Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Off to Work I Go

Tomorrow is the day I go back to full time (at least for a while) work. I look forward to this as a symbol of the fact that I don’t need to act like a sickie anymore. I will miss some of the time I had to myself during the daytime, although afternoons have been getting a little dull. I will also miss my part time math tutoring. I will not miss being occupied on most weeknights with tutoring. In addition to work, my band starts fall rehearsal tomorrow evening. I will have recorder consort practice on most Fridays, so I will be a busy beaver this fall.

I will get to work 8:00 tomorrow for their orientation, which means I need to leave here around 7:20. I would like to go and work out before then, but that will require getting out of bed a little before 5:30. That will only work on nights when neither Kathleen nor I have anything happening. So, we’ll try to work out tomorrow. I am hoping this won’t be too tough, since my stomach usually wakes me up at about that time anyway. The difference is that now I usually get myself to fall back asleep at that time. I don’t really sleep very well after that anyway.

I found an Oregon quarter today! I think that makes our collection up to date until the next release. Imagine the sound of nerdish laughing.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Stop the Insanity

Bob Dylan said it best. Looks like not much has changed in the last 42 years.


http://bobdylan.com/songs/blowin.html

The Original Benedict

I’ve been reading more religious books. Read a book about The Rule of Benedict, "Benedict’s Way" by Laurie Pratt and FR Daniel Hoffman, OSB. I have never looked at the Rule before. I was surprised that The Rule specifies that two meat dishes should be served for dinner, since someone may not like one of the dishes. Further, The Rule requires each Monk gets his own bed. In sixth century Europe, this would be a very high standard of living. The rule demands monks do Lecto Divinia, which is the reading and rereading of holy texts. This tells me all the monks had to be literate, which also seems remarkable in Benedict’s time and place. Most of the rule focuses on what a bunch of guys need to do if they want to live together without being at each others’ throats. One of may favorite things is the repeated references to “murmering”, which is viewed as the root of many evils.

“Benedictine Sprirituality” has become soupe de jour for lots of new-agers. The idea is that The Rule can inform and improve our lives, even if we are not monks. This seems simplistic to me, since the rule, other than specific monastic practices, instructs us to get our avarice under control and work to be nice to each other. As Bill and Ted said, “Always be excellent to each other, party on dude.” However, Bill and Ted probably wouldn’t have liked the chastity business.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Work, Wal-Mart & Old Music

I am going back to my old employer on a contract basis. I should start Monday if they can get the paperwork done on time. It’ll start out full time, so that will be a shock to my ways. I have already bought the clothes I need, so I’m ready to go. Not a lot more to report, since hangininsac will not become a source of corporate gossip. That would be pretty tacky. Besides, every already knows what corporations are like, so there would be nothing new to say.

I bought some stuff at an office max adjacent to a Wal-Mart . Wal-Mart built a store in a smaller mall that previously had an empty Montgomery Wards for over a decade. I am glad they have filled the space, but don’t expect me to shop there. Watching the traffic in and out of Wal-Mart raises the following question: Do people shop at Wal-Mart because they are fat and unattractive, or does shopping at Wal-Mart make people fat and unattractive? Inquiring minds want to know.

Last Friday night, I shared my first practice session with Sine Nomine. It was pretty well attended, with two each of base, alto, tenor and soprano recorders. We played through a bunch of early music, and also some more contemporary music, including an arrangement of an American Indian flute and drum song. Otherwise, most of the music comes from around the time of Europe’s discovery of America. We had tea, cookies and conversation after playing. It was fun.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

On the Way Home

We took the older highway home though Humboldt Redwoods State Park. I recommend this detour for anyone making the trip who has some extra time. Highway 264 itself cuts through miles of beautiful forests, and there are several short trails through groves of giant trees. All the groves are named after people I’ve never heard of, so I cannot remember the name of the grove where we took the following two pictures.


Several giant trees in this grove blew down during a windstorm after a very wet December in 1991. The remains of the trees look like really cool abstract sculptures. The first picture is piece of a tree left standing.
















The second photo shows the roots of a giant tree that fell in 1991. The entire several hundred foot long tree still lies intact.



















As we drove south through Humboldt Redwoods State Park, we kept on seeing signs for “drive-through tree and souvenir shop ahead”. We finally gave in, paid our five bucks and went to one of these places. The reason we ran into almost no one in the woods is that everyone was busy browsing the souvenir shops. Note the redneck watching us drive through the tree, into the parking lot. The great thing about this tourist trap is that SUV’s can’t fit through the trees.


That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Vacation Photos

Just what you’ve been waiting for – vacation pictures. We spent the best part of our trip in the woods, so you’ll notice a lot of trees in our pictures. The pictures are from Patricks Point and Prarie Creek State Park.

The first two pictures are a fern canyon, carved by a stream to the ocean. The canyons are very narrow, damp and shady, so the walls are covered with lush ferns and mosses. The floor of the canyon was sandy. We walked through the canyon to get from the beachside parking lot to the more mature forest.


As we came deeper into the canyon, we found the sun shining on this very cool looking fallen tree. A monument not made by the hands of men.

















After we climbed through the canyon, we came to beautiful redwood groves. The tall trees, wide trunks and filtered light give the feel of a cathedral. This forest was truly breathtaking. Best of all, in this 6 or so mile walk, we got lost only once!









A moment to thank the trees for their hospitality. Once a tree-hugger, always a tree-hugger.


















We visited Prarie Creek State Park on a misty day. In the words of Legolas from Lord of the Rings, “This forest is old, very old.” It felt like the trees were talking amongst themselves. Fortunately, they decided we were fit to be allowed to leave the forest.







That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

On Top of the World

Look mom, we're at the summit. Althoug I am embarrassed to admit it, we made some cell-phone calls to brothers, parents, etc. to say, "guess where I am"











Jim and Michael on the way to the top.












You can read more about this trip at http://hangininsac.blogspot.com/2005/07/pioneers-and-lunch.html

Nearly Bored of the Rings

Among all this other crazy stuff, I have been once again viewing the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The heat has driven me to this. I really enjoyed The Fellowship of the Ring; I felt like I still got something out of another viewing. The Two Towers really didn’t hold my attention after multiple viewings, except the Theodin, the palantir and the ents are still pretty entertaining. I’m about half way through The Return of the King. The dead caves are still really cool. Almost makes me want to take another shot at the Return of the King video game, so I can let orks make a pincushion out of another fellowship character.

This, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present as prima fascia evidence that someone could probably use a job.

Get a Job, Slacker Boy

You may have noticed several entries over the last few months about my shameless yet lame attempts at self-promotion with the aim of finding more significant employment than my current tutoring gig.

Much to my surprise, it appears that someone other than me has taken note of these efforts. The phone finally started ringing.

I had two short interviews this morning with my former employer (really, former employer under new management) and a scheduled interview Monday with a local service firm interested in talking about possibilities. So now I am the proud owner of a plan A and plan B as far as professional work goes, plus the plan zero alternative, which is to continue my slackdom as a math tutor, which is a pretty good life in its own right.

Now is the first phase of interviewing, when everything that exits my mouth is positive, no fretting about time off for vacations and weddings, employed vs independent contractor status, full vs part time, or money. I take the Isaac Walton approach. Get them stuck on the hook, then fight like hell.

The coolest moment so far:

A manager in one of the interviews missed his appointment for our telephone interview. While speaking with the coordinator of the interviews, I said “ I’d be glad to arrange another time, but Monday is out since I’ll be talking to other people.” I’ve always wanted to say something like that.

All this arranging of appointments is complicated by our plans to vacation in the redwoods Tomorrow through Sunday. I cannot wait to breath the cool moist air under the trees and on the misty beaches. Photos of this trip, as well as my previous Mount Judah excursion will soon appear in this very blog.

Gazpacho!

My Neighbors have been bugging me for this recipe. I started with a recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook, and "de-naturalized" it. This is the best food I know for a hot day.

Enjoy!

Gazpacho

1 large can tomato juice
1 small minced onion
1 can (16 oz) chopped tomatoes and juice
1 minced green pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 large or 2 small cloves crushed garlic
1 diced cucumber
juice of 1 1/2 lemons
2 tbsps wine vinegar
1 tsp tarragon
1 tsp basil
pinch of ground cumin
¼ cup freshly chopped parsley
3 dashes of Tabasco sauce
2 tbsps olive oil
salt & pepper taste (tomato products are usually salty enough)

Combine and chill at least 2 hours. You can puree if you like.
I recommend chunky Style.

Pioneers and Lunch

The trip to Mt Judah was a success. The weather was good, and the base and the summit were both full of wildflowers. A flock of about twenty tiger swallowtail butterflies dropped by while we were at the summit. Unbelievable! Bad news: I won't be able to post photos until I use the rest of the film in my camera. Good news: by then, I will have pictures of the redwood forest. The woes of being behind the curve in technology.

Near the summit, we ran into a wheezing elderhostel group. It looked like some of them wished they chose a flatter vacation spot. At the summit we used my historical map to spot several passes used by pioneers in the 1840s and the gold rush 49ers as well. We walked through Cold Stream pass on the way up, and along the lip of roller pass on the way down. I can’t even imagine how they pulled wagons through that area, especially after dragging themselves across the prarie and desert from Council Bluffs. It is a tough enough walk without carrying all our worldly belongings. Early California was definitely not for wimps.

At the summit, we had lunch, but we decided to have our peanut butter sandwiches instead of the somewhat gamey looking elderhostelers. Bah-ding!

Yesterday I had lunch with a prospective and former employer, and things look very likely there. More about that as things progress. I could use a more substantial role in the workforce, and this would move to working during the day, rather than in the evenings. I find I miss a lot of opportunities to do almost anything with other people outside of work since I have been working nights. Maybe if I get and hold this job for a while, I'll buy a digital camera. I saw a poster in a store that said shopping is patriotic.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Why A Hike is a Big Deal to Me

In my own little world, tomorrow’s trip to Mount Judah is a big deal.

First, let’s talk about history:

When I first visited Sacramento while getting to know Kathleen, I really wanted to drive up and see the Donner area. Lake Tahoe has never captured my imagination in the same way. The terrain and history of that area has always fascinated me. Starting with the early 1840’s stories of the Stephens and Donner party each trying to figure out a way to get over this difficult range (Stephens 1, Donner 0). Followed by a few year’s worth of settlers in the late 1840's, and the gold rush in 1849. In these short years, the parties found cold stream and roller passes, which are higher than Donner pass, but easier for parties to go through. The relatively short hike to Mount Judah’s summit goes through cold stream pass and roller pass. Until the late 1990s, the trail also went through Donner Pass. However, the trailhead was moved in about 2000 to allow Sugarbowl Ski Area to add a new slope. To be fair to Sugarbowl, they built a good alternate trail to replace the closed trail.

Later in the 19th Century comes the Union Pacific, the first transcontinental railway in North America. After a survey of the sierra range, lead by engineer Theodore Judah, the railroad also chose the Donner Pass area as the best crossing. So did the builders of Interstate 80. I think it’s amazing that a few scouts found the same pass as the railroad’s and interstate’s studies.

You can stand on the summit with a map and look down on all this history.

Now, let’s get personal:

For Several years Kathleen and I made sure to have one or two hikes in the mountains. Mount Judah is our favorite because it was our first mountain hike, and the first time I (Mr. Wisconsin) had climbed to a real summit, with a name, a view, and everything!

The last time we went up Mount Judah was our last outing before my major surgery and the sickness that followed. We knew it might be our last chance when we went up on July fifth 2003. I had to eat about 3000 calories of extra food just to make it up the hill.

About a month or two after surgery, as I was beginning to realize that I was not going to spring back to my former state of health, I used some guided imagery CDs to try to get better. When you are desperate, you’ll do almost anything. The CD asked the user to imagine a nice place, where you’d go if you could. I always went back to Mount Judah. As my health continued to not improve, I dropped that routine, since it just made me feel bad that I didn’t really believe I would ever get healthy enough to go up the mountain again.

Well, that’s not what happened. My life may not be perfect, I may not feel great, but I am going back up the mountain!

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

All About Crap Jobs

From the Idler website,

A series of essays written by intelligent people subjected to moronic jobs can be found in Crap Jobs of the U K . Some of these descriptions killed me.

How can you resist short essays that begin like this: "A summer job working at a local mental hospital was supposed to be a bag of laughs. I had envisioned chatting therapeutically to slightly confused older folk over soothing cups of tea, but no. "

Or how about endings like this: "Having heard reports that I'd been 'dancing round the ward with a corpse' and now finding me sprawled across it in the morgue, I was immediately asked to leave. I have never been so glad to be sacked."

I highly recommend this collection, as well as most of The Idler . Now, why could that be. . .

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I’m done reading, time to go outside

Yes, I finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince early last week. I didn’t write about it in the blog for fear of exposing readers to spoilers. Now it’s time to wait for the next book. No use musing over questions like, who is RAB (Remulus Black?), Is Snape really the half-blood prince? (recall the book was from before Snape’s time. Could it be you know who?) Blah blah blah, you can go on for ever this way, but let’s remember, it will all come out however Rawlings decides.

Today has been a pretty productive Monday. Cleaned house, exercised at the health club, did some household business, made a batch of gazpacho that should hold out through the week. It’ll be another hot week, with highs around 100 degrees. Best of all, I have planned a good hike in the sierras with a friend and his new 15 year old ward and nephew. Our hike will include Mount Judah's Summit, and maybe Donner summit, too. Summits are good for you. A Disneyland-like experience for more sentient beings. Not to overlook that the high’s are only in the low 80s in the mountains.

On Saturday we took a walk by the American River. I scrounged some good wild raspberries, and we ran into some interesting human residents of the parkway. When I ride my bike, I never talk to anyone with more than a couple of words as I speed by. They didn’t have a lot to say anyway. We had a pleasant walk, even though we didn’t see any great sights. It’s just great to get out by the river and in the woods.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

2:00 Friday afternoon

Sitting at the Coffee Shop

Written at 2:00 Friday afternoon.

I decided to come out here since I hadn’t gotten out of the house yet today. I slept poorly last night, the usual sore stomach plus some. I haven’t slept well for a few nights, maybe its time to use one of Dr’s magic pills. Often, I use the pills once, and then I’ll sleep normally thereafter. In any event, I felt pretty crummy this morning. It was the first time I remember not finding the energy to get up before Kathleen left for work. I had vivid dreams while I slept in this morning. I dreamt Blue Funk wanted hire me back half-time, but I was too tired to get out of bed and get to work. I finally got up, but then the dream was over. I still felt crummy, so I moped around for the rest of the morning. At about 11:00, one of our sprinkler pumps started spraying like Buckingham Fountain. I reset the sprinkler timer so that pump won’t be activated, and left a message with Dave, our mow and blow and sprinkler guy. He hasn’t called back yet.

That, pathetic as it may be, is my life so far today. After this moment, I will go to the grocery and buy London broil on sale and some taters to cook on the grill, so we can have meat and potatoes around for a few days.

So far, no one is responding to my feeble efforts to contact the world of work. Ah, another day of reprieve from the stresses of the world of employment.

Seated at a table near me are two talkative fat women with high voices and inane dialogue. Think huge talking white fish wearing shorts and matching tops. They are bitching about the lousy service at some hotel they visited. Something about dirty rooms and massage service not being timely. I’d kill myself and a bus full of kids before I’d want to give one of those cows a massage! The fatter of the two just said she’d like to be able to get TV on her PC, you know, for important things like September 11 and the Simpson trial. I am at risk of succumbing to the intense exposure to stupid radiation. I need to move operations inside.

Back indoors, I left the dirty hotel ladies out on the terrace. I was hoping this place has the New and Review (SNR), Sacramento’s weekly newspaper, but I don’t see it. One of my math students is a high school Junior from Redding. Her parents just moved to a suburb so white and conservative, I have never even seen a Mexican there. She likes indie music, which certainly isn’t found anywhere in the suburbs. Sacramento’s far suburbs are about the most boring suburbs I have ever seen in my life. Nothing but square miles of houses with box stores on the big intersections. I was hoping I could find SNR for her, since it’s full of ads for indie stores, which are almost all in Midtown or downtown. Alas, I am sure she’ll figure it out on her own, or she’ll spend the rest of her life in Rocklin watching TV and amassing debt, as is they way of her suburb and its moneyed hillbilly residents.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Going to the Dogs (and Cats)

I have stopped working volunteer at the SPCA here. There have been some goofy management initiatives, including management spying on volunteers and accusing them of besmirching the SPCA’s name on the internet, (Oh Rick, if you are reading this, go get a real job), that makes the SPCA now a poison environment in my humble opinion.

I am told the SPCA has been destroying, as a matter of policy, animals that have been cared for by volunteers. Who wants to volunteer their time to socialize and train an animal that will be killed by autocratic order, rather than put in someone’s home? Unfortunately, this will further erode care for those few animals the management doesn’t choose to kill.

I think the Sacramento’s SPCA’s future may be moving more in the direction of a kill and kill and kill shelter, rather than simply a kill shelter. Over time I think the verifiable difference between the SPCA and local government animal control is thinning. Maybe in the interim I should find some other place to save the world.

That’s the truth and I’m sticking to it

I can’t believe it, he finally did something

I finally did something. I sent an introductory email and my resume to a likely local actuarial employer. Now time will tell what happens. I thought I would wait to see what kind of response I get before I do the same for other possible employers. I am using this guy as a beta test.

I have come to the realization that my tutoring job will always be evenings, and will always rob me of opportunities to do things I want to do with other people, so I may as well look for well paid work that I can do daytime.

In the same vein, I sat down to think yesterday, and realized I have fallen into somewhat of a funk, which is no place to be. The wife has even noticed that I am getting uncomfortably grouchy and curmudgeon like. I decided the way to get out of this is to act like I am trying to do something, rather than just hang out. I promised myself I would make these contacts in the way of looking for better work, and I promised myself to structure my weekdays more, so no more morning showers at 1:30 or 2:00 PM.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Attack of the Mary Kaye Realtors

(My Apologies to Berke Blethed)

Sitting at the table next to mine are three middle aged women in shorts and sleeveless tops and pancake makeup (think muttons in lambs clothing) talking about real estate. In Sacramento, it seems like casual real estate agency has replaced Mary Kaye as the employment of choice for well heeled Suburban wives. Hopefully, they’ll never take up math tutoring. When the real estate market here stagnates, I wonder if they’ll gravitate toward Mary Kaye, Amway, Herbalife, and Bee Pollen. I can hardly wait. One of them talks really loud and a little shrill, and she talks about 80% of the time, although they are a group of three. Maybe I should start loudly talking to myself about the international cantaloupe and oversized pickup truck conspiracy. If the talker’s nice to me, maybe I’ll offer her a chance to get in at the ground floor. Then again, maybe not.

Now the staff is loudly clanking tableware from lunch. The lunch rush here doesn’t fade until between 2:00 and 3:00. The food must be pretty good, since it ain’t cheap. In any event, the coffee and atmosphere is great. The two barristas are flirting shamelessly. The entire staff dresses in all black, even when it’s 107 degrees outside. Is that cool or what? I should probably leave pretty soon, but it looks really hot outside.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Continuous Bifocals. .. Homofocals. . . Metrofocals?

I started wearing my new bifocals yesterday, and they are working out pretty well. The only weird thing is that, if I look through the wrong part of the lenses, everything around the edges of my field of vision starts to get blurry and melt. It’s kind of like the feelings I remember experiencing while waiting for a Grateful Dead concert to start, except I’m not convinced the people sitting near me are conspiring to take over the world by cornering the cantaloupe and oversized pickup truck markets. Thank goodness for that.

I can surely see distance better than I could with my old glasses. I think it’ll take a little while to grow accustomed to the close-up vision, and the continuous nature of the correction. I found a fun game to play: I can hold a book almost up to my nose, tilt my head up until it’s in focus. Then I can slowly move the book away, while carefully lowering my chin to keep the book consistently in focus. I am easily entertained.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

What’s All This About Property Rights?

In the barrage of response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision about eminent domain, I’ve been seeing and hearing lots of discussion about the rights of ownership of real property (i. e., land).

The decision, in a nutshell, expands Government eminent domain rights to seize land when a Governmental unit believes the land can be put to an alternative use that somehow better serves the public. Some legal scholars believe this will allow local Governments to take (with compensation) privately owned lands to build a shopping mall or a Wal-Mart, if the improvement will generate more local sales tax revenue.

What I have found most interesting about peoples’ response to this decision is the underlying beliefs about property rights that are revealed. One individual who often writes “crank” letters to the Sacramento Bee complains that the Government’s right to condemn property for property tax non-payment is against “God’s intent”. It seems a lot of people believe that once an individual purchases real estate, the property should remain with individual’s heirs for eternity. Isn’t that the paradigm of European feudalism? I guess what I view as just lies somewhere between the Supremes’ decision and feudalism.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.