Category: blogging

Where write about writing, and my website sounds familiar.

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on abundance

More lines than one!Howdy for Tuesday morning folks.  I got lazy tonight, left the dishes to rot in the sink until tomorrow.  Not my normal M.O., but I was preoccupied.

The other night our neighbors invited us over for dinner to celebrate a birthday with them.  We had some great food and sat around watching some gameshow broadcast via satellite from the Philippines.  At some point I ducked out into the backyard with the neighbor to check on the ribs on the barbecue, and noticed all the fruit trees growing.  I’ve been over before, but had forgotten that they had so many trees planted.  Turns out one of those trees is a Gala apple.  And, being that it’s planted about 30ft from my Fuji tree, I think I’ve perhaps found the answer to my questions the other day about this year’s apple crop.  Hopefully the Gala and Fuji can continue to cross-pollinate and make better crops for each of us.  Kinda cool I don’t have to worry about planting another tree to do it.

Yesterday, as I prepared and posted the pictures from the Halloween party, I realized just how behind I am on posting new pictures to the gallery section of the website.  I haven’t updated the pictures of Keaton since back in June when we went to Aruba, and before that not since February.  This used to bother me, actually, I’d feel way behind on updating the content, like I was letting folks down or something.  Now, however, I’m almost of a mind that static “gallery” installations on personal webpages are fast becoming a thing of the past.

There’s just no guaranteed permanence with any of the current solutions: free online services are likely to fade away and die at some point, so Flickr, Picasa, and the like are unattractive to me; and hosted services like Gallery and Coppermine and the like are only around as long as you maintain them and don’t lose the database (has happened to me at least once).  All this makes me think that perhaps the future of photo-sharing online isn’t a centralized repository that has staying power, but rather a Facebook-style quick-and-easy type of instant-sharing.  Something that casual enough that you don’t feel overly committed to uploading and sharing, something quick enough that you’re apt to upload frequently, and something fleeting enough that you’d not feel gutted if everything were lost in the internet ether.

I’ve almost convinced myself that it’s the way to go… timely, frequent, small bursts of quality photos posted to the blog instead of doing massive dumps to a dedicated location.  Furthermore, I’m going to try and make this happen here on sounds familiar from here on out.  I mean, nothing says I’ll keep up with it – look at how much my daily writing has fallen off lately (things have been busy, y’all) – but I’m gonna give it a go.

Goodnight.

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we’d smoke anything

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.Well internet, I thought I’d drop in after the week absence Mexico so lovingly provided us.

Yes, we’re back… and yes, I’m back to work.  Confined once again in my tiny shoulder-height grey box, staring at my monitor, typing, and talking on the phone.  It’s a far cry from the routine we’d fallen so easily into last week on vacation.

For reference, that routine went exactly like this: Wake up at 8am, get Keaton and Sharaun up.  Change into swimsuits and lube up with the sunblock.  Meet our co-vacationing friends for breakfast at 9am.  Poolside by 10am at the latest.  Bloody Mary or Malibu and pineapple to start the day.  Swim; read; lounge.  More drinks.  Lunch around 1pm.  Swim; read; lounge, drinks.  Back to the hotel to shower and change around 6pm.  Meet for dinner at 7pm; switch to martinis.  In bed by 11pm to do it all again tomorrow.

Blissful; it was blissful.  But being back is OK too.  We got home at past midnight on Saturday (OK Sunday), and I spent Sunday putting up all the Halloween decorations.  Got everything up too, but things need the usual tweaking and yearly repairs.  Coffin guy needs a new head, time has disintegrated the plastic near entirely.  The ceiling dropper’s rope broke from friction  and strain again, so I have to replace that once more.  The ghost needs to be re-tied at better heights so her motion is more natural, and the witch’s dress needs a new pinning to keep it in place.  But, over the years I’ve streamlined the setup so much (with permanently installed hooks, platforms, and ties) that everything went up easily.  So easily, in fact, that I’m thinking of trying to finish off an old prop concept I started and never finished…

Today at work Buffalo Springfield’s “I Am A Child” shuffled up on the iPod. Any time I hear Buffalo Springfield, I get mega-nostalgic. For whatever reason, the part of the past when I bought their greatest hits record, back in middle school, is indelibly burned into my brain. I write a lot about how certain music melds with memory for me, forever linking a song or album or sound to some event – and Buffalo Springfield is one of the strongest of those associations. I have the clearest memories of sitting in my room back in Florida listening to that album over and over. One memory in particular is actually strange enough to share.

Before I was exposed to marijuana, I was already fascinated with the concept of smoking something to “get high.” After all, practically every 60s musical and cultural icon I idolized as a teen glamorized the experience… how could I be expected to not want to try it? At one point, I can remember hearing, somehow, that cloves could get you high. This led to Kyle and I rolling up and smoking cloves, yes… plain old dried clove, whole and un-ground from the spice rack, and nearly coughing to death as we tried in vain to catch a buzz. Ditto with the recipe for “banandine” we got from the Anarchist Cookbook. Try as we might, we couldn’t seem to figure it out.  But really… try we did.  I mean, we’d pretty much smoke anything.

I remember one afternoon, while listening to the Buffalo Springfield album that spurred this whole ramble, actually smoking and inhaling some spent firecrackers I had in my room. Over the years I’ve wondered where I would even get such an idea… I used to be obsessed with fireworks (well, fire and fireworks in general, really).  I used to ride my bike around the neighborhood early on the morning of July 5th, collecting the burned shells of the previous nights fountains and bottle rockets and roman candles.  Not only did I love the labels and packaging, but I loved the burned-out smell of the things.  Maybe that’s what made me decide to try and “smoke” one.  Buffalo Springfield in the background, bedroom window open, and I’m sitting there “smoking” a used ladyfinger.

Goodnight.

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sunset on her breath

Tesnus.Busy nights Monday and Sunday, no time to write. Or, more accurately, writing eschewed in favor of other things.

I’m busily working to get two weeks of work done this week, in eager anticipation of our coming week getaway in Mexico, which begins Saturday. We’ll be jetting off with friends for a stay in an all-inclusive beachside joint, where our week is sure to be filled with early morning poolside chair-claiming, umbrella drinks, tacos, and lots of time spent doing nothing. Well, something… reading, dozing, playing with Keaton, swimming, lounging… but really a lot of nothing. It’s not been a particularly hectic week at work, so I’m not dying to get there… but, as always, the prospect of a surf and sun vacation has my mind drifting ahead in time.

Back in real life, Sharaun returned home from her weekend away with girlfriends in Florida (must be hard for her, going from a Gulf beach to a Pacific one over the course of a week). I managed to keep Keaton clean, fed, and happy while she was gone… single-handedly dispelling literally hundreds of dad ineptitude stereotypes in the process. She was greeted home by a clean house, empty laundry hampers, and a very thankful husband and daughter.  And, while we had fun just Keaton and I, it was a welcome homecoming for us too.  Moms do a lot, y’know?

It’s nighttime on Tuesday now, Keaton and I are watching Alice In Wonderland… the smoking caterpillar is on.  Keaton thinks Alice’s name is Alison Wonderland, first and last just like that.  A pretty reasonable misconception if you ask me.  After I put her to bed (which I just did) I plan to put some music on (which I also just did) and listen to it while I write (which I am doing right now; time and tenses get really messed up as I write in bits over the course of the evening).

Anyway, I’ve got the newish record by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros on.  I grabbed it a month or so ago on the band name alone (I do this somewhat often), and, at the time, ended up digging about 50% of the tracks and filing it away as something with prospect.  For whatever reason I spun it again yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to hear it aged very well, and I think I may have judged it kinda low originally.  Been listening with gusto today, and I like what I hear.  After looking up the band (which is one of hose Polyphonic Spree style two-digit member cult kinda hippie collectives) I found out that the lead singer is a dude from a band Ben and I used to like called Ima Robot.  Small world, this LA indie music biz… small world.

At work the other day I booked a coming trip to China and Taiwan.  My first travel to the Orient in nearly two years.  Not sure how I’ve managed to not be there in all that time, but I guess I tend to offer the international trips to the troops moreso than take them myself these days.  Will be good to get back to Shanghai and Taipei though, I do miss the frequency at which I used to visit both those fun cities.  And it’ll be good for me to re-invest in my work network while over there.  Oh and of course there’s the excellent food.  November comes the day I’ll take off; and I’m sure I’ll go into the whole pre-trip “I don’t wanna gos” here on the old blog about one week prior to travel… look for it.

Goodnight folks.  I wrote.

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aside from deemsters and amps

Crickets.Happy Thursday friends.  I’m writing as the clock closes in on midnight; a time when I, arguably, should be in bed.  But no, I has some words come… so I’m gonna make it happen.  Here goes.

Sometimes, when I find out that a friend I didn’t know has a blog keeps a blog I get really excited.  I’ve been known to go and read everything they’ve ever posted in one sitting.  Occasionally, this is impossible because they’ve been posting for a long time or with insane frequency.  More often, they posted a lot for a little while and then dried up.  Still, it’s interested to read what people write… old, new, sparse, thick… interesting either way.

Blogging, in this form at least, feels somewhat antiquated these days.  With the Tweeter and the Facebooks and whatever else the kids are using these days (I mean aside from deemsters and amps), the old page-form long-post kinda blog is becoming a fossil of the Gen-X internet crowd.  The new thing is real-time, always-writing updates.  Bursts, call-and-response volleys, that’s the way to go.  I can see the charm, and excitement, that back-and-forth mini-conversations can offer, particularly if they are enhanced with real-time media like pictures or videos.  And despite being a cooler-than-thou Facebook holdout, I am attracted to the notion of perhaps one day “signing up.”

Even if I do, one day some day, sign up for the Facebooks… I intend to continue posting here.  I love this medium… the long-entry medium, the “blog” medium.  I like writing in paragraph form; like being able to develop thoughts over the course of rambling.  Recently, I installed a fancy statistics plugin looking for some insight into my posting habits.  It tells me that I’ve made 1,191 posts in all.   That’s over the course of about six years.  Apparently, I tend to post most often on Tuesdays, and more in the months of January and October than the others.   And, despite the fact that it seems to me like I go through some significant dry-spells and downtime (as I’ve felt lately), the overall averages say that I’ve pretty much posted with the same frequency all a long (calculated as total posts over total time sounds familiar has been around).

So, the blog remains.  I continue to work at it and continue to want to.  Goodnight.

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studded belt like a vacancy sign

Free HBO; ice.Morning.

It’s Tuesday night internet and, I swear, I had the best of intentions… I swear.

Someday it would be interesting to chart the frequency of my posts here on sounds familiar against the density of my work calendar for a given week.  I’d be willing to be there’s a high correlation between days and weeks when I’m absolutely slammed at work and those which go void of writing here.  Not because I write at work, but more because my brain gets overwrought during the day and isn’t readily available for writing at night.  If I had I had it my way I’d still be posting every day.

I did write some over this extended weekend, so I’ll go ahead recycle that as content now first:

Monday morning and I’m not at work.  The weather outside is unbelievable, and I’ve already been productive enough with the weekend and general, and my scant waking hours today, that I’m deserved a tiny break.  So the house is wide open and Jesse Colin Young’s “Song for Juli” shuffled up on the iPod (I had to take a break from my marathon Beatles tear, read more about that below).

I wrote last week about the Beatles’ albums leaking in their new remastered format, and since then I’ve been listening non-stop, analyzing and enjoying (but mostly enjoying).  The remasters came down in FLAC (as any self-respecting lossless files would), but in order to get them on the iPod they needed to be transcoded to ALAC (Apple lossless) format – the only lossless codec the iPod understands.  Since transcoding removes all the song metadata, I have to re-tag all the resultant files.  After all that, I was finally able to load the lossless files on the iPod, in their full sonic glory, and lock myself away in an imaginary room with headphone walls and a nice wide stereo image painted across my brainscape.  And, no sooner had I got the stereo remasters loaded on the iPod then did the mono remasters leak.

So there I was, Saturday, home by myself (well, Keaton is napping).  I’d just converted and loaded the entire mono and stereo boxsets onto the iPod, and it was time to play them loud.  I started with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in it’s original mono.  How the bass didn’t wake up Keaton I have no idea… but the plodding bottom-end of “Fixing A Hole” has never sounded more in-the-room.  I can hear nuances in the double-tracked vocals on the White Album moreso than ever before.  Makes me want to hear it on an audiophile rig (which my setup is not).  In the forums online, there are already fierce (for online forums, at least) debates ongoing about what sounds better and what sounds worse.  But, for me, one listen to “I Saw Her Standing There” at top-volume seals the deal… I swear I could be hearing a studio playback.

Monday this past three-day weekend Sharaun took Keaton for the morning so I decided to go for a bike ride.  I did a short five mile loop and made a stop at the local REI to pickup some supplies for the month’s-end backpacking trip in the Columbia River Gorge.  It was supposed to be just a ten mile loop there and back, but while there I got a text from some friends saying there were headed into town for a ride and wondered if I’d want to join them.  After a texting volley I found out they’d be arriving about four miles from where I was in about twenty minutes – perfect.  I rode to meet them, then did a ten mile loop around a local lake (this area is so fantastic for riding… trails everywhere and you hardly ever have to be on the road).  Home again after that and before I knew it I’d been gone for three and a half hours and ridden twenty-eight miles.  The day was so fantastic weather-wise, I felt like I could just go forever and ever.

I guess I’m outta here now.  Nothing more has come in the 40min I’ve stared at this page.  Goodnight y’allz.

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requires adult supervision

Back when things were things.Happy Tuesday world.

At some point early along in my adolescent life, both my mother and father had to work during the summer. I think this was the summer between my 6th and 7th grade years of junior highschool.  That would’ve made me about thirteen or so, and my brother around ten.  6th grade was my first year in Florida, so I hadn’t yet built up any real network of friends, and I entered that first summer after my first year at junior high without much prospects for socialized fun aside from interacting with my brother.  And, since it’d been he and I up until that point anyway… I don’t think it bothered me too much.  Anyway, being that our folks were working during the day, this meant that he and would be home alone during the day.

Well, it meant we would’ve been home during the day… had my parents not got us a babysitter.

That’s right; here I am with thirteen long years of life experience… and, in my mind, solidly qualified to care not only for myself, but also for my brother (should the need arise).  My parents, however, saw it differently.  I remember feeling insulted when my mom told us she’d hired a sitter to come over during the days. I can imagine my teenage brain reeling; what would my (non-existent) friends say?  How would I explain this (to David the Gnome)?  But, fight it as I might, they were going through with it. Looking back, thinking about things as a parent, I can see the desire to have some adult supervision for a thirteen year old punk and his ten year old brother.  I mean, I wasn’t setting forest fires or stealing Now and Laters yet, but I did have that teenage raskishness about me.  Anyway, in the end it turns out that our last summer of being babysat made for some good memories… so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

The first babysitter I remember was a pixie-like college-age girl; short blond hair, very pale, and tiny like a compressed spring, a gymnast.  I don’t remember her name, but I do remember (or rather, the thirteen year old in me remembers) that she wasn’t particularly attractive.  However, since thirteen year old boys are notorious for having ridiculously high standards, I’m sure that unless she looked like Alyssa Milano from Who’s The Boss I’d think she was dogmeat.

Anyway, the one thing I remember about this babysitter was her taste in music.  She was deep into what I know now as the “Madchester” scene, and I recall her listening to things like Candy Flip’s cover of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and some Happy Mondays stuff.  I’ll never forget sitting in the passenger seat as she drove us to the mall one afternoon, watching her work her hand in rhythmic waves to the beat of that crazy Beatles cover… I thought that was so cool.  As I got older, and began researching the musical trends of my youth (as all good music nerds at some point do), I realized that she was actually pretty cutting-edge at the time… Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets… pretty cool.

The next babysitter (not sure if we drove the first one away or she could only do part of the summer) was completely different.  A big-haired party girl, she spent most of her time “watching” us lounging around the pool in the backyard in a skimpy bikini.  Truth be told, I likely kept a much better eye on her that summer than she did on me; it had to be at least 2:1.  Oh yeah man, she must have been about nineteen and, to me, she was masturbation incarnate.  Again, I can’t seem to remember her name, but I remember her reeking of cheap teenage perfume and hairspray.  What’s more, whereas our first sitter treated me appropriately, as a thirteen year old boy – this babysitter saw in me a burgeoning young adult, and interacted with me more like a peer.  To me, this was amazing, and likely did wonders to boost my self confidence in the psychological long-run.  In fact, I can remember most distinctly one afternoon when she called to talk to my mother.

After telling her I’d go get my mom, but before I actually could, her raspy voice came through the phone, “Hey, guess what I did last night?”  Holy crap… this girl was talking to me… asking me a question like we were about to have an honest-to-God conversation or something.  My heart raced, my brain ached for the appropriate response… “What,” I asked, trying to sound like I talked to incredibly hot nineteen year old girls on the phone all the time.

“I went to see 2 Live Crew down in Miami.”

My mind raced, I knew something about this… I’d followed the recent national drama around 2 Live Crew on the MTV news, I’d even listened to their debut offering on Luke Skyywalker records back before I left California (how cool was I!?).  Bottom line: if I responded right, I stood a chance at being relevant here.

I asked her about the performance, did the cops show up?, how crazy was it?, did they do “Throw the Dick?”  She proceeded to tell me how wild the show was, how there were girls taking their tops off and, yes, the cops did come (I’m not sure if this was the famous show where the band was arrested or not).  And thereafter that minute and a half marked the most engaging conversation I’d had with a female in my post-pubescent life.  Here I was, a barely-teenager talking about stuff I really didn’t have much clue about, and doing best to discover my own game before I knew what game even was.  And I did it, too.  We talked for a bit before I handed the phone over to my mom; I handled it with aplomb.

Ah… that blissfully empowering memory almost makes me forget the teenage shame of once rummaging through her duffel bag in search of her thong…

Funny, I guess both of those babysitter memories involve music.  What do ya know.  Anyway, I think we may even have had one more sitter over the course of those three months, but she must have been rather unremarkable in the end.

Dear Lord I wrote!  Call the papers.

OK, before I go, I wanted to pass along this thread I saw on reddit the other day.  Y’know, we all drew that thing in 6th grade too… it’s like some vast international mind-meld or something.  Crazy.

Goodnight.

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sorry guys… i ain’t got it

Ho hum.Happy another summer week everyone.

Writing has, as you’ve no doubt noticed, not been coming easy these past few weeks.  Our evenings have been booked moreso than usual, weeknight or not, and I just haven’t had time nor mind to sit down and get something proper knocked out each night.  I’m trying to not let it get to me, but I do enjoy writing and get a tad down when I’m not able to post regularly.

But what of us?  Sharaun and I have been out stimulating the economy… willfully hemorrhaging money as we work on some small upgrades to our modest piece of the American dream.  We’re doing hardwood floors in the house, and have been out shopping for some select pieces of furniture.  We bought most of what we have now right when we moved to California nine years ago, and some of it is beginning to show its age.  Among the other projects and upgrades: the TV is going up onto the wall, with a small piece of furniture below for all the AV goodies (finally get rid of those wire Sharaun hates so much); new dining room table (with room for more chairs); and ripping up the carpet in our master bathroom to put down tile (who puts carpet in a bathroom?).  With the new car Obama bought us, it’s like our family is a spending machine.  Yikes.

Tonight the weather cooled down a bit, enough for us to consider, and ultimately go through with, a trip down to the “ice cream and sprinkles” place (what Keaton calls it).  Just a stone’s throw from the house, it’s one of those frozen yogurt places that’s all the rage… y’know the kind with a toppings bar full of candy and fruit and whatnot.  Keaton loves the place, getting to pour and create her own treat.  Her typical concoction is gummi bears, fruity pebbles, and sprinkles over vanilla yogurt.  We like taking her down there because it’s a nice family walk and a good way to get out of the house for bit and get some fresh air.

Man, there’s so much I should be writing about… but I just don’t have the chops for it lately.  Goodnight.