sounds familiar

I dunno guys, just haven’t had much to write about lately. Skipped last night (well, kinda, read below), and not feeling much of anything bubbling to the surface tonight either, for that matter. I mean, I should have tons to write about – We went to an awesome wedding Friday up in Tahoe, spending a Keaton-less night in a cabin/mansion thing on the hill at a party with fire-eaters, an open-air hottub, and piles and piles of revelry. I was even on fire, at one point.

No, seriously.

So… I should have stuff… but I dunno.

Some of you may have seen a “blip” of an entry hit the blog around the midnight that straddled Sunday and Monday (I wrote it that way because I never know if I refer to midnight as Monday morning, Monday night, or Sunday something). I had set my Sunday writing to auto-publish at midnight, like I normally do, but hadn’t every finished writing it (I gave up around 10pm with only a quickly-typed opening paragraph but forgot to turn off autopost). Anyway, I realized what I’d done when I woke for work Monday morning and I recalled the entry. Forgive me the mistake, yes? Those of you with RSS readers can probably go back and check it out, but there’s really no need as I’ve integrated what was salvageable right here.

Anyway, today was a busy day at work. In early for a sunrise meeting with ze Germans, and a quickie lunch with my buddy Ben before coming back to work on a presentation I’m giving in a few weeks – right after we get back from Florida, actually. Thinking about it, I haven’t actually stood in front of a crowd and presented for a good bit of time now – I’m sort of looking forward to all the prep and the rush of “knowing” things when asked. That is, assuming the thing goes well, and not like some of the stinkers I’ve had before (they’re rare, I swear, but they happen). I’ve been putting in some prep time for this one though, and I’m fairly certain all should go well. Anyway – today was a busy day at work, I suppose.

Sometimes I dream about living on a boat. Nothing huge like a staffed yacht or anything, but a large sailboat (with backup power, or something) perhaps. Maybe just a year, drifting on the trades, stopping at small ports for food and supplies, sunning… Thing is, I know next to nothing about boat-life, let alone sailing… and I think there’s quite a bit of science behind the whole thing, and that my ignorance would likely need to be remedied before I set out. But, man, there is something appealing to it. Wouldn’t it be cool to just pack up the family and take a year off? I mean a whole year. Three-hundred, sixty-five days together on the sea, pitching with the current. Like most of my modern-man escapist womb-fantasies, this one too comes with 20th century amenities like music and internet and TV for Sharaun. She’d never go, anyway. Maybe take away the storms and the loneliness and the dangers of being so remote… maybe then she’d consider. But nah… just a lark.

OK, I’ve got nothing.  Sorry.  Before I go, check out Keaton and her friend Jake together from our camping trip a few weeks back over on a recent update to this website right here.

Goodnight.

The Northern California summer showed up with a quickness today, with our first 100°+ day of the season. It’s that dry, baking heat, the kind that makes the air around you so warm it presses; like it’s a physical thing. The picture accompanying this entry was taken in the Ford as I ran a bunch of errands at lunch. The display read 111° at one point, but I missed the chance to take a picture. And, even though I don’t trust that gauge much, it was still hot as sin here today.

Summer, we welcome you with shirts doffed and feet bare. Pour out upon us your bounty of fermented beverages and fire-warmed meats. We await.

Hey, I’m gonna tell a story now.

See, I’m pretty sure that the house a couple houses down from us is a “weed house.”

Huh? You don’t know what a “weed house” is? Well, let me break you off. A weed house is a home that is used specifically for the purpose of growing marijuana. Sometimes they are called, quite fittingly I might add, “marijuana grow houses.” See, someone purchases a home (usually a newly built one or in a new neighborhood), spends tons of money outfitting it with things like grow lights, automated watering systems, and high-tech air circulation and filtration systems (to avoid the house reeking a telltale stench when neighbors walk by). Oftentimes the owners of the indoor grow operation will bypass the electricity meter, effectively cloaking the massive amounts of power the operations require from the utility company (an easy way to get caught, as someone will always miss 1.21 jigawatts). Then, with a crop planted, the owners simply stay away and wait on the harvest.

Sound crazy? It happens, I swear. They busted a big ring of them a few cities away from here just a few months back, and similar setups are cropping up all over the country.

Anyway, let’s take a virtual walk down our street. See, we live in a new neighborhood, in houses built between four and six years ago (when we moved in). Our house is on the corner, so let’s start walking towards the communal mailbox unit (a modern-day phenomenon which I hate, but maybe I’ll write more about that later).

Oh, here’s our neighbor’s place. They’re nice folk, don’t live here full-time though. Like plenty of “bay” people, they own a couple places – one in the bay and one over here closer to the mountains. They live primarily over there, and show up around here every few months or so. One drawback to this ping-pong arrangement is that their lawn gets mowed really infrequently, and they haven’t invested any time or effort in the back (which comes absolutely un-landscaped when you buy the place). Unfortunately, this means that both their front and back yards are rife with weeds. We’ve actually become friends with these folks, they have a little girl almost exactly Keaton’s age. We’ve had dinner over there, had them over for playdates, and even exchanged e-mail addresses so we can know when they’ll be in town. And, other than their overtaken yard, they seem like right-nice folks.

Let’s keep walking, shall we.

Ah, and here’s our neighbor’s neighbor’s house. This is the weed house, by the way. See, no one lives here. In fact, no one is has ever lived her, nor is anyone ever even here, period. Essentially, this is an abandoned house. The shades are forever-drawn, and, like our neighbor’s place, the front “lawn” has gone to weed and the back “yard” is just a bunch of weed-covered dirt and rocks.

As an aside, it really stinks having two weed patches right next to our house (I’m talking the kind of weeds you kill with Round-Up now, not the kind you chief while listening to “Stir It Up”). All the seed from the bumper crops that grow unchecked in their yards ends up settling in every dirt-holding crack, crevice, and thin patch in our yard. I’m convinced that my personal battle with weeds is as bad as it is solely because I live next to these two weed-strewn lots. Anyway…

The funny thing about the weed house is… our immediate neighbors mow the lawn there. Remember, the ones we are friends with? They mow it. Well, they do when they’re in town, at least. He mows them both. I’ve never asked him if he knows the people who own the house, but I’ve always wanted to know. Seems like he must, since he mows their lawn, right?

Over time, I’ve developed this theory… check it: Our neighbor owns his house and the weed house, that’s why he mows both lawns (duh). He and his family coming into town every few months is just a front for tending the crops. In fact, he’s probably got underground tunnels between the places or something, so he can come and go without fear of being seen. Being (somewhat) serious, though, he could likely maintain and harvest the crop under cover of night, going from backyard to backyard rather than out front – thus staying fairly well-hidden.

Yup, that’s my theory. My neighbor runs the weed house two lots down from us. I even have “evidence,” wanna hear it? OK… get ready: When we were getting ready to go to Mexico on vacation recently, we got an e-mail from our neighbors saying they’d be in town that very week and wanted to get together. We regretfully replied that we’d be vacationing in Mexico that week, and would sadly miss them. Their reply? Commiseration at our bummed-ness for not being able to socialize, and then, this: “Mexico, sounds fun! Do you know if they search all the luggage you take, even carry-ons?”

Huh? What?

Actually, I was just thinking, our neighbors (who we really do like, a lot) may be ‘net savvy enough to pull up our domain based on Sharaun’s e-mail. If so, I kinda regret writing this. Even still, it’s more for funny than it is for accusation – I promise. And, guys, even if you are totally growing piles and piles of dank-dank nugs in that house, we can still hang out – we’re cool. Sharaun, she might narc, but me… I’m on-board.

Have a good weekend, talk to you Monday.

Hi team.

Hump-day is now behind us and we’re off into the home stretch. We have a wedding to attend in the afternoon Friday, so I’ll be cutting out halfway through Friday to head up into the hills for the ceremony. Keaton’s spending the night with a friend from Sharaun’s mom’s group, they have a two-year-old also and he and Keaton get along swimmingly. I think this is the first night we’ve been away from her where one of our folks aren’t watching her, that’s some kinda milestone or something, right?

Let’s talk about the wardrobe problems I had today.

The sock I wore on my right foot was one of those ones where the elastic in the ankle-part has all given up its elasticity, and it kept getting sucked down into my shoe as I walked. Terribly annoying, I just tossed the thing when I took off my shoes this afternoon. Maybe it’ll help even up the sock numbers anyway, since I invariably have an odd numbered total anyway.

That, and I decided to give these new-fangled style of boxer-briefs Sharaun bought a second try. On the surface, they look great. They’re the same style I happily wear each and every day, but with the added bonus of the elastic band around the top also being covered in the softy-cotton material from which the shorts themselves are made. I know, you’re thinking – this could be revolutionary, like when they stopped attaching scratchy tags to undershirts and started silk-screening them on instead. Potential new heights in comfort. Yeah, well, that’s bunk. For some reason, when they covered the elastic, they also shortened the dang things by an inch or two per size. Now they feel great around my waist, but ride up as if my feet were on fire and they are making their getaway.

Clothes can be problematic for me, I guess.

Today at work someone placed a large box in the aisle with the word TRASH written on it. I took the box into an abandoned cube (cubes are what pass for “offices” in the modern corporate world, for those of you yet un-matriculated) and, with a large black marker, appended, To you maybe! With a little imagination… THE MILLENNIUM FALCON. Except I spelled both “millennium” and “falcon” wrong in my haste. Actually, the misspellings likely made it even funnier to the casual observer. Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna think… even funnier.

I think that’s it then, folks. The best part was the writing on the box, right? I mean, other than that there was just the bit about the socks and underwear. Oh, and the wedding and being Keaton-less. Man, I gotta start coming up with the good stuff again soon or I’m gonna lose you all.

I’ll see ya around.

Hi guys. Sunday in Oregon here, happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

Whenever, as I did last week, I spend a few days working from the Oregon sawmill close to my parents’ place, I wear “manager clothes.” Meaning, I wear dress slacks and collared shirts and fancy shoes with colored socks. Back at home, where I come to work every day as a manager, I wear jeans or shorts, mostly polo shirts, and dingy sneakers. In what I like to think of as taking advantage of not being around the Oregon sawmill very much, I used what brief time I have there to let people think I may actually dress nicely on an everyday basis back at home-base. I don’t know if this charade works, but I do it anyway. Somewhere in Oregon, there are people I work with who think I dress like a manager all the time (maybe). One day, I might actually start dressing like a manager all the time… I just may do it.

It was a good weekend though. Good time with Sharaun, with Keaton, and with Mom and Dad. Felt like a decent time away, too. There are a few weekend happenings I could write about, but I thought the following one might work best for the blog. Here goes.

We took Keaton down the the little park near my folks’ place on Sunday to let her run and jump and climb and slide and do all the fun kind of things kids do that help them sleep come naptime. While we were there, an Asian woman was out on her front porch at a unit nearby the park. Squatting down and hunched over an electric frying pan with a gallon jug of oil on the ground nearby, she was tending to whatever she was frying, turning them with a pair of long chopsticks. I waved and smiled as Keaton and I kicked a ball near her, and she waved and smiled back before turning her attentions back to her cooking.

Later, as we were playing, the woman called Sharaun over as she passed nearby. Answering “two” to the woman’s question about how old Keaton was, Sharaun was then surprised as she handed her a little paper plate with three pieces of what looked to be homemade egg foo young and a little plastic fork. Then, in a combination of broken English and the more universally understood pointing and motioning she indicated they were for Keaton. When I saw what was going on, I ushered Keaton over to accept the food and encouraged her to say her “thank yous.” And, for the rest of the time at the playground, she munched on egg foo young between running and jumping and climbing and sliding and all the fun things kids do at the at the park that help them sleep before naptime.

Thing is, I thought this was totally cool. Helped reinforce my theory that an overwhelming majority of the humans on this rock are inherently good people. I’m telling you, people are good. They just are.

And now, off to sleep to wake and fly back. Goodnight.

Wow. Broke my streak yesterday, huh? Been doing so well, too. Guess between working, getting to the airport, flying, getting to my folks’ place, and going to bed – I just didn’t have time to write. It’s OK, I’m back… for what it’s worth.

Coming to Oregon ended up being an exercise in time-travel. See, it’s clearly still winter here, with daytime highs in the 50s and cloudy grey skies overhead. Coming from the sweaty-crotch beginnings of summer back home it’s quite a difference. I kinda like it though, I’ve always been partial to the “vibe” of the fall/winter seasons, even if they are the unnaturally undying ones of the Pacific Northwest.

When we got to the airport last night Hertz had us in a two-door convertible. I stood beside it for a good minute, thinking. In the end, I decided that, with the carseat and the potential for carting around Grammy and Grandpa as well, I’d better exchange for a four-door. They gave us a “Sportage” instead, some sort of smaller SUV thing. It’s not bad I guess, but I bet, cubically speaking, it’s not really much larger than the convertible. It works though, even does OK at making me feel like I’m driving my trusty busted-ass Ford back home.

Speaking of that busted-ass Ford, I was admiring it’s broke-down charm the other day. I’m not gonna lie, it’s in pretty bad shape. I don’t wash it, I don’t clean the inside of it, it’s 7,000mi overdue for an oil change, and it makes all sorts of unnatural groans and creaks and squeaks and grinding noises. Still, though, I love that car. We bought it used right after we moved from Florida, it was three years old at the time and in pretty good shape. I had no idea how to buy a car, had never done it before, but I thought I came out of the deal OK (at least, according to the internet at the time). Funny though, having had a little more time to come to feel familiar with a family budget and sort of lock into comfortable spending pattern, I’d probably look for something with lower payment were I to go buy new today. But, it worked out, and I’m still driving the (well worn) beast today.

Nowadays, it’s been paid off for years and I only use it to go back and forth to work, which is some ridiculously small distance right around three miles from the house. Sometimes I think I should get rid of it, but then I remember how I do like to take it on “longer” trips – and that I do get good use out of it doing things like driving up the mountains to Tahoe or to Yosemite or something (which, in honesty, we don’t do much at all). Mostly though, I remember how I use it to go back and forth to Home Depot or Lowes, and how I can stack bricks or fertilizer or wood in the back. I think, though, above all, I remember how it costs me only gas to have the thing, and how I put that cable in there so I can play my iPod in it, and how it’s the only vehicle I’ve known for the past eight years. I remember that and think, “I’m gonna drive this thing into the dirt,” and give the dashboard a quick caress (after which I have to wipe the thick dust off my hand on my shorts).

I probably jinxed it now. It’ll die next week. Watch.

Ended up buying a suit tonight, from a guy who could’ve sold me the moon. Seriously, I fell in man-love with this guy. He played basketball with Marvin Gaye, was a backup singer on a George Clinton record, and pretty much likes everything I like: He loves camping and hiking, speaks Mandarin, has lived everywhere I’ve ever lived, knows all the places I know… the guy was the penultimate salesman. He chose shirts based on my complexion, he eye-sized me to the inch, and had me smiling and laughing the entire time. I had to restrain myself from just handing him the credit card and telling him the limit. After I had paid and was being escorted to the door, he told me, “If you’re ever in the area again, stop by and see me if you need anything.” Honestly, I just might “need” something after all…

Uh-oh, I totally have a man-crush on a sixty year old (yes, he told me) tewnty-one year (yes, he told me) employee of Men’s Wearhouse.

No proofreading. ‘Night.