from north to a little less north
Sunday night and I just got done singing and reading Keaton off to sleep. Well, at least I hope I did; we'll see if she ultimately stays in bed.
It's our last evening here in Oregon with Grammy and Grandpa, and we took the opportunity to go out to dinner with my brother Frank and his girlfriend. A place up here does a free-dinner Sunday for all veterans prior to the Tuesday holiday in their honor, so my dad and brother wanted to take advantage of that. Was a nice meal together as a family, and Keaton was as well-behaved as ever. So, a good evening.
Tomorrow we have to head home, catching a morning flight back to California from which I'll go right into work (hitting my desk sometime after lunch, I suspect). I'm not very excited about the prospect of waking up at 5am to catch the train to the airport where we'll catch a plane to California where I'll drive myself to work. Sounds like an early rise-time for what amounts to a drawn-out frustrating commute to work. Hey - nothing to complain about though, was a good trip and we enjoyed the mini weekend-vacation thing. We even got to check out a local church up here this time, which is something we've been wanting to do when we come here (yeah, we got our Lord on).
Today, Sharaun somehow convinced me to accompany her to the mall for some recreational no-purchase shopping. Normally, this is an activity up with which I will not put, and I avoid it at all costs. Today, however, I was suffering from a mild case of cabin fever and agreed to tag along. Now, when I do this, I know before we've even left that I've made a mistake, have erred in judgment. But, I try to put a positive spin on things and at least find small ways to keep myself entertained as crap dance music plays way too loudly in my ears and she paws through racks of clothes.
Today, I took comfort in laughing at the clothing of others. Most of these were girls, and most were teenagers. I just love the time and effort you can see in the things they wear, purposefully chosen to look different and edgy and to make them "stand out" from every other girl in skinny jeans and fuzzy ankle-boots. I got a kick out of imagining their primping process, getting every accessory just right: The gold bangle bracelets and retro-60s beaded necklaces; the wide hair-bands and multicolor knit scarves; the overly-spritzed perfume and overly-thick makeup; so premeditated, such perfection.
As we wandered stores that felt more like clubs inside, me straggling behind in a daze half-expecting to to stumble onto a bar somewhere in the dark maze of Kanye-styled plaid sweaters and $30 80s-colored tees, an idea struck me: Why not build a "mall for men?" A man's mall. Not that women would be forbidden, heavens no, just a mall targeted at the male demographic.
Think about it, you could have electronics, hardware, books, a movie theater, a food court with beer, sporting goods, music and movies, gadgets, tobacco-products; the list goes on and on. Oh, and there would be clothing - but only male clothing. No female clothing stores, no candles, no salons, no soaps or lotions, no jewelry or sunglasses, no knick-knacks, no baby stores, no make up or belt stores or purse stores or shoe stores (aside from sneakers and other male-centric footwear). Each store would have a minimum of ten always-staffed registers so there'd never be a line, and strategically-placed recliners and TVs showing sports would provide quick access to a moment's rest.
I wonder if that would tank... being that men typically dislike shopping anyway and, as I've noted above, tend to look at chicks the whole time they're at malls anyway... maybe a dude-centric mall wouldn't go over so well after all. Ahh well, it was a thought.
Well folks, I think I'm outta here for the night... love ya and I'll chat ya up tomorrow if blogging goes as planned. Goodnight.
mushrooms in the lawn
Happy Friday internets. Sorry I skipped a couple days this week, but, you know... so it goes.
I'm remote desktop'd into my PC at home in California to write this entry. For some reason, that's awesome to me. And, if by the preceding sentence it wasn't clear, we arrived safe and sound in Oregon Wednesday night - where we were greeted by Grammy & Grampa and the familiar cold, wet welcome the Pacific Northwest. Oregon is a gorgeous place, I just don't know if I could deal with all those months of rain.
I think Keaton enjoys hanging out with her grandparents though. When we've been here in the past, we've put her down to sleep in a pack-n-play in the large walk-in-closet in the guest room we stay in. It may sound kinda funny, keeping her in a closet, but the space is big enough to be a "room" proper and it has a separate door we can close to give her some peace. Anyway, sometime between the last time we were here and now, my folks actually transformed the closet into a little Keaton room. It comes complete with her name on the door, Backyardigans stickers plastered all over the wall, a bookshelf with books, and a little kid-sized bed. Now, that may seem even more funny... a converted closet-room... and perhaps it is - but the novelty now more than makes up for the therapy later.
Anyway... she seems to lover her own little space. So, don't call CPA OK?
Work today (yesterday as you read) was abominable. I came here this week primarily for one two-hour meeting. I had been dreading this meeting all week. Not because it was going to be particularly challenging or difficult or anything... but moreso because it was going to be a stressful thing for me. It's hard to explain, but when I know I have to share a strongly held opinion of mine that's counter to what the commonly held opinion of the group is - I get all stressed about making my point succinctly and eloquently enough to be as influential as I want. Anyway, the meeting blew... but not for the reasons I just mentioned... blew though, nonetheless.
Forget it... I'm outta here. I just have nothing to write and all I can do is sit here thinking about how much I wish it was Friday (remember, I write the night before).
Goodnight.
it’s your civic duty!!
Everyone here at sounds familiar (which, actually, is just lonesome old me) urges you to get out and do your part in flexing the muscle of the people today. In other words:
(Oh, and the "real" entry for today is just below this one.)
see you at the booths
Hey internet. Didja?
I'm going before work bright and early; depending on the coast you're on and the time you're reading this - I may in fact have already been. Think we'll get a definitive result tonight? Not sure... but I sure hope so. We're off to Oregon on Wednesday and I'd like to be able to know who's taking office come January. Here's hoping. Ready, set, blog.
Three random paragraphs I wrote and have no way to make slick segues between, presented in no particular order:
I'm pretty sure that when I took "science" back in middle school that someone along the way taught me that the average lifsepan of a common housefly is about twenty-four hours; a single day. In fact, unless I totally imagined that (for some oddball reason), I recall thinking how crappy that was. Birth, a dedicated search for both potato salad and a suitable mate for procreation, and repeated attempts at escaping by flying headlong into closed windows (not even knowing what a window is or why you can see, but not fly, through it). But man, that was a bunch of bunk. There's been a fly in our house for days now. How he survives, I have no idea... but 24hrs is a load of dook.
Don't know what I was thinking about doing a picnic today with Keaton on my "working from home" daddy-daycare day, it's been cold, cloudy, and rainy for the past few days. I guess I was just in some daddy-n-daughter time fantasy world. Instead, we decided to take a walk over to a local eatery, rain and all. We both crowded under my large umbrella and braved the elements to have lunch together. It was one of those salad-bar places so we both kinda hunted and pecked of my plate, veggie-style. By the time we'd finished eating and chatting, the rain had subsided for our short jaunt back home. The walk in that direction is mostly uphill and I thought up the idea of challenging Keaton to a "race" to the top in an attempt to at least let her expend some energy before naptime. Was fun.
Finally decided to try and sync my iPhone Safari bookmarks with my "standard" bookmarks today. I use a server-based bookmarking application called SiteBar to store/access my bookmarks. That way, I can access/edit them in any browser and anyplace in the world - instead of having them locked to a particular application on a particular PC. I used the SiteBar "export" feature to get an HTML bookmark file which I could import into Interner Explorer (which I don't use, so was void of bookmarks), then told iTunes to sync the IE bookmarks with Safari. Worked like a charm and it's really nice to have the entirety of my usual bookmars on the device - really helps make the internet more usable.
OK folks, off to get one final pre-voting day dose of punditry before I sleep on my intended vote one last time (and, wait for my wife to get home from her short out-of-state trip!). Have a good day, and I'll be talkin' to you tomorrow.
Goodnight.
halloween bash ’08 in pictures
Hello again from Monday.
Wanted to have this done last night but had a ton of redeye to process out (not very skillfully, as I was in a rush, I may add) of the costume contest photos. Anyway, I got through about half yesterday and finished up early this morning prior to "going in" to virtual work here on the couch with my laptop, cellphone, and bluetooth earpiece. So, what do we have?:
Click here to see the Halloween 2008 costume contest. Looking over the pix, I notice there are more than a few folks we missed getting snapshots of; so if you were there and have pictures we missed - send 'em along. And remember, you can vote on the pictures to voice your favorite. Have fun!
Click here to see a bunch of randomly-chosen, totally un-retouched candid photos from the evening's festivities. Enjoy!
If you weren't there, you totally shoud've been! Love ya, have a good Voting Eve!
and all i can think about is the music
7:15am on Sunday morning.
Sharaun's arrived safely in Florida last night, and I spent the day cleaning and recovering from the party. People ended up coming over for football Saturday, despite most of them having just left the night/morning prior, and we grilled ribs in the rain (with a huge umbrella shielding the fire). I steam-cleaned the carpet and did general pickup and tidying. Place looks good for a guy left alone for a weekend, I must say.
Keaton's in the kitchen eating her waffle and yogurt (one of her favorites - Sharaun had a stroke of brilliance substituting syrup for a yogurt "dip sauce" and it works great). When she's done I'll get her down and jump in the shower to shave and get ready for church. Don't tell Sharaun, but I brought her into our bed last night to sleep with me; I mean, it just seemed like there was so much empty space there. And plus, it's just her and I this weekend - so I can do what I want. (I was beaming proud inside of the ponytail I gave her the other day when people told me it was an exceptionally good "Daddy do.") Since I'm working remotely tomorrow with her, I think we'll go on a picnic for lunch.
OK, what about Halloween?
Halloween went great this year. And not just the props or the party, but the trick-or-treaters too. We got quite a few more than in years past and all of them seemed to get a kick out of the setup. A setup which, by the way, remained 100% functional all night - gremlin-free for the first time ever. So, yeah, Halloween night was the single solitary rainy and windy day all month... but ain't that always the case? Just before dusk fell on the street I had two uprooted tombstones needing repair and one backwards-facing witch I had to tweak. But, things totally came together in the end and the wind even died down enough for the fog chiller to do it's business.
The party also went off swell, with a great turnout and honestly one of the best times we've had at a party we're "in charge of." Several people mentioned that it was fun - so I'm happy. And guys, one of the best moments of the whole night for me was when the second distinct person came up to me and praised my garage playlist. One guy even said, paying his third or fourth compliment, "Where can I buy this playlist?!" Well, he screamed that, actually - over the cacophony of Wreckless Eric's "Whole Wide World." Being that it was a somewhat hasty and totally eclectic mix, I was worried. Look, I've now written something like three paragraphs about the dang iPod playlist... sheesh.
Oh, and just in case you're that guy... here... it's just over six hours of music and it's way better than Sharaun's:
Grandaddy - A.M. 180
Nine Inch Nails - All The Love In The World
Cut off Your Hands - As Happy as Can Be
Ben Folds - Bitches Ain't Shit
2 Bad Mice - Bombscare (Original version)
The Breeders - Cannonball
Kanye West - Celebration
The Cure - Close To Me [Closet Remix]
Shout Out Louds - The Comeback
Phoenix - Consolation Prizes
The Hold Steady - Constructive Summer
Led Zeppelin - D'yer Mak'er
Of Montreal - Eluardian Instance
Cut Copy - Feel the Love
Animal Collective - Fireworks
Band of Horses - The First Song
The Streets - Fit But You Know It
Modest Mouse - Float On
Modest Mouse - Florida
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Forever Heavy
Jimi Hendrix - Foxey Lady
The Chemical Brothers - Fuck Up Beats
Wailers - Good Good Rudie
Kanye West - Good Morning
Clor - Good Stuff
Led Zeppelin - Good Times Bad Times
Slade - Gudbuy T'Jane
The Helio Sequence - Harmonica Song
Cut Copy - Hearts On Fire
The Cloud Room - Hey Now Now
Explosions - Hip Drop
Black Kids - Hit The Heartbrakes
The Bravery - An Honest Mistake
Animals - The House Of The Rising Sun
T. Rex - I Love To Boogie
Of Montreal - Id Engager
Modest Mouse - Interstate
The Strokes - Is This It
Bob Marley & the Wailers - Jamming
The Go! Team - junior kickstart
The Go! Team - ladyflash
The Chemical Brothers - Leave Home
The George Baker Selection - Little Green Bag
Iggy Pop - Lust For Life
The Hold Steady - Massive Nights
Chuck Berry - Maybellene
Ohgr - Minus
The Cribs - Mirror Kissers
Led Zeppelin - Misty Mountain Hop
The Strokes - The Modern Age
Malajube - Montreal -40°C
Soul Brothers - Mr Kiss a Bang Bang
Johnny Osbourne - Murderer
Menomena - Muscle N' Flo
Cloud Cult - No One Said It Would Be Easy
Animal Collective - Peacebone
The Most Serene Republic - Phages
Built to Spill - The Plan
Alexander Henry - Please Be True
Prodigy - Poison
Jay-Z - Public Service Announcement (Interlude) (Produced By Just Blaze)
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
Prince - Purple Rain
Wolfmother - Pyramid
Nirvana - Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Refugee
The Strokes - Reptilia
The Beatles - Revolution
The Rolling Stones - Rocks Off
Jason Collett - Roll On Oblivion
Beastie Boys - Root Down (Free Zone Mix)
Clash - Rudie Can't Fail
Weezer - Say it ain't so
Of Montreal - A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger
Beastie Boys - Shake Your Rump
Lily Allen - Smile
Beastie Boys - So What'cha Want
Wolf Parade - Soldier's Grin
Ben Folds Five - Song for the Dumped
+/- - Steal the Blueprints
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations
Postal Service - Such Great Heights
Prince Buster - Ten Commandments of Man
Kanye West - Touch The Sky (Feat. Lupe Fiasco)
The Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Vampire Weekend - Walcott
Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side
Eagles of Death Metal - Wannabe in L.A
Pixies - Where Is My Mind?
Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World
Cloud Cult - The Will Of A Volcano
Jackie Opel - You're Too Bad
Wolf Parade - You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son
Spoon - You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
The Faint - Your Retro Career Melted
The Strokes - 12:51
Jay-Z + DJ Danger Mouse - 99 Problems
Goodnight.
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