Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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video makes up for word


I don’t have much today, work was brutal like it hasn’t been for a while now and kept my brain pretty much consumed all day – no time to think about things to write about. It was non-stop and frustrating, but I did manage to get some long-overdue work done. In the end though, I split at five and didn’t look back. I stopped at the local warehouse place on the way home to get some final touches for the garden (some tomato cages, some bell pepper seeds, and some drip equipment). It rained today in sunny California, and the temperature was downright un-Summer… but I didn’t let it stop me from getting a few minutes outside finishing up my sowing and whatnot. I swear, if this garden works I’m gonna be pumped.

Anyway, the point of that paragraph was to say, “I’m tired.” So, I figured that, tonight, in lieu of writing, I could just post a link to the video we took of Keaton 2nd day walking. She’s getting better, and this afternoon was trying to walk more than crawl right near bedtime. She gets really happy when she’s doing it, I think she knows we enjoy watching it (she should, the way we cheer her on). Anyway, you can watch the incredibly cute video over at Keaton’s gallery – all edited and scored and annotated by moi. Enjoy!

Goodnight.

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gotta get that chore wheel, y’all


Well, it’s official – Keaton’s walking. All of the sudden today she just started standing up from sitting, not needing to pull up on anything for support. Once up, she’ll walk short distances – ten or so steps – to mom or dad or something else she can hold on to. While it’s not full-on walking as a primary mode of transportation (and therefore not “real” per Sharaun’s definition), it is definitely walking and she’s definitely doing it. I’ll make sure and get some video posted as soon as we get some. And so, another milestone. Now… if she’d only get some more teeth, those two bottom-front ones look so lonely in there…

I don’t know why I’ve not realized this before, but my high-speed provider offers free usenet access. You get capped at 2GB per month and the retention isn’t as stellar or solid as giganews or anything, but it’s pretty awesome. Sometimes usenet is the best place for some lesser-represented music on the major invite-only trackers (especially classic blues, there’s a well-established group on usenet for the genre, but it’s scarce on most private-trackers). So, I hooked that up the other day on the new compy at home and was winging bits through wires in short order. Got some great new vintage blues stuff too, can’t wait to give it all a listen.

Actually, speaking of that blues music, I recently downloaded a collection of recordings from the pre-Robert Johnson Delta blues artist Tommy Johnson, and, as I often do with new musicians I “find,” I decided I wanted to know more about him. I headed over to allmusic.com and looked him up, and it turns out he’s got one heck of a story. Check this out:

The legend of Tommy Johnson is even harder to ignore. The stories about his live performances … are part of it. So is his uncontrolled womanizing and alcoholism, both of which constantly got him in trouble. Johnson’s addiction to spirits was so pronounced that he was often seen drinking Sterno-denatured alcohol used for artificial heat — or shoe polish strained through bread for the kick each could offer when whiskey wasn’t affordable or available in dry counties throughout the South.

Johnson spent most of the ’20s drinking, womanizing, gambling, and playing … when the money got low and apparently, only when the mood struck him. By all acounts, Tommy felt no particular drive to relentlessly promote himself and — while he played music for pay until the very end of his life — he certainly wasn’t as serious about his career as he was about his drinking.

He cut one more stack of great records for the Paramount label in 1930, largely through the maneuvering of fellow drinking buddy Charley Patton. Then the slow descent into alcoholism started taking its toll, the one too many nights of Sterno and shoe polish buzzes reducing his once prodigious talents to small, sporadic flickerings of former genius. He worked on a medicine show … in the ’30s, but mostly seemed to be a mainstay of the juke and small party dance circuit the rest of his days. He was playing just such a local house party in November of 1956 when he suffered a fatal heart attack and went out in probably the exact fashion he wanted to.

Now that’s some hardcore musicianship… a real dedication to the craft. I tip my shiny wingtip to ya, Tommy.

I’ve decided, after Sharaun told me some friends of ours have a similar plan, that I’m going to create a comprehensive “chore chart” for the house. The hope, is that I can standardize a routine that will help both me and Sharaun to better keep up with housework. This may seem anal or unnecessary, but it’s not. I’ve complained again and again and again about the state of our house. Sure, we can clean it up enough in the common areas to where people don’t notice, but I see the backlot, what gets swept under the rug – and it’s filthy. The things I know Sharaun dislikes doing, cleaning the showers and bathrooms, I don’t do often enough. Plus, I’ve tried to explain to Sharaun that keeping a place “tidy” as a lot easier than doing a major “spring cleaning” every few months to sort through the accumulated detritus.

The other day, I threatened to hire a maid – a luxury which somewhat disgusts me, but the threat was hollow and was meant more to “subtly” communicate (for the billionth time) my state of displeasure with the cleanliness of our crib. Of course, she thought the idea was ridiculous – which I thought might spur some re-dedication but instead generated the suggestion of a “chore chart.” Bingo, I’m all over that. I want to have this done next week and put into use ASAP. Sheesh… we gotta get right or this kid is gonna grow up thinking she can leave a trail of waste behind her all the time. I gotta get that chore wheel, y’all.

Goodnight.

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getting out of a rut


Let’s clear the air here first, before we do the standard blog fare: For about two weeks now, I’ve been pretty disappointed with the blog. I haven’t been able to put the right amount of time and effort into it, and it’s shown with multiple-day dry spells and bad entries. I know exactly why too – I’ve just been doing too much of everything else: hanging out with friends, yardwork, playing with the baby, reading – just to name a few. I don’t think this is a bad thing at all, but I would like to get back into some more meaningful writing (not because I feel guilty but because I actually enjoy it). So, I’m hoping to get out of the rut here soon – maybe you’ll decide to see me through it, sit with me through the doldrums and wait for the other end of the tunnel?

Hey, before you read more – go check out the big ol’ backlog of pictures I uploaded to Keaton’s gallery, you won’t regret it (she’s cute as crap!).

Sitting at the gate awaiting my flight from Shanghai back to the US. There is a brilliantly beautiful girl sitting not far from me, traveling with her family. She looks to be part Western and part Eastern, apparently the best bits of each. I’m pretty much in love with her right now. Seems she’ll be flying to San Francisco as well, so perhaps between napping, reading, watching some TV, and stealing an occasional glance of her – I’ll have an enjoyable ten hour flight. And now, much to your amazement and sure-thing applause, I bring you the next sentence from some fifteen-hours later: Sitting in San Francisco waiting for that last puddle-jumper home. The brilliantly beautiful girl is also going home, it seems, and her home is the same as my home. Although, I must admit the long flight has dulled her edges just a bit – but I must look even worse than my fresh-and-clean best too, so I’d say the mutual chances of a clandestine hookup have at least gone down proportionally. It’s OK, though, because I’m about to be home with my wife and daughter – and I’m ready ready ready…

Ahhh… the relaxation that can only come from being on one’s own couch, a full weekend ahead of him, having just returned from China (yes, it’s a rare form of relaxation indeed). Keaton’s here too, just dad and baby – while mom man’s some event up at church (she’s become quite Mrs. Involved lately with all manner of “mom’s group” doings, which I think is wonderful – and probably appeals to that sense of responsibility she cultivated and then had to leave when she started, then departed from, her teaching job). All this means dad’s got Keaton for the morning, up until her afternoon nap. After that, I plan to try and get my garden planted (providing the clouds break). I’ll get what I can as living transplants up at the Home Depot, and if I can’t find the exact breed of what I want there I’ll do seeds over the ‘net and start that way.

Speaking of my garden, the folks in Shanghai were quite astounded when I told them that I was trying my hand at the trade. Seems their notion of American suburban backyards doesn’t include gardens (wonder why) – and my desire to “farm” had them somewhat befuddled. I liked it, added to my Western sense of mystery, I’m like a storybook figure: A rich American engineering manager with two cars who can have limitless babies if he desires and grows vegetables in his backyard. All I need is a blue ox and a loom that spins gold and I’d be a timeless legend. Now I have the added pressure of a few Chinese coworkers imagining my bounty of homegrown vegetables to deal with as I tool my crop to success though – if it’s a complete bust now I’ll be letting an entire nation down.

Anyway, Keaton and I are sitting around watching the sun try to break through the morning clouds. We’re listening to the astounding-sounding MFSL version of Yes’ calssic 1972 album Fragile, which I just put on my iPod this morning after discovering, after getting a sudden and strong yen to rock out to it during my flight home, that, much to my horror, it was not already thereon. (Man, I re-worded that sentence like four times before I decided I’d placed all the comma’d-off portions correctly. If you do that “it has to make sense without the comma’d parts rule” it should read: “…after discovering that it was not already thereon,” sounds right to me). Anyway, the omission made me realize that my Yes collection is somewhat lacking, so I ran out and picked up both 1971’s The Yes Album, and 1972’s Close to the Edge, which are both sounding mighty fine to me right now.

Oh, I’ve been wanting to write about all the things Keaton can now do – more for my own recordkeeping than bragging, although a mite of bragging ain’t never hurt no one that I heard of. Anyway, Keaton can now say the following things: “bye-bye,” “hi,” “dog,” “ball,” “hat,” “night-night,” “wow,” “mom,” “dad,” “bread,” and most recently, “no.” She can correctly point to the following body parts when asked: eyes, ear, belly, feet, nose, and tongue. As of tonight, she’s taken eight consecutive steps while standing, so on the road to walking. She can make a roaring sound when you ask, “What does a lion say?” Sharaun thinks she’s a genius because of all of this, I just think she’s regular.

Just finished my taxes. I had put in Keaton’s SSN yet because I couldn’t find the card. Found it, put it in, and saw my Fed refund go from like less than $200 to just over a grand. I thought that was hardcore awesome. Goodnight.

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breakfast for dinner


Monday and my hands ache, both sore and bruised from gripping and using tools to move around dirt and rocks over the weekend. At work, each word I typed out gave a little satisfactory burn in those underused muscles, and made me want to be back tinkering with my project instead of sitting at a desk doing e-mail. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t get paid to fiddle in the garden – I do get paid to sit on my butt and do e-mail – and I’m gonna go where da money at. Now, if I could solve my money issue by, say, getting a lot of it or simply removing the need for it – I’d be all over a career in gardening and garage organizing and baby playing-with and mowing and and and…

Turns out I was kinda half-right about dodging my upcoming trip to Shanghai and Taiwan. Looks like the trip has turned into a shortened version, seeing me in Shanghai only (which I much prefer), and for only about four days. For some reason, I’m able to stomach this abbreviated version of the trip much better than I was able to in its previous incarnation. Actually, with the added stress of the between-travel taken away, I’m now sort of even looking forward to it. A few days in Shanghai, get some work done, go out in the evenings with friends, some good Sichuan food… yeah, I’m kinda looking forward to it after all. I’m even thinking about spending a little money and getting a custom suit made – my only suit is the one I bought to interview for jobs with out of college, and, while it still more-or-less fits, its service is about over. Plus, tailored suits there are less expensive than “stock” ones here, and the fabric is good quality if you go to the right place. We’ll see.

Tonight Sharaun made breakfast for dinner. Normally, I don’t like that, some sort of breaking-tradition thing or something – plus I really don’t like meals that feature “sweet,” I’m a “savory” kinda guy. But tonight it was welcomed. I used it as some sort of mental “reset” ritual, trying to pretend it was the real beginning to my day in hopes it might help me erase the banality that was my real day. It worked, to an extent, I had good post-breakfast “day” playing with Keaton and listening to music. It was raining outside, so I didn’t get to play in the garden (I still need to route the drip). Some days, breakfast for dinner is totally cool.

I updated Keaton’s pictures today, you can check them out here.

Bye.

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weekend writing


Sunday night. On Friday, I went to the doctor at 11am and came home for the rest of the day, loosely monitoring e-mail while I rested on the couch. The doc’s word: an ear-infection for each ear, and a sinus infection to boot. The last time I was in in late January, they’d given me a standard course of amoxicillin to knock it out. This time, she said, she’d give me something that packed a little more wallop. Seems to be working, although I did expressly disobey the “make sure and stay well hydrated” orders in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, and it really did set me back. Hopefully though, my health will continue its drug-assisted upward trend. Well, before we go on then, here’s a link to an updated Keaton’s gallery – with some long-overdue moving pictures as well as the standard static stuff. Enjoy.

Keaton, being only a little more than a year old, has probably heard a wider variety of music than most average twenty year-olds. I love this. Today, I played with her on the carpet for hours while the iPod shuffled up tunes fro its well-stocked hard drive. “This is Emitt Rhodes,” I’d say to her, “He sounds a lot like McCartney, before McCartney went soft.” “Gah…” she’d affirm. “Now, this is Taj Mahal, and this song should always make you feel good inside, even tho they call it ‘the blues,’ OK?” “Bah,” she replies. Between her mom’s hip-hop and R&B leanings and my own rock-founded eclectic tastes – by the time she’s in high school she should be a walking encyclopedia of music history. She’ll be able to pick apart the latest flavor-of-the-week in seconds: “These guys are just ripping off Zeppelin riffs with Clash-style bass and saccharine harmonies like wanna-be Zombies.” Oh man, if she ever really says anything like that… I might faint of pride. Anyway, I do revel in the fact that she’s already heard so much, and truly do wonder if anything is getting soaked-up: the beats, the sound, the rhythms, anything… guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Having been sole-parent to Keaton now for the better part of each past Saturday, I have a better understanding of the difficulty Sharaun must face every day. When Keaton’s awake (anytime that’s not about 1pm to about 4pm), you are wholly absorbed caring for and playing with her, and in your mind you think about all the “real” things you’ll be able to get done once she’s down for her nap. The things you want to do, like pick up the living room or put away the laundry or finish the dishes – the things you can’t get done when she’s awake. But, come that blessed time, the afternoon nap, you just want to stop more than anything. Stop everything and do nothing. Motivation to do more work is hard to come by when the moment of solace you’ve been watching minutes for finally arrives. I suppose it’s a whole new mindset, as work-schedule adjustment is all – but I can see, in my brief coverage as mom, that it’d sure take me a while to find the cadence. Maybe that’s why I come home to the house messier than when I left it each day…

You know, despite, about 90% of the time, loving this beard-thing I’m cultivating on my face – I’m still extremely self-conscious about it. I like it; I like most everything about it – but I’m just not sure it looks right. Sometimes, rare times, but sometimes, I’ll catch myself in the mirror and the thing looks horribly out of place. Other times, I’ll catch a glimpse and think about how much I like it. And, as much as I want to continue to grow it out, I have this little voice in my that’s coming up with nonchalant comebacks to the Amish jokes, to the rabbi jokes. I dunno, I read online that guys who experimenting with beards should wear them for at least six months to really get an idea if they like themselves in them. I think that would put me sometime in August, maybe I’ll use Sharaun’s birthday as a decision point. I’ve also thought about going to a “real” barber (not Fantastic Sams or Great Clips, but that place near downtown with a real barber’s pole and the guy who sits outside smoking his pipe when he’s not cutting hair) and asking them to give me a pro-style trim and “line adjustment.” I would think a “real” barber might be able to give me some tips on shape and whatnot. See the things I labor over?

Goodnight.

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anthematic?


Mowed the lawn today, and the iPod’s shuffle function was feeling anthemic. Now, when I wrote that sentence in my head as I mowed, the word “anthemic” sounded awesome. In fact, the word “anthemic” was the entire reason I wanted to write the sentence, I wanted so badly to use it – as it just sounded great in my head, and I figured it would look so sexy on the screen (sans serif, of course). How crushed do you think I was when I banged it out at the keyboard and the little red dots popped up underneath it when I hit the space bar to move onto the next word. “What, ‘anthemic’ isn’t a word?” I thought. Bollocks. A quick Google search to vindicate me – no definition quicklink in the upper right for “anthemic.” Dang, what’s going on here. Maybe it’s “anthematic?” Little red dots again. Well, that was such a bust – and I was so geared up, a shame. I’m gonna use it anyway, ’cause it makes you just want to drop your pants: anthemic. What I meant to say was, the iPod played long greats like Weezer’s “Only In Dreams,” and Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism.” I mowed with a grin; the weather was perfect.

I think it should be illegal to sell dishtowels that don’t actually absorb water. I hate this. Hate it with a passion. We must have twenty dishtowels at home, all of which aren’t worth their weave but for the microfiber ones. Those microfiber ones are like those super-mashed up t-shirts you get at trade shows, you know the ones that are unbelievably compressed into shapes like little rocketships or wrenches or tennis shoes (depending on the trade show, of course). Everything else is jack. Don’t be fooled, my painstaking research has proven that about 90% of dishtowels just push water around and don’t absorb a drop. If you want a towel that will actually dry your dishes, get the microfiber ones… they are the jonk.

Wow folks, a few months ago, I was busy ripping through my entire CD collection, turning them into MP3s. And, since I’m anal and I like all my audio files to be tagged correctly (i.e. contain the right artist, album, track, etc. data embedded into the file), I oft-lamented on the difficulty of getting my treasured Beatles bootlegs (or bootlegs in general, for that matter) to properly tag-up. The lack of a centralized CDDB-style database for bootlegs was the main problem. Back then, I decided to do something about it and I wrote a script for the great freeware tagging app, the Godfather, that would go out and “scrape” the then-incomparable bootlegzone.com website for tag data. The script was complex, full-featured, and worked like a charm. With its help, I automatically tagged up hundreds of Beatlegs… all with the press of a button. That whole time, I kept thinking, “What if bootlegzone went offline tomorrow?” Me, with hundreds of untagged bootlegs still to go and so much invested in my script… I’d’ve been heartbroken. Well, fate, this time, it seems, spared me. As of sometime late last month, bootlegzone went dark for good. Sad to see it go, but glad I got to exploit its labors before it died. Believe me though, in the Beatleg world, it’s a big deal.

In Keaton news, she’s begun to stand unassisted at every chance she gets. Sharaun or I will say, “No hands!” and she’ll throw her hands in the air and squeal like she’s riding an imaginary roller coaster. So far, she seems more interested in perfecting her standing technique than she does taking any real steps – but we have been able to get her to take a single step by moving away from her and holding her hand. She can push into a standing position from sitting, so I’m assuming walking isn’t far off. Things move fast. Speaking of Keaton, I managed to get up a new series of images to her gallery – check ’em out here.

Thanks.

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weekend minus one


Friday tomorrow, and we have an “off-site” event at work, which means it’s gonna be just a little more than a half day and then an afternoon of early beers and some snooker. I think it’ll be a nice way to ease into the weekend. As for the weekend, I don’t have many plans. Sharaun is leaving me with Keaton all day Saturday while she goes snowboarding. I’m thinking we’ll maybe walk to the park or something. At some point I have big plans to mow and fertilize the lawn, and maybe install a screen door.

My website was down most of the day today, some database issues on the host side which I hope they’ve now worked through. Not that I’m losing millions in trade for every minute of downtime, but I’m sure Sharaun’s grandmother in Florida thinks her computer is broken when she goes to look at Keaton’s new pictures and gets a 404. I really think that blog comment spam is what may be causing my somewhat frequent database issues, as my host limits the number of database “connects” I can have in any given time-chunk. Every time a spam comment gets written to the database (which still happens, even though Akismet catches them and relegates them to an unpublished “spam” queue for later review), it counts against my “max connections” ceiling. Honestly, that’s the only thing I can see pushing me over the limit. Also, though, I think my host has weak database support on my current plan (where I share a single server with hundreds of other users’ websites, and we’re all getting a slice of the same MySQL pipe on the backend). I could upgrade to a virtualized dedicated server – but that costs dough. Anyway, sorry for the nerd-talk.

My beard is progressing nicely and is now rather fuzzy and voluminous, little hairs jutting this way and that in a nice thick tangle. Whenever I’m in the car, I strain my neck to admire it in the rearview. I love watching the water drip off it in streams during my morning shower, and the fact that the fuzz of it obscures the bottom lobe of my ear in the mirror. I have these visions of the pictures from this summer’s future camping trips, where I have this massive jumble of beard hanging off my chops, like the mountain man I always dream about but will never be. Sometimes I wonder if, come the day I decide I want to shave it all off (never?), Keaton will recognize me the same. I know she’ll know who I am, but I can’t help but think she’s gotten used to unshaven daddy as the one true daddy – any other daddy might just be an impostor.

I’m all pumped because Sharaun and I and a bunch of friends all got tickets to see the Arcade Fire play at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley in June. There are still tickets left, so get ’em and join us there – the whole venue is general admission so it should be blissful anarchy trying to jockey for the good seats. Yay! Arcade Fire in an outdoor venue on a nice June night… I can’t wait.

Goodnight.