Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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bad dad


Monday night, didn’t feel like I got to see Keaton much at all tonight – made me sad to put her down knowing I really won’t get much time with her again until tomorrow night. Got the Ford washed after work today, the first time in nearly six months (I know because of the dates on the pictures of the ski trip Pat borrowed it for). Driving it around afterward, it was amazing how different it is to be able to see clearly on my periphery. No more dust-clad windows. Varied topics today, I actually split this up into two – as I got off on a very detailed “co-op” tangent which I think deserves its own devoted entry (tune in tomorrow for that). And, we’re off:

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of “feeling good” about the house Sharaun and I bought (and currently live in). With real estate prices here in the streets-of-gold utopia of Northern California soaring to the realms of insanity, I think we did a good thing buying what we did when we did. At first, as more and more of my friends began purchasing their own, larger-than-ours, homes, and our little family expanded with Keaton, I felt a little bigger than the place. Even entertained the idea of moving in the not-so-distant future to accommodate our growth. I mean, ~1,500 sq/ft isn’t exactly a palace, y’know. More recently, though, I’ve developed a sense of “job well done” in our purchase. Instead of lamenting our lack of closet space compared to the walk-in jobs that our friends have, I decided to put up more shelves. Instead of worrying about the guestroom-to-nursery conversion leaving us incapable of proper hospitality, we got a sleeper-sofa and are considering repurposing the “computer room.” What’s more, as I trod the short hallways and modest living space – I begin to feel good about not living beyond our means. Not to insinuate others are, it’s just that I feel a bit better about the realism I now see in our choice.

The more I find inventive ways to improve and get the most out of what we’ve got, the better I feel about our purchase. Really, only in America do you have the luxury of wondering if your family of three needs more space than the quarter-acre, 1,000+ sq/ft house with central heat/air and running water. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced we should continue to enjoy the space we have until it really does become unfeasible (which, conceivably, could be never). I mean, I don’t think the house I grew up in with my brother and folks was near as big as where we are now – and we coexisted peacefully just fine. I look to things like the ample space we have for all our stuff, and all the amenities we need to stay healthy and happy, and I feel proud for living within our means… for not going overboard. Who’d’ve thought I’d have a sense of self-satisfaction having a smaller home than the Joneses? Now, I just want to convert to solar power…

At Sharaun’s birthday party at our house this past weekend, both of us ended up imbibing a little too generously. When I woke up in the morning hurting, I was pretty disgusted with myself. I didn’t really let on to Sharaun, but the fact that we were both not quite in our right minds as Keaton slept peacefully in her room really got to me. I felt utterly irresponsible, and mentioned to her that, from now on, even if we’re at home there’ll be only one of us drinking. It really got to me, running through the what-if scenarios in my head… made me feel painfully selfish for putting myself before Keaton in some way. Of course, nothing bad happened, but that’s not the point. The extent of my punishment this time was simply a day wasted to recovery as I lay useless around the house trying to sleep of my self-inflicted poisoning, and I don’t intend to give the fates another chance at some assigning grimmer consequences. Bad dad; bad, bad dad. No, seriously… bad dad.

After years of spending frustrating hours on the phone with my dad attempting to help him when he has a computer issue, I finally wised up and worked out a more practical solution. To be fair, pops has become increasingly computer literate, but being that he’s still not a worthy apprentice to my mastery I still struggle with things that, while basic to me, are not so natural and simple-seeming to him. To make things easier for us both, I walked him through signing up for a logmein.com account and had him add me as a secondary user of his PC. Now I can access his PC remotely from anyplace with a connection and a browser. The acid-test was on Sunday though, when I remote-troubleshot (and solved) a particularly nasty iTunes issue he was having. Logmein worked like a charm, I shoulda done this a year ago.

Goodnight my friends.

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hump on meth


Sunday, pre-noon, so.. morning, I suppose. Listening to the Dears new record, and the second time around it’s sounding really good – don’t know what happened on the first spin the other night, wonder if this’ll hold up or if it’s got something to do with the open windows, sunshine, and breeze. Maybe I should put on the new Decemberists too, see what a gorgeous Sunday can do for the sad state of “initial judgement” I heaped on it. I just put Keaton down for a nap, Sharaun’s playing soccer (2nd game back since torn ACL, surgery recovery, and pregnancy). Last night we had our 1st “date night” without Keaton (not counting the anniversary dinner back in FL because it’s not “here”). With Keaton dropped off safely with very generous friends, we set about some fine dining and a movie. Saw Descent, damn… that was a truly scary movie. Of course, the majority of the 2hr+ fondue “experience” was spent talking about the baby, but I think that may be normal or something.

Speaking of the baby, she’s officially teething – and not happy for it. Stinks to see her hurt, especially when there’s nothing you can do about it. Not only that, stinks that her hurting means her crying… and that inconsolable sort of crying that’s just no fun all around. Some times she’s off, sometimes she’s on, but the books are right when they say that those little tooths can affect everything from her sleeping, to her eating, and even, bizarrely, the consistency of her poo. No visible teeth as yet, but you can bet they’ll be on the web as soon as the erupt.

And, more of the kid-related… Sharaun had the “Teen Choice Awards” on tonight while I sat here blogging. Normally, I’d just tune in when the choice teens are on screen – but as I listened passively, I began to hear some interesting stuff. Drug references, alcohol references, and plenty o’ sex. I sat there, “tsking” and shaking my head, thinking of my eventual teenager sitting and watching the stars they love glamorize all the things that stars do – I found myself surprised. Sharaun, “tsking” and nodding right along with me, stopped to ask “Do we think this is bad because we’re old, or because we have a kid now, or both?” “Both, I guess,” I offered. Anyway, after I finish writing this I’m gonna exercise my geriatric-parental rights to fire off a stinging missive to Fox, in which I will condemn them for their too-adult “teen” show (and maybe their rightwing nutjob cable news network too, depends on how much of my dad I can channel at once without passing out). Man, I’m way old… do all kids hump on meth and Grey Goose these days? What do you wanna bet this is somewhat of a hot topic online tomorrow, I’ll preload some blog searches here and here to see if I’m psychic.

Sometime over the course of the past week, our camera’s compact-flash memory card took a nosedive, and it now maintains it does not exist. Luckily, I was able to scrounge up an old 256MB replacement – but the downtime didn’t really have an impact on Keaton’s weekly upload. I still managed to come through in the clutch with another quality weekly offering. But, don’t take my word for it – head on over right now and check it out for yourself.

Remember last week when I talked about compiling the Pitchfork “Top 200 of the ’60s” list in MP3 format? Turns out someone beat me to it. Download to your heart’s content my friends, to your heart’s content.

Goodnight, hopes for a good Monday.

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b-to-the-l-to-the-o-to-the-g


Late Thursday night, didn’t plan on writing at all – no inspiration. Sometime around 10:30pm I killed the lights and decided to head to bed, Sharaun pre-sleeping me by about 30min already. Tomorrow’s her birthday, you know (today, as you read this). Anyway, I ended up in the computer room sitting at the desk – sometimes that works better for writing than the laptop/couch combo. Queued up the Andrew Bird album, longing to remember last Christmas – what it reminds me of. So now I’m listening to it, sitting here without a shirt on, my hair freshly cut. I’ve noticed I started going shirtless around the house more in the evenings. This is a good sign to me that my old age is beginning to blind me to the true shock-value of my body hair. I always wondered if the hairy dudes at the beach had an iron-clad sense of self assurance, or were just oblivious. As I get older, I’m thinking it’s more than likely oblivious… as I am slowly ceasing to care. I could talk about this forever, you know. Let’s not let that happen, for the good of the… b-to-the-l-to-the-o-to-the-g.

Not a bad week in terms of stuff-done-getting, or something. Mowed the lawn Wednesday, got my hairs cut Thursday, and on top of it all had a prideswell of a week at work. Y’know, even though it’s a good chance to get to listen to a couple hours of unadulterated music with ample time for a wandering mind, I still think I hate mowing the lawn. Oh sure, I talk about secretly liking it somewhere deep within me – but mostly I hate having to do it. I wish my lawn was goth, so it’d cut itself.

It freaks me out when I look at myself in pictures and I realize I actually brush my little tuft of bangs to the right, instead of how I see myself doing it every morning in the mirror.

More on photo fraud (you’ll need sound).

The more I look at Keaton’s face, the more I’m convinced I’m getting closer to seeing what she’s going to really look like. You know what I mean, baby’s faces are poor indications of their aged appearance – but I’ve almost convinced myself I can catch a glimpse of the bits of permanence hiding under all the furiously growing bone and muscle. Sometimes, when she smiles, I can almost picture it – catch a glimpse of her as a young woman: strong-willed and intelligent, athletic, impeccable taste in music and well versed in its history, cautiously optimistic. Then I think, “I have no idea.” Nothing I think I see is any real indicator, most of those traits are more like projected hopes. But man, when I hoist that little girl overhead in a Superman pose – my huge hands wrapped around her body where I can feel her tiny ribs under my thumbs – and she lets loose with a smile so pure it opens her mouth pelican-wide, stretches her pink lips thin, and pushes her cheeks up into her eyes… it’s magic in my heart people; pure magic.

You’re smiling at me, aren’t you?

Happy birthday Sharaun, I love you. Goodnight.

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salt, pepper & memories


Sunday night, my folks were in town for the weekend.

When I was a kid, I can remember going with my parents and brother up to my grandparents’ house in Southern California. Being not far removed from Santa Maria, my grandfather was a great fan of what’s known in Southern California as Santa Maria style barbecue. I can remember watching my grandfather cook trip-tip, burgers, and hot dogs for the kids over split red oak on a brick barbecue (or “grill,” for you crackers). The barbecue was a large brick installation with a simple grate that could be raised and lowered via a chain pulley system – really just a brick and mortar housing for cooking over an open woodfire. This chain-and-grate adjustable-height grill is typical to Santa Maria style barbecue, you’ll even find this style grill in some public parks in and around Santa Maria itself. And on the weekend you’ll find folks cooking tri-tip and serving it with its must-accompany side item, Lompoc pinquito beans.

An aside: For my entire Southern Californian childhood, I used the term “barbecue” to refer to the actual act of cooking meat over wood. When I moved to Florida around age twelve, however, I learned quickly that Southern folk consider that very same act of cooking to be “grilling,” and it’s only referred to as “barbecuing” if there’s actually barbecue sauce involved in the cooking. Since Santa Maria style barbecue doesn’t involve barbecue sauce at all (you’re apt to get shot by a vaquero if you put anything other than salt, pepper, and garlic on a Santa Maria style tri-tip), the two coasts have incongruous definitions. Now then, back to the point of this whole thing.

Semantics aside, though, I’ve long desired to grill like my grandfather did. Tri-tip over a dead simple woodfire and, preferably, on a barbecue built by my own hands. It was this desire that had me eyeballing potential brick barbecue installation spots in the backyard this weekend, and scouring the net for plans. I found lots of plans, some that looked perfect for the backyard. However, considering the flirtatious nature of my love for the next “project,” I decided maybe I’d be better off not adding another unfinished masterpiece to the list. So, I instead began the search for a pre-made unit that I could buy. Slowly, I uncovered a few sites – finally ending at a place called the Santa Maria BBQ Outfitters, which specializes in Santa Maria (also sometimes referred to as San Luis, short for San Luis Obispo) style “pit” grills. These are just like I remember, crank-operated grates suspended above a pit for a woodfire. Sharaun has made some small protest, but I’ve pretty much decided this guy will be in our backyard within the month.

Once I get her set up, and find a local supplier of red oak – I want to throw an old style barbecue, reminiscent of the kind my grandfather threw for his family. Heck, I’ll even complete the picture with a bloody mary in-hand.

Goodnight.

(Thought I forgot Keaton’s weekly pictures? Wrong!)

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he that hath an ear


Welcome to Wednesday night. It’s getting harder and harder for me to remember what I’ve written about on this thing. Usually, before I set out to write something, I’ll do a quick search through the archives to see if perhaps I’ve covered it before. I’m sure, though, that if someone printed this rambling mess out and read through it cover-to-cover, they’d encounter a fair amount of repeat and perhaps even contradictory materials. It’s hard, you know, trying to keep track of it… all these words, all the arguably-wasted effort. That’s a good intro, eh? Good enough for me…

Motivated by nothing in particular, I spent some time tonight downloading MP3 versions of both the Bible and Quran. Put them on my iPod as audiobooks, which makes them “bookmarkable” (you can pick up listening where you last left off rather than beginning anew each time) and excludes from playback while shuffling (Matthew chapter 11 as a follow-on to some Kanye could really kill a party). Admittedly, I don’t plan on listening to these very often, but I do think it’s neat to have them at arm’s reach for curiosity’s sake. Used the Firefox DownThemAll extension to speed up the download process, grabbing all the files automagically (i.e. bandwidth-raping) rather than navigating through hundreds of individual links and pages.

As a pleasant second-order effect of my search, I was turned on to several great sites which offer completely free MP3 audiobooks. I think it’s awesome that I can download and listen to all sorts of material on the iPod, from the classics to philosophy. If you’re interested, Librivox and AudioBooksForFree.com both have nice-sized collections of completely free-to-download audiobooks (between the two sites there is nearly 1,000 works of literature available for listening). Most of the works available are older and are now public domain, but there are some original and newer titles as well.

In the process of writing the above paragraph, my mind once again drifted to being stranded on a desert island. How much more enjoyable would being stranded be if you had an iPod chock-full of music and books? Well, providing of course you first have health, food, and shelter. Anyway, the only problem here is the one of power… the iPod battery won’t last forever. But… any person who has irrational fantasies about one day becoming stranded on a desert island who’s worth their salt will have a solar-powered iPod charger with them at all times. All you need is the solar iPod charger, a solar AA battery charger, and a set of AA-powered portable iPod speakers – and you’re the life of the castaway party! Seriously, I’m thinking about getting that solar iPod charger just for the “cool” factor.

Keaton’s hair has almost all fallen out and is slowly being replaced with a new, blonder, quaff. Seeing this happen over the course of weeks tends to downplay how dramatic of a change it really is. In fact, I hadn’t realized just how much her hair had changed until I was browsing some old pictures last night. In an attempt to illustrate this, I GIMP’d Keaton’s hair from a picture taken at fifteen weeks onto the head of a picture taken last week. Roll your mouse over the image below to see the difference (allow a couple seconds load-time on the 1st rollover):

Wow! Goodnight.

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the sky’s still up there


Tuesday night. Sharaun’s at the gym, I put told the iPod to shuffle up random songs from Sufjan’s canon – sounding very good to me right now. Keaton’s asleep, sometimes I lament her having to go down so early, as I only get a couple hours with her after work before she’s asleep. Oh, and thematic entries are over (it’s harder to do than it may seem), back to a collection of random paragraphs. Let’s dive in.

I don’t know how much of the limited “audience” reading this blog also frequents BiongBiong, but on the chance it’s new to at least a few I wanted to link to this excellent article (sorry, only available as PDF). What a great piece, with facts to back it up. Maybe we need to introduce the Homeland Security folks to the number-crunchers for the big insurance agencies.

Do the terrorists win when they make another statistically-unlikely successful strike in the US, or do they win when the US shutters themselves indoors and diverts all its money and resources to prevent another statistically-unlikely successful strike in the US? I think the latter more than the former.

A snippet I enjoyed from the article:

What we need is more pronouncements like the one in a recent book by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): “Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist! It’s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You’re almost certainly going to be okay. And in the unlikely event you’re not, do you really want to spend your last days cowering behind plastic sheets and duct tape? That’s not a life worth living, is it?”

While the article linked above is less motivational and more grounded in fact than Senator McCain’s comment, the underlying message is similar: terrorism works because of fear, and that fear is (proveably) largely unfounded. Honest-talk like this from Washington would be welcomed. Maybe, though, assuaging the fear of terrorism isn’t done for a reason. On trial at Nuremberg for his wartime Nazi atrocities, Hermann Goering said (and I could’ve sworn I’d quoted this here before):

Of course the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

I wonder if that’s on page one or two of the playbook? Indeed.

My folks come into town this weekend, which has got me all excited to show off Keaton. It’s a pride not unlike the pride I felt when bringing home an art project I made in 2nd grade. Holding up that bird made from dry macaroni and pasted onto construction paper and saying, “Hey mom, look what I did!” I keep telling Keaton that her grandparents are coming, but remain unconvinced she’s hearing me. As long as she continues to remain ridiculously cute through the weekend, I’ll be happy. I have this picture of her here at my desk, the new one I printed last week, and sometimes during the day I’ll just stare at it. It’s amazing how much you can love something. Sharaun likes to think about how she never really understood that her mom loved her that much, as much she loves Keaton now, she couldn’t understand it until she felt it.

I think the “plugs” they stuck in my eyes after Lasik have dissolved or something. They were intended to stem some of the dryness that’s the most complained about Lasik side effect by plugging up half of the eye’s “drainage” and leaving more tears intact. Over the past week, the mild dry eyes I was experiencing has changed for the worse and instead of occasional discomfort it’s more like occasional comfort. This sucks. I spent like $30 on freakin’ eyeball lube the other day, and I drop them in every few minutes it’s so bad. They help for a little bit, but I want more just minutes after. I hope this is some phase, maybe some final healing thing… because it’s more uncomfortable than the contacts I got the surgery to rid myself of.

Liz, don’t do it; you could end up in a loony bin unwilling to move, paralyzed with fear, because you believe you’re a glass of orange juice and don’t want to spill yourself. Goodnight.

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i’ll finish it later


Thursday night. Damn, this week flew.

Sharaun’s at the gym, I’m here listening to King Crimson’s In the Wake of Poseidon (not the album, well, yeah, the album… but I mean the title track in particular). What a great song. Reminds me of some of the more haunting tunes from ELP’s debut, or even some Threshold era Moody Blues. I’d like to put this song in the movie I’m always talking about putting songs in.

Keaton’s out of sorts, I’ve rocked her to sleep and put her down now three times, each time to have her wake up crying just minutes later. Frustrating, especially since she usually goes down so easily. I think, though, that this last time was the one – she’s woke up and fussed but I let her power through it and she seems to be out now. Not sure what her deal was tonight, Sharaun said she napped well today.

There now, much better: washed the dishes, brought in the trash from the curb, and wiped my ass for good measure (you can never be too prepared).

Goodnight.