Category: blood

Family, easy!

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in summary


With my new laser-tuned eyes getting better and better with each day since the surgery, I expect to be able to see through steel sometime next week. As it is now, I’d be hard pressed to come up with an instance of money better spent. I’d recommend the surgery to anyone flirting with the idea – there really is no reason not to (unless it’s 1900 one-dollar reasons). Seriously, unless you’re one of the unlucky .01% for whom the surgery results in blindness and/or impotence – there’s no reason not to have this vanity procedure.

My brother got into town on Thursday, and we spent the weekend in the backyard clearing weeds and planting groundcover. I always get the most work done when I have someone working with me, it just makes time go that much faster. We got a lot done, but I’m hoping to get a lot more done in the coming days. With a work-partner, I seem to have so much more motivation than when I’m out there single-manning the thing. I’ll try and get some pictures of the work up on the galleries before mid-week, maybe alongside the week twelve Keaton update I’ve got planned for Tuesday night. Yes, I know, I’m the only one who’s really “teased” by these “coming soon” writeups… but I’ve got to write something.

Next weekend we’re headed out for Keaton’s 2nd camping trip – a two-day stay this time, on the middle fork of the American River. Should be a good affair, lots of folks signed up and I’m hoping to get out of work early on Friday to head down and stake out the best spot. We’ve done this trip many a time before, and know the campground well – it’s a gorgeous spot the only drawback of which is the fact that there’s not a whole heck of a lot to do aside from sit around and relax. A buddy suggested we setup some horseshoes – and I think that’s an excellent proposal. Then of course there’ll be the standard camping fair of fire and food cooked outdoors.

Man… I’m really struggling for things to write here… anyone got ideas? Let’s do some canned stuff written last week.

Pitchfork’s track-by-track detailed review of Thom Yorke’s pending solo effort is simply tantalizing. It’s supremely frustrating that this reviewer has had a chance to hear the effort (and even moreso since he reviews it positively). I cannot wait to hear this album, it’s like a Radiohead fan’s wet-dream to get a Yorke solo outing in the same year the band drops a new album. And, unless the review was done on an invitation-only listening party basis – it does offer some hope that, if there are promo copies in the wild, leaks will trickle down shortly.

So, in summary: I love camping, get your eyes lasered, brothers make good laborers, and let’s all hold our breath for Thom’s album.

Oh… and my trapped-spam comments count is about to hit 30k… a milestone, I think. Goodnight.

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catching up


I apologize for my website of late, the performance is horrible. The page either loads incredibly slow, or times out altogether. I have no idea what’s causing this, but am fairly certain it’s nothing of my doing. I’ve been running the same pages with the same scripts for quite a while with decent performance… and all of the sudden things are gummed up. I’ve narrowed it down to any page which accesses one of my MySQL databases (as both this page and my gallery pages do), so it seems the problem lies there… somehow. I have noticed a sharp increase in the amount of spam comments the blog gets, up to about ~3000 per day now – and that might be the culprit. I wrote to my host’s tech support – but so far they’ve only offered me an upgrade package to a dedicated server (rather than the virtual slice of a server I now share with others). This sounds appealing to me, but also ticks me off… I should be able to expect my pages to work. For crap’s sake I only have a measly three databases and a handful of scripts that call them. So, dear reader, I’ll do what I can to fix the situation – but until then I apologize if your experience here is frustrating.

But, just to make it all the more frustrating – here’s a link to Keaton’s gallery, where I’ve uploaded some annotated snaps from our weekend in Oregon which you’ll read more about below. Oh yeah, today’s entry is mad disjointed… and I make no apologies, as it was written in fits over the last week, often for entries not posted (as the gaps in writing last week make evident).

Let’s get started with random paragraph #1.

The other night on TV 20/20 ran a story about a girl who had to have half of her brain removed, due to a rare brain disease that was causing her to have debilitating seizures. Yes, it was a storyline on a popular medical drama recently. Anyway, they showed video footage the girl’s family took when she was a baby – and cut to her parents saying how happy they were when she was born that they got a “healthy baby.” Yes, aren’t we all… it’s what we all hope for, a healthy child with ten fingers and ten toes. But, when this family’s little girl turned four – something went wrong. I think about that all the time, how things can look so normal and right for so long – and then, seemingly out of the blue, go so terribly wrong. I think about that with our daughter, how perfect she is, how healthy and happy and beautiful. Watching a show like that before Keaton tugged at my heartstrings, watching it now that I have Keaton – it full-on hooked my heartstrings up to the Concorde and took flight.

Continuing with random paragraph #2.

Showering at my folks’ place these past few days, I noticed that their guest bathroom is stocked with a bottle of “body wash” instead my preference a bar of soap. I never did get into the “body wash” thing, just doesn’t equate to a bar of soap to me… leaving my skin feeling all slimy when I draw my fingers across it, instead of the squeaky clean of soap that I like. Anyway, I picked up the body wash to check it out – and read the following off the back label:

We know how special your bath or shower time is…a place for you to be private, reborn, where creative thoughts visit.

Reborn? For me, my bath or shower time is more like a time for me to wash the stink off my ass, sweat off my balls, and grease off my face (although not necessarily in that order). Who are these people for whom bathing is a religious experience? Although, I guess, I can’t argue with the “creative thoughts” coming to visit part – as this whole bit was indeed inspired by a shower…

And, random paragraphs #3 and #4, written last week but never posted.

Why are large conference/meeting rooms always unable to cool themselves properly? It seems like every time I find myself congregated with a large group of folks in big conference room, I’m sweating balls. You’d think that engineers designing these big conference rooms for hotels and the like would take this into consideration and install cooling that could handle capacity. Ugh… now my face is greasy and I’m getting sleepy, thanks a lot hot conference room.

The trip to Oregon has been a huge success thus far. Keaton must have her dad’s genes because she traveled like a seasoned pro – making nary a peep and sleeping the entire time. Last night Sharaun and I slept with her lain betwixt us, which we’ve never done before – partly for fear of rolling over onto her mid-sleep. Well, we didn’t roll over onto her, and I really enjoyed the experience. It may sound dumb, but I loved waking up in the middle of the night and seeing her sleeping face just to my left, her little pink-clad arms flung up above her head just like dad does when he sleeps, her little chest rising and falling and making soft breathy sounds through her tiny nose. I want to describe it as “intimate,” but that sounds kinda pedo… so maybe I won’t.

Let’s end this mess just as randomly, shall we?

I’m so excited about the news that Thom Yorke is doing a solo record, I can’t wait to see what he does with his “spare time.” I certainly love the woodcut-esque flash animation on the frontpage of his solo-centric webpage – I the imagery there is in any way representative of the album’s vibe, I’m down. I’m also excited because the new Sufjan leaked… a full two months in advance of the album’s official release. I’ll write more about it once I’ve had the time to properly digest it.

Well, today (Monday) is the 1st of my two Lasik consultations, with surgery possible as early as this Friday. I’m so pumped folks, so pumped. Talk to you all later, Dave out.

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fireside romps inside circled multicolored wagons


Sitting in a cramped conference room, the multiplied body heat of 20-some individuals making the air thick, warm, even oppressing. I’ve got my khakis on, matching brown socks with my fancy brown loafers. Nearly too-tight shirt tucked in and cinched with a brown belt. My face is greasy from sitting in this swampy room, and the hotel breakfast buffet has turned into liters and liters of gas bubbling around inside me… shifting through my intestines with audible groans on its way out those khakis I mentioned earlier. I’m uncomfortable, but obnoxiously confident as I feel I’ve been doing a great job addressing customer questions. It’s part of my personality, you know, being overly confident and cocky when I’m hot, and completely defeated and sulking when I’ve been trounced. I’m peak-to-peak with work, but in life I’m more middle of the road… taking things in stride.

Yeah… at the customer, things going rather well, in fact. Austin seems like a nice town, hoping to be able to head out tonight and take some of it in. Sharaun hid some pictures of her and Keaton in my suitcase, with little Post-Its attached. Attached to this picture was a note that said, “Even with these glasses, I can’t find my daddy. Come home soon, we miss you.” I think I actually squealed with glee upon opening my carry-on and finding them last night. Seeing that little girl made me miss her so much, I’m looking forward to my less-than-24hrs hometime between this three-day Texas visit and Friday’s Colorado one more than ever.

Today my brother drove up from Ft. Hood to spend an evening with me. It was a good time: we ate a nice leisurely dinner, bought a pack of Camel Menthols, had some beers, and talked life. Even though he could only stay a few hours, it was great having some time to catch up. I miss my brother, there’s so much I don’t write about there… some things just don’t belong on the blog I suppose. Maybe one day, when all the stigma has gone away, I’ll try and write what I mean – but for now it’s relegated to conversation between close friends and family (where it belongs, I think). I’ve told my brother, in semi-seriousness, that I’d like to author a story about his life thus far – as I think it’d be one hell of a human-interest piece. I guess you’ll just have to wait for the book, eh?

Y’know, in almost every one of my entries here on sounds familiar, I try to reference other entries I’ve written previously. This is somewhat of a strategy on my part, half selfish, half lazy. One the one hand, I have this idea in my head that folks actually click through to my supporting links, and perhaps re-read an entry written long ago, thus leaving the blog with the overall impression that I’ve got a lot more substance than just what I wrote the night prior. On the other hand, referring to old junk saves me writing time, helps me remember how I’ve described things in the past and fall back on them for reference. I guess one good thing about having written so much over so long is that there’s a pretty decent base from which to draw material. I find that I rarely have entirely new ideas…

For some reason, on the plane over I decided to set the iPod on a random mix of all albums by The Silver Mt. Zion, who also go by The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. Y’know, I’ve always known I like their music – but I just realized on this trip just how much… these albums, although likely repulsive to some, are simply outstanding to me. Some kinda crazy stringy beatsy mess, often invoking a feeling of stark loneliness or some kind of “knowing evil,” plotting, perhaps; or fireside romps inside circled multicolored wagons, I have no idea how to describe this shit. All I know is, it’s perfect for traveling… especially when the feeling of being away from home is magnified for a first-timer away from his daughter. Right now, I’m sitting here in the hotel listening to the vocal/piano breakdown that helps close God Bless Our Dead Marines, and it couldn’t be a more poignant soundtrack: When the world is sick, can no one be well? But I dreamt we was all beautiful and strong. I’m telling you, the implied evil, or solitude, or desperation, or whatever it is that gets to me in this music – perfect (much better than the new Radio Dept., a leak which I was eagerly anticipating based on their previous effort, and which I can’t seem to get into).

Goodnight my friends, heading to Houston tomorrow… next post from there.

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shiny new penny

Daddy doing birth liveblogging.
I’ll keep this link to Keaton’s gallery at the top of posts for a while. I haven’t added anything since yesterday, and likely won’t until later tonight, when I plan to be back home in the fat, loving, fiber arms of broadband. For now here’s today.

I had plans to do a nice long writeup about the final hours before Keaton was born, even had five or six paragraphs worth of gritty realism already penned, replete with whaling metaphors and enough blood and gore for Saw III. But, over the course of the day, I got completely bored with the story. Sharaun and I tag-teamed the narrative for everyone who called, visited, and even just between each other. Instead, I was just gonna do a simply entry.

I have a feeling that the blog is gonna take a while to recover from this baby, as I’ll be shelving the regular banal commentary in favor what I consider to be more exciting baby updates. That’s not to say you won’t be able to come here one day in the near future and be able to read about the latest indie rock, theological debate, or general rambling – but for now that’s all on hold while my life, and writing, adjusts to daddydom. Too bad I can’t keep up the compelling writing that was the play-by-play, I think this blog had more exposure from that entry than it’s had since its birth years ago – but I’m just gonna keep on doing what I’ve been doing.

There’s so much I want to write, so many different things running through my head – but I just don’t have the energy to develop the thoughts properly, so I thought I’d just rough them out and call it “good enough.”

I wanted to write about the great sense of relief I had today. Something like the feeling you get when you take vacation for a holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving – when you’ve finally arrived at your destination, your family is there, and you know you’ve got at least a few days ahead of you where you’ll be able to completely relax and enjoy your surroundings. It’s kind of like that, having Keaton finally here. Like every breath is that big, cleansing deep breath you take as you step back and take stock of work well done. Dudes might be able to relate to me if I described this as being similar to the satisfied feeling you get after

I wanted to talk about the urge to show off this new thing, the desire to hold her out for the approval of others – a “look what I did” kinda thing. How good it feels when people come by and visit, and shake your hand or offer congratulations in the way of words, food, flowers, whatever. I can tell Sharaun enjoys it too, watching people hold her and coo at her, shower her with baby-praise. It’s not bad for the ego, and the “brave mommy” sympathies don’t hurt either.

I wanted to talk about how content I am just staring at her, watching her little eyelids flutter and as she wakes, working her tiny tongue out of her mouth. Today she fell asleep on my chest as it rained, and I just watched her there – her little short breaths almost imperceptible. I think I could look at her forever, she’s that freakin’ awesome to me. I know she’s more than just eyecandy, something about “lifelong responsibility” and whatnot – but for now she sure is a shiny new penny.

I just don’t have it in me to write more, maybe tomorrow. Grandma gets into town tomorrow evening (my mom first, then Sharaun’s next week), so we’ll be grateful to have her around to lean on for her previous baby-rearing experience (damn fine resume, I might add, as exemplified by my total well-rounded badassness). I might be in and out in terms of wordsmithmanship (is that an awesome word, or what?), but I’ll try to make it up by posting more pictures to the gallery. Granted, they’ll all be baby pictures – but y’know how it goes… new poppa and all.

Until later, take care.