Movin' Out

Not gone...

2011-02-19T05:14:00.001-08:00

My annual check in.

Hmmmm...

2010-05-07T03:30:00.000-07:00

Maybe I will start posting back here...

It's ALIVE

2010-01-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

My quarterly revival of Movin' Out.

Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive

2009-10-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

Just making sure I don't lose it...read and search on. There's some good stuff here.

Stayin' Alive Stayin' Alive

2009-08-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

My best John Travolta.

Blowing in the micrphone

2009-02-15T05:38:00.001-08:00

Must...keep...alive...while...I...mine...it.

Testing

2008-10-06T22:04:00.001-07:00

Mic check.

Keeping it alive

2008-06-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd better log on once in a while to keep Blogspot remembering I'm here. If you want to see the most up-to-date postings go to http://bluebirdsinging.com/new/ or just click here.

FIND THE NEW STUFF HERE!!!!!

2008-02-27T00:09:00.000-08:00

All the new blog entries after this got hijacked during the Google takeover are here.

A billion reasons to love art

2007-03-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

I made a tiny, minute, utio little, nothing contribution to the $1 billion gift to the Seattle Art Museum.

The CEO of a companyI once worked for called giving like this: "Northwest Reserved." New England acts all formal, Texas swaggers, and California flaunts...but around here we just shut up and put up. We just lean back and watch and seek our fancy.

But this leads to my bigger question: What the holyfuck are these people capable of? As much as we lament rich people, here are rich people creating something that rivals the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. I love it.

There is nothing old school about them. They play on their own ballfields (literally, sometimes).

A billion dollars of art. Go figure.

How computer stupid are you?

2007-03-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

I understand sales. Get it. Been there, done that.

But to stoop to claiming your 3 1/2-year-old child is smarter on a computer than you? That's exactly what a woman claims on a training site for software that is like an infomercial.

I have no problem saying my kid is smarter than me. But I can kick her ass at applied skills, especially the computer.

Is it fair to say that the parent who has a 3.5-year-old kid better at the computer is just stupid?Can we just call them a dumbshit? Or is the true dumbshit the person that pays 30 bucks tp be as smart as a four-year-old?

I was starting to feel left out of Africa

2007-03-28T00:42:00.000-07:00

Been years since I got one of these...

Sir / Madam,
Please, I want to introduce myself and this business opportunity to you My Name is Mr.David Obi,a bank accountant. I wish to know if we can work together.I would like you to stand as the next of kin to my deceased client who made some deposits to my bank.
He died without any registered next of kin and as such the funds now have an open beneficiary mandate. If you are interested you do let me know so that I can give you comprehensive details on what we are to do I urgently hope to get your response as soon as possible.
Please get in touch with me urgently by Email: (mrobi22@mail.md)
Best regards,
Mr.David Obi

A short note on healthcare

2007-03-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

Geeeze, am I lucky when it comes to seeing the doctor, getting treatment and making emergency visits.

On the one end, I cringed today when I saw it was almost a hundred bucks for tywo months of my meds. But that's what I pay. And they keep me healthy and active.

On the other end, I don't think I pay close to enough when I just do a $10 co-pay to see my regular doctor.

He's been my doctor for six years this month. That's even longer than any pediatrician I'd ever had! But we're in sync. In fact, his whole senior office staff is in sync with me and greet me by name. I HATE doctors, but I'd jump off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge if this one told me to. He's funny, sharp, conversational, and not afraid to say we need to try something else.

Read that last part: Not afraid to say we need to try something else.

For instance: When I first started seeing him, my blood pressure was (go ahead, gasp) 283/168.

I was a stress case with a heart about ready to pop through my ribs.

We have played around with different meds and excercise over and over since then. Plus, he liked me "Movin' Out."

About two years ago, I joined the golf club, and it turns out golf is just right for the type of excercise I need. It's perfect.

We hit paydirt...excercise and drugs had me down to 120/75. YoooHooooo!!!!

I was cruising. I got tired fast, but it was all feeling better.

I started think that these monthly checkups were going to finally end.

And then I went in today.

95/60.

Uh, oh.

That's low...we were over correcting. Humbug.

So the meds were completely re-done starting tomorrow and I am on less medication, and I need to be careful of how hard I excercise for a bit.

But my point is, if I had just been popping in and out of doctors the last six years, who would be there to catch that and understand it? It sounds minor, but I was really thinking about that today. MY doctor knows all about me. I pay very little, my insurance, I'm sure, pays a lot. I but I gurantee they would have paid more if I didn't have him in my corner the last six years.

Welcome to adulthood

2007-03-26T23:07:00.005-07:00

I can just see the cop sitting in his patrol car, looking at his watch, and waiting for the boy to become a man...

Repeat DUI offender arrested first as 17-year-old and — at midnight — booked and jailed as 18-year-old

By The Associated Press

MONTESANO, Grays Harbor County — An Aberdeen teen was arrested twice in one day on drunken driving charges — once as a 17-year-old and once as an 18-year-old.
Here's how it happened.

Montesano police arrested 17-year-old driver Domingo Ramos-Garcia yesterday afternoon and took him to the Grays Harbor County Jail for a breath test. Because he was 17, he was released to his father.

Five hours later he was arrested again on Highway 12 near Montesano by the same deputy who had dealt with him earlier.

But he wasn't booked until after midnight — after he turned 18.
As an adult, he was jailed.

Undersheriff Rick Scott says the teen also was arrested March 10th for driving under the influence.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

The really sad obits

2007-03-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

I am a chronic reader of the daily obits is all my local papers and the NYT.

If you had told me that Calvert DeForest died, I wouldn't have thought twice.

But he was Larry "Bude" Melvin.

It's the last line that got me, though.

"He left no survivors."

No funeral service, either.

But this is a reality for a lot of people that die old. I see it all the time. Most of them don't even get paid obits, they just get listed in the dead agat file in the newspapers. But whenever I actually read, "no survivors" it peaks my curiosity. Was he preceeded? Any children? Was he gay? I dunno...just dumb questions that come into my head.

Two Thoughts Tonight

2007-03-20T23:39:00.000-07:00

One:

This is a little of a babble, but it's also my humble advice to any future home owners...get a fixed mortgage and stick with it!

FOr full disclosure, I carried an adjusted rate mortage for about six months until I improved my property enough to get a 30-year fixed. I spent about $5000 to do it this way, but I also have a loan that is not only in the five-somethings-percentage rate, but it's the same every single month until Big A goes through college.

New homeowners: Use an ARM to get you in, maybe, but spend the money immediately to get you out. That may sound dumb, but if you can improve the property in any way and make it 20% more valuable, there is no mortgage insurance and, AND, banks would love to get you fixed so they can sell the loan.

TWO:

My daughter just plain has better golf equipment than I do.

Even though it is lefthanded, just playing around with it is amazing. From the bag to the putter, I admit, I'm jealous. She has Pings! It's like driving a Mercedes 500 vs. a Ford Taurus; that's the best I can come up with at the moment.

Why I love baseball and golf, but golf a little better

2007-03-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

In my late 30s, I suck at both baseball and golf. But I love playing history with both. I'm a complete sentimental ass when I play my home course, because I know for almost 100 years, it hasn't changed much. About the same way that the great stats in baseball haven't changed much.

But I will never play baseball in even the worst ballpark today, because I suck at baseball; playing baseball for me stopped in college.

But I can quote baseball history faster than I can quote car history.

But I can play golf a little (see, I suck at that, too).

Seriously, I am just as much in awe of golf history and the fact that that I get to play in various places that have markers and stuff that say, basically, "Something happened here."

But I get to have my home course, my home ballpark, that I may rip-to-shit, and then ask to be forgiven, but love the fact, I hope I'll be 80 years old when it is 150 and more people have seen its history.

U.S. Girls’ Junior ChampionshipTacoma Country & Golf Club, Lakewood, Wash.

July 23-28

www.usgirlsjunior.org

Yardage: 6,363 yardsPar: 35-37—72

Defending champion: Jenny Shin

Opened: 1894

Designer: Stanley Thompson

USGA championships: This will be the club’s fourth USGA championship and first since the 1994 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. Seattle native Anne Sander won the 1961 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Tacoma C & G.C. This will be the third U.S. Girls’ Junior held in the state of Washington. Broadmoore Golf Club in Seattle had the 1961 event and 23 years later, Mill Creek C.C. in Bothell hosted the championship.

A club first: Tacoma C & G.C. is the oldest private golf club west of the Mississippi. The course opened in the same year that the USGA was founded (1894). It is listed as one of the first 100 clubs in America.

How it all began: Employees of Scottish firms in the area started playing the game on the prairie lands of south Tacoma in 1892. Two years later, Alexander Baillie and a handful of others organized a club, leased 280 acres of land and built a clubhouse. Twenty years later, the Tacoma Golf Club merged with Tacoma Country Club on American Lake and forged a blueprint for a new clubhouse and course.

Club pedigree: James Barnes, the 1921 U.S. Open champion and winner of two PGA Championships (1916, 1919), was the head pro at Tacoma C & G.C. from 1910-15. Barnes also won the 1925 British Open. The late Chuck Congdon, who served as the head pro at the club for 30 years, was a five-time Washington State Open champion. Another former pro, Al Mengert, is the only “three-peat” winner of the Washington State Open. Tacoma C & G.C. hosted that event in 1932 and 1997.

Family affair: Pat Lesser Harbottle, the 1950 U.S. Girls’Junior champion and ’55 U.S. Women’s Amateur winner, is a member of the club. Her son, John Harbottle III , is a golf course architect whose works include BanBury in Eagle, Idaho, site of the 2005 U.S. Girls’ Junior, and the Olympic Course at Gold Mountain in Bremerton, Wash., which played host to the 2006 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship.

OH...BTW...Big A is keenly aware that a bunch of girl golfers are going to be around; she cracks me up.

Pink would be nice, but...

2007-03-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a fact. Little girls want pink stuff for their seventh birthday. How do I know this/ Let me count the ways...

The very best set of golf clubs for her, the ones that fit the best and she hit the hardest, were blue. Never mind they cost twice as much as the Holly Hobbit-like pink set, she just said, well, declared, that blue was for boys.

This had never been an issue before. Never even came up. Until she saw in the mega-mart golf shop how much pink stuff there is to be bought in the golf world.

So we played Geneva and came up with a three-part compromise:

1) She would buy the clubs that not only fit her best, but would last about eight inches in growth.

2) If she really liked golf after the summer and had taken it seriously, we'd buy her the hot pink bag for her clubs.

3) I'd order tees with her name on them...and they'd be hot pink.

I am by no means trying to build a golf-weird-kiddo girl, she loves the game, but she is still in that mode of being invincible with the right color. I like our little compromise. She got the right clubs, pink stuff, and everything is cool.

But I digress here:

You'd think with all the success of women's golf, girls' golf clubs with pink shafts would make total sense! Instead, they are all shit. I mean a joke. If you want a 7-10 year old, make good stuff pink. The quality is just so third rate that it looks like they know girls' stuff doesn't have to be better.

Big A is no girly girl when it comes to golf, but she wants style. Why are all the cheapshit clubs pink and the great clubs are blue? Hi, it's 2007!

You'll see me on one, maybe, in about 2017

2007-03-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

I love travel! Love it. Hate flying. Hate it.

And I live on an airport and grown up around planes all my life and worked for Boeing.

Nothing technical here...I just don't yet trust the Airbus 380. It's the size that gets me mostly(and, for disclosure, the Boeing Dreamliner's got some proving to do with composites) but wiring has been a major issue with this plane. Folks, that's why 747s from the 1980s blow up off Long Island.

Forget safety...what a pain to get off a plane with more than 500 people on board?

Nice PR stunt to have them land together on two coasts, but you're not going to see me on one for about 10 years. Work the kinks out of the plane that is cursed with delays...then talk to me.

Shhhhhh...don't tell her (with bonus blather)

2007-03-15T02:42:00.000-07:00

I have been keeping one of Big A's presents a secret, but I have to babble it...

She is going to get her own set of golf clubs with her own bag.

P doesn't realize how excited she is about this. P even asked why she would want that when she was already getting the tennis shoes roller skates. But we've got it all set up to surprise her getting custom fitted for a few clubs on Monday and she will get a lesson or two at the club from the pro shop.

She knows that this is a "seven-year old" event. I'm played around with her around that course enough, she is sweating to grip her own set of clubs. Just itching. Of course, she wants those sneaker skates, too...but she'll get them both.

She is very athletic and coordinated and interested in sports and competition.

I count my blessings, but it's also a major challenge. She amazes me at the games where she is in charge of herself, board games or field games, but she is not the best team player.

Remember the kid on the motorcycle in Bad News Bears who, even though his name was like a girl (I'm kidding), decided just to patrol the whole outfield? That's Big A in team sports. She just motors over everything. She is a tall, skinny bull in your china closet.

This summer, I want her to play things where she gets a little ass kicking. We have world class swimmers and world class golfers that are going to be using the club facilities. She needs humble pie.

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

Blather starts here, officially:

How do parents of kids who overachieve actually not fuck them up? I'm serious. Big A is not particularly special, per se, but she is a product of a family that is athletic and competive. She gets wins and lossse and practice and strategy...and it's not like I've drilled her with flash cards, though. All her grandparents and great grandparents have (had) it, too.

But how does Earl Woods not screw up Tiger Woods? How did Melissa and Sarah Gilbert's parents get great actors and a union boss? I'll stop now, but you see the point...it fascinates me.

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

It's funny but P's work has laid off a ton of people (that would be about 15 or so at 150 lbs. each) but when she quite on her own, they panicked over it and need her more than ever. And they should. She loves that job and she's good at it.

But its another good lesson in just taking life into your own hands.

She didn't wait around for what she knows what's coming. She can't stand doing it, because she really likes working there, but there are just too many signs that layoffs are coming anyway; and no one said she won't be one of them.

I really admire that about P.

Super admire.

She not only supported my movin' out, she knew when to do it herself. Scares me to death, but we are like Butch and Sundance making the jump.

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

Would an "inny" belly ring be more painful than an "outty" belly ring?

Things you think of in traffic.

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

I'm about ready to no longer be the ceo/cfo/coo of my own home or company. I'm not kidding.

I'm on the board of course, and you might call me "chairman." But P becomes the boss of me in about a week. All I have done for several years is take care of a little girl and non-profit stuff. (And airport stuff, 'nother story.) The point is that there is no more planning my day around the noon news or when last night's Daily Show is on.

It's a strange concept to go back to not being the boss.

----------------------------------------------------
Flush beats a straight.

This is my last thought for the night...

When you play poker, having all your hand in the same suite is worth more than having them lined up in a row.

But while you sit there thinking you have all these different suites lined up in a row for a winning, the winnow is the one that has five of them the same. Which is harder to achieve? Doesn't matter, those are the rules of poker.

So I was playing poker the other night and realized each hand, and how it's played and what its worth, is a story about the politics of today and tomorrow. (You saw the idea here first.)

If you get five of your seven cards to be the same suite it's worth more than having five of seven in a row.

Something to ponder.

I said I'd do it...

2007-03-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

I am now the Preisdent-elect of a large foundations board of directors.

I did it because I helped launch a mini-coupe in the meantime. Pays nothing. No glam and little added respect.

But crapdamnit, I'm not going to screw around with this unless I jump in totally with two feet.

Ugh.

And since I'm the biggest loudmouth and found the most money...ta da

But I am completely into reshaping this thing. And I'm the bonehead that made the volunteer commitment to try and stop the bleeding.

Might look good on a resume someday when I'm alone and poor.

On charity and non-profit boards

2007-03-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

A person I have known almost my whole life, dated her daughter for three years, and have super amounts of respect for, just quit a charitable board she serves on with me.

This was found out when I called her to talk about a $10,000 gift we just received.

I am a little (a lot) in shock.

But she said something interesting and that was, to paraphrase, "you can't rely on retired baby boomer old farts to be the workhorses of charity anymore."

She just wants to be retired. When I called my dad, he said he'd give thousands to not be involved.

But here is what's wierd about it all...

I'm the young guy, at 37, at every meeting I go to. Tink about that. Every non-profit and civic thing I fuss around with, I'm like the tater tot to the hamburgers. I even let my beard grow out this winter to play with looking more gray.

So as the boomers realize they don't want to carry the load for this type of civic stuff, and tell, Xers to take the reigns, they have to let go.

Let me say that again: My generations moms and dads have to let go of this stuff if they are going to let it go. They have to get that there is a seem of 25-40 that, right now could take the helm of certain things. We're really well educated, well travelled and socially responsible. We're just not the Baby Boomers...

So I get told I'm suppose to be the president of a certain foundation, and then get treated like I'm too young to be smart enough to actually run it. It's so stupid. Another foundation said that the "older votes" were more important than the "younger votes." "Younger" meant less than 40 years old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I'm just ranting. I am sorry that someone I have considered a mentor for more than 30 years is leaving our board. But if everyone is going to point the finger at me to lead it, then get over being old fashioned.

Hey, wait. That's it.

(When I write a dribble, I get productive drool.)

That's what bugs me...an entire generation is passing before our eyes, only most of it has happened after they were older. Baby Boomers could be managed and expected to be managed. Xers, well, we just learned to mold to a bunch of things. I would be labeled as a "flip flopper" on several issues, but my parents would just "mature." The thing is that we are figuring things out at warp speed. It's like watching intellectual bamboo grow.

I'll stop now.

I just hope every piece of bamboo finds a forest that needs them.

Maya

2007-03-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

It's not something that I can hide, but
I know why the caged bird sings
Even though I am white.
It sings for all that should be right.

Maya got the gist
She took the flak.
But I'm here to take nothing back
From the words of a prophet.

Ever seen her?
Ever heard her speak?
Ever realized how she can make you weep?
That's the closed off house you keep.

Terrible. I'm going to monkey around with this stuff. Read up on forms of poetry and stuff.

But ever heard Maya Angelou speak and read one of her poems. Mac called tonight and I was thinking about the last time I saw her at his graduation from Ithaca. I am turning into a sentimental old fart.

An example of my free-form poetry

2007-03-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever watched the sky weep
And sat in it's deep wetness?
The idea that mother earth is weeping.
We're warm to the climate.
We can't deny it.
But governement is caught sleeping.

OK...there!!! Off the top of my head. Wde never write those down! I caught one, literally, for the record. Didn't say it was good..., but you get the idea...had to try writing it just like we play it...

Just for fun...

2007-03-12T03:38:00.000-07:00

Just a few more to play with it. Why? Because...I'm just playing around. I know it sucks...but Big A got me going again today while we drove.

I have driven across the country
But I am not I sentry.
My life is my own, but I have a family.
I can't cast judgement
On someone I don't know
Because I don't know how muchey've been told no.

Daily newspapers are fun.
They talk, report and have an opinion.
But thinking is higher.
Beyond what they say there is thinking, I say
But newspapers come down to the biggest buyer.

Insight means you see something
You see something that no one else sees.
It maybe bright or it maybe light,
But only your eyes can see it.

You can pierce darkness with your crush.
You have no idea about the power.
It's as you stare that the rush comes.
And then, it's the hour.

The hour we all must stop.
And say that we are not poets.
We just don't know how to do it.
But funny how we all know it.

p.s.

2007-03-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Big A and I were having a rhyming session in the car on the way home. She is only six, but she cracks me up with the rap and poems. She gets the idea that it is not about rhyming but syllables. The pace...

So I got into a deep thought about why they don't seem to teach that in school. It's not about having the rhyme at the end, it's more about, well, it's more about the rythem.

So here is the game we play...write a poem as an improv off the top of your head.Actually, don't write it, just say it.

It's like e.e. cummings, twisted with Bill Gates.

But Annalaan kept up...she is very good at that after years of hearing me do it (ok, in spite of). But the point is that she can play the game fast. It's not great stuff, but her brainiac trigger finger is quick on the draw. She is so right brain/lefthanded it scares me sometimes.

The weekend I did nothing and my brain was working OT

2007-03-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend at the ocean. Shaved my head. It rained 10 inches. But mostly, I had no dogs and a REALLY big TV with PiP, so I could watch sports and CSPAN, etc. at the same time...

Quick observs...

I watched a book talk-thing on CSPAN that was actually a conference for Young Republicans. It was held at the Ronald Reagan somethingerratherretreatcenter. It was like a brainwashing fest. I'm not all that liberal, and I'm not all that conservative. Rockefeller Republic, Reagan Democrat: choose my poison. But the speakers were all about how bad schools are becuase they teach alternatives. I'm not kiidding. This was a whole conference for how "they" can stand up against "them."

I also watched Hillary's NH speech...wow she sucks as a speaker but her words are pretty good. Hillary had better looked more thawed and cart her husband out more if she really wants to win. Everyone seemed to love the words, but she just doesn't have "IT." Obama has it. I hate to say it, but she just isn't lighting my fire.

Then I watched a Bill Richardson speech (CSPAN rocks). Let's think about this guy. He has international experience, cabinet-level experience, and he's been a good governor in a fairly cobservative state. He doesn't speak very well, either, but his street cred should be higher than it is right now. Actually, after watching him speak, I was thinking about the fact that I just want a President who surrounds him or herself with people who are smarter. I can go Richardson or Clinton...but I like the fact they came from an intellectual background.

Talladegha Nights is only funny if you can laugh at NASCAR. If not, it's kind of dumb, or just not relevant. I laughed my ass off many times, but I could laugh at almost anything and not take it too seriously.

HDTV is better than regular TV.

The only little complaint I have about TV at the ocean is that it's in realtime. I am so use to being on EST that I missed a bunch of shows because they were on three hours later. Speaking of which...

WOW did Daylight Savings Time throw us for a loop on a mini vacation!! Nothing that is controlled by a computer even came close to adjusting except for this laptop. And that took a bunch of updates.

Speaking of laptops...I was futzing around at the ocean with wireless stuff and, hmmmmmmmmmmmm...it's flat and developed...know what that means? In "downtown" it's free to surf the internet!!! I was just using my phone to play with it, but most of the town is free wireless. Which means my laptop and our PSPs, too. Chicken dance of excitement.

I'm going to leave you with a Jack Handy-type deep thought.

I just can't think of it.

Here...I'll try.

EVeryone should walk in the rain because you get very wet. And when you get wet, I might be able to see your nipples.

Big A Update

2007-03-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

Cracks me up. She never ceases to amaze me.

The mom of the girl in the previous entry, who allegedly called Big 'weird' brought cupcakes today for a Friday treat.

When I picked Big A up from school she said, "I looked her mom in the eye and asked if she really had said that about me. She said, 'Of course not, Sweety.'"

Whether the mom said it or not isn't the point, the point is that I felt like I had a parenting triumph. She understands the value of communicating head on about stuff and she wasn't afraid to do that.

My little anti-wallflower.

It was like a culmination of Movin' Out and being a stay-at-home dad. We don't screw around with semantics, tell the truth, and ask questions when we don't know.

But this reminds me of one of my favorite editors at The Boston Globe:

"YOU DON'T KNOW OR YOU DIDN'T ASK???????????????"

I was thinking about that today as we drove home...what a great mantra to live by.

If you don't know, then ask.

From cradle to high school

2007-03-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

Big A was completely verklumpted today. She got home from first grade and was beside herself.

She is, according to her testimony, not invited to a birthday party because the mother said she was "too weird." According to her friend.

Oh, the drama.

But it was an interesting parenting issue, actually. I had to balance her perception/reality of what happened, with the overacting of a nearly seven-year-old kiddo.

My compromise was being sympathetic, but making her tell the story twice. Once, she didn't even have to see me at all and explain what happened. The second time, I wanted her to look me in the eye and tell the same story.

She couldn't look me in the eye and say it without coming unglued, mostly with croc tears. But, eventually, with a couple of minor adjustments, very minor, she looked me in the eye and told me the same story.

I told her I didn't doubt anything she said, but it's really hard if you can't look me in the eye and say it.

The three lessons for her (and me):

1) "Weird" is a kid that is about seven and can't look daddy in the eye with a story.

2) I don't care if you are 17, if I ask for the truth, look me in the eye and tell it.

3) She knows that I can read her like a Dickens novel when it comes to croc tears.

Swear, she crawled into bed and fell asleep harder than an anvil in a Road Runner cartoon.

Now here is the hard part...P thought I was too direct with her. She said it was patronizing to act like her feelings didn't matter more than her actions. Big A was hurt by whatever happened and I was not being sensitive to that by judging her "post-trauma" reaction.

Someday parents out there: Discuss!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a major tiff (well, in so much as I was miffed and she was miffed, so that makes two miffs which is a tiff). All came to a solution; very loving on all parts.

It may came down to the same principal I will hold her to until H.S. graduation day: Look me in the eye and tell me the story. Look me in the eye. She is going to say dumb things and do stupid stuff, but if she looks me in the eye, and she knows what I'm talking about, we're cool.

I was in the first grade and high school once.

Pride Swallowing to get it fixed

2007-03-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

Our T-1 and the phone went out over the weekend. I tried everything to fix it...I was stumped. I called the phone company, who provides both services, and was told it was a minumum of $90 and $110 for every hour after that.

This seemed like a scare tactic to me because I had already spent about six hours trying to figure it all out.

But last night, when I was explaining to P that I was completely at my wit's end, she was nervous. And then I said that if things go right, we might even get some free improvements. Let's just say, she had her doubts.

Well, Fred arrived this m9rning and we hit it off famously. Long story short, not only is my T-1 modem five years newer and wireless, but both phone jacks were completely replaced with a ton of new cables.

And, I learned a bunch about how phones work and how the T-1 works. We had a grand old time most of the day figuring it all out; me with the wonder, him with the tools and supplies right there in his truck.

In the end, he only charged me a half hour for an almost four-hour job. Not that I think I got any huge deal, because it was their stuff that failed, but it was actually fun to admit a fix-it problem was over my head and then find out an expert was even puzzled by it all. Normally I would have fretted and fussed for days over it, and, in the meantime, have no phone or internet. I would buy wierd tools and gauges, and spent hours at the library learning it all, as well as I could.

Instead, I just called for help. And when it came, my problem was not only solved, it turned into a pleasant and interesting few hours.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh...don't tell Pilar!

2007-03-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

I want a tattoo.

It would make a great Christmas or Birthday present. Just a big imprint on my fatty self.

Speaking of which, my grills have BDs coming up fast this month. The big party is not until 3/31, but I have to keep track of both in the meantime.

Which is the daddy curse.

Daddy's are suppose to commemorate them all. There is no celebrating them together. Make them each there on on the day of.

I think I'll just get a backward tattoo on my ass to remind me every year.

Blood from a turnip

2007-03-03T19:59:00.000-08:00

So after a late breakfast this morning, I hit the golf course for a bunch of holes.

And had to admit to someone that I have no freaking money.

Funny thing. I got asked to be part of an investment I should have totally jumped at, and I can't even act like I can afford it. Every piece of my being said this was a good idea and deserved money to make money.

But I have none.

It did get me thinking for the back nine, though...what if I did have the money and just jumped into the whole foray of everyone for themselves?

It's bad enough I belong to a country club.

My biggest problem is reminding everyone to quit calling me "Mister."

10002

2007-03-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

When I say "Harriet and Nels Oleson" you know what I'm talking about.

Cheesy lyrics, but catchy

2007-03-03T06:53:00.000-08:00

The next Amy Grant?

I had no idea she was so religious when I first heard "The Noise." Not a clue. I just liked her voice and the lyrics.

Sign number 10001 I'm getting old: Instinctively drawn to any song where I can understand the lyrics!

Now comes the movin' out test

2007-03-01T16:20:00.000-08:00

For more than a year, P and I have been planning for this day.

Today P gave her two-weeks notice, and then we're on our own. Health insurance is all set, we have our LLC, we have a business plan, and we're going to try and work from home. Together.

In one way it scares me do death...how fast we're going to lose her income.

In another way, I totally welcome it because P is exactly the task master I need. She is the boss for the next several months.

Of course, we'll spend a couple of weeks in Hawaii for planning in June and July, but for the most part, the horse has left the gate.

The Mango

2007-02-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

The episode of Seifeld titled, "The Mango" was on tonight.

Now most people might remembers it as Kramer getting kicked out of using a fruit stand, but I still think this is one of the funniest banters ever gotten away with or written for TV. The fruit stand referenc hides how much absolutely funny other dialogue is written in there. I can see the pitch: Kramer doesn't like his fruit. And some studio exec saying, okay, we can do that, run with. And Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld sitting in the room with a sneaking quick glance and an internal smirk...

GEORGE: Yep. There's one little problem.
JERRY: Sexual?
GEORGE: Yeeeaaah. Well..... I've never really felt confident in..... one particular aspect.
JERRY: Below the equator?
GEORGE: Yeah.
JERRY: Nobody does. You know, nobody knows what to do. You just close your eyes and you hope for the best. I really think they're happy if you just make an effort.
GEORGE: I don't know. Last time I got the tap.
JERRY: You got the tap?
GEORGE: You know, you're going along, you think everything's all right and all of a sudden you get that tap. (George taps his own shoulder). You know it's like pfffff (whistling sound), all right that's enough, you're through.
JERRY: The tap is tough.
GEORGE: It's like the manager coming out and asking you for the ball.
JERRY: Well maybe she just wanted to move on to other business.
GEORGE: No, no, this wasn't moving on. I got the hook. I wish I could get a lesson in that.
JERRY: It's a very complicated area.
GEORGE: You can go crazy trying to figure that place out.
JERRY: It's a haaazy mystery.
GEORGE: Anyway, I think everything else is okay. Unless of course she's faking.

Read the whole script though for a laugh at this link above. The is THE episode people secretly began nodding around the water cooler about at work.

Short riff on politics

2007-02-23T16:14:00.000-08:00

This is going to be short and sweet, because I'm just killing time before we go out and eat...

I urge everyone, EVERYONE to create a real e-mail address just to sign up for all the candidates mailings lists. It's a freakin' hoot. I don't read them all, obviously, but the last couple of days I've been bombarded with the "one week to go" before filing e-mails. Of course, I'd never taint my real e-mail with all this stuff, so I created one for myself and just for politics at MSN.

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

This whole Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton supposed feud over raising money from either Geffen or Spielberg in Hollywood, is one of the most created stories of the campaign so far. Crappity, it's all really doing to end up being DNC controlled money, so of course it's better to split your flanks and war chest like hell for all democrats until the front runner comes. It's war chest for everyone until the convention and after about four weeks, we're going to know who the DNC is rallying around and most of this money will get dumped into that campaign anyway. This is why most conservatives are complaining about such a short nomination season, and most Republicans hate it. There is not time for myth building for a R that is going to be politically at a bit of a disadvantage in the general, and the Ds can get the hatchet dropped fast and say bring it on.

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

You didn't hear it here first, but abortion and abortion issues aren't going to be the super big issue this time around. Yes, yes, yes, it's going to be an issue, but not the biggest because of three main things:

1) Even conversatives are sick of talking about it.

2) No matter what happens there aren't enough votes anywhere, I would bet even in the Supreme Court, to change the law much from where we're at now.

3) A republican can only stub his toe talking about it during the primary season, to win the primaries, and Democrats don't even have to say a word early in the season.

My prediction for the bigGood vs. Evil argument?

Gun issues.

This is new new thing that each side is too up in a unfortunate meltdown over one way or the other, it's going to be the place where the middle wins. It will be one of the defining places for the middle. On both sides. Ds want to say all guns are bad, Rs want to say all guns are good -- sound familiar to the stupid women's choice debate.

I don't even think Iraq is as red and blue as this right now.

I'd also float out there that everyone says, well, a lot of people think, anyway, that "global warming" is going to be a hot issue. Which leads me, too...

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

It still cracks me up that no candidate has even come close to the barebones of "global warming." Nobody knows how to solves "global warming." But we know preservation, we know protecting species in a reasonable way, and we know that generally CO2 emmissions are bad.

But it's also as funny to be that no candidate who supports "gun rights" hasn't come out that it's really about hunting. No, it's not all about that, but if I want to hunt I want to have a plac to hunt and game to hunt and eat.

(The beaut is you can throw conceal carry off as a completely states-rights issue, which it is.)

But what if you were pro environment and pro hunting? You grab the middle, completely, of two gigantic camps in what are going to be huge issues. (Note: If you're from some campaign that wants help writing that wonk, I'd be happy to help.)

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

I think the first-name-being-the-brand strategy is very risky. Instead of saying Sen. Biden, or Former Governor Romney (which isn't even a title, so it would just be Mitt Romeny on first and Romney on second reference), of Hillary or Hoback, vs. Sen Clinton and Sen. Obama, they should use the titles as much as possible.

We are G-Dub's, George W., Bush, 43rd-ed OUT!!!!!! He is President Bush. I think he really added to the weightless perception in '00 when his own campaign started referrring to him as G-Dub or George W.

So, to that end, if I were in communications for the Gov. Bill Richardson campaign, I's drop the Governor and take the title for like he was given when he was U.N. Amabassador: All references should should be to Amb. Bill Richardson. Who cares if he was the governor of New Mexico (I'm kidding, a little), but you get to be called President, Amabassador and Justice for the rest of your life by official protocol. That's got some serious political clout for Richardson this campaign...and no one can argue with it.

(Unless Justice Sandra Day O'Connor runs, think about this, Richardson will have held the more prestigious title of anyone else in the entire race. Smoke that.)

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

OK...5 p.m. dinner reservation. Gotta...hope there was some stuff there to chew on.

Seek new life...

2007-02-20T06:10:00.000-08:00

So this morning I was thinking about the difference between travel and living.

And I was already figuring out how Big A can find the difference.

She has travelled a lot, but she really hasny' lived someplace completely new. Another state or country. Not that there is a hurry, mind you, but many people can say "I've been there seen that." But how man had an address and learned the language or the nuance of the accent?

And then I get a little deeper...

I've lived and survived in three places in my life. But there are other places I've been that I thought it would be interesting to have Big A try the same thing.

Wait, actually, with my personal three-month definition, I have lived in four unique cities/regions.

Tacoma, Boston, NYC and Maastricht.

Big A has like 120,000 miles, but does it mean anything if she never plops down long enough to even see what natives see? I'm telling you, this one has me in a conundrum because she travels so well, adapts so well, and she needs to see stuff. Quite yet? No...but it's on my radar screen.

I'm blabbering because everyone else is using the bathroom.

I was introduced to Tijiauna in the first grade. The first freaking shock of my life! Kids younger than me trying to sell ME gum. Many times we drove into Mexico over those years until about the seventh grade. But I will never forther seeing people piss in the sewer grates as we rode a public bus. How cool is that to see?

They talk about Mexico being bad now. Oy. Getting to Ensada and playing in the Baja surf was like running through Kabul, only 30 years ago. The kids were the "Don't fuck with us" currency. Not kidding...we were all young enough that when we did get pulled over, no one messed with us for real.

See...its a complex memory. And those were just weeklong trips.

My parents rocked giving us some pretty wild stuff for travel before we were teenagers. But it shocks me how much of it I remember. I remember the fish with skin and eyes in Chinatown when we lived on Mott Street....when that was Little Italy. And taking the subway to Queens from Manhatten for Mets' games. And living a summer in Binghampton, well, actually Hancock, when I saw E.T. and Poltergeist -- my first R-rated film before they changed it back.

This is the stuff I think about with Big A. How can we map it so she is stretched hard the next five years? We're on the way with her thespian commitment, and she has been everywhere from Honolulu to Hoboken. But I want to do what my parents did and figure out how to get paid to live someplace completely different.

Not just visit...live.

My turn for the bathroom.

A little snip here, a little snip there

2007-02-19T18:46:00.000-08:00

I have actually ended one branch of one breed of one German dog family.

As Big A describes it: Boo got snipped today.

There is no way either Scout or Boo will ever reproduce.

How did he take it?

Ummmm...you'd think he just went out for vanilla ice cream at Dairy Queen. Scout was more stressed out having him gone all day.

Both my breeders are happy...I make no money off either of them reproducing their pedigree...I'll leave that to the "experts."

But in the world of German breeds, the fact I didn't freeze some eggs and semen was pointed out as bad.

This is kind of funny. Some of the same people that argue against embryonic research, want me to freeze my dogs goods in case someone wants to order from me.

There is an irony there that I just have not done very well putting my finger on.

Let me try again...

The same dog people that are most trying to use genetic engineering to keep lines going of dogs, are the same ones who, politically, act the most vocal about sperm and egg manipulation in humans.

Closer, I hope.

I also hope you get the gist.

busted, busted and BUSTED

2007-02-16T23:14:00.000-08:00

We're on the 24th hour of the great crime crackdown in the unincorporated neighborhood.

I'm sure they are going after meth and drunk drivers. But it is kind of funny how they staged everything. No details here, but if you've been around the hood you've either a) noticed them, b) heard the sirens as they bust people, or c) are guilty of something.

I live in the boonies and we probably hear a siren a week. Since last night they pop up all the time.

There's a reason some of the best episodes of Cops were shot around here.

And the Chamber of Commerce banned Cops from the hospitality list.

March Playboy

2007-02-16T22:24:00.000-08:00

I thought this might be fun for people that don't read Playboy...a summary...because the social commentary is, on a whole, better than the pictures (and, actually, the writing is better than almost anything else).

We start with the cover...what's up with Mariah Carey and the fake boobs? OK, that's something I don't care about. But those of you that read Playboy know that one of the trademarks of the cover is that there's a bunny someplace in the photo. This was a hard one to find. I mean good one to find...I mean...doh!

But the cover always reminds me of Big A's children's magazine where you find everyday stuff hidden in a normal drawing. Scholastic? Is that it. Moving on...

Inside the double cover is this quote: "I'm over looking at you, youre there watching me, too, both painting pictures of how we'll kiss and F***." -- Mariah Carey, "Say Somethin'"

See, we've only turned the cover and I have questions. Why can't the inside cover of Playboy quote her as saying "Fuck"? Dear Playboy, if you're going to pose like that on the cover, and quote those lyrics, quote the fucking song.

I've only opened the front of the magazine. This was a dumb idea.

But this is my point...I savor every Playboy for the reading. It's my People, or Vanity or New Yorker, all kind of rolled into one. Great fact, great opinion, great fiction. But here's how old I'm getting...

I don't find it in the mail box and think about naked pictures of women, I wonder what she wrote on the questions page in the centerfold and read the jokes on the back of that page (technically the next page).

So I will leave you with a party joke from the March Playboy:

"What do you do for erectile dysfunction?" a man asked his friend.

"Cialis," the friend replied.

"Are thos pills easy to swallow?" the first man asked.

"Oh, you must have misunderstood me," the second man said. "I sneak away from my wife and go see Alice."

Yes wives and girlfriends, that about as lame as a joke gets.

You're probably thinking, "What the fuck?"

:)

The golf was good, but...

2007-02-16T16:51:00.000-08:00

Eating lunch with a bunch of rich, succesful 80-plus-year-old men is priceless.

I enjoyed golfing, blah blah blah

But everyone should eat lunch and kabitz with a bunch of really old farts. I'm not kidding. They swear like sailors (but they might have been Marines), they talk about life before WWII, and they're tough ol' cusses.

Better than golf was a martini lunch with those guys.

I have no freaking idea, but it brought up memories

2007-02-15T23:06:00.000-08:00

A local second-grade girl died of flu-like symptoms in the last day.

I hope they examine this for Reyes Syndrome.

I have lost two friends when they were young to Reyes. Argh, this just sounds so familiar. I will not touch aspirin to this day and that has gone on for 25+ years.

In fact, that's all I want to say about this.

Hillary my Billary

2007-02-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

I'm going to say that if e-mail updates and websites really matter this 2008 presidential election, I going with Hillary. That campaign updates me almost every day about how she feels, or speeches from the floor of the Senate.

But can she do the meet and greet? Can she play to Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Nevada.

Her campaign may be genius using the internet, but here my take on the reaction of the four biggies that start the nomination season:

Iowa: Strong second
New Hampshire: First
North Carolina: Third
Nevada: First

I'm just throwing it out there. Now there is a record of what I think a year before any of it really matters.

Want the boring details?

Nah...here's the MTV version:

Iowa: Hometown guy wins
New Hampshire: They have loved her since the lamp fell on head just before the '92 primary, even if that did happen in the Boston Ritz
North Carolina: The south is going to resent her early on
Nevada: Lots of women, and they like technology; plus they boomed during the earlier Billary years.

My nutshell. Add a grain of salt and it would be salted nuts.

Then you shake it all about

2007-02-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

I'm torn on the issue, but the headline cracked me up: 'Hokey Pokey' or Hanky Panky?

The gist is that a local high school principal shut down a dance because the kids were dancing too sexually. My first reaction?? Give me a break. But then I read some of the guys had taken their shirts off...and, well, it then kind of makes some sense that things were out of hand in the grownups' views.

But here's where I'm torn...

I got a ton of action slow dancing 20 years ago. And that was real. In a dark gym. And involved real sexual content. So why are these kids getting picked on for just faking it and looking funny doing it?

And when I was in high school, we had the infamous "Get laid, get fucked" chant during "Mony, Mony." Even before it became a Billy Idol hit (but not before he began covering it).

This is where I get torn. They are now acting like they are having sex during fast songs, as opposed to when we felt up and stimulated everything but the kitchen sink during slow songs. Am I suppose to be shocked that dancing is stimulating? (With the caveate, I think the topless guys went too far.)

Doesn't seem to work

2007-02-14T13:24:00.000-08:00

I'm not very good at narrative prose.

I'll stop trying for now.

The inner book

2007-02-13T00:44:00.000-08:00

Four people in the last 10 days have said I needed to write a book about my stories.

I keep thinking it needs to be a movie because it's got to be animated to make it interesting. But what if I can just deliver it prima facia with writing?

I've had a fairly queer life. I jumped at crap that others could only dream of jumping at. But do people want to read about it?

Hmmmmm...

Or am I just a conondrum? Wrapped in a riddle.

OK...I'll play. I'll throw the paper in the typewriter. Let's see what spits out.

Ball markers

2007-02-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

When your ball gets on the green in golf, you can mark it and clean it.

Now, you could just get a pocketful of the little plastic markers the course hands out for free...or you can play with it. Come up with your own standbys.

My five favorite ball markers in the locker:

--An old-time 25-cent chip from the Flamingo in Las Vegas

-- A civil war medal for bravery

-- Flattened pennies from those penny-flatenning things around the world at various places.

-- Foreign currency from places that use tin or almuminum.

-- An 1894 well-worn penny from the year the club was founded.

Way more fun.

Golfing Sandals

2007-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

I am a rebel without a cause.

I looooooove my Keen sandals. Love them. So, I ordered a pair of Footjoy's golfing sandals for this summer and Hawaii.

But the club and I had to make one thing clear...I can golf in them there without socks. This may sound like a minor thing, but it is always kind of assumed at a country club you'd wear socks. But I want to spend this summer sans socks.

Agreed, so sign me up.

Earthquake FYI

2007-02-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

Because I look at these things every Monday...

Wow the West Coast is getting clobbered with a burst of microquakes.

May not mean much, but that's a crudload of them this last few days.

Skinamax

2007-02-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

Do people actually watch the soft porn on Cinimax? Really?

Is there some counting machine that says that more people would watch fake sex than would, say, "Caddyshack"?

I find that amazing.

She is the boss of me

2007-02-10T21:24:00.000-08:00

P and I were discussing something; well, uh, we were "heavily" talking about a disagreement we had. It wasn't a big thing. Had to do with an internet domain I underuse.

But I have to quote her:

"You will have to bare with me. I am your wife and you have no choice."

Touche.

I had no choice other than to sit there thinking slack-jawed. I disgaree with her about a few things, our opinions are different on a few others, but I'll be damned if she wasn't right on with the fact she wins arguments like it's a stare-down at the OK Corral. I folded like a lawnchair.

In the movin' out theme...

She is going to take me tomorrow morning to spend all day at the golf course. And she did light a fire under my ass to get my domain back up and running. We alos had a long discussion about careers and travel. I think my days of being a stay-at-home dad are numbered. Very numbered.

"...you have no choice."

Still cracks me up.

Anna Nicole Smith

2007-02-09T22:23:00.000-08:00

I am an unabashed fan of Playboy. I read it cover-to-cover; for about 20 years.

Pictures aren't all that great, but the writing is amazing.

But the first time I saw a story and pictorial about Anna Nicole Smith, I thought, "UH, OH!"

Three-named people are either serial killers or tragic figures.

Ponder that.

I did the moment I first saw her in Playboy, briefly, because taking three names is hiding something...I dunno. The three names are kind of odd, and I remember the first time I saw her in Playboy.

I just remember pausing the first time I saw her in Playboy and feeling bad that she had three names.

Nobody goes around including my middle name in anything.

At best, I thought it was just made up (it was) and at worst it would be tragic.

In my room...

2007-02-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

P officially went to short-term disability today after her flu/bronchitis week. Argh.

I've been pretty good. A few days of flu and then bounce back and golf today. But the idea has been to keep her out of our masterbedroom. And no kissing. "You occupy that end of the house, I'll take my end."

I still only made it through eight holes golfing. Rome wasn't built...you know.

Speaking of golfing...my golf course looks more and more different everytime I play it. So many trees were blown down during the storms that it's got a new look. Pretty amazing that a 110-year-old golf course is still at Mother Nature's mercy when it comes to shape and texture. Some members kind of bitch about it, but I think it's pretty cool. Our course got hit hard because it had some of the oldest preserved groves of forest left within 50 miles (that's not a park). The oaks got blistered. The Evergreens went through hell. But, on we go.

One of the trees that almost all blew away is a "signature" tree. You'd think it was Barbaro or a whale by how many measures they're taking to save it. They say it has very little chance unless we have a wet, wind-storm free Spring. They have planted anchore trees around it, tied with ropes. They have done cosmetic surgery where its biggest branches came off.

"Signature" just means it comes into play and has a ton of wildlife around it.

After all the trees came down and the damage, they have already spent thousands and thousands with famous golf course architects, arborists, and landscapers to map a plan for every single spot on the course.

Which is one of the reasons I like belonging to a private golf course. The reason they were doing most of this wasn't about golf. It was about fox families, etc. The trees will grow back, but we have a wildlife population to keep in mind.

Well...how it changed the golf course was a "little" important.

lol

Dear Pilar:

2007-02-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

Huh? Beta VS. VHS; like Atari VS. Nintendo

2007-02-07T20:32:00.000-08:00

I can't find a link off hand, but I'll be back...

I loved the blurb in the Seattle P-I about the DVD release of "Hollywoodland."

"The film comes in a standard DVD release or a combo disc with the DVD and high-definition DVD version."

Not that the suicide of George Reeves shouldn't be seen even more up close and personal...

But why the heck would they package them together? OHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh!

So we see it better someday when we all have HDTVs.

This just got me thinking...I had HDTV , and I really don't care about whether it's a DVD or an HDTV. So, I cancelled my HD service.

(Full disclosure, I do have HD on both of my big computer monitors, but I don't subscribe to anything that cares yet.) But for watching TV and DVDs? Useless.

Back to my point...why stick two platforms on the same disc set? The easy answer is that they (the studios) are planning and shaping the future and they want you to be ready.

This is soooooooooo, stupid. I have about seven devices in my home that play DVD. I had two VHSs when I started even caring about what I owned. We are married to DVD. And we're not interested in spending two, three or four thousand on building a home theatre that cares about HDDVD.

DVD does it skinny for storage, cheap to rent and buy, and offer (in some cases) brilliant interesating content. I see no compelling reason to watch "Hollywoodland" in hi-def.

Super Bowl!!!

2007-02-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about this today...I haven't watched one in person. I have never seen a Super Bowl.

I've travelled the world and seen this and that sporting event, but I've never been to a Super Bowl.

So I was trying to do my pre-40 list of things I want to do: (Not the order by want, just how I wrote it.) (I'm 37.)

-- Fly fishing in a river in Patogonia, Chile. Knee deep in the middle of nowhere and then release them.

-- Take my daughter to some strange place that throws her in a loop, like China or India.

-- Learn to breath through my mouth so I can snorkel.

-- Travel into a war zone.

-- Catch a home run and not a foul ball

-- Go to India and leave the hotel

-- Sneek a picture the next time I see Lenin or Mao's bodies, with me in front. (Hey, technology has come a long way! lol )

-- Camp in Costa Rica (no motels)

Hmmmmmmm...

This is kind of fun...without being crazy, what am I suppose to do the next few years?

-- Catch a grayling

-- Step foot in Inuit country

-- Christmas Mass at the Vatican.

-- Owning a boat

-- Having a job.

But wait, Big A is my job...

I am officially a stay-at-home dad who got to do too much cool stuff (in a good way) before I was 40.

Or I'm a rambling idiot.

You decide.

When you want to say it, but you can't quite say it

2007-01-30T20:05:00.000-08:00

This is probably mostly directed at people who have a hard time saying, "I love you."

Guys are the worst.

I can say I love my wife. I can say I love my daughter. I love my family. I can shout it from a hilltop!

But some times with other old friends, male and female, I catch myself from saying I love you at the end of a conversation. It just sounds dorky, or something.

But the fact is I do love all of my friends and I feel like telling them after every long phone call or argument. I'm not talking dozens and dozens of people, maybe a dozen in total, I guess.

But at that last second, when it's time to say goodbye, you want to end it with, "I love you."

I was thinking about that today when I talked to someone far away who I've known for a long, long time. I was loaded with "I love you" and I couldn't pull the trigger.

And then he did.

Fiji

2007-01-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

My dad bought a week at a condo in Fiji for the last full week of February. From Seattle, it's about 1500 bucks. Owie. If I don't use it, it will be nuked, but I can't afford it it right now.

Anyone want to take me to Fiji 2/17 to 2/24? The condo is suppose to be on the beach.

I'm fun to travel with, that's for sure.

I just hate the idea that a place I've always wondered about and never been to is slipping through my grasp. I might try to do it by myself on miles, but P might be going to India for work, and I want to take Big A there (yes, I'd pick India for her over Fiji), or Kona, which is a simple and easy flight from Seattle. All free room.

But I've never been to one of the truly South Pacific islands. The Big Island and the rest of Hawaii are awesome, but I mean the gray area between the Phillipines, Christmas Island, New Zealand and Australia. I've never explored one of THOSE islands.

*SIGH*

Life is Hell

2007-01-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

Three more reasons I feel old...

I laughed at "Life in Hell" when it was an unknown comic strip and little funny books.

I laughed hard when something that looked like the same thing started appearing briefly on "The Tracey Ulman Show."

And I was in college when "The Simpsons" premiered as its own show with "Santa's Little Helper."

Those are quant and nice things, I know...but how about the fact this year is the tipping point where babies born during those memories are starting to get ready for high school graduation this Spring?

Holy crappoly.

But, but, BUT...I'm kind of proud of all this. I knew a good thing when I saw it way back in the mid-1980s when I was buying Groening's "Hell" books at The Evergreen State College during junior high and high school retreats.

So, The Simpsons Makes me feel old, but in a current way hip.

Like video games and the computer. Or at least thinking I have the street creds to say I was there when, and I knew what was going on...

Saturday Morning Blabbering

2007-01-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of a couple of weeks transition here, getting use to the whole realm of having a daughter with after-school activities.

I admit, I was a little bitchy about it at first. It really messes up my routine for the day and makes it a nudge harder to golf for a few hours. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

lol

But P gave me one of the great verbal dressing downs ever when she ended it with, "Hey, than quit working from home."

Doh!

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It's too early in the morning to put much research into this...but have you seen on the news that one of the most recent ambushes of Americans in Iraq was carried out by a bunch on white SUVs and guys dressed in US-type uniforms?

My three thoughts from all the news reports...

1) Where the hell did five white SUVs come from? Think about that.

2) No news source even referenced the fact a whole load of US military uniforms were stolen early in the conflict and, at the time, we were suppose to be concerned about that.

3) Is it just silly now to think the "winning" is when Iraqis are in charge of their own security?

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

At least watch "Lawrence of Arabia," even if you read none of his books ("Seven Pilars" is fascinating, though). Then buy a history book that puts into context, briefly, how we (led by the British) put all those countries together in the 1920s. Ummm...I mean drew lines around areas of land and gave them names and royal families.

At the time, it wasn't a bad idea. Maybe it's not a bad idea now in Iraq.

(brainstorming here.)

What if we did split Iraq up and create three kingdoms? And call them that. Lawrence nailed that concept when he promised the deilver Dasmascus from the Turks. He also said that as long as they operated like that, they'd be a "little people." Their egos were the carrot and stick -- all wrapped up in one. He promised the egos that they would have kingdoms, but warned that they would be foolish to screw around with that power among their general selves.

When push came to shove, Churchill asked Lawrence to help him divide up the country, and Lawrence wrote about it like he was a little kid dividing ground up among bullies on a playground. He just thought it should all be called a "playground" by staying "Arabia" with tribes.

I'm sure I bore you now.

At least watch the movie again. But better yet, read one of his books.

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Everyone should watch Bill Gates on "The Daily Show" Monday night. Love him or hate him, ummm, Jon Stewart, I mean, he is a curious guy who asks funny questions and then gets down to business. If you are not, at least, regularly recording "The Daily Show" to watch it: Shame.

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My local PBS station starts "Prime Time" at 3:00 and ends it at 11:00 p.m. I've heard both announcements over the last several months.

Is this just a way to show Congress how many people tune in during "prime time"? You just make "prime time" 20-hours long.

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

I'm running out of my "Aloha."

Which means my stress level is up, my Asian snackfood is way down, and 50+ degrees in sunny skies during January didn't really impress me.

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I've stopped being a good journalist type on my blog. I could do much better, I know. In fact I know how to do it, I just don't have time. Or anyone paying me to even think about it. (HINT)

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According to Pro-Choice America, Washington state is the second least restrictive for reproductive rights. Good. A good liberal state...ummmmm...conservative...which one wants small goverment...I get confused?

And don't touch my gun. We are one of the most liberal for gun rights...ooooohhh...I mean conservative. No really, we're liberal. We don't even have arguments about carrying guns, we have arguments about which convicted felons should carry guns.

No wonder I ended up living is Mass for so many years.

I'd argue I live in the most intellectual and liberated state in the country.

No wonder presidential candidates will probably avoid Washington like the plague. You can really fuck up thinking you are appealing to the "base."

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

Why is George Soros suddenly the rights' boogy man, and who cares about him? Super strategic mistake the right is making by causing Soros and his money to be an enemy. I think it's a bait and switch. I was no idea was the bait and switch is, but I'm guessing we're talking Hillary+Obama because the two biggest Chicago names have split: Soros and Oprah.

Me? I'd probably vote for Bill Richardson+Hillary Clinton above all other combinations.

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This whole "Blogger" to "goolge"-thing doesn't make me a happy camper. I don't see what's better about it.

My point is, it's not one thing or another.

Loved ones deaths

2007-01-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

So...my grandfather seems to be dying again.

But I'm going to sound like an asshole here...

If he needs to die, he needs to die.

I know nothing about his actual medical condition, but I can recite part of my eulogy to anoth very old grandparent:

"When you live to be 90, there is nothing tragic about your life story."

Ramble on Billary

2007-01-23T07:47:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton's people called again.

Here's what I think, sort of, right now...

She is smarter than anyone say for Bill Richardson. (Toldja this was a ramble.)

Or Bill Clinton.

They are like the perfect storm of pure intellect.

But why do I hesitate when asked?

Ever dragged a whole bunch of baggage through the airport? It sucks and you are so tired by the time you make the trip, it doesn't seem worth it at the end.

She is going to be the most influential woman of two generations. Big A will read of her.

(RAMBLE MORE...)

But I did buy Big A a shirt by a famous artist that she doesn't like, so she won't wear it. It got P and I laughing about the fact that Hillary is just to abstract.

Back to the main point...

I'm completely not sold on Osama, but I'm as torn as hell over Hillary and Richardson. It's why I can't jump on either bandwagon as a worker. Crudola.

But the clock ticks as we have to decide someone for the primaries. I'll give it the summer (unless someone wants to pay me for my advice; lol).

Ramble on me...

SUper duper checkup this morning and I seem to have passed with mostly flying colors. So I get through all that, this morning, and there was a phone call waiting for me from P. Right there at the doctor's office (she's smart, toldja). My grandpa's colin had ruptured, blah blah blah. I am not interested in having another 90-year-old guy die slow on me. Scares the hell out of me, in fact.

SO look at the next post.

Billary '08

2007-01-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

My cat was Billary. And everyone kind of laughed at it 15 years ago.

Billary the cat is dead.

But I'm a big believer in the team.

Let me explain...

It was always a two-for-one proposition. It's a chain that yanks both ways. Bill was alpha, and then Hillary can be alpha, but they are together.

Wanna talk family values? They clobber it, especially with Chelsea being so smart and well adjusted.

Hmmmm....I'm still not hitting it right...

I like the Clintons. They are smarter than most people, but I don't think they clobber people with it.

I like the idea of smart people who have been hit with all the shit you can throw at them running for president.

Ah, hem.

I'll stop rambling now. Because I'm not rambling, but sorting out who I should work hard for in 2008, and she's the frontrunner. Remember. I was a Mike Dukakis national delegate once. lol

She's in

2007-01-20T16:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Eric, I'm in. And I'm in to win. Today I am announcing that I will form an exploratory committee to run for president. And I want you to join me not just for the campaign but for a conversation about the future of our country -- about the bold but practical changes we need to overcome six years of Bush administration failures. I am going to take this conversation directly to the people of America, and I'm starting by inviting all of you to join me in a series of web chats over the next few days. The stakes will be high when America chooses a new president in 2008. As a senator, I will spend two years doing everything in my power to limit the damage George W. Bush can do. But only a new president will be able to undo Bush's mistakes and restore our hope and optimism. Only a new president can renew the promise of America -- the idea that if you work hard you can count on the health care, education, and retirement security that you need to raise your family. These are the basic values of America that are under attack from this administration every day. And only a new president can regain America's position as a respected leader in the world. I believe that change is coming November 4, 2008. And I am forming my exploratory committee because I believe that together we can bring the leadership that this country needs. I'm going to start this campaign with a national conversation about how we can work to get our country back on track. This is a big election with some very big questions. How do we bring the war in Iraq to the right end? How can we make sure every American has access to adequate health care? How will we ensure our children inherit a clean environment and energy independence? How can we reduce the deficits that threaten Social Security and Medicare? No matter where you live, no matter what your political views, I want you to be a part of this important conversation right at the start. So to begin, I'm going to spend the next several days answering your questions in a series of live video web discussions. Starting Monday, January 22, at 7 p.m. EST for three nights in a row, I'll sit down to answer your questions about how we can work together for a better future. And you can participate live at my website. Sign up to join the conversation here: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/action/conversation I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America, where I learned that we could overcome every obstacle we face if we work together and stay true to our values.
I have worked on issues critical to our country almost all my life. I've fought for children for more than 30 years. In Arkansas, I pushed for education reform. As first lady, I helped to expand health care coverage to millions of children and to pass legislation that dramatically increased adoptions. I also traveled to China to affirm that women's rights are human rights. And in the Senate, I have worked across party lines to get billions more for children's health care, to stop the president's plan to privatize Social Security, and to make sure the victims and heroes of 9/11 and our men and women in uniform receive the fair treatment they deserve. In 2006, I led the successful fight to make Plan B contraception available to women without a prescription. I have spent a lifetime opening opportunities for tens of millions who are working hard to raise a family: new immigrants, families living in poverty, people who have no health care or face an uncertain retirement. The promise of America is that all of us will have access to opportunity, and I want to run a 2008 campaign that renews that promise, a campaign built on a lifetime record of results. I have never been afraid to stand up for what I believe in or to face down the Republican machine. After nearly $70 million spent against my campaigns in New York and two landslide wins, I can say I know how Washington Republicans think, how they operate, and how to beat them. I need you to be a part of this campaign, and I hope you'll start by joining me in this national conversation. Visit my new website at HillaryClinton.com to learn how you can join in: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ As we campaign to win the White House, we will make history and remake our future. We can only break barriers if we dare to confront them, and if we have the determined and committed support of others. This campaign is our moment, our chance to stand up for the principles and values that we cherish; to bring new ideas, energy, and leadership to a uniquely challenging time. It's our chance to say "we can" and "we will." Let's go to work. America's future is calling us. Sincerely, Hillary Rodham Clinton

Speaking of strong women

2007-01-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

Big day today for Big A.

I wouldn't be comfortable with this, going against a whole school of girls, for the Queen Bee-type part, unless she didn't work so damn hard at it. She pretty much has it memorized, and she has done the whole thing in a mirror two hundred times -- every head turn and eye roll.

Can I admit something here that you will seeor hear no place else? (Of course, I can.)

She's got that "thing." It scares the carppola out of me, but she can act. The question is., what happens this afternoon in front a bunch of strangers and while getting direction. No rosy glasses here about that.

But in terms of finding a character in dialogue...wtf! She's got that

Working with her, she has shocked me.

But this afternoon she has to audition with all the "big" kids.

Politics in our household

2007-01-18T23:49:00.000-08:00

P really changed my mind about a potential presedential candidate today.

I had been called to work for another, and I said I'd "think about" it. Tonight, though, P hit some stuff on the head, and she has a financial and political look at it. Kudos.I have no problem saying my wife is probably smarter than me...and that should be a hint who she was arguing about.

Saturday morning...

Now, I'll finish...

I was stopped by honest circumstance before...

My wife IS smarter than me.

That all said...

She did change my mind about a Hillary run. There will be more, but my wife and kiddo aren't inot it because she's a woman, but because she' s smart.

Foundations and Boards

2007-01-17T17:50:00.000-08:00

I've been the employee of a non-profit board, and the board member of foundations.

They both kind of suck in the end, but for a good reason.

Making sausage is gross.

You have to get the whole thing under your fingernails and obsess about it. Sometimes, that happens just because of the cause. Sometimes, it's because you're paid to do it.

But if you have anything to do with a non-profit and you're not getting dirt from it under your fingernails, forgettabouit.

So here is my shout out to Bill and Melinda Gates. I'm off tonight to sit through a meeting of a foundation that no one is getting their nails dug in with. I've been trying, but there is only so much I can do.

Think about the travel, reading and reaching out those two have done for the foundation. It ain't the money, folks. It's the time on the ground and how you use it. It's your expertise or plain enthusiasm. That's the stuff that buys you a seat at the world table when in it's debate time.

I hate the idea of some board meetings, but I also realize that it's ultimately the manicure for my dirty nails.

I just hope other people are getting their nails dirty in some way.

Poker Kiddo

2007-01-16T23:05:00.000-08:00

Those of you that don't have kids may want to just skip this post...

Big A has been learning poker at six years old. Both online and in real life with me and others.

She sucks, really, because the strategy hasn't sunk in yet. But her ability to look at cards and have the concept of what they mean has become awesome during these snow days (another one today BTW). I know, I know...she six years old! But she is learning counting, value, perception and thinking.

It's really the 21st Century chess. (Which she also took up really fast at four.)

Like I said, the higher strategic-thinking skills aren't there, but she sees suits and straights and gets the value of higher cards. And it was only today I introduced play money into the scheme. She didn't know you could actually bet on that stuff.

Interesting spawn developing.

She will play rock, paper, scissors for an hour. And the hand slap game? She'll ask whether tou want to play bottom-top, or side-to-side. And she gets about every dice game I've thrown at her.

But here's why she is going to be better than most people in poker: humor and drama. She nails them. She's fun to play with and she can keep a straight face through about anything and then laugh her ass off when she beats you.

So that got me thinking...

Wow. This is my kid that, other than school, I spend 24-7 with, for the most part, and have for almost half her life. I'm awed by that. She's smarter than I am, if you could put it on a sliding scale.

We've also been getting ready for her big audition for the school play Friday. She has a script to read and she's up against about 100 other kids for "queen bee" and then everyone else will be "worker bees." But she's shooting for queen. Anyway, as she has wanted to practice, I noticed she has another flair: Improvising. She'll read something just a little bit wrong and then add just the right words that you'd never know the difference. All in her queen "voice." I wasn't even close to that until the fourth grade.

But there is money to be made for a kid in poker. Earl had Tiger in golf, I've got Big A.

Trump vs. Rosie

2007-01-16T07:13:00.000-08:00

Can't we just get to the real story here?

Miss Teen USA and Miss USA fooling around is pretty damn hot. They are both over the age of consent...

This is what the news should be focused on. Two babes legally screwed around. Now that drinking, I admit, was illegal and wrong, but name me a straight guy, one, that didn't look at them and think, "OK, that must have been hot."

Women, you're husbands may or may not admit it. But two beauty queens getting it on is, well, hot. Men...stand your ground.

How could Donald T. fire either of them?

And why wasn't it about Miss Teen USA? She got drunk and horny, too.

Questions, questions, questions...

MLK Day Thought

2007-01-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

People will make it sound like it's all about Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's not.

It's a crapload of people that we remember today. Race, sexual orientation, or creed...we need to take a moment a reflect on all of them.

I ran into a modern version of someone today who doesn't think there was ever a Klan! His/her idea, on this weblog, was that it was all justice because the law wasn't being enforced. Thought things were fine in 1959.

That's why you just pause and kick the dirt and say a prayer...

Winter Fat

2007-01-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to lie...this winter, with the windstorms and freezing temps, and crapped the beejeezus out of my figure. It's about the first time in my life I felt fat. No golf in about six weeks.

I didn't realize how much those 7,000-yard walks and hitting the little white ball made me skinnier.

Nuts and bolts

2007-01-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

So I've been doing car tours this weekend, and it hit me...almost none of these things would have been possibly without whoever perfected the ability to lathe a nut to match a bolt.

I'm notgoing to get all political about this...but I think that's the problem the Bush administration is having in the Middle East. They want to tour the big picture, but until a nut threads the bolt, it ain't going to happen.

If the little threads don't line up...you don't get the whole car.

I wish I were a better, more focused, writer to exaplin that.

Let me try again...it wasn't the giant spark of the combustion engine that created a car, it was the little stuff you had negotiate to even get to the point of the engine, or bending sheetmetal, or having rubber. Literally, the Iraqi was is a giant backfire; it doesn't have all the little gadgets that make it worth anything worked out. Never has.

People ooooh and awwwwwe at the cars, but it was more than 40 years after the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania and almost a decade after Europe, that we had them. A bunch of details had to be thought out.

Henry Ford was not a nice guy or anyone I agreed with politically. But he figured out that you have to negotiate things piece by piece. His "peace cruise" was an attempt at that; although that was kind of dumb.

But if, on the very simpleness of it, the nut doesn't match the bolt, no building cars.

I do love showing the cars and at least thinking philosophy and world history. Grand things they are for tripping that part of the mind; I forgot.

iPhone

2007-01-13T21:53:00.000-08:00

I think this just nails the debate about too much hype for the iPhone.

(p.s. Is the pregnant woman Molly Ringwald?!?!?! ;0)

Future Museums

2007-01-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

Today I officially am doing my unpaid job as a docent trainer about old cars...I'm excited.

But as I was watching the dogs in the dark, I thought about a few cool other museums that need to exist.

(Now they might exist, or they might be major parts of a general theme, but I think these three can stand on their own.)

The Home Computer and Home Entertainment Center Museum

Trace the whole history and explain why it was cool, put it in context of eventually changing arcades, blah blah blah. I mean this is just waiting to happen in Redmond. History of the mouse, someone invented the ctrl key and explain why the Fkeys are F when no one really knows how they function. Plus, you can have Nintendo do a whole history of home gaming systems. Stick it all in a non-profit awesome museum.

The Cell Phone Museum

When did it all start? Go back to the end of WWII through the Korean War...the roots of it. The bag phone! Remember that? Who figured it all out? How did we go from military use to monolithic use?

The Battery Museum

Especially with all the buzz today about electric cars and people bitching about dead batteries. You could completely design a whole museum around this.

And they all tie together!!!!!!

Sooooooooo...that got me thinking...isn't this just a gadgets museum? Tell tell the story, through artifacts, of what Generation X has adopted? Tie the chronology of the Wii into Donkey Kong so to speak. Put the bag Radar was spinning on MASH and connect it to the iPhone.

I started writing this as a "Museums of the Future" idea, but it took writing it out to realize, they are all tied together. And what museum is capturing that by putting old history, with new history, to their history.

I could babble on, but the dogs are done.

Not sure how take the local news reaction to Bush's speech

2007-01-10T23:13:00.000-08:00

I live in the middle of one each of the largest army, air force and navy bases in the world. So, you'd think people would be really jumping all over this new commitment to troops and the President's speech tonight. Locally, it took exactly 13 minutes for the first local news channel to even mention it. A couple of inches of snow was a waaaaaaay bigger deal.

So two thoughts out of that: Are even the military people so non opinionated about it publicly at this point that local TV just decided to not really cover it? And if you're not a local, coming from someplace else beause of a military move, what are you thinking that local statioons in this super-military area, that somesnow would be so much, so, so much a bigger deal around here than the President's speech?

I'll be pondering that the next couple of days. I'm a media and political geek.

So what do you do with a six-year-old on a snow day? The negative question feel more appropriate! What don't you do?

Somewhere between playing in the snow, driving in the snow and ice for a mini adventure for KitKats, and having a wedding for two of my cats complete with invitations...it was as busy as I've been in a while! That was all stuffed around making our own home improvement show and listening to the pups go nut from inside because they LOVE the snow -- so much that every rabbit and bird becomes a reason to never see them again -- ARGH!

All in good fun, though.

But back to the subject...

I just can't see the upside politically for any Republican in the country for the next election with throwing a squirt gun level of troops at a house fire. I can see why the young military people are so depressed. I talk to them every day. They don't really get what they're doing and they're tired. Heck, I've played golf etc. with several former generals that, instead of becoming talking heads, are biting their lips so hard they might need stitches -- and that started more than two years ago.

When we finally snaked our way to the treasured KitKat at a local convenience store today, literally 25 yards from Ft. Lewis property, it was an amazing exchange between the clerk and the woman in front of me in uniform:

Clerk: "Sorry. Going back?"
Soldier: "I dunno. Fuuuuuuck. Thanks."

Neither really made eye contact, but we're all kind of the same people in this little store all the time, so it wouldn't surprise me if the exchange was so direct and so short because it went with other morning conversation before the shift change at the fort.

That's the morose that seems to have settled in.

And why it took 13 minutes for them to bring it up on the local news.

All hail (I hope) the Queen

2007-01-07T23:51:00.000-08:00

Have you seen Kate Middletown's dimples?

She had me with the dimples...but I also like the seemingly unworked body and the fact they've been together for three years.

But those freaking dimples are just amazing. A slight smile, and they are their.

So, here is what I was thinking about today...how shitty would it have to be to follow in Di's footsteps by marrying one of her sons who could be king someday? This is not an ideal job description.

But those dimples...watch them...they work well and I think she might be smarter than the average babe for the job...

Hours later...still gidddy

2007-01-07T00:10:00.000-08:00

J.C. wrote this for ESPN.

Now, you have to remember that I sat in the press box next to him for the official worst college, um, I mean NFL football game ever. (The Drew Bledsoe-Rick Mirer Bowl.)
We watched some BAD Seahawks. A team that only won when they shouldn't have won.

But to beat the team that every kid in school carried a lunchbox for in the Kiss, Star Wars, Star Trek generation...priceless. Just priceless.

I feel giddy, oh, so giddy

2007-01-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

Now that the shock and awe and adrenalin has lost its edge tonight...

I love watching the Cowboys lose because I've hated them forever. I love watching Bill Parcells lose because I've hated him since he coached the Newark Giants.

This was just a bizzarre ending to a game. But no apologies about a fluke in the last minute giving Seattle the win. None.

But it was more fun watching the Seahawks win. Finally, it all bounced our way on prime time in a playoff game against the football equal to the Yankees (bastards, too). Do the hokey pokey, turn yourself around, that's what it's all about.

I've had this same amount of giddy four times in my life about a professional game I watched:

1. Sonics beating the bullets on that Sunday in 1979 for an NBA championship.

2. Tonight.

3. Junior scoring to beat the Yankees in Game five in 1995.

4. Seeing the Harlem Globetrotters lose 25+ years ago. (Actually, I just threw that one in there because it's true. They lost a game in Tacoma in 1979.)

Beating the Cowboys on a weird set of circumstances is joyous. Extra giddyup in the step. The Sonics' game was just cool because I watched it in the foyer during church. And Junior's score...crushed about 20 million people.

I have seen so many great games, but there are certain ones that you feel like you just pulled a flush in the last card of poker and beat a straight. Ever had that? Emotionally and fincancially, everyone goes all in because there are about five straights that can beat you, and you reveal the flush. That's what THOSE games were like.

Tonight, when Romo fumbled the field goal snap...he ran for a possible first down at the one-yard line and came up short. But in that split second I was thinking that maybe Dallas was drawing to a flush, too, and would get it with another first & goal. P said it right...I think too much, too fast.

I babble.

Beating the Yankees, Giants and Cowboys on luck is a trifecta that only rounds out my top ten. There are seven others...and I think almost all of them are New York/Newark/Dallas teams.

Coinkidinck? I think not.

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Big A is getting cracked down on for our own dress code.

She is dressing like Madonna or Cyndi Lauper or Boy George in 1984.

So we started into the rules about showing her belly...blah blah blah...

But I have to admit, she's good at the material girl look and she's got it. She knows, in some weird way, the gypsy-meets-funk things that happened more than 20 years ago.

Freaking handful is coming as a teenager. But she's earning street cred with me that she isn't just following the crowd completely. The crowd is following her. That's got to be pretty awesome when you're almost seven and they all want to dress like you.

But it is a thin line. I'm not kidding folks, she is good at the Goodwill-meets-kitsch look.

But no bellybuttons and no cracks showing.

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Which brings me to another couple of points...Big A has humor so dry it would make Bob Newhart blush, and she has never met a microphone, on a stage, in front of 400 people, she didn't squirm like a fish on the dock when she couldn't have it.

I'm not saying she's all that much smarter than any other kid. God, knows, she still does some dumb stuff. But her humor is flawless. I wish I could tell a bunch of funny lines, but I can't there are funny lines, but the tone, inflection and facial inflection would have to be in the package.

And then there's the fact that we encourage it. I honest to God think that people with this gift can really mess around with it, and when they screw it up with your parents, what happens in my family stays in my family. Because of the kid I've got (so far), she needs to know that there is a time and place for everything. I never learned that, p did. Don't mess withg it in public unless someone is paying you to do it.

The microphone is just a complete lack of caring at times like her karoke. An aunt said she could go up on stage today in front of 300+ people at a BD party. I felt like Hank Hill yelling, "Bobby, no!" She didn't have anything pithy or funny to say, she just wanted to fuck around with the microphone and see what stuff sounded like. I'm in awe of the way her mind works. She just wanted to hear all the microphone sounds and do it on a big stage.

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

Big A is on the hunt again for a sibling. I'm all for it, except for one thing...Big A almost killed my wife. Between the gestational diabetes and the post-partum bleeding...I'm not exactly jumping in the pro-creation boat with P. I've only realized it the last month...her emergency when Big A was born has me kind of scared straight. I like the idea have having more than one kiddo...I have just never had the piss scared out of me that bad, say for a gun in my face.

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

I got a nice reminder tonight that a lot of people at the museum miss me. And i miss them. Cheers.

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

So, for fun tonight I counted after the Seahawks game...and we have more than 500 DVDs. Notice I didn't say "over 500 DVDs."

Which leads me to a little rant. Why is "over" replacing "more than" and when can we old farts not twang at it anymore?

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

I miss the old days where everyone on the airport had airplanes and flew. Bygones be bygones.

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

Julia R. is shorter than I expected.

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

I think we're going to go to our ocean in March and the Hawaii ocean in June. It's like the Yin and Yang of beach getaways. One is cold, cheap, and close...the other is warm, costly and far away. Good call Dad and Vicki.

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

Finally, I've been narrowing my my old vs. not old thought constantly about this time every year. Old tradition, but it's kind of a game of, "What do you really remember?"

This year's entry is three fold:

1) I remember e-tickets at Disneyland.

2) Remembering phone numbers using letters.

3) Pintos blowing up.

I revise this constantly. There is a weird generation, I'm a part of it, that kind of melds Baby Boomers and Gen X. It the best and worst of both and vice versa.

Just another little curiosity E dabbles about with...

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

Speaking of which...I just accidently erased most of the last section because I've learned typing on the "home" method on a manual keyboard, and that just happends to be where my double-click mousepad rests under my thumbs.

Drat. Shouldn't hunt and peck be taught with these damn things.

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

Pleasure is always mine for people that read this far on a ramble.

But speaking of my poor laptop...it is getting flakier and flakier. My days of hauling to around and finding random wireless connection is coming to an end. I'll keep tring for as long as I can, but a crapload of stuff just doesn't type right.

Toodles.

e

Reference

2007-01-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

For skateboard reference. It is pretty cool.

Lyrics

2007-01-05T01:34:00.000-08:00

So I was driving home today and I heard a line from a song, and I thought, "That has always stood out for me." So it got me thinking, what are the top-10 lines from songs off the top of my head (things you have time to think about while crawling through traffic). There might be more than 10, but my notes are just squirted in to the notes on the cell phone. These aren't about the songs, per se, but the lines that capture something.

In no order, here are the ones that popped to mind...

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

"If I can make it here, I'll make it anywhere."

"One, two, three strikes your out."

"There's a place I can go and tell my secrets to...in my room."

"Hey where did we go, days when the rains came. At the misty hollow, playing a new game."

"All that glitters is gold, only shooting stars break the mold."

"My love is bigger than a Honda. It's bigger than a Subaru."

"You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself"

"He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me."

"He roller coaster, he got early warning. He got muddy water, he one mojo filter."

"They sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"

"He's a one boy cuddly toy, my up, my down, my pride and joy."

"Y-Mmmmmm-C-A"

"Do you believe in magic?"

"Gonna do my very best and it aint no lie. If you put me to the test, if you let me try."

That's where traffic loosened up and I had to quite the notes.

But now, after I paste them in, I realize, it's just a minor scratch on the surface. Seemed like a good idea in the car.

My own Uma Thurman

2007-01-04T20:05:00.000-08:00

P, when it comes to work mode, is only slightly less intense than Uma Thurman in Kill Bill I&II.

How she dove back into things so hard and so fast amazes me.

She gets the eye of the tiger going and becomes the boss. It's really pretty cool. I flinch at it sometimes, because, well, who wants to be bossed around; but over the years I've mellowed to it and I understand she is the boss of us.

My captain, my captain.

My wife

2007-01-04T19:33:00.000-08:00

P is the super trooper,

She has jumped head-first back in the real world, and I'm just getting use to wearing socks.

Shhhhhhhh...someway I'll make it up in the next few months.

New Year's Resolutions

2007-01-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

I hate the idea of New Year's resolutions. Just on a dumb principal: Why now and not yesterday?

That said...I came up with one that might be kind of fun.

I want to learn how to skateboard in the skateboard park named after my grandpa. It's suppose to be one of the best in the country, and by the end of this year I want to skate in it with Big A.

Sounds simple, right? But isn't that the way resolutions are suppose to sound. "I resolve to do [blank]."

Secretly, though, I also want to play 30 rounds of golf were I don't cheat at all. I don't improve a lie by an inch. Play totally by every rule in the book. Play like millions are watching on TV.

Those are my two main resolutions.

Now...I have New Year's wishes. But, again, I have wishes everyday. I have New Year's actions, but my actions happen everyday. I have New Year's concerns, but those concerns happen everyday.

I could list a hundred things when you add up all the categories. It's more fun to learn to skateboard with my daughter and challenge myself with golf.

Oh, and my vices, to hell with them. I love 'em.

One more other thing...

2007-01-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

The weather here has been the shittiest in decades.

It really sucks.

Make all the jokes you want about our rain, but it's come harder and more often than I have seen in almost 40 years of living here. And the wind has only made it worse. Argh.

Wanna talk volcano?

2007-01-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

OK, Kilauea is impressive.

But it's still not as cool as Rainier.

Part two of Hawaii ocurred to me again when I was standing to pee and looking at a giant photo I had framed of The Mountain. I see it every day. Some days it's really close, some days far away. Actually, some days I don't see it at all. But I stuck that framed photo of my volcano right above the toilet so I could see it everyday...sounds dopey, I know.

But I've told you before on this space that we have our mountain...people on the big island don't.

Wounded Knee

2007-01-03T21:34:00.000-08:00

I cut my knee pretty bad on the last day by landing on some lava in a lagoon.

DOH!

But I didn't realize how hard I hit until tonight, when it looked like holy hell, but felt even worse.

"Hi Emergency Room. I fell and scraped my knee on lava in Kona..."

But I have to admit, e ven with all the initial cleanup the medics did in Hawaii...I might need to get the ligs and cap scanned. Fuck. Infection isn't the problem, so I'm ok...I may have banged it too hard.

To quote Big A..."Grrrrrr, arrr, yyyyyyyyyy, oooooooooowie."

lol

p.p.s.

2007-01-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

Rachel Ray, with Soledad O'Brien, are my mid-30s icons. Someday they will both look like Barbara Walters.

Coming off the high...

2007-01-03T20:40:00.001-08:00

Today was the stress day. My wife, my daughter, my cats and my dogs...and me. We got a little bit fidgety with today. Dogs and cats are pissy. Wife and daughter are pissier. I'm just wanting to get through the week.

On to other things...

Jimmy Carter looked really old at the Gerald Ford funeral.

Why doesn't anyone call him James or Jim or Earl? If I were a James, at more than 70 years old, I'd snap at anyone who called me Jimmy.

Does anyone even begin to remember the massacre in Rwanda? I was thinking about that today.

Wanna hear my political spin of the day? No? I don't care. Brilliant move to leak something from the Giuliani camp about all his weaknesses. This is down and dirty brilliant. This is a tone setter. Let's float the stuff that is bad, and see if anyone really cares. Then you can say it was all stolen, later. I sat there watching the whole stolen-strategy story on the news, and it is simply brilliant. Hats off Mr. Mayor.

I now know three medical people who thought they were done with their Guard duty and ended up in hell in Iraq. None of them, after the initial push in Afghanistan, even had ending up in Iraq on their radar.

B-Dub and I made the decision tonight: We're not going to the Cowboys-Seahawks playoff game this weekend. We're giving the tickts away. Why? Night games have turned into a drunken stupid crapola. I liked it better when they sucked.

*SIGH*

I counted...we were gone for 11 days and we had 276 pieces of mail. Of that, 172 pieces were junk mail. One hundred and four were something we wanted. So their asses are blocked to my e-mail in box, but more than half of more than a week's worth of mail was crap. Sorry...I'm bitching.

If Nancy Pelosi hold her 100 hours plan together...she should be vice president. I'm not very optimistic.

Finally, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Hillary and Bill in 2008. Christ, it drives the extremes on both sides nuts. But they are both smarter than I am, and I know that. I've met them both and talked to them both. And watched them both. No, duh, they are super smart. I'm not saying this as a "walk into the light" drone...because I said the same thing about Bob and Lizzy Dole. As we wind up for presidential politics...it's going to be a divisive year.

(p.s. I still haven' figured out how much politics I'm goi ng to play with here. Blogs can go three ways, basically: pop culture, personal and politics. I like mixing the three, but P doesn't like that I do it. Happy New Year and we'll see how it unfolds...)

Coming off the high...

2007-01-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

USS Arizona

2007-01-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

This is the first in a series of thoughts about the Hawaii trip.

I'll mix them in with other stuff, but I thought I should take each little piece one at a time.

We took a day and did a daytrip to Honolulu, and took public transportation to, among other things, the war memorial at the USS Arizona.

I have been to about every war memorial in the US, but this is the most amazing. Think about a war memorial that, for a couple of hours, makes you completely uncynical and in awe. It's not like a statute you pass by, you have to wait hours to get on the boat to see this thing.

But the coolest thing was that the day we were there, two people awarded Medal of Honors were volunteering and they had their medals out. I've seen a Purple Heart, but I had never seen a Medal of Honor, much less talk to someone it was awarded to. (Bad sentence structure, I know.) For all of December, the guys that still alive from Dec. 7, 1941 get back and do tours.

It really is heroic what they did. But here is the weird twist...I was really, really shy to talk to them because they talked about the harbor so well and described exactly what they were doing at the moment it began and what happened over about a six-hour period.

Why was I shy? Because they were attacked. They didn't see it coming. I didn't understand how badly these people were caught off guard, literally, and got bombed so hard that people shit their pants.

But they knew it was a country that attacked them. It wasn't an ideaology that attacked them (in the literal sense). As one brave man said, an Arizona survivor, "we knew who was punching."

I babble.

So hang on...

I now know why this was one of my main goals for Hawaii...I mean seeing the war memorial at the Arizona. It's so honorable, and that's what I needed a reminder of. I had to see Pearl Harbor, study it, look at the markers of all the ships...I had to fly into it a couple of times and fly out of it a couple of times...I had to stick all the history books together, all the stuff I've read about that day, by spending a few hours just looking at it.

We spent almost eight hours there. Most of that was me, sitting in the park, and doing history in my head. Not Hollywood history, but sticking all the pieces together. Soaking in Pearl Harbor.

Finally...Big A got it. When we got to the memorial I took my hat off and she said, "This is a grave." She used a quiet voice and chnaged her demeanor. She knew.

She knew.

Amen.

Aloha!

2007-01-01T15:43:00.000-08:00

Before I get to my main point, I am bursting with info about the last 10 days in Hawaii...

But I'm too tired to go into it all right now.

Here is the abbreviated version:

* 82-68 everyday for a high and low.

* I can't snorkel worth a hill of beans.

* Dad bought a condo.

* Big A called everyday the geatest day of her life.

* Snow on the ground when we got home this morning.

* Thongs on my feet don't agree with me. But my leather Keen sandals will be ripped out of my cold dead feet.

* Clint Eastwood looks older than dirt in person.

* Bob Geldof younger than hell.

* Lava is overrated.

* The #20 bus in Honolulu is the most awesome route ever devised for public transportation.

* Kona on the Big Island has to be the greatest vacation spot in the world. Never too hot, never too cold. Basically no rain. Great scuba and swimming and awesome hiking.

Now to my main point...

I got to golf once in Palm Springs with Gerry Ford. Completely by accident. I ended up in the foursome with him. It was 1994 or 1995. I just want to add to the idea that he was a hell of a guy. He'd say heck, I'd say hell.

He sucked at golf when I played with him, but he played fast, but so do I. Loved it. It was one of the most memorable rounds of golf ever, yet I don't think of it as golfing with a POTUS. I think of it more as a fun round and a nice guy on a great course.

But here's three toughts from the pomp, circumstance and sadness of his death this last week:

1) When I golfed with him I called him Mr. President. Not Mr. Former President. You never lose the title of Mr. President. Stupid newspaper writers need to get a good dictionary, encyclopedia or AP book and look it up. But the thing was he never said anything like, "Just call me Gerry." For all this "everyman" stuff, he was a POTUS and wanted to be treated like one. I liked that. He may not has sought being a President, but he earned the right to spend the rest of his life being addressed as Mr. President.

2) Over vacation, I re-read, for about the 10th time, Fear and Loathing '72 by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. I read it every election year,, or about every two years. I'm still in awe of it about how much it gets closer and closer to describing NOW everytime I read it. But think about this: Gerald R. Ford, the minority leader of the House, wasn't even on the radar map for preside ntial politics when the book was written. I may miss it everytime, but I don't think he's mentioned once in the book.

3) Chevy Chase saying they became very dear friends is nice, but can everyone just get over the fact he pardoned Nixon? People: He fell on the sword. And he wasn't a bumbler, but an All-American athlete and that's what made the SNL skits so funny.

OK, this is two different topics...

Chevy Chase made Ford look like a bumbling, stumbling idiot. But the reason it was funny was because he slipped one time, and he was as athletic as any President we've ever had.

Second: The Nixon pardon was one of the greatest things a POTUS has ever done. His guys, yes, they went to jail, but as sleazy as Nixon was, how many years did everyone want to sit through a trial? If there was any deal it was JUST BEFORE the act, and I think Ford said, "Go hide. I'm doing this on my own, but I don't want to hear a peep out of you until the end of the decade."

I like shorn

2006-12-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

Tonight, as one of my last acts, I shaved my head and beard, but kept a Van Dycke.

Everyone should shave something completely every once in a while. And then you can see the colors in the hair.

But I love it when my head is shaved. I first did it because I lost a bet, then I started doing it because I liked hats.

Women shave their legs, and armpits and groom other places...about three times a year I completely shave my head and beard.

On flying

2006-12-21T19:32:00.000-08:00

If you get right down to it, one of the reasons I quit one of my jobs was all the flying.

Many people think business travel is the cool part of a job that pays for it.

It is, for about two seconds after the first lift off.

Over years it sucks more and more, and you do less and less well at flying on vacation. I can not explain this very well. You just hate airports around the world and you hate flying. So the idea, a couple of weeks ago, to drive to SF was very cool. I hate SFO, I hate San Jose and I hate the airport in Oaklan -- in order!

But I'm a little worried about Hawaii tomorrow morning. It's not even sane. I mean, my anxiety isn't sane. I was looking, and it's my first trans-Pacific flight in almost three years.

Then I went to Hong Kong.

Total deep breaths and big test. I hate flying.

But, but, but, BUT! Big A is so excited I think she'll pee her pants at the airport and P has never even gone over their time zone. The pets are all in the resort, and I know I've got to be the one who sucks it all up. I might hold it 'til I get there, but I see I'm at the 11th hour of one of those "just gotta do it" moments.

So, all you mothers out there, you know where I draw inspiration?

If you can freakin' carry a baby for close to nine months and deliver it, I can fly for six hours to one of the most beautiful places in the world. Somewhere over the Eastern Pacific, I'll be huffing like I'm in a Lamaz class.

*SIGH*

Speaking of the Daily Show

2006-12-20T20:39:00.000-08:00

Ben Stiller was on tonight promoting his new movie "Night at the Museum."

But I love a line by Jon Stewart, "Not to be a geek or anything, but the Museum of Natural History is my favorite place in New York."

Be a geek. No apologies!!!!!!!

I love that area of the West Side and who doesn't think it's cool to see giant skeletons? He was apologizing in his voice for being someone who is fascinated by science.

It's not my super-most favorite place in New York, but it has to be in the top two or three. But be a geek, Jon. Geek out and join the rest of us!!!

In honor of Jon Stewart

2006-12-20T20:24:00.000-08:00

I will reprint his imocon he called, "catastrofucked."

(.....;

That was pretty funny.

The 80s weren't a total waste

2006-12-20T19:53:00.001-08:00

I was watching Inside the Actor's Studio last night, and it was about Eddie Murphy.

I have not given the man enough respect or credit. He was pulling out names of classic actors, classic movies, you name it. He also admits he made a lot of completely shitty movies. And he did. I loved it.

He and Madonna both came into my conscious in 1984. And both are still relevent.

And it should come as no shock to anyone how freaking brilliant they both can be, and that they wink and nod that not everything worked.

Which is my point...some of the things they each did totally sucked, even in their own eyes. But they have the gonads at 40-something to just suck it up and say, "Yes, I did that...but here's what I learned."

Now, you can call that narcisstic, I guess. We didn't learn along with them, it was just about what each of them were getting from the whole experience.

But here is what I was thinking about today...

It's pretty cool they can admit they screwed up in a ton of decisions and then be really, really clear about what they learned each time.

And it's why they are even remotely relevent today.

The idea of just saying, "Ouch. Bad." And then going on to the next thing, but also being able to talk about it like you learned something from the owie.

I started out thinking about how I was going to make this a political entry...but I bet the point is made.

The 80s weren't a total waste

2006-12-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

The humor in absurd

2006-12-20T11:13:00.000-08:00

So, remember how we had two storms of the century in five weeks?

I am going to paraphrase a spokesperson from FEMA and a local talk show host on the radio. Mind you, I was driving in the car and couldn't record it and now I can't find a transcript.

But how the interviewer didn't laugh, I'll never know. And is FEMA still this screwed up?

"Where can people go for help from the latest storm?"

"Our website is blah blah fema. gov"

"Well, you can't exactly log on to the internet if your home doesn't have power. Then what?"

"Call your local emergency management service."

"What if your phone doesn't work like about 200,000 households are dealing with now?"

"Use a cell phone."

I laughed so hard I realized I should be crying.

"Hello, we're the federal government and we're here to help you, if you can find us."

But the point is simple, when power goes out for hundreds of thousands of people for several days, the feds are verklumpt. Not only are they actually not effective, they don't even act like they've got a clue to sound like they're effective. There is no spin, so to speak, because the answers speak for themselves...no power, bad damage, but look us up on the internet, or call us, or just use your cell phone.

This ranks up there with Dick Cheney saying Donald Rumsfeld was the best defense secretary ever.

The arrogance is ridiculous.

OK, OK...let's assume we all have cell phones...

After six days without electricity, don't you think we'd need to charge them?

Now I'm just throwing stuff on the fire because of how ridiculous the feds reaction is right now.

It was a coffee-through-the-nose snorting laugh I had with the whole thing.

Again, it's no Katrina, but didn't they learn anything?

To sort of steal Bill Murray's line from "Ghostbusters"

2006-12-19T18:35:00.000-08:00

My cats and dogs are living pissed off together!

The dogs know we're leaving soon. Whether it's hunting or a vacation, or whatever, they just see it coming from a mile away. Cracks me up. But if I don't take a gun out, they know it's not hunting. If we don't stick all the electronics in the car, they know it's not vacation. And if they have to get shots, well, that's the final icing on the cake.

But this time there will be no shots they just know SOMETHING is up.

The cats, though, are off tonight getting all updated. They HATE the thought of even thinking about leaving the housing jungle that is their indoor world. They sounded like a feline choir in the back of the Expedition.

But as of 11 a.m. Wednesday, we are in 48-hour mode for Hawaii.

But for the next couple of nights they will just have to all five be freaked out and take what's coming like good pets.

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

Speaking of Hawaii...did I bring it up?

P and Big A won't let me bring one of my guns or my golf clubs. Stinker.

So I'm suppose to sit around all day on the beach, blah blah blah?

Bother.

Still negotiating on that "girls in my life put their foot down" thing.

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

Finally...

I'm a big, huge "Crossing Jordan" fan and, reading between the lines, it looks like they've put at least three episodes in the can for a debut in January. If you have satellite, digital cable, or any of the other ways networks can spy on you, watch them if they make it on the air.

Wait, you didn't know that your viewing is spied on by your system?

Shame on you.

It's the whole reason the networks want "Crossing Jordan" back...because, "HOLY CRAPOLY, look at who's watching A&E everytime it's on!"

I love the little dark places of the entertainment world.