Category: blood

Family, easy!

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northwise by autocoach


Finally home, post 12hr drive where it was either raining or snowing the entire way. All twelve hours of driving in some kind of precipitation, our little greenhouse killer doing its part in joining the other bits of vehicular plaque clogging the holiday-weekend highway arteries of our nation… each of us fatter and slower for the turkey feast afforded us by virtue of our number one spot (as countries go) on this orb. Yeah yeah, it was a good weekend. I’m not entirely sure, though, that the drive is worth it anymore… certainly not with a little baby… it’s a long dang way – and although Keaton handles it like a pro traveler, it just takes too long. But hey, we’re home now. Let’s move on.

Despite the fact, however, that it was a great weekend – it was, as far as electronics are concerned, a complete bust. My laptop harddrive checked out, I’ve only got it running now because I smacked it just the right way and got it to work. It’ll have to be replaced tho, which will be a timesink. Then, my cellphone decided it was also tired of working, and gave up to meet the harddrive at some pub in tech-heaven. Not to mention that, ever since Sharaun dropped it into the cat’s water dish at the Halloween party, the digital camera eats through a battery in about 10min, making it nearly unusable. Finally, when I got home, my trusty had-since-college CRT monitor crapped out and I have to stretch the image so much to fill the screen that it’s hardly usable. Yes, my friends, it was a maelstrom of electronic failures… thank God the iPod’s still working.

Although I don’t have much more than the preceding readied for today, regulars may be happy to know that I did post Keaton’s Monday pictures this week – sorry for missing last week, but the digital camera issues and a general lack of pictures taken just didn’t produce a crop worthy enough to cull from. Going in weeks, the albums are now up to week thirty-seven – which makes no sense to me since Keaton won’t be nine months old until tomorrow (which is today, as you read this)… the whole weeks = months thing always messes me up. But, enough of that – here are the pictures, enjoy.

Goodnight folks – look for a more cohesive entry tomorrow, when I’m not so dead-tired and road-spent.

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football and leftovers


Despite unfavorable weather and seemingly interminable traffic, our family arrived in Oregon safe and sound after a 9hr drive that ended up being a 13hr drive. Yes, it was long, and frustrating to no end, but, in the end, it was worth it. A long weekend spent relaxing, reading, doting on the baby, drinking wine and eating. There’s small better pleasure than sitting inside a comfortably warm room while the cold and rain press outside, reading a book and nurturing a nice merlot buzz. It’s hard to believe, although glorious to be sure, that it’s only Friday, as I’ve got a lot of atrophy yet ahead of me before having to pack up the truck and head south through the snowy passes back to northern CA. Today it’s football and leftovers, tomorrow: leftovers and football – just to switch it up a bit.

Keaton has been an absolute angel since we’ve been here, having soldiered through the much-longer-than-intended drive like a champ – sleeping for about 95% of it (although I must admit I felt a bit like a bad parent forcing some sort of car-induced narcolepsy upon her). She’s been the picture of a cute granddaughter for mom and dad, keeping them entertained with giggles and smiles. Since we’re heading to Florida for Christmas, my folks did their gifting last night – heaping box after carefully-wrapped box on the table near Keaton as Sharaun and I tried to entice her into tearing them open. She tore, a little, but she mostly needed assistance to get to the chewy centers. When all the paper was ripped and piled around her, and we’d taken a few obligatory bow-on-head pictures, she ended up a nice cache of spoils. There was an awesome circus train toy which moves and sings, and several baby outfits which are the kind of cute that only miniature-people clothes can manage.

That should be enough for today I think. I wasn’t even intending to write. Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and as nice a weekend as ours is shaping up to be.

Good afternoon.

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three days off


It’s Monday night of an abbreviated work-week. Sharaun and I are intending to hit the road early Wednesday morning (which I tend to think of as Tuesday night, since it’s the same dark that came at 7pm the previous day), sometime around 3am. The thought being that, while it’s still dark outside, Keaton might get some sleep in her carseat. I’m hoping she can sleep until 6-7am, which would at least kill a third of the long trip for her. I hate the thought of her having to be stuck in a carseat that long – but you gotta do what you gotta do I suppose. Forecast through the mountain pass on the way up is rain, and on the way back is snow. It likely goes without saying, but getting stuck in the snow again, this time with Keaton, would particularly suck. I’m hoping for the best, at least. And, being that we’ll be on vacation Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I’m not sure how much, if any, I’ll be writing those days. Two days might be I’ll this week’ll get out of me.

Today work seemed interminable. With a good bit of the troops out for the holiday week the place felt like a ghost town. The volume of e-mails and calls and meetings was also down, making for less of the “filler” I rely on each day to get me from task to task. For me, switching focus every so often is essential to doing a thorough job on a single task. Rarely do I ever do my best work in one sitting, my real genius only comes with revision and revisiting. So, it’s good for me to take an hour meeting and break up my flow of work on a presentation – it makes me go back and start from zero, re-read and re-think and, most of the time, make things better. But, today was without those interruptions… and it was boring. When the office is abandoned like this, motivation is hard to come by.

This weekend, I spent Saturday my morning downloading and organizing music. A while back, I scored a membership to a private tracker site known for lossless live music (no, not that other private tracker I’ve mentioned before), and last night I decided to take some time and really browse the repository of FLAC-encoded shows that were available. I ended up downloading some vintage performances by Mike Bloomfield and Delaney & Bonnie (with Duane and Gregg), both of which are outstanding shows that have never seen commercial release. I’ve mentioned before how my musical leanings seem to go in phases, alternating between nouveau indie rock and good ol’ classic rock ‘n’ roll. I guess, lately, I’ve been getting back into the classic mindset. I attribute this to the recent release of a 1970 Neil Young & Crazy Horse show at the Fillmore East – which, by the way, is outstanding.

Goodnight, until whenever…

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a truly awesome way to spend an evening


Hey hey friends, I want to pre-let you know that I have next to nothing to write about tonight. In fact, before logging into WordPress and typing this I had actually planned to go entry-less tomorrow. Then, I got the vapors and decided to go for it. I’m crazy that way y’all, it’s just a part of my chemistry. Don’t leave me alone with your women, I might get all crazy and pitch woo (in blog form, of course) at them.

Tonight I got home from work and almost immediately hopped in a car with Sharaun and Keaton. Sharaun had, in an awesome display, cooked soup for an older couple from church with whom we’ve become acquainted. We headed over there and had an outstanding meal with this couple we barely know. We traded abridged life stories, theirs much more abridged than ours (by necessity,) and just sat and talked. I had a terrific time, listening to stories from a former WWII B26 tailgunner in the European theater; stories about his children, his time in the army, his various home-improvement exploits, his thoughts on aging… it was like sitting down in front of a living, breathing piece of history. Not just history though – a man with experiences, a piece of history you can interact with and ask questions. Honestly, I had an outstanding time, simply taking 3hrs to have a meal with people; to listen. Don’t misunderstand me, this isn’t the same “high” that you’d get from dishing at the downtown soup-kitchen – not a charity high. What I am beaming about is some kind of “human contact” high, some idyllic Mayberry porchswing thing. I place high value on sharing experiences with people, even if just by listening to accounts of past events. When we got home, I made sure to thank Sharaun for her selfless act of non-charity – it was a truly awesome way to spend an evening.

And now for something completely different. I have no idea quite how this happened, but last night I somehow happened to find scans online from a 1935 Santa Barbara, California highschool yearbook – one of the years my grandmother attended that very institution. Amazing, right? So, curious, I began “thumbing” through the scans to see if I could spot any photos of her. Turns out, my grandmother was quite active in school clubs and activities, and as such I was able locate her in several different group photos (apparently, only the graduating seniors got headshots, and she must’ve been an underclassman that year).

Anyway, I had already posted this blog by the time I found the yearbook after midnight – but I came back just to add this bit, so I apologize if the writing is hasty. Pretend I’m conveying all sorts of amazed sentiment at such a random online find – the only digitized Santa Barbara yearbook online and it’s the one my grandmother’s in. So, without further ado, here is a picture of my grandmother in highschool, as a member of the “Welfare Council” (click for larger versions):

But wait, as amazing as that is – want to see something even more incredible? In this particular picture, the young woman standing next to my grandmother is none other than my great-aunt. That’s right, my grandmother standing alongside her future husband’s sister in the same Spanish Club – now that’s a true internet find! Check it out (grandma on the left, her sister-in-law to-be on the right):

Seems my my great-aunt and grandmother were also both members of the apparently less exclusive “Scholarship Society” and “Girls’ Athletics Association,” although they’re not standing next to each other in these (my great-aunt in green, grammy in red):

That internet y’allz, that thing is wild… OK seriously, it’s like 1am and I haven’t even taken out the trash yet – goodnight lovers.

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someday i will have to go to a funeral


Thursday night; this week flew. Sharaun’s at the gym (which I pronounce “gime,” as a play on how foreign the word is to me), and I just put Keaton down. I feel like I’ve become an expert at putting Keaton down. I have the touch, the knack, what she needs. I know exactly how long to hold her before she’ll be able to handle the hold-bed transition, know how tightly to cling to her arms and legs while they do her pre-sleep flail, and am an expert at calming her down. This is an immense source of pride for me, you have to understand that. I daresay that I’m actually better at getting down than her mom, and that’s a bold assertion. But that’s me. Boldly sitting here on the couch, the iPod shuffling up the Sundays (I think to mock my boldness), and watching that precious little girl sleeping soundly in her crib. Bold, I say.

I’m turning thirty this year, and I’ve never been to a funeral. I look at this as something to be joyful about. Sure, I’ve had people around me die – but, despite some being blood relatives, I wouldn’t consider myself having had been truly “close” to those that are now gone. That, in and of itself, is kind of sad to even think about. Watching family members pass away having never developed much beyond an acquaintance-level relationship with them. I do take some comfort, though, in the fact that the distance between me and those relatives no longer here was geography-driven – and I didn’t have much of a practical chance at developing those bonds. Lament over lost time aside, the fact still stands that I’ve never once attended a funeral – be it the funeral of a relative, friend, or acquaintance.

I bring the anomaly up because, as I write this, I’m sitting at home on an “extended” lunch break babysitting – while Sharaun attends a funeral. No one close (as if that callous statement somehow makes it better). The woman was a “yard duty” at her school, someone she interacted with quite often. A lot of the faculty and staff turned out, and Sharaun wanted to go pay her respects.

I’m lucky, you know. Someday I will have to go to a funeral, like it or not.

As I grow older, I find that the number of things which I allow to affect me emotionally – specifically those which impact me sufficiently to bring tears or sniffles – has grown. I think having a child has a lot to do with this as well, but I noticed the increase even before crossing that life threshold. Yeah… prior to Keaton, and before my old age, I can remember crying as a child, and at the end of Schindler’s List (y’know, the part with the rocks on the grave?), and that’s about it. All those times I “cried” so cheated-on girlfriends would take me back it was just lab-tears, whipped up for the moment. But now… I fear I’ve turned soft. Know how I know? I saw this picture online the other day, and, without even reading the tearjerking accompanying article, I nearly lost it. That is a human being.

Had my final Lasik follow-up last week, my eyes are doing great and seem to have settled out at 20/15. The nighttime halos that the doctor said I may have, and that I did indeed have, are now reduced so much that I don’t notice them but are supposed to go away completely within three months post-op. The only side-effect that’s still lingering is the extra dryness in my eyes. It’s gotten better than before, but I still carry around drops and usually use them a few times a day. That’s supposed to go away for the “vast majority” of patients within 6mos at the most, I’m just waiting. Again, I think this is some of the best money I’ve ever spent. Restoring my vision to something I can wake up to… that’s just awesome.

Goodnight.

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major player in the cowboy scene


Summer’s here, and our social calendar is filling up appropriately. The weather here has taken a turn for the hot, as it always does ’bout this time of year. Air conditioning has to be one of humankind’s greatest achievements – right up there with flush toilets, beer, and the space shuttle. This entry started out as a “one liners” entry, but a few of them developed into more complete thoughts. So, here are some mostly one, and occasionally many more than one, liners for your enjoyment.

Saw a terrible car accident Thursday morning right in front of work. I arrived on the scene just after it’d happened and no rescue vehicles had yet arrived, but it was clear to me that the driver of one of the vehicles had either been badly injured or killed. Seeing something like that makes me immediately think of my family, and makes my stomach all queasy. Eerily enough, just as I eased through the intersection the song on the Sunset Rubdown LP said, “There are things that have to die, so other things can stay alive.” Creepy.

Why do you think humans, males in particular, get so excited over more exotic methods of cooking meat? You know what I mean? How males love a good pig-burying, or are willing to wake up at 5am to put a pork shoulder on the smoker. Must be some kind of distant connection we feel with our kill-to-survive ancestors.

I keep getting all these spam mails urging me to join a site called BlackSingles.com. Do I pull off blackness that convincingly?

Driving to work the other day and watching the sprinklers water public, or city-maintained, grass. Were you the pilfering type, you’d never have to buy a lawnmower-ruined sprinklerhead at home depot. Just head to the public park and fill your pockets.

I wonder a lot about, should there be a world-altering event that left only a few alive, what modern technologies and items I could recreate from my working understanding of them. Which of humankind’s greatest inventions and innovations do I have a good enough grasp on that I could actually re-invent or re-innovate them? Even with the help of other survivors, if the population was vastly depleted – I’m willing to bet that some technologies and items would be lost forever.

Remember when I talked about reading that article about how men get dumber as fathers, while women get smarter? I think this is based on the same research, but it’s a lot less negative to us dads.

My first Father’s Day was nice, not a lot of fanfare, but nice. In celebration, I uploaded week fifteen’s pictures to the ongoing set in Keaton’s gallery. Check them out and try not to smile to yourself at how dang cute she is.

I love my iPod, can’t hardly think how I used to get along without it. But, some things it does do piss me off:

  • Sometimes it gets freaked out when 1st powered on and playing the initial tune, inserting music-less gaps in playback during what sounds like hard drive spinup or processing time.
  • Sometimes it refuses to turn off via holding down the play/pause button, instead only responds to a hard reset.
  • Sometimes it indicates it’s playing a song, yet the progress indicator does not move and no song is actually played. Pressing play/pause, switching songs, or even jogging to the middle of the track all fail to “revive” this “false playback,” and only a hard reset remedies the issue.
  • Sometimes it takes up to ~20sec to display artwork once a song is played, especially if the thing has just powered on and it’s the first song you’re listening to.
  • Occasionally it skips tracks altogether when in “shuffle songs” mode. A track will flash up as the next shuffled song to be played, and then quickly give way to the next track in the shuffle without ever playing. Maybe there’s an algorithm that enforces a minimum gap between shuffled tracks, and if a song takes too long to seek on the physical disk – it’s skipped and the shuffle marches on? Maybe, but it’s still annoying. Particularly when the song that you’re teased with is a good one.
  • Pressing play/pause after the thing’s been idle only “wakes” it up – you have to press it twice to actually get a song to play.

I found this photo-narrative of a trip into North Korea to be really interesting, maybe you will too.

Setup a TiVo season pass to record the recent VH1 documentary series, “The Drug Years.” Chronicling the history of drugs and their use in the US, the series is extremely interesting. After watching the segment on the cocaine heyday of the late ’70s, I told Sharaun how it almost made me want to run a couple bumps. Turns out that was a mistake, and I spent the next ten minutes explaining how I didn’t really want to try coke.

Drugs have always been enticing to me. Ever since my middle school years, when I adopted musicians three generations my senior as my idols, I became bound and determined to emulate them and try marijuana. Later in life, after I’d satisfied my curiosity and given up recreational toking, I became interested in the more academic aspects of drug use: How drugs have impacted human cultural and spiritual development, how they were used by people throughout history, etc. Reading about shamans using entheogens to experience spiritual nirvana, and the ability to experience concepts like “ego death” almost make me want go out and have my own psychedelic personality-melting experience.

You can do it, you know. There are several highly-potent natural and laboratory-synthesized psychedelic substances sold online by legitimate purveyors. You can hitup so-called “research chemical” shops and purchase any number of yet-to-be strictly controlled designer drugs. At your fingertips are powerful psychedelics like the multitude of phenethylamine variants or 5-meO-AMT/DMT. All of which, and much more, can shipped to your doorstep with nothing but a web browser and a credit card. If you’re not into synthetics, you can go with something natural that has a long history of human use by surfing on to any decent online headshop to purchase a vial of salvia extract or other entheogenic plant-derivative. Point is, there are a number of ways one could experiment with psychedelic mind-altering substances and stay within the law.

Well… the letter of the law, at least… if you don’t count that pesky Federal Analog Act. Actually, I better stop writing about this before I start placing orders and soliciting “sitters.”

Lotta content, if you skipped some – go back, it’s all gold. Goodnight.

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elephant’s memory


Hooray for Monday… Back from a weekend of camping with friends and family. My brother’s time in town ends today as he heads north to see my folks for a while, was good having him here and I’m glad he got to meet Keaton. We took camping-with-baby to the next level this weekend by pulling off a two-day trip. Keaton took to it fine, but then she is an infant and is relatively easygoing regardless of her surroundings. I was happy, however, that we were still able to enjoy some commune with nature and campfire and tent – despite now being laden with child. For those of you who like pictures, I’ve added two new galleries to the media page: check out the camping trip here, then wash those down with my week twelve update to Keaton’s gallery.

The other night I had the strangest dream. It was now, and by that I mean Sharaun and I were married and had a little baby girl named Keaton who we fawned over incessantly. In the dream, I was going through my normal daily motions: holding the baby, changing the baby, staring at the baby, talking about the baby… y’know, all things baby. Then, out of the blue, I had a realization: Sharaun and I had another child, prior to Keaton, a little boy – and we’d forgotten all about him. I rushed back to the bedroom and there he was, sitting there all alone, unloved and forgotten. My heart broke as I instantly remembered loving that boy as much as I had been loving Keaton just minutes ago, I remembered Sharaun and I showering him with attention and staring at him, transfixed by his every expression. But we’d forgotten all about him, I hadn’t even remembered we had him – and I felt awful. What a dream, eh? Wonder what the heck that means…

Goodnight friends, the pictures will make up for the rest.