"Fat and Ugly" Rumors from the Blogosphere

Bad news for Disneyland fans. The It’s A Small World ride will be closed for about a year for retooling. From what I heard this afternoon on NPR, it appears now that Disney is admitting what the blogosphere has been saying for days - The boats are sinking under the heft of our fellow citizens.

Apparently, the boats were designed for couples weighing a total of 300 pounds or under. The engineers figured on 125 lbs for the woman and 175 for the man. In addition to larger couples, I guess they didn't anticipate Disneyland's gay-friendly atmosphere either (think about two 180 lb athletic guys in a boat).

The NPR report claimed the ride has been plagued with delays when the ride stops for a boat bottomed out on the flume. Heh, heh, bottomed out.

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

PRESS RELEASE - From Hangininsac Tower, 1 Cyberpunk Plaza, Cyberspace

Hangininsac's senior management has completed its planning retreat.

We have unananimously decided this blog will envision clear objectives and develop and implement plans as carefully as I do in my own life. Why demand excellence when mediocraty will do?

However, in recognition of "National Writers' Month" in November, as well as scarcity of suitable paid employment, I will attempt to produce several blog entries each week. OK, so it's really "National Novel Writer's Month". Like heck I'll write a 175 page novel. I figure I will keep working on the blog, and write my masterpieces once this blog has established me as a cult hero master of cyberspace. Hell, if Wesley Friggin’ Crusher can pull it off, what the heck.

Coming to Wisconsin

The
Airport
Terminal
For regional flights
O'Hare red hot reflux in crop
Plump and blond nasal cell phone intonation patterns
Still a couple of past due bleach blonds, Californeeya uber allis, it is said
Nothing new after all these years
Wisconsin preview
in O'Hare
Airport
Lounge.

Hanging Loose and Lying Low

I am sitting in what is hopefully the ending days of a nasty cold. I feel a little distanced from the world, even though I stopped taking cold medicine today.

I really have to push myself to do anything. In my process of transitioning to slacker mode, I start to get worried that I’m acting like a depressed person, and then I remind myself about the cold. Hip Hip Hooray, I’m just under the weather, rather than nuts.

As I write this, I am listening to Frank Zappa. There’s a line from “200 Motels” I just love, “You go work for Zappa, and he makes you act like a creep. After that, no one will take you seriously. In this business, you gotta play the blues, or sing in a high voice.” Something about this reminds me of some of my work experiences.

Warning – whiney complaint follows:

This entry may get posted late, and there will be no hyperlinks, since we are having recurring phone line problems in the neighborhood. A couple of guys just showed up to look at the lines into the house. They look like complete idiots, given that several houses have problems, and they are in my back yard looking at the line to my house. One of the guys has a knit Raiders stocking cap pulled down low. He reminds me of Dumb Donald from the old Bill Cosby cartoons. The good news is that when I called the phone company to complain about the phones not working for nearly a week, they credited two months worth of free service to our account. Something similar happened in the area about 5 years ago. We lost phone service every time it rained for about a month. What a pain.

End of whiney complaint (unless I find something else to go on about)

I finished reading pretty good East Indian novel, “A Delicate Balance” by Mistry. I chose this books since the parents are reading it for their book club discussion next Monday, which I can attend. Also, I enjoy East Indian family dramas. This book is quite a bit darker than Vikram Seth’s stories. Just about every character comes to an unhappy ending. However, I found the drama to be gripping, in a mawkish way as I found myself turning the page to see what new misfortune was coming next.

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

Department of the Dead

Zombies! Slow-minded, innumerate zombies!

As I’ve stepped away from my Government job, I feel like I somehow escaped before the authoritarian-pension-worshipping zombies ate my brain. There’s a story here. I see a struggle of punks versus civil service zombies. This has probably has been done already.

Speaking of zombies, check out this. Even though I didn’t see any reports of zombies infiltrating civil service through adherence to an anti-innumeracy cult, this website is pretty strange. It is somewhat comforting that I am not the only person seemingly obsessed with zombies. I looked through several pages that were prosaic at best, but the concept is a winner.

I can’t find anything about innumeracy half as interesting as Zombie World News. Everything I see treats innumeracy as an accident. What if innumeracy is actually the desire and result of a religious fundamentalist cult, like the biological science illiteracy that forms the basis of creationism? After all, numerate mathematics relies on several unproven facts called axioms. Being unproven, these axioms are no more fact than the theory of evolution. If God wanted His people to hold these axioms as true, they’d be revealed in the Holy Bible, rather than from the mouths of a bunch of bed sheet-wrapped pedophiles of the ancient world.

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

I Prefer Not To

I Said “I prefer not to”, just like Melville's scrivener, Bartleby.

I finally left my job last Friday, after months of silently fighting the urge to gnaw off my leg and escape. I won't bore or scandalize everyone with the sordid details, however I am glad to say I left them wanting more of me, and should it be appropriate, I can probably return. At this point, I struggle to find a rational reason to do that, but you never know what the future holds.

I pop music terms, I think Bob Dylan
said it all.

“Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles”

I am glad to have this behind me for now. I am taking this week off from my own self-defined obligations. Next week I’ll start contacting people to attempt to work on a future for me. I spent Monday and Tuesday catching up on things around the house that I have been putting off, like record keeping and minor fence repairs. Today I took a long bike ride and goofed off the rest of the day. Tomorrow I will make bread and stock the freezer with beans and rice, and talk to some people about tutoring. I would like to start tutoring a few evenings pretty soon. I like earning some walking-around money while I get my act together.

The bike ride was great. I rode downtown and briefly visited some folks from the former work. I ended up having to go into the office, which was a mistake. One of the people I wanted to see was stuck in a “Drill” and couldn’t get away (for a change). It’s amazing when people are stuck on all sorts of immediate and urgent business, but they will stop and gab for twenty minutes. Next time it will be lunch or break at a safe distance. I felt like a freak, and some people who simply don’t get it begged me to come back in November or December. That was embarrassing. Aside from the office visit, the bike ride was great.

I am visiting the relatives in the old country later this month. That’s a great thing to do because none of us are getting younger these days. After that, my future starts.

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

Add Romance to your Life - Play Recorder

I Am Tired

I have been feeling pretty tired lately, not sleeping very well lately. I didn’t do much this weekend, beyond the normal stuff; laundry and grilling meet for the week at the DMIL’s house. I need to up the activity level or else it is tough to find bloggable experiences.

We saw Escanaba in da Moonlight on DVD! It kicked ass! After all those years in Wisconsin, I finally understand what deer hunting is all about. I recommend this movie to any current or former Northern Midwesterner who wants a big yuck. There is no subpopulation better to showcase the surreal nature of life up north than the “yooppers” (that’s Michigan’s Upper Peninsula residents for you coastal types). One of the main characters is crazy Jim McGonahy from Menominee! Menominee is where my Mother started her childhood, until Grandma and Grandpa decided to become urbanites and moved to Wausau Wisconsin’s sprawling metropolis. I have always suspected the move to Wausau was motivated by its proximity to Chippewa Falls, site of the Leinenkugel’s Brewery. In another odd twist of fate, I was born in Wausau, although I never lived there. As you drive north, Wausau is at the point where the landscape changes from fields to woods.

Dis is da year for da Packers (OK, probably their year to disappoint even more than usual)! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The Revolution is not Being Televised

But, don't worry, Barbara Ehrenreich has the full story here!

Mass civil disobediance by protesters who refuse to "behave" by not making their mortgage payments. Between Sacramento and Stockton's leading roles in the protest, I proudly feel close to the center of the revolution.

POWER TO THE (soon to be homeless) People!

Modern Life What We’ve Become

Two household events this we’re dealing with this week leave me wondering, “what is going on in our country?”

First, on the lighter side, I received the music books I ordered last week via Express mail. Express mail is apparently the normal way to send anything through the US Mail. Regular mail is obviously too time-consuming. We are surely in a no-holds-barred hurry to get whatever we ordered.

The book I ordered, Der Fluyten Lust-Hof, is a reproduction of a second edition released in 1651, about 356 years ago. I can’t help but ask myself how strange it is to make the assumption that after 356 years, I need the book on Saturday rather than the following Thursday. If I look at his from just a few steps back, it is absurd. However, I was very happy to get the book yesterday, and I jumped right into it. I guess that makes me complicit in our shared twisted values.

Gold!

Kathleen and I started the morning with a short walk in a nature preserve by the American River. We saw the normal assortment of unidentifiable birds, mule deer, jackrabbits, rattlers (since moving here I have put behind me the urge to pick up every snake I see), frogs and turkeys (avian and mammal variety). We enjoyed the crisp and cool weather this morning.

History buffs may recognize the American River as the sight of John Sutter’s gold discovery that changed the course of history by bringing over 30,000 lightly armed Americans to Alta California in 1849. Although Sutter’s Mill is near Coloma, several miles uphill from Sacramento, some of the same rocks rolled down to the Sacramento Valley over the millennia.

What, might you ask, does this 19th century history review have to do with a walk in the riparian wilderness?

When walking near the river, I occasionally break a fist – sized quartz rock, to see what’s inside. Proving that even a stopped clock is right once in a while, I immediately saw yellow reflections of sunlight when I smashed a rock today. Very small glints of mineral sunshine scattered through the fracture . . . this . . . means . . . GOLD!

I carefully slipped the fractured rock into my pocket, mildly reminiscent of Virginia Woolf. However, I stayed on dry land. After all these years here, I finally feel connected with California’s cultural history of get-rich-quick schemes. Maybe next time I’ll find a floodplain real estate development. Who can tell, in this land of golden opportunity?

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

Blowin’ in the Wind

What do I like to do to relax and enjoy some downtime, and feel good about life, the universe and everything?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in my winds, the answer is blowing in my winds.

I picked up the clarinet from the music store yesterday, where it was staying for repairs. The entire overhaul was $50 (sweeeet!). They replaced a few pads under the keys so I won’t spray myself and others when I play C - sharps or use my trill keys. I can always play more in tune right after my once-every-5-years overhaul. For some reason, as things on the clarinet lose their alignment and fit less well, I creep sharp over time. I don’t know why.

While at the music store, I picked up a couple books of recorder music. I nabbed one small book of Bach Duets and an early music collection. The early collection has a complete solo score of one of my favorite piece, “Under the Linden Tree” (Onter der quack blah quack in Dutch) from Der Fluyten Lust-Hof by Jacob Van Eyck, everybody’s favorite 17th century blind Dutch composer. What’s actually pretty cool is that Der Fluyten Lust Hof means the Flute-Player’s Garden of Delights. Hey, click the “play sample" button on the website. I know you are dying to.

I will have to play this through a few dozen times to get everything consistently right. K likes this song, but I fear she may not like it so much by next week.

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

Harry & Me

I should've written a blog entry last weekend, but "Harry Potter and the whatever" came on Saturday afternoon. I am up to page 360 or so, still enjoying it.

Contrary to all the blathermeisters out there, I really don't care what happens in the end, who gets offed, or any of that. I have read enough YA (young adult) fiction to recognize that the endings aren't the strong point in the genre. Kind of like real life, in that way.

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

All about Me, Me, Me

I stumbled on an interesting website at work. The Doe Report provides resources attorneys use to educate juries. Their materials appear to be used by plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys. They have a great diagram for the Kocher maneuver. This is part of the surgery technique for removing an insulinoma. It’s followed by prodding a sonogram wand all around, and then what ever slicing and dicing is necessary. Seeing this diagram somehow helps me feel more comfortable having stomach aches all the time. It somehow helps me feel justified to be a bit of a wreck sometimes.

I guess it would be a little corny to describe my reaction as visceral.

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

Stupid Link of the Day – Kirk Versus Picard

Kirk versus Picard. The controversy lives on. Wil Wheaton, of Wesley Crusher and “Just a Geek” fame has been captured Channeling Kirk and Picard. This is moderately amusing, in a geeky way.

An Extra Day for Laziness

There is little else in life as pleasant as a day taken off from work with no plans in mind. Today is that day for us. Since I was up late playing for the fireworks show last night, we decided to take a vacation day. Slept late, went to the library in the morning, had lunch wit the MIL, and now we’re spending the afternoon at home since it’s too hot to do much outside. I thought about seeing a matinee showing of Sicko, but I decided that would be too much like going to work. Instead I have been lolling in my reclining chair and watching ”The Two Towers”. The reclining chair is one of my favorite remnants from my “very sick days”.

A day of like this makes apparent what a drag it is going to work every day. I don’t seem to have any trouble filling a day with activities that are pleasant and at worst no more destructive than a day at work. All this even without banal self-improving activities like exercise, and other puritanically approved hogwash.

Last night’s pre-fireworks concert was a success, although it was really hot before the sun sank below a line of trees. I managed to drink 42 ounces of water over about two hours, without a single trip to the john. It must be summer in Sacramento again. We fell a little behind schedule, so the fire works started a few seconds after we began our encore of Stars and Stripes Forever. This was made a pretty cool effect. Being a pop concert, we played an arrangement of Glenn Miller tunes. I could not help but notice that the fireworks crowd simply didn’t “get it”. The crowd was mostly young adults with kids and teenagers, the adults in the crowd may have had an average birth year around 1970 if not later. From that younger viewpoint, Glenn Miller isn’t a lot more relevant than anything else from the first half of the 20th Century, however it works well for a symphonic band. Good thing most band concerts are well-attended by the over age 70 crowd. In any event, I don’t see changing the pops repertoire to include arrangements of punk rock or hip hop tunes any time soon. That would really suck.

Day at Point Reyes, A Break From My Everyday Exciting Life

A Day at Point Reyes, A Break From My Everyday Exciting Life

We drove out to Point Reyes National Seashore for a hike yesterday. The weather was beautiful, although a little warm for the coast, with no fog, sunshine and a high temperature around 70 except within a few hundred feet of the shore.

We decided to hike the Bear Valley Trail , since this trail is wide and levelly paved. I needed a non-rocky trail since I managed to break a toe Thursday night. This link has great pictures from the trail. The path alternates between warm grassy meadows and cool fern-lined gullies. This made a very pleasant hike just under nine miles. The walk begins about 4 miles from the ocean, going through a series of hills, ending at a promontory overlooking the ocean, which makes a perfect place for a windy lunch and watching pelicans fly about 100 feet below. The gullies had several large annual plants that can only be described as resembling illustrations for Dr Seuss books.

The drive both ways was uneventful, which is a relief because we were traveling under the threat of traffic from a NASCAR race at Infineon Speedway . Apparently, we missed the before and after race traffic. You can no longer call this an elitist blog, since I’ve added two links to NASCAR. Just don’t ask me to spell out the NASCAR acronym.

I broke my toe in the classic way. Got up at about 11:00 PM with a stomach ache, got up and read in the living room for a while, then turned out the light and walked back to bed. I suffered the immediate pain silently, in order to spare Kathleen and the cat from the toe-clutching-middle-of-the night howling in the hallway that haunted my childhood.

That’s all my excitement for this weekend, until I go to the DMIL’s house to watch this evening with dinner. We have dinner and watch Sherlock Holmes and Midsomer Murders
Mystery shows “Tivoed” from the Biography Channel. I don’t know why among the Biography Channel’s most popular shows are mysteries. I also don’t know why the rural Midsomer area hasn’t run out of population to murder yet. The high prevalence of adultery might somehow contribute to providing future murder victims.

Next weeks major excitement involves band. I am in a group that will wind up practice on Monday and Wednesday to play a Sunday night concert at Carmichael park. And we’ll play at a local fireworks show. Fireworks shows are a unique experience. We play before sundown, while five or about five thousand people are in the park setting up chairs and laying out blankets, trying to keep track of their kids, and wondering how they ever let their kids talk them into this in the first place.

We are playing the typical fireworks show pieces, including the 1812 overture (really just the last third of this ponderous piece and, of course, ending with Stars & Stripes forever. We are having a vocalist sing “Old Man River” and another Patriotic song (maybe the Battle Hymn, but I can’t remember).

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

I Communed With Saints (of the Latter Day variety)!

OK, OK, Calm Down! I spent last Sunday morning with a few hundred Latter Day Saints. Of course, I politely refused communion. The communion consisted of white bread and water served by teenage boys wearing dark slacks, white shirts, and dark ties. Why are these details not a surprise? I used the official Catholic – approved gesture for refusing communion, which involves silently crossing your arms, and gently tapping each shoulder simultaneously with the opposite hand. I think this confused the boy priests, I hope they didn’t think it might be an obscene gesture. From listening to the service, I think that Mormons do not believe in Transubstantiation.

My ensemble played for the Sunday service, since one of our members is a member of that church. The service was not terribly exciting. The talks, given by the congregation’s men (all priests, of course) were pretty dull. Fortunately they didn’t harp on too much weird stuff, however, several verses were quoted from what I believe were Jesus’ sermons to the Incas, straight from the book of Mormon (I think). We also heard a lot about how hard work will make a man great, that we must never lose hope, and other surprisingly standard Protestant themes. It was somewhat comforting to observe that Mormon teenagers are equally bored in church as any other kids. Whatever.

The overriding feel of extreme patriarchy surrounding and throughout the whole environment was beyond belief. I cannot clearly describe any of the myriad of small patriarchy – reinforcing words and actions, but the cumulative effect was beyond anything I could have conceived. Ok, everything I could have conceived excepting plural wives. I was a little freaked out.

I talked with several church members, and everyone was nice. They were perfect hosts. No one asked me “if I was interested in learning more about their church”. Most important, no one offered me any me green kool-aid.

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

Disappearing Act

I have been lazy about making blog entries. My sole lane excuse is that work has been on my mind a lot the last few weeks, and it isn’t blog-worthy. It’s a combination of boring and public policy issues. I don’t want to talk about it, and nobody wants to hear about it.

I have also been busy on the weekends, although I have no reports of peaks climbed or a thrilling social life that I can boast. I have spent most of my time obsessing about work and doing a lot of Recorder society stuff, mainly mundane board of directors business. Getting the new board of on the right foot and dealing with work has made me tool dull to blog.

Some of My Best Friends are Vegetables

Saturday in our neighborhood is Farmers Market day. The local California Farmers Markets differ from the Madison, Wisconsin Farmers Market of my youth and young adulthood. California Farmers markets are more about serious grocery shopping and the occasional mariachi band, and less of a celebration of the short and intense pleasure of the glorious summer like Madison’s Farmers Market.

I bought a giant head of romaine lettuce, green beans, red and gold beets, and several pounds of peaches, apricots and Pluots. Pluots are a plumb-apricot hybrid that resembles a plumb in feel and appearance, but combines the tart lemon-like plumb flavor with the apricot’s flavor and fragrance. I have rarely seen pluots except at farmers markets.

I boiled the beets, steamed the beans, and washed and tore the lettuce as soon as I got home. I try to keep pre-cooked vegetables in the refrigerator for grab-and-go eating all week. I love getting my hands into the vegetables this way. Life is somehow merrier with a fridge full of fresh food ready to enjoy.

The farmers markets are the only place in my life where I can experience the benefits of a real free market economy. I can buy peaches from my choice among about ten vendors, all within about 100 feet of each other. Amazing how this arrangement assures quality and price. I can’t say the same for Safeway.

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

Memorial Day

Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.

-Kurt Vonnegut

I have to agree with the crusty old Hoosier on this one, although I like a parade as much as the next guy. Let’s have more well-oiled brass and woodwinds (at least well-oiled musicians), and fewer guns. I cannot help but muse upon the shameful expropriation of peoples’ lives and labor that is what passes for war in today’s double-speak. It is sobering to think about what other services might be provided with the resources spent in the seemingly endless fiasco in Iraq. Medi-Cal can provide healthcare for around seven million Californians for a cost of about $12 Billion per year. Compare that to over $100 Billion to continue the fighting in Iraq though early autumn. That doesn’t even begin to account for the devastating cost of loss of life limb and civil rights.

I usually visit our local cemeteries on Memorial Day. It’s our family tradition. The Spanish – American war veteran’s cemetery in Sacramento has a monument made from relics from the USS Maine, as well as my wife’s grandfather’s grave. The Spanish – American War Veterans Association in Sacramento became a massively powerful civic organization from the 1920s through the 1950s. From reading scrapbooks of clippings, it seems they were like a combination of the Kiwanis, Elks, and Rotary, with a little of the Klan mentality thrown in for a spice. I am glad all those veterans were long gone by the time excavators determined that the Maine’s explosion was not due to sabotage. But we get to keep Puerto Rico anyway. A war predicated by deceit? By George, I can’t believe it.

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