Category: general

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

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powerless


Sitting here in a white t-shirt stained with barbecue sauce. No, not the country song – I really am sitting here with barbecue stains on my white t-shirt. See, we made another trip down to the beach today, and on the way back we stopped off to pick up some good old Southern style BBQ. I think my daily consumption of sugar must at least double while I’m here – these ‘rebs love their sweet stuff. Anyway, I plopped a dollop of the molasses-heavy sauce right on the undershirt. No big deal, as it is an under shirt, after all. But, it all feels quite “Florida,” really. Lounging around in some gymshorts and a stained t-shirt, drinking tea mixed to diabetes-inducing 1 cup sugar : 2 cup tea ratio. Ahh… Florida.

Keaton seemed to warm up to the beach today, her second visit of our time here. Last Tuesday she stayed rooted in place when we took off her shoes and set her down in the sand. She kept saying “durdur,” or “dirty,” while pointing down at her feet and refusing to move. She was also hesitant in the water, gripping tight to dad as each ankleslapping wave foamed past. But, today she seemed to come around. She happily tromped around in the sand, and even ventured out into the thin wash where the waves finally die. She had fun collecting shells and pointing at birds, and didn’t even seem to mind when dad piled wet sand around her feet. Kinda nice to have a beach so close.

The National show in Orlando last night was fantastic. The venue was small, the stage off-center and the standing area all asymmetric. This afforded one a pretty decent view from almost any spot in the house. The opening act, the Rosebuds, turned out to have a couple songs that I somehow recognized – and their set was outstanding. I allmusic’d them on my BlackBerry after they played and found that they’re a Merge act – figures. Anyway, Kyle ran into some chick he knows who works for Merge, and we ended up chatting to her a bit. On the edge of the “scene,” as it were – as she’s apparently buddy-buddy with the folk of the Arcade Fire. So, all in all, not a bad experience – and a darn good show. I trudged in the door at Sharaun’s folks’ place around 3am, washed the smoke off my face and out of my hair in the sink, and hit the sack. Too bad I couldn’t sleep in later than 8am – but I guess that’s what naps are for, right?

I wanted to write a bit about our experience going to the UF game on Saturday. Neither Sharaun nor I have been back to our alma mater to see a football game in seven years. So, we were both quite excited about perhaps reliving a bit of that college experience, and getting the chance to walk around the campus and reminisce. After walking what likely amounted to a few miles around the campus, checking out the old buildings to see how they’ve changed, we both agreed that, although it’s only been seven years, it almost feels so far removed that it’s as if it were in a different life when we were there. Those times are just so different from where we are now, with careers and family and a mortgage – that the memories seem almost unfamiliar. It was neat though, to walk around the campus again. To pick up a copy of the student newspaper and read it, to go visit my old study niche in the library, to walk through the student union.

And as for the game: It was great. Our seats were good, and the Gators won. The streets in town were even more choked with tailgating fans than I remember, especially for an lesser-known opponent – but I guess that’s what being NCAA champs will do to attendance. The atmosphere was perfect though, celebratory, drunken, and youthful. The in-stadium experience differed a bit, though. Sharaun thinks mainly because we sat on the more reserved “alumni” side of the house instead of in the more raucous student section. I think she’s partially right, but I also think it just has to do with the fact that we’re older. Back then, Saturday games were one of my single points of respite from the grind of homework and studying, and I looked forward to those days all week long. Somehow, swooping into town three hours before the game and then pulling up stakes again right afterward seems to lessen the gravity of what those three hours used to mean to me. But, over-analysis aside, we had an excellent time – and are both super glad we were able to go see a game after all this time.

Well, the power is out here in at the house, so I’m writing this in Word and waiting for the juice to come on before I can login and post. Until then, and then again until tomorrow – see ya.

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– .-. -.– / .- -. -.. / … – — .–. / — .


Monday in Florida and it’s hot. I’m sure it’s been hotter, and muggier… but as I was packing Keaton’s things into the trunk of the car afore we left Sharaun’s grandmother’s house (where we spent the night last night), I was sweating. Seems like, with this Florida heat, I alternate between loving and hating it. The other day at the beach, for instance, I recall thinking that the wet heat was rather enjoyable – almost like a free sauna. Something about the humidity and the thin sheen of sweat it fosters make me feel “clean.” Then again, that same thin sheen of sweat and oil also makes me feel like I need a washing up. So it cuts both ways, I suppose. I think I can see, though, why so many old folks move down this way – the heat is good for the joints, and the humidity makes my skin feel good. I figure I could be old here…

Looks like we may get another afternoon thunderstorm here in central Florida today. The thick and dark clouds are rolling across the sky so quickly that they alternately block and don’t block the sun like they’re sending some kind of divine morse code message. For a while there I thought I might jump in the pool while Keaton napped, but then the clouds rolled in and I thought better of it. I’m home alone with Keaton, if you couldn’t tell. Sharaun’s gone to get a pedicure or some such womanly nonsense with her mom. I took advantage of the situation and hooked the iPod to the stereo for some jams.

Some guy knocked on the door, and when I answered it he stood there in a well-worn t-shirt, torn jeans, and bare feet. The bike he’d rode up on lay on its side down the footpath, and he had a small hacksaw and a pair of hedge clippers in his hand. “You guys by and chance want your bushes trimmed up there?,” he asked, motioning to the hedges around the front of my in-laws’ place. “I’m trying to earn some money to get my kid some food to eat,” he finished. “I’m sorry man,” I say, “I don’t live here and honestly don’t know if they’d want it or not.” “No problem,” he says, and moves on. Admirable, says me. No sedentary cardboard-sign holding for that guy – just some feet-on-the-street effort to try and make a few honest dollars. After I’d sent him off, I almost wished I’d just given him a few bucks… but, I didn’t.

The final details of the John Muir Trail hike Anthony and I begin exactly a week from today came together over the weekend with the response to a mail I’d sent to Vermilion Valley Resort inquiring about long-term parking of our exit vehicle there while we hiked. The resort is the planned terminus of our hike now, for many logical reasons, most of all being that it’s the only really “convenient” exit point accessible to vehicles around the length of trail we’d like to cover. We plan to leave Anthony’s car there for the week. The folks at the resort replied that it’d be fine, at the modest rate of $2 per night.

The plan now is to drive down to Anthony’s folks place (much closer to where we want to be) on Saturday, staying there that night. Then on Sunday, a local friend of Anthony’s will follow us on the three hour drive to Vermilion Valley Resort at Lake Edison, where we’ll leave Anthony’s car, and then that same friend will drive us another three and a half hours up to Yosemite where we’ll pick up our passes before he drops us off to spend the night in backpackers camping that last night. We’ll be near Curry Village that last night, so we’ll have a chance to eat one final “real” meal and purchase any last-minute items we may find we’ve forgotten at our last gear check. We plan to depart from Happy Isles trailhead sometime around six or seven that morning – with the best intentions to maximize our mileage on that grueling first uphill day.

If all goes well, Anthony we’ll rejoin his waiting vehicle back on the shores of Lake Edison some seven days of walking later. That is, unless we die or give up before that; in which case – who knows how we’ll get to a vehicle.

Well, Kyle’s coming over at six o’clock to pick me up and ferry us over to Orlando for The National show tonight. Hoping the show will be good, as I’m pretty beat from running around like crazy over the past week – and I’d hate to be bored to tears and an hour from a bed at 1am tonight. The company should make it worthwhile though, I always have liked hanging out with Kyle.

Raining now in Florida. Later.

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another fine day


Another fine day in sabbatical land. We went to visit my Uncle Tom today, spent a few good hours hanging out and visiting, and also managed to watch Dr. Strangelove, a movie I’ve always meant to see, but have only managed to catch bits and pieces of over the years. As I suspected, it was great.

Anyway, Sharaun’s cooking some spaghetti tonight and the whole family is gonna come over to mange. Should be a good time, and it’s one night we don’t have an obligation (every night from here until we leave is booked at this point).

Before we go on, I did manage to post two new galleries full of pictures:

I was so happy to read about the new iPod, which comes in a massive 160GB model (double what I have now), and is now dubbed the “classic” model to differentiate it from the also-new iPod “touch,” which seems to be just an iPhone sans the phone. As a solemn promise to myself, I decree that I will be carrying this new iPod with me to Oktoberfest. That’s how serious I am about getting it. Just think about how much media I can get on that thing, I can have all sorts of “good… but not good enough to take up space on my iPod” albums on there now, just in case I get the urge to listen to ’em. I will buy this. Perhaps even this weekend in Orlando, where I’m pretty sure there’s an Apple store (providing they’re not sold out).

Meanwhile, plans for our remaining days in Florida are coming together. It always seems like we end up blocking off time for this and for that, with little room left for improv. That’s the hard part about “vacationing” in the place where you grew up. The visits with friends and relatives, while not compulsory, always seem to fill up the calendar quite quickly. This coming Monday, my old buddy Kyle and I decided to catch The National in concert over in Orlando. I liked the National’s album Alligator, but have had a hard time getting into their 2007 effort. Maybe seeing them play some of the numbers live will cast them in a new light. I’m excited about that, actually, as I think the last “real” concert I saw with Kyle was a Bob Dylan / Carlos Santana double-headliner – a bit of a stylistic mismatch, but two heavyweights in their own right. Still, I feel now that I was too young to truly appreciate the show (plus, I remember having a killer headache that wrecked much of the evening for me). Should be fun to make the pilgrimage and see a gig.

I’ve been trying to work out WordPress’s “post via e-mail” feature lately. This neat functionality allows you to send an entry to an e-mail address, and have it auto-magically appear on your blog. WordPress checks the mail via POP3 and posts whatever’s in there. I had it working before, but had no real use for it. Now that I’m on sabbatical, and that I have a more thumb-typing friendly BlackBerry, I figured I may actually get some mileage out of it. Problem is, I switched hosting companies recently, to GoDaddy, and, for some reason, GoDaddy doesn’t like the WordPress POP3 methods. The PHP times out, it’s apparently a semi-known issue with GoDaddy. What’s worse, WordPress doesn’t support SSL connections (this means no Yahoo mail and no Gmail). I also can’t use free POP-able mail services that send e-mail advertisements as part of the deal, as anything new gets autoposted. Anyone know a good, free, non-SSL, POP3-readable, e-mail service that has good spam blocking capabilities? Lemme know.

Until later.

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doin’ what i want


Our second full day in Florida was another nice and lazy one, spend nursing yesterday’s sunburn and still shaking out all the lack-of-sleep cobwebs from Monday. Sufficiently decompressed and recuperated, I began calling all the old buddies and relatives, setting up rendezvous later in the week for dinners and lunches and catching ups. Yesterday we hit the beach in the morning, and met up with my oldest buddies for a few pints and some mexican food in the evening – twas a good night, which saw us home in time to play with Keaton for a half hour before putting her down (having left her with the grandparents while we drank and dined).

This weekend we’re getting together with Sharaun’s sister and brother and heading up to the alma mater Gainesville to see the Gators play in The Swamp. Tyler’s gonna cart up the smoker, and we’re gonna get out on campus early for the 6pm game with a pork shoulder over some hickory. A day of reminiscent tailgating, pulled pork, and football – just like old college Saturdays. I’m actually super-excited about going to a game. It’s something Sharaun and I have been talking about doing ever since we graduated, but it’s always been sort of elusive, as I figured it would require a trip to Florida just to make it happen. Thank goodness for the awesomeness of sabbatical.

Well, I’m off to take a nap (I can do that, any time I want to). I’m about 50% done with a huge batch of pictures I’ll be uploading later this evening, if all goes right. Here’s something to whet your appetite, though. It’s a picture I snapped recently when we went to the beach, and Keaton was mobbed by the paparazzi. It happens; she’s that cute, y’know.

Until later.

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a walking zombie in florida


Monday I was a walking zombie in Florida. After a 3am riseandshine and a cross-country aeronautical journey with-child, we were all fairly sleep deprived. I tried to write, I did, but gave up when I realized I had only been repeatedly banging out semicolons and randomly clawing at the laptop screen. Fatigue is a blog killer.

Tuesday now though, and I can write when I want. No more have-to-post by midnight on sabbatical. No more cramming each entry into three hours every evening. Just write as I go and post when I want. Sure, you, readers, lose some predictability, but let’s be honest – over the past couple weeks this thing has been pretty predictably blank, am I right. I am to fix that with the time I have now.

I brought five books with me to Florida. I’m hoping I can at least manage to read one of them. I guess, I’m actually hoping I can read some of the real books, as two of the five are just guidebooks – one for the Muir Trail, one for beer drinkers in Munich. I also brought Kerouac’s On the Road (I never finished, it… “paused” at “part two” and never restarted again), the second half of the Book of the New Sun series, The Sword and the Citadel (which, again, I never got to after reading, and loving, the first half…), and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I’d really like to use at least part of these nine weeks to improve my books-per-year ratio for 2007. It’s already September and I’ve only got four under my belt – and that’s downright awful.

And, with that, I’m gonna cut this off early. We’re headed down to the beach today I think, then likely calling up old friends to arrange some catching-up time while we’re in town. I don’t want to feel like we’re booking a press tour or anything, so I’m shooting for a good amount of lazy days like this. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Until tomorrow.

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my sixty-three day weekend


Tonight’s blog wouldn’t have happened without the wonders of the BlackBerry. I simply would’ve had no time. But, through the wonders of this excruciatingly small thumb-keyboard, I’m able to write as we wing our way southward – home. Yes, i’s hard on the thumbs and eyes, and it’s fairly slow going (although I must say, not nearly as slow as one may think, I’ve become quite speedy on this thing), but it let’s me feel less guilty about my horrid record of late. So, let’s get to the words – I wouldn’t be thumbing this if I didn’t have stuff to say now, would I?

Today was my last day seeing coworkers in Oregon before sabbatical, and with everyone offering goodbyes and handshakes and well-wishes, I walked out of that building at 5pm feeling like it was all over. Alas, it’s not; I have three more days at my home-base sawmill before I can really call it all off.

Today was a good one, though. Especially in terms of the stress I’ve been feeling lately. I worked in earnest this morning, knocking several high-priority items off the “to-do before I go” list. It felt amazing. With every clicking keystroke in the notes and missives that closed those outstanding items, I felt a weight lift. I started dispositioning new things that would go beyond the end of the week as things my unlucky coverage would be responsible for instead of me, and I archived all my in-flight work to gather dust while I’m out enjoying life.

It was a wonderful feeling, watching that normally ever-expanding list of things to do shrink but not grow; just whittle away one item at a time towards zero. I think I rally needed the confidence that seeing that list dwindle gave me; it was like a shot in the arm. And for the first time in a the past couple hectic weeks I left work feeling uplifted and excited. My thoughts for the first time turning more towards the work I won’t be doing over the next sixty-three weeks than the work I have to get done before I can go.

I was thinking about Saturday morning, that first morning, and I decided that the first thing I’ll do is wake up and put the Beatles’ “I’ve Got A Feeling” on the stereo. Why?, you ask, well, I’ll tell you. Back in middle school’ ’round about, oh, seventh or eighth grade, my best buddy Kyle and I used to convene at one of our places before clas on the first day of school. We’d come together for one reason, to listen to the Beatles’ “I’ve Got A Feeling.”

I don’t remember how we picked the song, as it really has nothing to do with “firsts,” or starting something new, and there certainly are more germane numbers we could’ve chosen, but, after a few years it had become quite the tradition. Even during our “falling out” years in highschool, I’d queue up the song solo before that first class on that first day.

I took the tradition with me to college, and even into the early morning hours before my first day on the job at my the very sawmill I trudge to each day now. I even spun “I’ve Got A Feeling” on my way home from the hospital to change clothes just after Keaton was born. It’s become a part of my “new start” ritual, some sort of ward against bad mojo, a habit that I’ve come to enjoy.

So, this Saturday, that first day of my sixty-three day weekend, I plan to take my time getting out of bed, showering, dressing, and primping – and instead head straight for the stereo to plug in the iPod and lazily head-nod my way through an extra-loud playing of “I’ve Got A Feeling.”. Yeah, that sounds absolutely brilliant.

Oh, and, before I go. The new Most Serene Republic album leaked earlier this week, much to my embarrassment, as I had no idea it was even due. But, apparently it was due, and now it’s here. I’ve loved everything this band has under their belt this far, and listening to this album these past few days at work has given me high hopes that it’s going to be another winner. So, if you can get it, get it – however you do so.

And, with every single word of this done solely from a BlackBerry on a plane, I’m out.

Goodnight lovers.