much that I must have subconsciously developed a technique to minimize my tasting of it. When I drink beer, and only when it’s beer, I “throw” the beer right past the front of my tongue and directly to the back of my mouth. I hold it at the back and then let it drain down my throat more than swallow it. I think I must have developed this nasty habit in an attempt to let the beer bypass the front part of my tongue – which in my mind somehow reduced the bitter taste. I think the “draining more than swallowing” is also an effort to keep the front of my tongue beer-free. I don’t drink any other liquid this way.

So, I am now making a conscious effort to drink beer like I drink any other beverage. I mean, I’d hate to think that I’ve been missing out on a whole other element of beer’s taste. It would certainly be a shame if I were to go through my whole life never knowing what beer tastes like when you let it hit the front of your tongue.

Dave out.