Took the bike in for tune-up yesterday; it's raining anyway. But I miss my morning ride and the feeling of accomplishment in getting another 15 miles behind me... I'll get it back Sunday, and hope to ride most days next week (and pass 1000 miles), preparatory to VACATION in the DESERT and GETTING MARRIED!

There's a new kind of handlebar post I'm going to try; it allows for an angular adjustment, giving up to two inches of additional height.

I drove some of the backroads on the way home last night. Orchard Station Road is pretty cool; it turns back on itself among some pretty impressive hills (the map doesn't really do it justice). Maybe I'll try it on a weekend.

Donuts; the place where I get my morning latte sells them, and there's always a fat person coming in and buying bunches, carefully selecting the custard- and jelly-filled, and/or old-fashioned, chocolate, sprinkles, glazed, and whatnot. There was a time (1973 or 4, I guess, when I had quit high school and moved to live with friends in Michigan), when I lived just down the street from a donut shop, and I'd count my pennies and go there first thing in the morning to get freshly-made donut holes (2 cents each!). Still warm from the oven, they were delicious to me at the time - among my favorite "foods" - now the smell almost makes me puke sometimes. I can't think of much of anything else for which my taste has changed so radically. I suppose it's a good thing - I don't NEED to be eating donuts!

Python (2000): Sometimes you think you "want to see a bad movie," but you may find that what you REALLY want is to see a GOOD bad movie. The tendency to show off and overdo it when panning a truly crappy can of film like this is well-documented; I will avoid that here, like I should have avoided this movie. But then I note in the IMDB reviews that some moron calls it "V. tongue-in-cheek, (with cheesy FX and hammy acting.)" I didn't get that sense from it at all. Cheesy effects, yes; hammy acting, yes; tongue in cheek? The actors in this movie that I've seen in other (also cheesy) movies have ALWAYS been hammy. Casper van Dien? Puh-LEEZ!! William Zabka? Leaves a trail of bacon all the way back to Karate Kid! Sean Whalen as the deputy in this stinker is the only one whose hamminess bore any trace of his tongue being anywhere near his (upper) cheek... One star (out of ten) for unintentional humor, killing Van Dien early, and educational value -- what NOT to do in a movie.

Okay, here's another old-fogey thing that you always hear.

In my lifetime, I've witnessed an information revolution that has profoundly changed the quality of (north american and western european) life.

When I was a kid, we got maybe five TV stations reliably, and we had radio and records. And books.

Now, we still have all that, AND we can potentially get hundreds of TV channels clear as a bell, or we can go to a nearby store and choose from among thousands of VHS and DVD recordings. We have CDs, tapes, minidiscs, MP3s (all of which have contributed to a revolution in re-releases of stuff that was rare on LPs).

Potentially, at a moment's notice, you can develop an interest in Dwight David Eisenhower, find a huge amount of biographical info on the web, and see and hear him speaking though he's been dead for 30 years. You can see and hear Dori Seda (if you can find "Gap-Toothed Women"). You can view the Marx Brothers' home movies, see interviews with their grown-up children, see George Fenneman talking about Groucho behind the scenes on the "You Bet Your Life" game show. You can take in a full live performance by Jimi Hendrix as if it was happening now and you were sitting on the edge of the stage. And you can do it all within an hour of deciding you want to.

Why this came to mind? We watched the documentary "Satchmo" last night, and I recalled hearing that he had died in 1971, and knowing almost nothing about him. How extraordinarily fortunate we are, to be able to see him in action on a videotape now! To be able to stop and rewind to see part of it again. To feel, in a very real way, that we *know* Pops now, almost as if we had met him -- and better, maybe, than some of his biggest fans during his heyday ever got a chance to know him...

Further, we can record our own lives in ways that simply weren't available a generation ago. When I was a kid, my stepdad had a super-8 movie camera - revolutionary in its time (and the source of much of the "home-movie" material you see in these documentaries) - and he could film us, take the film in, and get a movie back in a week or so. Now, I can film something and view it immediately afterwards on my TV. As a musician, I can record myself playing several instruments at once through the magic of digital overdubbing, burn it on a CD, and write and print the liner notes in color, producing a product that's virtually indistinguisable from what you buy in a store, all in a matter of a couple of hours.

It is nothing short of miraculous, the information that's available to us today via all sorts of media.

And kids these days, they just take it all for granted, don't they. :-)

0.0.

Rain last night; left the bike here and got a ride home. Rain forecasted for the rest of the week, I think. Still, got some fifty miles from riding Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday, so doing okay.

Old guy (1) at the coffee place this morning, to some other guy (2): "How many senses do you have in your brain?"
Guy 2: "Well, I think there's at least five..."
Guy 1: "Senses like taste and smell."
Guy 2: "And there's the sixth sense, like perception..."
Guy 1: "You got it... there's a seventh sense too."
Guy 2: (More hemming and hawing, not all that interested in this conversation with a stranger.)
Guy 1: "There's COMMON sense. And there's an eighth sense, too."
Guy 2: "I don't know what that one is."
Guy 1: "HORSE sense."
Guy 2: "Well, not everybody has that sense."
Guy 1: "You know what horse sense is?"
Guy 2: ...
Guy 1: "It's knowing stuff about horses."
Me: "Horses have the sense to not gamble on humans."
Guy 1: "I used to have a horse. I really respected that horse. And there's the (something sounding like 'remora')... (trying to drag me into his enthralling conversation...), I bet THIS guy knows what it is."
Me: (Leaving as quickly as possible) "See you guys."

I imagine he'd have gotten eventually to the "Sense of HUMOR," as perhaps the ninth or tenth sense... But counting common sense and horse sense as two separate things is a bit questionable (because horse sense, in typical usage, is NOT 'knowing about horses'). And really, counting either as a SENSE, parallel to sight, hearing, touch, is a stretch. But this is what makes up small talk for the old guys who don't have much to do, and who sit at the coffee shop in the morning, trying to engage strangers in conversation.

The subtext is that Guy 1 is a wise and witty and interesting man, and whether or not his listener is hanging on every word, his words are worth hanging on, though the thoughts behind them have been expressed better a thousand times...

What other senses can we think of? A sense of futility, perhaps... A sense of shame.

Maybe another sense is the lack of sensation, where things just have no effect at all.

I feel a tremendous sense of sadness when I see these old men who've spent a lifetime working toward this kind of retirement, and I hope they are finding some sense of fulfillment in those moments at the coffee shop...

936.0.

The new overland route is similar in profile to my old 3.6-mile ride (other than being more than 4 times longer, and actually pretty much entirely different). Fairly long, fairly flat stretch down a main road, turn off onto side road with hill-dip-hill, then back onto main road with minor hills. It's a nice pleasant ride, and safer than the shorter (by 2 miles) option and shorter (by 6 miles) than the safer option. The hills are good; they break up the monotony, and the downhills give me a chance to stand (on the pedals) and/or rest a bit from constant pedaling.

And it's getting warmer. I switched gloves and removed the "topless hat" ear-warmer thing halfway, and came in coated with salt from sweating and cooling.

I need to do more stretching. Knot in my shoulder/neck won't quite go away.

O Brother Where Art Thou (2000): Great movie, and easily the best Coen Brothers film since Raising Arizona. George Clooney is the anti-Cage, going from action hero to comedic brilliance. Extra bonus, it was showing at the matinee price ($4.50) at "our" theatre. Wish I'd read the Odyssey before watching this so I'd know how closely it follows. The faces these guys make, especially the "Delmar" character (Tim Blake Nelson)!

A group of about ten teenagers came in and sat in front of us right before the movie started, and I thought, "oh boy, there's the end of us getting to hear the movie," but I was pleasantly surprised to find them quieter than the couple to our left (who had brought a full-length denim coat, apparently only for the purpose of saving seats in the middle of the row ["denim seat-saver by Laura Ashley"] such that there was this coat laying across the seats with no attending humans right up to the beginning of the movie, and then there was a folded coat thrown haphazardly into the empty seat next to me throughout the movie, and while sorely tempted, I did NOT dump any pepsi or butter-flavored popcorn onto it). The kids were well-behaved. My first thought when they filed in was, "why don't they go out and do drugs like *I* did when *I* was their age?" And then I thought of yesterday's blog, and thus suspended my intolerance...

919.8.

Like the Donner Party and Death Valley expeditions, I found another overland route (but only from Petaluma to Sebastopol, and I didn't eat anyone).

Roblar Road, home of the world-apathetic Washoe House (home of the Questionable Buffalo) cuts west over to Petersen Road, which cuts north to Blank Road and 116 - coming out just west of the treacherous hill with no shoulders.

While Roblar is almost more dangerous than 116, it has the benefit of less traffic. And Petersen gives me a nice good-sized hill with a great view from the top - something I got routinely on my old 4- and 6-mile rides, but that's been oddly missing from these 14- to 20-mile routes.

This route is approximately 16 miles, making yesterday a 35-mile day. Perhaps from the past two weeks' exercise, perhaps from that last five miles I didn't have to do, this was MUCH easier than the 40-mile day last Tuesday.

Gap-Toothed Women (1988): Les Blank's documentary, I've been wanting to see for ages, for one reason only: Dori Seda. The video store in Sebastopol is awesome for stuff like this. While the rest of the movie seemed interesting, I was impatient and fast-forwarded to see, for the first time, Dori - a person I know well from her comic art - living and breathing and speaking. She died at 37, shortly after this film was made, but I treasure the small amount of work that's available, and it was a HUGE treat to see her and hear her speak for the first time. Her drawing style is exquisite, her writing style confessional but always humorous. Be warned, the comics are mostly "Adults Only."

At the video store, something like Sonic Youth "Death Valley '69" was playing - fuzz-heavy, two or three repetitive chords, strangled feedbacky lead guitar - and a new-agey couple was looking at new releases near me. She (irritated): "This music is driving me crazy!" He (sarcastic): "What music?" I think they actually went up and complained, because the music stopped and was replaced by something from the Beatles Anthologies.

People: if you were supposed to learn one thing from your youth and subsequent "growing up," it MIGHT be that "your taste" is not necessarily synonymous with "taste" in general. When you were a kid listening to whatever you listened to, and your parents said "THAT's not music," did you never vow to yourself that you wouldn't be that way when you grew older? Did you not think to yourself, "I'll be more understanding"? Here is one of those golden opportunities where (per Will Durant), "History teaches us that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."

Maybe that little incident sums up, to some extent, my dislike for new-ageyness. Many new-agers are as intolerant (in the opposite direction) as any 'sudden-baptist' racist slob from the 60s. It's not whether they're right or wrong, it's that they're so unshakeably CERTAIN of their rightness (real or not), in every little thing, and so ready to condemn what's outside of their little bubbles. Even if the entire inside of your bubble is sweetness and light and milk and honey, it's unhealthy, incestuous, suffocating, and limiting to stay inside that bubble and condemn all that is non-bubble-icious. What started in the 60s as a lovely and sincere commitment to open-mindedness has mutated into a variety of the same closed-mindedness against which they once rebelled. Now, their minds are closed against anything that's outside of their mutated definition of "open-mindedness" !

And while I'm quoting, how about this:

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Lord Bertrand Russell (05/18/1872 – 02/02/1970); Welsh philosopher

>Sigh.<

903.7.

That's a 19.3-mile ride this morning (plus about 8 miles on Saturday with Terrie out'n'back on the bike path). 6:40 to 8:20, averaging roughly 13 mph (when I look down at the speedometer, I'm usually doing something like 13.7 mph).

I think I shaved the mile off by (a) staying on Sebastopol Road after the bike path and (b) taking Sierra Avenue instead of Railroad over to Cotati. Kind of disappointing to not get the whole 20 though...

Not much doubt now that I will pass 1000 before the wedding, or at least well before a year of owning the bike. It's actually very satisfying to be chunking these larger-mileage days. Better than the old 8 miles per day, and I can miss a day or three and still feel like I've gotten reasonable exercise for the week in total.

Still below freezing when I start out these days (31'F on the clock in Sebastopol as I was waiting at the stoplight at the corner of 12). Difficult, during the spring and fall, to dress for the morning cold and bring clothes for the afternoon warmth as well as my work clothes. Maybe I should get the panniers and all -- or just get a trailer like that one guy here at work (not). I look forward to those upcoming summery days when I can get a little bit of tan along with my exercise -- but that gets old too, without the natural coolant of frosty air.

Still kinda casting about for things to do around the house (besides e.g. drinking and smoking). Reading quite a bit, and sleeping what seems like too much (but maybe I needed it). That kind of sleeping is what I've done in the past when overcoming addictions (such as the aforementioned Blow), and/or being very depressed. Not sure what to do about it, other than to keep getting plenty of exercise between... Really wanting to drink some nights, and then pretty happy I didn't, later. It's a roller coaster, and I suppose it'll resolve itself over time, but meanwhile kinda antsy much of the time. Think I'll just start going to more movies - seems to take up enough of the evening that I get past that what-to-do stage. On the one hand, don't think I'll ever go back to the every-other-night drinking I was prone to, say, a year ago. On the other hand, not really seeing enough benefit to non-drinking on the weekends - and indeed, haven't drank on a school night since before christmas, and for what it's worth, we've only drank five or six times since then, even on weekends. Seems like pretty successful moderation to me.

50-hour weeks have not so far materialized at work - really hasn't been necessary so far. I stand ready to work 14-hour days as necessary, but so far they're really not. Still, there's enough to do to fill up a 9- or 10-hour day. Speaking of which...

876.2.

Rode to SSU after work and caught the bus home from there. Nice that the busses have bike racks -- but if there are more than two bikes there's gonna be trouble (and there are only two busses going from SSU to Sebastopol morning and evening, so you can't just wait for another).

Blow (2001): "Blew" almost twenty dollars on this and popcorn last night. Pretty great cast populates a story that had me wondering why they bothered to make a movie. The original book, evidently, is an attempt by a convicted coke dealer to somehow redeem himself. But I couldn't muster much (any) sympathy for the character. I couldn't muster much hatred for him either. What is this movie trying to tell me? That cocaine is a huge waste of time and money and it ruins your life? Wow - see "Pink Pearl" reference from yesterday's blog. (BTW, Pink Pearls are those erasers you used in elementary school.) I had exactly the same experience through the 80s -- sans Pee-Wee Herman and millions of dollars -- and I admit I've written about it, but it's such a common story, I never dreamed anyone would bother to write an entire book, sell it as a screenplay, and get top-name actors to grace it with their presence! But I guess in jail you have time for making impossible dreams come true. Most disturbing to me was a scene where they have literally so much money they've filled the house and have no place to put it, with Depp's voiceover - "If you were buying coke in America in the early 80s, we had some of your money."

But Johnny Depp is always a treat. Ray Liotta and Rachel Griffiths as the father and mother were great. If nothing else, it was entertaining through the first hour or so. Five stars out of ten.

It's great to have a theatre within walking distance. Look forward to more current movie reviews here once we hit our stride on catching the $4.50 matinees.

Maybe 911 is a joke, and maybe it isn't, but I know for certain that the phone company's DSL service is a BIG joke.

871.2.

Had to try the straight-down-116 route; chopping five miles off was just too tempting. Sometimes, too, what you see from the car, bike-safety- and shoulder-wise, is different from what you might experience on the actual bicycle and shoulder. At any rate, it makes the ride manageable at 14.4 miles, but one of those miles is pretty scary.

I think I'm going to have to sleep with someone at CalTrans to try and get a bike path installed over that one hill, because otherwise it's a perfectly lovely ride, and somehow much better than all those extra miles on Smoggy Point Road (this morning, only about half a mile on S.P.).

Reading random blogs, and reflecting on a guy at work... of course, nobody thinks their thoughts aren't deep, or that their ideas are not fresh and significant. But man, most people's insights are about as penetrating as a Pink Pearl.

This guy at work, one of those people who, for whatever reason -- maybe NO reason, I instantly dislike. I can prove the existence of love at first sight, because there are people about whom, at first sight, I am entirely apathetic. If the opposite exists, and the middle exists, so must the balancing factor.

There's a hole in that logic somewhere... If dislike-at-first-sight exists, does that really prove its opposite? Black exists, ergo white? Not a universally provable law, and certainly not provable in terms of human interaction. But apathy exists as does its opposite love, so maybe apathy-at-first-sight proves love-at-first-sight. Yeah, I have all KINDS of time for THIS question.

Anyway. This guy, I treat with civility when I must speak to him, but I try to ignore him otherwise. Yesterday, he was at the door heading out when I was heading out for my coffee, and I sorta mumbled 'tsup as I do (having come from TSUP - Technical Support - at SBT), and he had this monumentally witty and humorous reply: "the sky." He's already demonstrated a fullness of 'jokes' like that...

And there are a million billion trillion possible replies ("<coff!> you'd better dust that off before you pull it out and use it again."), but none very polite and none that don't show that I think the guy is a complete and utter buffoon (what I'm thinking is something along the lines of "I could not have thought of a stupider reply unless a plane had been passing directly overhead with Resident Bush in it"). So I just don't say anything and continue on my merry way (probably showing still, by the way, that I think he is a complete and utter buffoon).

But I still have to work in the same building and interact with the guy. So I have to ask myself - why did I dislike the guy so, immediately on sight, with no particular provocation - and how did I know (what turned out to be true), right away, just by looking at him, that his personality just doesn't meet mine?

You know, I used to have an answer to that same "what's up" question: "The direction from which things fall." Haha. I used it maybe three or four times and retired it. So you can perhaps understand my non-plussedness at his "the sky."

I imagine he thinks his comments are very very witty, and that he is a wit among wits when delivering his "the sky" repartee on a moment's notice.

I imagine he has delivered this snappy comeback a hundred times or more in his lifetime, and he's not done yet.

I imagine that, for him, jokes don't wear thin, develop age-spots, grow wrinkly and flabby and die.

I imagine that, to him, I'm just some null character who appears before him, desperately needing his day-brightening line, delivered with sterling timing, sharp as a friggin tack, no moss growing on HIM nope! And he walks on whistling a merry tune, having dumped the dusty, putrid, soft-centered, half-fermented fruit of his intellect on said unsuspecting non-entity.

I try to imagine BEING him, so I can understand how to interact. Do you think he makes any kind of reciprocal attempt?

Sigh.

856.8.

Long, at times agonizing ride home, but I made it. I swear I almost fainted when delicious onion-ring smell wafted over me in Sebastopol passing the Powerhouse Brewery, and I'd have killed for half a gram of salt. This ride is not generally as good scenery-wise as my old 3.5-, 6-, and 12-mile rides -- lots of traffic most of the way, the whizzing-by kind AND the turning-in-front-of-you kind. But there are a few nice stretches - the 5-mile path out of Sebastopol, southern Smoggy Point (between groups of cars), and Railroad Ave. Leg muscles quite sore last night, but not that bad today. May ride it again tomorrow and feel like I've accomplished something this week. Noted that 116 SE from Sebastopol to Smoggy Point is 7 miles - 5 less than taking the path due east and Smoggy Point due south. Not quit ethe calculation Pythagorus would've arrived at, but they didn't have bicycles back then.

If I could take route 116 and all of Smoggy Point on the bike (i.e. if the county/state/US would construct reasonable shoulders and/or bike paths), I could get to work slightly under 14 miles. But I can't and they don't, so it's a 40-mile day. Took a slightly different route home last night; which appears to have shaved off almost a mile, but goes through more suburban streets, strip malls, soccer moms, etc. Will check into the bus service - can take a bus from right near the house to SSU - from there only about 6 miles (on hawk-heavy Petaluma Hill Road) to work.

MUST get another water bottle on the bike before hot summer days. I don't drink enough water when stationary; and I need to start making myself remember to stop and drink while riding and while not riding.

At any rate, though it was tough riding yesterday, it was doable, and if I continue to do it often enough, it'll get easier. Feels good.

Day 4 of the computer crisis. So stupid. They're not even going to be putting my stuff on the new machine, not even putting the old perfectly-good hard drive in, so what's taking so friggin' long?!? First estimate was "friday night or monday morning." It's now uh Wednesday morning?

AT&T @home would not forward email and deleted our old email accounts like IMMEDIATELY, and then Yahoo complained because mlevel@home.com is bouncing email. Now I'm out of several of my groups because I converted steve@born-today.com to be the new main account. The other groups on which steve@b-t was not previously a member, just disappeared. Oh well, I was getting tired of those other four or five groups anyhow (NOT). The only one really missing is the private 'steve&terrie' list, though there's no traffic there. We'll get that straightened out.

Getting used to this machine, left by an ex-coworker, but can't install software I need... So am not entirely wasting time here, but am working about 50% slower than usual.

837.0.

Road Rash rides again! 20.7 miles from the new place to work - NOT a ride I'm likely to be doing daily anytime soon, but not a bad one overall. Thing is the second half - getting home tonight, totalling to a 42-mile day, so ask me again at 8 tonight about how great it is! Not a single hill as large as the old one on Fair/Bailey - never lower than about the 2-5 gear - mostly between 2-6 and 3-8. Mostly flat and with decent shoulders -- the first five miles on a bike/walking path with no cars. Averaging around 12mph, an hour and a half ride. Still, a new chapter in Road Rash, and I'm glad to find I can make it to work on my bike, and can even double or triple my previous weekly mileage by simply riding in twice or thrice a week - maybe this additional riding will finally create slimness on my pathetic body. The route follows highway 12 on the parallel bike path out of Sebastopol, to Stony Point Road, then south on Stony Point to Railroad Avenue. East on RR to Redwood Highway, thence to work. I avoid almost all narrow/non-shoulder areas, and there are a couple of variations I can try later. This route avoids the treacherous-looking (but diagonal, and thus probably substantially shorter) Rte 116 out of Sebastopol; I'll measure the miles by car from Sebastopol to Stony Point on 116 - it's 12 miles via bike path and Stony Point.

I think I need bearings repacked around the front crank.
Also ate breakfast today, having resolved to live a healthier life... Maybe next time I ride the bike I won't smoke till after the ride. It's somewhat easier to avoid that first cig if you're not in the standard routine of coffee & shower -- the coffee water takes just a cig's time to boil, and otherwise you're standing there watching it...

Again watched Sarah Vaughan documentary "The Divine One" last night. What a cool woman, and great singer. Unsung (heh) as one of the great independent women of the early- mid-20th century, Sarah evidently got by without heroin -- and to a large extent without men -- controlling her life, and made some of the most amazing, beautiful music of her time. Plus, she was a total babe, early on... I'm happy to have made Sassy's acquaintance through numerous records and CDs, and especially now through this video, which I can take out and watch every now and then. It's also cool to see the likes of Billy Eckstine and Roy Haynes reminiscing about her...

Still no new machine, but promised for later today. Also, should get DSL activated at home today - but will believe when I see both. Everything on the web - email, schedule, etc., I'd need three browser windows running to do what I normally have with outlook etc. A Pain.

Oy. They replaced my drive Friday into a machine that locked up 7 times during the course of the day, sometimes without me even doing anything. Disabled screensaver and other startup crap, still locking up (four times or more today -- obsessive-compulsive though I am, I've lost count), and currently it sits with a blue screen. They are building me a new computer. Which "won't be ready till this evening or tomorrow." Version control system is inaccessible at the moment, so can't get the stuff I checked in. So much for the paperless office.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones last night. Awesome. At the risk of crying wolf superlative-wise, Victor Wooten is simply the best bass player I've ever seen or heard. He gets his own solo spot in the first half of the show - about 30 minutes of solo bass - and fills it up admirably, detuning the bass, coaxing an incredible array of sounds from an almost-clean-amped bass (he did have an autowah/ring-modulator kind of effect on it [lady behind us: "Is that the whammy bar?" {for the uninitiated, there are few if any basses with 'whammy bars'}]), often playing two or more different melodies/rhythm patterns simultaneously.

Everybody in the band is an exceptional musician, though, and nobody is really the "star."

Fleck plays acoustic and electric banjoes, and for one number, a funny-looking guitar. As is often the case with banjo music, you don't always hear how good it actually is from among the flurries of high-speed fingerpicking. But when Fleck sits alone on stage with an acoustic banjo and manages the Vince Guaraldi "Peanuts" theme, alone on a banjo, it's impressive.

"Futureman" plays his homemade drum/sample machine like a guitar, with half a drum kit beside him that he occasionally plays on one-handed. The "drum solo," opening the second half, is much more than that, incorporating percussion, found sounds, sampled instrumental noises, and phenomenal polyrhythmic polyphony. (christ, now I'm in rock-critic-land...)

It's the gimmickry that wins most of the crowd, though. When the bassoon player (an excellent player with a clean bassoon), does an extended solo through a synthesizer, making his instrument deliver saxophone, guitar, and other sounds, the crowd went wild (though it requires virtually no extra effort on his part to switch the synth to deliver any other instrument that's in its banks of samples...)

Nobody in this band follows the main beat; everyone's riffing on it, flirting with it. Typical tunes start with a relatively simple melody, each player taking a solo expounding on that, taking it farther and farther afield, eventually coming back "home" to it - SOP for improvisational jazz, but this is nominally a bluegrass group. They are fearless in their choices of music to attempt - classical, jazz, country, rock - no genre is safe from the Flecktones!

Each player brings amazing feats of musicianship, moments of humor, and a nice (rare) humility to the stage.

Perhaps because I'm tired, or because I'm old, I get fidgety in the last half-hour or so before the encores. When everybody's burning it up at once, there's nothing to hang your hat on sonically or visually, and it tends to blend into a big mass of sound and activity (for me), and you might get a little bored. And when the guy behind you keeps yelling high-pitched wolf-calls at all the wrong times, you might get a little annoyed, especially when his noise interferes with your ability to hear a particular stretch of music...

Still, that Wooten! 8 stars out of ten - check it out!

Rain. Came in to work early-ish to find that the power switch on my computer appears to have gone south. So can't turn on the PC, can't get email, etc.

Hopefully they'll be quick in moving the drives to another machine (and I won't lose the data I haven't saved to the version control systems).

Hopefully I can get to work soon...

Yeah, the new place...

While watching the cats for signs of adjustment, I've ignored my own.

It seems to be taking more adjustment for me than usual after a move, even the one I did after 12 years in Fairfax, but I was pretty firmly entrenched in this latest place, the first actual house I've rented - I had assumed more "ownership" than in previous duplexes/apartments/share rentals.

Plus, we've uprooted ourselves from a number of things, and there have been a lot of little changes in the last year. Reduced- to non-drinking. Healthier eating. No smoking indoors. No TV/internet/email access at home. Driving to work again. Working a later schedule.

In the middle of the night, not knowing where to put your feet when you walk around.

And last night, the young cat would not stop roaming the house yowling, and the older cat would almost settle down on the bed when some particularly plaintive call from the young one would set him off and they'd fight in the hallway. And the heater making noises. I probably didn't get to sleep till 1:30; woke at my old accustomed 5:30 or so but managed to go back to sleep till 7.

New video store, walking distance, is good. $5, 5 movies, 5 days. Nice music section, from which I rented four including "What's Up Matador" (not in IMDB, but the CD is in CDNOW). Pretty amusing collection of videos from that indie label, including Pavement "Cut Your Hair" and Liz Phair "Jealousy." Also liked Yo La Tengo, Railroad Jerk, and Helium vids, and the silly in-between segments, saved by various members of the bands and the Matador organization describing how to form a band, record a demo, make an album, shoot a video, etc. Also re-watched "Gimme Shelter." Have a lot of disjointed thoughts about it, which I won't bother sharing at the moment...

There's a point you reach in a job where you realize that you know it.

I realized this first in a tech support job, when for the first time a caller told me the program was doing something, and I knew the program was NOT doing what he described, that either he had modified it, or he was doing something horribly wrong.

Prior to this, I had to work either from memorized data about the product or from testing what the caller was saying -- I had to believe the user was innocent until proven guilty. I'd get at least one or two calls a day that just came out of left field, that completely shook my confidence in my knowledge of the material. Of course Users Lie, that's a given in technical support, but I still had to treat them as though they were telling the truth until I could prove otherwise.

It's not like the job was all downhill from that point - things change, and new items of interest can surface on a daily basis - but I realized that I had gained an intuitive understanding of the underlying features of the product I was supporting. I could make certain leaps of logic with complete assurance.

This job, I've been here ten months. I'm not at that point yet, but I can feel it getting closer. At least I usually understand the programmers' jokes now.

And finally, FINALLY, I'm busy. I have enough information about at least some areas in the new product that I can write documentation that may be 100% accurate (but even if it's 60% wrong, hey, it's 40% complete!). In these times of failing dot-coms, it's important to look busy -- better yet to BE busy.

Nothing but moving for a week straight, and now we're in, albeit only semi-organized.

I've lived in Bolinas, and in Fairfax, both well-known as the Places Hippies Go to Die. Now I live in Sebastopol: the Town that Time Forgot (Well, not really). If Northern California as a whole is considered ditzy by the rest of the US/world at large, these towns are the capitals.

W/Holistic. Tie-Dye. Hemp. Organic. Herbal. These are all bywords in these kinds of places, where old men with bald pates and ponytails sit in the sun laughing together about past acid trips. Where timid-looking needle-thin women peer anxiously at fake cheeses made from rice at the Whole Foods store.

I didn't say I didn't LIKE it! I was a hippie once; though maybe five years too young to experience the full force of hippiedom, I've sat cross-legged in a circle and chanted with others. I've eaten grain-heavy breakfasts with nary egg nor meat nor milk nor refined sugar. I've gone to more than two Grateful Dead shows in a week. And I took all the same drugs they took, back in the day. If I'm not "100% Natural" today, it doesn't mean I lack the credentials.

And the thing is, if history repeats itself, this is the crest of the North American wave - this is where the United States civilization has reached its peak, in a way. Where the populace has become so civilized, they're ripe for decline and the influx of barbarians. Sitting in the sunny square on a Monday afternoon, watching the well-meaning souls go in and out of the grocery, listening to the completely un-self-conscious squawks of someone learning to play the saxophone in public, knowing that at any moment I'm probably within earshot of somebody self-named "Rainbow" or "Sunshine," I can't help but feel sad that this might be it. This could be the best we did. Not that it isn't great and good, but that always, ALWAYS, it could've gone (as the Merry Pranksters's bus once said) 'furthur.'

I always disliked those kinds of people who displayed a certain precious "Look how cute I am" persona, people SO secure in belief in their attractiveness, they don't even think about it.

There are cute people, and there are people who think they are cute, and the two sets don't intersect at ALL for me.

Now in the case of actors in movies, you never really know if that kind of persona is actually good acting or if it's just typecasting.

In the case of Charlie's Angels (2000), I'm inclined to think it's the latter. This is one of the most excruciatingly annoying movies I think I've ever watched. Cameron Diaz, good enough in There's Something About Mary, makes me cringe every time I see her in this DOG of a movie. How Bill Murray, usually pretty good about choosing jobs, allowed himself to get involved in this one is entirely beyond me. Even the visual effects and action sequence were B-O-R-I-N-G; that warmed-over "Matrix"-style stop-action fighting is already looking older than a pie in a face. Drew Barrymore... well, no need to even mention THAT proof of de-evolution.

It doesn't work as parody because it's not funny. It doesn't work as action because it's painfully obvious that none of the action is real. It works as fluff because it's fluff.

And yeah, I knew when I rented it, it wouldn't be good, but I had at least hoped it would put me to sleep. Shouldn't've had those two Pepsis with dinner.

Carloads 16, 17, and 18 went up last night, and we're pretty close to being done with this.

Other than that, not much new. Between work and moving, my days are full. But figure 9 loads times 40 miles round-trip, and I have lots of time to think.

Not gonna overload Blogger today (maybe later), but inordinately happy to see its return...

14, going on 15, carloads taken from old place (all but one taken to new place). Also one truckload of musical equipment. I don't mind saying this is getting old, but there's a great satisfaction in seeing the task ever nearer to completion -- a task that looked damn near impossible at the onset.

One nice side-effect of moving is that we get to eat dinner out every night. Semi-exhausted and somewhat punchy (really, an underrated state, that!), we sit at the various tables and talk over what to do next, or just talk. (For a later blog, remind me to again bemoan the sorry state of professional services of any kind...)

Johnny Garlic's is a chain-ish restaurant in Petaluma. I don't know how to describe the tone of the place, maybe 'faux-yuppie-trendo-amateur.' Like, they have cute names for the foods (and you can 'intensify' each entree with additional crap on your plate for like 3 more dollars), and the main dining area is decorated in a vain attempt to emulate the inside of a volcano. One time we were there, they were hosting one of those mystery things, where a group of people has to figure out who killed some member of the staff.

Anyway, while eating there the other night, the waitress approaching another table somehow reminded me of Godzilla, and I'm off on a weird tangent:

Godzilla is working his way through a community college web-design course by moonlighting as a waiter at Johnny Garlic's. (He didn't have much experience, but his innate expertise at flambe dishes makes him a very desirable employee.)

When they host a mystery, his coworkers are all 1950s Japanese actors, and Godzilla is the victim:
"Raaaah! Would you like some pepper on that?"
"Much excuse, but mutant monster not arrowed to dispense seasoning! Mirabito is your honorable peppah dispensah!"
"Raaah! But I was already right here, and I had the grinder!"

<scuffle ensues among wait staff and Godzilla; a shot rings out. Much confusion, as some poor customer's flaming entree continues to burn and smoke fills the room. When the smoke clears, the giant reptile is missing.>

<Later...>

Participant: "Mistah Mirabito, you not hide body that easiry! Note Godzilla tail appear fwum behind potted prant!"
Mirabito (waving pepper grinder): "I not kill him! Simpry wanting to dispense pepper!"

<Participant walks over to body...>

Participant: "Ah ha! Note pepper-grinder shaped indentation on Godzilla forehead!"

Etc. (oh well, it seemed funny at the time).

The wedding thing is quite the experience. Though we've managed to keep it pretty simple, I've caught glimpses here and there of what a traditional wedding entails.

It's always been considered a major Life Event and rite of passage. But it's also something else.

Men, typically, don't seriously think out the cause and effect of social/emotional things. So a marriage proposal may be, to them, the product of momentary intense feeling and/or an investment in the promise of a reward (getting laid) five or ten minutes hence.

But from the word "yes," the young male finds himself in a steadily-accelerating maelstrom of new experiences.

There is a dictionary's worth of etiquette one must learn to survive a standard "dearly-beloved" wedding and garter-tossing reception. And the guest lists, and the "help," and the order in which things must occur, and the negotiations, and the bachelor and bachelorette parties.

The emptying of the wallet is mere preparation, a removal of defenses, for the trial-by-fire. All keyed towards his domestication, housebreaking, if you will. IF a young man gets through the hundreds of little opportunities-to-offend, AND doesn't get snagged on any of a thousand potential bridal "petulant frenzies" (tm Frank Zappa), AND manages to comport himself reasonably well, AND hasn't run screaming to another state or country, THEN, finally, when it's all over, he is silently pronounced "fit for cohabitation" by all present. So, why do you think they call him a "groom"? He is "groomed" for presentability.

None of these little details ever occurred to him when he got down on his knee - and he wonders at some point if he will ever be allowed to stand again. "Etiquette" never occurs to a single man. A married man is practically an expert.

"A husband is what's left of a lover after the nerve has been extracted." - Helen Rowland (1876 - 1950), English/US writer. I never much liked or agreed with this quote, but I see its truth.

It's no particular person's "fault" that this transformation occurs. It's one of those subtle societal things that nudges him gently and repeatedly, perhaps when he least expects it, gradually enough that each new concession is small, inexorable enough that in the end, he may find himself realizing that he has been nudged down a long long road, and the way back is completely obscured.

I am SO thankful to Terrie that it hasn't been like this for me, AND that I have gotten a glimpse of it. And I am thankful to my "guardian angel" or "higher self" or whomever, that I didn't marry those others in the past who might have taken me down that road.

So much forgotten history in our daily lives (though that's all changing, with Blogger available!).

Going through old stuff, preparatory to moving. I haven't moved since 1995, and have not only accumulated a ton of stuff, but kept a lot of stuff that I never once looked at since the last move. It was these things that captured my attention the other day: performance reviews from jobs 15, 20 years ago; drawings and writings and weird office humor I once saw fit to collect and keep; the odd photograph, a younger me grinning out unknowning at the future me, bringing an entire hermetically-preserved world into focus in an instant.

Novato Unified School District, 1977? - 1979, I worked as a printer's apprentice, babysitting an ABDick 360 offset printer as it churned out administrative and class materials for local schools. I wrote on the typewriter through many dull moments, and that paper blog is mostly in a notebook. Awful poetry and scant humor. I was a real "litterary light"(weight) then.

Crocker Bank, 1979 - 1986: The printing trade petered out - the old Catch-22: couldn't get a job without being in the Union, and couldn't get in the Union without having a job. Got into a county job-placement program, and was groomed for a teller position at a major california bank. Rose from a mail-deliverer to computer-accounting entry person to a computer system trainer in that 7-year span. But in the same period, I was seeing the end of my first long-term relationship and introducing myself to cocaine (with which I'd have a long and fruitless friendship that ultimately lost me that job). Wrote in longhand while babysitting the big IBM band-printer that serviced the Computer Systems group, then in the text editor on the PDP-1170 and Vax minicomputers, until we got PCs and Multimate.

MicroPro, 1987 - 1991: Still on the coke train through the entire period, but rose inexorably from technical support drone to advisor to technical writer before basically getting fired (under the guise of being laid off). Joined the internet craze during this time, and started doing my writing in email and on Compuserve (and of course in the late and lamented WordStar). On at least two occasions, I got excellent an performance review within a month of a warning for attendance.

SBT, 1991 - 1996 and again 1997 - 2000: Still on the train, but finally debarked during that first stint, and after rising again to Technical Writer, crashed and burned in a flurry of non-activity. But I returned, yes I did, and saved the doc department there from ignominy (my boss) for those three years. Wrote in email, on Compuserve, on the web, in longhand, in WordStar, in Word, everywhere.

Writings and drawings from all of these times. Not a lot, but something here and something there catches my eye. Like today, I showed flashes of brilliance amid mounds of banality. Never knew that I wrote so poorly - that provides some insight into people I know now who don't write well. It's just time, learning the rules, practicing, that separates the young me (and those young writers) from the current me.

But it's amazing how much of it I'd completely forgotten... Must sit and go through that stuff one day, gently but in detail. Sometimes you may feel like you haven't moved an inch in twenty years, until you look up from your trudging and see, way off in the distance, the signposts you stuck in the ground twenty years ago.