Category: general

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

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homecoming


Friday at last. Still some formatting issues I need to clear up with the blog’s new look, but haven’t had time. Mostly I want to change the recent comments styles, and some other sidebar issues in general. But, as I said, I’m happy enough to roll with it for now. Sharaun flexed her hospitality tonight and served a nice outdoor for friends. It was nice, and I really enjoyed it. In fact…

I’ve noticed something wonderful happening to me lately. Every day, as I get in my car to head home from the old sawmill, my attitude begins to turn. I mean, despite my day – its busyness, its stress and its tension, its race-the-clock mind-tangling multitasking – the thought of being imminently home turns my head right around.

Today, for instance, was mind-numbingly busy, and the work wasn’t easy… it required a lot of thinking, and by 5pm my brain was stretched and weary. I was frustrated, I was tired, and I was a little zombified. But, as I got into the car and thought about tossing Keaton around on the couch watching her smile and hearing her squeal… my cares started to fade. Who cares about work? Who cares about schedules and to-dos and responsibilities? You can take all that and poop it right out of your butthole, that’s what you can do.

My mind is almost always wandering. For me, my devoted attention is a rare thing. Usually, I only give this when I’m 1) in love with you (overtly or covertly), 2) drunk enough to be carefree, or 3) genuinely and intently interested in you and your story. I know this is a dickish trait, but it’s me. So, I’m almost always daydreaming, thinking, meandering, making up little imaginary scenarios, etc. So, sometimes, when I’m sitting there talking to you, I’ll hang my left arm over the side of the couch, or the back of the chair, or whatever. I’ll hang it just so, so that the bloodflow is cutoff high up near my armpit. I’ll watch my hand mottle and feel my fingers tingle as my circulation slows. I’ll look for the color to change under my fingernails, and my hand to feel thick and dumb. Then, I’ll imagine my left arm is numb because I’m having a heart attack. I’ll pretend to watch my life flash by my eyes, pretend to wonder why I didn’t go for more jogs, take more long walks, get a gym membership.

Man, you realize I linked to my 98th blog in this entry? This is my 1,310th. Don’t be so impressed, it’s not entirely sequential, and there are less posts (788, to be precise). Still, that was over 900 entries ago… and I like that.

Goodnight.

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let me out


Back when Sharaun and I were last in Oregon, we had been scheduled to participate in our greater neighborhood’s annual garage sale. We had both had been looking forward to it, not only because garage sales have some sort of kitschy fun associated with them, but because it would’ve been an opportunity to offload some of the old, yet still useful, junk we’ve been hoarding over the years. Well, as you likely guess from all the past-tense verbiage, we didn’t get to participate. We instead flew to Oregon and left our unused mathoms to collect more dust. This coming weekend, however, our friends neighborhood is doing the same thing – and we’ve signed up with them for a joint ticket. Meaning, this week we’ll pull down all that old stuff, put a nice spitshine on it, and move it for insane! Insane! Insane! low prices.

I’m excited, not at the prospect of turning a buck, but rather at the chance to get rid of so many cubic feet of material we’ve been housing. We’ve got stereo equipment, office furniture, CD shelves, vases, computer stuff, books, and all sorts of useful things which are simply rotting at our place – I’m hoping we can find good home for them. Otherwise, anything left unsold at the end of the day goes to Goodwill (the well-off person’s tax-deductible trip to the dump). Anyway, how much for an old office chair with boogers smeared on the bottom of the seat?

Every day before I go to work I check the garden. The little cages I erected over the strawberries are working, I’ve got plump red berries that haven’t been completely eaten away by birds. I look over each plant and try to judge if it’s grown noticeably from the last time I did so. The corn seems to the be changing the fastest, and I swear it puts on inches over a matter of days. I love being out there in the morning, with the cold air still clinging to the ground and dew covering everything. Sometimes I stay out there for up to five minutes, and wish I could just call in sick and climb into the hammock instead. You think everyone who’s only been at their career for seven years gets this itch? I mean, I’ve got like a hundred more years of work ahead of me and I’m already antsy for the next phase. Where are my millions? Where is my early retirement? Let me out.

I know it shouldn’t be, but I’ve been letting my anticipation build for the new Smashing Pumpkins album. Even though it’s not the original lineup, I’m excited by the increasing level of hype floating around the internet. I’ve gotta admit that I’m already quite prepared for a letdown, and in fact expect one given the steady decline of the Pumpkins work post Mellon Collie. But, I’ve always been a fan, and, against all my better judgments, am looking forward to the leak.

Goodnight.

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and there never was a hoss…


Sunday night of a busy, busy, busy weekend. As an update to my projects: Anthony and I got about halfway done with the Santa Maria style BBQ project. I welded for the first time and liked it. I also planted all but three of the thirty plants we bought. Both of those things involve a lot of bending and squatting and reaching, and my muscles are a tad miffed at me for it. The evenings were good too, and I think Sharaun enjoyed Mother’s Day. So all in all, was a good weekend. Even got to spend some time in the hammock with Keaton, thinking forward to our upcoming camping trip come the three-day weekend. Shaping up to be a good Summer.

I didn’t post as the days wound down last week, but I did write:

Thursday morning I stayed home from work. I decided to do this for several reasons: 1) I’m beginning to experience something of a burnout. Not necessarily from the labor aspect of work, more from the emotional aspect. Times are tense at the ol’ factory, with workers somewhat on-edge and atmospheres thick and stuffy. On top of this air of difficulty, they labor part of work is firing on all cylinders. Working hard, both mentally and emotionally, is tough – so I took what I feel is a deserved two-hour respite. 2) I wanted to find some time which Sharaun, Keaton and I could all get together and go get some landscaping plants for the backyard, as I talked about earlier this week. So, as the clock creeps up on 8:30am I sit here while Sharaun readies herself to go to the garden-shop. Sometimes, paying money for things like plants and dirt and rocks seems so stupid to me. I tell you what, you go back in time to the 1800s and tell someone they’d one day pay money for a pile of dirt… I bet they’d label you daft and ship you off to the sanitarium. Money for dirt, money for water… what’s next, money for air to breathe?

Believe it or not, I also took a breather from work on Friday… things still too “heavy” for me at the sawmill. Bad vibes in the air; people shooting people stinkeyes; dark clouds swirling overhead. I hope this week is an improvement, but let’s catch up now, shall we?

Today I dug a lot of dirt. Shortly after I started, I tossed aside my working gloves and resorted to my hands. I used that soft flesh to throw the breaker-bar into the ground, smashing rocks; used them to scrape the last bits of dirt and sharp shattered rock from the bottom of my holes; used them to push around poky mulch and uproot spiky weeds. At the end of the day, they even felt a little rougher than when I started. Sometimes I wish I had rough hands, it’s one of my irrational desires. I feel like, when people shake my hands, they’ll know me for the weakling all-day-typist I am instead of the hard-scrabble laborer I dream about.

Goodnight, sorry for the mixed-bag…

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at least this one thing


Wednesday night. I had Keaton tonight and we went downtown together. It was awesome. I love getting me-and-Keaton time. I don’t have much today, but I wanted to at least do this one thing.

Sometimes when I drive, I daydream about being in a car wreck. I often think about wrecking when on the phone with Sharaun, or vice versa when talking to her as she’s driving. There’s just this awful imaginary scenario in my head where I can hear, or Sharaun can hear, the sonic version of the crash. The screeching tires, shattering glass, screaming and crying and metal scraping. I don’t know, it’s like a scene from a movie in my head – holding the phone to my ear with my mouth agape. Calling out her name into the phone awaiting an answer. Ick.

Today at lunch, I started had to brake hard to react to slowing traffic. That got me thinking about experiencing an airbag deployment, which made me think about the sunglasses I was wearing and what would happen to them when an airbag smashed into my face. In my head, the cheap frames shattered and pierced my open eyes, leaving me completely blind but otherwise OK. Of course, that got me thinking about being blind – and how incredibly much I’d miss seeing Keaton’s little smiles. It almost brought tears to my eyes to try and imagine not being able to watch her change as she grows up, to just have her frozen in my head at fourteen months.

Good thing none of those things actually happened. Goodnight.

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perfectly pastoral


Tonight, I took Keaton to the suburbs.

No, seriously, it was awesome. Around 7pm, I decided we were going to go for a walk. I got together all my baby-walking gear (bottle of water, sippy of juice, long pants for Keaton in case it cools off before we get home, and the iPod for dad), and we struck out. I decided we’d walk over to see Pat & Cynthia, friends of ours who live nearby. It was a great walk, we passed people waving from trucks, fatsos jogging off college and Big Macs, skinnies jogging because they “enjoy it,” and were even serenaded by a highschool girl practicing her flute on the porch. It was perfectly pastoral: manicured lawns and American flags in the sun, music wafting from open garages where men tweaked their “project” cars, wanna-be longhairs skateboarding around in the cul-de-sac – like walking through some sort of modern-day Mayberry.

On the way back, after some make-nice at our destination, we retraced our steps, now in the shade of the trees and houses as the sun slipped away towards eight o’clock. About two-thirds home, I saw a man hugging a woman on the curb. She craned and kissed his cheek, he said something I was too far away to overhear, and she walked off across the street to her car, fumbling for her keys in her purse while the man just stood and looked on. As I neared, I greeted him, “How ya doin’?” He looked at Keaton, smiled, and replied, pointing across the road towards the girl, “I can remember when she was like that.” I laughed and bent close to Keaton to jokingly say, “Don’t you ever grow up like that, OK?” “Bye-bye,” she replied (as she often does). The man and I shared a laugh, and we walked on. Yeah, then the “Beatles'” remake of Lennon’s “Real Love” demo came on, y’know, the one from the Anthology series… I totally almost cried.

Today, I took I “longish” lunch (again, I have this sense of entitlement about deserving a little “break” from work these days) and went to a local steel place with Anthony. We were pricing out the metal we’d need to build me a “Santa Maria style” pit barbecue. I’ve written about my fascination with these types of “old school” grills before, and had been planning to buy one in preparation for the Summer this year. Lately though, I began thinking about just how simplistic the things are in construction. I floated the idea to Anthony the other day that we could likely make one ourselves on the cheap.

See, Anthony not only has the tools, a plasma cutter and welder and various others, but he’s mechanical. So, in essence, I asked if I could help while Anthony makes the thing – knowing full-well that he’s always looking for excuses to use his gear. Plus, I want to take the chance to learn how to do some simple welding and cutting and metalwork. So, we drew up some plans, mostly based on this BBQ, and calculated what we’d need. About $150 later, we’d picked out all our material and were paid up. We’ll go back and pick up the goods on Wednesday, after it’s all cut from stock and set aside for us. Then, we’ll go to work. With luck, the thing could be done in a weekend or two. Now to get some high-temp paint, find a source of aged oak, and I’m good to go.

Well folks, that’s about it for tonight. I have dishes to do and I’m right up against my 9pm blog-stop deadline. Have a good one, goodnight.

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leafy aisles


Evenin’ folks, how you doing? Me, I’m fine. After a quick jaunt to Germany, I’m back in the good ol’ USofA, where you can eat bison burgers and own guns and have two cars per family. Traveling: blah. Although, one more trip to Shanghai and the flight home to Christmas should get me to Premier Executive on United, which comes with some perks. For me, traveling for work is nothing but a skymiles chase, if not a skymiles obsession. It’s Sunday evening and we’ve got the house open for the nice breeze to waft through. The Decemberists have shuffled up in the iPod, Sharaun finished cooking pork chops and is playing with Keaton on the floor, and the smell of spices and fried meat is hanging in the air – it’s heavenly. While I was gone, Keaton decided she’d abandon crawling altogether for walking, and she’s ambling about the room with a plastered-on smile. Like I said, it’s heavenly.

Today after church, I went up to one of the local mega-ultra warehouse stores that specialize in home and garden sundries. We actually have three of these stores within a few miles of my house, just in case one 100,000sqft+ home and garden center isn’t enough for your discerning American tastes. I had to go solo, as Keaton was sleepy and needed lunch before going down, and Sharaun was in charge of that. My mission: buy some decorative landscape-type plants to adorn the mulch “planter” areas in our backyard. I’ve been asking Sharaun to go with me and pick out plants for a while now, but some sort of schedule misalignment or previous commitment has always prevented it. I got up there, got myself one of those large flatbed carts, and proceeded to wander around the garden section. I paced up and down the leafy aisles, chose some plants I liked, and cursed myself for not knowing the measured area I was intending to plant.

I hate shopping for plants alone. Every time I pick up something and think, “Hmm… this would look nice I think,” I hear Sharaun’s disapproving voice, “Oh, babe… why’d you pick those?” It can be ultimately distracting unless I’m 100% confident in knowing exactly what I want and aren’t seeking approval. Otherwise, I’m just walking around wanting to have her there to say, “What about this?” In the end, I gave up – simply quit. I had a flatbed cart with plants and I just stood there staring at it until I’d convinced myself Sharaun would hate every one of them… and I just left it there and walked away defeated. It’s not that my wife is that imposing a force, but I do want her to be happy with our yard, especially if I’m going to pour my own sweat and energy into dressing it out. To fix this, I plan on taking a morning off this week and planning a family outing to get this thing done. I mean… once I have the dang things, all I have to do is dig ’em into the dirt, right?

Unrelated – I watched this guy’s blog entry shoot to fame last week, making the rounds on all the hottest social bookmarking sites and eliciting praise from all sorts of web denizens, and I thought: what’s my one post? Do I have one that’s good enough to blow up like his did? Admittedly, he had a great story to tell… but I think some of mine are OK too… right? If you’re a regular reader, and have a favorite, drop me a line so I can add it to the list of “greatest hits” linked at the top here… OK? Thanks.

Goodnight.

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62% drunk and full


Second night in Germany :: Last night in Germany. Short trip, writing with heavy, drunken fingers. Outside my hotel window rises a chorus of drunken German men singing at an open-air eatery, no doubt they’re all smoking: so Europe it hurts. I did some quick math today at the bar: of my time in Germany, 3hrs was spent presenting, and probably 2hrs in “prep.” That’s 5hrs total of work. I slept for 6hrs last night, and will get about 5hrs tonight. The other time was spent eating and drinking. This means that my trip could be summarized as such: working – 12%; sleeping – 26%, drunk and full – 62%. Man, that’s pretty good math for 2.5 litres.

I honestly don’t have much to write, I had this big ambitious piece asking why Christianity seems to be the only religion which “evangelizes” to such a high degree – but there’s no way I’m polishing that in this state. So, instead, I’ll post some quick images from the trip. Nothing fancy, mind you, I left the “real” camera at home with Sharaun so she can document Keaton’s each and every day (a far more worthy cause), and had only my 2MP cellphone with which to document my short stay in Bavaria. But, I did manage to get some decent shots, I reckon. Check it:



The “pork platter” at the local bar: pork sausage, pork liver “dumplings,” pork leg, pork chop, and back-bacon. (Portion for three, but comical when posed as a meal for one.)



4.5L “jug” of dunkles-bier from the local bar. Oh good God…



I really appreciated the pork platter…

Well, yes… I should be getting to bed then, shouldn’t I? Seems I am due to be off to the airport at 6am tomorrow morning, 200km/hr on the autobahn again. I really should get some sleep before I leave, of course, that’s after I call the wife and flip back and forth as fast as possible between the porn channels (which give you a ~2sec preview each time you pass by them) to try and catch an entire scene. Germans sure do love their porn…

Goodnight.