Mike's Rewired Geek Blog

Sucker Punch: I liked it better than you did.

2011-04-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

The other day I was talking about movie reviews and how hard it would be to add something new to the thousands of reviews that get written by professionals and amateurs alike. But sometimes you just want to write about a movie regardless of anything new that might be added. After seeing Sucker Punch, director Zach Snyder's follow-up to “The Watchmen” and “The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole,” I felt like I had something to say. I've seen a few reviews that pan the film as all flash and no substance but I didn't see it that way. In this film I saw Snyder using an overload of fragmented pop-culture images and references to portray multiple layers of mental disintegration as the character of Baby Doll (Emily Browning – The Uninvited) tried seemingly in vain to fight her way back to reality.

In many ways this story reminded me of a mash-up of “Inception,” “Kill Bill” and “Moulin Rouge!” The layers of Baby Doll's psychosis, the manic quest-oriented violence and the inclusion of popular music in an obviously anachronistic way helped create a scenario where WWI zombie steampunk germans, giant robo-mecha, orcs, dragons and robot fighters could all coexist without seeming incredulous to the viewer.

In this story Baby Doll has been forced into a psychiatric hospital in an era when ice pick lobotomies were still practiced (but the year was left vague). Her evil step-dad engineered the procedure illegally with the help of orderly Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac) so he could control the wealth she and her sister inherited after her mother died and didn't leave the money to him. In the prologue the little sister met a bad end when Baby Doll accidentally killed her while trying to stop the step-dad from making untoward advances. This trigger for the mental unraveling and the ticking clock of the impending lobotomy set the scene for the fantastic journey through the movie.

Sucker Punch was not a character study where the mental and emotional issues of Baby Doll were examined and dealt with. This was a deep-dive into a mentally unbalanced realm from the unreliable viewpoint of the unbalanced. We saw the way she constructed a world to compensate for the disintegration of her life. There was not analysis, progress or breakthroughs. Baby Doll was caught in a vortex clawing her way out.

In the first shell of unreality, the hospital was transformed into a nightclub and the inmates were then showgirl/sex workers imprisoned against their wills by the owner of the club; the transformed orderly Blue. When asked to dance, she shifts into the second layer unreality where everything moved like a video game/music video. This unreality was very task and goal oriented with the girls in her cohort ; Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), her younger sister Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung) kicking butt and taking names to a soundtrack of Bjork's “Army of Me” and covers of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and Iggy Pop's “Search and Destroy.” The music was paired with the action so well that there was very little need for dialog in these scenes outside of Scott Glenn’s Wise Man setting up the scenario. A welcome moment of comic relief was added to the fantasy sequences when Glenn got to deliver some pretty cheesy lines with a straight, yet desaturated, face.

We never saw Baby Doll dance and that made it a mystery for your head to fill in. If Snyder had showed Baby Doll dancing, the magic she cast on the inhabitants of her psyche would be ruined. It was a bit of misdirection that both fed into the need for action as she desperately battled her inner demons, giants, zombies and robots and upheld the mysterious nature of hypnotic dance moves.

Emily Browning did an OK job playing Baby Doll but did a better job with her cover of Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” that played over the prologue. While this wasn’t her first movie or her first time playing a mental patient, she’ll always be remembered by me for playing a different resourceful orphan, Violet Baudelaire, in “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.” But that could be because I’ve been reading the book series to my kids and just showed them the movie.

The biggest surprise about Sucker Punch for me was that Snyder was able to pull all of this off and still maintained a PG-13 rating. For me it was a bit obvious that they weren't talking about what the girls did with the clients in the private rooms and that there was a noticeable lack of blood and guts in the battle scenes. But even here the mixing of video game sci-fi tropes helped Snyder preserve mayhem without crossing the line into R rated territory. With steampunk zombies you can shoot them and have steam spurt out like hot blood but since it was steam coming out of the hole you don't get dinged like it was blood. And you could kill dozens of robots in what would be horrific ways if it were humans and get away with the PG-13 because it is not a human that was being chopped to bits. Even when there was violence in the more realistic segments it was stark and brutal enough to hide the fact that it had been sanitized in exactly the right way to keep the movie with its more profitable PG-13.

I won't give away the ending but I will say that Snyder bucks a major Hollywood trend with the ending. I found the departure somewhat shocking but in line with elements planted earlier in the story.

I'm not going to comment on the sexism or empowerment issues or the deconstruction of pop-culture. Not that this analysis wouldn’t be worthwhile but I think those elements were tangential to the story Snyder was telling. The story was internally consistent enough that you should be able to enjoy the ride whether the pop culture meter was set to chop, blend or puree.

Oxford film fest trip with Kim (February 10-14, 2011)

2011-03-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

Exactly one month ago I went on a trip with Kim to the Oxford Film Festival in Oxford Mississippi. I had most of this ready to post on February 15th but got caught up editing, adding and being distracted by normal life and fatigue. And then I finished it and was ready to post but that was the week that everyone in the house got sick. So here it is in all of its long and rambling glory.

Thursday in Seattle:

Its 5:30 on a Thursday morning and I'm standing in a line of people waiting to get on the second plane to Phoenix where Kim and I will connect to a flight to Memphis and then an hour and a half shuttle ride to Oxford Mississippi. The first plane had a critical problem that was discovered after everyone had boarded. We sat in our sardine can seats for a half hour and then were told we would deplane and board the plane waiting at the next gate.

Our connection in Phoenix leaves 40 minutes after our original flight's arrival time. That's tight even with no delays. Lucky for us we're pre-booked on the next flight from Phoenix to Memphis (12 hours later). Did I mention how lucky we were.

At this point I'm working on about five minutes of light dozing and two cups of coffee. Since we had to leave so early to get to the airport for a 5:15 flight, we just did our packing and other household tasks until it was time to leave. On the drive to the airport off-site parking place I noticed that my gas was getting a little low. I wasn't in any danger of running out but I'll need to fill up before hitting the highway home. I forgot to grab Cal's antibiotic on the way out of the house in the morning so I had to drive an extra 50 miles to get it and take it to his mother's house before leaving on this trip.

Changing Planes in Phoenix:

We missed our connecting flight. Luckily the airline automatically transferred us to another carrier with only a couple of hours of layover. I guess I wasn’t joking about being lucky. This was good since we had to exit the airport and take a shuttle over to the Delta terminal, get new boarding passes, go through the security screening again and find our gate. I didn't mention that the first time through security at SeaTac I got to have my sexy body immortalized for all of the TSA to admire with my first full-body scan.

We got some "edible" burritos and then retired to a Starbucks (near a power outlet, of course) to while away our layover in "The Grand Canyon State." As an aside I had to throw away my black Sketchers boots. The heel was starting to separate from the sole before the trip but I thought they had more life left in them. But when I took them off to go through Security at the Delta terminal, 2/3 of the sole separated from the boot. Since I only had a carry-on bag for this trip, it was into the waste bin for the boots and on to the feet for the black Converse.

Getting on the Delta flight was uneventful but with the bonus of only Kim and I in our three seat section. I was able to scoot over into the window seat and Kim snuggled up next to me. I was able to get slightly better sleep (involuntary unconsciousness is a more accurate description) and drank a Ginger Ale. I was just starting to get into David Foster Wallace's “Infinite Jest” when the plane landed and we had to move around

While waiting for the door to open I started noticing all of the small messages plastered repeatedly on the seats, overhead console, emergency exit door one row up, and even the armrest between the seats: no smoking allowed in the cabin, please fasten seat belt while seated, something else about opening the door during flight and killing all aboard in a gruesome hurricane of decompression and forced evacuation at 30,000 feet followed by the tranquility of falling to an impact guaranteed to kill anything that survived leaving the plane so abruptly.

Oxford (also on Thursday):

I dragged my carryon luggage to the normal baggage area and claimed Kim's bag. She called to find out about our ride from Memphis to Oxford and was told we would be picked up in a few minutes by the A-team van. We made a few jokes about the television show and watched the traffic in the pick-up zone. Eventually we were approached by a black van of mid seventies vintage decked out like the one used in the TV show "The A-Team." The van itself looked like it had carried one too many group of frat boys home from partying. The captain's chair I was in wobbled seriously. The engine started making a weird noise so we were switched to a Prius for the ride into Oxford from the A-Team to a Prius; from the Mr. T van to an Al Gore car.

We arrived in time for dinner at Bouree with three of Kim’s friends; Jen Yamato, Todd Gilchrist and James Rocchi where I had a Bouree burger with sweet potato fries. The delays in travel made us miss most of the Thursday night activities. We went over to the Lyric Theater and hung out for a while at the opening night shindig for the Oxford Film Festival. I was introduced to lots of people and quickly glazed over and only remember a couple.

Friday (also in Oxford):

In the morning Kim had to run off to the Juror's breakfast and fight over the documentary awards. I, on the other hand, had a luxurious rest, shower and time to look over the festival material. I looked up the theater where all of the screenings were taking place and it listed its location as the Oxford Mall. Having been to my fair share of malls, I thought I could pick up some breakfast/lunch item there so I didn't eat and hopped on the shuttle about to leave the hotel. Upon arrival at the mall I discover that the mall is only the movie theater and a JCPenneys. The only food available was at the snack bar in the theater. I learned later that the other anchor on the mall was a Wal-Mart that moved down the road to a new supercenter and that killed the mall. I also discovered, after Kim joined me, that there was a green room I had access to with food and drinks for free.

I waited for Kim and then went to the speed pitch panel. Most of the pitches seemed to be more for distributors but a few were for funding of future projects. It was interesting to hear these filmmakers pitch projects and distribution for films screening at OFF. An interesting thing I learned in this panel and explored throughout the weekend was the concept of doing a short film to sell the concept of a longer version of the same film or as a calling card on generic talent to pitch other ideas for funding.

After that we saw the short "Queen's Day" and the feature "Where I Begin." Kim did the Q&A session for this film. “Queen’s Day” was a stylized slice of life by Jeffrey Ruggles centered on the moment when someone realizes their relationship is something more than they thought it was. As more of a vignette than a full story, I found it somewhat dissatisfying. But as I watched more shorts over the weekend I could see where it fit in the spectrum of what short films are there to achieve and I’ve ended up with more of an appreciation for what it is and what it is not.

The movie “Where I Begin” was good, a little confusing, slightly overwrought and amazing when you consider how much was done for the amount of money spent on it. The movie tells the story of Jacob as he returns to his home town 10 years after being driven out under a cloud of rape allegations. The wounds are still open and most of the people still as damaged as when the incident tore the town apart. The character of Tyler and his drug addicted girlfriend Jill were the most compelling to me. Bo Keister was terrifying as Tyler but T. Lynn Mikeska’s portrayal of Jill sold me on just how intimidating he was. Tyler is looking for Jacob to settle up for what he’s accused of doing to Tyler’s sister. Tyler hates Jacob like only a former best friend can. The final confrontation in this film shows well how broken people limp through existence raging at life but not learning how to move on and live. The central question of the story “Did he do it?” is left unanswered and ambiguous in an anti-Hollywood move that works well for this independent character-driven drama.

I got to see about half of Mississippi Innocence when Kim pulled me out so we could go back to the hotel room. She was having an asthma attack and needed to rest and get to where she could breathe again.

When we were all rested and ready it was time to head over to Ajax for dinner. We were meeting people for dinner but they were all still over at the theater doing Q&A sessions that were running long. Eventually enough people showed up to order dinner. I had the chicken fried steak with a side of red beans and rice and sweet potato casserole. Kim had the Ajax meatloaf with turnip greens and the squash casserole. I liked the sweet potato casserole but the Chicken Fried Steak was not hand breaded and it was covered with brown gravy. I know I'm spoiled for CFS growing up in Oklahoma and knowing how good a hand breaded beef cutlet can be awash in good cream gravy. Kim's Meatloaf was great. Apart from being well spiced it also had a layer of cheese in the middle.

After dinner we went down the street to Roosters Blues House to hear an old bluesman T-Model Ford at the Friday night party. We stayed there and listened to the blues and hobnobbed with the movie folk in Oxford until almost 1am. At this point the bus to Graceland Too showed up and the evening really began.

Graceland Too is a house in Holly Springs, MS that has been given over to the obsession with Elvis memorabilia of Paul McLeod. The house is a cross between an episode of hoarders, a tribute to an American legend and he set for a Rob Zombie horror film.

The old school bus that had been repurposed as a party bus had multi-colored rope lights around the interior and hip-hop music blasting from the speaker system. There were 13 of us to start but we lost two when the bus stopped so riders could get drinks and snacks. The 11 left turned our lives over to the driver as he plunged into the depths of rural Mississippi. The trip lasted just a little too long. The roads were a little too bumpy. The cell phone coverage was a little too nonexistent. When it was seen that the half-moon near the horizon was blood red, the bus hit a big bump and all of the rope lights went out. We rode in pitch darkness with only the moon mocking our folly for a couple of minutes before the lights came back on. After a quick head count to make sure we hadn't slipped into a horror movie, we all had a tension relieving round of laughter and snarky comments.

The bus finally pulled up to this two story house with the standard colonial columns fir the area and two lions on each side of the porch literally strangled with rope lights. This old guy with sweaty, stringy, thinning gray Elvis hair invites us into an entryway plastered with images of Elvis. He's on the ceiling, walls and floor (lots of Elvis rugs). The stairway to the second floor is blocked with memorabilia and it can be barely seen in the dim light bleeding up from the entryway that the second floor is stacked floor to ceiling with an accumulation of Elvis. Every room was plastered like the entryway with every square inch covered and dozens of trunks which are probably filled with more Elvis stuff (or the severed limbs of previous lifetime members - people who've been to the museum three times). It's now about 2 a.m. and after everyone has paid the five dollar tour fee, our host wrangles the nearly broken doors shut and padlocks them closed. That's right; he padlocks us all into the house. Worried looks are easy to find in our party.

After a few rooms of floor to ceiling Elvis and a nonstop high-speed monologue with hundreds of thousands of items worth millions of dollars and several declarations with graphic descriptions of how we can kill him if he were lying, we reach the backyard.

With a high chain link fence and all of the outdoor items, the yard increases the surreal near horror movie nature of the experience. But all of that is mere preparation for what lays beyond the pink Cadillac. At the very back corner of the yard down a little chain link alleyway is an electric chair. Next to the chair is a small plastic nativity figure painted black. On first glance it looks like the charred remains of a previous traveler or small child. He claimed the chair was from "Jailhouse Rock" or a replica of the one used in the movie (the speed patter goes so quickly and was infused with so many macabre elements that it was hard to keep everything straight). In the midst of all of this was a collection of old basketballs pained black and a "small-world" international tribute where all of the heads were soccer balls. No one wanted to interrupt and ask how these items pertained to Elvis.

The way out of the back yard led us to a narrow cold hallway whose walls were lined with Polaroids of people who after going through the museum three times were inducted into the lifetime membership club. It was unclear if these somewhat frightened looking people were all hidden under the mysteriously uneven floors or not. The hallway looked like a cattle chute. Luckily there was no one with a hammer or pneumatic hole-punch and pageboy haircut waiting to dispatch us at the end of the line.

Back in the entryway and so close to escaping our doom, McLeod goes into a spiel about Elvis, karate, Elvis, Bruce Lee, Elvis, converse shoes on the set of Jailhouse Rock, Elvis and Marilynn Monroe being interrupted in flagrante delicto by Frank Sinatra, and Elvis, Marilynn and the Kennedys. At this point Kim asks incredulously if he just said that Elvis had sex with the Kennedys and was the recipient of a withering "that's not funny" look from our host. Much was made of this later when the story was that Kim nearly got us all killed by questioning the King's sexuality.

But the host recovered quickly and claimed that if there weren't women present then he did have some stories he could tell. Jen piped up at this and implored him to tell us the stories anyway (begged really). This opened the floodgates on a very blue monologue that can only be accurately compared to the film "The Aristocrats." There were women, dogs, little people with large endowments, Pamela Anderson, Val Kilmer, an old porn star of prodigious manhood and Lucy Lawless being intimately scarred through acts of unselfish physical generosity. It went on and on and started scaring (or scarring) the Ol' Miss frat boys and their dates that made up about half of our tour group. And during this last bit of wisdom the elderly Elvis aficionado starts to play with one of the buttons on Mark Bell's jacket. The button right over where his nipple would be. And then he starts fondling the button on the other side. He doesn't miss a beat in his stories while doing this. And then it was over. The padlock on the door was removed and we were all very happy to see the bus that would take us out of this corner of the twilight zone. We counted heads twice before leaving. The trip back and much of the rest of the weekend was spent rehashing, analyzing, and speculating about the experience. The overall consensus was that everyone should go at least once to Graceland Too but only in a large group.

Saturday at OFF:

After getting back to the hotel room after 4 am we knew that if we didn't set an alarm there was no way we'd be up in time. We set alarms, we really did. But I think it was waking up spontaneously 30 minutes earlier than the alarm that messed things up. I, because it was me that did this, got up and checked the time, saw that it was 30 minutes before the alarm was set and went back to bed. What I didn't realize was that I had also turned off the alarm.

We overslept but not by much. While Kim showered I went down to the coffee shop and got us both coffee and her a banana nut muffin and me a big cinnamon roll.

The first thing we saw was a short film from some Seattle filmmakers called “Our Time Together.” The film captures in a very interesting way, the obsessive conversations guys will have with themselves when building up the courage to ask someone out on a date. It is a very special (and somewhat painful) kind of obsession that usually indicates that there is no actual connection between the guy and the object of his desire. I really liked the film. Kim was supposed to lead a Q&A with them before the main feature started but there was a miscommunication and the feature started immediately after.

The feature was a movie called “Passenger Pigeons” which followed four stories in the aftermath of a Kentucky mining accident that left a man dead. We get to follow his brother and widow's story; a girlfriend of a coworker to the fallen miner worried about her boyfriend, a pair of mining executives sent for PR damage control and an environmental activist stuck in town after the protest was cancelled in the wake of the accident. I like the way the stories were told and that while they all revolved around the one event the stories had very little overlap.

The best scene for me in the movie was when the two mining execs check into their hotel room. The loud brash older guy who’s two weeks from retirement is relaxing on the bed with his shirt undone. The younger guy, his replacement, comes into the room with ice and just stops and stares at the guy. The expression on his face during this extended deadpan stare said so much to me that I could barely contain an explosive bout of laughter.

But the movie wasn't a comedy. It dealt with the range of human emotion in these stories and ended in a very satisfying way with a Viking funeral that makes perfect sense within the context of the movie.

The one thing I didn't like was the sound editing. I never thought that sound editing would be something to like or dislike about a movie but there it is. In many scenes the background sounds were overpowering the main dialog. Whether it was leaves rustling around people in the park or the nearly constant traffic noises, the mixing of the sound was off enough to me that it interfered with my enjoyment of an otherwise fine film.

And then the Q&A for the short and feature started. Kim was aware of the time and asked how much she had. She was told 15 minutes. She spent five on the short and was a couple of minutes into the ten for the feature when a volunteer came up, interrupted her and said this would have to be the last question. Now Kim is a stalwart for treating volunteers kindly at festivals, but this guy crossed her line. They went back and forth a couple of times and she dismissed him and continued the questioning. She did cut it a bit short but felt it was unfair to the filmmakers to do what happened. No one got hurt, this time.

The next set of films I saw was a block of short films made by people from Mississippi. The shorts included Blood Feud (concerning the son of a slain DEA agent and his efforts to revenge his father), The Mistake (about a woman who wakes up in a strange man's bed not sure of what happened to her), Lukos (about a guy with a monthly problem -- and it's not his girlfriend's PMS), and Trick or Eat (about the fun teenagers have scaring young children at Halloween).

For me the highlight of the block was “The Mistake.” As I noted at the time, “It’s the funniest film I’ve ever seen about date rape.”

After the Mississippi short films it was off to the generic short film block where I saw one of my favorite films of the festival. Conlang was the first film in the block and is an uber-geeky love story about a guy who’s creating a complicated language, the girl he likes and is trying to teach it to and a contest for control of the constructed language (conlang) club. In the end he must choose between winning control of the club and winning the heart of the girl. If you’ve ever known anyone who has a Klingon dictionary or an affection for Esperanto (or if that’s you) then this short film is one for you.

The other films in the block: April, Seeing, Untitled, and Antiquities, were good but had very different uses for the short film format. April, a mockumentary about integrating a zombie teen into a southern California high school, was funny and self contained but seemed like a comedy skit that was about to go on too long. Seeing was also a self contained story about a very interesting blind date that was well executed (I don’t feel I can say too much about this without massive spoilers). Untitled was an unusual slice-of-life breakup scene at the beach that seemed like it was a smaller part of a larger project. And Antiquities, a Napoleon Dynamite type production that had a complete story but felt like it was trying to sell a larger version of itself to the awkward teen industry that brought out Napoleon Dynamite and Gentlemen Broncos.

After a short break we all went in to the Awards Ceremony for the Oxford Film Festival. The presentation started off with a showing of the short film “The Hanging of Big Todd Wade.” This comedy western was produced locally by the Oxford Film Festival and starred many local denizens. It was a light film that was fun to watch but not trying to be “important.” What followed was many awards documented on the Oxford Film Festival web site. The film that won the narrative feature award “Prairie Love” was one that was a late addition to the festival. Not having seen it yet I made a note to see it on Sunday. The short “Pillow” also won for best narrative short and the main actor Ed Lowry won the Lisa Blount Memorial Acting Award.

With the awards given it was off to the Powerhouse Community Arts Center for the big event of the festival. Of course this was no match for the sheer terror of the Graceland Too visit but they did have a BBQ buffet with pulled pork sandwiches and all of the fixins’ (potato salad, sweet slaw, and baked beans). When we were full, the party had fulfilled its major function and we were off to the party for the film “Where I Begin.”

This party was at a private residence that had a big screen TV, an open floor plan, a big kitchen, a nice backyard with a fire pit and all of the best people from the Film Festival. There was good noshing and lots of good conversations. Several people, including me, indulged in a little Glee karaoke. I got to sing “Proud Mary” and “Somebody to Love.” The Glee versions messed with me a bit since I’m used to the versions from the rock radio of my youth.

A highlight of the evening was listening to Kim and Johnny McPhail talk about corporal punishment in the schools. Both are against it. McPhail had a good anecdote about taking the paddle from his kids school to a board meeting and telling them during the public comment period that he had brought a weapon to the meeting. He then pulled out the paddle and smacked it on the desk and told a story of a child being spanked. It was both a good story and a lively reenactment from a fine actor.

The party was interrupted for me and the host when my glasses broke. I have a screw that holds one of the lenses in place that slowly loosens over time. Usually I check it every day and use the small screwdriver in my computer bag to tighten it. But with all of the excitement of the festival, I neglected my eyeglass maintenance. Eventually the host was able to find a small enough screwdriver and I fixed the glasses.

Sunday (no park, no George, just Oxford):

We got up early and went across the street from the hotel to Donna Ruth’s house to have tea with her before the Festival breakfast. Donna Ruth is a long-time friend of Kim with a great house in a historic area. The tea and conversation were great and I look forward to future teas and maybe a dip in her hot tub.

Being the guest of a juror, Kim, had the benefit of getting me a ticket to the festival breakfast at a restaurant called “The Grocery” but the breakfast was catered by a sister restaurant “Big Bad Breakfast.” I had some meat quiche (and a slice of the veggie quiche) and a big biscuit and some cheese grits. It was a very filling and good meal. Afterward Kim and I went and watched “Prairie Love.”

“Prairie Love” is a movie about lonely people set against the backdrop of a cold North Dakota winter. A loner meets a man who could be dead and was on the way to get his girlfriend as she is released from prison. Several acts of desperation and misdirection lead the loner into a relationship with the recently released woman. There are some muted performances that match the tone set by the landscape. The movie is quirky and yet endearing as the characters are desperate to connect but clueless as to how to do it. The black humor and the setting make a comparison with “Fargo” easy but the similarity of the two movies really ends with the North Dakota setting. “Prairie Love” is far more bleak than “Fargo” and our lonely loners feel more like they’ve escaped from a David Lynch film but not exactly in a positive way.

The next films I watched were three shorts and a documentary. “Sexting” had Julia Stiles as the other woman confronting the wife of her boyfriend. She’s just realized that he’s leading her on but there are still some important things she doesn’t know. “Pillow” was another award winner from the previous night about two brothers, an overbearing mother, a pillow shortage and some odd fishing. It was highly stylized and very well done. The team from Arkansas were all very friendly. The next short was a documentary about a woman with a disease that keeps her from moving much. But this hasn’t stopped her from becoming an artist and a teacher. It’s both inspiring and kind of punk. The woman in the doc has numerous tattoos and piercings.

All of this was leading up to “Mississippi Innocence.” I saw half of this documentary earlier but had to leave when Kim began suffering from an allergy attack. This time we both were able to see just how clueless a prosecution team can be when they are more concerned with getting a conviction than finding the truth or preserving justice. Luckily there is “The Innocence Project” and its ability to get to the bottom of this situation.

I went back to the green room while Kim watched the encore showing of “Queen’s Day” and “Where I Begin” so she could do the Q&A for these a second time. About half way through the movie someone came and got me because Kim was having another asthma attack. We think there was probably someone wearing a perfume that triggered the attack but we can’t be sure. Between inhalers and rest in the green room, Kim was able to hold it together so she could do the Q&A. I would also point out that we were discussing an aspect of the film and the way the settings for each character was indicative of how the character had moved on or not from the triggering incident in the movie. Kim had one take on one of the characters and I had another nearly opposite take. During the Q&A it came out (through a question I asked, of course) that my interpretation was correct. And Kim, being the gracious and giving person that she is, revealed our previous discussion and admitted to the whole crowd that I was right.

A large group went all the way to a catfish restaurant south of Oxford. A group of about 25 of us were there and couldn’t get seated as a group. A table opened up and the seven of us that took the “A-Team” van got in so we could be done by the time it came back for us. What we didn’t know at the time was that about 10 minutes after we were seated, Melanie, a co-director of the Festival, became upset at the personnel of the restaurant and the majority of the group left to have Thai food in Oxford.

So Kim and I had a nice catfish dinner with five other film people who were either jurors at the festival or had films at the fest. Needless to say there was a large amount of cool conversation that continued through the ride home and some the next day.

Monday (Oxford to Seattle):

This morning we met Melanie and Heidi for breakfast at Big Bad Breakfast. I had some of the best biscuits and gravy (along with eggs sausage and potatoes) since moving away from the South. This was good stuff. The whole weekend and especially the food and friendly people, lead me to compare Oxford to some of the better places in red-state America like Austin.

After breakfast we were supposed to get picked up to get to the airport in Memphis by 9 am so we could make our flight easily. But that didn’t happen. Eventually a car did show up, again a Prius. But taking four adults, the crowd now waiting to catch flights, and a driver and luggage in a Prius is a tight fit. But we’re all friendly people so we squeezed in and all made it to the airport.

The flight back is somewhat of a blur with a stop in Chicago and a bumpy landing in the rain in Seattle. We then went back to the car park and drove home so we could collapse and I could get ready to go to work the next day.

Movies I Saw in 2010 (my top 10 list)

2011-01-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

During 2010 I saw 41 movies in general release. I also saw some films at the Seattle International Film Festival that either didn’t get distribution or went straight to video. The two notable films in this category would be “A Little Help” starring Jenna Fisher and written and directed by Michael J. Weithorn, the creator of the TV show ‘The King of Queens’ and Robo-Geisha. The first film is really good and would probably be in my top ten if it had been in general release. The second film is pure camp and worth picking up on DVD if you see it. There are many films from this year that I haven’t seen and will probably see in 2011 that would probably make my list. Movies like Winter’s Bone and The Illusionist are high on my list to see but since I haven’t seen them yet, I can’t include them (or others) here. The list is divided into three sections: the top 10; in the order that I liked them, the middle 27; in alphabetical order, and the bottom four: with the last film being the one I liked the least.

1. Inception
2. True Grit
3. Kick-Ass
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
5. The Fighter
6. Get Low
7. The Extra Man
8. Black Swan
9. Toy Story 3
10. Tron: Legacy

My number one film of the year, Inception, still comes back to haunt my thoughts. I can see myself watching that over and over to see the nuances of how Chris Nolan is messing with my head. I liked the acting in this movie and without good solid performances the story and the puzzle would not have been able to be the big star of the movie. Other movies in my top ten are more character driven but still I think only about half the movies on my list will be serious contenders for any Academy Awards. That can go off into another discussion of ‘What is an Oscar worthy performance?’ and did Michael Cera give us that in ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World?’

I liked ‘The Fighter’ better than I thought I would. I’ve compared the film to ‘Secretariat’ as a similar sports-quest film but that ‘The Fighter’ is good. In ‘The Fighter’ Micky Ward must choose between the family that means him well but can’t get him to the next level and his talent and desire to be the best at boxing. There was a similar conflict in ‘Secretariat’ with Penny Chenery fighting against the expectations of a woman in the early seventies to realize the potential of her horse. Ward’s struggle is at the center of ‘The Fighter’ while Chenery’s is barely in the film. Secretariat is so focused on the horse that the real story of the woman that made it possible is sidelined and marginalized. John Tweedy, Chenery’s youngest son, admits as much while commenting on Roger Ebert’s blog about the film (http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/pages-for-twitter/as-penny-chenerys-youngest-son.html ). To my mind, those struggles would have made a better film set against the backdrop of one of the greatest horses of the early seventies.

The inclusion of Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim and Tron in my top ten are purely because I liked them and I have a soft spot for SF genre films. But I would argue that each of these films also has deeper stories and issues being presented than might be evident from the flash and movement these films also provide.

‘Kick-Ass’ has an interesting discussion about the nature of violence in our mediated society. The contrast between the realism of the violence Kick-Ass suffers and the hyperbolic comic-book violence dealt out by Hit Girl comments directly on how we perceive violence and how it is presented in the media. A darker character driven piece looking at the damage that Hit-Girl’s upbringing would have on her as she had to deal with society would have been nice but not in keeping with the comedy vs. tragedy focus of the story.

Scott Pilgrim deals with the baggage we all bring into relationships, whether we acknowledge it or not. As Scott deals with Ramona Flowers baggage, through the seven evil exes, he discovers and is faced with his own baggage and how that keeps him from moving forward in a meaningful way.

And Tron is another thinking person’s comic flick; like Ang Le’s Hulk which I liked but much of the comic world did not. The relationship between Flynn’s son and the two versions of Flynn battling it out in a stylized cyberspace and the actions and inactions of each character creates a yin and yang that drives the story to its conclusion. It’s not the best movie of the year but I found it a thoughtful mix of genre action and compelling storytelling.

After the 27 movies in the middle there are four movies that stand out as bad.

Two are bad as otherwise functional movies that go sideways at the end in ways that just aren’t justified by what has come before. These are ‘Takers’ and ‘The Last Exorcism.’ Both movies were PG-13 but The Last Exorcism also suffered from trying too hard to go near subjects that would normally get an R rating but pulling back in what was a very artificial way to keep the lower (and presumably more profitable PG-13). Since Takers was primarily an action thriller, the film gave lots of movement with some less than realistic violence to keep its PG-13.

Both movies failed for me but not as much as 'Jonah Hex' or 'Paranormal Activity 2.' Jonah Hex was primarily disappointing because it wasted my time with a stupid story when the source material was rich enough to provide something much better. Done correctly the source material for Jonah Hex could provide a story as rich as True Grit. The film makers chose to do the exact opposite and we were left with a steaming pile of wasted time. Speaking of wasted time, no movie wasted my time in a more boring and eventually unsatisfying way than Paranormal Activity 2. The buildup was so long and the payoff was so weak and the story was saddled with the constraints of the “found footage” genre made popular with the original Blair Witch Project that what was seen on the screen could not even be made fun of. That’s right; Paranormal Activity 2 is a movie so bad you can’t even make fun of it.

As a coda to the year’s movies, I just saw 'Somewhere'; the new Sophia Coppola film with Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning. I’m not sure what I think about it yet (probably needs another viewing). I think I know what Coppola was doing with the film but I’m still not sure if it worked for me. I did like Elle Fanning in the movie and am interested to see what choices she makes as she goes through teen and adult roles.

Here’s my list of 27 movies that aren’t in the top ten or bottom 4

Alice in Wonderland
Clash of the Titans
Daybreakers
Despicable Me
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Douchebag
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
Hot Tub Time Machine
How to Train Your Dragon
Iron Man 2
Knight and Day
Let Me In
Letters to Father Jacob
Megamind
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Rabbit Hole
Secretariat
She’s Out of My League
Shrek Forever After
Somewhere
The Kids Are All Right
The Last Airbender
The Other Guys
The Runaways
The Social Network
The Spy Next Door
Vampires Suck

And here are the Bottom four; the dregs of what I saw in 2010

4. Takers
3. The Last Exorcism
2. Jonah Hex
1. Paranormal Activity 2

Kids Bop That Won’t Make You Puke

2010-09-18T23:19:00.000-07:00

The other day I was listening to the local NPR station and they were interviewing a girl (Adora Svitak) who was putting on an independently organized TED (http://www.ted.com/) event focusing on youth and the contributions youth can make in the world called TEDxRedmond (http://www.tedxredmond.com/). This reminded me of a discussion I had the other day with the parents of one of Calvin’s friends. They’re artsy types and the Dad is in a band here in Seattle. We were talking about the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players (http://www.slideshowplayers.com/ ) who they knew peripherally before the family relocated to New York City. This lead me to their daughter, Rachel Trachtenberg, who started playing drums for the show when she was six. I was thinking that she’s older now and wondering if she’s a youth that’s out there making a difference.

She is.

In addition to playing with her family band and taking NYC mayor Bloomberg to task on a variety of subjects, she has a side project called “Supercute” (http://www.myspace.com/supercute) with her two BFFs; June Lei and Julia Cumming. As I write this they’re on tour in Europe opening for a friend’s band. All three play ukuleles and sing but they can also play keyboards, drums, guitar, and bass when the need arises. They fit into an odd mix of categories, kind of a bubblegum, lo-fi, anti-folk. Their song “Not to Write About Boys” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404FHOnpDfg ) shows every aspect of this mix to good effect.

Making a cameo in the video is the singer guitarist, Jack Skuller. He’s another New York teen trying to make a splash in the music world. He’s quite a bit more clean cut and the video for his song “Love is a Drum” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7B4Qj42BME&ob=av2e) shows he knows how to rock the rock-a-billy and can play the guitar very well. Supercute returns the favor and makes a cameo in Jack’s video along with the third band of youth making interesting music I’ll talk about here.

Care Bears on Fire (http://www.myspace.com/carebearsonfire) are three teen girls playing the hardest and punkest music of the group. The name is enough to draw attention to these youth but they play well enough to keep listening. Of the three groups, this is the one that appears to have the most mainstream support. I wouldn’t surprise me at all if they end up making it “big” within the next year or two. The videos for “Everybody Else” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kLZ3G2qt8s) and “Barbie Eat a Sandwich” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1zK5rGYLM ) show the raw talent of these girls. In addition to a catchy song, the paint-by-numbers setup for “Everybody Else” makes a straightforward performance video that much more enjoyable to watch.

So check all of these bands out and you’ll see music made by youth and for youth. With lo-fi anti-folk, rockabilly and punk-pop there should be something for everyone and immunize your family from the bane of kidz bop (http://www.kidzbop.com/).

I Bought An iPhone

2010-08-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

I bought an iPhone.

I'm slowly getting over my guilt at giving Apple my money and joining a rather large mass of affluent sheep. But after four versions of the OS they've addressed many of the complaints I had. And at this time it's the phone that does what I want without breaking my bank.

I looked around and AT&T just wasn't carrying hardly any of the windows mobile phones (at this time, leaving AT&T isn't an option). I didn't want to pay twice as much for an older model phone just so I could keep using "Block Recognizer." I even had to do a registry hack to enable it on my last phone so I could see the writing on the wall; and it wasn't written in Graffiti.

Looking around at the Android phones and the iPhones, I really wanted to like the Android phones better. But after trying both out I found the UI on the iPhone to be better. Maybe by the time this phone is ready to be replaced I'll like the Android interface better.

So I made the plunge and got me an iPhone 3gs (8gb). It was only $99 and I'm getting used to the on screen keyboard. I loaded an app that lets me type into a word doc (Quick office) and Stanza and Kindle for ebook reading. I've loaded a few games like pong and tetris and the iPhone version of "I love katamari" but mostly I've been trying to get used to the keyboard for writing on the go.

I've been using Graffiti in one form or another (Palm VII, HP iPaq, Viewsonic CE device and two windows mobile phones) since 2000 and I've gotten very good at it. Long ago I figured out that you can't really use Graffiti in a moving vehicle. But I've been pleasently surprised at how easy it is to type on a moving bus (I'm actually writing all of this on the iPhone on a moving bus).

The other big surprise is how good the camera on the iPhone is. It's not that it has any better resolution but it has much better light gathering. Many of the photos I took with my Windows mobile phone were just dark. I was able to get a couple of good videos with Windows mobile. It will be interesting to see how the iPhone video looks.

I've also been fairly impressed with the app store and the ability to load apps easily directly from a wifi connection -- and how easy it is to connect to a wifi network.

I hope Windows gets its act together and Android continues to improve but for now I'll hang out in the antechamber of the temple of Steve Jobs. I'm just going to drink a little cool-aid and then leave. I promise.

Children's Picture Books That I Like

2010-05-07T00:12:00.000-07:00

KUOW’s morning show "Weekday" had Nancy Pearl talking about children’s books and picture books (http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=20160) yesterday (5/6/2010). I didn’t start listening in time to call in and talk about my favorite children’s books so I will share them here. I’ve read a lot of books to both Duncan and Calvin and some of them I’ve read so many times I almost have them memorized. Some of these books are out of print but if you want a real treat, find and buy them anyway.

I’d like to focus on the stories that are a little off the beaten path but I can’t write about great children’s books without commenting on Seuss and Sendak. Dr. Seuss is the titan of children’s literature and no library is complete without as much as possible of this work. We liked the cat books and Green Eggs and Ham and several others; they’re great, he’s great, buy them all. And who doesn’t like “Where the Wild Things Are?” I’ve read that book so many times I almost have it memorized. Let’s face it; you liked it, I liked it, Spoke Jonze liked it and every kid I’ve ever talked to liked it.

Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer prize for "Maus" wrote a children's book that is one of the best I've ever come across. "Open Me, I’m a Dog" ( http://www.amazon.com/Open-Me-Im-Dog-Art-Spiegelman/dp/0060273208 ) tells the story of a dog that goes through a lot before being turned into this book. The book even comes with a leash so you can take it for a walk. The unwritten story of the book is that its target audience is children who can't (for whatever reason) have a dog. We didn't care. We have a dog and still love the book.

A friend gave us "Slombo the Gross" by Rodney Alan Greenblat ( http://www.whimsyload.com/media.html ) when Duncan was little and we've read the book almost to destruction. Slombo is an often misunderstood nice guy who happens to likes being gross and dirty (a big hit with most kids). When a skunk invasion and a swamp beast threaten the town he lives in, Slombo jumps into action.

Alice and Greta by Steven J Simmons and Cyd Moore ( http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Greta-Tale-Two-Witches/dp/0881069744 ) has one of the most subtle stories with the best lesson of any book I've read - "Whatever you chant, whatever you brew, sooner or later comes back to you." The moral is illustrated by the story of two young witches; Alice who is nice and always helpful, and Greta her stinker of a classmate who has to learn the hard way about these life lessons. And with a story that involves a million marshmallows, how can they go wrong.

Edward Fudwupper Fibbed Big by Berkeley Breathed ( http://www.amazon.com/Edwurd-Fudwupper-Fibbed-Berkeley-Breathed/dp/0316106755 ) . To people of my generation Mr. Breathed is best known for the comic strip Bloom County and the neurotic penguin named Opus. Breathed brings his special brand of humor to the story of Edward and his sister Fannie and the fib that gets way out of control (and we're not talking about convincing Mabel Dill that she's been elected Queen of Brazil - but he did that too).

There's a guy named John Scieszka (don't ask me how to say his last name) who worked with an artist named Daniel Adel on the first book and Lane Smith on the next two picture books I'm going to talk about. Both Duncan and Calvin "forced" me to read his books to them over and over and over. I know for a fact I can recite the entire text of "The Book That Jack Wrote" ( http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Jack-Wrote/dp/067084330X ) from memory. It gives a sideways take on the "House that Jack Built" story in fusion with just about every Mother Goose rhyme. In "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" ( http://www.amazon.com/True-Story-Three-Little-Pigs/dp/0140544518/ ) John and Lane tell this story from the wolf's point of view. With lines like, "If cheeseburgers were cute, folks would probably think you were Big and Bad, too." this book is subversive in all the best ways. And finally, the book "The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales" ( http://www.amazon.com/Stinky-Cheese-Fairly-Stupid-Picture/dp/0140548963 ) ends up being an interactive reading experience more than a straightforward book. Jack is trying to put together a collection of stories and the stories just won't cooperate. Everything is going wrong for him; the stories, the book, the giant that's trying to eat him. Even the little red hen complains, "How do they expect me to tell the whole story by myself? Where is that lazy narrator? Where is that lazy illustrator? Where is that lazy author."

The last book I'm going to mention is one I don't own but really liked when we had it from the library for about two weeks; ten years ago. It's "The Beast with a Thousand Teeth" by Monty Python's Terry Jones. I don't know if you can buy the book but you can have it read to you by Helen Mirren on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IyxkM4VcBs ). How cool is that?

The Webby Awards and Web Sites I Actually Use

2010-05-05T15:03:00.000-07:00

The Webby awards (http://www.webbyawards.com/) came out yesterday and after wading through the 70+ categories I thought I would list the places I actually spend my time on the Internet. In 1999 or 2000 I put up a list of my bookmarks from the version of Netscape I was using at the time. (http://www2.flooby.com/lot49/bookmark.htm) It’s kind of interesting looking at the list and seeing both what I had bookmarked and how many of the sites are even around.

Let’s see… The first thing I do when I get online is to check my e-mail. I’m using hotmail but with the live.com URL so I go to http://mail.live.com/ to get my mail. I also have an account at Yahoo that I use for some online stuff. I set up the My Yahoo page (http://my.yahoo.com/) and it’s where I get most of my TV listings. There’s also mail, news, weather and comics but it’s the TV listings that keep me coming back to this page.

My girl friend Kim uses AOL Instant Messenger (so I do too) and the AOL news round-up (http://www.aol.com/) auto-loads every time AIM is started. They seem to do a good job of hitting many headlines I’m interested in. But that’s not the only source for news I go to. I like CNN (http://www.cnn.com/), MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/), NPR (http://www.npr.com/) – which won a webby this year, and Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/). I also like sites like Media Matters for America (http://mediamatters.org/) and Fact Check (http://www.factcheck.org/) but don’t really hang out there. I usually watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC but only seem to catch Jon Stewart on-line (http://www.thedailyshow.com/).

I spend way too much time on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) but since I’m taking a break from all of the games, that time has gone down considerably.

When I need to look something up I almost always hit Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) and there’s nothing like Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/)when the ol’ BS detector goes off about something.

I like YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) in fact I’m listening to a playlist of Orbital songs right now. I like that it has a wide variety of content. I’ve listened to (usually minimized at work) everything from Avenue Q, Jesus Christ Superstar, Old Punk and even old Hoho the clown clips.

I’m going to see if I can’t wrap this up and list in no particular order:

http://www.movies.com/ (the first place I look for movie times)
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ (I’m addicted to this radio show and even went to a TAL live event)
http://www.kuow.org/ (Seattle’s public radio station I listen to all of the time)
http://www.kexp.org/ (Seattle’s best alternative station. I’m not listening to KUOW then its probably KEXP)
http://www.hulu.com/ (I always miss the broadcast versions of Caprica, and Modern Family so I catch them here)
http://www.cbs.com/ (This is where I watch Survivor)
http://www.nbc.com/ (This is where I watch Heroes)
http://www.blogger.com/ (I’ve had a blog since 2000 – the one you’re reading now, go check out the archives.)
http://www.runescape.com/ (Duncan started playing this MMORPG years ago and I started playing to monitor his activity and do something with him. Now he’s moved on and Calvin plays. He’s not as devoted to the game as Duncan was but the sweet spot for the game seems to be 4th to 6th grade)
http://thismodernworld.com/ -- Great Snarky Liberal web comic.
http://www.tmcm.com/ – Too Much Coffee Man (I have a tattoo of this character on my left arm. This is a sarcastic comic that has gone through many changes. The full archives are on the web site so you can waste hours catching up.)

That’s me on the web. There are other sites I go to for work but most of those involve systems, networks, SANs, XenServer, Citrix and other IT geeky subjects. I won’t list them here.

Calvin at the Skatepark

2010-05-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

I wrote this the other day when I took Calvin to a park near the house that has a skateboarding area.

Calvin has his blue bike helmet strapped on over his purple Washington Huskies hoodie. There are less than half a dozen other youth with scooters and about a dozen older youth with skate boards. Jeans and hoodies are the uniform most wear here. Younger kids will have color; older are all black or dark blue. Younger kids have helmets; older have abandoned them.

The smack of wheels and decks hitting the ground is a counterpoint to the drone of the wheels rolling up and down the slopes. Somehow they manage to stay out of each other’s way and most all of the accidents are single person wrecks – usually a skate boarder flubbing an ollie, grind or jump. Click, clack, slap and the occasional groan from the crowd as someone lands wrong on the concrete; almost always they pop right back up oblivious to the facts or pain of the situation. The younger kids are not so stoic and the wail of the more adventurous can be heard as they try and fail to get to the top of the half-pipe; successfully navigated by older skateboarders.

Calvin will sometimes buddy-up with other scooter riders; making a circuit around the skateboarding area or racing around the trail at the edge of the park for walkers and bike riders. Sometimes they are school friends but that’s not a requirement. After a few laps they’ll stop and practice hanging out. There are several low walls around the edge of the skate park that can be used for grinding but more often server as a bench for a shifting cast catching their breaths and kibitzing about the performances of others.

If there are no accidents, Calvin can do this dance of wheels and flesh nearly indefinitely. He’s still young enough to want to go on the merry-go-round before leaving. I’ll often be drafted to “push harder” or “go faster” to make his enjoyment and my exhaustion continue. His other favorite activity is to climb a tall tree that is near the skate park. Today he’s made friends with two brothers; he’s never seen them before. After scootering around for a while and climbing the tree, they pull a couple of Nerf swords out of their car and they trade off swashbuckling until it is time to go. Even after all of this he still asks to go on the merry-go-round but isn’t disappointed when I tell him we need to leave and he spent his merry-go-round time playing swords with his new friends.

Hot Tub Time Machine and the moments when you changed your history.

2010-03-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

My friend Kim and I went to see “Hot Tub Time Machine” and she has asked the question, “When would you take a Hot Tub Time Machine.” I’m not sure I have an answer to that. Outside of a short vacation into the past, I don’t think I have a “moment” where I could do something different and have a better life. But then I started thinking about moments that changed, or almost ended, my life. Most of these were decision points and I don’t regret the options I didn’t choose. Here’s a list of times my life changed.

The earliest time I can remember that could have changed my life was a time when the family was swimming at a lake in Southern Oklahoma. I had the idea I could swim out to a log floating in the water. There I would rest and then swim back. I made it to the log. It was a long hard swim and I was beat; really looking forward to the rest, the way you look forward to a cool drink after working in the yard. But it wasn’t a log in the water. It was a branch from a tree that was no bigger around than my own forearm. It had no buoyancy for me to share. I was close to panic. I noticed a part of the shore was closer than the swimming area I came from. I made for it and eventually waded up through grasses and reeds to be back on solid land. I think I got in trouble for leaving the designated swimming area but I didn’t care.

The next time that comes to mind is when I was out getting some McDonalds food for some friends at 1am. It was 1981 or 82. I was working at a science fiction / media convention in Oklahoma City at the Lincoln Plaza Hotel. James “Scotty” Doohan was the main guest. Coming out of the McDonalds parking lot in my yellow 1973 VW bug and cutting across Lincoln Avenue I was hit by a huge speeding car that was driving with its headlights off. It hit the car so hard it spun it over 180 degrees and caught the engine on fire. If it had hit the car squarely in the classic T-bone then I probably wouldn’t be here to type this. The car was totaled and the food was cold and uneaten but I didn’t care.

About three years into my first marriage, Tamara and I almost split up. We were both totally stressed from school and not communicating. I had everything worked out where we would separate over the summer and see if we really wanted to get back together. When I finally talked with Tamara about it, she broke down and it dawned on me that maybe we weren’t on the same page with the separation thing. So we talked it out and lasted a total of 24 years with 2 kids and lots of experiences.

After college I took the entrance exam to get into the FAA air traffic controller school. I scored 94%. I was in. But I wanted to go to New York City and see if I could get a job there. I had a few months before the school started so I did that. In May of 1989 I took a bus, because it was cheaper, from Oklahoma City to New York City. I stayed for a couple of weeks at the YMCA on 9th Ave getting a reduced rate with my OU student ID. I moved into a SRO place at 103rd and Broadway and found a job at American Lawyer Media (the company that started Court TV – now TruTV). So I never went back and became an air traffic controller. I would not be in the same place if I had. Would it be better or worse; I don’t know.

In 1996, just after Duncan was born, I had the choice to go into computers and move back to Oklahoma or stay in New Mexico and become a Civil Engineer and Surveyor. I was into my 3rd year working for David Blanchard Civil Engineering. It was fulfilling and with my Astronomy degree I could complete the requirements to be a fully certified Professional Engineer. The other option would be to accept a job programming for a hospital in Oklahoma City. I took the computer job. It just seemed the right thing to do; the thing I would have more fun doing.

In 2008 Tamara and I decided to take our relationship in a different direction. This could be done in Oklahoma or Seattle. We’re still working through the implications of moving to Seattle; including an amicable divorce. Was it the right move? I think so. Things would have happened in Oklahoma; other things have happened here.

Have I hit every major decision point? Probably not.

Where would I take a Hot Tub Time Machine? The way the movie plays it, you risk not coming back if you go back before you are born. If you go back to during your life then you replace yourself for that time (no paradox about meeting yourself) but that makes it hard to affect changes like saving John Lennon or stopping the Challenger explosion, Timothy McVeigh, or the World Trade Center. And even if you did any of these what would the world be like; Better, Worse, Different? I’d be tempted to go back and buy Microsoft stock when it was first issued, or Google. I don’t think the only two choices are avarice and heroics. It seems like it might be better if it was an accident; like in the movie.

Horseradish Salad Dressing

2010-03-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

I just made my own salad dressing. I’ve been making salads to go with the sandwich I will often take to work for lunches. They’re cheap and keep me away from chips and other semi-food items that taunt the American worker.

I like to get the non-iceberg lettuce and herb mix and add grape tomatoes, red bell pepper and cucumber. I’ve tried a few other things but this makes an easy to prepare salad. I would put in onions and carrots but I put the onion on the sandwich and just have carrots around to munch on during the day if I get peckish.

I wanted something a little spicy (or a lot spicy) but didn’t know what I wanted to do. There are lots of spicy things out there; peppers, ginger, horseradish, onions, mustards and other things I can’t remember. I also really like balsamic vinegar. I decided that something with horseradish and balsamic vinegar was what I wanted to try.

I looked around the grocery store and could only find creamed horseradish preparations that didn’t look that good (most had added sugar that I’m trying to stay away from). So I bought a horseradish root. There was already garlic and olive oil at the house so I picked up some balsamic vinegar and some cilantro.

I got together with my friend Lionel (who is staying with me at the moment while looking for work in the Seattle area) and his mini food processor and whipped up a batch that tasted good but wasn’t spicy. I had some on today’s salad and it was tasty; but not spicy. I wanted something spicy. After doing some reading on-line (where else) I came across an article that said the vinegar will set the horseradish and keep it from being very spicy. A different article had hints on making a paste out of the horseradish root with the food processor.

When I got home I peeled a good section of the horseradish, chopped it up and put it in the food processor. I added some garlic (very precise measurements) and some water and pureed the lot. At this point I added some onion and pureed that too. Then came the cilantro; I didn’t use all of it but I had a pretty healthy amount. After running it through the processor it lost a lot of its volume. At this point I have a very tasty blend that will open your sinuses right up; no questions, they’re open.

We mixed some of this into the balsamic vinaigrette from yesterday and it is exactly what I was looking for. I almost made a salad right then just to have some on it. Lionel had some edamame hummus with him and we added some of the horseradish base to that and it was very yummy.

Of course Lionel makes a pretty good Jalapeno, cilantro hummus and is experimenting with a chipotle hummus (I must say I found them both tasty and spicy but not so fiery I didn’t enjoy them).

Jonathan Coulton at the Moore Theater with Paul and Storm and Molly Lewis

2010-02-28T20:23:00.000-08:00

Friday night (02/26/2010) I took the boys to see Jonathan Coulton. I’d been kind of wanting to go but was being wishy-washy about buying tickets. At first I thought I missed the show. For some reason I thought the show was on the Tuesday of this week. Just to be thorough (not Thoreau) I checked his web site http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ and saw that the show was Friday.

I was sitting at my desk on Friday afternoon thinking about the fact that I could still go to the concert but didn’t have anyone to go with me. I checked with the online ticket site and they still had tickets available. I called and asked Calvin if he wanted to go see a concert with me and he said yes. Duncan said he would check out his videos online and get back with me. He called me back a few minutes later and said that he was in. I then went back to the ticket buying web site and the event was no available for ticket sales.

Fifteen minutes and they it went from “sure we’ll sell you tickets” to “go away kid, you bother me.” At this point I called the phone number on the web site and tried to order tickets over the phone; but was again told the event is unavailable. So I called back and indicated I wanted to speak to a real person. This is when I went on the hold from hell. Luckily I work only about 5 blocks from the Moore Theater, where the show was to take place. I hoofed it on over there only to find the box office closed. Next to the box office was an automated ticket machine. I did the correct touch-screen actions and was about to purchase the tickets when I was informed that this machine was out of printing supplies and it would be unable to finish the transaction.

I’m reminded of a thing they tell us in writing where you have to keep throwing obstacles in the path of your hero to generate interest and suspense. I’d had just about enough interest and suspense and just wanted the tickets. I wandered around a minute trying to think of something to do and started reading some of the things posted in the window of the box office. I ran across a notice that I could also buy tickets at the Paramount Theater at 9th and Pine. I was currently at 2nd and Stewart about a half mile from the Paramount. Luckily my normal bus stop is about a block from the Paramount. So off I go, over to Pine and then down Pine to 9th.

Now I’ve been on hold this entire time. All of these actions have occurred with my cell phone up to my face listening to sappy music with the occasional assurance that my call was important and would be handled in the order it came in. I was about half way between the Moore and the Paramount when I finally got to a real-live human being – a real live human being that told me they no longer had access to the event so they couldn’t sell me tickets either.

I finally get to the Paramount and there is someone in the box-office and a woman in front of me waiting to buy tickets. But the guy in the box office is on the phone; not selling the woman in front of me her tickets. I stand there and wait. He talks on the phone. I stand there and wait. He moves to the back of the box office and starts rifling through a drawer, probably making sure someone’s will-call tickets are in the right place. I stand there and wait. He finally gets off of the phone and starts talking to the woman in front of me. She wants to go see Chicago (showing at the Paramount) and goes through a complex ritual of finding the right seats in the correct section for the appropriate price. I stand there and wait. Eventually she is happy, money changes hands, and now I’m standing before the ticket selling guy. He asks what show. I tell him and he offers me tickets that are much better than what the online store offered. I do a little hysterical jump-for-joy dance (in my head) and hand him my credit card. I have the tickets.

Now I have to get home, get the boys, get dinner, get parking, get to the theater and enjoy myself; all easier said than done. It’s at this point I’m reminded of Dante’s trilogy of epic poems; Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. The evening kind of proceeded like that and I feel like I just finished the Inferno part. This kind of worries me in that if I go on and on about the rest of the evening it will get read about as often as the 2nd and 3rd parts of Dante’s trilogy.

When I got home, I let Duncan know when we were leaving and he was not happy. For some reason he felt that if the concert starts at 8 pm then we should be able to leave the house at 7:30 and make it there with plenty of time. I knew that we needed to get dinner, get downtown, get parking and get to the theater. Not a 30 minute deal. So he’s giving me all sorts of grief that only a 14 year old knows how to give. I get them in the car and we go to get dinner. Calvin wants to go to McDonalds so he can get and iCarly toy. Duncan finally said he didn’t want much for dinner so that would be OK. I suggested he get a McChicken sandwich because it’s not that big. He corrected me that a “not that big” dinner at McDonalds was a quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and large drink.

At McDonalds we hit a pet-peeve of mine. When McDonalds has two toys at the same time, like they do now (Star Wars: Clone Wars and iCarly) they always refer to them as boy toys and girl toys. Calvin wanted the iCarly toy and I told the drive-through person that and he repeated back: one six-piece happy meal with girl toy. The perpetuation of that kind of cultural sexism just annoys me – girls can want Star Wars toys and boys can want iCarly toys.

We got through the standard traffic-jam that is I-5 southbound into Seattle and got parking at 3rd and Stewart. After we walked over to the Moore, Calvin noticed that he forgot his Nintendo DS. Duncan was griping that we were too early; the doors to the theater weren’t open yet. I said we should go back to the car and get Calvin’s game. Duncan did not want us to do that. I told him that he should stay in front of the theater then because Calvin and I were going to go and get the game. He decided to come with us.

By the time we got back they were letting people in to the lobby but not the theater. I found a place for Cal to sit on the floor and play his DS, told Duncan to watch him and went over to the merchandise table to see what they had. I eventually bought Calvin a Skullcrusher Mountain shirt and a RE: Your Brains shirt for me along with a live CD/DVD for Jonathan Coulton. Duncan then asked if there was a way we could leave early so he could get back and do some gaming on Xbox Live. I said, “Let’s wait and see how it goes.”

After about 30 minutes in the Lobby they let us into the theater. The seats at the Moore were designed for children or anorexic models. Calvin fit fine but Duncan and I were wedged in pretty good. We were quite the geek family; Cal on DS, Duncan on his iPod Touch and me surfing the internet on a Windows Mobile phone.

The opening act started pretty much at 8 pm. The duo known as Paul and Storm started off with the song “We’re the Opening Band.” There was lots of comedy between and sometimes during the songs. They thought nothing of stopping a song two or three times to do some comedy or comment on something happening in the audience. Calvin really liked the song “Cruel, cruel moon” about a man and his girlfriend, who is a werewolf. In the end I think Cal liked Paul and Storm better than Jonathan Coulton. I can’t remember the whole set list but you should look them up and give them money.

After a short intermission where we stood in a long line for the Men’s bathroom, Jonathan Coulton came on stage. I’m really bad about remembering the set list but I can name a few songs I remember him doing; Ikea, shop vac, code monkey, creepy doll, skullcrusher mountain, Mr. Fancypants, the future soon, and the last song was re: your brains. Then he came back on and did First of May as the encore. I saw Duncan laughing many times at the songs and he didn’t ask once to leave early.

For some of the songs he brought Paul and Storm back out and also a ukulele player named Molly Lewis. She’s not the ukulele player on the DVD I bought but if you look up when Jonathan Coulton sings his song “My Monkey” to Will Wheaton at the 2009 PAX then you can see her playing ukulele. Just look up “Jonathan Coultan serenades Wil Wheaton at PAX2009” on You Tube and you’ll see it. Of course you can look up the user sweetafton23 and see all of her other videos and vlogs.

Calvin just pooped out about three songs short of the end of the concert. He snuggled up and dropped off. And then the loudest thing all night happened. The entire auditorium sang really loud, “All we want to do is eat your brains. We’re not unreasonable, I mean no one’s gonna eat your eyes…” and Calvin slept right through it. And when the encore was “First of May” I was kind of happy he fell asleep. Just look up the video on You Tube and you’ll understand why.

Dining at The Leopard Fez cafe.

2010-02-21T12:56:00.000-08:00

Calvin just brought me “lunch” from his Spongebob grill. He was wearing my leopard fez (from Archie McFee) so I dubbed his restaurant, "The Leopard Fez" where they make all of the wait staff wear them. It's a pretty cheap place (all of my food was free) and they have great lunch specials.

Here's what he broght me: one crabby patty, kelp fries, shrimp cocktail, one pizza (with the works), two hotdogs (with bottles of ketchup and mustard to use if I want them), a whole cherry pie, a chocolate covered doughnut, a cupcake, three scoops of ice cream (chocolate, vanilla and strawberry - very neopolitan), an Oreo, a brownie, two chocolate chip cookies, some broccoli, two sodas, a waffle, a fried egg and bacon.

He also was quick to point out that I not only get all of this but I get a taco too. What meal isn’t enhanced with the extra random taco?

Tacos Rule!

Reading Foundation in Seattle

2010-02-19T15:30:00.001-08:00

Not quite as catchy as Reading Lolita in Tehran but I'm not in Tehran and I'm not reading Lolita. What I am doing is re-reading Isaac Asimov's original Foundation stories (collected into the "novels" Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation). They're not traditional novels, more a collection of connected short stories and novellas where the course of human history itself is a major character embodied by the Seldon Plan. The plan is to carry the Galaxy forward from the fall of the current Galactic empire through "Dark Ages" and on to a second reign of peace. The Foundation is the steward of this plan; or more accurately it's pawn as the dead hand of Hari Seldon moves historic forces this way and that to curtail the Galactic Dark Ages from 30,000 years to "only" 1,000 years.

I've had a few thoughts reading through this series again. I'll share them with you now; aren't you thrilled. Asimov's fictional method for predicting the course of history is a form of statistical analysis of large bodies. The same kind of analysis that is done on things like gasses and other large collections of atoms. This "Psychohistory" combines math and psychology to predict and manipulate humanity on a grand scale. While reading the first stories I came across an article on NPR talking about "The Quants." These are a group of highly skilled math geeks that have revolutionized the financial world; both for gain and now almost to the brink of ruin. The Godfather of the quants is a guy named Ed Thorpe. He and those that came after him are profiled in "The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It" by Scott Patterson. I'm going to pick up this book (or check it out of the Library).

My second thought on the Foundation stories is that almost everyone smokes. The only person who doesn't smoke, so far, is one of the bad guys. Every hero is chomping on cigars while others smoke cigarettes or pipes. Unless they do something to tobacco in the next 15 to 20 thousand years, I don't see a space-faring culture where even the air you breathe is a commodity being quite the smokers that are portrayed in the stories. Of course this is more a sign of when the stories were written and the place that tobacco had in America of the 1940s and 50s.

Along that same vein, the stories are fairly sexist. It's kind of a cultural sexism that America isn't quite over yet. And even though there are some strong female characters (Bayta Darell and her granddaughter Arkady), they and the culture of the Foundation treat them like women in the 1940s and 50s. Again, not surprising in the context of when they were written but it makes the stories oddly dated in a way that the more science-oriented parts aren't. It probably goes more to a generic deficiency of the "Hard" SF authors; whose reputation is that of being more interested in the ships and ray guns than the characters and other societal what-ifs that the "New Wave" SF authors addressed. Asimov usually has good characters but unlike other classics of the genre there is no main figure that strides across the saga. There is no Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter or even Paul Atreides or Lessa from the Dragonriders of Pern, or Ripley, Buffy or Xena for that matter.

Foundation really suffers from being a collection of short stories and it's probably one of the main reasons it hasn't been made into a movie or mini-series. That and the collection of stories is seen as a whole; The Foundation Trilogy more than any one book or story. Interestingly enough the second set of Foundation books written by Benford, Bear and Brin all have Hari Seldon as a main character and are more easily translated onto the big screen.

With all of that said, I still love the stories and will probably re-read them every decade or so. I first read them in the sixth grade and I think that remembering and recapturing a bit of that youth is one of the things that make this series special to me; like listening to Boston or Styx and thinking about all of the people I hung out with in middle-school and high school.

My Music List for Today

2010-02-19T13:51:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I walk around and listen to music. Almost every day I have to walk one mile between my office and a data center to do some work. On the two mile round trip I will either listen to the radio or my MP3 player (not an IPod). I have a little over 6200 songs on the player (and I have lots of CDs yet to rip). I like to put the whole mess on random and see what comes up. Sometimes a song I like will come up and I won't be in the mood for it and I'll just skip it. But every now and then I get surprised by a song I had forgotten about and the little bit of random Joy at remembering it. Here's the list:

Lisa Loeb - Too Fast Driving; Pendulum - Propane Nightmares; KMFDM - Trust; Bowling for Soup - I Melt with You (I usually sing the chorus: I'll stop and melt the world with you); Shonen Knife - Boogie Monster; Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - One Tin Soldier; Tracey Bonham - You Don't Know Me; Orbital - Lush 3-4; Velvet Acid Christ - Collapsed; Skinny Puppy - Hospital Waste; Kate Bush - Aerial; Metallica - Sad But True; Pizzicato Five - Sweet Soul Review; Yello - Dr. Van Steiner

Getting Back Into Writing Is Hard

2010-02-08T23:01:00.000-08:00

I find it amazing how hard it is to write something every day. I was ill for most of last week and that really throws a monkey-wrench into any writing plans. Add that to being busy at work, busy with the kids, mildly depressed at not dating anyone, and with a monumental pile of laundry to fold and put away, it’s a wonder I can get anything done. This is my writing for today. It’s not much but I made myself do it before going to bed.

I Feel Like Poo

2010-02-03T20:58:00.000-08:00

For some reason I got the idea that even though I feel like poo, I should write a blog entry. I think it has something to do with the future. Years from now I'll look at these posts and wonder at what went on. As it is I look back on my blog and see massive gaps. Usually I can go look at Tamara's Blog and fill in the blank spots. But this time I thought I'd put in a note saying I'm sick. Sick and tired of Love. From below and above.

Ya. Yah yah ya ya yaaaahhh!

I'm kaput.

Whiteout

2010-01-29T21:27:00.000-08:00

I watched the movie "Whiteout" on DVD last night. I missed it in the theaters but wish I could have seen it on the big screen (bigger than my television at least). I like Kate Beckinsdale (OK, I really liked Kate Beckinsdale in Underworld. I think I would have to root for her character if she was in a battle with Buffy and I'd hope she'd pop a cap in Edward just to stop the dang sparkling). Kate gets to kick some butt in this movie but it also has a story, thanks to Greg Rucka (pick up anything with his name on it and read it, you won't be disappointed). There is one extraneous shower scene with Kate but, hey! I'm not complaining.

I watched it in bed after going to bed early (and getting up at 5 am the next day). I just didn't feel very good last night so I went to bed early and did the work I brought home the next day. I felt better and probably did a better job on it.

Listening to the State of the Union

2010-01-27T23:48:00.001-08:00

I’m listening to the State of the Union on the Internet. I heard about the first five minutes when it came on but I had some things to do and missed most of it live. Lucky me I finished up and got to listen to the Republican response live. And while the new Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, did a much better job than Bobby Jindal, he had nothing new and very little that was truthful to say. He misrepresented the President’s stand on just about every issue and has this delusion that the Republican party has any interest in working with the current administration. Unless the Democrats want to roll over 100 percent and give Obama a bill that would make George W Bush happy, no Republican will vote for it. Their only agenda so far is to block and obstruct every bill or appointment that they can. And unfortunately some calling themselves Democrats aid and abet this obstruction.

So far the State of the Union is what you would expect. The president says a lot of things that Democrats will like and Republicans will hate. Limbaugh, Beck and their slavering minions will find plenty to feed their ranting and conspiracies.

I’m not objective in this. I find it much easier to listen to President Obama. I like what he has to say and how he says it. I found it difficult to listen to the previous occupant of the White House. The main problem I can see with the speech is that Obama relies heavily upon facts and reality. These coins have little value in teabag America.

I guess my take away from all of this (the net-net) is that I feel that calls for bipartisanship need to be abandoned when dealing with the far right (and sometimes even the right wing of the Democrats own party). To quote Obama’s own speech, “Let’s get it done.”

I did like the part where Obama created a commission that had been blocked by Republicans in the Senate. And I really hope he can get “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” repealed; it’s just ridiculous.

Overall I really liked the speech. I continue to have high hopes that something better than sausage can come out of the meat grinder of our government.

I’ve Lost a Couple of Writing Books.

2010-01-26T23:30:00.000-08:00

I’ve spent parts of several days looking for my copies of “Writing Fiction, The Practical Guide” from the Gotham Writer’s Workshop and “A Writer’s Book of Days.” I really like both of these books. Writing Fiction has tons of good writing exercises for just about every step of the fiction writing process and the Book of Days has a writing prompt for every day of the year. Since I’m trying to make an effort to write every day (even if it’s just a note about not finding my writing books) I’d like to find these two and use them to keep me moving in a somewhat forward direction. I may have to wing it or break down and buy them again.

After I wrote the previous paragraph, I started thinking about the story I submitted to the Writer's Workshop at Norwescon. I wrote an outline of where I wanted to change the story. I put on some Orbital (I like to write to mellow techno) and thought about the story and a scene came into my head. I'm not posting it here because it is both a first draft and from the middle of what I want to change. At least I can write a little even without those books.

Primer

2010-01-25T23:49:00.000-08:00

I saw Primer the other day and again last night and again last night with the director’s commentary. It’s a very interesting, ultra-low budget film that was recommended to me when I described an idea I had for an accidental time travel story (more on that in a different post).

Primer takes place in suburb of Dallas, Texas around 2001. It involves a group of technology workers that are making circuit boards for hobbyists while trying to get an idea that will generate interest from Venture Capital groups. While investigating near room temperature superconductors, they discover some weird properties associated with the tests that imply the test item (a Weeble) is going forward in time faster when it’s in the machine. They figure out how to do the process backwards and how to build a larger version. At this point the story spins, or loops, out of control in very inventive ways. The film has some interesting takes on the difference between being smart and being wise.

While listening to the Director’s commentary, I got the feel I was in a crash course on how to make a very low budget film; lots of rehearsal so you can get most scenes in one take, use quality sound equipment, get a few seconds extra at the beginning and end of each scene for editing and lots of other tidbits. The amazing thing about the movie is that it doesn’t look like an ultra low budget film. It doesn’t look like a blockbuster but you can tell these guys had some attention to detail.

So look it up, put it in your Netflix queue and enjoy it. I think it would make a good double feature with Memento.

Sunday Was My Day of Rest

2010-01-25T17:27:00.001-08:00

The person I've been dating has decided she has some things to work out before committing to an ongoing exclusive relationship. I accept this. It kind of bums me out but we were still in the early part of the relationship where we're still getting to know one another so I'm not an emotional wreck over it. So I didn't have plans for Sunday like I thought I would. I reactivated my account on OKCupid and that's probably the most depressing part of the whole experience. There's something about on-line dating sites that reminds me of looking for a job (something I really don't like to do in the first place).

I got into a pretty bad mood Sunday morning. I took the boys to lunch at Claire's Pantry in North Seattle. It was supposed to be breakfast but it took a while to get everyone going. It's probably petty but the service at the restaurant put me in a foul mood. The food came out in three separate trips with about 5 to 10 minutes between each trip and I had to remind the server of the items we still needed. And she didn't bring coffee around. What probably made this worse, for me, was that I could see the next set of tables with a different server. This server was doing a pretty good job and it threw ours into stark contrast.

I did calm down and enjoyed most of the day. Calvin had a friend over to play and I got to watch an interesting independent film called Primer. I'll write more about it in a bit.

Calvin at the Skateboard Park

2010-01-23T22:00:00.000-08:00

Calvin has his blue bike helmet strapped on over his purple Washington Huskies hoodie. There are less than half a dozen other youth with scooters and about a dozen older youth with skate boards. Jeans and hoodies are the uniform most wear here. Younger kids will have color; older are all black or dark blue. Younger kids have helmets; older have abandoned them.

The smack of wheels and decks hitting the ground is a counterpoint to the drone of the wheels rolling up and down the slopes. Somehow they manage to stay out of each other’s way and most all of the accidents are single person wrecks – usually a skate boarder flubbing an ollie, grind or jump. Click, clack, slap and the occasional groan from the crowd as someone lands wrong on the concrete; almost always they pop right back up oblivious to the facts or pain of the situation. The younger kids are not so stoic and the wail of the more adventurous can be heard as they try and fail to get to the top of the half-pipe; successfully navigated by older skateboarders.

Calvin will sometimes buddy-up with other scooter riders; making a circuit around the skate park or racing around the trail at the edge of the park for walkers and bike riders. Sometimes they are school friends but that’s not a requirement. After a few laps they’ll stop and practice hanging out. There are several low walls around the edge of the park that can be used for grinding but more often server as a bench for a shifting cast catching their breaths and kibitzing about the performances of others at the park.

If there are no accidents, Calvin can do this dance of wheels and flesh nearly indefinitely. He’s still young enough to want to go on the merry-go-round before leaving. I’ll often be drafted to “push harder” or “go faster” to make his enjoyment and my exhaustion continue. His other favorite activity is to climb a tall tree that is near the skate park. Today he’s made friends with two brothers; he’s never seen them before. After scootering around for a while and climbing the tree, they pull a couple of Nerf swords out of their car and they trade off swashbuckling until it is time to go. Even after all of this he still asks to go on the merry-go-round but isn’t disappointed when I tell him we need to leave and he spent his merry-go-round time playing swords with his new friends.

Watching Caprica and Jimmy Neutron

2010-01-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

I saw the pilot for Caprica on Syfy this evening. It had some interesting performances and a morally ambiguous grief-driven geek dad trying to bring back his daughter, who has gotten mixed up with some “monotheistic” religious fanatics. The series sounds like it will be interesting with lots of virtual reality time and some storylines that can piss-off groups with no sense of humor.

Now I’m about to snuggle up with Cal and watch the Jimmy/Timmy Power Hour (the first Jimmy Neutron / Fairly Odd Parents cross-over). I’ll probably be asleep before it’s over.

I had a thought last night

2010-01-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

I had a thought last night. I was thinking about trying to blog every day and lying there in repose; drifting off into the arms of Morpheus and I started putting together a blog post in my head. At this point I had a decision to make. Do I get up and write it down or blow it off and maybe forget about it? I chose to blow it off. Even though I don’t remember the details, I do remember thinking that it wasn’t Earth shattering and I was pretty tired. So I forgot what it was about but not that I had the mental conversation. As part of my ongoing illness (deluding myself into thinking I can and should write) I have trained myself to recognize when something like this is happening and to get up and write it down. Sometimes I look at it the next day and realize that I should have just stayed in bed. But overall I still think it’s a good exercise in not letting an idea get away from you.

Other than that I had a good day. I finally went to the grocery store last night so I had a banana this morning with my cereal and coffee. I’m reading “The Sign of the Four” as an e-text on my phone. After seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie, I went out into the wilds of the internet and found me some Sherlock Holmes stories (in the public domain, of course). It’s some easy light reading while on the bus to and from work.

Here’s a bit of my morning ritual. I get up. I put on my slippers. I go to the bathroom and pee. I go to the kitchen and start to eat a banana while I make coffee. I run outside and drag the trash can and recycle bin to the curb (only on a Monday where I’ve forgotten to do this on Sunday night; it happens way too often). Get a bowl of cereal and look over an article from “The Stranger” or “Seattle Weekly” while eating. At this point there are a lot of variables depending whether the boys are at my house or not. If they’re not then I can shower, get dressed, make my lunch and leave for work. Then I can come back and get my bus pass and/or my key-card to get into work. If the boys are with me then I have to do all of that and get them up and moving, get Calvin a doughnut, wake Duncan up again, turn off the TV so Calvin can focus on getting dressed, wake Duncan up again, get clothes for Calvin and make sure he brushes his teeth before playing video games. By this point Duncan is usually up and moving around so he’s pretty self-sufficient. Sometimes I have to make lunches and get them to the bus stop or school. Usually Tamara will come by and pick them up and drop them at the bus stop on her way to work. After I leave the house I head down to the Northgate Park and Ride and catch the 41 downtown to get to work. This is just for Monday through Friday; the weekend is less organized.

Rebooting My Blog

2010-01-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm rebooting my blog and moving it away from flooby.com. Tamara still has her blog and other content there but since she is relocating the content to a different provider, I thought I'd just park my often neglected ruminations on this part of the cloud. Now I just need to link in to my Facebook account so that when I post here it will update there and so forth.

For the last two years the Hodge family has been going through a transition that is pretty well done. Tamara and I have ended our marriage of 24 years and the long, drawn-out story about what's it all about will probably be filled in later. The important part is that we're still friends, I'm friends with her new partner, we're co-parenting the kids and trying to get on with our lives with little fanfare or hoopla.

Looking back over the posts you can see that I worked at Microsoft. as of May 2009 I no longer work there (although they paid me through July). I know work for a company called PTSO of Washington. The company provides Electronic Practice Management (EPM) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) for Community Health Clinics in the state of Washington. I get to do servers, networking, hardware, Citrix and just about anything else I'm asked to do. I really like the job, the people I work with and the variety of things I get to do and learn. Its super!

I'm trying to write more. I've been trying to write more since about 1985. So I'm on my 25th anniversary of trying to write more and eventually get fiction published on a regular basis. There was a time when I worked for magazines or did freelance non-fiction but that's just not very fulfilling to me so I've tried to focus on fiction. But, alas, I'm too distractable. So I will try yet again to get into the habit of writing. Somehow I feel this is key and until I master this one basic addiction, I won't find the kind of success I'm looking for. I'm not trying to be Tom Clancey or Stephen King. Success for me is finishing stories that I would like to read (not quite there yet) and sharing them with a wider audience. If you go back to January of 2005 in the archive you can see some short samples of my writing.

To that end I did finish a short story and submit it to the writing workshop associated with Norwescon. So sometime in early April 2010 I will have the pleasure of having a pro (or semi-pro) tell me what a piece of crap I submitted. Oh there will be some talk of showing and not telling or building suspense and such. I had a high of about 2 hours after submitting the story before I came down and started seeing all of the things that were wrong with it. I have notes and will be working on these things before the workshop but I'm also wanting to hear what they have to say.

I'd like to find a writing critique group here in the Seattle area to workshop stuff on a regular basis.

Blog update for Duncan

2009-03-19T13:10:00.001-07:00

Duncan Actually Reads My Blog

So Duncan, my older son, is apparently the only person that actually reads my blog on a regular basis eventhough I haven't updated the blog since last summer. So I thought I'd update my blog to give him something to read. This goes to the basic problem of the internet.

The internet is based on content.

Knowing the technologies of the internet (xHTML, CSS, Programming, databases, servers, networking) does nothing but enable the delivery of more and better content. But none of that helps you if you don't have any content to deliver. People find all sorts of ways to overcome this problem from blogging/vlogging about their personal lives, hobbies, professional interests and the collection and distribution of content from others (creating meta-content).

My problem is that all of that takes effort.

It's a very directed and conscious effort to participate in this realm. And like any member of my family will tell you, I can be an early adopter but not often a major contributor. You can look at this blog as a good example. I've been writing on this blog off-and-on since the year 2000. But other blogs (even ones by family members) haven't been around as long but have far more posts than this blog.

This is a generic internet problem; not just focussed on me. Why else would twitter be so popular. You can generate content from your phone via text message. With only 140 characters, there is no pressure to create something extensive or thorough. And you can follow others tweets and comment on them. If you're doing all of this from a phone via text messages then you better be on a good plan.

But it's easy and incorporated into a virtually ubiquitous technology (cell phone text messaging). So people do it and love it and get in trouble for doing it while on jury duty.

It also offers a dynamic use of opt-in permission marketing. You choose to follow the tweets of celebrities, products and services you are interested in. You can add and drop as your fulfillment is enhanced or diminished.

But how does twitter make money on this? Most of the traffic is offline with the internet being more of a conduit for collaboration and archiving and the input/output device is a device that's on a separate technolgy infrastructure altogether.

I'm already behind the times even posting to this blog (although I do have a twitter account that automatically posts to my facebook status so I'm not entirely out of the loop).

I guess that's enough for Duncan for today.

Hotmail® is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. Find out more.

Friday at Microsoft

2008-06-27T22:44:00.001-07:00

Friday at Microsoft

As my first week of work at Microsoft comes to an end, I'm waiting for a shuttle to take me from the main campus in Redmond to my building in Issaquah (it's where my car is at). Since Issaquah is kind of "down on the farm" compared to the rest of the campus, the shuttles only run every 30 minutes. Unlike the Redmond shuttles that run every 5 to 10 minutes.

In my first week I've learned a few things about the Seattle area, Microsoft, and some of what my job will entail. My commute from Shoreline is about 28 miles. This is pretty easy in the morning as I have been leaving about 6:30 am. The traffic is heavy but keeps moving at the speed limit. The commute home is another matter. All of the traffic going to the west side is funneled onto I-90 or state highway 520. This means that no matter which way I go, I'm sitting in barely moving traffic for over an hour. I was able to take I-90 to the 405 and then take SR522 over the north end of Lake Washington and get back to Shoreline. You may have to pull up Live Maps (gotta plug the Microsoft product) to follow that last thread.

The gist of all of this driving is that it is causing me to look seriously about mass transit options. I mean if the trip uses just 2 gallons of gas, the I've spent about $8.50 going to and from work. And for most of the mass transit options, Microsoft picks up the cost.

I'm too tired to write more so come back later and I'll write about something else.

I'm at Microsoft now; the family is at Disneyland

2008-06-25T08:13:00.001-07:00

My Mom's Married

My Mom got married (for the fifth time) on June 14, 2008. It was also my Grandmother's 86th birthday. I have a good feeling about this marriage. She married her boyfriend of more than 15 years so you can assume they've seen the best and worst of each other already.

Camp Murray

For the week of June 15-20, I joined 60 of the most fabulous people at Lake Murray in Southern Oklahoma for Camp Murray for Youth 2008. An interesting point is that the lake is named after early Oklahoma governor Bill Murray and Camp Murray is named after the father of American Universalism, John Murray. Either way, it's "Murray! Murray! Murray! Oi! Oi! Oi!"

It's hard to describe how inspiring it is to see a group of high-school youth (14-19) form a community and a safe place where real human growth can take place. I could chronicle the events of each day but that still wouldn't describe the transformative experience camp had on many of the youth. It's like being there when the buds of a plant open into flowers. You don't see it very often, but when you do, it's magical.

This may be my last event as a youth advisor with the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City. It's sad but I know they will carry on. They have good support from the Minister, the church, the DRE and a great Youth Coordinator, Ann McDermott.

I'm at Microsoft now; the family is at Disneyland

I didn't quite have the trip from Hell going from Oklahoma City to Seattle, but just barely. My grandmother was in good form; complaining about whatever crossed her mind while taking me to the airport. On the flight to Denver, I was pretty well compressed into my seat. My neighbor overflowing the seat next to mine and then got annoyed at the flight attendant when she "needed" to keep her leg straight invading both the aisle and the attendant station (I was in the first row).

I got to Denver finally and found my gate. Since I had an hour I got some dinner. I had a spicy beef burrito that triggered some kind of mucus attack that left me pretty drained. After returning to the gate I see fire trucks around the plane. It seems some fuel leaked onto the ground and they weren't sure where the spill came from. It took them three more hours to find and fix the problem. Luckily I had a good book with me "Running With Scissors." It's an R-rated book (probably NC-17) but is very well written account of Augusten Burroughs weird childhood.

So I get in to SeaTac about midnight, get my bags, get my rental car (a Suzuki Forenza), and get myself to Elisa's house. I get to bed about 1:30 am (3:30 am Oklahoma Time)

The next day I spend with John, Gina, Diego and Sophia. John & Gina are friends from when we lived in Las Cruces, NM. John now works as a game programer. We did a test drive from Elisa's house to my Microsoft New Employee Orientation building and then went to a Redmond shopping area. Then it was up to Everett, where they could afford to buy a house, where we sat and talked and then ate pizza and played RockBand. I got home, and to bed, too late because I was counting the time wrong and forgot how late it really was to my Oklahoma adjusted body. I would live to regret this.

On Monday I had an upset stomach and was a little dizzy. It stopped before I left the house so I thought I was ok. I was wrong. I left at 6:30am to miss most of the morning rush traffic. Since that's 8:30 Oklahoma time I've been making an effort to keep my sleep schedule "The same as it ever was."

After jumping through the required hoops (temp parking, I-9, badge photo, and electronic info input) we were all herded into a big room for presentations. And this is when the day went to hell.

The closest I can figure is that I had a "perfect storm" of fatigue, mucus drainage into my stomach and some congestion that affected my middle ear (dizzyness, vertigo). The noise, lights, people and way too much coffee (dang that steamed milk) didn't help either. At one point I left and hurled in the bathroom. I felt better but still pretty fragile. I was able to eat a little lunch, but by 2pm I felt I needed to bail on the day. I did make it back to Elisa's where I took meds and went to bed.

Tuesday saw no recurrance and I had a pretty good day. After a half day to finish up Orientation, I was free; my new manager said to come in the next day and they'd be ready for me.

So I drove around Shoreline to help get the lay of the land. I found lots of interesting places including a park with a beach on the Sound and the Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Church. I'll go into the odd problem of the UU buffet at a later point.

So now it is Wednesday, June 25, 2008 and I find out just what I've gotten myself into.

2008-06-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

Moving to Microsoft

I can blog about this now. The long and the short of it is that I applied to Microsoft for a Build Engineer position; they talked with me enough to make me an offer; I accepted the offer and now I'm in the process of getting ready to move to the Seattle, Washington area. My start date is set for June 23, 2008.

Tamara, Duncan, and Calvin will pack up the house and put it on the market. I think (at least I'm hoping) the house will move quickly. I'd like to sell the house for $200K but I know it will go on the market for much less (but not half as much).

I'm trying to work through a list, which keeps getting longer, to help Tamara get ready for the move. I'm also getting ready for my Mom's wedding on June 14, 2008 and Camp Murray, the First Unitarian Church's Summer Youth camp at Lake Murray Group Camp 3 near Ardmore, OK from June 15th to the 20th. After that I should hop on a plane and show up at Microsoft's New Employee Orientation on Monday.

So little time, so much to do.

Last chance to blog in May.

2008-05-30T13:35:00.001-07:00

Last chance to blog in May.

I've been so busy during May that I haven't blogged at all. I've been helping with the First Unitarian Chuch of Okc's Camp Murray 2008 (www.campmurray.org), work and a couple of things I'll have to find time to write about later.

At the very least, I can be happy that I didn't let the whole month go by without a blog.

2008-04-30T10:21:00.003-07:00

I'm in ITIL v3 Fundamentals training this week. As process management goes, it's relevant but kind of dry. -- Update on Friday 5/2/08 -- I finally finished the class and took the test for ITIL v3 Fundamentals certification. I won't know for 5 business days if I got it. I think I did OK on the test. If my understanding is correct, I am fully qualified to follow a service management conversation without being lost and to take the continuing classes that will enable me to actually do something with ITIL and process improvement. As they say, I have enough knowledge to be dangerous. But then again, they've been saying that for years -- and about a lot of subjects.

2008-04-28T07:08:00.002-07:00

Antique Computer Works (NEC PC8401A Starlet)

I'm digging around in an old storage shed and I come across a computer that I haven't used in years. It's an old laptop from 1984 (eventhough I didn't buy it until about 1992).

So there it is all set up and working. I have the main laptop and the small-suitcase-sized floppy disk drive. I won't go into detail on it because you can follow the links I will provide shortly to get all the information you could ever want about this handy little piece of history. I really like the keyboard and that it will run off of four C-cell batteries. I'm not sure what to do with it. I really don't want to use it. I don't have a place, or a desire, to display it as a geeky knick-knack. I could sell it or send it to a computer museum. I really don't know. I also have a printer cable and 1200 baud modem (the internal 300 baud modem doesn't work any more). I looked around for a BBS that I could try to log into and I could find nothing. Before the internet TJ and I were active in FidoNet but it has just all dried up. I could get a shell dial-up account and actually hook this computer to the internet but that would cost about $20 per month. I'm just not that interested in testing those capabilities. So there you have it, computer history. I also have a Commodore 64 in a box and an Epson Equity 1 (old PC clone at 4.77 MHz) on a shelf.

Links for information on the Starlet: PC-8401A at Old-Computers.com; NEC Starlet at Uncle Roger's Computers; and finally a review of the PC-8401 from the December 1985 Compute! magazine.

Lawnmowing and Guitar Hero

2008-04-21T09:35:00.001-07:00

Lawnmowing and Guitar Hero

This weekend began a summer tradition that continues to make me proud of my older son, Duncan. He never really wants to start mowing lawns but once he gets a taste of the money, he does it - but not always without some complaints.

Two weeks ago I ordered a part from Sears to fix our lawnmower. The cable that goes from the handle to the motor and operates the safety-oriented "kill switch" that most mowers have now broke at the end of last year's mowing season. No one even pretends to carry that item in stock (not even Sears). So last week it comes in and I fix the mower. That means last weekend was the first weekend Duncan could earn money.

He made $40 dollars that we immediately went out and spent on a Guitar Hero controller for the X-Box 360. He actually owes me the money from one more lawn ($20) but he's good for it. In the past he's raised enough money to buy his own X-Box 360, Nintendo DS, his latest Desktop computer and his latest laptop computer. He's also purchased a variety of video games and at least one year on X-Box live. I think it's taught him the value of money and the effort it takes to get it. He also has to learn to hold onto money and not spend it on whatever. He's pretty good about it when he's saving for a goal.

North Texas Rally

2008-04-17T13:43:00.001-07:00

North Texas YRUU Rally

Over the weekend closest to April Fools (4-6), I went with the OKCs Unitarian Church YRUU group (Young Religious Unitarian Universalist) to the North Texas Rally at the UU church in Plano, TX. With spring high school activities and the annual MedFaire at OU, we ended up with only six youth and two adults in the van. Since this is the closest youth rally of the year, we got there early enough to hang out for a while before the opening circle. I'm not going to give a minute-by-minute account of the weekend but I will say that it was fairly well organized with a good social action, a well recieved theme speaker, and a good group breakfast on Sunday morning.

The Shrine Circus (again).

2008-03-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

The Shrine Circus (again).

Took the kids to the Shrine Circus yesterday. Duncan has been going since he was one year old. He's had enough of the circus -- at least according to him he is. Calvin still has fun watching the acts and got a pony ride, a plastic "light-up" sword, and a big balloon from one of the Shriner clowns.

I could take a minute to discuss the nature of clowns and why they can freak-out some kids. From my understanding, most clowns fall into two categories: the white-face harlequin and the happy-hobo. Both type can mess with what parents drill into their children, "Don't talk to strangers!" And what could be stranger than some large, garishly decorated person getting right in your face and acting weird. Neither Duncan nor Calvin have any problems with clowns but some of their friends get creeped out by them.

The art form of the Circus is somewhat in decline. Between TV show-based tours, Disney on Ice, 24 hour cartoons and DVD players in most cars, an actual dog and pony show can fall a little short.

The show started with a Tiger act. It was pretty low-key compared to some of the other acts but the trainer had both a pretty good comedy schtick and lots of information about the plight of tigers in the wild. All of the tigers came from a wild animal rescue preserve in Florida and all of the money the act gets goes to saving more tigers.

There was also a dog act, a cat act, a bear act and an elephant act. On the human side they had a trapeze act, a quick-change magic act, a bmx trick act, a motorcycles in a metal ball act and a few others I've forgotten.

We ended up with 12 people in our group with TJ and I, Duncan, Cal, both grandmothers, TJ's aunt, her granddaughter, a friend, a friend of Cal's and his mom and little sister. It was quite a crowd.

After the circus, 9 of us went to eat at Hideaway Pizza then went home and relaxed.

A Comedy of Errors

2008-03-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

A Comedy of Errors

So I'm sitting here in Jones, Oklahoma waiting for a tow-truck to take my younger brother's van back to his house. We were supposed to use the van to move some bookcases for my Mom. But that would be too easy; so my brother came up with a better idea.

He found another van in Jones that he wanted to buy for parts to help keep his van running. Now this is a 1972 v-8 van that gets very bad gas mileage. So rather than spend money keeping this van running, he should just get a different fuel-efficient used car. He didn't like that idea.

On the way out to Jones his van started cutting out. I'm not entirely sure how we're supposed to tow this other "parts" van back to OKC with his current van cutting out. We eventually get to the place in Jones and no one is home.

That's right, no one is home. He didn't call ahead to verify that anyone would be there. After leaving a note on the door he heads further into Jones to an auto repair shop. Of course it's closed but it's also the guy's house so he lend's my brother some tools and helps him verify that his fuel pump is out.

I call for a tow and since we are within a stone's throw from the edge of civilization, we get to wait for an hour and a half for them to get here.

Well, its only a Saturday. What better way to spend the day than to wait in the middle of nowhere waiting on a tow.

Too Much Time on Facebook

2008-03-27T11:40:00.001-07:00

Too Much Time on Facebook

I've been neglecting my Blogger Blog (this thing) and spending most of my time on Facebook. It can be a neat place to hang out and waste time. I really like the chess playing application. The only problem is that I'll lose my train of thought and make a silly move about 2/3 of the way into a game and then spend the rest of the time making up for it.

As far as work goes, I'm still at Seagate and still enjoying the projects I am on.

As far as the house goes, I have tons to do. I do some of it but still play with the kids and help keep things moving forward with the family.

As far as politics go, It will be interesting to see what happens in Pennsylvania and with the Michigan and Florida delegations. I'd like to see the party (D) come together or they could fumble and lose what is still seen as a slam-dunk -- sorry about the mixed sports metaphors.

That's all for now.

2007-11-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

Weekend with some High School buds

This weekend Tamara and I and the kids all went to a downtown OKC hotel for a dinner and movie night put together by some old friends from High School. I graduated from Putnam City West Sr. High in 1983 and hadn't seen some of the crowd since then.

The group started getting together when another friend, Brian Myers, came back into town from New Zealand. After this event we've been e-mailing around and adding the occasional person to the list. This was actually the 2nd event since meeting up with Myers but the first one I've been able to make it to. I do feel like I've done my part in spreading the "good news" of the event by passing the information to a friend in Texas, that would be you Lionel, who then came up for the shin-dig.

The evening featured two rooms; one for adults with an open bar and an R rated movie, and one for the kids with videos and no open bar. There was some debate as to what kids would find enjoyable so I offered to bring some movies and stuff. We brought some Wallace and Gromit, Howl's Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service, Flushed Away and Meet the Robinson's. Duncan also brought his laptop to play some Runescape if there was any Wifi in the hotel. I also packed up the X-box with the portable LCD screen but left that in the van when Duncan forgot to bring any of his games for it.

We got the kids watching Wallace and Gromit while the adults looked at old yearbooks and compared notes on lost friends. There was eventually a catered dinner, a DVD presentation of old photos (set to mid-eighties music, of course), and the watching of the adult movie, Lucky Number Slevin.

Now I remember when this movie came out and I wasn't too impressed with the way it was marketed. It just didn't seem like it would be a very good movie. Well it was a fairly enjoyable film. There were lots of twists and turns that fall together in a mildly predictable, but not to much, way.

About 1/2 way through the movie one family had to bail as their young daughter was appearing in a student film and had to be on the set early the next morning. Tamara took this opportunity to pack up our kids (the only other chill'uns there) and head on out to the homestead.

With Lionel as my ride, I stayed to the bitter end. Actually not bitter at all. The whole thing was over by 11pm with lots of hugs, pictures and promises of future gatherings. There's even a yahoo group now to handle the listserv duties as more of the old crowd is brought into the fold.

I talked Lionel into joining me the next day at the Unitarian Church to surprise an old college buddy that goes there too. But wouldn't you know it, the person that never misses church, she's in the choir, was gone last Sunday. I thought she must be sick but she was just in Altus for the birthday of a relative. Lionel will be back up here around Thanksgiving, we'll plan something with Cheryl for that time.

So that was my weekend and now I've written about it. Yippee for me!

2007-10-30T15:14:00.001-07:00

Test of mailing a blog entry

Ok. I'm sending this from my phone (a Cingular 8125). It's probably AT&T by now but the phone has Cingular printed on it.

I'm into my second week of my new job as a Systems Engineer at Seagate. So far I like my job, like the people I work with and am excited about the projects I'm being put on.

That's enough of a test for now.

2007-08-29T21:21:00.000-07:00

OKC Writers Meetup Group (with short story)

So there's this place called Meetup.com where you can sign up for groups that like, meet in the real world. So I signed up to be notified if one of these started in Oklahoma City. Around July one did. I've been going for a while and I put up a challenge/writing prompt on the message board for the group. It's an old formula. Write a 500 word story using three words. I picked: imbroglio, quiesce, and nebulous. So here's what I wrote. So far no one else has written anything.

Untitled 500 words for the OKC Writers Meetup

When we arrived at "Imbroglio" the knife fight had just started. They seated us anyway and we had a pretty good view of the pit.

A thrust, a parry, a knee to the groin, an elbow to the face, and a slash across the throat left both combatants bloody but only one was standing. He looked over and we all waved and cheered.

"That was hardly worth my time," StanTheMan said and pulled up an extra chair to the table. "Your entourage is getting larger Dave. Are any of them real tonight?"

"No. Just taking some new creations out for a walk; seeing how they interact, getting some debug data for later." Dave got up and moved behind a petite woman with black pony-tails and an interesting multinational face. "Think she can kick your ass?"

"I'm not fighting a speed freak so you can have a laugh," Stan sneered and shook his head.

"Not speed, realism. She should be fun, unexpected and believable."

“Naw, I remember the last time you told me about realism over speed. I felt like a potato being peeled,” said Stan.

“Yeah, that was funny,” Dave said and chuckled. It was picked up in varying degrees by several of his entourage. Dave moved his hand and the laughter stopped. “But this time is different. I have a contract for an advanced sparring program. Stan looked over at the girl. She returned his gaze directly.

“She have a name yet?”

“Naw, but that’s customizable. I’m also working on a couple of other skins.” Dave said and touched his hand. The girl turned into a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, buzz-cut, surfer dude and then a black woman with an afro and an outfit out of a 1970s exploitation film and then back to the original.

"I'll take her out for a spin, but not in the open pit." Stan stood and raised his hands to quiesce the scene. All of the other tables and the people at them faded to a nebulous glow. Stan turned to face the woman, slowly drew a knife from his belt and attacked.

The knife hit the back of the chair. Stan was provoking a speed response to test Dave. She had rolled out of the chair but still had a gash on her arm. She kicked, he dodged and thrusted. The girl produced her own knife and they danced. Slash and crash, they moved across the restaurant taking hits and recovering. Eventually Dave tried to interrupt.

"She's tired; let's stop for now."

"I'm not. I'm having fun. Leave her here if you’re bored," Stan said while pressing his attack. His next thrust would be a kill, but she was no longer there.

"You asshole, I wasn't done," Stan said and threw his knife at Dave. It pierced his throat and a gout of blood hit the floor a second before Dave. Everyone in the party faded and was gone.

Later Dave e-mailed the sparring program to Stan and all was right between the friends.

2007-08-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

Returning After A Long Absence

I don't know why but I just didn't post anything for forever. It was actually so long that Blogger changed the way you log in. Well, I've got that all worked out. I'm gonna try to get some stuff to post. No telling what it will be.

2006-11-02T07:44:00.000-08:00

Oklahoma State Question and Oklahoma County Judge Voting

Here's my take on the state questions and Judge races. Let me know what you think, I'm not adamant on any of these positions.

SQ 274 -- State lawmakers can't get paid while in jail if found guilty of a crime. I'd say vote yes.

SQ 275 -- Gives committee of Gov. and head of state senate and house more leeway to use Rainy Day Fund money to help keep business in Oklahoma. There are some restrictions so the fund doesn't get overspent. I'd say vote yes.

SQ 733 -- Currently liquor stores must be closed on election day while polls are open (7am - 7pm). This questions wants to repeal this so that liquor stores can be open during election voting. I'd say vote no.

SQ 734 -- This question gives a tax exemption to property brought into the state if it stays less than 90 days. This is also called the Free Port exemption to encourage import businesses bringing in stuff from out of the US and then selling it to people out of state. If the stuff stays in the state more than 90 days or is sold to someone in state then the exemption goes away. I'd say vote yes.

I'm not sure how many of these judges will be on our ballot but they all list as being in Oklahoma County so I'll list them.

District 7, Office 1 -- Malcolm M. Savage vs. Kenneth C. Watson
I would say vote for Savage. News articles about the candidates rate him higher than Watson.

District 7, Office 7 -- Vicki Robertson vs. Pat Crawley
I'm inclined toward Robertson but I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.

District 7, Office 10 -- Susan Caswell vs. Bill Graves
I'd say Bill Graves This is a strong recommendation as I see Ms. Caswell as a menace to the judicial process.

District 7, Office 12 -- Carolyn R. Ricks vs. Kenneth Linn
I'm inclined toward Ricks but I don't see any controversy here either way.

Associate District Judge Oklahoma County -- Richard Kirby vs. Nan J. Patton
I'm inclined toward Patton but again, I don't see much difference between the candidates.

Here's a news article about the OKC judge races ( http://news.pajamasmedia.com/2006/10/30/11670087_Judicial_hopeful.shtml ).

So there you have it. If you have any other information or opinions on any of these judges or state question, please let me know what you think.

2006-08-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

What Kind Of Writer Am I

Unfortunately I'm the kind of writer that writes barely enough to deserver to call myself one. That notwithstanding, I took this little internet quiz and I'm posting the results below.

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from.

And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi.

Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics...

Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

That was so unexpected. Who would ever have guessed that I might have an idea at being a Science Fiction author. Whew! Glad that's settled.

2006-07-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

Oklahoma Fifth Congressional District candidate forum notes.

I just got back from the Edmond Chamber of Commerce candidate forum and I thought I'd post a few notes about it.

I'm not sure why, but I thought this was just going to be a Democratic candidate forum. So I was pretty surprised when all the people with Republican candidate shirts started showing up.

The MC said that Mick Cornett wasn't going to appear, so I have no comments on him.

The first speaker was Denise Bode. Let me tell you, I had a hard time not heckling her especially when she went on about removing birthright citizenship.

Fred Morgan spoke next. Now I will say that he and Denise were very polished at public speaking. They both had their act down. I could tell that they were giving pretty much canned speeches that took no account of a Democrat being in the race. Morgan, Bode and Calvey all tried to out conservative each other. Fred's mainly running on his 12 years in the state house.

At this point, I'm remembering that I didn't take notes as to the order of the speakers. So I'm going to proceed anyway and if I get a couple of them flipped in order, please forgive me.

I think Kevin Calvey spoke next (I think it was either him or Bert Smith so I'll do him next). Calvey tried to out conservative the others by saying that he believed so much in the current "war" on terrorism that he signed up for reserve duty (and was called up to help with the hurricane relief in New Orleans). By this point the Republican rhetoric was blending together: tough on immigration, tough on terrorism, eliminate taxes, cut pork hard, be like Coburn.

I'm pretty sure Bert Smith spoke next. He wasn't the least charismatic speaker present but only because the independent candidate edged him out. What he said sounded good to me but I'm more the choir than the crowd for a Democratic candidate. The only thing I noticed was that the recitation of true Democratic credentials fell on deaf ears with this crowd. There's no doubt that Mr. Smith has a solid background in state Democratic politics but in a district where a significant number of registered Democrats will vote for the Republican anyway, being considered the "true" Democrat might not be the best way to convince people. I think he made some points with his record as a person with a military background that has differing opinions on the Iraq conflict.

Next up was Matthew Horton Woodson. He's an independent candidate and pointed out that he was the only candidate present that could assure you he'd be on the November ballot. He had a halting and somewhat confused presentation that ended up centering on certain theories about the September 11, 2001 attacks and the role of domestic influences on the events. He wants to push for a full investigation and a full disclosure of government documents that have yet to be disclosed. No one was waiting with a "special jacket" for Mr. Woodson when he finished but occasionally during his presentation I thought there might be.

As far as I can remember Dr. David Hunter spoke next. His presentation wasn't quite as polished as Bode, Morgan or Fallin but he did speak fairly smoothly. Unfortunately neither Democratic candidate has that dynamic speaker thing going. I know it's just surface theatrics, but if a candidate can't captivate the audience they have little chance of being remembered positively at the ballot. Dr. Morgan hit his high points with health care and education. He reached his most conservative when describing the need to reevaluate American foreign aid to make sure we can fix our problems at home before fixing the world. I mean that sounds like a conservative theme to me but in a world where we spend hundreds of billions in Iraq this may now be a downright liberal idea. I get so confused sometimes.

Next up was Mary Fallin. She was pretty slick and made several points with the moderate conservatives in the room. My impression is that she or Mick Cornett will get the nomination. Again, she hit the standard Republican highlights and had a jovial, practiced presentation. She'll be difficult for either Democratic candidate to beat.

And last was Johnny B. Roy. He was probably the funniest of the candidates. He is an emigrant to this country. From his description of his path to running for Congress in Oklahoma it sounded like he might be from Iraq or India or somewhere in that region. He didn't exactly say but he did give some geographic clues. He seemed different from other Republican candidates in that he also addressed health care and education. Other than that he had pretty standard Republican stands on all of the issues mentioned.

After this we were told that there would be no questions because the opening statements had used up all of the time (90 minutes). People milled around and chatted with the candidates. I got to say Hi and introduced myself to both Democratic candidates.

At this point I like both Democratic candidates enough to support either one after the primary. I would encourage all Democrats to do the same. Supporters of Mr. Smith and Dr. Hunter (the progressive and the moderate) shouldn't fight each other to bitterness during the primary. The real battle will be to put a Democrat in the Oklahoma Fifth Congressional District. The Republicans will mount a formidable and well funded campaign. And you can bet that they will all join behind their candidate and fight hard to keep this seat in the R column.

2006-02-06T20:25:00.000-08:00

The freakily accurate personality test

Tamara said that mine is me (except I can be cynical) and hers describes her pretty well (you have to go to her blog to see it).

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:

You have medium extroversion.
You're not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party.
Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences.
But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your "down time."

Conscientiousness:

You have medium conscientiousness.
You're generally good at balancing work and play.
When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done.
But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it.

Agreeableness:

You have high agreeableness.
You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly.
Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone.
You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance.

Neuroticism:

You have low neuroticism.
You are very emotionally stable and mentally together.
Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly.
Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure.

Openness to experience:

Your openness to new experiences is high.
In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas.
You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits.
A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.
The Five Factor Personality Test

2006-01-24T19:22:00.000-08:00

Alright already, I'll update my dang blog

So I haven't updated my blog in a while. I'm a slug. Tamara did the Personality defect test and wanted me to do it also. So I did. And here are the results for your amusement.

Hand-Raiser

You are 57% Rational, 85% Extroverted, 14% Brutal, and 42% Arrogant.

You are the Hand-Raiser, that annoying kid in class who always had an answer for everything. No doubt, as a child you probably sat in the front of the class, anxiously waving your hand back and forth in the air while your teacher desperately tried to avoid calling on you because you were the ONLY fucking kid that answered her questions. Clearly, the key traits of your personality are your rationality and your extroversion. You are like a little talkative calculator, in other words. You also tend to be rather gentle and less arrogant than most people. So what is your defect, then? Well, you're boring, and when you're not boring, you are just plain annoying with your ultra-logical responses and constant need to talk to others. So keep waving that hand in the air, son. I'm still not calling on you. You are too logical, you talk too much, and your humility and gentleness only makes me hate you more, because they make me feel like I almost SHOULDN'T hate you. But I do. Big time.

To put it less negatively:
You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.
You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted.
You are more GENTLE than brutal.
You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.
Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Brute.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Braggart, the Haughty Intellectual, and the Robot.

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:
The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
If you like good humor, be sure to take my girlfriend's Mullet Test, because it is much more awesome than this test.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 32% on Rationality
You scored higher than 88% on Extroversion
You scored higher than 7% on Brutality
You scored higher than 40% on Arrogance

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

2005-11-11T17:29:00.000-08:00

I'm a glutton for punishment

I sent a letter to the local paper today in response to two letters. Here are the letters and my response. I don't know if they'll use it or how they'll edit it. In the past they've edited my letters in a way that makes them nearly nonsensical.

Here are the letters that spurred me on:

Dangerous game
Some organizations and individuals are undermining the morale of the American people and our military, here and in Iraq and Afghanistan. These people seem to forget that 3,000 American citizens lost their lives on 9/11. They forget that the Arab world has a well-financed and well-organized group who, if they had weapons of mass destruction, would use them on this country and our people in a New York second. These adversarial organizations and individuals are playing a dangerous game in attempting to undermine the morale of the American people and our military. Whatever their motive, they are aiding and assisting people who could destroy America in the blink of an eye. Those opposed to the war had better take a serious look at themselves because they could get something they don't really want.
Fred Sexton, Oklahoma City

Spell it out!
Charles C. Waddle (Your Views, Nov. 2) is upset because signs describing Oklahoma City use the words "Okla City." I'm upset by people writing Merry Christmas as "Merry Xmas." The "X" is an unknown. Christ suffered and died on the cross for our sins. The least one can do is write out Merry Christmas.

Caroylen Yoder, Caney

And here is my response:

Protest Is Important

In “Dangerous Game” (Your Views, Nov. 11) Fred Sexton implies that protesters help terrorists by “undermining the morale of the American People and our military.” The freedom to protest is one of the most sacred our military helps to protect. Did protests in New England states undermine the US in the War of 1812? Did northern copperheads undermine the Union effort in the Civil War? Did Mark Twain undermine the U.S. by protesting imperialism in the Spanish-American War? Did protests during World War I and before World War II undermine an Allied Victory? They did not. Were they convenient? No. Were they necessary? Yes. The ability to preserve the flag, sing patriotic songs and support the government regardless of motive are things supported by dictatorships and republics alike. It is only in the free world that you can say to the government, “You’re doing something wrong and we need to change it.” As President Theodore Roosevelt said, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” And in response to “Spell it out!” (Your Views, Nov. 11) the X in Xmas is the first letter of the Greek spelling of Christ and commonly used as an abbreviation all through the middle ages.

There you go.

2005-10-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm A Big O'l Geek.

I've just set up my wi-fi card for my iPAQ pocket PC. So naturally I have to go to blogger and tell the whole world about it. Of course, being the geek that I am, I have to write this whole post - including html - using the handwriting recognition area. This fits in well with the two previous posts written longhand on the tablet PC I have through work. ( BTW - I still have the third day of Iforum I need to post. I'll try to do that tomorrow.) I'm out on the internet trying to find the little corners and ghettos where the small screen of the ipaq is welcome. Pocket PC Magazine has a pretty neat list of mobile friendly sites. Blogger's not on it but it seems pretty "mobile" friendly so far. As I find cool sites I'll tell Duncan about them so he can geek out over them when he's on the internet with the ol' Ipaq.

2005-10-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

Citrix IForum 2005 Day 2

October 10, 2005 – Monday started with the alarm clock provided with the room. Since Las Vegas is two hours earlier than Okc, by the time the alarm went off, I was ready to get up. I joined Larry for breakfast provided by the conference – sausage, egg and cheese biscuits and various breads, juices, fruits and coffee.

The morning was taken up with the keynote speech of the conference. We got to sit for 3 hours (with one 20 minute break) and listen to how wonderful Citrix is and to hear a 50,000 foot view of the next year’s advances and products. I can’t tell you how exciting it was – I really can’t. Next came lunch and more talking with vendors in the Exhibition Hall. We had fajitas and I got a mini USB hub — yippee. Then another afternoon of Citrix-oriented sessions (I’m writing this during a session on creating isolation environments to run applications that either conflict with other applications that could be installed or that have very specific, usually outdated, requirements for associated applications like MDAC).

After the sessions ended I skipped the networking reception (Larry went and said he was one of about 10 people that showed up). I went in search of some fun. I took a cab down the strip a ways and looked at some of the casinos there. I saw that Circus Circus has $5 blackjack tables. When walking between casinos, I talked with some friendly homeless guys - I even gave one a buck. I’m such a philanthropist. I ended up back at the room fairly early but didn’t feel like paying $12 for another day of high-speed access (the conference has free wireless internet). So I Just read and went to bed.

2005-10-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

Citrix iforum 2005 report - day 1

October 9, 2005 – The day actually started Saturday with packing. I was able to get everything into two carry-on bags. I put my tablet computer bag inside my other computer bag so I’d have extra room for stuff I’d get at the conference. So I get picked up at 5:30am to make our 7 am flight. Outside of napping on the plane, the trip was pretty uneventful. Larry, a colleague also going to iforum, checked into the Luxor and I checked into Mandalay Bay. We got some lunch at a very slow burger place in the mall between Mandalay Bay and the conference area. We listened to an afternoon of sessions that would only bore all but the most ardent systems support personnel.

There were a couple of hours between the sessions and the exhibition hall reception. Larry went back to his room to nap and I did the same. Or at least that was the plan. I ended up having so much coffee that I didn’t feel like napping. So I took a walk down our little section of the Las Vegas strip. I saw the outsides of the Mandalay Bay, the Luxor and the Excalibur. In the distance was New York, the Tropicana and the MGM Grand; but I didn’t walk that far down. The Mandalay Bay, the Luxor and the Excalibur were all connected; so I walked back to my room though the 3 casinos.

When Tamara and I went to Reno last year in October, to meet friends, I mainly played blackjack with the others we met there. In Reno there’s a lot of 5 dollars a hand blackjack. But we’re cheap bastards so we were always looking for the 3 dollar blackjack. We started looking for 1 dollar blackjack but quickly found the tables rarely went below 3 dollars a hand. We did eventually find a 1 dollar table but it was very crowded and they were using a 6 deck shoe (this puts your odds very much in favor of the house). I tell you all of this as preface so you’ll understand how dumbstruck I was to see $25, $50 and $200 a hand minimum on all the tables. And all of these tables looked like they were using the 6 deck shoes. Later on I did find a couple of $15 dollar tables and one $10 table. There’s no way I could feel comfortable playing at any of these tables. The bright side of all of this is that the Mandalay Bay hosted a Sumo tournament the weekend the conference started. If I’d known about it earlier I might have come in a couple of days early to see it. As it was, I only got to watch several Sumo wrestlers playing blackjack. And I was able to get a t-shirt from the tournament.

After a couple of hours of wandering around the Exhibition Hall eating tortellini and drinking wine and listening to vendors tell me I really needed their product to make my Citrix experience complete, I went back to the room and fell asleep. Boring, yes, but I was having some allergy trouble and didn’t want it to get worse. So there’s my fist day.

2005-10-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

Conspiracy Theory Rock

This originally appeared on Saturday Night Live. This TV Funhouse cartoon aired only once and was never seen again. There was probably a bit too much truth in it for GE the company who owns NBC.

I came across it looking at random internet videos and thought I'd share it.

2005-09-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

Brain Dead and Mind Numb

These last few days have been pretty hard on me. I still have some lingering mucus from my cold / allergies. We’ve also been pretty busy at work. In addition to everything else, I’m “on call” this week. My last job, in web programming, didn’t have a call rotation. If anything went wrong, they called me regardless of the time or day-of-the-week. Luckily our web stuff is pretty solid and we hardly ever had anything break. That kind-of spoiled me. Now I’m in a group with hundreds of servers that span dozens of applications. Being “on call” can now mean something. And by “mean something” I mean that it could be horribly inconvenient as things I’ve never heard of break in new and interesting ways. Of course this is also a great learning opportunity. Doesn’t every one like being randomly woken up at 2:30 in the morning so you can learn something totally new.

Maybe I’ll try to write something more creative later in the week.

2005-09-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

Assassination Vacation

I’m feeling much better today. My allergies / head cold aren’t bothering me that much. I had a pretty busy day at work and the movement helps me feel better. I don’t know if it really makes sense or not, but sometimes I feel worse if I just sit around when I feel sick.

I’ve been reading Jonathan Lathem’s “The Fortress of Solitude” and its been pretty slow going. The story, so far, focuses on a white kid growing up in a predominantly black part of Brooklyn, NY in the mid to late 1970’s. Latham’s other books I’ve read always had some surreal aspects that helped keep my interest up when the prose draged. There’s very little of that here. There is honesty to the descriptions of what the kids do and how they interact that’s pretty interesting. But there’s something about the book that just doesn’t really make me want to pick it up.

So while I didn’t feel well, we went over to Borders and bought Sarah Vowell’s latest book “Assassination Vacation.” There’s something about the way she writes that I like and after three days I’m almost done with the book. The book follows her trips exploring the Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley presidential assassinations. She has a pretty good sense of humor and I’ve liked all of the other books we have by her.

I’d heard some of her radio essays on public radio’s "This American Life." I mainly listened to hear stuff by David Sedaris; but I’d hear her stuff too. It wasn’t until she did the voice of Violet in the movie “The Incredibles” that I was reminded of her work and went out and bought some.

2005-09-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, that didn’t work.

My writing every day and posting to the blog only lasted 4 days. I did some extra writing but, for the most part, I’ve let life get in the way of writing. I’m only marginally able to manage my time – at the best of times – so it’s no surprise to me that I wasn’t able to keep this going.

I find it too hard to get up in the morning and be productive at something like writing. Most mornings I feel pretty good if I can get me to work and Duncan to school without forgetting something. The problem, though, is that the freest time I have is after the boys have gone to bed. I’m usually pretty tired by then and find it difficult to do more than read.

I don’t want to whine here about my time mismanagement / being a slug issues. So I’ll. Just try to do something here. It may be fiction, diary, rants, I don’t know yet.

I’m also coming down from a head-cold / allergy attack that’s lasted about 4 days. At this time of year it gets hard for me to tell the difference between a cold and an allergy attack. Usually if I’m not generally achey then I assume its just allergies.

That’s about it for now. Let’s hope I can write some tomorrow too.

2005-01-04T21:40:00.000-08:00

Today's Topic -- A Year After Your Death

"If you're seeing this message then I'm dead," the video transmission said. The message came in from the interstellar sleeper ship Tyrone, now a little more than one light year away from earth. It was Captain Sara Johnson.

"They made me record this before we left in case something happened to the ship. There should be data accompanying the message from the black-box transmitter on the ship. While I hope this is only a malfunction, I have been assured that you won't see this unless we are all dead. I'm sorry Allen; I really wanted to come back to you"

The transmission ended and Allen turned off the portable DVD player. He looked up at the Space Agency representative who had brought this to him. His name-tag said DuPont, Travis.

"We've confirmed the ship has split into two main parts with a cloud of debris surrounding it," DuPont said. "Of course it's still traveling at a good percentage of the speed of light towards the Tau Ceti system. We have a team looking at the data, trying to see if there was a flaw in the ship or if this was caused externally."

Allen didn't know how to react. Sara left eight years ago on this mission and had about 120 left to go. He had expected his little sister to outlive him by many decades.

"Thank you for coming by but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this," Allen said.

Well you could use this as the beginning of a story or as a bit of background before doing a character study of either Sara or Allen. I'm not sure but I had a pretty hard time coming up with even this much. The trick, of course, is that it took the message a year to get back to Earth. So even though they just found out about it, it's a year after her death. This is one of the days I did the last time I used this list of writing exercises and it gave me trouble then too. I have a semi-long rant about death associated with that. I think I'll reprint it here just to make this post that much longer. Here it is.

A year after my death the atomic clock with open the vault and all of you that are present can have your bodies removed.

A year after my death I won't care what happens because I won't be here to see it.

Even if I'm reincarnated I'll only be a year old and my memories will have been wiped so I'll only be a baby carrying the karmic baggage of countless previous lives. Any of my friends and family that have survived the year after my death may care to remember me but I won't be thinking of them.

If I'm in a place of eternal paradise or eternal damnation my thoughts won't be on this life. I'll either be praising the lord in a mindless dance of devotion or cursing his absence in eternal torment. All of the things that made me who I was will be fading from memory.

Photographs will record my life but only for so long. After memory has faded and all record of my existence has been obliterated by time I will still be dead. If my life, writings, and thoughts change the course of humanity for thousands of years and my name is revered or cursed daily for all measurable time, I will still be dead.

Whether I pass into nirvana or rot in the ground I won't care either way. Will I miss life? I don't know. Sometimes the monotony of the human condition makes me think no. But other times the diversity of human experience and the spark of invention and creative mayhem make me miss the life I will never see after my death. There's something about the here and now that makes me want to stay here. It doesn't seem like fear of the unknown but rather not wanting to leave a party too soon. There's too much fun left to be had.

So a year after my death, I'll be dead. That's all I know for sure about death. There may be an infinite variety of existence before during and after death but all I have available to me is the before death part.

Regardless of the volumes that have been written and the thousands that have been martyred, there is only faith and physical facts waiting after death. The body will rot, or if preserved properly it won't. Faith or its lack will be tested, or it won't. There's no way to tell but there's also no way to absolutely rule out the existence of something more. A year after my death, I'll have the answer ... or I won't.

2005-01-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

Today's Topic -- You are standing in a doorway.

The earthquake started as Officer Robinson reached the crime scene. He was on the fifth floor of the apartment building and immediately ran for a doorway. He braced himself in the door and watched as the body inside bounced across the floor.

The body of a middle-age man had been nearly severed at the waist. His entrails stuck to the floor in a wet mound. His torso was tethered to the mound by his intestines. His face was partially crushed and his jaw enacted a gruesome marionette show as it bounced out of sync with the rest of the head.

A bright light formed at the far end of the apartment. Officer Robinson saw some shadows moving on the far wall. He reached for his gun as the light flashed and went out. The last jolt of the earthquake followed the disappearance of the light and knocked Robinson over and into the corpse. His uniform was ruined. He got up and tried not to spoil the scene further or slip in the gore around the room.

He went quickly to the kitchen with his gun drawn and found an empty room with a large circular scorch mark on the floor. Blood had been used to draw several weird shapes on the walls.

"Robinson, what are you doing in there," Sergeant Tanner said from the other room. "Is it safe to come in?"

"I thought I saw some movement in here that wasn't part of the earthquake," Robinson said. "You better send some crime scene guys in here. There's blood all over these walls."

Robinson could hear the click and whirr of the crime scene photographer and other movement in the other part of the apartment.

"Jesus Christ," Tanner said. "You been in there huggin' the corpse. You're a friggin' mess. Don't tell me you got a thing for chewed up dead people now."

"Very funny; that earthquake knocked me on my ass," Robinson said. "I need to finish up here so I can go scrape this guy off of me."

"Funny thing about that," Tanner said. "The only people who felt the earthquake were the ones already in the building. If I hadn't felt it myself, I'd think you were lying just so you could snuggle up with your friend in there."

"You don't know when to quit, do you?" Robinson said.

"I figure I've got one or two more before it gets too old," Tanner said.

"Sergeant," an officer called from the other room. "You and Robinson should come get a look at this."

(To be continued, I'm sure. I was thinking about some Hellblazer/Call of Cthulu kind of story. I'm not good with the police procedural so that would need work. I just liked the idea of bracing in a doorway during an earthquake next to a gory crime scene.)

2005-01-02T21:31:00.000-08:00

Yippee, two days in a row!

I'm so proud. I actually wrote the second day's topic on the second day. So here it is.

Today's Topic -- Write about a time someone said no.

"You can put that away right now," I said. "I'm not getting into that suit."

"Then you'll die," the Steward said. "It's as easy as that."

"I have acute claustrophobia," I said. "If I get into that thing there's a good chance I'll have a seizure and probably die."

"Then you have a choice to make," he said and tossed the suit onto the bed of my cabin. "This ship has lost hull integrity. There's no way you can get to a section with escape pods without putting the suit on. I've got five other passengers to get into suits. You need to start putting this on now or I am authorized to leave you behind."

With that he turned and left the room. A dull thud shook the room as some other section exploded in decompression. They needed to vent the atmosphere or the whole ship would blow up. I knew that but it didn't make the suit on the bed any more of a lifeline than before.

Space was vast but the ships that traveled through it were little cans. I booked the largest suite and had my meals delivered so I could avoid the corridors. If it wasn't for the opportunity of a lifetime to study at the best university in the quadrant, I would never have gotten into this death trap.

I went to the terminal in my room and checked the emergency screen. It said four minutes and 47 seconds until this section, including this cabin, would begin decompression.

I went back to the bed and stared at the suit. My mind closed in, my vision tunneled, my breathing became ragged; I had to turn away and walk around.

"Three minutes to decompression," a voice announced to my room.

Such a calm voice, I thought. After the air is gone I probably have two to three minutes before I pass out. Then maybe a minute more before I die.

"This is stupid," I yelled and run back to the bed. "I'm not gonna die because I can't get into a damned suit."

I grabbed the suit, unzipped it's front and stepped into the legs. My heart pounded and I started sweating as I put my arms into the sleeves. The room spun as I grabbed the zipper and I passed out.

"Section 42 decompression complete." I heard it far off and I knew that I wasn't dead. I couldn't see anything but I felt air. I'm was still breathing air. I tried to move but I couldn't tell if I did.

"Just lie still and you'll be OK," a voice said. It was the Steward. But where was he; where was I. I didn't really care. "We found a med-kit. We've given you something to relax you. Luckily you had the suit almost on before you passed out."

"How much of this is he hearing," a second voice said from farther away.

"I don't know but I doubt he'll ever get on a space ship again," the Steward said from the farthest away.

I'm not dead, I thought and passed out.

Please comment if you want but remember the raw, first-draft nature of this post.

2005-01-01T21:59:00.000-08:00

Happy FN New Year

Well it's 2005. Hoop de do. I had a pretty good birthday considering we didn't go eat at PF Chang's -- there was an hour and a half wait and I neglected to call ahead for reservations. We had a pretty bad Chinese substitute at China Court down the road. Calvin also chose this day to scream at everything. So it wasn't until the kids were with the Grandmother for the evening that the day really picked up. Tamara and I had some pretty good Bar-B-Que at Oklahoma Station and went to see Blade 3. It's a brain candy action movie but still pretty good. So that's what it's like to turn 40.

Today we had the Hodge/Baker tradional New Year's meal -- enchiladas, tacos and black-eyed peas. They were pretty good. I ate too much and then we all played Uno Attack. With 8 players the game took over two hours. That's just too much "spitting" Uno.

After we got home I remembered what I wanted my only New Year's Resolution to be.

To write every day.

I'll worry about guitar, excercise and other things later. I just want to do this. So I had this idea to use the book, "A Writer's Book of Days" by Judy Reeves and see how long I can keep it going. I tried using this book once before a couple of years ago but it didn't work out. She has the normal writing life rah rah stuff but also an idea a day to write about. So I'm going to try to use her "Idea a Day" part of the book if nothing else and write something and post it here in the blog. That way I get writing practice and blog entries. I'm hoping it lasts more than a week.

Today's topic -- Write about Sunday afternoon.

He woke up to a cat licking his face. The wet sandpaper tongue rubbed against the flesh between his nostrils; wrenching him lick by lick from a happy drunk dream to a hung-over wakefulness. The cat stood on his chest and licked and purred and nuzzled and sailed across the bed barely catching her claws on the edge. She climbed back up and licked her paws as if she'd been doing that all day.

Jerry looked at the cat. His head throbbed. He stared at the cat and contemplated throwing up, getting some aspirin or perhaps a large saw and decapitating himself. It would serve the cat right if he threw up on it but then he'd have to clean it up. He stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom. The day was too bright and the bathroom had no windows. He left the door cracked and navigated his toilet, aspirin and shower with minimal light.

He felt better after the shower and noticed the smells; bacon and coffee. Was someone cooking in his apartment or did he drink enough last night to have a minor stroke? No, he heard a noise. Someone was moving around in the other part of the apartment.

Jerry thought hard. Did he bring someone home last night? He couldn't remember. He went back to the bedroom to get dressed. He looked around for any signs of someone else's stuff. There was nothing. He had no clue who she was but if she was making breakfast... This could be very bad if he couldn't come up with a name.

He went into the kitchen and hoped for the best. He was not ready for what was there. A skinny guy wearing boxers and a tank top literally pranced around the kitchen putting the finishing touches on a full bacon and eggs breakfast. He noticed Jerry in the doorway and stopped.

"Hey, lover boy," he said. "You were really packing them away last night. Come over here and get some food in you. It'll help you face this glorious afternoon." He then went over and sat down at the table.

Jerry stood in the doorway - stunned. The food smelled good but he didn't know this guys name. He didn't know why a guy would be in his apartment at all. He did a quick mental inventory and nothing seemed out of place; but last night was still primarily a blank.

"Hey, come on over and I can explain it to you," the man at the table said. "As drunk as you were last night, I'd be surprised if you can remember who you are if your mother doesn't write your name in your shorts."

Jerry walked across the room and saw a heaping plate of eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast and a cup of coffee just for him. He sat down and looked at the man next to him. He looked to be about a head shorter and fifty pounds lighter than Jerry.

"Look, before you start doubting anything or going over the top, let me introduce myself and tell you want happened," he said between sips of his coffee. "My name's Mark." He held out his hand but Jerry didn't take it.

"You have some mean friends," Mark said. "You thought I was a girl and they sent you over to pick me up. You did too. We were getting ready to leave when I noticed how drunk you were and how much they seemed to be enjoying it. I got you home and barely got you through the door when you passed out hard. I tucked you in and stuck around to make sure you didn't choke on your own vomit."

"Uh, thanks," Jerry said and continued to stare at Mark.

"Oh, I admit I made you breakfast so I could play with you a bit but when I saw you in the doorway I couldn't. You look pretty hung-over and I imagine your friends are going to give you hell about this for a while."

"Yeah, they'll get some good laughs out of this," Jerry said. "We were celebrating. I got a promotion. They just kept buying me drinks and I kept drinking them. I guess I'm getting too old for that kind of shit." Jerry started on the breakfast slowly. He was relieved that he was the only one being stupid last night.

So there you have it. The idea is to write until you get to a stopping point or you run out of steam. This is a first draft so any problems with tense or viewpoint or anything else is not supposed to be on your mind. I'm putting it up in it's raw form. So please comment if you want but remember the raw, first-draft nature of the posts.

2004-11-09T07:40:00.001-08:00

Kerry almost won
This stuff will eventually be a post about the election but I'm putting this up early as a test of blog posting for Tamara.

aggregate total vote delta -- 3,510,358

ohio - 20 -- 136,483

iowa - 7 -- 13,216

new mexico - 5 -- 8,366

arkansas - 6 -- 102,521

---------------

total - 18 -- 124,103

JK total 252

little 3 18

---

total 270

Of course I never did anything else with it.

2004-11-04T20:16:00.000-08:00

Fighting political depression with humor.

Today I decided to stop being depressed about the abysmal political fortunes that have been thrown my way. So I present two items. The first is a link to the victory speech we "know" Bush wanted to give. It’s at www.georgewbush.org/news/victory04.asp . The headline is: INVITING THE 55 MILLION AMERICA-HATERS WHO VOTED AGAINST GOD TO BEND OVER AND TAKE IT LIKE A PRISON BITCH. Love the all caps.

On the other side is:

The Concession Speech We All Wanted to Hear!

I don’t have a link to this as it was sent to me in an e-mail so I’m reprinting it here.

November 03, 2004
Concession Speech

My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken, and spoken with a clear voice. So I am here to offer my concession.

[Boos, groans, rending of garments]

I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. That's really special. And I mean "special" in the sense that we use it to describe those kids who ride the short school bus and find ways to injure themselves while eating pudding with rubber spoons. That kind of special.

I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that.

[Boos.]

Now, now. Credit where it's due.

I concede that I put too much faith in America's youth. With 8 out of 10 of you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples' tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. You suck. Seriously, y'do.

[Cheers, applause]

Thank you. Thank you very much.

There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling "Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!"

More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I'm impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it's not true, the people in the urban centers where al Qaeda wants to attack know it's not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that.

Healing? We, the people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us... we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn't need its allies, doesn't need to share the burden, doesn't need to unite the world, doesn't need to provide for its future. Hell no. Not when it's got a human shield of pointy-headed, atheistic, unconfrontational breadwinners who are willing to pay the bills and play nice in the vain hope of winning a vote that we can never have. Because we're "morally inferior," I suppose, we are supposed to respect your values while you insult ours. And the big joke here is that for 20 years, we've done just that.

It's not a "ha-ha" funny joke, I realize, but it's a joke all the same. Being an independent candidate gives me one luxury - as well as conceding the election today, I am also announcing my candidacy for President in 2008.

[Wild applause, screams, chants of "Fel-ber! Fel-ber!]

Thank you.

And I make this pledge to you today: THIS time, next time, there will be no pandering. This time I will run with all the open and joking contempt for my opponents that our President demonstrated towards the cradle of liberty, the Ivy League intellectuals, the "media elite," and the "white-wine sippers." This time I will not pretend that the simple folk of America know just as much as the people who devote their lives to serving and studying the nation and the world. They don't.
So that's why I'm asking for your vote in 2008, America. I'm talking to you, you ignorant, slack-jawed yokels, you bible-thumping, inbred drones, you redneck, racist, chest-thumping, perennially duped grade-school grads. Vote for me, because I know better, and I truly believe that I can help your smug, sorry asses. Vote Felber in '08! Thank you, and may God, if he does in fact exist, bless each and every one of you.

[Tumultuous cheers, applause, and foot-stomping. PULL BACK to reveal the rest of the stage, the row of cameras, hundreds of unoccupied chairs, and the empty field beyond.]

Now that’s the kind of speeches we needed to hear. I hope you found one or both of them humorous.

2004-11-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

I’m really depressed

I’m wallowing in my depression today. I’m not even trying to see the bright side or the silver lining or accept the challenge of commenting on the ruthless, amoral actions of the recipients of the will of the people. I’ll start that process tomorrow.

2004-11-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

I voted today (for all the good it did me)

I went early and voted. I only had to stand in line for 15 minutes. At lunch Tamara had to stand in line for over 20 minutes. After work I listened to the commentary and watched the web sites and did a few calculations about scenarios. The night played out about how I expected it to except for a couple of states – Ohio and Florida. So John Kerry loses and George W *ucktard is given four more wars. And in Oklahoma Brad Carson loses to Tom Coburn (another *ucktard). And in my neighborhood John Morgan (who would have been a real asset to the state legislature) loses to Trebor Worthen (the last in a long line of *ucktards winning tonight). So all-in-all it was a real "Night of the Living *ucktards."

And for the totally clueless * = F

2004-10-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

Reno Day 4: Trapped in a mini-van careening down a mountain.

Today we decided to go see Carson City and Virginia City. So after getting up and hitting the feed-bag we piled into the minivan and Elisa drove us into a snowstorm. Elisa gets sick in cars but the focus of driving can hold off the nausea for quite a while. So we let her drive. Did I mention we were driving into a snow storm.

Well, it really wasn’t that bad and by the time we got to Carson City it was more of a rainy drizzle. We went through the Nevada historical museum and the Carson City Mint (now a museum). These were pretty cheesy but we picked up a few good trinkets for the folks back home; including a commemorative coin minted on the actual coin press used at the mint during the 1800s. After the museums Tamara and I looked in a coin store where we got Duncan an 1892 silver dollar and a set of coins from 1939.

Before we left town we played a little in the Nugget casino. It’s supposed to be one of the oldest in the state but they didn’t mention that it’s also one of the cheesiest (that’s right – the theme for Carson City was cheese; actually Velveeta). We played some three dollar blackjack for a while (and I was up by a bit). Then someone had the bright idea to try Craps. Which, when I play it, should be called, “Hook a vacuum up to my wallet and suck it dry.” I had very little money left by the time we went back to blackjack and the dealer had rotated. This new dealer cleaned us out. Later I found out that we mainly lost money because a new guy joined the table at the end and he kept going double down on a pair of sixes. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but someone later explained that if he wants to win but screw the rest of the table, then this was a good way to do it. It was kind of interesting because I hadn’t thought about players messing with each other before. I just thought we were playing against the house.

When we were all broke (actually we all just lost $20 each) we got back in the minivan and went to see historic Virginia City (y’know the one from Bonanza). Well if Bonanza’s town was a seedy little tourist trap, they didn’t show it in the TV series. Most of the stores were closed and the Red Light Museum was a real waste of time. We did go to a neat Rock Shop and got Duncan some silicon and coral. Then we left and went back to Reno.

I didn’t realize it at the time but Elisa was getting a little sick and wanted the trip to be over. I just thought she liked to drive fast down twisty mountain roads and scare the shit out of everyone else in the van.

We had some pretty good local pizza and then did more gambling. Of course this was the night they decided to get Tamara drunk so we bought some Vodka for them and some Scotch for me. We practiced our blackjack on the bed using piles of pennies (it was a two-penny table). Elisa, Deb and I played and Sam was our dealer. Tamara played the part of the cocktail waitress. It went pretty well and Sam made about 20 cents in tips.

Being all liquored up we thought it was time to hit the real tables. We checked out Harrah’s and found all of their tables too expensive. We ended up at the Cal-Neva casino with some pretty good dealers. Tamara and Elisa left early (Tamara can take only so much tobacco smoke and Elisa wanted to talk more than play Blackjack). So it was just Deb, Sam and me at the table. I can barely remember how I did, much less either of them. I was up 16 and a half dollars at the end of the evening. It was fun, I got free drinks and I didn’t lose money; that’s what I call a good night at a casino.

2004-10-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

Reno Day 3: Trapped in a punk tattoo world.

This was the day we had set aside to get the girls some skin art. We first ate a huge breakfast at the Venetian buffet. Tamara liked this buffet better because they had more fresh fruit. After brunch we drove around Reno looking for the parts of town that have nothing to do with the gambling industry. We drove by the University of Nevada Reno and several strips malls. When we passed Bizarre Guitar I turned around to look at it. They had tons of guitars but the only things that tempted me were the custom flying v ukulele and the “Emily Strange” Epiphone SG. I didn’t buy anything and it was time to drive on down to Pirate Tattoo.

We got there a little before noon. I thought the appointment was for noon (when they were supposed to open) but Joe the tattoo guy wrote it up for 12:30. So when he got there at 12:10 barely shuffling around the shop he pointed out how he wrote it up and they gals vowed to never let me live it down. He started off the day blasting Flogging Molly and moved on to various punk, psychobilly and Enchanted Metal bands throughout the day.

Elisa was up first with her Gumby tattoo. Joe, the ultra-cool, I live the hardcore life punk tattoo artist, didn’t like the design but he put it on her left shoulder anyway. And it looked pretty good. Then Joe took about an hour to have a break and set up for the next victim. This time it was Tamara getting an image of Flaming Carrot (who would have guessed that) on her right hip. Joe seemed skeptical at first but then he got into the shading on the flippers and the shirt and really did a good job on it. Then we had another hour for breaks and set up and it was Deb’s turn. She did an emblem like a yin-yang but divided into three connected teardrop shapes inside the circle. She then had each section filled with a color gradient; red, blue and yellow. This one went very fast but there was still the hour to take a break and set up before Sam’s tattoo. She had a ring of I-Ching symbols with a Lapis Lazuli symbol in the middle. It means something special to her and turned out really good looking. By the end of the day Joe had warmed up to us and we even had a stirring conversation about the time he threw meat and blood on vegetarian protesters outside of an Oklahoma McDonald’s.

We were all pretty hungry by this point and went back to the hotel complex and ate dinner at Brew Brothers. We all had beer, except Tamara. I had a New York steak. I probably wouldn’t have but Elisa was talking about how rarely she ate beef and I thought, "Hey, I haven’t had a honkin' piece of meat in a while." It was pretty good and the flavor matched the dark beer I was drinking.

With dinner over we were looking for cheaper Blackjack. We had our hearts set on the one dollar blackjack at Circus, Circus. When we got there and looked around they had only one table using a six deck shoe that was both full of players and had people watching, no doubt waiting for an opening on the table. Disappointed with the one dollar table we went to Fitzgerald’s across the street and found a three dollar table.

The good thing about Fitzgerald’s is that they have a card you can sign up for. And since we were in a different hotel they have us each five dollars as an incentive to sign up. We all expect tons of junk mail from this but we wanted the money. Since Tamara signed up too I had an extra ten dollars to play with at the Blackjack table. I did pretty well and broke even for the night and still 8 of the 10 free dollars I started out with. So technically I was up 8 dollars.

2004-10-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

Reno Day 2: We find out that slots suck.

Tamara and I slept late and she didn’t want to eat breakfast, but I did. So I got a coffee and a Danish and we explored the mall that connects the El Dorado to the Silver Legacy and Circus, Circus. We found tons of slots, two buffets, a couple of coffee shops and a kids arcade at Circus, Circus. At the Silver Legacy they had a huge dome with a silver mine replica inside. They also had fake weather going across the dome and would periodically change it from night to day. They had total control over the mediated environment. And they had a good screen for laser light shows – the one I saw was more of a "coming attractions" show so it was pretty lame.

We went to the "Brew Brothers" café where I tried a couple of their micro brewed beers. We also had two huge hamburgers that neither of us finished. We saved them in case we were hungry later but ended up throwing them out when we discovered them the next day. After lunch we went out to the airport to meet Elisa and hook-up with Deb and Sam; who were also already in Reno. We were talking about renting a car for a day or two and after discussing this with Elisa we ended up renting a 2005 Chrysler Town and Country mini-van. We had a discount coupon so it really wasn’t that much.

After we got Elisa checked in to her room we all went downstairs to lose money at slots. We mainly tried the nickel and penny slots. Tamara lost her money quick. I started with five dollars and when I left the machine I had $6.85. At one point I was up by over $5 but the started getting the better of me. I took my ticket (because most of the cheap slots give you a ticket you take to a cashier) and went to another area with the group to play more slots. Luckily most of the slots are ticket-in/ticket-out so I was able to roll my money over to the slot machine – where I promptly lost it all.

We ate dinner at Circus, Circus's Americana Grill. This was kind of like a Denny’s with keno. I asked, "What’s Keno?" and Deb said, "It’s like reverse bingo." You pick your numbers and if you get a lot of matches on the round you win. This restaurant had a special brand where you pick three and if you hit you win $35 and a meal ticket worth $15. Deb and I played. She won and I lost. I really had no more desire to play Keno but I’ve heard the odds are pretty good. With dinner behind us we lost some more money on slots and decided to switch to Blackjack.

The El Dorado only has five dollar minimum tables. So Tamara was pretty aghast when I sat down with Elisa, Deb and Sam. I started out with twenty in chips (4 five dollar chips). I actually won enough to stay even for most of the time we played. It was much more fun and interactive and both the dealer and the other players were very helpful with our hands. Later I discovered that bad or selfish players can mess up a whole table so they had an interest in helping us play up to a certain (although still low) level. I lost my twenty the first night. I think we all did but I’m not sure. The only thing I remember for sure is that the cocktail waitresses come around much more often at the Blackjack tables. And while it’s not cheap entertainment I had so much more fun (and comp’ed drinks) at the Blackjack tables, I didn’t really ever want to play slots again during the trip.

2004-10-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

We’re in Reno Nevada (for a whole week)

If you look at Tamara’s Blog (on the menu to the left) You’ll get a much more in depth view of this, our first full day of the Reno, Nevada internet meetup vacation. But I’m gonna put my own spin on this baby anyway.

The trip actually started Friday night. After working all day we went to the airport and hopped a flight to Denver. At Denver we sat in the plane for nearly an hour as all baggage checked locally was scanned due to a TSA breach of security. We finally got to the hotel (The El Dorado Hotel and Casino in lovely Reno, NV) and in bed by midnight local time (2 am CDT). The highlight of the trip for me was discussing politics with a moderate Republican from the Reno area. I expose the flaw that will probably keep me out of politics when I say that I can’t remember his name. His views annoyed Tamara so much she grabbed my MP3 player and tried to drown us out with that.

The next morning we did what all people want to do on vacation. We slept until we couldn’t sleep any more. After the normal morning stuff we went down and had a honkin’ huge breakfast buffet. The buffet was big, but the honkin’ huge part was how much we ate. After breakfast we wandered around downtown Reno. We went to a gift shop, the post office, some casinos, saw the nice stuff they’ve done with the Truckee River that goes through the middle of town. Around 11:40 (PDT) we ended up at a 12-plex movie theater. Since we didn’t have to get anyone to watch the kids, we went to see “Shawn of the Dead.” It was a pretty funny, and kinda gory movie. After that we went back to the room for a bit before walking all the way down Virginia street to Pirate Tattoo. Some of the people meeting here want to commemorate the occasion with ink so we scoped it out for them. The second hike ended up being about 2.5 miles so we were pretty hungry when we got back. So it was back to the buffet. For dinner you had lots of choices on meats but very few choices on veggies (mainly salad). It was kind of interesting and sad to see so many people with plates brimming full with different kinds of meat and not a plant in sight. After dinner we’ve just been kicking back and doing things like updating our blogs and uploading photos to ofoto. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully we won’t find anything constructive to do with it.

2004-10-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

The Orionid Meteor Shower

I'm tired today but it's my own dang fault. Yesterday Duncan heard a Star Date on public radio talking about the Orionid meteor shower and how it would be peaking on Wednesday night after the moon set around midnight. Well, he got all excited and went to bed early so I could get him up at midnight and we could go and see it. I didn't go to sleep early and didn't get to bed until 2 am and had to get up about 6:30 to get ready for work. So I'm tired.

It's amazing how slow Duncan gets up most mornings but last night he popped right out of bed and got dressed without prodding. We piled into my little S-10 and went out the Northwest Expressway past Piedmont but not quite to Okarche. We turned off the road and then down a side road off that and got to a really dark area.

You could still see the glow of Oklahoma City in the distance to the SouthEast as we sat in the back of the truck wrapped in some green blankets. We sat and watched the sky and talked about stars and stuff. I saw a couple of good ones and a few faint trails. Duncan saw one really good one and a couple of faint trails. After about an hour of sitting out there we went home.

The Orionid meteor shower is what happens when the Earth passes through the debris field left by Halley's comet. Here's a good article on the Orionids.

2004-09-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

I'm In Training Today

I'm in training today, but then again I already said that. Integris Health is sending my team to SharePoint 2003 training so we can, hopefully, do our jobs this next year and implement a new intranet for Integris. I'm mainly listening to lecture but there are some labs for later in the afternoon. It's nice to be out of the office but it would be nicer if this were in Hawaii.

2004-08-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Fair and Balanced My Ass

Media Matters for America has its analysis of Democratic convention coverage by the three major cable news channels. Is it a surprise that Fox News at 3 hours and 40 minutes showed over an hour less of the campaign than either CNN (at 4 hours and 56 minutes) or MSNBC (at 5 hours and 27 minutes). Even conservative Fox News comentator Cal Thomas decried the Fox coverage with the following quote:

"If cable networks do the same thing at the Republican convention and interrupt or not cover Republicans, I think the conservatives out there, especially those who are fans of this network [Fox News] are going to scream and yell. So if you're going to be fair and balanced, I think you have not to cover at least as much of the Republican speakers as you've not covered of the Democratic speakers." emphasis is mine

It'll be interesting to see just how much of the republican convention all of the cable channels show, but especially Fox News.

I actually watched most of the convention from C-SPAN. They just showed the live feed from the convention and had no commentary until it was over. So they probably won the event on amount of coverage with dozens of hours.

Oklahoma Primary Update

So my last post was about voting in the Oklahoma State Primary. I voted for Monte Johnson for US Senate eventhough I knew he had no chance of winning. I feel that in the primary you can sometimes give the nominee a wake-up call by having an alternative challenger with a strong showing. That didn't happen this time as Johnson came in a distant third. And although Brad Carson is more conservative than I like (he's the current 2nd district congressman who often votes with the Republicans), I think he's a much better choice than the near-wacko (Tom Coburn) that the Republicans have nominated. But don't take my word for it, check up on both the candidates and make your own decision.

As for 5th district congressional candidates, I voted for Bert Smith. He's a teacher here in Oklahoma City with a past in military service, two children currently serving and no chance in hell of winning in the general election. I wish it weren't so but Ernest Istook has a stranglehold on the voters in Oklahoma County. I'm not sure if it's the power of incumbency or general apathy but he keeps on winning.

In my own state legislative district, the son of the current incumbent won the Republican primary and an experienced lawyer won the Democratic primary. John Morgan, 61, is a former small business owner, an auditor and a personal bankrupcy lawyer that has built a career helping people having hard times and advocating for fiscal responsibility. He's running against Trebor Worthen, the 24 year old son of the current incumbent. In early press about his candidacy he was listed as working as the office manager for his father's business. That has all changed now and he's being touted as a successful small businessman for some real estate work he did for a company while in college. In short he has no record and has stated no opinions outside of some very conservative social positions. It looks like it will come down to someone who has experience and a record of fiscal responsibility or someone who'll man the barricades against the ungodly homo gun-haters in the Democratic party. It'll be interesting to see who wins.

2004-07-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

Primary Election Today

So today is the second day of the Democratic National Convention and primary day here in Oklahoma. Being a Democrat I got to vote. Since Oklahoma has a closed primary system only Democrats and Republicans can participate in the primaries. Oklahoma is notorious for it's ballot access laws and most minor parties are shut out of the process. I chose the more progressive Democratic candidates because even if they don't win (which they won't) I feel that in a Primary election you sould really vote for who you like, not who you think will win. That's reserved for the general election -- eventhough most of the people I vote for lose anyway.

2004-07-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

WOW! I'm really bad about updating this.

My blog sits and languishes. The last neat thing I did was to get some CSS and javascript together to have the comments hide and unhide. This is mostly used by Tamara, which is OK since she is much better about updating her blog and has more online friends to comment on her entries. I am a slug and most of my friends are slugs (online or not). So I don't post and they don't comment.

I'm going to try to think up a good post later today, or at least later this year.

Test of posting to blog with email

2004-05-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

Test of posting to blog with e-mail

I'm testing some of the new features blogger has enabled including posting to your blog with an e-mail. If this works it'll be so cool.

2004-05-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

American Civil Liberties Union Intervention on Behalf of Christian

After ACLU Intervention on Behalf of Christian Valedictorian, Michigan High School Agrees to Stop Censoring Religious Yearbook Entries.

It just goes to show you that the ACLU is there to protect civil liberties regardless of the political or religious orientation of the complaint. This seems to be something lost on the "traditional values" crowd that demonizes the ACLU as an anti-christian, anti-family organization. Neither is true. The ACLU is pro-civil liberties. They fight for our freedoms as much as any soldier with a gun.

2004-05-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

This is a test

I'm trying to set up blog comments and it's not working so I'm putting in a new post to see if that helps.

2004-02-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

Ben's Funny Story from Arizona

So Ben is this guy I work with. He's cool, plays guitar, and is into pretty good music. He's also a really nice guy. He's in Phoenix, AZ this week for some training and just sent me this note about his time away from home.

Mike,

Gotta funny story for you. So I’m sitting in the bar last night at the hotel. Just me and some skanky looking dudes next to me. So I look over at them and I start thinking these guys look familiar. Then I realize it’s the band Godsmack sitting right next to me. So I sit there, have a couple drinks and decide I’m going to say something to them. Well my friend's band from Florida toured with them this past summer so I go up to the lead singer and say my friend's band Presence toured with you guys and heard you were really cool or something to that extent and the guy was a TOTAL jerk. He said he didn’t know who they were so I was just like, "Whatever, dude!" It was kinda funny though -- the guy has a really deep voice and I figured he’d be some 6 foot + big guy. The dude was pushing 5 feet and scrawny. I probably could have thumped him and broke him in half. Anyway I thought you might find that funny. Have a good one an I’ll see you Monday.

- Ben

Imagine that, a self-involved butthead in the music business. What's the chance of that? Without knowing more I'd have to cut the guy some slack -- it may have been a bad day. But I liked the way Ben told it and felt like sharing.

2004-01-30T09:39:00.000-08:00

Thar she blows! Dead whale explodes

Just a humorous, and gross, story I came across this morning. The best part is that they show you a mound of whale guts with a scooter next to it for size comparison. Also of interest is the description of the dead whale as a tourist attraction -- primarily because of it's FIVE FOOT LONG PENIS. Ya gotta love it.

2004-01-28T21:50:00.000-08:00

Oscar Time!

Well, this week the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the nominations for this year’s Oscars. I only agree with part of their picks but then I only saw 29 of the films eligible for awards this year. From the movies I did see, my nominees for best picture are (and I get seven because it’s not an official list): AMERICAN SPLENDOR, BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, BIG FISH, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, IN AMERICA, LOST IN TRANSLATION, and WHALE RIDER.

With the best picture award going to: LOST IN TRANSLATION.

Tamara will undoubtedly have her own best picture pick (I hear she has a special place in her heart for UPTOWN GIRLS).

Here’s a list of the films eligible for this years awards that I did see. And after that are the films I’ve seen that were eligible in 2002, 2001, and 2000. Most of the films were seen in the year of eligibility but a few have been added since with DVD rentals. I’m not saying these are the best pictures of each year. I saw many films on these lists that I still want to see but haven’t yet gotten around to it. I’m not linking these to the Internet Movie Database (like I did above) but you can find information on all of them at that site.

2003 – 29 films

AMERICAN SPLENDOR
AMERICAN WEDDING
BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM
BIG FISH
BULLETPROOF MONK
COLD MOUNTAIN
DAREDEVIL
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
DR. SEUSS' THE CAT IN THE HAT
FINDING NEMO
FREAKY FRIDAY
HOLES
THE HULK
IN AMERICA
KILL BILL - VOL. 1
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
LOST IN TRANSLATION
THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS
THE MEDALLION
PETER PAN
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
SCHOOL OF ROCK
SPUN
SPY KIDS 3D: GAME OVER
TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES
UNDERWORLD
WHALE RIDER
X2 (X-Men 2)

2002 – 26 films

ADAPTATION
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE
BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
IMPOSTOR
KISSING JESSICA STEIN
KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
THE MASTER OF DISGUISE
MEN IN BLACK II
MINORITY REPORT
MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING
THE POWERPUFF GIRLS
QUEEN OF THE DAMNED
REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES
RESIDENT EVIL
SCOOBY-DOO
SECRETARY
SPIDER-MAN
SPIRITED AWAY
SPY KIDS 2: THE ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS
STAR TREK NEMESIS
STAR WARS EPISODE II ATTACK OF THE CLONES
STUART LITTLE 2
THE TIME MACHINE
Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN

2001 – 22 films

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AMERICAN PIE 2
FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN
FROM HELL
GHOST WORLD
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE
JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS
JURASSIC PARK III
LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER
LEGALLY BLONDE
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE
MEMENTO
MONKEYBONE
MONSTERS, INC.
OSMOSIS JONES
PLANET OF THE APES
POKEMON 3 THE MOVIE
RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
SHREK
SPY KIDS

2000 – 21 films

THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE
ALMOST FAMOUS
THE BEACH
CAST AWAY
CECIL B. DeMENTED
THE CELL
CHARLIE'S ANGELS
CHICKEN RUN
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
DINOSAUR
THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE
GLADIATOR
HAMLET
HIGH FIDELITY
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
THE PATRIOT
PITCH BLACK
POKEMON THE MOVIE 2000
SPACE COWBOYS
TITAN A.E.
X-MEN

2004-01-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

Gun Safety Programs For Kids Don't Work

Despite all of the good intentions of the NRA to keep children safe from unintended gun violence, it appears that the target audience doesn't get it. Darn those 4 and 5 year old kids.

So if you have a gun and you have kids, get a gun safe. Get trigger locks. And don't leave your guns loaded.

I know there are some who will say that defeats the whole point of owning a gun for home protection. But I'd rather someone steal everything I own, than have one of my kids accidentally kill themselves finding a loaded, unlocked gun. How important are your kids to you?

2004-01-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolutions and Civil Union thoughts

Well we're starting a new year and if you look at my blog you'll see that I do about a post a month. I'm pretty bad. Tamara does a pretty good job of documenting her life, and by association most of mine. But that's no excuse for me not posting every excruciating detail of my wretched existence. So my new year's resolutions for 2004 will start with:

Post more often in my blog.
Exercise more (than once a month). I'd like to get to the 3 times a week schedule with some sit-ups with Tamara
Not screw up STAR OKC by action (or inaction)
Get more done - I'm not sure if this is a time management issue or prioritization or just getting up off of my ass and doing stuff rather than watching TV.
Do more with music - This relates to the last resolution but I felt like mentioning it separately.

That's it. I'd like to have someone good to vote for this November and I'd like to get GWB out of office. I'd like to think that even 4 more years of GW's BS won't permanently damage the country. I mean we survived 8 years of Reagan and 4 from Bush Sr. The US has seen darker days and I'd rather the days didn't get any darker.

Civil Union Thoughts

I've been thinking about the arguments for and against Civil Unions (also called Civil Marriage). I prefer to think of them as Civil Unions because of the hot-button issues surrounding the word Marriage and if the argument gets hung up on semantics then that can detract and derail from the meat of the intent; the privileges and responsibilities granted to heterosexual civil unions through the current practice of licensing marriages.

The first thing I think that needs to be done is to separate the concept of marriage as defined by a specific belief system from the registering of a union with a government to gain access to the legal aspects of a joined family (both rights and responsibilities). As far as I can tell no one wants to force a religion to accept a concept of marriage that is against it's teachings. But we have already established the concept of the civil marriage (union) performed by a justice-of-the-peace or other legal and not religious office, like ship's captain. So it is already possible for a heterosexual couple to get married without the consent or knowledge of any religious body. It is this linkage that anti-civil union groups use for many of the arguments against civil unions.

From the basis of a purely civil union, the argument that it is against god and nature holds no force. Arguments must be made in a purely civil way derived from the framework of civil discourse. The US Constitution is the basic civil document upon which laws, and the rules which implement them, and case law are founded. Currently there is the Defense of Marriage Act which prohibits federal recognition of anything but a monogamous heterosexual civil union. If this law were to be found unconstitutional then that could open the door to a civil union not restricted to heterosexual relationships much in the same way that laws prohibiting same-sex acts in private between consenting adults were found to be unconstitutional. It is for this reason that there is a focus on a constitutional amendment protecting the heterosexual definition of marriage. If you change the constitution then you can't say it's unconstitutional.

One argument I've heard is that same-sex civil unions are very much like mixed-race unions were considered 50 years ago. I've also heard (from supporters of the "traditional" monogamous heterosexual union) that this is not a good comparison. They've said race or ethnicity isn't something you can change about a person. This brings in the fallacious argument that it should matter if homosexual behavior is genetic or chosen. If your position is that it isn't fair to discriminate against genetic situations, like race or ethnicity, but it is for chosen activities what is to stop you from discriminating against other "chosen" activities. Is it OK to say that smokers can't marry because they can always quit smoking? Or to say that overweight people can't marry because they could always lose weight if they wanted to? The arbitrary nature of this argument exposes it as unsuitable for basing a legal system.

Another argument I've seen concerns the historic nature of civil marriage as a special contract between a man and a woman. If a civil union is placed in the arena of contract law then it seems to me that the hold becomes even more tenuous. Are supporters of traditional marriage saying that two men or two women or even a group of people of undetermined gender can't enter into contracts with each other. The idea is absurd. And in many ways it is in the area of contract law that civil union finds its greatest support. If you view a marriage license as a contract between two consenting adults and the government then it shouldn't matter the gender of the adults. As long as they fulfill the responsibilities of the contract they should enjoy the rights and privileges. For me, as long as the parties are adults capable of assigning consent then gender should not play a part in the civil union contract. Corporations are already recognized as genderless entities able to enter into extensive contracts. Should we give more rights to nonliving business entities than to living citizens? I don't think so.

So those are my thoughts on civil unions. I don't expect to change anyone's mind. And the constitutional amendment process is so lengthy that I don't expect that to pass either. But lots of earnest people will get a lot of mileage and money by pushing the issue.

2003-11-12T08:09:00.000-08:00

GOOD KARMA... For the Bush Years

I got this powerpoint in my e-mail and I had a few miutes at work to mess with it so I did. It seemed inspirational and all but the MST3K in me just couldn't help making snide comments -- mainly about the Bush Administration (did you ever notice how governments we like are called administrations and governments we don't are called regimes). So I sent out this modified powerpoint and people laughed. Then Tamara wanted to have the text to send to people and she sent me a copy to put in the blog. So here it is. My comments are in italics.

GOOD KARMA

This is a nice reading, but short. Enjoy! This is what the Dalai Lama has to say on the millennium. All it takes is a few seconds to read and think over. Do not keep this message. The mantra should leave your hands within 96 hours. You will get a very pleasant surprise. This is true for all-even if you are not superstitious...or of any particular religious belief.... Faith....

[I've made some changes. So now the Mantra can stay in your hands forever because it may melt in your mouth but not in your hands.]

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE
During the Bush Administration
Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
[Unless you have friends with the Bush Administration.]

When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
[And any money you lose you can get back through tax cuts and crony contracts.]

Follow the three R's:
Respect for self,

Respect for others and

Responsibility for all your actions.
[Unless you're CEO of a big corporation.]

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
[Unless it's the UN, then you can ignore them and do what you want anyway.]

Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
[Or just insult and degrade your allies that don't like it when you break the rules.]

Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
[Especially when you need them to bail you out of a multi-billion dollar fiasco.]

When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
[Like going back to the UN to ask for their help, but only if they play by our rules.]

Spend some time alone every day.
[Or alienate the entire world so the whole country can spend time alone.]

Open arms to change but don't let go of your values.
[As long as it's regime change where and when we want it. We're fine with that.]

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
[And all administration critics should remember that because John Ashcroft is watching.]

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
[Or invade countries your father invaded so you can enjoy it a second time now.]

A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
[And Bush loves all of his energy corporation cronies just like family.]

In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
[Saddam isn't a loved one so the past is fair game. But the UN shouldn't bring up the past.]

Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
[Or lie about your knowledge and get the country into a multi-billion dollar war/fiasco.]

Be gentle with the earth.
[It's her first time and you know you want to drill her hard. Oil drilling that is.]

Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
[We'd like George W. Bush to give reality a try.]

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
[Did we mention that we love the UN but we don't really need them? Or maybe we do....]

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
[That's the message to the middle class. Who needs money, jobs, security, freedom?]

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
[Or the truth about WMD, or the environment, or the UN-so much reckless abandon.]

FORWARD THIS MANTRA E-MAIL TO AT LEAST 5 PEOPLE AND YOUR LIFE WILL IMPROVE
[Not really but while you're distracted we can take more of your freedoms.]

0-4 people: Your life will improve slightly.
5-9 people: Your life will improve to your liking.
9-14 people: You will have at least 5 surprises in the next 3 weeks.
15 people & over: Your life will improve drastically and everything you ever dreamed of will begin to take shape.

Do not keep this message. The mantra must leave your hands within 96 hours.

You will get a very pleasant surprise....
[You and all the people you send this to are now on a secret government list of "Persons of Interest." Please go rent some movies and check books out from the library.]

2003-10-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

Estrogen OK!

Daisy Rock: I was at Guitar Center the other day and saw the "Girl's Guitar Method" book. It seemed interesting but it was the guitar company making heart shaped and daisy shaped guitars for girls that caught my interest. BTW - A guitar made for a girl involves having a thinner neck so smaller hands can get around it like larger guy hands get all the way around normal guitar necks. The only reason I can see that this would be a good thing would be when you wrap your thumb around and fret the 6th string with it. It's not often used (and against the proper position for holding a guitar that I learned) but there are certain chord variations that demand that thumb on the 6th string. Having stubby little fingers like I do, I'm thinking a thinner neck might be something I'll want to look into someday too. From this site I went to several linked sites like:

Lillix: It's an all-girl Canadian rock band. They play there own instruments, work with Avril Lavigne's and Pink's songwriting teams, and have a minor hit with a remake of the Romantic's "What I like about you." There sound is very produced and the lead singer ends up being in the Avril/Michele Branch clone sounding department. It's good that they play their own instruments so when they're no longer the flavor of the month they can still do their own thing. I imagine that we may end up getting the album for Duncan since they do sound like other youth-oriented bands he likes.

Women Who Rock Magazine: An interesting idea but they don't give away enough content to make me want to get them at the newsstand (that might be hard here in Oklahoma anyway). It sounds like a good mag that you should look into whereever you get your local magazines.

Lady Six String: The site lists as your on-line guide to the female guitarist and it seems to fit the bill. I haven't had much of a chance to look around much but I did want to mention it.

2003-10-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

Last Weekend - Integris Picnic and Two Movies

"I never knew it would be this much fun," Ryan shouted about a third of the way through the virtual roller coaster ride at the zoo. About 15 seconds later when the roller coaster car was launched off of the track in an impossible arc and then caught back on the track, I heard Ryan shout next to me, "I never knew it would be this much fun!" In total he shouted the phrase about ten times. After the ride both Duncan and Ryan ran up to Tamara (Duncan's mom). She asked how it was and Ryan shouted, "I never knew it would be this much fun!"

This was definitely one of the highlights from the Integris Health company picnic last weekend at the Oklahoma City Zoo and Omniplex interactive science museum. Every year Integris Health has a variety of activities to make people happy that they work here. Every fall they have the company picnic. Last year was at a local amusement park called Frontier City, so this year was at the zoo. In the 7 1/2 years I've been with Integris, they've alternated between these two venues.

The last time they were at the zoo they served BBQ or Lemon/pepper chickcen and had lots of complaints about not having food that kids would want to eat. This year they released the menu early (BBQ or HotDogs) to help convince people it would be better this year.

The event started at 10:00 AM. After getting everyone ready and coordinating the arrival of Duncan's friend Ryan and Tamara's mom (Ellen or Mamaw to most of the kids in her neighborhood), we arrived at the zoo about 10:30 AM. We first looked at snake/lizards exhibit. Both Duncan and Ryan have seen this before, but like most kids they can't get enough of anything involving snakes, lizards, or bugs. With this building they got two out of three so they were pretty pumped.

After that, the boys and Tamara looked at the vultures while I went off to find Ellen and Calvin. They wandered off looking at stuff and now were off in some other part of the zoo. She thought the snake building would exit on the far side but couldn't see where that door was. The problem happens because the snake building is set up in a loop with the beginning and end of the exhibit by the same set of doors. It only took a few minutes to gather the group and head over to the hippo/rhino/elephant building. The boys didn't want to go in because it smelled like the feces of these animals. Lets just say it was a pungent, earthy smell. Well it turns out that only the bird exhibits were occupied as they were cleaning the large animal spaces. It appeared that they still had a lot of cleaning left to do. Actually, I find the farm-based animal smells much easier to deal with than some of the petrochemical processing smells you can run into here in oil country. After leaving the building we looked at the large animals in the outside enclosures and made our way over to the food tents about 11:30 AM.

The food for lunch was pretty good. I had a "huge" chili-dog, potato salad, baked beans, BBQ brisket, and some cookies. They also had chips for people who don't want potato salad (mostly kids). Ryan is a very picky eater. We already knew this so when he sat down with just cookies on his plate, we weren't surprised.

It was at this point that Duncan wanted to go on the virtual roller coaster. Since it was only $3 per person, we said, "OK." Duncan had to nearly drag Ryan onto the ride. But he eventually convinced him. And he actually enjoyed himself. Or in his own words, "I never knew it would be this much fun!"

The rest of our time was spent at the Omniplex. The Omniplex is an interactive science museum geared to kids but still pretty fun for adults (or at least the geeky ones). I stayed with Duncan and Ryan while Tamara and Ellen guided Calvin's experience. The older boys (older meaning 7) went from exhibit to exhibit with the attention span of . . . Well, a seven-year-old. And then they discovered a staircase and wanted to go up it. I knew this was a mistake because none of the exhibits on the second floor were interactive. I let them go up anyway because otherwise they would whine about the unknown mysteries I was denying them. Of course, they became bored pretty quickly. Even the astronaut waste disposal display couldn't keep their attention. They could have made this interactive, but it probably would have offended someone. Still, I can see it now, "Come one! Come all! See the wonders of zero-gravity personal hygene at the amazing SPACE CRAPPER!" It could be the hit of the museum.

We hooked back up with the other group near the snack bar. Ellen took the older boys to the gift shop while Tamara and I shared a Diet Coke and some nachos. When they were done exchanging money for cheap plastic we left and went back to our house.

But the day wasn't over yet. Oh no. We had time to go and see a movie. Tamara decided she didn't want to go so it was just me and the older boys racing to make the 3:15 showing of "School Of Rock." We got there, got the kid's packs of popcorn, soda, and candy, found our seats and only missed a couple of the opening commercials.

I probaby shouldn't have said anything but I turned to Duncan and said, "Now be careful and don't do anything to spill your kid's pack." Within a minute he turned to me to open his candy and dumped the whole thing on the floor. I have to admit that I was instantly livid. I was able to grab the box and cup before anything happened to them and I went immediately back to the concession stand where I told them my child tripped on the way to his seat (not exactly the truth but an easy to understand event that probably happens often at the theater), and asked if they could refill the containers. They could and did. It's important to have the paper products with you when you try this because most of these places only inventory the paper and not the actual food. So everything was made right and I calmed down as the movie started.

"School Of Rock" is a cute movie definitely written to showcase Jack Black. Even though it has a very linear story and is manically plot driven to the final "Battle of the bands" showdown, both Jack Black and director Richard Linklater create a slacker fantasy where a "differently motivated" person can succeed against every status quo of our society. The fantasy part involves large plot holes and reality inconsistencies that would sink this kind of plan in the real world and land Black's character in jail. If you can suspend disbelief long enough to root for Black, and the kids, you'll see a pretty enjoyable movie. And don't leave during the credits because important and funny things happen.

After the movie we took Ryan home and then ate diner at Fazoli's. I'm not sure what's more bland; the sauce, the noodles or the meatballs.

On Sunday Duncan and I went back to the Unitarian Church with a stop off at The Hungry Frog for breakfast. This year Duncan's Religious Education (RE) class is covering "Heroes of the Bible." It would make my mother proud. Of course, these heroes are given a very Unitarian Universalist slant.

After church Tamara and I went to see "Lost in Translation" with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. This was a great movie, but then again I think a lot of introspective movies are pretty good. Some people would be bored but they can go see Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) in "The Rundown." There's talk that Bill Murray may get an Oscar nod for this film. And on a purely male note, Scarlett Johansson goes through parts of the movie in a long-sleeved shirt and panties. And let me tell you, this is a good look on her (and probably most women who aren't too self conscious to try it).

The evening saw us sliding back into our natural rhythms as tomorrow was both a school and work day.

2003-10-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

Jim's Big Ego Supports Music Sharing. . .

and you should support them. They are a great band that sent me this e-mail (that I am reprinting below). These guys are very good and confident that by letting you get some of their music for free you'll see how good they are and want to support them with your hard earned cash.

Hey Egomaniacs!

That's right - Jim's Big Ego will not sue you for downloading and sharing
our music. We won't subpoena your 12 year-old daughter. We won't accuse your
luddite grandmother. We will not lobby Congress to throw you in jail. And we
will not punish you for wanting to listen to our music.

That's because we own the rights to our songs. We release our music by
ourselves. And we believe that we have the right to encourage you to share
our music with your friends without fear of retribution from us or anyone
else.

To prove our point, our most recent release - THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! - has been
licensed under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike attribution,
which unlike a traditional (c)opywright, gives you official permission to
share our music as long as it is not for commercial purposes. To read more
about Creative Commons and their noble mission visit:
http://www.creativecommns.org

FREE MP3!
You can now grab a free MP3 of "Mix Tape" from They're Everywhere! To get
the song, visit http://www.bigego.com

THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! is now available direct from
JBE via secure server in one of three ways:

Order the physical CD - $10.00 + shipping
Download the entire CD - $10.00 (high-quality MP3)
Download individual tracks - $.99/MP3

You can also preview four full-length songs. For more info and to order now,
visit http://www.bigego.com

Looking to get your hands on some Big Ego swag?
CDs, T-shirts, stickers, and Poetry Books all available now at
http://www.folkweb.com/bigego/

==================================================
Jim's Big Ego
"UnPop for the UnPopulous"
http://www.bigego.com
mailto:info@bigego.com
==================================================

2003-10-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

My weekend without Tamara

Since Tamara is in Denver this weekend at a friend's wedding (second marriage for both of them), I guess I should get off my butt long enough to blog about my weekend with the kids.

Tamara left for Denver about 5 a.m. on Friday. So she wasn't there to take care of Calvin while I got ready for work. Luckily Tamara's Mom, Ellen, came over to watch Calvin for the day. He got to go to the Mall while I had to go to work. Ellen also picked up Duncan after school and took him to his Tae Kwon Do class. After work I picked up Duncan from Karate and went with him, Ellen, Calvin and my Mom, Gayle, to Taste of China. This was a good time to get Chinese Buffet because Tamara was out of town (she's not all that fond of Chinese Buffets). After that we did our nightly ritual of TV, baths, reading and bed.

Saturday I decided to take Duncan to the Oklahoma State Fair. This was the second-to-last day of the fair and we hadn't taken Duncan yet. At 13 months old, Calvin can take or leave the fair. My Mom volunteered to watch the baby so we could go on some rides if we wanted to. Calvin, of course, had a grand old time with his Nana Gayle, MaMaw (Ellen) and G.G. (my grandmother and Duncan's and Calvin's Great Grandmother - That's where G.G. comes from). They played at the house and went to IHOP for lunch where Calvin ate a whole pancake. After lunch Ellen drove to Texas to visit with relatives that drove in from Tennessee to see other relatives already in Texas.

Duncan and I had to renew the tag on Tamara's car before hitting the fair so we didn't get there until about 10:45. We took a lap around 14 flags plaza to get a feel for the place and noticed that the space tower rides were free this year. The space tower goes up a couple of hundred feet and with Oklahoma City being pretty flat, you could see quite a lot of the city. After that we went to the "Made In Oklahoma" building. This year they had converted most of the building into a kid-friendly farm-based exhibit called Agtropolis. They had several areas where you could watch baby chickens hatch from eggs as well as full grown chickens wandering around doing chicken things (eating, pooping, and not thinking about their eventual fate of being dismembered and eaten). There were also several types of rabbits and goats, two cows and a calf and some pigs. The highlight of the show was an exhibit about bugs with many varieties of large spiders and hissing cockroaches. Duncan also liked watching the cows pull hay off of a bale and eat it. He petted a sleeping pig but didn't hang around there too long because of the smell. I was wondering about why they didn't have any information about the eventual fate of these cows, pigs, and chickens. Wouldn't it be interesting for kids to know how a chicken becomes a nugget or a cow becomes a hamburger - with full-color photos from real processing facilities.

After Agtropolis we went to the International Trade Center building. This is one of the more interesting buildings at the fair since its roof is held up by air pressure, it's basically a large inflatable building with airlock-type doors to keep the air pressure higher on the inside. The building mainly had lots of stuff for sale. Tracey, Tamara's friend that was driving up to Denver with her, requested that I buy her a "wooden necktie" from one of the vendors in this building. It was only five dollars and she regretted not buying it when she was at the fair a few days before. From here we got lunch (Duncan had a corn dog and I had a gyro) and then went to the Centennial Building where Duncan bought a copy of Metroid Prime from the Game X Change booth. This pretty much made the day worthwhile for Duncan. After this we dropped by the booth for 105.3 KSYY (the alternative station in Oklahoma City). It was unmanned on a Saturday at the State Fair of Oklahoma - good way to promote that station.

And now it was mule time. We walked down to the State Fair Arena where the World Mule show was going to happen - but not until 7 p.m. When we got there, about 1 p.m., they were grading the dirt to make it smoother for the mules. We went to the far end of the arena where the stables are located and found a co-worker of mine, Bruce, who raises mules with his wife Chris. The most interesting thing we saw was all of the people in equestrian riding gear sitting on mules. Being of a certain age my primary impression of mules has someone like the Gunsmoke character Festus riding on one.

The arena was right next to the Midway. Duncan wanted to go on lots of rides and I was willing to accommodate him, except for one thing. The armbands you could buy and ride all of the rides were only sold Monday through Friday - and this was Saturday. After looking at a few of the rides and seeing how much the tickets were, I figured that it would cost us about $7.50 per ride. Since many of the rides were duplicates of rides at Frontier City, where Duncan already has a season pass, I convinced him to find one ride and we'd get the others the next time we went to the amusement park. Well he picked The Twister. As the name suggests this ride whips you around in circles for several minutes and then it's over. Since we had just eaten lunch I didn't think my stomach was quite ready for that ride. So we went over to the Modern Living Building. Right next to this building is the KSYY booth that was still unmanned. Tamara asked me if I would get her a bumper sticker for the radio station. But with the lack of anyone at the booth, this request was becoming harder to fill.

In the Modern Living Building we saw tons of stuff we could live without and got some free rulers from the AFL-CIO. After this we went back to the Midway and rode The Twister. Duncan had fun on the ride but admitted that it was a rip-off for $7.50 ($3.75 each). We decided it was time for a snack and Duncan got Cotton Candy and I got a funnel cake. Since there really wasn't anything else we wanted to do at the fair we went to the O'Brien's karaoke restaurant, next to the KSYY booth to wait and see if anyone ever showed up to represent the radio station. We stayed about 35 minutes eating our snacks and listening to some very bad singers. Some of them even had the event videotaped - possibly so it could be used against them in court. Duncan got pretty excited by one song though. As we were leaving what looked like a fifth grader got up on stage and started belting out "The Girl All The Bad Guys Want" by Bowling For Soup. This is one of Duncan's favorite songs so we had to go back and listen as this boy butchered his way through it.

And still no one was at the KSYY booth. Well, we gave up and went home, where we had leftovers for dinner and the usual TV, baths, reading and bed.

On Sunday I let Duncan sleep late - Calvin did not let me sleep late. I was up and around by 6:30. The only benefit was that I could read the Sunday Paper before the day got going. My mom came over about 11:30 and took Calvin to lunch again and I took Duncan to a Birthday party at 66 Bowl. I did a little bowling but couldn't quite get the strikes or spares needed to break 100. Duncan bowled ok but all of the kids had the gutters converted to bumpers to increase the amount of pins knocked down. When I bowled as a kid I don't think they had that as an option. It's been a long time since I went bowling and the entire place was set up more like an interactive video game than what I remember as "bowling." The lane had automatic conversion from adult (with gutters) to kids (without gutters), Video score keeping that automatically told you how many pins you knocked over and also auto-scored things like spares and strikes (spares and strikes get bonus points based on the next ball, for spares, or frame, for strikes). They even had extra video stuff that would play if you knocked 8 or more pins down or if you got a split. It was pretty interesting and the kids had a great time.

After the bowling party Duncan's friend Ryan came over and they played for several hours. Calvin was ready for a nap and so was I. We both slept for about an hour and a half while the boys whacked at each other with plastic swords in the yard, played Soul Calibur II or Metroid Prime or danced around to music in Duncan's room. Eventually we took Ryan to Little Caesar's Pizza - Ryan's a picky eater and Pizza is one of only three things I know that he'll eat. We ended up at Ryan's house where he and Duncan played the Playstation 2 version of Soul Calibur II (each platform has one character that is special to that version; GameCube has Link, Xbox has Spawn and Playstation 2 has Heihechi from the game Tekken). So now Duncan has played all of the special characters for Soul Calibur II and is a happy camper. When we got home we went through the bath, reading, bed ritual but didn't do any TV since we got home so late from Ryan's house.

Monday was a normal school day for Duncan and I took off work to watch Calvin. My mom also took off work so I took advantage of the extra person to get stuff like dishes and laundry done around the house. That way Tamara wouldn't have to return to a house in shambles. My mom even made us baked chicken with new potatoes and baked beans for dinner (aren't moms great). Tamara finally got home about 10 pm and our lives could get back to normal - or as normal as they can get with us living in it.

2003-09-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

I lost a blog entry

I hate it when I write a good long blog entry and it gets eaten when i hit the post button. I'm too tired to rewrite it now. I know I should save those things off when they get too big but I forgot, hit post and the session had timed out. So the buffer was flushed and I was asked to re-log in. It's times like these that you have to stop yourself from throwing the computer across the room.

2003-08-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

Star Wars Kid

I saw this video a while back and again stumbled across this site with several dozen remixes of the original. The story is kind of sad, geeky and really funny. There's also a Yahoo News story about SWK and how all of the publicity isn't that great. It just goes to show that if you have to choose between rich and famous, you're better off choosing rich.

2003-08-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

Turn any web site into a porn site

I'm not too good at posting thing I stumble across on the internet. There have been many in the last few days and I just forget to click that blog button on the google toolbar. But this time I did it. I was browsing around and remembered something a friend showed me last year. It was down the last time I checked but I decided to check again and lo and behold it is up and running. With this wonderful time waster you can put in almost any URL and have it throw lots of random nastiness. It's really funny to read CNN in a porn version. Here's this weblog page totally messed up with raunch. Be Warned: If you are in a place where this can get you into trouble or if you are easily offended then don't click on these links.

I'll try to be better about posting more stuff -- but I can promise nothing.

2003-08-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

INTEGRIS Health: Home

This is the web site I work on (at work). I'm just making this entry to show off blogger.

2003-08-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

This Modern World
If you're a liberal and don't mind the word "liberal" then this comic is for you. If you're a conservative and damn proud of it, then this comic is definitely for you. The text is often sprinkled with direct quotes from neocons who just had to say something before sticking the foot directly into the mouth. But just so you don't think he's too anti-Bush, this comic has been running since Bush the elder's reign. So you've got 8 years of Clinton-based comics to read too.

2003-08-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Schwarzenegger says he's running for governor

Well, he's gone and done it. I thought he was going on The Tonight Show to tell people he wasn't running. But that's not what he did. The big question is: Will his star power and somewhat moderate politics be enough to legitimize the circus that the recall has become. And even if he does win can he do anything with the state in time for it to do Bush any good in the 2004 election cycle. Outsider candidates can sometimes be effective. I'm sure this isn't what Gray Davis wants but he has prepared well by raising more money than anyone else in California's history. And according to a report on NPR yesterday, all candidates to replace the governor will be under spending limits but the governor himself won't be because he's campaigning against the recall not running for office.

2003-08-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

Google Toolbar 2.0 Beta

OK, I finally installed the new Google toolbar so I can get the pop-up blocking and the direct link to Google. Tamara keeps getting on to me for telling her about some piece of the web I found that I could Blog but didn't. Now I won't have that excuse.

2003-07-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Freakiest Dang Harry Potter Site Out There

Not really but Madam Hooch's Broom Closet: Harry Potter Femmeslash Galore! comes awfully close. It focuses on female - female relationship fiction, much of which involves bonding on an intimate level. It just goes to show you that if you can think of it (and often even if you can't) it's out there on the internet.

2003-07-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

New Template

Tamara made me update my template since she now has a weblog (check out the menu on the left). It was an offense to her very being to see my unupdated weblog hanging off of her site.

2003-01-27T14:49:00.000-08:00

About to move into the new house

We're only about a week from moving into the new house. We've had a new kitchen put in, painted all the walls and had new carpet installed. All I have left is to change out some of the power outlets and put in some ceiling fans.

2003-01-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

Duncan's First Rock Concert

(he's been to several symphonic concerts with his grandmother already).

On January 2, 2003 Duncan and I went to see the band Bowling For Soup ( http://www.bowlingforsoup.com ). They have a song on the radio "The Girl All The Bad Guys Want" that Duncan really likes so we decided that he could go see the show (with me of course). It was a four band line-up starting with American Boyfriends (an OKC band - http://www.americanboyfriends.com/ ), Gob (a western Canadian punk band - http://www.gobnet.com/ ), Simple Plan (an eastern Canadian punk-pop band that had a song on the Scooby Doo movie soundtrack - http://www.simpleplan.com/ ) and then Bowling For Soup (they describe themselves as four fat guys from Denton, Texas).

Using the power of a Dad taking his seven year old son to his first rock concert, I was able to get us into a backstage area where 3 of the 4 members of Bowling for Soup signed his CD cover. Also the lead singer's grandmother lives in Lawton, OK and had come up for the show, so we got to talk with her for a while. She said her grandson had promised not to curse (use the F word) because he knew she didn't like that. And sure enough during his between song banter he pointed out that he wouldn't be saying the F word tonight because his grandmother was here.

To make it more memorable for Duncan we picked up CDs by all the bands (they were pretty cheap) and t-shirts so he'll have some good memories of his first concert.

After seeing live bands he was ready to start one of his own.

2002-12-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I'm back to bloggin'

For some reason blogger messed up all of my templates and I needed to spend a little time redoing them. I have done that so I can now blog with the best of them. And better still the wireless blogger site is up and running again so I can even post from my Palm 7. I really like posting from my palm 7 because it's so easy and I can do it from anywhere (especially boring meetings).

2002-10-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

Am I so pathetic ...

that I can't even update my blog. Well you've guessed it. I am.

I want to post with information about all of the stuff that keeps me from updating but I'll probably forget to do this and look at this in months and be overwhelmed by the shame of my ancient postings.

2002-04-10T23:15:00.000-07:00

Tech-Ed 2002

Tuesday, April 9, 2002
The day started pretty damn early when my alarm went off at 5 am. I overslept until about 5:30 and rushed around so I could catch a cab to the airport and get there by 6:15. When I got to the airport I was told my flight was delayed and that I might not make the connection in Dallas to New Orleans. They offered to shift me to Continental so I took them up on the offer. Becky, another programmer from my office, was also shifted to the Continental flight.

Everything was uneventful until we hit the Big Easy. That’s when the cab conflict started. At the airport they had a big sign by the Taxi stand that said 2 passengers going from the airport to downtown would be $24. Only after we were in the cab and on the highway did we discover they wanted to charge us $24 each since we were at two different hotels (even though they were only separated by a few blocks). This got Becky’s ire up and after talking to the supervisor agreed on a combined price of $35 that would get both of us dropped off at our hotels.

Tech-Ed registration went fairly quickly and I even had time to try out the wireless network installed in the convention center. I logged on to work and did a little email and then it was time for the pre-conference workshop. I had originally signed up for an ASP.Net workshop but that was cancelled and two shorter security workshops were substituted. I sat through the first one and then went back to the hotel. They didn’t have any clean rooms when I checked in originally so I thought I’d go back and check again. They had a room for me and boy what a room it is. I’ve got two double beds and a living room with a sleeper sofa and a mini-kitchenette (you’d think that’d be redundant but since I only have a bar sink, a microwave, a dorm fridge and a coffee maker, I’m not sure what else to call it).

So I go back and watch some more of the security seminar but it’s really not doing it for me. I look at the schedule and notice that the exhibition hall is open. So I hit it with gusto and walk away with six shirts, tons of toys, lots of information, and an aching arm from carrying all of the bags. By this time I realize I’ve totally lost Becky. I go back to the hotel and try to call her hotel but she’s out. So I go back to the Convention Center and grab one of the hotel shuttles that’s going to Bourbon Street. After walking around looking at the tourist traps, jazz and blues clubs, and transvestite strip club (from the outside only – but even then it was pretty funny), I found a restaurant that looked like a hole in the wall with an old man standing out front. He looked like the owner or an ex mafia figure. Either way he led me through a dark alley to a small courtyard with tables. There were more tables inside the restaurant but when asked if I wanted to eat on the patio I said, “Yes.”

I had found my way to K Creole Kitchen (Famous Creole and French Cuisine – 530 Bourbon St. 504.528.9145). My waiter was a vaguely middle eastern man named Tindal, who suggested the Chef’s Platter for a good sampling of New Orleans food. I also had a salad with their homemade Italian dressing. It was pretty spicy but if they put it in bottles I’d buy it all the time. To go with dinner I had a local microbrew beer called Abita Amber. You can get more information about this at www.abita.com. Before my food arrived Tindal came out and said they were out of Alligator and would I like to substitute some creole shrimp instead. I’m pretty easy so I said that’d be OK. It was by far the spiciest and best part of the meal. The platter also had some blackened catfish, a spicy jambalaya, crawfish ettoufe and some barbequed shrimp. These were whole shrimp with the head and legs still attached so the most time consuming part of the meal was getting the buggers out of the shell. I did not suck any juicy crap out of the shrimp head (although there was enough in there to do it). The meal was kind of pricey but since I really hadn’t used any of my per diem for the day I said, “What the heck.”

After dinner I walked down Bourbon Street again looking at all of the tourist places and being amazed at how many live music venues there were in such a small area. Of course most of the bands were playing the same brand of blues so they pretty much blended into one another but it was pretty impressive none the less. At Bourbon and Canal I hit another hotel on the Microsoft bus route and headed back to my hotel to call Tamara and find out how her day went.

Even though I should have gone to bed then, I went out to the Tech-Ed Jam session where they take over a club for a week provide a stage full of musical instruments for people to play in a giant round-robin pick-up band. Last year I never had the courage to actually play with the band but another year of guitar lessons and practice gave me the confidence to step up to the challenge. I played on a total of about 6 songs including two Beatles songs (hard day’s night and saw her standing there) and Talking Head’s Psycho Killer. No one wanted to sing House of the Rising Sun and since I had just given up the guitar when they decided to play it, I volunteered to sing. I know all of the lyrics but I make no guarantees about hitting any notes. Luckily it’s a song of pain and lament so my voice fit right in. I also joined in on a group sing for the Beatles “Hide your love away” and “Proud Mary”. They started with a CCR kind of version that blended into a Tina Turner version before it was done. After my second stint on the guitar I headed back to the hotel so I could get a little sleep before the next day of technical seminars.

2001-12-11T07:09:00.000-08:00

Blinkenlights

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Berlin's Chaos Computer Club has made a special present to itself and the city of Berlin. Since Sept 12, 2001, the famous "Haus des Lehrers" (house of the teacher) has been enhanced to become world's biggest interactive computer display: Blinkenlights (a term defined by the jargon file).

The upper eight floors of the house have been transformed in to a huge display by arranging 144 lamps behind the house's front windows. A computer controls each of the lamps independently to produce a monochrome matrix of 18 times 8 pixels.

2001-10-31T12:02:00.000-08:00

Common Dreams NewsCenter - News & Views for the Progressive Community

With headlines like, "Bombing Afghanistan is Not the Way to Defeat al-Qaida" and "Terrorizing the Poor and Subsidizing the Rich" you can bet that this site has all the news for people who feel "Bleeding-heart Liberal" isn't a bad thing to be called. So if you want a different, yet still credible, view of the news, this is the place to go. They enhance their credibility by pulling from many major news sources and reprinting comments from people like Bill Moyers. I'm not saying I agree with all of the conclusions but it's nice to see that dissent hasn't entirely disappeared in the environment of newfound nationalistic furvor.