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scratching

Big sawmill conference Day One. I presented today. Today and Wednesday. I left home around 5am to make time for the drive over here, and was due to present “around” 11:30am. Arriving around 9am, I had a quick breakfast with my boss and then found my conference-themed polo. I stripped to the shirtsleeves in some abandoned room filled with shipping containers and donned the just out of the box and still wrinkled “official garb.” I walked into the conference room around 9:30am and was surprised when they asked me to present right around 10am; imagine my double-surprise when they told the first presenter had flaked and they needed me to fill an hour of time rather than my planned half-hour.

Great. Not much additional time to prep, but thankfully I’d used the car ride over to do some last minute run-through and tweaks (nothing like editing PowerPoint at 70mph in the passenger seat). Anyway, unexpected as the early start was, and unsure I’d be able to pull out over 30min of talking, I walked up to take my lavaliere and plug in my laptop. One big sigh and a sip of bottled water later, I began.

“Good morning folks, I’m Dave Lastname and I was supposed to have about 30min today to talk to you about ThingX. Turns out they tell me I have more like an hour, so let’s see what I can do. I drove over this morning from PlaceX today, so I’m gonna pass around a little jar for gas money here at the end of my presentation. If you like what you hear, please show me some love.”

And with that I was off. I managed to go for about 50min, and everything went much better than I had envisioned. It still wasn’t the smooth, practiced patter that comes from doing a presentation for the tenth or twentieth time, and they managed to stump me a couple times – but I got some instant feedback that I was the most engaging presenter that morning. That can make a body feel good, y’know? So, after all that fretting, it looks like the medium amount of preparation I did was sufficient. Well, at least for Monday’s session it was… I still have to do it again Wednesday (but typically things get better, not worse). Glad you guys were here to see me through it all.

Anyway, I’m back from the bar now. One too many celebratory beers and I realize I have to cut this thing short for it to make sense. I went fishing at 5am on Saturday in Florida, and I got canvassed by no-see-um bites before the sun was high enough to force them back into hiding. Two days later and I feel like I have the chicken pox or something: my legs, arms, and lower back are literally covered with red itchy welts, and I can’t stop scratching. Please, Lord, help me to stop scratching.

Goodnight

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humidty & fried gator

Home from a great-but-short trip to Florida.

Sorry for the lack of writing while there, but the whole vacationing thing really did consume our hours fully.  We did an impressive amount of stuff for such a short getaway, and, on the other side of that coin, I got precisely none of the blogging I had planned done (my halfway best-of list for this year and a new batch of pictures for Keaton were on that list).  So, it’s time to catch-up this week if I can.

While we were gone, the birds ate all my almost-ripe apricots (I was looking forward to picking them upon our return, as they looked almost ready the day we left) and the little ants mounted their annual summer invasion of the kitchen to get out of the heat. I was more mad about the fruit – seems like I’ll never be able to grow anything sweet in this yard, ants are just a nuisance. I may have to think about netting in the trees, as they pecked every single fruit, about six in total, right down to the pits – leaving nothing behind. Y’know, you plant a fruit tree, you wean it, you care for it, and then the dang birds come and pillage your fruit. Stupid birds.

I don’t know how I’m writing right now, I’m just doing it in spurts between fretting and sweating over tomorrow’s presentation. I used the flight home today to work through the material I couple times, honing it , analog-style, with a pen so I could do the touchups in PowerPoint when I got home. And, with about an hour of massage the thing is, I think, where I want it. I’m still freaking a bit on time though, as I have to unpack, repack, and practice the deck a few more times before I’m comfortable with what I’m going to say. It’s just an unusual amount of procrastination on my part, and I’m usually comfortable with quite a large amount of the stuff – so this means I’m procrastinating a lot. By tomorrow’s entry, I’ll be able to either share with you my shame or trumpet my by-threads victory.

But, for now, I really have to get to bed.  It’s going on 10:30pm and I have to be up around 5am to shave and shower and get all coffee’d-up before heading over to the bay for the conference.  I’ve done three “dry runs” of my material now in front of the mirror, using the iPod’s stopwatch functionality to time how long I linger on each slide, and the total time I take for the whole of the material.  And, while I’m still not as practiced as I’d like to be, I’m as good as I’m going to get tonight.  And, I still have the carpool on the way over tomorrow to get in a few more goes.  But, I also need sleep.  So…

Before I go, I noticed that Pat has decided to blog through his sabbatical. Might be something worth checking out when ol’ faithful sounds familiar skips a day or disappoints.  I also added a link or two to the old “blogroll,” if that’s what they still call it (do they still call it that?).  So, poke around there while you wait for me to resume some sort of schedule again.

Until next time though, I love your bones… and, goodnight.

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all talk, no action

Yahtzee, 10pm and the fleshy part of my forearms is sticking to the table in the humidity.

Yeah, we’re in Florida.  You’ll have to excuse the break from daily (or somewhat-daily) writing.  It’s a short vacation, but so far it’s been a good vacation.  Chiefly comprised thus far of the pool, the beach, and some evening drinks outside by the ocean.  Like we always are, we’re a bit smooshed in the time department – lots of things we want to do and people we want to see and not a lot of time to do and/or see them all.

Our flight out was eventful, with an emergency landing in Denver for a medical emergency which emerged, medically, about two rows behind us and across the aisle.  Some poor soul had a (very frightening to watch) seizure-type thing back there two rows back and across the aisle.  The crew put an open-ended request for a doctor on the PA and a man in a maroon shirt strolled back from the front, feet guided by his Oath.  In the end, the afflicted gentleman walked off the plane in Denver under his own power, and we were off and running again after a brief refueling and visit from the cleanup-crew (this was not a clean medical emergency).  And, with a sufficiently accommodating layover, we arrived in Florida later that evening spot-on time.

Tomorrow we’re off to some new waterpark, another day with sweaty skin and wrinkled fingers.  Sun and water, water and sun – and I have not practiced one single minute for the presentation I’m giving morning-Monday the day after we return.  In all honesty, I’m feeling pretty guilty about my total and complete lack of preparation.  I mean, I’ve been under-prepared before, but this time it’s aggregious: I don’t even have my material finalized yet, and I don’t know when I will… maybe not until Sunday night when we get home.  I’m doomed, I really am.  Woe; woe is me.

I won at Yahtzee, but it’s only because I add so poorly.  Goodnight.

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let’s get to vacating

10:22pm on vacation eve and I’m just now sitting down to write.

What? You already thought I left for vacation?

I know, you guys get confused with the times on this here blog. It’s easy: I write at nights, usually the night before I post. However, being cheeky, I adjust words like “today,” “yesterday,” and “tomorrow” for the time when you’ll actually be reading the post. So, even though it’s Monday night while I write this, I’d refer to Tuesday as “today” when I write. Unless, that is, I’m writing about something I’m doing in real-time, in which case I’ll usually say something explicit like “Monday night.” See, simple?

Anyway, I’m pretty much all done getting things together… I’m bed-packed (which means everything I intend to take with me is laid out neatly in stacks on the bed, waiting to go into a suitcase). Sharaun just got home from her MOPS thing (that’s the mother’s group thing she does I always talk about, she runs the one for the teen girls – what a humanitarian I married, eh?), and she’s yet to get packing. And, with an early 5am departure planned from here tomorrow, she better get going. Ahem, I also cleaned up the joint and did dishes while she was gone – I can’t stand coming home to a messy house, kills me. So, in a word I am: ready. Let’s do this, let’s get to vacating.

I haven’t mentioned it much here on the b-to-the-l-to-the-o-to-the-g, but some friends of ours are actually joining us in Florida this time around. That’s right, we’re bringing some California folk into the sticky South. For me, this is unique collision of circumstances, and I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a little excited about showing someone the place that holds such a special place in my heart. I want to take them drinking with my Florida friends, want to show them my old haunts, tell stories with immediate context as we drive down the road. I know, it’s not that special of place to go visit… maybe even looks broken-down and busted to high-falootin’ west-coasters… but I’m still excited.

Besides, the prospect of bringing your “now” friends to your “then” place is a concept I think I could get on board with. In fact, the close group of thugs we run with out here has even floated the idea of a rotating “hometown vacation series” thing a few times. Each of us in turn inviting the other friends to come visit our hometowns, staying in various family-held cabins and properties, experiencing the local color, and witnessing firsthand the loins which birthed those who are now seem so attached to us it’s hard to remember they led other lives before the clique. Personally I think it’s a great idea, I eat culture like Asians do rice, and a vacation series like that would serve it by the heaping plateful. Maybe one day…

Before I go, a funny story: Sharaun’s home with Keaton this week when Keaton alerts her that she has to pee. She takes her into the bathroom, as usual, and removes her pants and diaper, as usual. But, instead of sitting down on her little potty like she always does, she instead moves in front of it, standing up, and just stares down at it. “What are you doing?,” asks Sharaun. “I wanna make a peepee,” she answers. “But you have to sit down to make a peepee,” Sharaun notes. “I wanna make a peepee like a big girl, like Daddy does!” Ha, I liked that. Yeah, I know, maybe it’s a little “Chicken Soup for the Whatever,” but I liked it. Suck on it.

And, because I’m way behind on posting new pictures of Keaton, here’s a small set from Bill and Susie to keep you going. Heave a sigh of relief though, as I dumped the last unsorted batch to the laptop before leaving for Florida with intent of weeding through and posting a new set while there. Look for it, OK?

Goodnight, until the sunny soupy Florida air is in my lungs.

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mondayfriday

Sunday evening, the sun on it’s way out and the house is at it’s warmest from being open all day, baking.

I just came in from an afternoon spent working around the yard; one of my rare fits of activity. Was a good one though: got the lawn mowed, fixed a couple busted sprinklers (the tough ones, where you have to dig a trench and redo pipe and whatnot), tinkered in the garden, and finally got around to finishing up the mending I had to do on the fence ever since it blew down waaaaay back when (seriously, it was a long time ago). The work got bonus points because I got to use both my circular and jig saws, as well as my sawhorses. Any man’ll tell you, he loves getting to use the tools he spends so much money collecting. Makes me feel virile… might not wanna get near me, may end up with twins just from my scent.

Today is both my Monday and Friday this week, as we leave bright and early tomorrow morning for a week-ish long (or short, rather) vacation in Florida. The plan is simple: Some beach time, some time by the pool, maybe some molasses-based Southern barbecue, and a good bit of time with family and friends. I’ll tell you this: I’m ready for a vacation. Work has picked up of late, and looks to be aimed in that general direction for the next few months. I actually think I may have squandered my downtime… shame on me. At least we’re getting away though – and I can’t wait to see if Keaton is a little more keen on the sand and waves this time around, since she’s getting so much better in the pool.

The other day Sharaun found one of these Fisher Price kids’ digital camera things at the local Goodwill. I’d never heard of the things before, but she apparently had – and she realized the $3.99 pricetag was a steal, even if the thing didn’t turn out to be in working order she figured it for a worthwhile gamble. When she got it home, I opened it up and put in 4 AA batteries and one coin battery, put it all back together, and turned it on. Thing fired up and worked perfectly. I bet the folks who sold it either didn’t realize they needed to replace the coin battery, that, or it was stolen… one of those.

Keaton absolutely loves the thing, and acts like a professional photographer when she has it. She point it at you and say, “Onetwothree smile!,” before she snaps. The pictures are fairly poor quality, something like a tiny cellphone camera, but she still enjoys it. It has enough built-in memory for her to take about sixty or so photos, but I noticed it also had a SD card slot. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any spare SD cards, but I did have a gig MMC card I’d bought long ago when I was in Taiwan, it was for an old Nokia phone. Since MMC and SD are pretty much the same thing with just slight physical differences, I figured I’d try. I slid right in and worked great.

Anyway, I figure I may feature some of Keaton’s photography soon here on sounds familiar, so keep an eye out for that. And, while I have no firm plans for blogging or not-blogging while we’re in Florida, I can forsee a slow week (or, maybe all that free time will mean lots of writing… who knows). One thing I do want to try and do is my annual halfway best-of list… but, again, who knows.

Goodnight folks!

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lindsay’s got a gun

I’ve had a bad run of blogging lately, I’ll admit it.

My writing has lacked some of the inspiration I thought it had a few weeks back. For a while there I thought I was doing pretty good. Maybe I need to bring back the polls or something, give myself a shot in the arm, some inspiration towards better output.

Like right now, for instance, I’m just now getting around to finishing up this long-lost entry for posting tonight – and it’s almost midnight on Thursday. We just got home from watching the Lost finale with friends, and the blog had to wait. So, without much new editing, I present the following story.

The first time I heard Radiohead’s debut album Pablo Honey was at a girl named Lindsay’s house. She was fifteen and beautiful. I had never met her before, but she was a friend of my Jeremy, who was a friend of mine. I had just earned the legal right to drive, so he asked me if we could go visit this girl, who he promised was hot and would have a friend around. She lived about a forty minute drive away, but her parents were out of town or something and a nothing-to-do teenage day combined with the fact that her parents weren’t going to be home justified the trip. At the time, I was in love with Radiohead’s breakthrough single, Creep, but hadn’t bothered to investigate any of their other output.

It was raining sometime terrible that day, and I was driving down some unfamiliar backcountry Florida roads to get to this girl’s place. On the way, Jeremy told me about her: Lindsay was apparently not only gorgeous, but she was also a badass. According to her, she was in a “gang,” and also had a gun. I was both intrigued and a bit wary, as wanna-be-gangsta girls weren’t (and aren’t) my kinda thing. I fully expected to pull up and meet some skinny white girl with one of those chin-length bowl-cut things where the back of their head and neck is shaved, figured she’d open the door wearing some baggy FUBU stuff, a crooked hat, and wearing chains while some unremarkable rap blared in the background. Man, I was wrong.

After surviving the harrowing drive, we ran through the downpour to the refuge of her porch, where we knocked. The stunning creature that opened the door was the perfect picture of a budding female. Flowering before my eyes in real time, she had dark shiny hair, worn short yes – but not like any teenage gangster I’d seen on Maury before. She was slim and fit, but surprisingly curvy for someone just beginning to flex her burgeoning femininity. Oh, and, she knew without a doubt that she was attractive, and had already achieved a mastery of the subtle arts of flirting. She was wearing a close-fitting top that V’d at the chest, and tiny shorts that left little to the imagination. I’d like to say I recall details like colors or fabrics or something astute like that, but I don’t – I think my brain may have been deprived of blood, for whatever reason. I knew immediately that I would be in love with Lindsay before we left that house that day.

Turns out her friend couldn’t make it. So, here we were, two teenage boys and one teenage girl all alone in this big old house with zero adult presence. Oh sure, the porn scripts ran through my head, I’d be lying if I said they didn’t. And, when we all went immediately into her bedroom, I half-feared I might really have to negotiate my best friend Jeremy’s nakedness were things to go all Vivid Video. Thankfully though, things stayed innocent and simple – something that, at the time, I’d likely pretend like I wish wouldn’t have happened, but would, in reality, be glad had (I’ve always been a better love-talker than love-er, I think). In fact, we all just lounged around on the floor or the bed and talked. I told Lindsay I heard she was in a gang and had a gun. She didn’t deny the former, and never produced a pistol to prove the latter. Funny thing was, this whitebread honor student was about as far from a gang-member as I could imagine.

At one point, she grabbed a CD off her dresser, Pablo Honey. “Have you heard this?,” she asked us. Neither of us had, aside from the single. “It’s my favorite album in the world right now,” she said as she popped the disc into her little table stereo. Again, Radiohead, not the most “gangbangin’” thing I can think to listen to. I remember to this day not liking the album when I heard it that day. In fact, it wouldn’t be until years later, when I went completely weak in the knees for OK Computer in college (even after also loving The Bends), that I would pick up a used copy of Pablo Honey at the record store and rediscover it.

I never saw Lindsay again. A few hours on one day back in the 90s, that’s all I got. Dunno that I really wanted more, but that was it anyway – so, that was it.

So, Lindsay, sorry I discounted your music. Turns out you were right about Pablo Honey, it’s a great album… hope things worked out for you and your gang or whatever. Goodnight.

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the crick in my neck

Ermmmm… head so heavy. Wrested from my couchful slumbers by the phone ’round 7pm: The wife’s on the cell. “On your way home from the city?,” I say. I fell asleep on the couch; guess it’s time to heat up some leftover lasagna and figure out what I’ll be writing. Ugh, but not before I work this kink out of my neck. Why I do I sleep on this little loveseat vs. stretching out on the full couch? Every time I get this sore neck, yet I never learn. Next time – big couch.

Next week we go to Florida. It’s a short trip, only about six days, one and a half of which are arguably lost to travel. I’m excited. Some friends of ours are coming along, and I’m pretty pumped about showing one of my modern-times California friends a little of the olden-times place where I grew up and came into my own. Not that I intend for the trip to be a tour or something, but, still… the prospect has me excited about getting to impart some “color” to the local scene for them. Now then, I started that thought not to talk about how I’m excited to go “home,” which I am, but to talk instead about what happens when I get back. See, the day after I get back I have to give the first of two presentations.

I haven’t given a real presentation, like to a decent sized audience that will ask challenging questions, in a good while. And, as almost always, I’m woefully underprepared. Dave, you may say, you still have a week and a half to get ready. Yes, yes I do. But, you see, this kinda of unprepared isn’t because I simply haven’t looked at or studied or practiced the material, it’s just that I’ve not assigned a whole heck of a lot of gravity to the thing in my mind. So, I’ve given it the cursory look, practiced a loose patter, dreamed up some witty bits to add here and there to keep the crowd awake… but it’s far from what I’d call “polished.” In fact, the material is still fluid, and I fully expect it to stay that way right up until the night before I go on stage.

I’ll invest some time readying myself and the material, to be safe… but to be honest the whole thing just isn’t doing a lot to rise to the top of my task list, you know what I’m saying? C’mon presentation, you gotta fight for my attentions, I’ve got a lot going on. If you want to be good, you’d push to the top of the list. But no, you just lay there expecting me to breathe life into you. You’ll get it, but it’ll be weak.

On the way to lunch the other day, as the small group of about-to-be diners walked through the parking lot to our vehicles, ready to burn close to five bones per gallon to fill our physiological need to eat, I happened to look down and found $40 in folded twenties in a vacant spot. In one motion I bent to scoop up the money as I exclaimed, “Oh my God I am rich.” (Delivered in deadpan homage to the “Oh my God I am the winner” line from Sandler’s Billy Madison, like I do with so many other “Oh my God am I am…” starts.) I stood there for a moment, looking around me, half expecting someone walking nearby to be checking their pockets before turning around. I waited, and waited, and finally decided that the Lord had ordained I receive that money. I like finding money. When we got to lunch, I spent the $40 buying the meals of those in my car – flexing a little philanthropy in case karma was watching (I even put the dollar change into the tip jar, at Jeff’s behest). Easy come, easy go.

Goodnight.