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.

Tuesday night and I’m stuck here again, right around that part where I begin everything with something like, “XXXday night and here I am again.”  I guess I could just say something like: “Hey Tuesday folks,” or maybe, “One day closer to hump day, one hump day closer to the weekend.”  Something like that.

Ween is on the iPod (Sharaun is at her volleyball game, so I get another TV-free all-tunes evening), I saw these guys when I was around fifteen in some small hole-in-the-wall club in Melbourne, Florida.  Myself and a crew of about six guys got dropped off by someone’s folks, and proceeded to hang out in front of the gas station asking random sketchy-looking dudes if they’d buy us beer.  After striking out, we entered the club empty-handed - no beer, no dope, no nothing.  For fourteen year old punks, the prospects were slim.  But we still had the show.

We regarded Ween as mostly a joke, as we were listening to the Pure Guava album at the time and songs like “Push the Lil’ Daisies” didn’t do much to bolster any “serious musician” cred.  But, at the show, Ween was amazing (I’ve looked and looked and looked online for a bootleg of that particular show, would be amazing to hear it again all these years later… and Ween has a fanatic fanbase of live show collectors, so I assume it’ll show up eventually).  They played a blistering million-minute cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain,” which proved they could play… so why all the crap on the records?

We begged them for “Big Jilm,” which had become a running joke amongst the group as maybe the most retarded song ever made (sorry retarded people).  They replied that the tape loop for that song was busted, and this had us howling almost as much as when they launched into tracks like “Hey Fat Boy, Asshole,” and, “Flies On My Dick,” which they dedicated to their grandparents - who were actually in the audience.  What an amazing night for some kids…

Oh gosh look, I wrote about it before, and seem to remember there being dope.  Who knows…

OK, let’s move on to the meat.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a “social networking” kinda guy.  Not on MySpace, not on Facebook, not on Bebo or LinkedIn or any of those other all-the-rage sites.  Never will be either, I just don’t cotton to the canned nature of the pages and the stupid back-and-forth banter.  So, that’s something you now know about me.

My brother, however, has a MySpace profile.  Now, I know I don’t write about my brother much here on the bloggy-blog-blog, but he’s a good guy and I like him a lot.  I don’t deride him for having a MySpace thingy - I know plenty of people who have ‘em, it’s totally cool.  In fact, I used to visit his page occasionally just to see what he had posted or what his buddies (or whatever MySpace dubs them) were talking about.

Some time ago (been a long while now), my bro set his MySpace page to private.  I think this means only people he knows or has “friended” or whatever can see his stuffs.  I still have the link bookmarked though, and occasionally I’ll go there to see if maybe he’s un-privated the thing.  I never have any luck, the thing’s always still private - but I can at least see his little picture, his “current mood,” and his little tagline/motto thing.

But, what I noticed tonight, and what I wanted to write about, is the bottom of the page.  Down there after MySpace tells you the profile is “private,” it offers you a consolation prize by following up with, “Here are some public profiles you may find interesting.”  I can only assume the logic behind what I may find interesting is MySpace looking at the details behind my brother’s private profile, comparing them to the millions of other profiles on MySpace, and serving up those with some degree of commonality.  I imagine they look at age, interests, school and professional history, taste in music, links, comments, etc., etc., etc.

So, what worries me is the rank-and-file losers it pitches me as “public” stand-ins for my “private” brother.  MySpace, how dare you boil down my bro to this douchebag parade?!

Actually, I don’t know any of these guys… so I guess it’s kinda mean to assume they are, or label them as, “losers.”  Sorry guys.

For all I know, SHoRtYRoC is a Rhodes scholar.  Matt and Brian appear to share hats - so that shows kindness; and S.A.G. appears to be a real gangsta so I better reserve comment on him.  Randy and Scooter… oh Randy, oh Scooter… guys…  And I could go either way on Patrick.  But, just looking at them in aggregate, I don’t think they have much bearing on tho “who” of my little bro.

So, who is my brother?  I wrote this about him a few years ago:

Frank is my brother. His real name is John. When I was in the 4th grade (I think), I was of the opinion that the name “Frank” was one of the dumbest names a human could have (my apologies to all the Franks out there who are offended by that, but I was young). I started calling my brother Frank to be funny, or mean, or a little of both. Incredibly, the name stuck. Stuck hard. So hard, in fact, that by the time he was in high school, that’s all anyone knew him by. He even got “Frank” sewn on his Little League jacket.

Unfortunately, Frank endured many years of torture at my hands - both physical and psychological. I threw the cat in the bathtub with him; I brainwashed him into admitting guilt for things I’d done; I used to punch him as hard as I could every time I died playing Nintendo; he always had to be Luigi. When we were young, we were the best of friends. I remember playing Star Wars in the back yard, we used a shovel to dig the Sarlacc’s pit that Han got flung into (much to my mom’s chagrin). I remember tying ropes around the necks of our stuffed animals, and swinging them around in giant circles, pretending they were on some ride at the carnival. We were best buds.

I don’t know when that ended, but now we’re more like old friends who are flirting with the idea of having a brotherly relationship. My bro dropped out of high school in his junior year. We weren’t very close during those times, but I imagine he had a lot of the same experiences I did at his age… and he, too, lived through them (apparently the family mettle is strong). I hope Frank and I can get back to the days of Sarlacc pits and stuffed animal abuse one day, at least in spirit.

I wrote that sometime in 2000.  I’m happy to say that the sad-sounding ending isn’t really applicable anymore, and my brother and I have a fairly normal relationship at this point.  So, suck it MySpace.

Not comprehensive, but not bad.  Goodnight folks.

Happy Monday folks.  Was a great weekend.  Keaton had a good time with Grammy and Grandpa in town, she got into full “show off” mode.  We barbecued, enjoyed some beer, and got some great weather.

For today, I’ve got a pretty random entry, ranging a bunch of pretty unrelated topics.  It happens sometimes on Mondays, it’s the prime day for blogging leftovers.  So, I’m gonna slap a bunch of paragraphs on a paper plate, punch in two minutes on the microwave, and pour you a glass of icewater or Pepsi or whatever.  Here goes.

Our neighborhood Fourth of July get-together was fantastic, like a huge hunk of fresh-from-the-oven Americana; with kids on bikes giving impromptu “parades,” lame-style California fireworks set atop folding ladders in the street, even down to the nametags, handshakes, and cakes decorated like American Flags.  We got to meet a ton of our neighbors and Keaton even ended up with a couple “she’s so cute” hand-me-down toys from some of the older girls.  We also put toghether an e-mail list for the block, something I thought was another stroke of genius.  Ahh, community… it’s kinda nice.

Changing subjecte drastically, I want to talk about the Large Hadron Collider for a minute.  Now, before I start, I fully realize you may have never heard of the “Large Hadron Collider,” not to mention knowing what the heck “Hadron” might be.  And, I’ll also let it go if you accidentally misread that as “Large Hard-On Collider,” it happens.  Anyway, it is “Hadron,” and all you have to know is that it’s got something-or-other to do with physics.  See, the LHC (as I’ll cooly call it from hence forward) is the world’s biggest particle accelerator, a device which physics boffins use to smash different kinds of subatomic particles together at super-high speeds.  They do this so they can observe what happens afterward, like new particles or other phenomenon created by the collisions.  To physics nerds, all of this is incredibly exciting.

There is, however, a significant amount of fear mongering and doubt on the internet about the LHC.  See, the machine has just finished being built, and is set to be fired up for the first time any day now.  This has a certain set of folks quite concerned.  These people are afraid that the experiments performed at the LHC may create awful things that could possibly destroy the entire planet.  Terribly scary-sounding things like “micro black holes,” vacuum bubbles,” “magnetic monopoles,” and “strangelets.”  Whatever those are, they sound pretty intimidating, and can, apparently, destroy the Earth.  And, even though the official safety study was incredibly comprehensive and found no cause for concern, it’s still kind of interesting to think of the unintended effects the massive machine may have.  Heck, I’ve even written about a similar scenario before.

OK, I know that probably wasn’t intersting, but I’ve been wanting to write about the Large Hadron Collider now for a couple months, and just decided I’d go ahead and do it.  If you’re interested in when keeping track of how much time you have before you’re vaporized by a hadron-shooting reverse-vampire spawned from a magnetic monopole, you can check this website.

Now then, let’s move on to something equally as off-topic.

I found this site online today and loved it. I mean, regardless of how “real” it is – what a fun escapist fantasy concept. I’ve talked before about how I have this lingering desire to “drop out’ and start/join a cooperative community, and seasteading is like that with an added layer of cool. Yeah, it’s perhaps a tad more isolated than a small community of like-minded individuals taking to an agrarian lifestyle up “in the hills” somewhere (trying to avoid Branch Davidian “compound” esque imagery here), but wouldn’t it be cool to give up modern life and go live on a huge self-sustaining bio-barge in the middle of the sea for a year? Yeah, sure you’d probably get some sort of cabin-fever, end up hating or killing or sleeping with everyone in your little water-locked society… but, y’know.

Told you it was random.  Goodnight.

Hiiii internet. It’s me again. Back for another round of typing. You wanna hang out for a while? I think I may download some music and eat a bowl of cereal. Sit for a while and keep me company, OK? Yeah… you do what I say.

This past Friday we went to a wedding. I’ve written before about how I get at weddings, but, this time, I thought the story of my almost-tears was good enough to expand on a bit.

First off, the wedding itself was set square on the south shore of the incredible Lake Tahoe. The scenery made for quite a backdrop, the endless lake and snowcapped peaks towering all around was the vista from within the reception hall, where the entire back wall was glass.

So, the mood was already somewhat established by the whole man-in-nature vibe the venue itself gave off – this was an auspicious occasion, and, like any wedding, a celebration. The folks who were becoming one flesh that day are friends of ours, but we’re not terribly close or anything. For that reason I figured I would be fine in terms of my typical over-emotional response to the ceremony, not having a particularly strong emotional stake in the matter and all. And, as the reception speeches began I sat proudly dry-eyed, easily letting mushy anecdotes and proclamations of undying cosmic love and friendship bounce right off my tough skin. That is, until she took the mic…

The bride, that is. Her words were fine; heartfelt, kind, sincere. She moved from one person to the next, saying something nice about each. Soon, shifting the sights of her speech around the room from target to familial target, she eventually landed on her father. And then, dear friends, the thick dusty curtains hanging over my heart were rent to bits word by stabbing word. All of the sudden those TV-chimes sounded and I was the me of years from now, at my own daughter’s wedding, Keaton taking the form of the bride before me in the present time – speaking to me.

I can’t remember the entirety of her words, as all my powers of logical thought were lined up in defence of the hostile charge mounted by my emotions, but I do recall some particularly amazing (paraphrased, I’m sure) bits: “And, dad. You made me what I am today; taught me how to be a good person. I credit you with my spirit, the way I never give up. Thank you for making me into what I am.”

Oh, Lord… I can barely write about it without getting misty. To think that one day I’ll be sitting at the “family table” listening to Keaton say something (hopefully) similar, about broke me down. At one point I had to consciously break my attentions and focus instead on some boats scooting across the smooth surface of the lake on a sunset sail. I just couldn’t take it.

The brutality, the pure barbarity of having to, as a dad, “give away” your little girl. Biting back tears of sadness while at the same time damming the flood of tears from the pride and happiness filling you to bursting. You think I’m gonna let some guy take her away from me? Yeah… I guess I will… but not for a long time. Until then, she’s mine.

‘Night. Hold ‘em tight.

Ahhh… pull up those blinds and let’s open some windows in here, it’s dark and stuffy. I’m gonna go check on the garden, see what’s growing and what’s not. Yeah, the lawn does look good… must be that fertilizing I gave it before we left - I’ll have to mow it again before the week’s out.

No, I’m not going into the sawmill - I’m gonna work from here instead, the flight getting in late would make it a waste to drive down there for two hours now.

See, doesn’t the breeze blowing through and the sunlight make this place feel better? It’s a gorgeous day outside, I think I’ll take Keaton for a walk later.

I’m gonna go grab the stuff out of the car and unpack a little, then I have to run up and get my new suit fitted. OK, love you too.

Home again. Had fun away.

Hello from back in California guys (and girls). Hope you all had good mom’s days, and that someone did something nice for you (providing you deserved it). As mentioned in my soliloquy above, it truly was a beautiful day we returned to here today - warm and sunny and slightly breezy. And I did end up taking Keaton for a walk around the block, she pushed her doll in her Keaton-sized stroller and picked flowers (which are really tall weeds gone to seed in peoples’ lawns) along the way.

Anyway, this house is familiar, and I like being here.

And yes, the picture that goes along with this post is Keaton watching the “Volcano Sisters” episode of The Backyardigans (her absolute favorite episode of her absolute favorite show, thanks Mike and Tricia) on Daddy’s iPod whilst flying home from Oregon. She looks so grown up with her little headphones on.

Thanks for hanging in there for another week friends. Stick around, maybe you’ll like it around here - I’m even gonna do another poll next week. Wheee!

Goodnight.

Hi folks. I had planned this Monday’s entry to be some kind of triumphant return to blogging, what with us being on vacation all last week and my expectations that I’d not blog much at all.

Turns out I was able to throw something together for four of the five “regular” bloggin’ days - which either is or isn’t bad, depending on your view of getting online whilst on vacation. For me, it’s as natural as reading a book or watching TV, just another vice of the modern-world… so it didn’t detract from me properly vacating. Here, then, is a normal ho-hum Monday post on sounds familiar, the kind you’ve come to know, and maybe even love. For my part, this intro is finished.

On our first day back from Mexico and I had all sorts of things planned: I was gonna finish fixing the fence that blew down eons ago; was gonna go get a haircut; was gonna maybe mow the lawn; unpack; sort through the mail… all kinds of things. Instead, I sat around playing with Keaton and watching TiVo’d episodes of Saturday Night Live. What a waste of a fine day to be outside. (I’ll tell you a secret… if I really wanted to get that stuff done today, I’d've done it. The fact that I didn’t get it done just means I never really planned to.)

With the new week, I’m going to do another You Decide Friday poll, where you, my dearest readers, get to cast your vote and let me know what I should write about come week’s end. The rules are simple, vote for your top choice, with the understanding that just because something wins doesn’t mean the other topics are cast away for good - they’re all just binned ideas from my running list anyway. What are you waiting for? Flex your democracy people:

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Wow, a few paragraphs… a poll… not bad for getting a late Sunday night start, eh?

Oh, and guess what? Whipped topping!

I managed to get a respectable collection of images from our Mexico trip up online today, and only one day back from the vacation. I deserve some kudos for that, right? Yeah, I do. Give it up. You can surf over to the aforementioned gallery by clicking right here. Enjoy.

Gonna tack on something that doesn’t really fit, deal.

While we were flying there-and-back for vacation this past week, and in light of all the recent airlines folding and facing delays in financial problems, I’ve come up with what I think is a pretty solid airline bailout or recover plan. Most MBA students know the story about Delta and the three olives, and I think my cost-saving idea may be even more revolutionary than that. Here goes: You know those plastic bags attached to the oxygen masks? The ones that the airline tells you every time you fly “will not inflate, but oxygen will be flowing?” Brace yourself: Get rid of those bags.

Dudes, really. You’re equipping each of your passengers’ oxygen lines with little plastic bags that only cause confusion, as evidenced by the fact that your flight attendants have to explain that, while it’s obvious they aren’t doing anything, they are “working” anyway.

You’re welcome. I just saved you millions on bag-costs.

Oh, nevermind.

Goodnight then.

Bad news this threatening-to-rain Wednesday evening, folks: For the first day in a while, I’m not really in a huge writing mood.

I’m not quite sure what this might mean for today’s entry yet, but clearly it doesn’t bode well. Lately it seems like I’ve no shortage of things to write about or work on here at the blog, and I seem to be sailing through even the most voluminous entries with ease (note: voluminous != good, necessarily). I guess it had to dry up at some point, maybe tonight’s the night. I guess it could be good prep for the bumpiness that’ll likely lie ahead as we travel the next couple weeks.

All day at work today I kept catching glimpses of the little weatherbar plugin in my Firefox window, which was saying it was going to rain tomorrow (60% chance). That, and the fact that the lawn was overdue for a cut, meant I was out mowing right after work today so I could beat the showers. I hate mowing right after work, it’s like coming home from work to do more work - and I hate doing work after work. Actually, that’s not entirely true - because I sometimes enjoy working after work (as long as it’s not on work stuff), I just need time to decompress, to transition from “work” to “home.” Usually, I get this time with a Newsweek magazine (I haven’t always been as learned) in the crapper - the one place and activity where I’m unlikely to get interrupted. Locked there in my stinky little coffin reading about politics or the Middle East (Newsweek has a huge hardon for both), I transition. Anyway, I’ve gone off topic… what I meant to say was that I mowed, and sweat, and subsequently showered. Now I clean with greenish fingernails, typing.

Today I booked our Thanksgiving trip back to Florida. Usually, this would be a Christmas trip… but we decided that this was the year we’d start instituting our own “family” Christmas traditions. After all, we are some kinda family or something of our own now - I think. It feels odd, really, because we’ve been going to Florida for Christmas nearly every year since we moved here to California (save the very first year, when we were simply to destitute to do so). In fact, spending Christmas in warm, sunny Florida with Sharaun’s family and our friends has become a tradition I look forward to. A while ago, however, Sharaun and I both agreed that we’d like to start doing “our own” Christmas thing eventually - and this year seemed like a good time to start.

Originally, my motivation was Keaton turning two - and now requiring a full-fare ticket for the round trip flights. But, that really doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, as we’ll still be going to Florida at some point (or several points) during the year. So, I guess it just comes down to wanting our own thing. Anyway, we’ve sort of traded off holidays - and we’re headed back this year for Thanksgiving instead. Actually, we’ve invited my family down here for Christmas this year… so who knows, maybe that’ll turn out to be part of our “thing.” Or, maybe we won’t have a “thing,” and will be nomadic Christmas transients instead… that could be a “thing.” What the heck am I on about?

Before I go, today’s the day the new “You Decide Friday” poll closes, so cast those last votes and let me know what I have to write about tomorrow night. Oh, and I promise I didn’t upvote anything… if you’re curious about the ungamed results, “When we used to go hoboing” has six legit ones, while “The first time I got a girl to take her pants off” has a mere two which are “real.” The other two each have zero… which means that… duuude… eight people? I spend way yonder too much time on this thing…

I dunno what to do with that… maybe write about hoboing? Maybe not. Maybe both… but that’s a stretch. What do you think?

Either way, here the poll again. What are you waiting for, g’head, do it:

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Well, turns out I didn’t have any issues filling this page with stuff again. Guess I was wrong about that. Goodnight.