Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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I’m no parent, or anything


Hi. Happy Wednesday.

To start, let’s do a couple barely-introspective paragraphs:

You may remember (although, you’d be quickly forgiven if you didn’t) that we had houseguests back in September. While they were here, we set them up with five-star accommodations (read: the air mattress in the former computer-room now nothing-room). And, as a testament to my laziness and general apathy, I’m sad to admit that I just today deflated that mattress and folded/stored all the bedding. Oh yeah, some three-and-a-half months later.

It was all part of this “assess and purge” sort of cleaning kick I’m suddenly on, taking stock of what we have and how it’s stored, and getting rid of non-essentials wherever possible. We’ve got a ton of junk we don’t use or need, and it’s time to start getting rid of it – donating, selling, or just junking altogether. It feels good to free up space and organize, even if it does drive Sharaun a bit mad when I get a little OCD like this. Sometimes, I just reach a breaking point and go all flip-out neat-and-tidy crazy… this is one of those times.

Next, let’s do a music paragraph:

Over the Christmas free-download period (it’s customary for some of the online music-enabling sites I frequent to offer “free” downloads over the holiday season), I somehow ended up grabbing a copy of The Pretty Things’ 1968 album, S.F. Sorrow. Before just a few weeks ago, I’d never even heard of the album, didn’t even know it existed. But, as soon as the first song came over the speakers I knew I’d stumbled onto something special. Let me tell you now, I absolutely love “finding” amazing albums I’ve never heard of. Having somewhat of a big head about the amount of the “important music” canon I’m familiar with, these UFO gems always seem so special. This is some sort of under-the-radar psychedelic rock-opera masterpiece, apparently recorded at Abbey Road during the same time the Beatles and Floyd were in-house recording Sgt. Pepper and Piper, respectively. Man, what the heck was in the water at Abbey Road that year? Anyway, the album itself is immediately likable and interesting… and I’m really glad I “discovered” it, forty years after it was made.

Now let’s do a random today at work paragraph:

Sometimes I just feel like I’m in the wrong place for the particular moment. I’ve written about the sensation before (but I can’t seem to find the link… lil’ help?). Today was a classic case of that type of day. I sat at work all morning knowing I should be at home instead of in my fuzzy-walled cubicle staring at my computer screen. I just felt that I wasn’t supposed to be there, and the draw to get where I was supposed to be was strong enough to be almost physical, a muscle-urge to actually pack up and walk out the door to be with my family. I’m not always sure what the catalyst is for such urges, they tend to seem pretty random, but there’s no denying the “push” accompanying them. Anyway, I sat there, listening to my iPod and dreaming away the morning – doing next to nothing for the shareholders, who, if they could’ve peeked in on me, would likely petition the board for my removal. I just wanted to be home, to be doing things other than the great-nothing of work. Hey, I like that… I might start calling work “the great nothing” instead of “the old sawmill” from now on… not a bad nomenclature. Anyway, the feeling eventually passed, or better faded into a general want to just head home and be done with it.

And some Keaton paragraphs:

This month, Sharaun and I decided we’d get to work on teaching Keaton how to use the potty. The myriad of advice on when to begin this parenting process is mixed, and to me it just seemed most logical to just do it when we felt we might be successful, gaging that percentage by the cues she’s giving us at the time. And, being that, for the past few weeks, she’s shown a marked interested in “the potty” and the whole potty-process, and has taken to announcing her pees and poos with “Keaton use(d) the potty!,” we figured the time might be right. I mean, I’m no parent, or anything… but the good Lord saw fit to put this child under my care – so I must’ve showed some sort of promise, or kernel of talent, or something… you’d think.

So, as of yesterday, when she makes her potty announcements, we march her into the bathroom and go through the process: 1) pull down your pants (she has a lot of trouble with this, and seems to want to pull her pants “up” instead… which I keep telling her won’t work the same at all), 2) we’ll take off your diaper (again, having a step in there that she can’t do herself seems bad… but I’m not ready to toss the diaper yet), 3) sit on potty and do the good stuff, 4) wipe, 5) wash hands.

Thinking about it as a child, it really is quite a complex process of human engineering to relieve oneself in-line with current Western thinking on hygiene. I mean, there’s like a whole symphony of events that have to align to make the execution flawless. How do you, for example, explain to a semi-verbal not-yet-two-year-old that her pee-hole isn’t even lined-up over the pee-receptacle? There are a hundred bits of minutiae like that, too. Heck, pondering it, I’m amazed I hit the blow as much as I do myself.

I’m happy to announce, though, that, today she made her first two pees in her little kid potty, and it was quite a moment for Sharaun and I. I’ll let ya know if we experience continued success.

Finally, the closing thing:

Goodnight, love your bodies.

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the very air i breathe is saturated


As Christmas vacation begins to draw to a close, the tightening noose of coming work is beginning to chafe against my neck.

The e-mails are still trickling into the BlackBerry, each little “tinkle” sound reminding me that I can never really get that far physically removed from a job that happens primarily in cyberspace. Unseen responsibility surrounds me, floating around invisible right in front of me, waves and signals buzzing silently around my head, needing only to be read and decoded to transform them into questions I need to answer and things I need to do. It’s sad, in a way, that the very air I breathe is saturated with invisible bits and bytes that represent the work I have to do. Let’s not think about it, OK?

We had a brief scare yesterday, ending up in the emergency room with Keaton. As I mentioned in my last blog, she’s been running a fever now for a couple days, and it’s been sitting around 101° for most of the time. After Sharaun put her down for her nap yesterday, she went out shopping. And, since Keaton wasn’t feeling well and likely needed sleep, I was happy that she chose to take a longer-than-usual nap, not to mention it gave me a little time to rest-off the pukes-‘n’-poops I’d been dealing with myself. When she finally did wake up, I got her some Tylenol-doped juice and sat down with her while she drank it. As she was finishing up her sippy, Sharaun got home and joined us on the couch.

Just then, she began to shiver, which I took to mean she was breaking her fever. As Sharaun took her from me, however, she began to shiver more, and we noticed her lips looked a little blueish. Freaking out a bit, Sharaun took her out to ask her mom if she could see the blue as well, and I jumped online to search for “baby blue lips fever” on Google. The modern sage that is Google said that if, during a fever, a baby’s lips and/or fingernail beds turn blue, you should seek emergency care immediately. Meanwhile, Sharaun and her mom had reached the same conclusion, as Keaton was still shaking, not speaking at all, and her lips (and finger/toenails) were now an even scarier shade of blue-purple. They were already strapping her into her carseat as I rushed inside to grab my wallet, sling a very hastily put together diaper bag over my shoulder, and slip on some flip-flops.

With the hospital literally just up the road, we were there in under a minute. But even by then, she had regained nearly all her color and was starting to talk normally. We sat in the emergency room for about twenty minutes, every passing minute of which I became more convinced that she was now fine, and then were ushered in to see the triage nurse. After taking her vitals, she pronounced Keaton A-OK, and asked if we’d still like to be seen. Faced with the prospect of spending four hours in the hospital, or going home and keeping an eye on her ourselves, we chose the latter and packed back into the car. And, although she continued to run a fever the rest of the day, we had no more blue-lipped scares, and she already seems much more “herself” today.

Frightening, and odd, but I guess ultimately nothing.

Well then, until later, take care peoples.

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pardon the disappearance


Sorry folks, had a traveling week at work. Late nights and busy days make for bad blogging conditions. Anyway, last week is so last week. The real story here is the weekend. A weekend where I, your average American everydad, was left in charge of the baby all by myself. Yeah, that’s right. What’s more, I’m happy to report that, although it is Sunday, the third day of my four-day single-parent trails, Keaton’s managed to retain all her appendages, her original hair color, and her well-fed, robusto plumpness. In fact, I’ve really been enjoying my daddy-daughter time. I like feeling more solely responsible, it’s kind of empowering. Who knew I could nurture? Maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, I suppose she could still end up down a well or something tomorrow. I better stay on my game.

Anyway, let’s get to this thing. It’s mostly about music today (well, the baby, too), and I’ll likely close out this week the same way, as I’m just about done with my “best albums” list for 2007 and should be ready to post it by Friday.

Today, while Keaton slept, the Sufjan’s song, “Casimir Pulaski Day” shuffled up on the iPod. I’ve long been in love with the song, and it effected me no less today than it ever does. Sure, I couldn’t listen to it with “my boys” in the car on the way to the bar after paintball or anything, but I still love it to death. Such an un-formulaic “sad song, the narrator laying out his heartbreaking case for being angry with God. Sufjan seems to alternate between extreme economy and verbosity with the words he uses to tell his stories, and this is one of the more straight-forward cases (hit up “Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)” as an example of the former). Anyway, I don’t want to ruin it, but I do want you to listen to it. OK? Can you do that for me? Click here and tell me if it makes you want to cry (manly) tears the way it does me.

Way back in the day, before Keaton was born, I wrote an entry dedicated to what I had chosen to be her “first song.” Those who know me know that I tend to mark events, milestones, and the passage of time with musical memories (here are one, two, three, and four examples – and that was only from memory). From the minute I chose it, I knew her “first song” was the right one. The Beatles’ track (which is really more of a McCartney track) “I Will” is a simple, heartfelt, and soothing song. True to my idea, it was the first thing she heard on the way home from the hospital, I think we go through it twice in those few short minutes.

Now, every time I put her down, be it for a nap or at bedtime, I sing it to her as a lullaby. The brevity of it works well for this, as I can usually get through the pre-bedtime diaper change in right about the same time it takes to sing the thing through. The lyrics go like this:

Who knows how long I’ve loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime
If you want me to, I will.

For if I ever saw you
I didn’t catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same.

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we’re together
Love you when we’re apart.

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you me to
Ah you know I will
I will.

On that very last “I will” at the end there, Paul jumps up an entire octave and hits a high note to close out the song. Being a Beatles purist, I do my best imitation of this high-note as I finish off Keaton’s lullaby each night, my voice often breaking around the strain. Keaton has oviously learned to recognize this point in the song, because, at the past two night-night concertos, she’s squeaked out the high note right along with me at the end. At first I thought it might be a fluke, but now there’s no denying she knows the song enough to realize when that finale is coming, and hearing her little voice try to match my wavering attempt at alto completely melts my heart. Not only because we can share that “moment,” but also because… she knows the Beatles! Hehe.

Oh man, I have to tell you guys about this Led Zeppelin bootleg downloading spree I’ve been on. I don’t know why, but I just went nuts and started downloading all sorts of live ‘Zep recently. I actually think it started when all the hooplah about their recenr reunion show was boiling over on the internet. Anyway, I ended up finding a couple of simply amazing sounding “soundboard” shows. For those not acquainted with the terminology used to rate the sound quality of live music, soundboard means the show was recorded direct from the mixing board where the band’s engineer monitors all the audio sources and makes them sound good for the audience – it’s the best quality you can hope for in a live bootleg. Anyway, one of the shows is from Dallas in 1975 and one from Paris in 1969. Oh man, you gotta hear these shows… online bootlegging is the way of the future.

Oh, and, on the down-low, ‘Zep’s reunion show from last week has totally already leaked online… you should check it out tout-de-suite (look for the “slowburn” version until something better comes along).

Sorry it was all music. Goodnight.

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play-by-play hyperbolized-realism


First off: Yes, the James story was fiction. I couldn’t think of anything to write, so I decided to tell a story. Thanks to those who mentioned enjoying it. Somehow, though, I don’t think storytelling is my thing – so I stick to the regular play-by-play hyperbolized-realism I seem to be better at.

Ready for an abbreviated weekend report? OK:

Friday: Anthony calls me around 10am to say he may have an extra ticket to this big ol’ rock show going down in the city. Asks me, if it becomes available, would I want to go. I say “yup.” Noon, the ticket is mine, and I’m to be at his house by 3pm. We arrive in San Francisco sometime around 6pm and stand in line in the freezing cold with eight-thousand other mods-‘n’-rockers to get in. It was a packed bill at six bands. I was excited to see Modest Mouse and Spoon, but the entire show ending up being quite enjoyable. Anthony and I even braved the very young crowd to crush right up into the guts of the floor by Modest Mouse’s set. Home by 2am.

Saturday: Used the morning to catch up on three days of little sleep, woke up at 10:30am. Took a shower, pulled on some jeans, and made the conscious decision to not don a shirt. I intended to remain shirtless the entire day. Sharaun went on a Christmas shopping odyssey and was gone all day, stopping home only briefly around 5pm to bring in a take-and-bake pizza, cook it, eat a slice and head back out. I spent most of the day playing with Keaton and taking picture of CDs I’m selling on Ebay. Never did put on a shirt, either. Not even when a friend dropped by unannounced later in the evening on the way between two bars. I stood there in the living room and had a half-hour conversation barefoot, barechested, and bedenimed. A great lazy day spent being daddy.

Sunday: Church. Driving there we saw a bum on the offramp holding a ridiculously small scrap of cardboard, on which I assume a standard plea for assistance. You know, something boilerplate bum-verbiage, including go-tos like “God bless,” “Vietnam vet,” “anything helps,” and “hungry.” The little piece of cardboard was so tiny, though, that we had no chance of reading it. I jokingly said, “You need a bigger piece of cardboard, buddy.” Sharaun made some comment about him needing one of those big spinny arrows or placards like the sign-people on the corner use to bring in potential homebuyers or lure people to the Cheesesteak joint. Sounded like a brilliant idea to me. I predict panhandlers will soon turn to this more animated form of begging. After church I repaired some of the faux-stonework that has fallen off the front of our house. The fallen pieces stayed where they fell for years now, and the guys were giving me crap about it the other day. So yeah, Sunday I made fun of bums and did home repair.

For some reason the other day, Sharaun had Keaton’s old bouncer out from storage. She took a picture of Keaton sitting in it, and I thought it would be fun to compare that with a picture of her in it when she really used to use it. So, for a lark, here’s three months and twenty-two months. Pretty sure she’s over the weight limit in that second one…

Moving on…

Back some time ago, I made the decision to digitize (convert to MP3) my entire CD collection. After which I sold off all my then-redundant physical discs for profit. If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ll remember that the plan took a long time, but was ultimately wildly successful. I ended up selling ~600 CDs, making a little money in the process. Not bad. In fact, it financed a bit of my Lasik surgery, so it was well worth it. When I sold my discs, though, I held onto all my prized Beatles bootlegs (as well as some other prized bootlegs from various other artists). I knew that, one day, I’d start selling them off too –but I hung onto them partly because of my strong attachment to them, and also because I figured they could fetch more if sold properly (“marketed” as sufficiently rare, etc. – which they indeed are). Anyway, I wrote this whole mess because I wanted to share some statistics:

Selling non-bootleg CDs, I made a somewhat respectable amount per CD. Bootlegs, however, have proven to be much more lucrative. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been slowly but surely offloading my entire Beatles bootleg collection online. What’s amazing is that, on average, I’ve been making more than ten times what I made selling my “commercial” discs. Not to mention I’ve got another pile of bootlegs from artists who aren’t the Beatles, which I’m hoping will pull just as much dough. As an example of this insanity, while packing up one nine-CD set for sale, I happened upon my original purchase invoice from back in the mid 1990s. Right now, it looks like it’s actually going to make money over that cost, meaning the dang thing actually appreciated while I owned it. Unbelievable.

As you can imagine, I’m working frantically to get all the discs up for sale, as I suspect this is the season where I’ll realize the highest profit on them, capitalizing on Christmas gifts for collectors. It’s bittersweet, selling them off. It feels good to make money, but those things were such a big part of my life at one point. It was such fun acquiring and hearing them for the first time. Scouring obscure record bins for high-priced “imports,” dealing with shady mail-order joints advertised in the back of Goldmine, ordering from “contacts” in Japan and Europe… it was all a big game of cloak-and-dagger where the reward was untold joy at getting to hear Beatles stuff I’d never before heard. It’s sad to see them go, but it’s not that sad… I still have the music, after all.

Anyway, dolla-dolla-billz y’all. Dolla-dolla-billz. Can the RIAA send me to Rikers for this?

Goodnight.

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George Foreman is a dirty liar


Well, we made it to December, blog-readin’ friends. If you’ve been around a while, I’m glad to have had you with me for another year. If you’re a newbie, hopefully you like what you’ve seen and might decide to hang out in ’08. I promise I’ll do better, OK? OK.

Sunday night and I just finished doing dishes. Let me tell you, George Foreman is a dirty liar. Every time I see that Sharaun’s hauled down that Foreman Grill to cook a chicken breast, my head sags. Just the thought of having to clean that thing out: the awkwardness of getting it positioned just right so I can direct the flow of water onto it while keeping the critical not-waterproof parts clear of moisture; the cumbersome need-three-hands job of holding the thing in place, open, and scrubbing it; and the detailed labor of cleansing every last toasted bit of chicken chicken from the ruts in the uneven grooved surface. I can’t believe they were allowed to market this thing with a phrase like “Cleanup is a snap!” Maybe a snapped-neck from the yoga-like positions you have to contort into in order to get the thing clean. Maybe that.

OK, moving on. Hope everyone had a good weekend. Here’s some stuff that made mine nice.

Keaton woke up around 7:30am this morning, hollering “Get out!, get out!” It was my morning to go get her up and changed, and after I did I brought her back into our room where Sharaun was still in bed. And, as is good to do on cold Sunday mornings before church, we all three climbed into bed together and snuggled under the covers for a while before getting up and getting going. While there, I asked Keaton if she had a good night’s sleep. “Did you have any good dreams?,” I asked. “Yes,” she replied. “Oh,” Sharaun said, “What did you dream about?” “God,” she replied, and then, “Frog… hiding.” “God and a hiding frog?,” we asked. “Garbamane,” she answered (her pronunciation of “garbage man”). The way I figure it, she had an awesome science-fiction like dream where God, hiding himself in the body of a frog, was trying to escape an evil garbage man. Sounds like a pretty cool dream.

Saturday and Sunday both, Sharaun and I spent time each day while Keaton napped assembling and decorating our Christmas tree. We haven’t even put up the tree the past two years, as we usually head to Florida around mid-December and it just didn’t seem worth it only to have to come home and take it all down again. But, since our annual Christmas-in-Florida trip doesn’t start until later in the month this year, Sharaun suggested we setup the tree. I was reluctant, as I still hate the thought of having to come home and take it all down after I’ve already “done” Christmas, but I agreed. In the end, I’m glad I relented. I forgot how much I enjoy putting up and decorating the tree. Putting the iPod on a Christmas shuffle, drinking some hot chocolate, and bickering over whether or not I’d hung two Santas to close to each other or gotten the “peaks” of two strands of garland “too aligned.”

Anyway, here’s some photos of the process we thought you might enjoy (sorry for all the grain… high-ISO, low-light, and I did my best to de-noise and re-gamma them… I’m just no photographer):

Anyway, it was a nice “family” weekend, and now, with the lights out late at night, the glow all those little multicolored lights on the tree help to remind me of how much I love this time of year.

That’s all folks. I love you all, but I’m outta here. Goodnight.

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remembering maui


After a successful, short- but-sweet overnight backpacking trip Saturday night with friends, I decided to take the evening off from bloggings. Besides, I’m busy filling up my new iPod Classic with all sorts of new and improved music. So… I present to you… an easy Monday post:

Click over here for some “new” pictures of Keaton and the family from our October trip to Maui.

Enjoy.

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maybe get sick on candy


Happy Halloween friends and enemies! Let not your modern-day Protestant church rob you of the good times this holiday affords the world! Forsake that “Harvest Festival” or “Fall Celebration” for some good old trick-or-treating with a scary mask and some fake blood! Maybe get sick on candy like you were a kid again. If not tonight, when else?

Tonight (which is last night as you read this, should you know nothing about when/how I blog) Keaton sat on my lap and watched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with me (on DVD, of course, since it’s such a classic). To my surprise, she sat right down with me and truly paid attention. I think it’s because she’s able to recognize so many things: pumpkins, ghosts, the moon, a football, a dog, hats, trees, leaves, and mail – just to name a few. Her sense of recognition and memory impresses me on a daily basis, and her vocabulary, word usage, and phrase-building ability boggles my mind. She says things like “Keeper, out, room!” to the cat; “Daddy, reading, book,” to me; “Mommy, cooking, dinner, hungry, eat,” all together like she’s really trying to make a coherent thought. I know it’s like just the beginning of her “grouping” the words she knows around a single binding action or concept, but it’s still pretty amazing. Pretty much every day she says a word I hadn’t even thought she’d known… it’s pretty impressive.

I went to lunch with a fellow manager from work today, and even though I don’t start back there until Monday, I couldn’t help but use our time to begin gearing my mind for the return. I asked about the usual: what’s going on, how’s morale, how are the politics, who’s doing what, what’s coming up, what happened while I was out, and what of the latest rumors and soap opera goings-on. It was a good conversation, but, in the end, it more than reinforced my dream of winning the lottery Saturday night so I just don’t have to go in at all. I’ve waffled here before about my job – which I truly do enjoy, and feel I’m good at – but also on the other hand wouldn’t mind seeing being swallowed up whole by the Earth in some freak geological event. It’s a fine balance, a knife-edge thing of sorts. I fear, however, that I will be going back… that much, at least, is rather inevitable. And, if I’m to go back and continue to do well – I figured I better start those long-rested hamsters a’running again before I walk in on day-one. Sigh… it begins.

Tonight I watched most (not all, I’ll admit, as it began wearing on me) of the Democratic debate on MSNBC. Ugh… people… we’ve got another whole year of this. I don’t know that I can take it. I’m a fairly well-established social liberal, so I like to think I identify with the general current of thought of these people, their platforms. But man, I’m already weary. Anyone else share in my apathy? I hate how politics can just suck the life of out seemingly everything sometimes. Why, when I watch these people, do I take on such an air of doubt… why do I find it so hard to assume they are being honest? What have you done to me, George W. Bush? You’ve ruined me. You’re such a fucker. You’re a fucker and you’ve made me ashamed of my country’s truckballs-style John Wayne politics on the world stage. Ugh… another year.

Finally, before I go, a snippet from a recent interview with Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails frontman and a proponent of various forms of the “new thought” regarding music distribution), where he admits he was an OiNKer (see my earlier entry if the word “OiNKer” means nothing to you), and talks a bit about the former site:

What do you think about OiNK being shut down?

Trent: I’ll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world’s greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don’t feel cool when I go there. I’m tired of seeing John Mayer’s face pop up. I feel like I’m being hustled when I visit there, and I don’t think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that’s what’s such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they’re grateful for the person that uploaded it — they’re the hero. They’re not stealing it because they’re going to make money off of it; they’re stealing it because they love the band. I’m not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want.

Man, that sure sounds like it was a cool website… too bad I never got the chance to check it out. In summary: I was never a member. But, if there was some some bizarro world in which I was – I most certainly would’ve only reveled in the site’s groundbreaking role in digital content distribution, and never partook in it’s tainted wares. I’m to straight and narrow to put my neck out there like that… don’t y’all know me at all?

Goodnight.