it all happened at the wolf parade show
Who says you cant lateblog on Fridays? No one I know! Anyway, here it is, late, since we didn't make it home from the Wolf Parade show until 3am last night. About the show... I was underwhelmed. Unbeknownst to me, we caught the very last show on the tour, right before the band was heading back north for two months rest. That meant a very drunken band, and a pretty burned out vocal performance from the lead-guitar singer guy (not to be confused with the keyboard singer guy, neither of whom's name I know). Can you say "whom's?" Anyway, the show wasn't very enjoyable for 8-months-pregnant Sharaun, and worrying over her hampered my experience a little too. Basically, I saw my hipster life die a slow death last night, while my family life phoenix began to flutter under the pile of ashes - and it all happened over an hour and half at a Wolf Parade show. Now some crap I wrote yesterday.
I wanted to thank stereogum for bringing my attention to Bill O'Reilly's appearance on the Letterman show this week, as I found Dave's conviction in the interview pretty out-of-character - yet a welcomed taking-on of Mr. O'Reilly. Hopefully the WMV link sticks around long enough for you to check it out as well. I'm still surprised that it's taken criticism of this war this long to become this public, but I suppose that you could argue that criticism will inevitably grow in proportion to the length of the engagement and, more importantly, number of lives lost. Regardless of time and lives, I think it's past-due. Knowing we can't just pull out and nut on Iraq's stomach at this point, one can make a fair projection of the pro-war curve - and so can the GOP. I'd imagine it'll go something like this:
Of course, there will be outliers - those who will support the decision to go to war until the very end. You'll find some of these people to be very intelligent, sensible, well-versed, and extremely convicted; you'll also find some of these people to be ignorant, blindly accepting of authority, and willing to swallow a live grenade were it marketed to them correctly (likely wrapped in an American flag, affixed with J. Christ's seal of approval, or heavily advertised during NASCAR). Likewise, you'll find those who wouldn't vote for war were an Iraqi-sanctioned team of terrorists in their living room slitting the throats of their family with dull wooden knives made from felled-for-sport 300 year old American redwoods. I am none of these, and I hope that I am among the growing majority; a growing majority that wants to know. If not for WMD... then what for? If not for 9/11... then what for? If not for proof of state-sponsored terrorism... then what for? What the heck for? To make the world a better place, of course! Yay! We're all rainbows and kittens.
That's it, weekend time. See ya.
pinks
Happy Thursday to you, this week is going fast. To start: some pictures, as I finally got around to taking some of the nearly-done nursery, in all its two-tone pink glory. I've added them to my media page, and attentive readers may also find the online debut of Lil' Chino's real name (it's a big thing).
Tonight is the Wolf Parade show in San Francisco; it kinda snuck up on me, and it's a late one too... doors at 8:30pm and there's three, count 'em, three opening acts... meaning the Wolf likely won't even start parading until like 11pm. Looks like it's going to be a late one, current pillow-ETA estimates coming in at approximately 3:30am. Of course, the show is sold out - two nights actually, so it should be fairly well-attended and, hopefully, high-energy.
I had to replace the headlight on my truck; I've done it before and remember it being dead-easy. So, I bought a headlight, and flipped open the manual to the headlight maintenance section to jog my memory. This time though, the burned out headlight was on the driver's side, previously it was on the passenger. Turns out the driver's side assembly is a good deal tighter, and not really made for fat hands. Replacing a bulb couldn't be easier in theory: unplug it, twist the locking ring to the right, pull out the bulb, put in the new one, twist the ring to the left, plug it back in. I failed at the "twist the locking ring to the right" step, as my fat hands couldn't fit in the tight space well enough to give me sufficient twisting power. Why do things I'm bad at have to be so hard? Anyway, I got smarter than the tight space and went to the trouble of removing the entire battery so I could approach the twisty thing from the rear - that did it, twisted that defiant mofo right off and had the new bulb in lickety-split. Plus, as a bonus, after the hood was closed and tools put away, my hands were stained with suet and grease - to the casual observer I could've passed for someone who works on his car because he knows how. Pretend-skills... I got tons of 'em.
G'nite friends.
oh my god there’s a human in my wife’s belly
Evening folks. I was going to post some pictures of Lil' Chino's pink and pink nursery today, but other things came calling and it just didn't happen - tomorrow perhaps.
Tonight was our first baby class at the hospital, two hours every week for the next six weeks. Tonight there was lots of talk about vaginal mucous and other such unsavory items - but, overall, I think I'll enjoy the class. I've certainly got things to learn, so a class isn't such a wacky idea. To kick off the class, the instructor played Bill Cosby's famous birth/labor bit from his Himself standup - a classic through and through. At some point in the class, I think when the instructor was saying that some babies actually "play" with their mothers' bladders like constantly inflating beach balls, I realized that this "thing" inside my wife isn't just some fluid-breathing "growth"... no, this is a human being. While I know she's not in there contemplating the meaning of life or doing algebra, it's not like she's a rock or some other inanimate object - she stretches, rolls, flips, covers her eyes when it's bright, etc. Oh my God there's a human in my wife's belly.
Work today was furious-productive, which is good as I need a kick in the pants to get me going. It was one of those days where I decided to work smarter, not harder, and it seemed to pay off in the end. I always feel good when I have some measurable accomplishments at the day's end - output really justifies effort for me. Also in work news, I got word late today that I've been tapped for a trip to Moscow and Prague in late April - two months post-Lil' Chino. Now, normally, I wouldn't really want to travel that close to the baby... but... Moscow and Prague?! I mean, I've never been to Europe, and something about Moscow has fascinated me for a long time. So, I asked Sharaun, and she grudgingly said OK. While not official yet, I'm leaning towards going - that could all change after the baby though, who knows if I'll be interested in travel... maybe I'll just want to sit around a stare at my new daughter.
Sometimes I hate how heavy-handed I am. I'm just not built for fine, detailed, or small work. I'm all forced, dumb-muscled motions, largely due to my severe impatience and low frustration-factor. I rarely eat something without some of it ending up on my clothes, I break things trying to fix them, and I cut-corners out of frustration and accept less than perfection just to "get the job done." Now, that's a generalized statement. When I really have pride in what I'm doing, I go to extra effort to ensure it's 110% - the catch being that, for whatever reason, I have to care about the results. My backyard, certain tasks at work, etc. The amount of pride I have in, or effort I put into, something is directly related to how skilled I am at the task. I.e., if I'm good at it and/or it's easy for me, I take extra care in making sure it's done right. If I'm so-so at it, I put in so-so effort. Not a good way to build skills I suppose, I should work on that. Although I'll never carve the alphabet on a grain of rice, perhaps I can hone some lacking skills.
Writing that last paragraph, I waffled between using the phrase "take pride in" or the phrase "have pride in." Do those actually mean the same thing? Strange.
Goodnight my peoples.
racist? me?
Monday, and the rain and wind have been unending. I haven't seen so much rain in a while. On Saturday we got a brief respite, and I used the few hours of sunshine to trim the fountaingrass bushes in the front yard with the new electric trimmer I got and deliver a borrowed bed to a new owner. The weekend was also a busy time for baby-prep, with the nursery coming pretty close to "together" over the past few days. This entry is really just a boring weekend recap, so nothing that special.
Friday we dropped a sizeable chunk of moolah on Lil' Chino's little white crib, matching white dresser/changing table, and "pack and play" (the modern day combination of playpen, bassinet, portable crib-thing, and a whatnot. Then, we swung into the local hardware warehouse and picked up two gallons of pink paint, one darkish, one lightish. Somehow, knowing there's not anymore logical "breaks" between now and the baby (for instance, the time prior to now was broken up with things like Thanksgiving, Christmas, India, etc.), it's really hit home that we need to move into preparation-overdrive; trying to avoid a New Orleans-esque spending of billions to fix the levy after the hurricanes. Sharaun's last first day back after break is the 3rd, and her last day back before the baby is the very next 3rd... that's soon, y'allz... that's soon.
Sunday morning, the last of our new living room furniture got delivered. At the time, I was cleaning the house, more specifically the kitchen when the doorbell rang. I had Sufjan Stevens' Illinois blaring on the stereo, in all it's am-I-religious-or-not white-boy glory. Opening my front door, I was greeted by a smiling man who asked me where I wanted the furniture, how my New Year was, etc. As he headed back to his truck to get the goods, I left the front door open for him. Then, I did something strange, almost unconsciously. I went to the computer, from which was the last chords of an ending Sufjan track were fading out to silence, and I switched tracklists. But guys, I didn't just switch tracklists... I switched tracklists to the Little Brother album, The Listening, which I downloaded a while back on some website recommendation, didn't like at all, and just hadn't yet deleted. What's the significance of this? Little Brother is a hip-hop record, and the furniture delivery guy was black. I did turn down the volume so that it was barely audible from the room where he was working, but it's the fact that I did it in the first place. What the hell? I felt really stupid really quickly, and changed it back to Mr. Stevens in all his WASP glory. Racist? Me?
Let's do a random link-rodeo, since I've got a lot of stray sentences that need to be wrangled. First off, there's a good, but long-winded, read entitled "What I Heard About Iraq in 2005" here. Second, I just got around to watching the History Channel's excellent Banned from the Bible documentary. An outstanding account of the canonization of the Bible and examination of several apocryphal writings. It's worth it to set your TiVo for the re-airing. Finally, congratulations are in order for Ben and Suzy, as they've agreed to tie the knot.
Time to kick rocks, goodnight.
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