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all the way to the horizon

Never coming down.
Today on the way home for lunch (baby-budget, remember), I was listening to Menomena’s new three-track (thematic, if not full-blown “concept”) EP/album, Under An Hour (which it is, just barely, at 54min). Of the three tracks, which are each near the 20min mark, I’ve rarely gotten to the final one. So… liking the first two tracks so much, I decided to flip direct to the last track. Turns out, the third track begins with a buzzy droning sound, completely unaccompanied; something like a small plane sounds like from inside the cockpit.

Wait, if you skipped that last paragraph because it started out about music, go back – I’m actually going somewhere with this and needed the music to set it up. Go ahead, I’ll give you a second…

Anyway, with the windows down and that drone droning on in my ears, I started to imagine I was in a plane. Flying over the same roads I was driving, watching myself down there. If you’re having a hard time picturing this, pop in Kubrick’s The Shining DVD and watch the opening sequence as the Torrances make their way up to the lodge, shot from a helicopter tracing their winding path up the wooded road.

Suddenly, being up in the sky and far above the me driving down below, I felt all at once alone and free. I could just keep flying, stay airborne, take it to the mountains or even over the ocean. Stay up in the cold thin air with nothing but the drone of the engines outside. I could look down on little people like me and their purposed motions, heading home for a quick sandwich because they’re about to have a baby and a pound of deli meat is cheaper than a pre-fab sandwich at the cafeteria. But not me. I’m up here in the sky where there’s no turn I can’t take, no direction I can’t point myself in. Aimed into the blue all the way to the horizon.

When I was a kid, in 5th grade or so, I used to daydream about jumping out of my swing at the very top of the arc. I’d spread my arms and fly away, circling above the playground looking down at the upturned heads of my amazed classmates. That, or the one where I could walk on the ceilings, my feet stuck to the top of the walkway coverings – just out of reach of the kids below. Oh, and there was the one where I could walk through walls… that one was mostly used to get into closets other such places where I could spy on girls undressing. So, aside from the pervert one, I guess flying away type escapist fantasies have been with me from a young age. There’s something alluring about looking down on everything, as a supreme being would on his creation. They’re down there, you’re up here – and they can’t even throw a rock and hit you. Money.

Finally, and added early this morning after I’d already auto-published at midnight, some non-abstract writing (and darn good news). Sharaun, who wins so much stuff on the radio that we get W2s from Infinity and ClearChannel, this morning won a 60GB video iPod. She promptly called and told me to get out of bed and tune in for the call-in contest responsible. Oh yeah, and she won some Globetrotter tickets too, which I’m actually pretty pumped about… but the iPod I’ve been dreaming of, and it’s within the baby-budget… free-ninety-free. How she does it, I have no idea.

Goodnight.

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a troll in the stork’s workshop

Gasp!
Probably a boring entry today, in play-by-play style but at least spiced up with some photographs to make you think it’s meatier than it really is.

Lately I feel something like an elf in Santa’s workshop – working tirelessly day and night to make toys for all the good boys and girls of the world. But… I’m not an elf; I’m taller and rounder and much hairier, a little more like a troll. And… I’m not in Santa’s workshop; I’m in my home – working tirelessly day and night to make things ready for Lil’ Chino’s arrival. OK, not quite tirelessly, but I’ve at least been working (at times with the assistance of others) for four days or so. Oh but folks, the hard work has definitely paid off. With the addition of the glider we got on the cheap off Craigslist, a new white-rimmed light fixture, and some new white shelves, it’s just about perfect.

Friday night… we opted to stay in, beat-down as we are from last evening’s late ending. Sharaun did her day on an hour and a half of sleep, and is now sawing logs on the couch. She’s got her shirt hiked up above her bulging belly and every once and a while I can see the whole mass squirm and writhe like I’d imagine it would were an octopus coiled inside. No ocean-life here though, just our little girl; she’s getting bigger, stronger, and making herself more apparent everyday. Not just by trying to push her way out Sharaun’s belly, either, just by… permeating. Saturating my thoughts more and more every day. And… I love it; I really do. I’m ready for her to be the center of my world.

Sunday was Sharaun’s final baby shower, and we once again came away with armloads of loot. Sharaun’s friends threw one of the most thoughtful and well-lain showers I’ve seen (not that I’m some kinda baby shower aficionado, but it just makes you realize what good friends do). While the ladies were brokebacking it up over at the house, I haded over to Pat’s for some football with all the abandoned dudes, only to come back later for a look at the plunder. Without going down the list, we did manage to score (between this and her other showers) most all the “big ticket” items on our registry – which is more awesome than I can even say.

But, out of all the gifts we got, there was one that I loved sooo much, I had to take pictures and show the world. Given to us by one of sounds familiar’s devoted readers, maygsters, were these awesome handmade onsies (as I’ve been told they are called) and hand-knitted little booties (lots of baby things end with Gollum-esque “ies”). It’s hard to make out in the picture below, but if you click you can see a larger version that’s more legible.

If you can’t read ’em, there’s: Daddy drinks because I cry, a Justin Tenderlegs (must be for Sharaun), the blog logo, Been on the inside for 9 months, and, needless to say, my absolute favorite – the “Lil’ Chino” logo’d tee (in realistic Latino streetgang typeface!). I seriously can’t wait to get her into it.

Goodnight.

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it all happened at the wolf parade show

Burning bird.
Who says you cant lateblog on Fridays? No one I know! Anyway, here it is, late, since we didn’t make it home from the Wolf Parade show until 3am last night. About the show… I was underwhelmed. Unbeknownst to me, we caught the very last show on the tour, right before the band was heading back north for two months rest. That meant a very drunken band, and a pretty burned out vocal performance from the lead-guitar singer guy (not to be confused with the keyboard singer guy, neither of whom’s name I know). Can you say “whom’s?” Anyway, the show wasn’t very enjoyable for 8-months-pregnant Sharaun, and worrying over her hampered my experience a little too. Basically, I saw my hipster life die a slow death last night, while my family life phoenix began to flutter under the pile of ashes – and it all happened over an hour and half at a Wolf Parade show. Now some crap I wrote yesterday.

I wanted to thank stereogum for bringing my attention to Bill O’Reilly’s appearance on the Letterman show this week, as I found Dave’s conviction in the interview pretty out-of-character – yet a welcomed taking-on of Mr. O’Reilly. Hopefully the WMV link sticks around long enough for you to check it out as well. I’m still surprised that it’s taken criticism of this war this long to become this public, but I suppose that you could argue that criticism will inevitably grow in proportion to the length of the engagement and, more importantly, number of lives lost. Regardless of time and lives, I think it’s past-due. Knowing we can’t just pull out and nut on Iraq’s stomach at this point, one can make a fair projection of the pro-war curve – and so can the GOP. I’d imagine it’ll go something like this:

hawkism.jpg

Of course, there will be outliers – those who will support the decision to go to war until the very end. You’ll find some of these people to be very intelligent, sensible, well-versed, and extremely convicted; you’ll also find some of these people to be ignorant, blindly accepting of authority, and willing to swallow a live grenade were it marketed to them correctly (likely wrapped in an American flag, affixed with J. Christ’s seal of approval, or heavily advertised during NASCAR). Likewise, you’ll find those who wouldn’t vote for war were an Iraqi-sanctioned team of terrorists in their living room slitting the throats of their family with dull wooden knives made from felled-for-sport 300 year old American redwoods. I am none of these, and I hope that I am among the growing majority; a growing majority that wants to know. If not for WMD… then what for? If not for 9/11… then what for? If not for proof of state-sponsored terrorism… then what for? What the heck for? To make the world a better place, of course! Yay! We’re all rainbows and kittens.

That’s it, weekend time. See ya.

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pinks

Would look sweet on the side of a van.
Happy Thursday to you, this week is going fast. To start: some pictures, as I finally got around to taking some of the nearly-done nursery, in all its two-tone pink glory. I’ve added them to my media page, and attentive readers may also find the online debut of Lil’ Chino’s real name (it’s a big thing).

Tonight is the Wolf Parade show in San Francisco; it kinda snuck up on me, and it’s a late one too… doors at 8:30pm and there’s three, count ’em, three opening acts… meaning the Wolf likely won’t even start parading until like 11pm. Looks like it’s going to be a late one, current pillow-ETA estimates coming in at approximately 3:30am. Of course, the show is sold out – two nights actually, so it should be fairly well-attended and, hopefully, high-energy.

I had to replace the headlight on my truck; I’ve done it before and remember it being dead-easy. So, I bought a headlight, and flipped open the manual to the headlight maintenance section to jog my memory. This time though, the burned out headlight was on the driver’s side, previously it was on the passenger. Turns out the driver’s side assembly is a good deal tighter, and not really made for fat hands. Replacing a bulb couldn’t be easier in theory: unplug it, twist the locking ring to the right, pull out the bulb, put in the new one, twist the ring to the left, plug it back in. I failed at the “twist the locking ring to the right” step, as my fat hands couldn’t fit in the tight space well enough to give me sufficient twisting power. Why do things I’m bad at have to be so hard? Anyway, I got smarter than the tight space and went to the trouble of removing the entire battery so I could approach the twisty thing from the rear – that did it, twisted that defiant mofo right off and had the new bulb in lickety-split. Plus, as a bonus, after the hood was closed and tools put away, my hands were stained with suet and grease – to the casual observer I could’ve passed for someone who works on his car because he knows how. Pretend-skills… I got tons of ’em.

G’nite friends.

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oh my god there’s a human in my wife’s belly

Behind the iron curtain!
Evening folks. I was going to post some pictures of Lil’ Chino’s pink and pink nursery today, but other things came calling and it just didn’t happen – tomorrow perhaps.

Tonight was our first baby class at the hospital, two hours every week for the next six weeks. Tonight there was lots of talk about vaginal mucous and other such unsavory items – but, overall, I think I’ll enjoy the class. I’ve certainly got things to learn, so a class isn’t such a wacky idea. To kick off the class, the instructor played Bill Cosby’s famous birth/labor bit from his Himself standup – a classic through and through. At some point in the class, I think when the instructor was saying that some babies actually “play” with their mothers’ bladders like constantly inflating beach balls, I realized that this “thing” inside my wife isn’t just some fluid-breathing “growth”… no, this is a human being. While I know she’s not in there contemplating the meaning of life or doing algebra, it’s not like she’s a rock or some other inanimate object – she stretches, rolls, flips, covers her eyes when it’s bright, etc. Oh my God there’s a human in my wife’s belly.

Work today was furious-productive, which is good as I need a kick in the pants to get me going. It was one of those days where I decided to work smarter, not harder, and it seemed to pay off in the end. I always feel good when I have some measurable accomplishments at the day’s end – output really justifies effort for me. Also in work news, I got word late today that I’ve been tapped for a trip to Moscow and Prague in late April – two months post-Lil’ Chino. Now, normally, I wouldn’t really want to travel that close to the baby… but… Moscow and Prague?! I mean, I’ve never been to Europe, and something about Moscow has fascinated me for a long time. So, I asked Sharaun, and she grudgingly said OK. While not official yet, I’m leaning towards going – that could all change after the baby though, who knows if I’ll be interested in travel… maybe I’ll just want to sit around a stare at my new daughter.

Sometimes I hate how heavy-handed I am. I’m just not built for fine, detailed, or small work. I’m all forced, dumb-muscled motions, largely due to my severe impatience and low frustration-factor. I rarely eat something without some of it ending up on my clothes, I break things trying to fix them, and I cut-corners out of frustration and accept less than perfection just to “get the job done.” Now, that’s a generalized statement. When I really have pride in what I’m doing, I go to extra effort to ensure it’s 110% – the catch being that, for whatever reason, I have to care about the results. My backyard, certain tasks at work, etc. The amount of pride I have in, or effort I put into, something is directly related to how skilled I am at the task. I.e., if I’m good at it and/or it’s easy for me, I take extra care in making sure it’s done right. If I’m so-so at it, I put in so-so effort. Not a good way to build skills I suppose, I should work on that. Although I’ll never carve the alphabet on a grain of rice, perhaps I can hone some lacking skills.

Writing that last paragraph, I waffled between using the phrase “take pride in” or the phrase “have pride in.” Do those actually mean the same thing? Strange.

Goodnight my peoples.

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racist? me?

That's racist!
Monday, and the rain and wind have been unending. I haven’t seen so much rain in a while. On Saturday we got a brief respite, and I used the few hours of sunshine to trim the fountaingrass bushes in the front yard with the new electric trimmer I got and deliver a borrowed bed to a new owner. The weekend was also a busy time for baby-prep, with the nursery coming pretty close to “together” over the past few days. This entry is really just a boring weekend recap, so nothing that special.

Friday we dropped a sizeable chunk of moolah on Lil’ Chino’s little white crib, matching white dresser/changing table, and “pack and play” (the modern day combination of playpen, bassinet, portable crib-thing, and a whatnot. Then, we swung into the local hardware warehouse and picked up two gallons of pink paint, one darkish, one lightish. Somehow, knowing there’s not anymore logical “breaks” between now and the baby (for instance, the time prior to now was broken up with things like Thanksgiving, Christmas, India, etc.), it’s really hit home that we need to move into preparation-overdrive; trying to avoid a New Orleans-esque spending of billions to fix the levy after the hurricanes. Sharaun’s last first day back after break is the 3rd, and her last day back before the baby is the very next 3rd… that’s soon, y’allz… that’s soon.

Sunday morning, the last of our new living room furniture got delivered. At the time, I was cleaning the house, more specifically the kitchen when the doorbell rang. I had Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois blaring on the stereo, in all it’s am-I-religious-or-not white-boy glory. Opening my front door, I was greeted by a smiling man who asked me where I wanted the furniture, how my New Year was, etc. As he headed back to his truck to get the goods, I left the front door open for him. Then, I did something strange, almost unconsciously. I went to the computer, from which was the last chords of an ending Sufjan track were fading out to silence, and I switched tracklists. But guys, I didn’t just switch tracklists… I switched tracklists to the Little Brother album, The Listening, which I downloaded a while back on some website recommendation, didn’t like at all, and just hadn’t yet deleted. What’s the significance of this? Little Brother is a hip-hop record, and the furniture delivery guy was black. I did turn down the volume so that it was barely audible from the room where he was working, but it’s the fact that I did it in the first place. What the hell? I felt really stupid really quickly, and changed it back to Mr. Stevens in all his WASP glory. Racist? Me?

Let’s do a random link-rodeo, since I’ve got a lot of stray sentences that need to be wrangled. First off, there’s a good, but long-winded, read entitled “What I Heard About Iraq in 2005” here. Second, I just got around to watching the History Channel’s excellent Banned from the Bible documentary. An outstanding account of the canonization of the Bible and examination of several apocryphal writings. It’s worth it to set your TiVo for the re-airing. Finally, congratulations are in order for Ben and Suzy, as they’ve agreed to tie the knot.

Time to kick rocks, goodnight.

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cups

Not a bad deal.
OK, I just had to write about this. Have you guys heard about the AirTran Airlines, Wendys, and Coca Cola deal? Until last week, I hadn’t – but I know all about it now. AirTran airlines, a newcomer trying to drum up business and not yet in debt like most established carriers, teamed up with Wendys to offer a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the continental United States; all you have to do is collect 64 Wendys cups, which have coupons for the flights. Sounds too good to be true, right? I thought so too, and so I didn’t give the whole thing much thought. My brother-in-law actually told me about the promotion while we were in Florida last week. He jokingly suggested how easy it would be to collect 64 discarded Wendys cups and earn loads of free flights. We laughed, and I forgot about it.

Then, tonight, he called again – having just returned from a multi-Wendys dumpster-diving run where he and a buddy collected 256 cups in one evening. Turns out his buddy has been doing this every single night for near a month now, and he only found out last night – with just two nights left in the promotion. What’s more, his buddy has collected over thirty free flights in the past month. Yeah sure, you can only redeem two per name, but he’s given two flights to nearly every member of his extended family – some of which have reportedly already redeemed the cups for flights and actually flown AirTran. Sounds crazy, but a quick Google shows he’s not alone, and these things are all over Ebay and Craigslist. One article quotes an AirTran representative, “… the airline anticipated a black market for the promotional cups, Mr. Hutcheson says, but ‘when we looked at the pros and cons of it, the cost of getting exposure for AirTran outweighed the bad.'”

Amazing… just amazing; free flights for nothing more than a romp in some fast food trash. For the record, the deal is over now. Meaning, no new cups are being distributed to Wendys locations. However, you can continue to redeem cups until February of 2006, and some Wendys will continue to give out cups while their existing supplies last. So, if you’re adventurous… dive in!

Three-day weekend!! Goodnight.