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bonding all the way

Friday at last.

California is one of only three states in the union that gives new parents paid time-off for “bonding leave” (furthermore, the US is the only “wealthy” nation that doesn’t do this nationally for its citizenship) when a new child is born.  I did not take advantage of this perk when Keaton was born and I’ve come to sorely regret it.  It’s time that’s gifted to me to be with my family and I left it on the table.  Before Cohen ever got here I had decided I wouldn’t be repeating that mistake again.  Today I had a revelation and decided what I want to do with the time.

I want to rent an RV and take the family on an extended cross-country road trip.  Driving from location to location, overnighting alongside rivers and in national parks and maybe even in Wal Mart parking lots.  Visiting friends and family, experiencing history, bonding in the first degree.  I have my eyes on this little number.  Start here, head to the forests of Oregon and Washington, cross the country in the north hitting Seattle, Glacier, Yellowstone, Teton, Rushmore, Badlands, Great Lakes, Niagra.  Down the eastern seaboard hitting Gettysburg, D.C., the major eastern ranges (Appalachians, Smokies, Blue Ridge).  Down again to the Everglades, Keys.  Back up and out across the heartland and I want to do the Ozarks, Rockies, Arches, Moab.  Turn down again for the Grand Canyon, across Hoover to San Diego and then back home along the 101.

At first I thought it was too ambitious, even in six weeks time. But I did a super quick hardly-any-planning route-check and Google Maps says it would be a seven day, ~10,000 mile drive going straight-through (Google Maps is crazy), so maybe six weeks isn’t too far off with enough stoppage time to make it seem more exploration and experience versus just driving, driving, driving.  Something like $5,000 in RV rental and mileage alone, and says nothing for fuel and the cost of travel and sightseeing.  But… a six week discovery-cation… bonding all the way.

We are totally doing this.  100%.  Stop me.

Goodnight.

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couple months in pictures

Thursday already, and yet still not Friday.  Paradoxical, or something.

Over the past few months you may have noticed that the gallery plugin I use on the blog has been broken (it’s actually been a whole year, believe it or not).  The cool effect that pops-up the image in your browser probably wasn’t happening (you might have even been dropped on a white page with a lonely image and no caption and may have had to, gasp, hit the back arrow to get here again).

That effect is called “lightbox” or “shutter” or something, and I spent an hour tonight selectively enabling and disabling plugins to get it working again.  Maybe you’ll notice and be appreciative, or maybe it’ll be broken again when I wake up – that crap is flaky as sin.  The popup/javascrip effects don’t work in Chrome either… the placement is all wrong and they jump all over the page.  Maybe one day there will be a simple, easy, just-works solution for hosting your own images on the web.  For now, we’ll have to live with what I’ve got (and lose it all if something better ever does come around).

Regardless, here are some snapshots from this past month or so.

[nggallery id=45]

And you know, the kinda guy I am… I went and upgraded my old gallery to see if that solution is any better… maybe I’ll start using that again.  Can’t have content in too many places y’know, helps limit confusion.

Until tomorrow, love you & goodnight.

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gold! gold!

I’ve heard my mom talk before about how my grandfather came down with “gold fever.”  Sometime in the 1960s I’m assuming.  The family owned an irownworks down in Southern California at the time and he had them forge some homemade tools.  He had a highbanker and sluice he’d assembled himself and he’d take off, alone or with friends I don’t know, to the foothills and riverbeds of Northern California to dig up his fortune.

Maybe I’m wrong, but when I hear my mom talk about it I get the impression that his “gold fever” was more than recreation, and that he may have sought his riches to the detriment of the family. OK maybe not in an capering old-timer from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre way, but surely in a drag-your-family-around-and-make-them-work-the-pans kinda way.  I didn’t quite catch resentment in her memories, but maybe hinted accusations of overzealous folly on Grandpa’s part.

As I kid, I remember the gold pans and equipment hung on the walls of my grandparents’ cabin as decoration.  Obviously the pastime was important to him, and I recall the couple decent size nuggets he had to show for his passion.

I wonder if my nuggets will be worth it?  What mountains and rivers will my daughter recall as drawing me away or dominating my time?  On the other hand, Grandpa took his family along with him at least part of the time… and that means something too.

There was a thought here that didn’t quite come out.  I tried.  Goodnight.

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alternating apexes

Up in the canyon there was a swing.

A hand-fashioned thing hung by two rough ropes (jute-rough) from the stout limb of a tall tree.  The plank for your bottom was an old fence board and there were fat washers that at one time were probably shiny silver.  The tree stood near the edge of a small butte, and the drop as the ground abruptly shifted levels was probably a good ten feet down, mostly vertical (maybe 80°).  When you got going you’d swing wide over that cleft in the land and your feet would dangle above the tall yellow grass that lay below.

Like an ocean, the seedheads stretched to the road at the property line and represented the end of the domesticated earth and the beginning of the untamed wilderness.  I would pump my legs wildly and arc out with an ache for the unknown.  I wanted to get out there… into the swaying grass and disappear.  Maybe flatten a little circle and make myself a hovel, setup camp and hunker down for an evening, wear out a flashlight and listen, afraid, to the noises of night.  Never did though.

We stayed there for a week and I was on that swing most evenings.  Back and forth.  Out from the known and into the unknown and back again.

Over and over again over the abyss and always back to the middle where my feet could touch the ground.

C’mon ground.

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reality interrupted

The picture accompanying this blog is one I took on our last visit to Florida.

I took it during a boating trip, at a remote spot on the river where people like to beach their craft and hang out and party.  White people, apparently.  I’ve been waiting for a “good” time to share it without being condescending to a whole statefull of people.  I think this blog works…

I’ve tried to stay away from politics on the blog lately… but there is so much going on in America nowadays it’s sometimes hard to.  I could talk about the Tea Party primary wins, I could talk about the stimulus and the Bush tax cuts, I could talk about Rove’s status as the GOP’s fallen angel.  Yeah, each of these things would be fun to write about, but none of them motivate me as much as the cover story from the latest issue of Forbes magazine.  For a story like this, the desire to write about politics is too strong to stifle.

Entitled How Obama Thinks, the article makes the case that Obama’s style of governing, and more specifically his anti-business stances, are owed to his “roots” in Africa.  In fact, the author thinks Obama may be ruling the United States “… according to the dreams of a [Kenyan] tribesman of the 1950s.”  No, really.  There are pages upon pages where this guy is basically saying, in nice 50¢ words, that Obama’s bloodline-connection to his bushman past means the “African in him” is driving his current policy.  The article is so ridiculous and so borderline insane I’m almost surprised the author didn’t wonder aloud how our president manages to not throw his own poo.

Newt Gingrich says that D’Souza has made the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”  He goes on to ask, “What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?,” and closes with, “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”  The most accurate and predictable model for his behavior?  Wow.

And now we’re asked to wonder, could Obama be somehow less “American” than the rest of us?  Might he be subconsciously limited by the shortcomings of the “dusky race” from which he originates?  I mean why not  just come out and say what you think here: He’s a spearchucker; a jigaboo; an unpredictable wild animal who’s ancestral connections to And the Gods Must Be Crazy caricatures are to be mistrusted at best.  At worst, we may have to mobilize the mob and lynch the poor guy so his monkey-urges don’t continue to take us to hell in a handbasket.

Robert Parry might be right, parts of America certainly seem to be decoupling from reality.  Here is blatant racism masquerading as “thoughtful” political analysis, and many of the most influential folks on the right seem to be embracing it as fact.  But it’s not fact, it’s not “colonialism,” it’s straight-up “I don’t like black people, and besides I’m scared of them” racism. It’s racism.

Back to hibernation… (or maybe DC…)

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i have this purple shirt

I have this purple shirt.

A solid-colored, long-sleeved, button-down purple dress shirt.  I love this shirt and think I look great in it.  I like wearing it un-tucked over bulejeans with black dressy shoes.  With that outfit on I feel special-sporty.

Problem is, everyone makes fun of my purple shirt.  No, not like some kind of bullying that’s serious – but that all-in-good-fun ribbing that you get from your coworkers.  People walk into my cubicle and feign shock and say things like, “Whoa, what’s up purple shirt?”

I laugh, because it’s funny; but maybe, just maybe, my purple shirt ain’t doing quite as much for me as I like to think it is.  I find this hard to believe.  Again, this shirt basically makes me into a paramount of fashion, I know this for a fact in my own mind.  Yet, still, people look at my shirt and take verbal jabs.

Come to think of it, I don’t see a lot of other men wearing purple.  I think I might be the only guy at the office who even owns a purple shirt.  But on the other hand that just means it’s all the more awesome.

No wonder people are making fun of it, they are clearly jealous.  As I stride around in the color of kings they weep.

That’s got to be it.

Oh hey, before I go, I stumbled upon this Wikipedia link the other day and felt extremely validated.

Goodnight.

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been here before

I wrote something tonight that I really liked.   Then I deleted it.

It was some artsy bit about gaining perspective, brought about by re-reading yesterday’s entry.  It had a caveman and something about DNA and guilt over prayers for clean water.  Man it was bad.  Written well, but bad.

Lately I just can’t write anything I like.  I write it and abandon it or delete it.  I thought tonight about writing about how I’ve been using a couple new pieces of software I really like, but then that seemed boring.  I thought of doing the standard “Cohen is getting older” or “Keaton did something cute” retell.  Nothing seemed right and it all seemed boring.   And then here I am writing about how I can’t write again; probably the most trotted-out rehash I have and here I go pulling it down again.

Maybe it’s just adjusting to the new schedule.  The new baby, work in constant overload, the old baby.  It’s not like I’m lacking sleep, I still get most of it.  I’ve weathered storms in writing before.  In 1997 I took a three month break.  I opened that return to writing with these words, “It’s really been a while…  A lot has happened since I’ve last cared to write.”  Well it’s really been a while since I’ve not written for a period of more than a week… so ultimately I feel OK.  It’ll come back.

And anyway, while looking back to judge breaks-in-writing of the past I found this:

4/10/98

So many things have been going on, it’s hard to choose which to write about.  I truly am so busy lately, I have no time for the things that I wish I could be doing right now.  I guess that’s how it happens though, by the time you get old enough to realize that you could be doing something else – you’re too busy to be doing it.  Does that make sense?  I mean that, every day I can think of one-thousand things that I could be doing rather than what I am doing at that time, but – now that I am finally realizing what I could be doing, I am too busy to even keep that thought in my head long enough to imagine it.  It’s life setting in I suppose, the more things I can do, the less time I have to do them.

I laughed.  Goodnight.