Category: reminisce

Thoughts about the good old days… memories.

Posted on

a rock in my ear

The master and I were at a similar ear-disadvantage.
In 1st grade, we were all sitting indian style on the rug while Mrs. Swanson played the piano. She was pretty good at the piano and we would have “music class” where we sat and listened to her play. I had picked up a small rock from the floor, the kind that sometimes comes loose from asphalt, and was playing around with it. I was putting the rock in my ear, and then letting it fall out into my hand. It was fun for some reason, pretending that a rock was coming out of my ear. I remember sitting there putting it in and taking it out, over and over. Then one time, it didn’t come out. I tried to dig for it, but it was gone. I started crying and told Mrs. Swanson what had happened. She sent me to the nurse, where I again explained that I had got a rock stuck in my ear. The nurse used one of those lighted scopes to take a peek, and then announced that there was no rock in my ear. I faintly remember her sentiment being that I was lying, either to get attention or get out of class. I’m almost certain I remember them either calling my mom and informing her, or giving me a note to take to her explaining why I was at the nurse’s office. Either way, I’m sure my mom knew about it – even if she thought I made the whole thing up.

Come 5th grade my family followed the Space Shuttle to FL, and I left CA behind. Sometime in the 6th grade, I went to the doctor to have my ears cleaned out. If you’ve never had your ears cleaned out before, it’s not the most fun thing ever. They ask you to hold a little tray under your ear while they squirt warm soapy water into it at high pressure. I don’t really remember why I was having it done, but I was. All of the sudden, the doctor stopped and exclaimed: “I think this is a rock!” I knew immediately where that rock had come from. No one in the room, my mom, the doctor, or the nurse could believe a rock had just come out of my ear. When the doctor asked how it had got there, I lied and said that it must’ve happened while playing with my brother in the driveway or something. Secretly, I knew that rock had been in my ear for five years – ever since the day I put it there in 1st grade.

When we got home I told my mom the real reason there was a rock in my ear, and that it had been there since 1st grade. She swore then, and still swears to this day, that she never knew of the incident in 1st grade. Never knew I had put a rock in my ear and gone to the nurse, who brushed me aside as a liar. I knew that rock was there all along, but no one would believe me. When I think of my head growing around a rock for five years, it kinda freaks me out. But it never caused me any discomfort or hearing problems, so I guess I got lucky. And as for mom’s denial, I think she does remember – but she’s so embarrassed that she let her son live with a rock in his ear for five years, she has gone into denial. That’s OK mom, I know it’s easier to believe the lie if you tell it to yourself too – I forgive you.

All throughout gradeschool, I had an awesome tactic to make people think I was smart. I somehow got it in my head that I would look like I was doing something important if, during storytime (or any other social on-the-floor time), I sat there and very obviously counted to myself. I don’t know where I came up with the idea, but I figured that if I made a show of using my fingers like I was counting, with a fixed look of concentration on my face – the other kids would think I was important. I would even count for a while, all serious looking, and then pretend to mess up: shake my head, maybe mutter a bit, but then return to counting with my fingers while my eyes looked left or right as I did some obviously complex mental calculations. I always thought that people might think I was “planning” something, figuring something out in my head. For whatever reason, I thought counting would give that impression. I was a loon.

I think it was 5th grade. In the bathroom at the house we had these in-wall heaters, for cold mornings. The heater was just a bunch of coils built into the wall and covered with a metal grate. You would flip it on before you got in the shower and when you got out the room would be nice and warm, the metal coils glowing orange and radiating heat through the grate. One morning I got out of the shower, bent over to dry my legs and feet, and stuck my butt right on the grate. It was the worst pain ever. The heater grate instantly branding a “waffle” pattern onto my tender 5th grade butt. I was so embarrassed, but it hurt so bad I had to run out of the bathroom naked and cry to mom. I remember the humiliation of lying on my stomach on the couch while my mom put ice on my butt… ugh. For a few years after that my folks would jokingly call me “waffle butt” due to the nice scars I had. Thankfully, the scars either went away – or became totally obscured by a thick forest of ass hair. Either way, I can no longer rightfully be called “waffle butt.” “The incredible bearded butt,” maybe… but not waffle butt, that’s for sure.

Mmmm… stories. ‘Nother day, ‘nother blog. Dave out.

Posted on

four

it's a boat. because they sing about boaty stuff so much...
Oh… oh… the spirit of old-time-stories is harrying me again. Time to revisit the golden years with yet another round of dumb retellings of long-ago deeds. Beware, it comes random, it comes quick, and it mostly comes in poor english and narrative form. Blog away!

When we were younger, we had a theory that the number “four” had some sort of special meaning. <Sound of chimes. The present scene becomes all wavy-blurry and gives way to an image from the past, an 8th grade campout. Four boys sit on a log deep in the woods at night, the smell of burning rope hangs thick in the air as we join the scene .> Taking a break from keeping ourselves entertained by striving to precisely describe the feeling of running ones tongue across ones teeth – I came up with a “game” we could play.

We would count the number of letters in various words, and then count the number of letters in the number of letters from that word. Hmm… confusing? Let me ‘splain. The word is “whitebread.” “Whitebread” has 10 letters in it, the word “ten” has 3 letters in it, the word “three” has 5 letters in it, and the idea was to go to infinity. But! Guess what? We soon found out that every word, no matter what word, always came back to the number four. We tried short words, long words, and ridicu-long words like “antidisestablishmentarianism” and “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” all of which came back to “four.” Try it, it’s for real.

After several hours of this game we decided that “the number four is the only number that has the same number of letters in its spelling as the number it represents.” It was a momentous occasion for us young thinkers, and as they say – it totally blew our minds. From then on, when we failed to understand anything we would just chalk it up as “Eh, whatever. It’s all four in the end anyway.” Convinced we had unearthed some basic truth – we threw out the shake, put away the papers and Swiss Army Knife tweezers, and fell asleep on the ground. No pillows, no sleeping bags, nothing. Ahhh… good times. Thank you brave braincells who gave your lives so I could enjoy my younger years, and thank you to the ones who stuck around and learned me to stop enjoying them so much.

In 7th grade a friend of mine brought a book to school called Big Secrets. It was the first in a series by author William Poundstone where he discusses some of the worlds “biggest secrets,” and outs them all for what they are. The eleven secret herbs and spices in the colonel’s chicken, was Walt Disney cryogenically frozen, what’s the formula for Coke, and plenty of other fascinating things to the 7th grade mind. The last chapter in the book was all about “backward masking” in music. For the unfamiliar, that’s where artists supposedly hide secret messages in their music by reversing the track. Backward messages in music became a big deal during the satanism scare of the 80’s, Geraldo talked about it on his satanism special (which, by the way – I was glued to the TV for, but more about my childhood fascination with the occult later). During that time Judas Priest even got sued over a fan who committed suicide, supposedly because he was subliminally urged to do so by hidden backward messages in their songs.

Anyway, I was fascinated with the idea that artists might hide backwards messages in their music. I rooted through all my old records to see if any of the ones mentioned in Big Secrets were among the musty boxful. I hit paydirt when I found Prince’s Purple Rain from my collection, and the Beatles’ “White Album” among my folks’ old vinyl. I sat and listened to the Darling Nikki clip forward, then pulled the record backwards across the stylus – it was awesome! I threw on Revolution 9 from the White Album and listened to the whole ~9min mess forward and backward a million times.

From then on I loved the idea of backwards stuff. I would record my voice on tape, spool out the recorded portion, cut it, flip it, and scotch tape it back in – just so I could hear myself say things backwards. Since reversed speech can actually change the phonetic sound and even syllable count in words, we would try and figure out what certain words would sound like backwards just so we could say them and reverse the tape to see how close we were. Kyle and I got so obsessed with backwards talking, we fashioned a tape reversing “machine” that aided us in extracting the audio tape, reversing it, and splicing it back together – with it we could reverse entire cassettes in under a minute. We learned the whole of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” backwards. We reversed songs, speech, random sounds – really whatever we could get our hands on. It was good times.

Anyway, if you couldn’t tell, the point of the last two paragraphs was to explain how I first got introduced to the Beatles. Yup, because I was looking for “Paul is dead” clues in backwards messages on the White Album when I got totally hooked on the music. It took me two paragraphs to say that.

Super random crap that came to me when no one was around and I couldn’t just blurt it out. But it’s gotta get out, or it will die the slow death of being forgotten. Three movies that I remembered from the old days: Bedknobs and Broomsticks; My Side of the Mountain; and The Electric Grandmother. What I remember from each: almost all the words to the “Portobello Row” tune; he eats mold, lives in a hollow tree, and has a pet raccoon; she pours orange juice out of her index finger.

Here’s my December comp thus far, you know I couldn’t go a whole blog without talking about music. Marvel at the newness and goodness that graces my ears while I work. And oh yeah, I finally got tired of the headphones I borrowed from Anthony, as they left my ears in crippling pain after two hours or so. I picked up another $16 pair from Wal Mart, maybe these will last. If my head wasn’t so damned huge and oblong, maybe I would get a more typical life from my headphones… but as it is now they tend to break under the immense outward pressure of my ginormous melon. Oh yeah, the comp:

Folder PATH listing for volume noo_chit
D:
+---ben folds - speed graphic ep
+---bonnie prince billy - i see a darkness
+---clearlake - cedars
+---decemberists - castaways and cutouts
+---decemberists - her majesty the decemberists
+---explosions in the sky - the earth is not a cold dead place
+---quickspace - the death of quickspace
+---the prids - love zero
+---unicorns - who will cut our hair when we're gone
+---walkmen - bows and arrows
+---wrens - secaucus
+---wrens - the meadowlands

Haha! There ya have it, that’s the end and I’m done. Time to hit the sack now, because I have to go to work in the morning and do stuff. Oh, and Benz… you know I already ordered two tickets man, hopefully you can go.

Dave out.

Posted on

fake your way

the forest I wearily tread on a daily basis
Some things can make me feel so stupid. At work, I sometimes find myself in a situation where someone is asking me a question – and I have no idea what the answer is. Thing is, I should know the answer – but more likely than not I haven’t cared enough about it previously to learn it. I may have heard it a thousand times, but I just filter it right out. Thing is, I usually don’t learn until I’m burned. By that I mean I really only learn things that I don’t care about in one of two ways: by rote, or because I have to learn them. I don’t learn the answer to a question until I’m put on the spot and embarrassed for not knowing it. I don’t pick up on things unless I’m immersed in them every day. I ignore important details because I simply don’t care. It’s all about what I find interesting I guess. I am able retain knowledge I don’t care about – but if I do it’s either because I know it by heart and don’t have to commit brainspace to it or someone’s called me out for not knowing it before. It somewhat comes down to being selfish I think. I don’t want to be embarrassed, so the memory of feeling like a heel spurs me to commit something to memory.

If I care about, or am interested in, something – it sticks up there whether or not I will it. Even tho I didn’t intend for the derivation of the quadratic formula to be burned in my head, it’s there. I didn’t purposely memorize the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” they just stuck. My dumb old head just works that way. I don’t care about stuff I don’t care about and I don’t like doing things I don’t like to do. My selfish head will bypass stuff I should know; or commit it to rote for the short-term so I can get by, then trash it when the immediate need to remember it is gone. I’ve always been about “just getting by” when it comes to learning stuff I have no interest in. However, when it comes to learning about something that intrigues me – I attack it with some kind of hunger. Devouring all I can find and retaining a surprising amount of it for the long term.

That’s one of the things that bugs me about work (not my specific job, but work in general). Ideally, my job would involve a knowledgebase that I enjoy having and knowing. I want to have a job where I want to learn more, where I want to know that extra tidbit that sets me apart from the other guy. My best example comes from working in the music store. I used to get so much respect for how much I knew about music. My recommendations were pretty much always lauded, and eventually I had a returning-customer base who asked for me because they knew and trusted me. I liked knowing what I knew, and what’s more, it fed my ego to know it.

A job where you’re respected and praised for your knowledge, that’s what I enjoy most. I have occasional burst of that now, but the thing is – I have to care about every bit of the material related to my job in order to gain enough expertise and win that respect. If I don’t care about it, I don’t learn it, and then I don’t get that respect. Bottom line?, gimme a job doing something I intensely enjoy: webpages, music, writing, etc., and maybe it won’t even seem like a job. I shouldn’t complain, I do like what I do right now – but I find myself saddled with that same attitude of “who cares” in way too many instances. So, like so much of my academic past, I fake my way through and buckle down when I have to – and somehow get good at it.

Back in gradeschool they used to tell me, “You just can’t fake your way through middle school David, it’s the real deal.” Then, as I was graduating from three years of faked-through middle school they’d say, “Mister, you better really buckle down come high school. You just can’t breeze your way through there, there’s no ‘faking it’ in high school. You’ll be swimming with the big fish there.” Shortly after I faked my way to 6th in class and a full scholarship, my guidance counselor said “This is it David, you’re an adult now and this is your life. You won’t be able to fake your way through a job, so you better get straight.” Screw ’em, I’ll keep on fakin’. Feigning interest in whatever it takes to keep a paycheck, but secretly (between you, and me, and the entire internet), not giving a damn about anything but what I want to. Bollocks to them all, this is one ne’er-do-well who will always work the system as much as possible.

I’m truly happy when I’m listening to music and writing or reading. I’m truly happy when I’m camping or hanging with my good friends. I’m truly happy every day when I come home to my wife. I’m truly happy when I’m working on our house or yard. I’m truly happy when I can wake up in the morning knowing I have no set plans for the day, even more happy if I know the same for the next day too. I’m truly happy when I can “get away” and spend time with family or even by myself. I wonder if, regardless of vocation, there will always be that need for release via “getting away” from whatever it is that becomes your “daily grind.” Maybe true happiness only comes with the autonomy that retirement or winning the lottery brings? Yeah right.

I’ve said it to Anthony many times. While drifting down the river on his boat, no destination, no time to be back, nothing on my mind but what a nice day it is and how comfortable I am: “Dude, this is why I work.” It’s true. I work not to “better myself,” or “get ahead,” or “make a name for” myself; I work so I can enjoy the times when I’m not working. So I can pay my bills and afford to buy Anthony a tank of gas for the favor of a day on his boat. So I can afford the gear I need to take three days off and climb Half Dome with my friends. So I can take Sharaun to a nice steak dinner and still afford her favorite candy at the movie. All those self help books that talk about getting ahead and getting noticed or whatnot, you can have that trash. I need surprisingly few things to make me truly happy, and work is not one of them. Unfortunately, by way of association – money is. Not money itself mind you, but money nonetheless. So, I work. And will continue to do so. Work is a (by and large unfulfilling) means to an end.

Wow, a semi-personal entry, a thing of blog lore. I admit to a bit of job dissatisfaction (in that it’s not my #1 dream job), I admit that my learning is largely selfishly motivated, and I admit that I need some ego stroking to make me truly happy.

In other news, I found this article quite relevant.

Dave out.

Posted on

i been around

show flyer from the GAMH
Tonight’s the Broken Social Scene / Stars show in SF. I don’t feel like writing anything about it, but I’ll do the customary wrap-up tomorrow. Remember I snuck my camera into the Death Cab show the night before last? Well, I put together a lil’ movie of the footage I captured during the show. The sound is crappy because the big rock noise easily overpowered the tiny integrated mic, but you can kinda discern enough to bob your head in time. Most of you won’t enjoy it, but I had fun making it – and who knows, maybe there are some closet indie fans reading this thing… Anyway, here it is for broadband and also for dialup (both are sizeable files, so beware).

Evolution of a blogger:


1st grade:
Holy crap that is one cute kid! Don’t worry, I used up all the looks early in life.		        
2nd grade:
Hmm…. looks like I may have been crying, or pinching a loaf. Cuteness definitely on the decline already.

3rd grade:
Ahh… “the teeth years.” Notice at this point I’ve still got a pretty well-defined chin, keep that in mind.		        
4th grade:
Clean-cut, mom still buying clothes… becoming quite the lanky thing too.

5th grade:
Whoa! I’ve obviously had a hand in that t-shirt, and that haircut too! Spiky and bemulleted, I am a force to be reckoned with.		        
6th grade:
Awww… the drugstore clerks would have never suspected this babyfaced darling was stealing cigarettes by the carton and selling them to the track team.

7th grade:
Hmm… what’s it called when you start to look all awkward and your face gets greasy? Oh yeah, puberty – seen here in full, undeniable, effect. Note the “what the crap?!” hairstyle – it only gets worse…		        
8th grade:
What, the, crap. Seriously… The hair, the face, the eyes pointing in two different directions?… The eyebrows, and that smile? My head is a near-perfect sphere I think. Where are my ears? Check out that adams apple! You believe this kid had a steady girlfriend?

9th grade:
Well, at least I look a little more proportioned. I don’t know if I ever even did anything with my hair, it looks so… big. Note the subtle blending of chin and neck, pretty soon the two will complete their synergy and become a single entity.		        
10th grade:
Oh yeah, sophomore year. The height of my hooliganism, you can almost see the authority-defiance in my eyes. I think I look particularly cocksure in this photo – it’s a wonder I didn’t get beat up more.

11th grade:
I brought a picture of Thom Yorke in the “Creep” video with me when I asked for this haircut. Seriously. At the time, I loved it. By this time I’ve ditched most of my old friends for my new girlfriend… a dick move that surely saved me some jailtime or brain damage in the long run.		        
12th grade:
It took me twelve years of school before I looked semi-presentable. Sharaun got me cleaned up pretty nice in the end tho. Here I am with my new hair “style” (with highlights!), some chic earrings, and my soon-to-be-trademark confused smile.

Wow, what a multimedia-rich blog this turned out to be. Movies, pictures, scanned in flyers… I put entirely too much work into these things. I have a lot of other stuff written, maybe I should just throw in a random pre-written paragraph….

Sometimes I go to the bathroom for no other reason than to “run a check.” C’mon, don’t play coy with me… you know what I’m talking about. I mean, sometimes I just get this “feeling,” call it a cautionary thing. I’m sitting on the couch, thinking “things just don’t feel right… maybe I should hit the bathroom for a ‘test wipe’ real quick.” Yeah, I said it, I don’t be carin’. Usually it’s a false alarm, but sometimes… I wonder, perhaps that’s not normal. Maybe I’m not working right, from a functional perspective. Anyway, the way I look at it – at least I go check. Right?

Ahh, much better. OK that’s it. Enjoy the pictures and the movie.

Dave out.

Posted on

fighting chance

no really, it's a line from Magical Mystery Tour
Tonight is the Death Cab / Nada Surf show in SF. I’m gonna try and sneak my camera in with me and take some pix for tomorrow’s blog. After that we have the Wednesday show in SF, and then our concert rush is over for a while. I’m glad, because as much as I love going to shows, I get tired of being tired the next day. Too bad Sacramento can’t get the big indie names like San Francisco can, would be a much shorter drive.

This weekend was a good one for new tunes. Wednesday at work I read a Pitchfork album review of a group called the Unicorns, which garnered really high marks. Like clockwork, someone posted it to absmi that evening. I grabbed two Unicorns albums, and on Sunday Benz recommended I check absmi again for another favorably reviewed album by a group called the Wrens. Man, the Unicorns albums are excellent – and from my brief run at the Wrens it is also awesome. Those new albums, combined with the new hotness that is the Decemberists, makes November a watershed month for new music. Finally some sweet new tunes to listen to.

Speaking of Ben, he’s got some new pictures up on his website which are worth checking out. I’m kinda envious of the new Flash-based album layout, but whatever. Take a gander if you’re bored.

I have a pretty high tolerance for just about everything. If you charted my tolerance for stuff, I think it would look something like this. See, I get unnaturally crazy over some really dumb stuff – but can generally take commonly deemed “major” crises in stride. My car gets crashed into? Somewhere towards the middle of the graph, so taken very lightly by me. I lose my job? I’m upset, but not irrational. Actually, the “breakdown” axis is somewhat misleading in that I don’t mean it’s when I would be “broken down” in the sense of being mentally frazzled – I’m rather referring to a state of “breakdown” that would cause something like tears or irrational behavior. What I mean is, the things that tend to make me punch walls, say things I wish I hadn’t, cuss and swear when I shouldn’t – these are the “breakdown” or loss-of-control type things I’m talking about. If my truck got stolen, yeah I would waste a lot of brainpower thinking how sucky it is, but it wouldn’t push my buttons in such a way that I might lose control and throw things, or cry.

Things that would normally really piss someone off usually roll off me with ease (although that’s not at all a 100% thing). Likewise, things that other people might shrug off as “a bummer” or “no big deal” tend to really get under my skin. It’s a blessing and a curse. I can take so much without flinching that I’ve been praised before for my “level-headed” reaction to complicated situations, whereas I’ve also been criticized for letting stupid little things make me fly off the handle. Sharaun probably sees it the most.

I tend to be my most calm and logical-thinking right after something “terrible” has just gone down. It’s like I get this moment of clarity where I realize that whatever just happened really isn’t that big of a deal, and then my brain kicks in and starts thinking on what to do next. However, when something small happens, it seems like my brain forgets logic and tells my fist to punch an inanimate object or my mouth to say something I’ll regret. Hit a kid on a bike?: Stop the car, deep breaths, save his life and get in the newspaper. Hit my thumb with a hammer?: Yell cursewords at the top of my lungs, throw the hammer at the ground, and punch the wood I’m working on. See – it’s not the best approach to things. Even more stupid, my response to unexpected pain is to do something without thinking that more often than not causes me even more pain. Example? I stub my toe on the door, get insanely mad because it hurts, punch the doorframe – and hurt my hand.

I think, nay know, that my tolerance for stuff came directly from my dad. I lived with my folks until I was almost 20, and in that time I rarely saw my dad get mad. In fact, if I think about it – I bet he’s the exact same way. I’ve seen him crazy-aggravated over tiny things; and then seen him take big, seemingly earthshattering, events without so much as a hitch in his getalong. This laissez faire attitude rolls over into all aspects of my personality. Not much upsets me, and you have to do a heck of a lot to provoke me to anger, even more to get me to manifest that anger into violence. I’ve been in only a few fights, but I think I’ve won them all because I am so fired up by the time I’m moved to hitting that it’s pure adrenaline. Either that or because I’m fat and always have a weight advantage… Here’s a semi-complete pictorial review of my fighting history:

6th grade: I punched this kid because he would not get off the computer and I wanted to use it.

6th grade:  I punched this kid because he cut in front of me at the water fountain.

7th grade: I punched this kid because he tried to take some candy off my desk.

12th grade (no pic avail):  I fought this kid because he pushed Sharaun. She helped out by kicking him in the ribs while I sat on him and repeatedly punched the back of his dome. We both got suspended.

Well I wrote three paragraphs but I’m not convinced I said what I wanted to say at all. I’m a pacifist, but not a weakling. I’ll send my food back if it’s wrong, but I’m not an asshole. Rather than confront you, I’ll ignore you. I’ll talk about you behind your back, but rarely tell you how I really feel. I’m longsuffering, but won’t let you walk all over me. The less I like you, the less likely I am to get into a “fight” with you. Conversely, the closer we are, the more likely I am to be willing to get into it with you. There ya go, that’s all I gotsta say about that.

See, no stories from 8th grade. No love letters, no drug overdoses. Just writing. I can do it after all.

Dave out.

Posted on

out of the past

it wasn't quite this bad... but the house is kinda drafty now...
Hey, I got stuff to write!

Last night Wes came over to help me with another “project” I’ve been wanting to do. The puny one-bulb wall light that came in our garage is just not enough to light that place up. Since it’s attached to a switch inside the laundry room, I’ve been wanting to rewire that switch to ignore that tiny light and instead control a new shop light that I would mount from the garage rafters. Sounds easy enough right? Problem is, I’m cursed.

When it comes to “mechanical” projects I am utterly hopeless. Murphy’s Law seems to be in full effect every time I have to use hammer, nail, drill or saw. It’s just the way it’s always been. I have a feeling I inherited it, because I can remember helping my dad and uncle hang paneling in our spare room once – you know where you slather the back of the paneling with something not unlike Liquid Nail and press it against the existing wall? Yeah, we got about three or four panels in place and realized we had been hanging them upside down. Too bad that glue binds stronger than anything on earth… we just hung the rest upside down. Pretty little flowers, all growing right down towards the floor. There are so many more examples… but I think you get the idea.

Anyway, since Wes had successfully done some wiring projects at his house – his resume impressed me, so I asked if he wouldn’t mind helping me out. Being the sucka he is, he graciously agreed. He had previously hung a shop light in his own garage, as well as put in a couple ceiling fans and done other miscellaneous projects. He also once recounted to me a story in which, during one of his projects, he managed to put a knee through his ceiling from the attic. Sounded bad, but I wasn’t worried. Looking back, I shoulda realized that Wes had a history…

We made a couple trips to the Home Depot (see, you can never go to the HD only once for a project… it always requires at least two trips – one usually involving a return or exchange) to get the necessary tools and materials. After which we studied the problem, ordered some iffy take-out Chinese, and got ready to work. The initial work went great, we hung the shop light and drilled a new wire hole in the in the to-be-bypassed light wiring box, all in little time. With our spirits up, we headed into the attic with the fish tape to drop a new wire into the existing light box.

Fishing wires through existing walls is hard; not to mention supremely frustrating. I don’t think anything can be as aggravating as trying to hit a 1″ area from above with a metal tape, and doing it all blind, while breathing dust and insulation. After much cussing and sweating, we finally managed to fish a wire through. After some wire-nutting, drilling, and breaker-tripping, we finally managed to get everything done. I now have a super bright shop light hooked to the switch. It’s like noon in that garage now, I love it.

Ahhh… but I skipped the good part… As we were toiling in the attic trying to fish the wire through the garage wall – Wes Vila struck again. Yup, you got it right. Crash! Right through our laundry room ceiling. All I can say is, I managed to not fall through the roof… maybe the effects of gravity are slightly more on Wes than all other humans or something. Anyway, check it out:


wes’ hole, i stuck my hand thru and “pointed” in case you couldn’t see it		        
every time we open or close the garage door, a snowstorm of insulation comes raining down

despite wes’ “accident,” i have a beautiful new shop light!		        
my attempt to get the switch action and new light in the same shot… worked ok i suppose.

Anyway, I still gotta thank Wes for coming and helping me out. New skylight notwithstanding, we got a lot done in one evening – and my new light is awesome!! Although I did have to update my “list of jobs I think I might like:”

  • Farmer
  • Mammographer
  • Special Effects Wizard
  • Video Game Tester
  • Fishing Show Host
    
  • Firework Maker
  • Standup Comedian
  • Rock Star
  • Retaining Wall Builder
  • Home Wiring Expert

Did you guys notice the comment from “Shaine” on the blog yesterday? Holy crap man, lemme ‘splain a little.

Shaine and I were best buds way back in 5th grade. I’m pretty sure we were the two coolest kids at our whole school, at least that’s what we thought. We “owned” the last two swings on the line of swingsets (the farthest from the schoolbuildings, so we could cuss and tell dirty jokes without fear of punishment). If people were in them, they would actually get out when they saw us coming. Shaine lived across the field from me, and we used to run across the field and climb his backyard fence when going between houses (the farmer didn’t like it very much). Man, did we have some awesome times… I’ll write about them sometime. I just wanted to mention it because it blew my mind to finally talk to him again (on IM). Thanks for reading, and commenting. If all goes well – we plan to hook up again when I go down to visit my folks next, possibly even visit some of our old haunts in Lompoc. I’m totally pumped.

Finally, sorry this blog is so late… but honestly, it’s pretty big and kinda complicated. Little images and bulleted lists in tables, man… crazy. Hope you enjoyed it.

Dave out.

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playing with fire

this bear hates me... if we were in a cartoon i would be his nemesis
I actually get a little embarrassed to “publish” some of the dumber things I’ve done, but the blog has kinda morphed into this two-purposed thing. One: to document what’s going on in the present, and two: to write down funny stories from the good ol’ days. I try not to glorify the bad stuff too much, to me now it’s mostly just head-shakingly funny. You know, like “oh man I was an idiot back then,” chuckle chuckle. Anyway, I did it, and I like writing about it, so I’m gonna keep doin’ it I suppose. Meeting Sharaun really cleaned me up, thank God – and I’m no longer the awful miscreant I once was. Don’t hate me for what I was, love me for what I am. Hopefully most of the stuff is back beyond the statute of limitations of my hometown PD.

I can trace my fascination with fire back to such a young age that it’s hard for me to believe. The very first place in this world that I can actually remember is our house in Huntington Beach. We lived there until I was somewhere between five and six years old, so you gotta realize these aren’t the best memories. However, one of the most vivid memories I do have of those times involves fire. I had gone a couple houses down from ours to play with a friend, who I think was older than I was. We somehow ended up with a book of matches. I remember I lit a match and burned the crap out of my finger. I remember wanting to cry and run to mom, but knowing I’d be in trouble. I hid the burn from my folks. That’s my very first memory of fire, you’d think it would have deterred me from further experiments. (I know it seems strange to think that I was playing with matches at five, but I swear my memory is correct on this one. I’ve tried to imagine it happening at other ages and in other houses – and it was definitely back in Huntington Beach. Can you even talk when you’re five and half?)

Growing up, I have memories of staring into campfires for hours, begging Grandpa to let me strike the long match and start the fireplace, and biking around on the 5th of July to collect the spent fireworks people left in the street (I loved that burnt smell).

My next real memory of “playing with fire” comes sometime near the 4th grade I think. I convinced my dad’s dad to let Frank and I “shoot” matches in the backyard one day. My parents weren’t home, and he let us hold the match to the strike pad on the side of the box and “flick” the matches into the air as they lit up. We shot matches in the backyard for a while, thinking it was so cool. (Actually, I can remember feeling genuinely guilty for asking my grandfather to let us do that. I knew my folks wouldn’t allow it, and I also knew that my Grandpa probably wouldn’t object. I remember feeling like I had “used” him, and to this day that feeling of guilt still sticks to that memory).

Probably sometime shortly after that, I had another experience in the same backyard with “shooting” matches. Our neighbors on the one side had a stone wall instead of a regular wooden fence. I was arcing lit matches over the wall, why – I have no idea. Luckily for me nothing caught fire (I don’t think I was really thinking of the possibility anyway). However, I also didn’t think of my neighbor finding a small pile of burnt matches in his backyard. He came over and told my folks, and next thing I know my mom is taking Frank and I down to the fire department. Once there, we got a nice tour of the building – and then got sat down for a lesson on “playing with matches.” I remember the fireman being stern but nice, and I remember thinking we were in trouble, but I don’t think anything ever really came of it.

I think the remainder of my gradeschool years were relatively fireplay free, although I do recall spraying words on Ryan Lopez’s fence with hairspray and lighting them on fire. I think I must have chilled out for a while though.

When we moved to Florida, I met a group of friends who were as pyro-crazy as I was. In 6th grade we learned how to make what we called “napalm” (really just styrofoam dissolved in gasoline). We used to keep a coffee can full of it hidden behind a friend’s house, and pull off the sticky chunks to light and throw around. I remember learning that Brut stick-style deodorant burned, and frequently lighting mine on fire in my room. We also developed some crazy game where we’d spray our forearms with Off! and light them on fire, to see who could last the longest without waving themselves out. Joey discovered that aerosol white lithium grease is perhaps the most flammable aerosol on the planet, and burns forever. I can remember sneaking out at night with friends and us all pouring lines of gas in the street so we could light them and “race” the flames down the line. Filling mason jars with gas, tying them to string above a campfire and shooting at them with BB guns. Trying to make the “hearts and diamonds” bomb from the Anarchist Cookbook (probably tweaked out on “bananadine” at the time – Anarchist Cookbook joke, sorry). And always having a stash of fireworks to play with. For a couple years, I wore this old army jacket everywhere I went. We all had one, all filled with various “useful” tools. Matches and ladyfingers were a staple item in the jackets.

Sometime around the end of middle school, our firelust got dangerous. I can recall starting at least five fires in the woods, a couple of them being fairly large. I think there were more than that, but there are only five that I can specifically remember. There would be four of us, each with a book of matches. We’d walk in a line, shoulder to shoulder through dry brush. With each step we’d “shoot” lit matches over our shoulders until the books were empty. The rule was that you couldn’t turn around or look back until all the matches were gone. No matter what you heard or felt, you could only look back when it was done. Oh man, did that ever work. We used to run away and come back later to watch the firetrucks put out our work. Gawd… we were truly horrible.

At this point in my life, I consider myself lucky. I’m not dead, and I’m not in jail. I did so many stupid and just plain mean things. For the record, I no longer burn things? and my love of fire is now limited to campfire gazing and firework watching. And for an afterschool special wrap-up: What I did was dumb. Don’t ever do it. I’m actually pretty ashamed of a lot of the stupid stuff we did, but I can’t erase it, so I might as well write about it. In fact, I went back through my journal and searched for fire-related stories – there are a couple really good ones related to specific incidents (the “Tex fire” and the “tire fire” in particular). I’d put ’em in here, but they’d triple the size of this already bloated and boring entry.

I promise I’ll write something worth reading again soon… promise. Dave out.