Posts

Posted on

look timmy, a mountain! do you see the mountain?!

Hey man, is that Southern Rock man? Well.... tuuuurn it up man!!
I don’t even know if this entry makes sense… I’m delerious-tired.

Skirting Portland means a freakin’ maze of intertwined highways, crawling along on half of them with your foot on the brake. I’m pretty dang tired, 4am wake-up this morning and not much rest on the flight up. All-day meeting requiring my attention didn’t help. Now I’m back in the aeropuerto waiting for my “on time” flight to get here on time. I just want a nap, I’m tired.

The blog spam has been “shock and awe” style lately, over 100 items a day. I must say, though, WordPress stops nearly every single piece – every so often, a single piece gets through and I have to manually delete it. Most of the spam is for online hold’em, with viagra and phentermine running a close second. I tell you what, people must buy a whole heck of a lot of viagra and phentermine online… something’s making the marketing worth it.

The plane home was the flight from Hell. To my left, a young man, perhaps 21 or 22. Across the aisle to my right, a young mother with two young children, perhaps 3 and 4. I would soon come to find out that these two seemingly normal folks were, indeed, two of the most surreal people I could’ve possibly run into when I all I wanted to do was grab a nap on the way home.

The young man was a devout Seventh Day Adventist, he told me, out of the blue. He was also a “plane talker.” You know, those people who, for whatever reason, feel like they have to talk to you every second of the flight. He regaled me from the moment he sat down. “So, what about gas prices?” “Can you believe this hurricane?” He went on to tell me that he was coming home from college, to visit his folks for a while. He was double-majoring in Theology and Fitness Management, with a minor in Piano. He said he didn’t want to be “tied down” to one job. Yeah, because the market’s wide-open for Christian school PE teachers who play piano. Obviously intelligent by some of his comments, his unfortunately baritone, droning, and slow, stinted speech made him sound like the vulture from the cartoons: “Duhhh, which we did he go, George? Which way did he go?”

The woman with the kids was worse. Her voice went to eleven. She was a full two decibels louder than anyone else on the plane, and she was one of those people who is her kids’ best friend. “Get ready Jessie, we’re about to pull out on the runway! We’re about to go fast! Hang on!! Are you ready to go fast?! Get ready, we’re about to go. Watch the wheels, here we go!” “Look at the clouds! Do you see the clouds? Sit still, do you feel those bumps? That’s called ‘turbulence.’ Feel it? Look at the mountains! Can you see the wing? Isn’t this fun?!” Oh. My. God. This woman never shut up, never took a breath, every annoying pointless bit of childlike banter seemingly screamed through a megaphone. This back and forth went on for the entire flight, her children talking as loud as her – following her example.

At one point, while feigning sleep to avoid dealing with it all – I realized how insane the stereo picture between my two ears was. Babbling loud mom on my right, and babbling spiritual Adventist on my left. That’s when it hit me, no one would ever believe this – I was obligated to record it to prove my story. So, I snuck out my cellphone and, against FAA regulations, began recording as the two loonies’ ranting crescendoed. And here, folks, I present the audio proof of my flight from Hades, complete with my own transcripts lest you have a hard time understanding what’s going on. Keep in mind, I sat my phone on my lap while recording this – so this is the level I would hear if my ears were on my hips… helps to establish the levels we’re dealing with.

[audio:Record011.mp3]
Seriously, listen to this guy ramble (with absolutely no response from me, completely unsolicited):

… But umm… yeah… I have a hard time… ahh… being able to listen to… something that just, is the same four chords forty times, literally forty times in a song. It’s like, man do something else. This is an insult to human intelligence to say, that, it’d be like saying – and they say it the same way to – for me, y’know, repetition is OK but, they [add it?] a different way.. with your innuendo, and even when you’re talking you don’t talk like that. Over and over again, y’know, just talk in a monotonic way [Howdy Doody?] and all that. So, I don’t know, I think… some… I mean repetition is an essential element of music, but it’s not… it… uhh.. it has to be done right; or I mean it has to be done in a real… it needs to be done with thought, as well as emotion. All the songs really are too… just… uhh… what; most everyone’s been to church and heard hymns played in a lifeless way, y’know, and so I can see different extremes to somewhere where all their years – it’s, umm, there’s all, it’s all emotion but no.. [??] y’know. And then you have… thought but no feeling, so. … Different songs are gonna have different amplitudes and different elements… It’s so amazing because it’s a holistic language. It’s, umm, it effects the body and the mind and the spirit, y’know, it effects every facet, y’know.

[audio:Record012.mp3]
Here’s a good idea of the stereo effect I was getting.. with the Monotone Saint on one side and Cheerleader Mom on the other. There’s something about the “animal kingdom” in there… I swear. What a flight.

I feel like I wrote this thing so fast, I’m sure it’s full of typos – and I’m not going back to proofread.

Goodnight.

Posted on

dressed in cobra

Who cares, I'm going to bed.
Gonna try and make this an early-to-bed night, I have to be at the airport tomorrow for a 6:20am flight… which means leaving the house before 5am. Bummer. Another there-and-back-again one-day trip to Oregon, work crap. Then, we’re off to camp this weekend in the Sierra foothills of Northern California. Hopefully, we can get the gold equipment working: highbanker, pans, etc. Should be an interesting weekend if nothing else, and I’ll be glad to get away for a bit – even if the lawn does need mowing something awful.

I dunno; I’m not wholly opposed to rap as a form of music. But I’m not 100% why the new Kanye album is so good. Sure, there are some good tracks – but I’m not sure why it’s gush-worthy to the level of the reviews it’s been getting. I can appreciate things like stellar production, I really can. I like to think I’ve got an ear for an extremely well put-together album… something where the production is the keystone of the whole thing’s success. But I dunno, while the production on this album is indeed stellar, some of the tracks aren’t so noteworthy. Call me a hater, whatever you want, I guess I just can’t get as full and appreciate for rap as I can for more “rock ‘n’ roll” type jams. Sorry Kanye.

This page’s two-year anniversary is coming in a little under two weeks. The approaching milestone got me thinking statistics, and I looked back over the entirety of my written output – since I’ve been writing. I started my original journal in 1995, and wrote fairly faithfully through 2000 (exactly 100 pages worth). I started a new journal upon graduating college / getting married / moving to CA, that one covered 2000 to late 2002, clocking in around 200 pages. Then I guess I took a break. That 2nd journal goes through September 2002, and this page didn’t start until that same month, 2003. A one-year gap. I don’t remember taking a year off, I guess I just got wrapped up in other things. That would’ve been my “growth” years at work, where I was likely coming into my own in my role there. Who knows how long this one will last, two years is a good start. I’m sure I’ll have more to write about when Lil’ Chino gets here… so no worries I suppose.

Tonight I bought tickets to see Architecture in Helsinki at Slims in the city. I’m so pumped.

Goodnight.

Posted on

not really working

I'm sorry I worked late.
On her way home from a day subbing today, Sharaun stopped at Blockbuster to return a movie, and locked her keys in her car. Her keys, and her purse – containing her cellphone. Meanwhile, I stayed late at work, finishing up. I tried to call her several times, but with no way into the house and no cellphone – it wasn’t much use. When I finally decided to come home, around 7pm, she had been locked outside in the heat for over two hours. She spent her time walking around, and sleeping on the bare concrete of the front porch. I felt so sorry for her… I swear I was about to cry. Poor girl… I’ll never let her get a manual-locking car again.

Sitting at home, having gone into work for a couple hours before this appointment with the landscaper. He’s 15 minutes late; I wait, glancing out the window every few minutes expecting to see a truck. Passed the time unpacking from the weekend’s camping trip, making the dirty laundry hamper smell like a campfire. Lately, it seems that Fall is in the air. In the morning, the air is dry and cool, and I can even feel it sometimes in the day… when a cool breeze blows by or there’s a hint of something in the air. It’s coming soon, and I couldn’t be happier. It seems like we had the shortest summer ever this year, it stayed cool late and now I feel like it’s Falling-up early as well. Oh, I’m all for it – let’s not get that confused. The faster that magical season gets here, the happier I’ll be. Fall-thoughts got me thinking about February… when Lil’ Chino will arrive. Not Fall, but still part of the Fall-Winter cold-months… the time of year I love. Landscaper just called, gonna be another 20 minutes late; I’ll wait… work’s already bored me today.

I hate to say that albums “grew on me.” I always feel like I may be fooling myself; like I should trust my initial reaction and not “force” myself to get into something I didn’t like at first blush. To me, having an album “grow” on you is kinda like saying, “I didn’t like this album, but then everyone else did – so I listened to it until it was good.” It reeks of every-half-hour radio playlist mass-hypnotism type “hits.” But… then I thought about it in the context of beer. When I first tried beer, I hated it. Had to drink my first quart of Red Bull (the malt liquor, not the caffeine cough syrup stuff) over a sink, gagging a little with each gulp. But, everyone likes beer. Men drink it; it’s so cool. If you don’t like beer, you’re not right. So, I kept fighting down the beer. And now, years later, I’m gag-free, and often catch myself thinking how good a beer would taste in certain situations. So, likening an album’s “growing” on me to my coming-of-age taste for beer – I’ve somewhat legitimized the fact that the new New Pornographers album I spoke somewhat ill of last week has now become something I’m really enjoying. At times melodic enough to make me smile, it just keeps getting better. Dang… am I brainwashed?

Time to get another R.O.C entry and exit stamp in the passport, I’ll be boarding the plane before I know it. Off to Taiwan for another week of work and play. Work during the day, play at night, sleep when I can. It’s always like that I Taiwan. I have a small base of local friends there now, and I enjoy spending time with then when I can – which is always late-night. Tracy’s doing me a favor and getting me a local Taipei phone number, so I can pickup pre-charged SIM cards and have a local number people can call. That way, I can limit my transcontinental calls to the company calling card on landline phones… and avoid the highway-robbery international roaming rates the cell company charges – but I can still makes calls to local numbers. I think it’ll be a welcomed luxury. I wonder about travel after Lil’ Chino comes… I’ll likely want to do it less, and I’m sure Sharaun would want the same. I guess a week here and there isn’t too bad, but I don’t think I can keep up 2005’s pace. It’s OK really, I think the transition to management probably inherently means less personal travel, as you pass those opportunities onto the team; so, that fits. But I’ll still want to get back to Taiwan every now and again.

Noonish now, landscaper was badly late (is that proper English?). I walked around the backyard with him, pointing out what I saw as the remaining work, asking him to draw up the plan as a series of line-items, so I could pick and choose certain aspects of work if needed. Then I went inside and made a tuna sandwich while he measured and calculated. What surprised me the most, though, was that his plans to finish the yard were exactly what I’d planned to do. Modify the sprinkler heads, pour a border around the stones, bring in soil and add drainage, planter areas, etc. His plans were my plans, down to the last aspect. He also commented that my do-it-yourself work up to this point really wasn’t all that bad. My retaining wall had the proper drainage, was mostly level and true, and was set in the ground to a proper depth. My paver porch, although not 100% level, was properly sloped away from the house and crowned to the center – and would only get better with fill sand and plate compaction. My forethought to make the planter areas drip-ready (adding PVC “through” pipes under the pavers) was correct, and my cutting the downspout and routing it under the pavers was correct. My sprinkler heads to zone ratio was correct, as were my pressure calculations and water coverages per zone.

I actually thought this might happen; the landscaper coming and telling me how much money it would take to complete the work would stoke the fire within me to get it done myself. I don’t know though, it just seems like so much work. He did give me one more option for the paver border, which I hadn’t thought of yet. He suggested a cheaper alternative to the concrete border may be running a 3″ thick “plastic” bender board around the entire porch, and using a sledge to butt the pavers in tight before staking it every foot-and-a-half with steel stakes driven into the earth. This was interesting to me… as I have lots of steel stakes that I figured would sit unused after I was done with the yard. The stakes would be driven in to just below the level of the bender, and then left in the ground permanently with topsoil and turf hiding them in the finished version. That got me thinking… I could likely do that pretty easily – and I’m sure my cost for the 3″ bender would be a heck of a lot cheaper than theirs. I’d still have to reposition the sprinklers, add some drainage, till in topsoil, grade, and bring in sod. It’s a lot of work, and the guy said I could pick and choose any of his line items if I wanted some help getting the thing to a state where I’d once again feel confident taking over. That’s good, because, if I chose to go with his entire package, I’d be looking at a >$10,000 bottom line. Ouch.

Goodnight.

Posted on

five months and counting

Babies...
Sunday night on the eve of a busy Monday. Landscapers coming to quote me some damage for a helping-hand in the backyard, a many-times-rescheduled appointment at the dentist, and sometime to squeeze in a bit of work if I’m careful. My day and a half vacation did me well, especially in the beauty and solitude of the Californian high desert… sleeping under the stars and not taking showers. With another long weekend coming up, I’m looking forward to a continuing recharge.

I can’t wait until Sharaun’s belly begins to show. At this point, the notion that we’re pregnant has pretty much sunk in – but there’s not much in the way of outward signs to confirm it for me. I think, when I can see her belly swollen with this new thing that’s living and breathing and growing… that’s what will really get me. I really shouldn’t have to wait much longer, a month maybe, and I’ll get this visual reward. Somewhere in one of the baby books we have, it talked about the child being able to hear inside the womb. I don’t think it’s until much later, but the thought of that blows me away. Lil’ Chino can hear us talking and laughing and singing and everything. And to round out the baby paragraph, another of our high school friends just had their 1st baby. That makes a uncountable number of people my age that I used to know that are new parents. I guess it’s that time or something, the babies-before-thirty thing perhaps.

This weekend most of the regular and extended friend/acquaintance collective packed it up and headed down south for Erik & Kristi’s wedding. Ceremony and reception were held on her ranch, which has been worked by their family for five generations, since the late 1800s. Surely this was one of the grandest affairs I’ve ever been to. Planned to a tee, and the whole thing going down in the most amazing of locations. Just walking through the tall pasture grass on the property, you get a feeling of history and hard-won homesteader success – the fruits of early westward settlers’ labor. Most of the “young kids” opted to camp on the ranch, in a makeshift shanty village dubbed “tent city.” We had a rock-rung firepit, babbling brook running through, and even a porta-john to relieve ourselves in. If you’ve ever read the Lord of the Rings, the chapter about Bilbo’s party – right in the first few pages – that’s what this thing reminded me of. An amazing outdoor celebration, abundant with food, song, drink and dance… lights on trees and candles on tables. The sounds of kids running around and champagne bottles popping. It was an affair to remember; and on top of it all we got to camp and stare into a fire each night – a universally enjoyed spectator sport which I’m convinced is hardcoded in human DNA.

‘Nite.

Posted on

screw this let’s go

Not polite to point.
Thursday (actually, it’s Wednesday night as I write and I just got off a conference call with some guys in Bangalore, India… ah… world time zones) and a slim entry before I skip Friday once again, just seems to be a pattern this month. Out of work at noon today, on the road… heading to a good ol’ fashion wedding on the ranch… high desert… can’t wait. Cloudless blue skies and 14,000ft peaks as a backdrop, let’s go now. I don’t know what I’m going to write… I don’t have much going on.

Music roundup: I’m still trying my best to see what it is that’s got everyone so orgasmic about this new New Pornographers album. From my first listen, it was just another New Pornographers album, sounding like it should and nothing all that special. In fact, I remember thinking that I liked AC’s solo effort more on 1st listen. But, the critic-collective seem to be eying this LP as one of the year’s best already… so I’m doing my best to give it plenty of time to wash around the palette before spitting it out. And, actually, it’s growing on me… bit by bit, it’s growing on me. Aside from the Pornos, other noteworthy items that’ve ended up in my headphones lately: A promising one-man-extravaganza album by The Ladies and Gentlemen; Broken Social Scene’s new one (hopefully it’s better than their sophomore effort, which I didn’t like at all); and Kepler’s latest, which I liked immediately for its country-tinged hush. August is a good month for music, lots of good new listening material.

Guess what. I got a letter in the mail from my doctor today. My throat culture results from back when they put me on antibiotics for strep. In the “results” section it says: strep = negative. I didn’t even have strep. So what was wrong with me, and why did antibiotics clear it up?

OK. Whatever.

Posted on

everybody’s lootering

I love this picture.
Wednesday already, and I’ve got a short week. Doing a half-day on Thursday and taking all of Friday off to attend Kristi & Erik’s wedding down south. I can’t wait… it’s almost like my mini-Friday right now. I’m already zoning out just thinking about it. Before my thoughts turn exclusively to camping and drinking and socializing… I better write something.

It’s amazing how far stealing music has come since the days when I was first introduced to it. I can remember when a buddy of mine mentioned Napster to me on campus one day. I went home, downloaded and installed it, and was blown away. I was late to the game, so the network was already populated with millions and millions of traders hosting everything, and I do mean everything, a body could want. The only problem for me: I was still on dialup at the time. I can remember my formula: on a good day with a good connection, you planned for 10-15min per song. I can remember the day that the Pumpkins’ new album, Machina, leaked – long prior to it’s street-date. I was actually online as the songs started getting propagated. I would refresh my search every few minutes and the next track on the album would show up, I’d add it to my download queue and wait for the next one to come online. That night I stayed up all night long. Literally started downloading at 10pm and didn’t finish until near 4am. To fill the time while songs downloaded, I’d listen to what I already had. Think about that, an entire evening spent online stealing songs bit-by-painfully-slow-bit.

Today, things are so much better. While the P2P situation is no longer as easy, and much more risky – alternate looting-locales are flourishing in the high-speed age. These days, I wouldn’t use a P2P app to download tunes even if you paid me. Sure the odds are low, but I don’t want to be the unlucky one who’s the target of some RIAA lawsuit. I don’t even like using BitTorrent for legit downloading. But, despite the grim P2P landscape – music is easier to get than ever. And, it’s so much faster. Nowadays, I can download and entire album in just a couple minutes. In fact, the situation is such that you can simply download entire albums just to “check them out.” What a luxury! I would’ve killed for that kind of speed back in college. And believe it or not, even without P2P – everything you could ever want is still out there somewhere. Yes, I do believe that one day my conscience will get to me and I’ll start paying to download music (actually, I do pay now – but I pay for the ability to grab stuff illegally, not the music itself). I don’t think I’ll mind paying for music, I’ve always been willing to pay for it considering how much enjoyment I derive from it. But for now, while my conscious is still undecided, I’m building up my collection as best I can.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but my next trip to beautiful Taipei is looming not far in the distance. I’ll be gone the 2nd week of September – doing the same conference I’ve done several times before. As I’ve said several times before, I love Taiwan, and always look forward to going. I guess that’s all I had to say about that.

And, I guess that’s all I had to say period. Goodnight.

Posted on

dreams

Verdant.
Don’t know if anyone else managed to catch the National Geographic Channel’s Inside 9/11 documentary, but man was it excellent. Crammed with interesting details, the first of two two-hour installments details the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on America. The forming of the cells, flight training, etc. The second installment chronicles the events on the day of the attacks. Masterfully put together and chock full of emotional firsthand stories and tons of amazing footage and audio – it’s by far the best telling of the events I’ve ever seen.

Sunday the backyard beat me again. I’m about at the level of frustration where I’m ready to call in a landscaping crew and just hand the task off to them. I really don’t know what else to do. Every time I put on my work clothes and get all motivated, I only end up pacing around the edge of the pavers wondering what to do. Soon enough, I’m so confused and frustrated by not being able to see the solution – I give up and come inside, take off my workclothes, and sit down on the couch in defeat. I really just don’t know what to do. Moving the sprinklers back is such a chore… and then there’s still the problem of actually placing a border around the porch. Sharaun suggested I call a landscaper, have them come take a look, and then pay them to fix it. Problem is – I know that’ll be thousands of dollars… and I begin to wonder about my priorities, spending thousands on a backyard when we’ve got a baby on the way and aren’t really sitting on a pile of money. My pure frustration and this extended (more than a year) stalemate have me nearly convinced that I’ll never actually get around to do anything – and paid help may be the only option. In fact, I think I kind of silently made the decision today… that I’m going to call on Monday, and have them come out this week to evaluate it and draw up some plans. At least at that point, I could still say I did most of the yard. Bottom line is: I just want this dang thing done.

I’m sure someone else, somewhere, at some point, has written about this before, but I’m gonna go ahead with it. I’m not sure how many of you out there used to (or perhaps still do, I’m not judgin’) indulge in a little recreational drug use. Me, I gave up the weed years ago – but my smokin’ years left me with a question that I still think about every so often. Maybe you’re not too familiar with the world of drugs, that’s good, you’re likely better of for it. But, I’m sure you’ve seen an episode of COPS or Law and Order where they show some kind of drugs (pot or cocaine, maybe) packaged for street sale in those little tiny ziplock baggies. There are varying sizes, but when I was in high school you could buy a dimebag ($10 baggie) if you only wanted a joint’s worth of stuff. Most bigger dealers won’t mess with dimes, since they are a pain to package – but the profit margin is higher the smaller you breakup the brick. Anyway, kids are poor, and dimebags are cheap and easy – so that’s what we bought when we were weaning onto the stuff.

What I’m wondering is, where the heck do people get those miniature baggies? And, under what guise are they sold? I would argue that bags of those size are used almost exclusively for the resale of illicit drugs. You never see them in stores, although I have seen them for sale at a head shop or two before. If I’m a soldier in the war on drugs, I’m gonna start tracking customers of these little baggies. Because I’ll tell you what, the guy that buys 10,000 of them isn’t using them to store buttons. Honestly, what else can you do with a 3/4″ by 3/4″ ziplock baggie? You’re not storing screws or beads in there… you’re hawking crack or coke or something on the streetcorner.

Lately I’ve been remembering my dreams when I wake in the morning, which is unusual for me. Some of them were so strange, I wanted to write them down and try my hand at “interpreting” them. Here goes. Wednesday night: I crap my pants at work. I’m running down the aisle trying to make it to the bathroom, but I don’t make it. Interpretation: I’m afraid of messing up at work. Thursday night: I witness the murder of a young girl on a school playground, Ben and I are chased by the killer. Interpretation: I’m afraid of something, and I’m trying to avoid it. Friday night: Anthony is too drunk to drive, so I’ll do it for him. But, he’s towing a boat and I can’t back it up. He agrees to backup the boat and then I can drive away. However, he backs up over a fire hydrant, overturning the boat and killing two kids who were sitting in it. Interpretation: To me this implies I have guilt of some kind, feeling bad for letting those girls get crushed. Saturday night: I’m back working at Omni Music & Video in Florida, but my coworkers are my coworkers from my current job. Interpretation: Work’s got me stressed, and I’m casting thought back to the simpler days of working at the record store. There’s an underlying theme here… one of work and fear. New job, new responsibilities, new fears.

I don’t know how I missed the fact that the Arcade Fire put out a 7" single with two new tracks, but I did. Consisting of one original and one cover, which are simply gorgeous and OK-for-a-B-side, respectively. The A-side, Cold Wind, is a haunting tune that was supposedly done exclusively for some show on HBO I’ve never seen because we don’t have HBO. Who cares, it’s new Arcade Fire… and it’s lovely. Please, our Father who art in Heaven, please allow this band to continue producing music of this quality. Too bad their September show at the Warfield is sold out. I think we paid ~$10 to see them the 1st time at the Bottom of the Hill… oh how they’ve come along, fetching a cold $25 per ticket now.

‘Night.