Category: general

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

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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.

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scoietal dregs need to drive too

It's a place you can go.
What a weekend. I don’t really feel like writing about all the shows, but I’ll just say that the Decemberists were the feather in the cap of a great musical weekend. They are so good live. I missed writing yesterday, things were just too busy and I wasn’t in the mood.

Yesterday I put my Pioneer CD burner on Ebay, starting it out at $200. I’m hoping that the little hack I did to the machine makes it more desirable, instead of less. So far there have been a lot of lookers, so that bodes well. I’m not worried about lack of bids at this point, things usually take of near the end. Hopefully I can make a buck or two on it, since it’ll be all profit to me. Actually, that thing has brought me plenty of money in the past. I sold Beatles bootlegs all through college for extra cash, brining in about $900 in a good month.

Today I had to go to the DMV to get new license plates (I lost one of them). Why is it that the DMV is so busy? I mean, surely there are other places that see as many people per day and aren’t so chronically backed up. There were nearly 100 people in there waiting for their numbers to be called. It was the same thing when Sharaun and I went to the Social Security office to get her new card after we were married. Not only do these offices for some reason move in slow motion, they always attract a very interesting crowd. I mean, “normal” people have to go to the DMV and Social Security right? When do they go? I’m just saying, it seems like the place is always chock full of… umm… people “from the other side of the tracks?” Oh whatever, you know what I mean. The DMV is full of single moms with kids running loose, barefoot rednecks, ex-cons, and every other societal dreg you can think of. Why is this? I did see a handful of regular-looking Joe’s… so maybe this is just my racism and stereotyping showing through.

I’ve half-decided that I’m going to start taking lunch at home whenever I can. Since it’s so close, and I have an hour to myself – I’m going to use that time to get things done around the house. As the weather improves and summer gets here, I can get a lot done in the 40min that I’m not eating or driving back/forth between work. I can even get the lawn mowed if I take an extra 15min or so. Not only is it a potential time to get some work done around the house – it saves me money in the long run by not dropping $8 every day on food. I can make a week’s worth of sandwiches at home for the same amount of money I spend daily on lunch now. Today was my first go at this new plan, but the fix-it man was there to do some house-warranty stuff, so I didn’t get a chance to get anything done. Hopefully I can stick to the plan.

Since I’ve been making some money of late by selling things on Ebay, it’s made me want to work harder to get this t-shirt site live. I’ve been working on creating a functional web storefront where Shaine and I plan to hawk our t-shirt wares. The development is going a little slower than I’d like, but I think we’re pretty close to having a working website. From then on it’s all about marketing. If people start buying, that’s great. One thing that gives me some hope is the reaction I get to the Kiss shirt I wear to concerts. It’s one of the shirts we’re going to sell on the webpage, and I like to wear it to our shows (for some reason, Kiss has lots of indie-cred). I must get about ten compliments on the shirt for every show I go to. Right now I just say “thanks” when someone pays me a compliment on it, but I’d love to be able to say, “Yeah, I got it at angelsnot.com, you should check it out.” Yeah, the website is called www.angelsnot.com – it’s not live yet, so there’s nothing there… the development is going on at an unmapped domain. I’ve got my fingers crossed that we can turn at least a small profit with this thing – I definitely think there’s potential for it.

Today NASA was supposed to make a huge announcement about “significant findings” on Mars. There was a lot of speculation that they might announce they had found evidence of life, either by way of fossils or current biology. That got me really interested actually, and I was hoping that’s what they were going to say. I thought that maybe this Rotini-looking shape was a Mars-worm fossil or something. Turns out they just wanted to tell us that the place used to be “soaked” in water, which is something that most people already believed to be true. So it was kinda disappointing to me. I was really looking forward to hearing the fundies‘ reaction to an announcement of life on another planet. I don’t want to get into where I stand on religion, but I am always interested in religion’s reaction to new science. I would think the affirmation on life other than Earth might cause some interesting waves in the religious community, and with fundies in particular. Owell, the rovers are still there – so there’s still hope.

That’s it for today. I’m gonna cut out a little early and vote, since I’ve been more and more interested in how my opinion can matter lately. Dave out.

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angry at the urinal

I spit on your urinal!
What’s up with people spitting in the urinal before they take a leak? Is this some manly pre-pee ritual that I never learned about? Is it just a convenient place for chronic-spitters to fix without offending others by keeping a spit-cup at their desk? I’m lost. I only mention it because I actually find it pretty gross. Yeah, it’s a bathroom and all – so it’s probably the best place to do it, but some guys seem to do it with such contempt. I mean, they just spit to be spitting, almost like they’re angry at the urinal or something. Strange.

You wanna know what’s crazy, I thought I was the only person in the world who had ever noticed, let alone, thought about this. However, an on-a-whim Google for “spit in the urinal” came up with a whole mess of hits. Almost all the other links are from fellow bloggers. This tells me that either: bloggers like to examine the bathroom habits of others, or the spit-before-pee thing is really not that uncommon. This, this, this (may be NSFW), this, and this link prove I’m not insane.

Remember the pizza-neck-bomb thing from Pennsylvania? A pizza delivery man was called to deliver a pie to an abandoned building. Next they hear from him, he’s outside a bank he just robbed with a homemade cane-gun and wearing a homemade bomb-collar which is counting down to detonation. He tells the cops he’s been forced to rob the bank and has to follow an elaborate series of instructions to get the collar off before the time runs out and his head blows up. Bomb squad arrives a little late, man blows up and dies, and the FBI has no idea if he was part of some crazy scheme or just a pawn in one. Anyway, that story intrigued me so much – mostly because of the elaborate plan and orchestration, and because of the pictures of the collar and gun the FBI released. Every once in a while I do a Google news search for any updates on it. Turns out the FBI’s leads are running cold – so they released part of the nine pages of letters the guy was carrying. So odd, can’t wait to hear the ending to this one.

Tonight is the Unicorns show at the GAMH, I’ve been listening to “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone” all this morning to get pumped. What a great album, and surprisingly enough – it’s good “doin’ schematics” background music. I’m really looking forward to this show, not only because I think they’ll be great live – but because it’s a return to the initial hard-core concert crew of just Benz and I. While that may sound gay, well, Ben is totally gay. Yeah… should be fun.

Dave is outta here.

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this bitchin’ secret cave

I pledge alligiance, to whatever I like.
This morning I woke up thinking it was Wednesday. I even checked my calendar to see what I had going on. I don’t know why, I guess I’m just thinking ahead or something. Looking forward to the weekend perhaps. I kinda wish it was Wednesday.

Man, last night was a crazy dream night. I woke up with so many dreams still lingering in my head. The main one I can remember involves being naked in public places. I found that strange. I mean, I’ve heard of the classic “at school naked” dreams, but I’ve never actually had one. I this dream, I was about to take a shower – so I stripped off my boxers and started walking to the shower. Only thing was, I was at work. To make matters worse, the bathroom at work with the shower was on a different floor than I was, and I hadn’t realized it. Funny since there are no showers at work. In my dream I realized about halfway to where the shower-equipped bathroom should be that I was on the wrong floor. At that point I was stuck. At first I started looking for another bathroom to duck into, but there were none on whatever floor I was on. So I had to walk back to wherever I had come from, stark naked. I remember trying to act like it was all normal as hell, ignoring the stares from strangers. At one point I think the scene changed from work to a shopping mall – just for added humiliation I think. You know how dreams are. Anyway, I remember being all self-conscious and terrified. Strange dream.

The other dream I remember is, I think, somewhat of a revisit to a dream that’s slowly becoming a recurring one. In the only other two recurring dreams I have, the scenery is what makes them “recurring.” However, in this dream – it’s the events that happen the same, not necessarily the surroundings. I think I wrote about it before, but it involves swimming or diving underwater and discovering a hidden cave. Often I’m trying to escape from someone, or hiding from something underwater. Then I always find this bitchin’ secret cave, which in my head is kinda similar to One-Eyed Willie’s pirate ship cave from the Goonies. One element of the story that never fails – there’s always a ladder leading down a small rock-chimney into the cave proper. I think the ladder and underwater/secret cave must signify something, but I dunno what.

There was even another dream, where I was living or at least staying in a trailer park. I was the friend of a woman who was in the middle of a failing marriage. I recall lying down in the room where I was staying, hearing them fight, and feeling sad. I remember seeing her in her all-black underwear, crying on a bed in the room across the hall after the fight was over. I think that’s when I left to take a shower… and it turned into the naked-at-work thing from above. Such crazy dreams, I never remember them like that. Wonder if the dream-gods are trying to communicate with me or something.

Well, off dreams and onto reality. I saw the governor on TV this morning before work, talking about the two propositions he’s got on the March ballot. Since I have no idea what either is, I wanted to check it out. On the commercial, if I understood the Austrian accent right, Arnold describes the two propositions as: One to balance the budget and stop the overspending, and one to “tear up the credit card for good.” I liked the credit card analogy at least. Anyway, from what he said in the thirty-second spot, both items sounded reasonable to me. However, being a child of the ever-mistrusting Gen X, I wanted to do a bit o’ research for myself. I found this site which summarizes the current propositions, as well as this one. I found this “yes” site for 56, as well as this “no” site. I found this “yes” site for 57 and 58, and couldn’t seem to find a “no” site. So, I started reading.

After some research, I think I figured out the following: Prop 56 eases the quorum by which a budget is passed – requiring only a 55% vote versus the current 2/3. It also sets aside money for “certain circumstances.” I’m assuming that is the equivalent of me putting extra dough into savings for “what if’s.” Also, and I like this part, if the budget isn’t balanced, the governor and legislature don’t get paid. The opposition to this one say that it also makes it too easy for the legislature to approve tax hikes without enough constituent representation. Prop 57 is getting us some near-term savings by getting what’s essentially a debt refi bond, giving us lower payments over more time (the whole time-vs.-money thing again). Prop 58 makes a balanced state budget a constitutional requirement, and limits the taking out of new bonds to solve the problem (this must be “tearing up the credit card for good”). To me, 56 and 58 sound logical, while Prop 57 sounds kinda iffy. Then again, 56 could be dangerous in that a slim majority (55%) could potentially pass bad stuff. Seems like 57 and 58 enjoy some bipartisan support (1st Google link), which is interesting.

Well, there’s an ignorant voter’s take on what these things mean. At least I feel better for looking into it, now I can vote with some knowledge. I still don’t know if I trust the websites I read… it’s times like these when I need my politico friend Kristi to walk me through the stuff, so I can get a better handle on it. Owell.

Wanna see what Anthony’s gay ass did? He made a color-coded spreadsheet to figure out who owes who what for our recent concertgoing. You can tell he made it, because I ended up owing everyone everything. Peace out y’allz. On the real.

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grooming our replacements

Lazy is good.
This week went by really fast. Guess it could have something to do with the holiday, but it was also a really busy week at work for me. I’m glad it’s over. My pre-planned weekend activities amount to nothing save mowing the lawn and doing some housecleaning, which is good – I like unplanned time better than planned. I like to be able to choose nothing as something to do, and not be tied to anything. If I’m not committed to anything, the prospect of spending a Saturday working around the house or tinkering with a web page is almost too great a temptation to resist. Also, I kinda think it’s more fun to plan things at the last minute. I like when people call up and spur-of-the-moment plans are made to meet and do something. When you look back on things, spontaneous fun events always seem to be remembered as “funner” than planned ones. I think because there’s that extra bit of “good luck” in the fact that something last-minute worked out so well. Also, I’m lazy and always like to have the “do nothing” option.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on webpages lately. If I’m not working on the t-shirt site, I’m working on the Pac Man Project pages. I’ve been concentrating on both really. I really need to update the Pac Man pages and get them on “auto pilot” so I don’t have to mess with them anymore. I guess now it’s down to a minimal amount of content that I still need to write, but the major work is in re-arrangement and making it look pretty. So, I’ve been fixing the layout and flow and making the whole site easier to navigate and read. I don’t really know why, since there’s no reason really… I guess I just like the project. For the t-shirt site, my motivation is profit. I think Shaine and I (partners in this enterprise) stand a really good chance at making some dough from that project.

I read a really interesting article in Wired magazine on the plane over to Taiwan. It was about the current state of “outsourcing” software jobs to India. While I’m not a software person, being in the high tech industry I am well aware of the outsourcing craze. While the software jobs are going to India, hardware jobs are going to China. Right now we’re on an “accelerated hiring ramp” in Shanghai, and we have yearly percentages of headcount we need to acquire there. The company line is that they’re not actually moving jobs from here to there, but “growing the workforce” to help with some global economy or something. My direct boss-man says he doesn’t buy it, and thinks they are grooming our replacements. I’m not sure how I feel, but I definitely got a whole new perspective on the issue from the Wired article.

I mean, I suppose the whole outsourcing cycle has been going on, on a more basic level, for a long time. In human history, strong people move in and exploit weak people. Eventually, the weaker people learn to be stronger, and at that point the original strong people move on to yet another weaker people and exploit them. I’m no economist, but it seems like: move in to a place, exploit a weaker economy and workforce, drop that place as soon as the weaker economy and workforce strengthen as a result of being exploited, find a new place and repeat. My job seems safe for the time being, but I can foresee a time when I may have to alter the way I think and do things to make myself more valuable than some alien dude who can do exactly what I do at a 6th of the cost. For now, I’ll just keep getting fat and living my American dream-life while they starve. What?

Well, I guess that’s it for me. Dave out.

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freezeweeding

Where my grass at?
This morning before work I was staring out of my sliding glass door into my backyard of dirt and rocks, and I got a bug in me. I mean, I was looking at the bumper crop of weeds that all the rain has brought me, and started getting really antsy to get back to work on the backyard again. I was feeling all bummed about the progress in the last few months, which amounts to nil because the weather has been against me. I think these feelings were compounded by the fact that it was a beautiful sunny morning. The kind of morning that makes me want to skip work and get some “real” work done around the house.

I succumbed the best I could without skipping work, I went outside and did some weeding. It was freezing out there pulling weeds at 7am, but it made me feel like I’d at least accomplished something regarding the house. While I was out there I came up with a little experiment too. Noticing I had some grass growing where I don’t want it, and knowing I have no grass growing in spots I do want it – I attempted my first grass-transplant. Instead of throwing out the rogue tufts of grass growing in my mulch, I deftly “planted” them in the bare areas of my sideyard (the forklift that brought the retaining wall stones ruined the grass there). We’ll see if my front-yard-Frankensteinery works or not.

Tonight I finally pushed “submit” on my taxes. I was spurred to action when I overheard one of my coworkers mention he’d already got his refund back. Hopefully with the electronic submission, the refund will get here fairly fast. And, after some more research into the whole “supplemental tax” thing from yesterday – things don’t seem quite so bad. I’ll have to pay a fraction of the amount, but not now – so that’s great news. Hopefully we can use some of the tax money to help finish the backyard. Ahh… so many things to spend money on, so little money to spend.

So then, that’s it. I have nothing else to write and I’m tired. Late entry, barely made it on Thursday at all. Until tomorrow.