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Saturday, April 21st, 2012
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12:41 pm - Bucolic suburbia
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It's 11am on a Saturday, the first really summer-feeling Saturday since the winter rains. The sun is getting high and the air is easily in the 80s already. J got home from work at 3am and Christian got back from the bars sometime later, so I'm sitting alone on the back porch in my Adirondack chair, feet up on the fire pit I converted from wood to propane a couple of summers ago to warm and light the cool northern California evenings. I'm drinking coffee with cinnamon and listening to bees explore the blossoming orange tree above me and the rose bushes just off to my side.
The yard smells like summer. The grass is dewy still in the shade of the orange and lemon tress but the concrete path around the garden is hot and the sun is baking the potting soil under the tomatoes and pepper plants nearby. There's hardly any breeze, so the smell of the young plants, the grass and the orange blossoms hangs lazily around me. The only sounds in the neighborhood are the bees and a couple of songbirds, and somewhere a couple of houses away the faint sound of a weekend news program on someone's TV comes through their open porch door. Dan Rather, I'd say, if he hadn't passed away earlier this year.
I picked an orange, encouraged by the bees, and turned my thumbs and one fingernail yellow trying to get into it. I got half the peel off and ate the insides like an apple, leaning ungracefully over the arm of my chair so the juice running down my chin would miss the rest of me. This tree is leftover from when suburbia was an orchard, and it produces a hundred or so baseball-sized oranges at a time in 2 or 3 blooms throughout the year. When the blossoms for the next crop appear (and they're littering the grass and walkway under the tree with little white curls now), the last crop is ready for picking and juicing or falling from the branches and tempting the ants, which seems to keep them happy and out of the house.
J emerged in powder blue pyjamas and an old tank top to glower at the bougainvillea and inspect the climbing peas and the impatiens. We put the bougainvillea too close to the fenceline and it doesn't get enough sun; but it gets enough to look alive for a small portion of the summer months. She then retreated from the sunlight to find a coffee. I hear a seagull now, a little too far inland from the San Francisco bay. A couple of the gang of crows who make up our neighborhood toughs, probably chasing off a pigeon as they're wont to do. Doors are opening and closing in the houses nearby and the still air carries percussion from a good distance. A faint horn- the weekend commuter rail to San Francisco going by a mile or two away, carrying families to the Earth Day celebration in the city, most likely. Soon there will be the usual sounds of men working on pet projects in garages, the occasional car going through the neighborhood, people strolling with babies or dogs or on bicycles. It's time to sort out breakfast or brunch or whatever you call it when the morning has passed and you've got no pressing needs but those of basic biology, at least for the better part of a warm and lazy day.
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| Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
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11:31 pm - Honeymooning
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My wife (wow, that's going to take some getting used to saying) told me something new this afternoon as we walked back along Rua da Alfandega from tango lessons at the 'Castelo' in Lisbon and a very casual meal with live local (enthusiastic if not professional)'fado' music outdoors at a street cafe. She said "Early on, at the place at Bayview, I remember you sitting on the couch in your boxers and maybe a t-shirt or a wifebeater, eating soup out of the can with a spoon, holding the can with an oven mitt because you heated it directly on the stove. I thought to myself, "this man really needs a woman".
We're in Portugal, done with our cruise and coming home on the 4th of July. Right now we've had too much very bad Portuguese wine and there is a free classical music concert in a park a block away from our seedy city center hotel. We can hear it just fine from our room, but we're wandering out to see it more closely. It has been a very fine voyage; I'll try to post photos and stories over the next week or two.
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| Saturday, June 11th, 2011
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3:52 pm - (from a late dinner at the Empire, a week before my wedding)
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8 Days.
A week from now I'll be running around taking care of last minute things, or listening to speeches at the rehearsal dinner. Right now, I"m having a rye Manhattan and some oysters at the Empire Tap Room. The bartender, Dean, has a New York, or maybe Boston accent- he's been in California too long for me to be sure. His Manhattan is good. A little light on the vermouth, but he told me what rye he used and stuck around to make sure I was OK with it.
The girl tells me sometimes I'm not reflective enough. I'm not, much, around people. People generally don't want to know what's in my head when we're out-of-doors and carousing, telling stories or wandering through the world. I use up my reflective time when I'm on my own, that sort of self indulgence is best kept solo I think.
There's a guy in the middle of the bar telling his buddy that his brewer friend told him every Guinness beer is brewed in Ireland, they don't have distributors. That takes me back to London, to The Plough in Northolt, where one of my regulars worked at the Guinness brewery down the street. He couldn't wait to get off shift to come to my bar and order a bottle of Budweiser. "I know they drink that Irish shite everywhere, but give me an American import any day". I never did take him up on his offer of a brewery tour. I wonder if that means, in some sense, it never existed.
There's sand in my oysters. I've been so many places on the water- Waikiki, Sayulita, Melborne, the Keys... even Boston. My first week in Boston I took the Blue Line as far as it would go in the unfashionable direction. I got off at a place called "Wonderland" (why wouldn't you?) where years later Steve would take Elise Mandel to a swing dancing celebration at an old fashioned dance hall. I walked out to the cold empty beach and watched airplanes land at Logan across the bay. I thought, I could live here. Kayak in the morning, take the train to work. Come home and take my shoes off, walk along the beach on my way home, sand in my toes, and watch airplanes landing and taking off all night. I ended up on Powderhouse across from Tufts on the second floor of a house. It overlooked a big sunny, grassy field where the students would play volleyball and soccer and frisbee in the summertime. But every once in a while, I'd take the train to Wonderland after work and walk along the beach curling my toes in the sand.
At the bachelor party (or technically the night before the party, but with the same people), my groomsmen asked if they were here to celebrate, or talk me out of it. To their credit (and to mine for keeping these guys around), they were totally up for either. When I proposed I asked her if she'd keep going on adventures with me, forever. I don't think she really heard the question at the time, but the answer was yes when I asked it again. I think she means it.
She didn't have vagabond days like I did, I don't know if she's the sort that would have wanted them, but I feel if there was some half-convincing reason to run off to New Orleans, or Oxford, or Fashing, she'd wholeheartedly pack up and set off. I wonder if she'd push for the same if she needed a change of scenery. I suppose I'll find out.
(My bartender is from Framingham, MA, and is quite aware the Bruins lost today)
So...yeah. I haven't mentioned much about the last several months here. Work has been inconsistent and frustrating and busy, but it has always been that way. I've traveled a bit, but not enough to ease the wanderlust. On that front, J and I are taking a 2 week trip to Spain 8 days from now, one week of which will be a cruise from Barcelona to Lisbon on a sailing yacht. My family and friends have been generous in many, many ways the last few months, and it looks like this whole crazy wedding thing is going to be brilliant. I wish I could have fit 15 more people on the invitation list, but as much as I tried, we just couldn't do it. There's more to say, but the bar is clearing out and I should take my musing brain on the road and see what's happening outside on an early summer night.
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| Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
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6:34 pm - Stream of consciousness theatre, with a bit of spring sunshine
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The spring rains subside, the sun inches closer and the days get longer- and a young man's thoughts turn to the same thing every year: Holy crap I got fat and pasty over the winter. I'm actually a bit lighter than usual, but so, so pale.
My flightline run this afternoon was the first in about 2 months- and by the way, that California drought they've been talking about for 5 years is over now. The sun on my face lightened my mood as well. I don't think I've been particularly grumpy, but with the intricacies and persistence of wedding, honeymoon and life? planning; and a sloppy change of projects at work (two groups want me full time, all the time), and the resultant dearth of time for music, reading, and play I've been very... focused.
The planning is going well though- lots and lots of family will be invading northern California in mid June, it looks like we'll have food, music, and rooms for them; a ceremony of some sort, some cocktails and wine, and a bit of dancing. Then we'll run off to southern europe for a bit of a trip on a huge 4-mast sailing yacht. I wonder if they'd let me Slide down the sails like Douglas Fairbanks or if that would just annoy them. There are many more details we'd like to work out, of course- clothing, flowers, what sort of weaponry to arm the bridesmaids and groomsmen with in case things get out of hand- but the really important bits seem to be coming along nicely.
Sleep, meditation and B-vitamins, that was your prescription for focus, wasn't it ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) thewronghands? I've been reading that a lack of sleep spikes dopamine production, so insomnia may be a method of self-medicating (as are adrenaline, gambling, and risky behaviour) when your brain chemicals get out of whack. I've been thinking a bit about this lately watching myself get less and less effective as workloads go up and get less defined. Another friend writes about her daughter who excels when stated goals are laughably small (doubling, tripling, quadrupling the goals) but gets swamped in overthinking and inaction when the goals are of a reasonable size or at all vague. I kind of know what she means- I have really high expectations of myself, but seem to have to explicitly break things down quite a bit more than is becoming or risk getting lost Yak Shaving. Somebody remarked last week as I was telling one story or another, "is there anything you -haven't- done?" to which my instant mental picture was a todo list that I may have to buy a new hard drive to hold if it gets any longer (which means I'd have to back up the old drive which means I'd have to finish finding cover art for a couple of music albums, and learn if VMWare virtual machines can be played in VirtualBox and how you get around Windows registration if you virtualize a drive you want to continue to use in both environments...)
And speaking of yak shaving, I've got to return some books to the store and find some mint to plant because we're going skiing in a couple of weeks. Exit, stage left.
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| Sunday, March 6th, 2011
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1:53 am - Living Out Loud: Tempting Fate
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This is inspired by geniealisa's Living Out Loud project. I've been meaning to write a bit more, and I really enjoy reading the works her prompts inspire.
Have you ever looked back and realized how close you came to not getting where you are now?
In a proper world, where I listened to the wisdom of my elders and paid less attention to the pressure of my peers, I imagine I'd be in a very different place right now. In fact, a far-flung friend who grew up in the same places I did and at the same time is retiring this year after a 20 year career in the service, from which he'll take lifetime salary and medical insurance. He's looking at a question few people my age do: your basic needs and those of your family are hereby taken care of; it'll be 25 years or more before body parts start falling off... what next?
But that's not my story.
I never really figured out what I wanted to do with myself growing up. I took a bunch of tests in high school to try to narrow my options, to no avail. For example, I took this test from the Army called the ASVAB which is supposed to tell you where your strengths and weaknesses lie. I got all the questions right, which the recruiter said meant, 'Well, you can do anything you want'. Not useful. But I'm the son of a military man, and military bases feel like home, so I jumped through a whole bunch of hoops to head for the Air Force Academy. I put 'engineering' on the application because I couldn't be a pilot and that was the next most potentially lucrative thing on the list. My grades weren't stellar but I had a lot of high-powered recommendations, and I made it most of the way through the process before evidence of a previous car accident knocked me pretty far down the list and out of the running. "Are you sure you've never had a concussion, Mr. Smith?" the doctor asked me, looking at an x-ray of my sternum, which I couldn't remember having broken in the way she was pointing out.
I could have waited a year and tried again, or gone to one of the academy prep schools like a good friend and probably gotten in from there, but the social pressure in my school made it almost impossible to take a year off (a 'gap year' as the Aussies call it- I think now this is the best thing a 17 year old can do). Most of my peers were heading to the Ivies, and I felt I had to do -something- interesting to separate myself from the 2 or 3 people in my class who weren't. So I picked a school in Florida that had rolling admission, and a reputation for feeding NASA engineers, and headed that way.
It didn't go well. That's not totally fair, I had a great time, and I left on my own a quarter or so before they asked me to leave, but it certainly wasn't with a degree. Afterwards, I kicked around Maryland for a little bit, but I was swamped and distracted with questions of my own self worth and suddenly shaky trajectory. I felt I had to get some breathing room, while at the same time my folks made it clear that school was important, and wherever I went there was probably a school there they'd help me attend.
I don't remember where the idea came from anymore, but somehow I found a service that offered $180 one-way flights to Europe (as long as you weren't picky about exactly when you left or precisely where you landed). Around the same time, I heard of a drug study at UMMC that paid $1600 if you stayed in it for a full 4 months, testing the rate of absorption of some generic painkiller. It involved a whole lot of needles, but a great big paycheck at the end (in mid-summer, conveniently well before I'd need to face questions of enrollment for the fall). I also picked up a companion who was in a similar mental state and who convinced me he'd be an asset on a one way trip to some un-named European nation, as he spoke German and I spoke Spanish and that covered at least, well, 2 of the countries we knew about.
Naturally, the world decided that wasn't interesting enough. We signed up for the flight service after the study ended, and a couple of weeks later we landed in Paris, a city in which Spanish is nigh on useless and German is actually a negative asset. Particularly on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the city from the Nazis. In addition, our bank cards had a nasty habit of breaking French ATMs, so we had $200 in traveler's checks between us and no idea when the glitch would be fixed.
Paris, in late summer, is a very expensive place to be. We couldn't read enough French to find a hotel room for less than I had in traveler's checks. A (fluent) friend I was meant to meet didn't show up for several days, but the promise of eventual contact kept us in a tight orbit around the 1st arrondissement. We slept on the steps of the Opera, and on the benches outside the Louvre with a dozen or so homeless-by-happenstance tourists and migrants. We were moved on by police with dogs every morning an hour or so before the paying customers showed up to queue for entrance. We got screwed over, cheated, threatened, and ushered along from a dozen fine establishments and perching spots. We heard from buskers and bums that the place to be was in the south, where there was migrant farm work picking grapes from Perpignan in July to Alsace-Lorraine in September. We were told repeatedly that everything was less expensive and the people were nicer outside of Paris.
We finally met my friend, who had been detained in Bordeaux at the palace she was staying for reasons I cannot remember. She bought us wine and laughed at our stories and said, "bicycle to Avignon, it'll take a week or two and be a grand journey and then you can explore the south a bit and take a flight home". She told us how to live a little more cheaply, and the banks fixed their ATM glitch giving me access to money once more. "Don't buy a bicycle in Paris", she said, "They're much cheaper south of the city".
Fate, I suppose: We took a bus to the south of Paris, after cleaning up in my friend's auberge, and decided to hitchhike a little further before buying our bicycles. We'd hardly stuck out our thumbs when a maniac bounced his little Fiat up on the sidewalk, nearly taking out some kids feeding pigeons, and waved enthusiastically at us. "Where are you going?" and "Are you Americans?" "South", we said, "just south, and yes we are, you could tell?" He was a chef, driving back to a chateau in Fontainebleu after dropping off some catering in the city. He taught us our first French words (Steering wheel, Tree, Ashtray, Cow, Car, Asshole...) and spoke a mile a minute in broken English about travel, adventure, the French, hitchhiking and how to do it properly (never on the freeways, they're not allowed to stop for you) and he dropped us off 50 miles from Paris, about 48 miles further than we expected to get. Also, 10 miles from Nemours, which we had thought would take a week.
"That... was really kind of fun"
"yup"
"We should try that again, and see if it's really that easy"
"maybe we should"
"Besides, bicycles, they're kind of expensive. And it's really hot out"
"yeah."
And less than 15 minutes later we were in what I swear was a Gremlin, riding with a kid in a heavy metal t-shirt who talked about Pink Floyd and why it was better to roll your own cigarettes than buy Gitanes, and how every town in France had a municipal campground where you could pitch a tent for pennies and use their shower in the morning.
That was the start of some vagabond years- around the start of every semester I'd think about America, and college, and 'real life', and weigh it against the field I was picking, the bar I was tending, the ski school I was teaching for, the ridiculousness that was becoming my life... and decide to stay put, or hitchhike to a new country to try something different. As resistant as I was to the idea of a year off between high school and college, my 'semester abroad' lasted 2 1/2 years before I returned to the U.S. to finish a degree. Since then, having "Migrant Farm Worker" on my resume has gotten me in to interviews, and the ensuing conversations have gotten me jobs I was definitely not qualified for before I started. We never did buy those bicycles, and I'll never forget the French words for car, tree, or ashtray.
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| Thursday, January 27th, 2011
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12:43 pm - Canned Haggis is almost as good as the real thing
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Dinner last night was mostly leftovers from our Burns Night celebration: fried nips, haggis-on-toast, smoked salmon, lake trout on toast points with cotswold cheese, and finally, shortbread with a rather authentic Masala chai we picked up at the British imports store.
The Burns Night we threw Sunday was really fun, thanks to all the people who came to help celebrate:
( Click here to read all about it )
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| Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
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9:04 pm - Great chieftan o' the puddin-race!
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There was a run on haggis at the British Imports Store in Campbell this afternoon. I asked the proprietress if she had any available, because it's listed on their web site by the pound, and she said, "No, dearie, we've only got the canned variety left. Head down the aisle over there and look for the plaid can". J and I followed the directions, but before we found it, a tall thin woman with a heavy Scottish accent swooped in and grabbed 2 of the last 3 cans. She looked over at us not-quite-apologetically and said, "The vegetarian type there isn't bad, if you're desperate. Not that it's somethin' you'll be desperate over" as she headed for the register.
I was looking around at area Burns Nights, celebrating the national poet of Scotland, and decided to to a home-brew one tomorrow. We'll have haggis-from-a-can, in both the "they put _what_ in there?" and the vegetarian varieties; Neeps, Nips and Tatties; beef and onion pies, cock-a-leekie soup, and perhaps some more things if it looks like we'll need them. Oh, and whisky. I dug through all the cabinets and came up with 3 blended and 10 single-malt scotches from various regions, so i've put together a table for tasting.
I've been rehearsing "Ode To A Haggis" (a video version of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kzYaIphbzU ) but I'll probably massacre it when it comes time to recite; other folks will be reciting burns poems as well, and after dinner we'll watch So I Married An Axe Murderer and laugh at Mike Myers' fake scottish accent too ;)
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| Saturday, January 15th, 2011
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1:07 am
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It's just after midnight, early enough into January I could call it a new year with a little poetic license. The moon is bright and half full, hanging above the highway I've just wandered off of. I'm standing beside a taco truck next to a trailer park and a gas station in the unfashionable end of Santa Clara after talking much of the night in a seedy bar with someone about getting a book published. It's cold enough I can see my breath, though my body is still warm from a long drive, and the smell of the aluminum pot of carne asada simmering on a hot plate wired into the tail lights of the taco truck is visceral.
I've been studying aeronautical equations for 4 days. Navier-Stokes, Bernoulli, Mach numbers, compressible flow. Since I've got an application in mind, it's fascinating stuff; but the most interesting conversation of my week was describing why Jameson's makes such a smoother Manhattan than the usual while finding out how hard it is for independent attorneys to pay off their student loans. I've crossed 100 years of alcoholic history and 185 years of mathematical history in 3 short days and wrapped it up with a dash of legal practice and the hopes of Russian immigrants to the U.S. in the early 90s.
It sounds like 2 people, young ones, are having sex in the bushes at my feet. The carne asada tacos are more satisfying than investigating those noises would probably be. The proprietors of the truck are trying not to stare (you'd think they'd be looking in the bushes)- I'm not the usual clientele in this neighborhood, but damn this stuff is tasty.
J and I are going skiing in a few hours so I should find a pillow somewhere. Leave a light on for us, we'll be back Sunday.
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| Friday, January 14th, 2011
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3:54 pm - Changing your stars
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A story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune has gone viral yesterday and today, saying that because of a wobble of the earth over the last thousand years, the dates associated with zodiac signs have changed, and a new zodiac sign needs to be added because the sun spends almost no time in Scorpio anymore, and between November 29-December 17 the sun is in the constellation Ophiuchus (the Snake Dancer). I'll list the new dates below, not because I put any stock in astronomy, but because the whole topic amuses me.
So over the last 2 days, I have gone from being Aquarian to being Caprican. Astrology Online tells me that I have transitioned from this:
Aquarians basically possess strong and attractive personalities. They fall into two principle types: one shy, sensitive, gentle and patient; the other exuberant, lively and exhibitionist, sometimes hiding the considerable depths of their character under a cloak of frivolity.
to this:
The sign Capricorn is one of the most stable and (mostly) serious of the zodiacal types. They are normally confident, strong willed and calm. These hardworking, unemotional, shrewd, practical, responsible, persevering, and cautious to the extreme persons, are capable of persisting for as long as is necessary to accomplish a goal they have set for themselves.
Now, it's true I have a savings account now, a fiancée, and I've cut down my annual number of international trips from close to 10 to close to 0 in the last couple of years, but Cautious? Practical? Responsible??? Man, that's a heavy personality change to absorb ;)
Curious what your new star sign is? Here's the new table:
Jan. 20-Feb. 16 : Capricorn.
Feb. 16-Mar 11: Aquarius.
Mar 11-Apr 18: Pisces.
Apr 18-May 13: Aries.
May 13-Jun 21: Taurus.
June 21-July 20: Gemini.
July 20-Aug. 10: Cancer.
Aug. 10-Sept. 16: Leo.
Sept. 16-Oct. 30: Virgo.
Oct. 30-Nov. 23: Libra.
Nov. 23-29: Scorpio.
Nov. 29-Dec. 17: Ophiuchus.
Dec. 17-Jan. 20: Sagittarius.
Think it'll catch on? Astrology is a multi-million dollar industry in the U.S. and perhaps a billion dollar industry worldwide. It's not in their interest to change anything (and the western 'tropical' zodiac isn't actually based on what constellations the sun is in when you're born), but I bet readings based on the "real" star signs will make a nice niche for somebody. And tattoo removal and re-application might see a spike for a few years if you've got the wrong sign on your ankle.
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| Wednesday, December 29th, 2010
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5:12 pm - 100th Bay To Breakers
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I just registered for the 100th running of Bay to Breakers next May. If you've run before, the "pre-registration" link you got in your e-mail still works, although not with the discount. Otherwise, regular registration starts January 1.
They're limiting the number of registered runners to 50,000 (and they're already over 10,000 runners so far), and this year there's going to be a 100th anniversary medal provided along with the new t-shirt, so that's nice.
The race starts at 7am on May 15 this year (instead of the usual 8am), so I'm definitely thinking about getting a hotel suite near the starting line. Bonus: could go out for pre-race carbo-load in the city, followed by ill-advised pre-race libations at Bourbon&Branch, Magnolia, Elixir or somesuch.
A note, however- the city is seriously cracking down on the fun this year. Floats, alcohol, nudity and unregistered runners, 4 things that make this race unique and amusing, are all scheduled to be banned and the bans enforced all along the course. On the other hand, they'll have 'entertainment' from each decade of the race's history along the course, whatever that means. The end-of-race festival will be in a new place too- the Beach Chalet soccer fields.
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| Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
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9:42 am - Making my list, checking it twice
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J and I are heading for Charleston, SC at a really unfortunate hour in the morning, to spend a little holiday time with family. We've spent the last couple of days in a whirlwind of vendor interviews in wine country, christmas shopping, tree trimming, and (on the pleasurable end of the scale) hosting pumapreysize and boy on their holiday trip through town. They cooked a wonderful eggplant parmesan for us last night, and we introduced them to our favorite local restaurant the night before.
We took a pause from the scramble on Monday to see Tron: Legacy with some friends, and I am completely the target audience for this movie. There were nods and homages to lots of the 80s, Wargames, The Matrix, 2001, Blade Runner, the original Tron (of course)- even a musical nod to the main theme of Blade Runner that delighted me when it came on. I know people are complaining about a lack of plot, but I think that remains true to the original ;) I loved this movie. One of the things I appreciate is the bad guy's motives are completely understandable and totally match up with the good guy's motives (Flynn is trying to use the computer to improve conditions for humanity, Clu is trying to access humanity to improve conditions for the computer) and I like some of the creator vs created themes they played with: what happens when the created finds out the creator is flawed. Not bad for a disney flick.
J and I stayed at an adorable guest house in Sonoma while we were interviewing caterers and photographers. It's a cozy one-bedroom house with a washer/dryer, full kitchen (stocked with food we were encouraged to eat), and charming proprietors, and it's one block off the Sonoma Square. We walked to dinner at Meritage and walked back from Murphy's Irish Pub (motto: Welcome to wine country, have a Guinness") after seeing a trio of old guys playing hobo songs (awesome!). Even under buckets of rain it wasn't very far. If you're looking for a cute place to stay just off Sonoma Plaza, it's Alexandra's Plaza Suite.
On the interviewing: It's really nice when people cook gourmet food for you while talking business. I think that should be the norm in all meetings. We've met some really neat people, and it will be hard to make choices.
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| Thursday, December 16th, 2010
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7:32 pm - On the job training
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I got to sit at an air traffic control terminal this afternoon and direct surface traffic for a couple of hours. (the terminal is our Future Flight Central simulator, seen here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2008/towercab_lax_high-1ratio.html and the traffic was all simulated). After the initial training, I only caused 3 runway incursions, sent 4 airplanes to the incorrect gates, caused 2 unrecoverable traffic jams, and crashed the simulator once. Maybe next week they'll let me route air traffic in the east coast snowstorms!
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| Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
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3:30 pm - jump it off the deck, shove it into overdrive...
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4 F-18s were flying formations above me during my lunchtime run around the flightline. There was also a Diamond Katana that looked like it wanted to play, but the warbirds were doing laps around the little white plastic propeller plane.
Apparently there are 5 Hornets and 5 Harriers parked out on the tarmac. I'm going to guess the opening of the World Series is going to be exciting. And loud.
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I've been trying to run the flightline 3 times a week at lunch for the last few months. I rarely make all 3 days, but when I slack off and it has been a while, I just start up again when I'm ready. There is a fitness circuit on one side of the runway, so the run is something like: Run 1.5 miles, do 4 sets of 4 pull ups on a high bar, run .5 mile to the next station, do 4 sets of 20 push-ups and 20 sit-ups, run the final 1.5 miles. I'm still too fat to join the air force, but my pants fit a little better and my arms and shoulders are noticeably more muscular.
It's frustrating when you first start really working out and your weight shoots up 5 or 6 pounds before starting a slow decline. I've noticed this several times over the years, so think I it's just a thing. My endurance goes up, my muscles become more pronounced, and body weight is the last thing to adjust. If I wasn't such a hedonist when it comes to good food and spirits maybe that would be different, but then I'd be different, and what's the fun in that?
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10:52 am - Bring your astronaut to work day
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My base is having a halloween bring-your-kids-in event. I love the prizes they're offering:
We will serve light refreshments, organize games, arrange raffles and give away prizes. Other festival attractions include a Pumpkin Patch, Dino Digs, a Looney Laboratory and Science Archive, a Castle Treasure Room and Dungeon, and a Graveyard, Crypt and Morgue. The Looney Laboratory will have an Avatar section with an Unobtanium display this year. Everyone gets door prizes and raffle tickets. Those wearing a costume will receive 5 extra raffle tickets. Raffle prizes will include small meteorites, amber with insects, trilobites, pumpkins and much, much more. All children will get an Ike dollar, with a moon theme. Grand prizes will be small, but authentic moon and Mars meteorites.
It has been a crazy month. I'll make some time to tell you about it.
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| Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
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9:51 am - LinkedIn trouble
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Be careful out there:
TO: Resident Staff
FROM: NASA Security Operations Center (SOC)
SUBJECT: Malicious LinkedIn Invites: Proceed with Caution
WHAT IS IT?
Criminals are using bogus LinkedIn invitation e-mails in a major malware campaign that trick people into clicking on links that lead to the data-and password stealing malware.
The e-mails in this attack resemble legitimate LinkedIn invites with a Web link for confirming
a contact. However, the link doesn't lead to LinkedIn; it redirects to a Web page and displays
a message saying "Please waiting .... 4 seconds" before then redirecting to Google.
WHAT IS THE IMPACT?:
Among the potential negative impacts to users are data theft, password theft, and identity theft.
WHAT ACTIONS ARE REQUIRED?:
Everyone should proceed with caution when opening emails and clicking on subsequent URLs and not accept LinkedIn or any social networking invitations from unfamiliar people or entities.
All users and System Administrators should be mindful that this malware is exploiting un-patched Adobe and Java
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| Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
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10:46 am - The Social Network
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J got us into a sneak screening of The Social Network, the movie about Facebook that's coming out this Friday. It's being heralded on the movie posters as the film of a generation, the Citizen Kane of the 21st century, one of the most stimulating films of the year. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
I more or less agree, actually.
( Click here for review, no spoilers )
I really enjoyed it- you might too! If you go see it this weekend, come back and tell me about it.
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| Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
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11:03 am - Burning Man part 1: Thunderdome
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One of my favorite recurring exhibits/events/what have you at Burning Man is the Thunderdome. If you remember the 3rd Mad Max movie, the one with Tina Turner and a bunch of children running around like ewoks, you probably have a good idea how this works. "Two men enter, one man leaves" ring a bell? In the movie, Mad Max and his opponent are harnessed and attached to a large geodesic dome, and the citizens of Bartertown scale the dome and pass weapons through the bars while the combatants try to kill each other whilst being jerked around in their harnesses.
The burning man version uses padded PVC swords and bungees that are not controlled by the participants, but otherwise it's pretty much the same. It looks a little like this:
Well, this year for the first time I got to fight in Thunderdome!
( Click here for lots of photos and the story )
You can click on the smaller images to get to larger versions.
I don't remember the 3rd match very well, but when they pulled us apart, the judge twirled her stick in the air and pointed it at me: Victory! We shook hands and limped out of the ring, and wandered off to see more flaming, dusty spectacle. It all happened really, really fast and was great fun.
The scrapes on my knees from hurtling at the dust in the harness are almost gone, and I periodically try to figure out how I'd improve the rig to make the battle even more dynamic. I think giving the audience some way of (safely) raising and lowering the harnesses would be amusing, but I don't know how that would work. Maybe we can test it in our big dome sometime... :)
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| Saturday, September 11th, 2010
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11:49 am - They let him live another year
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I was halfway through my third rack when I realized I was celebrating Rob's birthday. I can't count the number of weekday nights we wasted shooting pool at V.I.P. in Catonsville. I was shooting straight pool: soft break, try not to break up the pack too much. Knock one ball out of the pack, sink it, and ideally knock another ball out with the follow-through. When you're down to one ball on the table re-rack the rest of them with the head missing and keep shooting. I attracted some attention from the triad of dot-commers next to me and the 3 asian girls across but I got into a zone and just ignored them.
The DJ was bipolar. Guns and Roses, Metallica's Master of Puppets, followed by Jason Mraz and Brett Dennen before he finally settled on playing the entire "Legend" album from Bob Marley. In order. Maybe he was in the alley out back on the phone with his shrink.
The waitress was slender and dark-haired and could have looked like a pin-up if she'd put on a few pounds. She had a strange almost-lisp that made it hard for her to say "whiskey" and it took a half hour for her to find me a manhattan. Maybe she needed to buy a copy of Mr. Boston's at the Border's down the street. The frat boys at the bar were doing jäger-and-red-bull shots; that's an easier recipe.
At some point I sent happy birthday wishes by text message. He was being wined and dined by his boss and a cute champagne distributor. Not a bad step up from the Double T Diner and the maniacs we shot pool with back in the day. No offense to the maniacs, of course.
The night started to go downhill when I started to miss difficult shots (I generally only miss the easy ones) at the same time the waitress brought me whiskey in a plastic tumbler. Time to clear out.
A band started up as I paid for my time: a Santana and a Michael Jackson cover. The line-up looked interesting: a bassist who looked like Tracy Turnblatt from Hairspray, a drummer and a guitarist who escaped from some undergrad emo band, a willowy fiddler who was black irish or russian, and a moonwalking, white-suited lead singer who reminded me of a tall 22 year old Gary Coleman. I was amusing myself with these comparisons when they started to play their own songs. I sat down to listen. They did some funky stuff, a bossa nova number with some hip hop vocals, and a catchy number about high school. The Debonair Dialects- I'll have to find them again sometime.
The car radio on the way home did me even better. I haven't heard Queensryche since... well... probably since driving home from the pool hall in Rob's Fiesta at high speeds in the middle of the night sometime in the mid nineties.
He's saved my ass at least as many times as I've wanted to kick his. Happy Birthday, you bastard. Somehow you made it through another year.
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| Thursday, August 26th, 2010
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2:12 am - The Thane of Cawdor, and the American desert
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I organized a dozen friends to go see my favorite acting company, The California Shakespeare Company, put on Macbeth at their beautiful outdoor theatre in the hills east of Berkeley. We've had some cold, cold nights the last couple of weeks, so I was worried we'd be shivering like Scotsmen with damp kilts in October, but a heat wave swept in and cooked the site this week. The night was clear and the theatre was balmy all through the play.
( About the play )
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As of 5 this afternoon, Jamie and I will be taking our roommate out to Burning Man this year. I wasn't thinking about going until just a couple of weeks ago, but the camp is much smaller and East Coast centric and seasoned burner-centric this year which will be a neat culture shift. Not going last year and sunning our buns in Mexico instead was energizing. I'm hoping to have lots more time to wander about and experience other people's grand constructions. Also, life might get too (happily) busy in the next few years for me to seriously consider going again. So this afternoon Jamie got time off, Christian got excited, and we're driving 2 hours north of Reno next Thursday through Monday. If anybody wants to find us, we'll be camping with the Cult of Levitating Plywood in AEZ Village, right at the intersection of 6:30 and Edinburgh.
(If that means nothing to you, we'll be just to the left and just behind the big central circle in the top picture here: http://www.flickriver.com/groups/brcfromthesky/pool/interesting/ Look for a 20 foot silver dome and a big red yurt)
I think the next day or two will be a twin scramble: sorting through wedding venues (a whole other journal post), and sorting through old dusty camping gear and outlandish costumes. The Cult is coming to San Jose to pack up Friday and Saturday, and they'll be hitting the road Sunday morning. We'll wish them well, and follow along a few days later.
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| Monday, August 23rd, 2010
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3:30 pm - Iron Curtains
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I spent some time in conversation with a man my age from St. Petersburg two nights ago. His grandfather was the first to spot Gary Powers doing U2 overflights in the 50s. The grandfather was presented a medal, called a hero, and given a 2-bedroom apartment from the government in gratitude.
He said when he was a kid in the 70s, there was a circus where a guy dressed like Uncle Sam would come out juggling nuclear bombs, while trained monkeys rode around him on tricycles. I kind of want to see video of this.
In St. Petersburg, most large buildings had nuclear fallout shelters deep underground- 200 feet or more. The stops on the subway system had blast doors on either side of every station, so in the event of a bombing you could close off the tunnels. By the time the mid 80s came around, the fallout shelters had largely gotten pillaged, and kids would go down there to explore.
I recall a number of the schools I attended claimed to be 'disaster shelters', and some specifically 'fallout shelters', but unless I'm misremembering, they were all above ground and most had windows to the outside somewhere. I didn't grow up in this country though. What was your nuclear education like?
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