Category: general

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

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champagne and scallops


Sorry for yesterday’s lack of words, it was just an uninspired evening. I had one paragraph and figured it wasn’t worth it. Right now, Sharaun’s out and Keaton’s asleep and the Halloween prop timer just kicked on and I’m sitting here listening to Muddy Watters (sometimes run-ons just feel right, y’know?). Now Skinny Puppy’s Addiction from the 12″ collection came on, what a track. It’s a good night. Oh, and, rain either got into the coffin popper’s wiring today, or the motions sensor is shot – because that thing just started flipping out tonight… turning off and on with such rapidity that the corpse looked like he was having a postmortem seizure. I had to disable the solenoid to the pneumatic cylinder, bummer.

I have a sneaking feeling I’ve espoused on this theme before, but I can’t be bothered to look for it among the previous entries – maybe this one will be better. I think it’s funny that we’re at the time now where the Lollapalooza set is starting to settle into their married lives and have children. My idea of what parents should be was, of course, shaped by my parents. And let me tell you, the parents of my generation are definitely removed from that breed. More and more of the parents I meet today have shaggy hair and ten-gauge hoop earrings and tattoos. These are “kids” in their mid-thirties who’re still holding onto bits and pieces of the fads that defined them as youth: grunge, hip-hop, etc. I think it’s hilarious to see a dual-childseat equipped minivan rolling down the road with the Cure or Front 242 drifting from the speakers.

I realize that my personal realization here is likely not unlike the realizations of the generations before me when they stopped and noticed: “Hey, I’m not young anymore… folks my age seem to be hemorrhaging babies, getting divorces, and not being able to sit on the floor without their ‘joints getting sore.'” I’m sure that there comes a point (right around thirty, I’d suspect) in most people’s lives when they realize that their age bracket has moved to the “next phase.” I’m just at that point, and my “age bracket” makes for an interesting menagerie of a parents and children. In fact, I bet when my parents became parents, it was hard for them to imagine a bunch of thirtysomethings in poodle skirts and saddle shoes chewing Blackjack gum and raising kids. Every generation must go through that shock of “we’re not kids anymore, we’re raising kids now.” (Have I restated the same thought enough times yet?)

Get ready geezers, shape up grandparents – we’re the new generation of families, we’re the new parents.

Booked tickets for our trip home for Florida for Christmas this morning, ended up going with United at a premium of about $150 so I could use my “class of service” upgrades and get the mileage. Sucks to pay a grand just to get home before we can even start spending money while there, but I guess it’s a lesson learned for me. Next year, I’ll be putting away a small amount each month in preparation. Anyway, I was able to use my languishing 100k upgrades to get us 1st class for the entire itinerary – which, I suppose, is some small comfort… and perhaps justifies the $150 adder. At least we’ll be flying in style, maxin’ and relaxin’ with champagne and scallops. Sigh… next up: Thanksgiving tickets. Good thing I’m stinking rich. Oh wait, I’m totally not… sigh x2.

Last night I was on one of the message boards I frequently lurk on (I’m a member of nothing, but a reader of a lot), and a well known boarder posted that he was going to commit suicide. Some boarders told him not to, lots cheered him on. I wonder if that guy was serious?

For some reason, the TiVo’s been missing more shows than usual lately (I suspect some mega-conflict with the sheer number of programs we’ve set to record). Sharaun realized it missed a show she likes, and exactly 12min later I had it downloaded and was playing it in perfect quality on the TV via the laptop. It’s times like that, when I’m “stealing” TV shows, that I really value the coolness of the internet. When I stayed in Taiwan for a month last year, I was able to watch any US TV show I wanted.

Goodnight.

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the mojo is totally genetic


Friday, eff that noise they call the “week,” it’s time for the girls to pull the bottoms of their shirts up through the necks and tie them off in sexy 5th-grade playground faux-bikini knots. It’s time for boys to gingerly unbutton buttons that are on an alien side of the shirt to them. Time for the smell of Malibu Musk lingering on my lips, time to have to change my JC Penny boxers because we held hands on the way home. It’s the weekend and it’s gonna be massive. Me and the guys are going to hide in those bushes at the front of the subdivision and blindly shoot BB guns at the road when we hear the whine of passing cars. After that we’re gonna try and score some beer and on Sunday I swear I’m gonna fuck Tina… no, I swear guys – I am totally, totally, fucking her this time. Shut up; just wait.

I have this amazing Hold Steady album to thank for that 1st paragraph (well, that and the Steel Reserve I’ll get into below). Listening to this album and its sordid tales of drinking, drugging, and general teenaging… the words are like poems about the very debauchery I once embraced. You call it glorifying irresponsibility, I call it conjuring memories with style.

Bear with me folks, Pat and I hung out tonight and he bought two Steel Reserve tallboys for us to drink. And at 8.1% alcohol by terrible-tasting volume, one Steel Reserve tallboy is enough for anyone on a weeknight. All that malt liquor has had a couple effects on me which will be noticeable to you, my blog readership. 1. I don’t care so much about sentence structure and that kinda crap. 2. I’m going to write about some neato stuff that normally be hard to explain (i.e. I’d have to write a lot to get the idea across) because I won’t care that I’ve not established proper background. Here goes.

When I was a kid, I always thought my parents’ bed smelled odd. More specifically, my dad’s side of the bed. It’s not a smell I can describe, but it’s something unique and immediately recognizable. Also, I would not, then, have classified it as particularly pleasant. Now, however, that I’ve aged into a man myself – I know what this smell was. It is the patented family sleep-induced pheromones. That’s right, we’ve got our own special blend of aromatic excretions. Let me elaborate…

I first realized I had the family pheromones sometime in college. During these years, I slept on a waterbed. Every so often, when I’d wash my sheets, I’d notice an interesting “mark” on vinyl waterbed mattress directly under the area where I normally slept. Perhaps “mark” is a misnomer… a more accurate description might be “stain.” I’d always known that I “slept hot,” being prone to nighttime sweating and overheating – but this “stain” appeared to be more than just sweat. The defining moment came, however, late one night around 3am when I was up late coding a VHDL project with my lab group. As we pulled our all-nighter, I was the coder who happened to be manning the computer, while the other members of my group huddled behind me watching. One of the guys in our group, an outspoken Cuban who’s bluntness I respected, said, as he hovered close to my head, something like, “Dude, has anyone ever told you that you emit a ‘funk’ late at night?” “No,” I replied, “I’ve never head that… but now that you mention it, I think you might be right.”

It took a few more years (and an equally outspoken but much less Cuban wife) for me to realize that this was not some random observation. I not only emit some olfactory “funk,” but also some palpable one. An intoxicating mix of sweat, oils, and raw, raw man-scent. So strong is this “funk” that Sharaun actually complains about me ruining sheets. Apparently, I ruin pillows, sheets, and even mattresses with this incredible genetic advantage. I maintain that these “juices,” as they are, are the secret to my stunning success with women. Sure, I’m fat and balding… but one whiff of me at night and the ladies are reduced to quivering masses of “do me.” Sharaun gets mad at me because I call this my “mojo.” I have nothing else meaningful to say in this paragraph.

And guess what folks? Know how I can tell regular old fussy Keaton from “I’m dead-tired put me to bed” fussy Keaton? If she’s “I’m dead-tired put me to bed” fussy Keaton, her head will have a thin sheen of oil and sweat on it. I’m not joking, she’s got the mojo too… the mojo is totally genetic.

I told you I wasn’t going to care about structure or grammar… this thing is going up just like I wrote it, only spellcheck – no proofread for flow or even sense-making.

Damn… that Steel Reserve gave me the most awful headache. Goodnight.

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buy a new shirt and practice using your wang


Hellooo from Tuesday. I’m home alone, Sharaun’s at the gym, Keaton’s sleeping. Listening to my iPod, typing on my laptop, flirting with the idea of doing the dishes before Sharaun gets home… probably won’t (edit: I did). I’m very relaxed now, having the house to myself and only the living room light on; the front room is full of shadows and the Fallish weather outside is spilling in through the open back door. Sometimes a gray sky seems to “mute” outside sound to me, the way fog seems to – like cold and cloudy days are somehow more silent and contemplative. That’s how I feel now, reminds me of killing time on Fall days between classes back in college, makes me want to smoke my pipe (I always feel all introspective and Sherlocky when I smoke my pipe, I swear half the attraction there is psychological). Other than that, it’s a normal normal night.

At work, I associate with a lot of “lifer” engineers. Some of these folks are the kind of engineers who got into the field back in the 80s and maybe even 70s. Sometimes I look at these guys, with their unkempt gray mops and their hands void of any wedding ring, and think about how there’s a chance they’ve never had, nor ever will have, a significant other. You can see the hard core singles: body gone to pot (not that I’m one to criticise) and exhibiting the social abilities and etiquette of a grizzly bear. You can watch the bits of pizza dangling from their coffee-stained moustaches dance as they reach around themselves awkwardly to scratch their ass or pull up their ill-fitting faux-demin elastic-waist jeans. Hear their loud guffaws across the cafeteria as their similarly-afflicted tablemates make a joke about the hot chick on Firefly or reference Daleks or John Cleese. Have these men given up? Reverted back to some closeted adult rehash of their highschool A/V club? I feel for these guys, even though they likely don’t know what they’re missing. Hey lifers: Buy a new shirt and practice using your wang!

Spent a good bif of my not-on-meetings time at work this morning listening to the non-transcode leak of the new Hold Steady. I never got into any of the Hold Steady’s previous efforts, so I came to this album as a virgin to their sound. Not knowing what to expect, but with a decent amount of anticipation due the near unanimous nutting of respected critics, I queued up the folder. What I heard sounded like a follow-up to Darkness on the Edge of Town or the E Street one. One thing is clear, this is rock and roll – good ol’ American rock and roll that just sounds like America. I’m still listening, and still mulling it over, but the immediate early Springsteen-likeness perked up my ears fairly fast. I think it’s gonna be a good one, much better than the disappointing Swan Lake leak people are also swooning about… I’m still kinda bored with that one. How can it not be better when it has songs called “Party Pit” with lyrics like “I’m gonna walk around and drink.” Now that, my friends, is American youth… walking around at parties and drinking, and that’s it… drinking and walking… walking and drinking. Some of these songs make me want to be “young” again. Amen.

Continuing the tunes theme, Pitchfork reviewed the new Decemberists, and rightfully gave it high marks. It’s an outstanding album, one that I didn’t take to immediately, but only out of shortsighted ignorance. After a few listens, the thing took on a new life to me, with songs that tell stories moreso than 90% of the songwriting out there today, and a slightly “bigger” sound than on their previous efforts. I love it now, and realize I was in denial before. We all learn in time, all in time.

Even though it took me a while, I did manage to get a “best of” collection of pictures posted from our 4×4/camping bachelor party for Ben last weekend. You can check out the snaps here if you’re so inclined.

Oh, and for some reason tonight I asked Sharaun what she’d think if I bought a pistol. She was surprisingly receptive, but stated that she’d want to go shooting several times to get comfortable handling anything we did end up with, and that she’d want us to take a reasonable amount of care in storing/securing/locking/whatever the gun in the house. I was pretty surprised. I’m not really rushing out to buy a gun or anything, as I’m only half-sure I want one, but I was kinda surprised that she’d be OK with it regardless.

Goodnight.

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conflicting interests


Sometimes, I like to think about how future discoveries in the fields of science, technology, and medicine might cause the brains of certain demographics to explode. Let me explain. We’ve all heard the research that a glass of wine a day or week or whatever can reduce the risk of heart disease or kidney cancer or something. The whole recent debate about the HPV vaccine has focused additional attention on these kind of findings where there exists a group of people for whom the data is at odds with their beliefset. While I ate lunch at my desk the other day, I tried to come up with a fun list of some other hypothetical brain-exploding advancements in human knowledge. Here’s what I got:

  • In 2026, a medical research thinktank develops a complicated “genetic surgery” which can completely and permanently eradicate cancer from a sick person’s cells. However, only people whose brains are wired such that they are attracted to those of like gender have the necessary neuron-wiring and mental capacity to comprehend the procedure and successfully perform the operation. Fundie and homophobe brains explode.

  • In 2014, university boffins reveal indisputable proof that having only one sexual partner in a lifetime puts a person at an 75% greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s in old age. Chaste brains explode

  • In 2057, a team of geologists discover that, as a side-effect of the total abandonment fossil fuels after the fuel-cell conversion, the huge buildup of unused crude oil under the surface of the earth is releasing an undetectable gas which is inexplicably killing all humankind of non middle-eastern descent. Treehugger brains explode.

  • In 2029 medical science isolates a unique antibody which effectively fights and kills the HIV virus, but the only people from which this antibody can be harvested and subsequently mass produced for medical application are women who’ve, at one point in their lives, had an abortion. Pro-life brains explode.

  • By 2061, it becomes clearly evident that humans that are a product of mixed-race relationships are genetically superior to those of single-race procreation. They are more disease resistant, stronger, and are very obviously evolving faster and more successfully. Racist brains explode.

Goodnight lovers.

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back from the wilds


Good evening folks, Sunday nights make me sad because I know I have to go to work tomorrow. I don’t have much tonight, a terse summary of my weekend spent camping and 4x4ing with the guys in honor of Ben’s pending nuptials, and the twenty-eight week update to Keaton’s gallery.

This weekend was pure awesome. In what could’ve been a disaster, we had to scrap our original plan late Friday night due to a wildfire that had shutdown our intended destination. Whereas I had planned to pack Friday night, I ended up sitting over at Anthony’s as we poured over maps and books and websites for a new location. We ended up plotting three trail areas which were relatively close enough to each other that we could get from one to the other if we didn’t like one.

And that’s how we ended up four-wheeling around the Sierra butte country, deep-deep-deep in the backwoods and charging down paths unknown with the bold confidence that USGS topo maps and GPS can give you. We covered some 100mi+ of abandoned logging road, forest and fire service access roads, and some things I’m not even sure were ever defined roads as much as they were trails blazed by trucks before us. We didn’t do anything too insane, but we did have a few hairy descents down boulder-laden washouts and some… “accidents.” We ruined a muffler on the Rover, and wrecked the rear differential locker on the Blazer – not to mention both trucks ended up pretty scratched. (Oh, and I learned what automatic “lockers” are, what they’re for, and what they sound like when they’re shot).

We “stumbled” on an amazing campground tucked next to a river off some dirt roads, rebuilt the firepit with some large rocks, and gathered downed wood before we pitched tents and started cooking up a mess of steak and beans. Drank beer and port from my flask, smoked my pipe, and had breakfast burritos for breakfast. Some of the guys attempted to fly fish, but nothing was biting. Next day we pointed the trucks down random trails and ended up having to ford a river before we made it back to paved road. It was flat-out outstanding. I’ll have some pictures up in time to link to in tomorrow’s entry.

And that’s it. I’m beat-down tired and I’m ready to hit the sack. Goodnight.

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off to the woods


Happy Friday friends. I’m extremely happy today because we strike out early tomorrow morning (6am) for Ben’s 4×4/hiking/camping bachelor party weekend. We’re gonna bring GPS-enabled laptops and 12mi walkie-talkies, and we’re gonna drink lots of beer and explore some long-abandoned California gold country mines (despite the many ominous episodes of Lassie you’d think would’ve dissuaded us). I seriously can’t wait, we sent in a skeleton team a couple weekends ago to scout the terrain and the recon they brought back makes the place look astoundingly beautiful. I’m looking forward to dancing drunk around a fire and sleeping under the stars. We’re gonna cook steak on a Coleman stove, eat Ziplock-omlets for breakfast, and maybe even indulge at night in some clove cigarettes. Can’t wait.

Goodnight.

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things like public transportation


1 for 2 tonight, as I was able to get a haircut but lost the daylight before I could get the lawn mowed as I’d planned. Keaton’s officially sick, the doctor says she has an ear infection and she’s gotta take two different prescriptions. I feel bad for her, because her nose is stuffy and her eyes are goop-laden. We even got her that new ear infection inoculation too, because I was plagued with the things as a kid. On the plus side, she doesn’t act sick – she seems as happy as ever and smiles like there’s not snot on her face and boogers in her eyes.

Today I decided, on a whim, to swing by the public library. When Sharaun and I first moved to California, one of the first things I did was get a library card. I went through a period where I used it quite often, requesting books online and picking them up. That was a while ago though, and since then, I’ve let it fester. But, driving back from lunch solo today, I decided to stop in to pay my $2 and bring myself back “current.” I mainly wanted to see if they had a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five available for checkout, as I’ve never read it and Ben’s recommended it to me several times. I figured I could take it along camping this weekend and maybe start reading it. Anyway…

I’d forgotten how much I love the library both as a concept and a brick-and-mortar resource. It has the same kind of socialist appeal for me that things like public transportation and open-source software do. It fits right into that “share for a common good” and “simplify” message that sings to my inner hippie. I mean, why pay for and stockpile books you’ll never read again when you can borrow them for free? The only reason I can think of is that you might not want the Bush administration to flag you for TSA screening because you checked out an annotated Koran. But, other than that – what’s not to love?

What’s more, when I look at my Amazon.com wishlist, the minimalist in me thinks “Why own books?” I mean, if anyone should know the virtues of the public library, it should be me. As far back as I can remember my dad has been a both a voracious reader and consumer of libraries. I recall him bringing home foot-tall stacks of books every week, reading and reading and reading.

Anyway… they didn’t have the Vonnegut book, nor did they have any Vonnegut books, which I’d guess are perpetually hot items. Marx is probably turning over in his grave.

A while back, during what seems like the forever-ago times when Keaton wasn’t here yet, I wrote about how I’d implemented a “baby budget” in the household. Sharaun and I took our spending down to a minimum and socked all her paycheck away as if it were non-existent, kind of a practice run for when Keaton did arrive and we became a single-income family. The experiment was a huge success, showing us not only that we’d be more than comfortable with just my income, but also that we had some great opportunities to adjust some spending areas. Well, Keaton’s now six months old and, as tends to happen with all once regimented things, Sharaun and I have let our budget slide a bit. So, in the interest of reclaiming our money with the least lifestyle impact possible, I’ve been doing some detailed budget analysis with the great freeware app, AceMoney. I consider us to be on the plus-side of avaricious now, and I’d like to center us more around a miserly creed. Hopefully one day we can not only pay off our own college loans, but start a fund so Keaton and her sibling(s) won’t have the same post-education burden.

Less than 300 spams from 100k, goodnight.