Category: earth

Camping, hiking, exploring, and general nature-communing.

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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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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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wash for show


Made good on my promise and stayed home from work today. Too bad, though, that it did not excuse me from working. In fact, I busted my butt today at home working on material for the presentation I’m giving Thursday in Germany. It’s coming together, but it’s still in the “gathering content: ugly” phase, and I have all the “content defined: window-dress” work ahead of me. I’m not too worried, as I have tonight and the plane trip over, plus about 24hrs on the ground in Germany prior to the actual meeting. I also found time to mow the lawn, something I had to do prior to leaving unless I wanted to come home to the Serengeti. And, once again, lawn mowing becomes blog fodder – although this time for a slightly different reason.

As I pushed the lawn mower around the grass, cutting in vain a living growing organism which would just grow right back again, I couldn’t help but notice the activity across the street from me. My neighbor, whom I’d never really noticed before, was out washing her car. My neighbor, whom I’d never seen before, was wearing tight black pants, a pink shirt, and had her long blonde hair up tied up. My neighbor, whom I’d never seen before, was reaching and bending and stretching in all the ways that one would reach, bend, and stretch while washing a car. Now, I set the scene like that because I wanted to acknowledge the fact that, yes, I noticed. What red-blooded male wouldn’t. I mean, my neighbor (whom I’d never seen before) seemed to be in her thirties, and quite well-maintained physically. So yeah, I noticed. But, I didn’t ogle. Well, until… that is… until…

While I was first noticing my neighbor, I very distinctly saw my neighbor notice she was being noticed. In fact, several times, when I made a neighbor-facing pass across the turf, I caught her watching me to see if I was watching her. Now, who was really watching who is hard to say, but I got the feeling that I was not being watched because I was watching, I was being watched to see if I was watching. What I mean was, this wasn’t a woman casting nervous glances over her shoulder to see if the masher across the street was mentally undressing her, this was a woman who was stretching and bending and reaching and knowing she was watched. Again, I have no real proof, but check out this.

As I once again turned to cut a swath that cast my eyes in her direction, she offered a short wave and a smile – a gesture which I returned, all neighborly-like. Then, much to my surprise, she walked away from drying her car. She walked up into her front lawn, where the sprinklers were sprinkling. She stood there, in the sprinklers, and began to untie her hair. Once her hair was down she shook it out, first side-to-side and then up-and-down in some slow-motion head-banging action. As she tossed her hair around, she held her hands out to gather the spray she stood in. She took her hands and proceeded to wipe her face and hair. All the while, I was trying not to fix my gaze on this display.

I’ll admit, it was hard. Here was a scene right out of a movie, here was a my neighbor standing in her sprinklers tossing her hair around. What’s more, she waved to me again; in the middle of all the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue posing. That wave sealed it for me: she was putting on a show, for my benefit. I was even more convinced as she began to set about seemingly pointless yardwork which required her to do yoga-like feats of bending and squatting and stretching. Yes, my friends, this was a peacock’s plume, a lizard’s throat-thing, a cricket’s call… I was being courted from afar.

Now, this doesn’t just happen to me. I mean, I’m not exactly the picture of a hot young Latino gardener. I admit, my voluminous t-shirt could’ve adequately hidden my gut. Plus, we were at that special distance where you can’t quite make out the definition on someone’s face, and I had a blue bandanna tied around my head (hiding my growing baldness). Furthermore, I don’t think you could see the yellow armpit stains from that distance, especially as they were obscured by my mowing posture. So, perhaps, just perhaps – she mistook me for a strapping young buck out displaying his ability to work. Either that, or it’s one of two things: I gravely misinterpreted the situation or she’s seen me around and has had enough time to fall madly and secretly in love with me.

In the end, I chose not to mate with the female. I mean, the circuits in my male brain which were programmed when my ancestors still lived in caves and wore animal furs were all lit-up and green for “go.” But, the more refined gentleman in me decided to pass on this opportunity. Good to know I still got it, though.

Well, it’s 10:30pm and my workday is over. 7am to now, working pretty much solid but for a few short meetings, a lawn-mowing, about an hour-and-a-half of play-time with Keaton, and some quick meals. I figure it was well over a 12hr day, and I’m tired for it. Yet, still I have to pack, which I’ll likely put off until tomorrow morning… and still have plenty of work to keep me busy on the plane…

Until Germany then, gutenacht.

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on the eve of travel


Sunday night and I’m supposed to be headed downtown to see a sweet concert we’d all been looking forward too. But, alas, the sweet concert got canceled. Needless to say, we were all (those of us who’d scored tickets to the sold out show) quite bummed. However, I can’t help but think this is an example of divine intervention. See, I leave for Germany on Tuesday. Flying out for a breakneck four-day trip where two of the days will be spent traveling. Back into the heart of Bavaria for handcrafted beers and wonderful sausages.

But, as fun as it sounds – I am going for a reason: work. And, this time, that means I’ll need to give a presentation to a customer while there. Being that I’m presenting a world away in just a few days, you’d think I’d have some content written, reviewed, and practiced. Truth is, I haven’t done slide-one. I knew this coming off Friday, and kept telling myself I’d have to knuckle-down and do some work over the weekend, but I very knowingly ate up all my weekend time doing all things not-work instead. So, when the show was canceled, it was like God giving me my work time. Now, I can solve my problem of having to have 90% material sent out before my 7am PST meeting tomorrow. Thanks Lord, now I can work ’til midnight.

It’s OK though, because I’ve already decided that work owes me tomorrow. Not just me, but my family too. Yep, work owes me some time with them, since work’s taking it away with travel quite a bit lately. So, I’m calling in my debt, and work’s gonna make good. More specifically, I’m taking the day “off” tomorrow. Sure, I don’t really mean taking a vacation day – but I do mean a nice “phoning it in” day spent working from the couch with a bluetooth headset. It’ll be good for me before I go, spend a day with Sharaun and Keaton – even though I’ll likely be distracted – should be worth it.

I did some things today, so it was OK. First, I shaved off my beard. Completely shaved off my beard, gone. I saw two people who I’d just seen the other day (when I was still bearded), and they didn’t even notice. Not that I did it (or didn’t do it) to get a reaction, just that it obviously meant more to me than it did anyone else. When it was gone, I actually regretted it – my face looked young and fat and the faux-chinline the hair give me was gone. Now though, I’m already used to it. So much for my fantasy of having a bushy beard at the Arcade Fire show (which, come to think of it, was a pretty odd fantasy). Also today, I planted some fruit trees. It’s something I’ve wanted to do, and I ended up putting in a plum, apricot, and orange. With the dirt like it is here, just digging the holes to plant trees is a workout – pummeling rocks with the breaker-bar and whatnot. I also watered the garden, which is doing quite well. Here, some pictures:

Before I go, I’ll drop a link to Keaton’s gallery, which I’ve updated for the first time in a while Enjoy some new images here.

Goodnight.

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i crush your heart


Hey, long-dark-hair girl, I know you were here. I found some of you on my carpet today, while I was down there playing with my daughter. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, leaving pieces of you around like that. Maybe you think you can tempt me away from my idyllic family-man lifestyle, perhaps into some fiery tryst with you. You may have visions of my face, framed in your lilting dark tresses, lips locked to yours. Yes, long-dark-hair girl, you may think that your devious body-part scavenger hunt has tantalized me, aroused my curiosity. But, I’m sorry to say, I’m pretty firmly rooted here where I am. I already have a girl, she has blonde hair (at least, to the eyes). So, let me be clear when I say: Your siren song may lead weaker men to dash themselves against your supple shoals, but not I. While I must admit, the brute in me wondered of you – what used to be hooked to the end of your hair: the shape of it, the feel, the smell. A well-placed gambit, I’ll allow, but I’m immovable. I crush your heart. Live with it.

Hey peoples, it’s the blog intro, one paragraph into the blog (because I can do that). It’s Thursday night, coming up on a Friday that happened faaast. The week, feeling somewhat abbreviated by the trip to Oregon, seems to be ending so soon. Today was warm, and I swear I’m not kidding when I say that all those piping hot gamma rays and that UV whatsitcalled made my fledgling garden double in size. Every night when I get home from work I go out there, Keaton on my shoulders, to inspect the day’s progress. I slowly show her each plant, naming it and pointing to it, then tell her what food we’ll eventually get from it. “This is a tomato plant,” I say, “it gives us ketchup and spaghetti sauce.” Sometimes we touch the tomato leaves and smell our fingers, the pungent smell seems to interest her.

Yeah, Keaton and I, we love that garden. It’s too bad though, that so do the ants. That’s right, I knew when I cleared the space for my planter that I had hit “ant city.” I didn’t really think much of it at the time, although it was easily the biggest congregation of the critters I’ve seen since moving out of fireant-infested Florida. I did my best to wash them away as I was installing the box, but it seems they’ve rebuilt and are now located somewhere in the depths of the earth directly below my garden. This is bad, for numerous reasons. Number one, they are already damaging plants. They’ve chewed up the fresh bean leaves. Number two, the internet says the tunnels and catacombs that are the ants’ houses below my plants can damage roots and whatnot. I gotta kill some ants, y’all! The internet says some pure clove oil mixed into a sprayer will get ’em for good without having to resort to harsh pesticides. So, to the local apothecary I’ll go. These ants must not jeopardize our harvest!

For about two days now, I’ve been listening to nothing but Yes’s Close to the Edge. An album which, until two weeks ago, I’d never heard in my life. I love it when I find albums like this; those which escaped my original rampage of discovery back in the day. Sometimes I get a little shocked, actually. How could such an incredibly radical album have flown under my radar for so long? I mean, I didn’t even really know the story of the album’s role as the cornerstone of the prog-rock movement – I was completely in the dark. It hurts a music snob’s pride, you know, to come upon albums like this. But, it also makes me glad to have found it. I tell you what, this album is amazing… even if you’re no fan of “prog,” you gotta give it up.

Anybody listening?

Goodnight.

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green thumb


Alone on a Saturday night, nursing a headache again – but this time I think it’s from spending most of the afternoon in the sun. I worked outside today, and it was an excellent break for me. Got me digging and sweating and realizing how out of shape I am. I was putting together a little planter box to grow veggies in, something I’ve wanted to try for a long time. I have a notoriously not-green thumb, most things I plant seem to wither or just never take root – so I did quite a bit of research before starting out. A few of our friends have had some success with raised-bed type vegetable gardens, so I decided to go down that route.

After a few hours surfing gardening sites, message boards, and newgroups – I decided I would ally my garden wholly with Mel Bartholomew’s “Square Foot Gardening” method. I followed the instructions to a tee, down to the exact soil mix and suggested crop layouts. It’s gonna be tight in my little 3’x10′ spot, and packing it in like SFG recommends goes against my instincts just a little, but what have I got to lose? Anyway, taking care of veggies should give me something neato to do outside on summer evenings after work, so I’m looking forward to it.

For the curious, here’s a picture of what my planter turned out like (click for larger version):

And, for the even more curious, here’s a snapshot of my tentative close-quarters crop layout, which I pretty much bit off another SFGer on the forums.

I’m supposed to leave for Shanghai this Friday, but haven’t yet bought my ticket. Monday looks booked, not sure I’ll be able to make the time. Can you tell I’m stalling in hopes of having to push-out my trip? I just don’t want to go, and to be perfectly honest, while there’s certainly plenty of work I can do there, there’s no real need for me to go that particular week. I’m not sure I’ll be able to put it off, I’ve already applied for a rush visa and sent off my passport, and my boss kinda expects me to go. I’m usually pretty good about getting these “feelings” though, and this time I just feel like, come this Friday, I may not be going anywhere.

Man I love the image that I chose for this post, I’d hang that thing on my wall… it’s that awesome.

Goodnight.

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sweat, death, & fervor


Tuesday night and I had a great time finishing up yesterday’s mowing. It was the backyard this time, and I purposely kept finding little things to do to stay out in the weather and sweat a little longer. It was so perfect, warm and green and the iPod was on-point, I enjoyed stooping and kneeling and the sheen of sweat on my face. The drip, drip, drip of sweat off the long tangle of my beard made me even more happy. I mowed, edged, pulled weeds, sprayed weeds, fertilized, and fixed four sprinklers – it was a banner day for yardwork. In conclusion, I’d like to thank Congress for pulling-in daylight savings time and making all this after-work earth-time possible. I love 8pm sunsets.

I’ve written before about how I have a slight obsession with “true crime” stories. No, not like the cheap novels or anything, more like those “forensic” shows, and anything to do with serial killers. In fact, it’s a small theme on this site, bucketed under the “darkside” tag moniker. To me, serial killers are somewhat fascinating – not because they are awesome, but because it often boggles me to try and wrap my mind around what they do. Don’t worry, I’m not thinking about serial killing anyone.

Anyway, I’ve always been interested in the history around the Zodiac killer, especially since finding an obsessively detailed website based on the still-anonymous killer and his crimes a few years ago. It was with zeal, then, that I read the recent news that, with everything being stirred up again because of the new Zodiac movie, police in San Francisco had “discovered” a lost card from 1990 that may, in fact, be from the Zodiac killer. Well, of course the zodiackiller.com guy posted the high-res scans today, and the message boards are lighting-up with couch-based detectives trying to puzzle out meaning from the cryptic missive. Interesting, and will be fun to watch develop. Wouldn’t it be cool if, by getting his wish and making it big in public eye, he ends up hanging himself?

Today, in the middle of a meeting we were both in at work, Pat IM’d me this link. For those of you who managed to resist the urge to click the aforelinked link, I’ll pass along the title here before I go on to make my point – the article is called: The Great Rock Hope, Arcade Fire grabs the baton from Bruce Springsteen and U2, and it begins with the auspicious sentence, “For those who haven’t been following along, rock critics have crowned a new World’s Greatest Band.”

Well damn, if that ain’t coming right out and saying it.

Should Slate be afraid? Afraid to call the Arcade Fire the new “world’s greatest band?” I mean, that’s pretty presumptuous, right? So many people are thinking it, though, I guarantee. The band, having blown away the music press with their debut, have come-correct again this year with an incredibly solid sophomore effort (and now, for your benefit, I won’t keep summing up things which are much better written in the Slate article). I do have to say, however, that I feel entirely vindicated in comparing the ‘Fire to the same bands Slate does in my many lusty rants about their awesomeness.

The Slate article goes on to say that the Arcade Fire are “…a gale-force live band,” and damn if I can’t do anything but nod my head in agreement after seeing them only once prior in a tiiiiny little club in San Francisco. In fact, hoping for a repeat of that history, I recently spearheaded an e-mail campaign to try and recruit some friends to go see the ‘Fire live when they’re out this way later this summer, and my mail went something like this:

Folks,

Tickets for the Arcade Fire’s two shows in Berkley (at the Greek Theater) go on sale this Sunday via Ticketmaster, but tomorrow through some backdoor pre-sale website. Either way, I’m buying some – and hope to get them during tomorrow’s pre-sale. There are two shows, June 1st and 2nd, which is a Friday and Saturday. I’m leaning towards the June 2 Saturday show, as the post-work Friday afternoon drive to Berkley sounds like crap. Tickets are $31.50ea (plus some fees I bet), and the entire venue is general admission.

Reply and lemme know if you’re interested, and how many tickets I should get if you are down.

Even if you don’t know the ‘Fire’s work, the show should rock (plus you can tell your kids you saw them and they’ll marvel at your role as a piece of rock-‘n’-roll history). If you want to get an idea what the band is like live, check out their SNL performances last week on YouTube here.

Love you.

And hey, if the Slate (and many other) hype is to be believed… maybe my “piece of rock-‘n’-roll history” statement ain’t that far off.

Goodnight.