Rolling Thoughts

(sigh)

There are very few items that I dissagree with when David Gerrold posts them in his blog. David is one of the best authors around today. Full stop. He's also honest, has integrity, and truly believes in America.
I read his blog about HBO's new series "Deadwood" where he lambasts it because of the intense use of vulgarity in the script. While I agree that it is distasteful in todays society, it is a pretty accurate description of the life and times of the principle characters and the society of a boom town. What I think people should find more disturbing than the cursing is the prolific use of drugs in the show. Here is where we see the first instances of true drug addiction in america. And is an insteresting view on prescription drug abuse today....

Today was also my first BBQ of the year. Went really well. Everyone left fed at least :-)
I'm a little bummed because 2 friends I invited didn't show. It's been a while since I've seen them and I was looking forward to chatting. oh well.

I posted the photos from my latest trip to CA. Got some good ones of Elisha. And a really nice set of shots of a Zacharies Pizza Pie. Yum. (drool).

Which of the Endless are you?

http://www.users.drew.edu/jleto/endless/

Which Member of the Endless Are You?

Post Weekend Update

Well, my weekend was cool. It started at 0300 EST on Friday. I had to check in at Dulles by 0430. Ugh. Got there, checked in, took flight to Denver.

Once in Denver I had 9 hours to kill. There is VERY little to do in the Denver airport. Fortunately I have a friend who lives there and we had lunch plans. I hopped the bus to d'town Denver and called her to arrange a meeting place. Unfortunately I got her voice mail. So I wandered around. Denver is a really nice place. I was pleasantly surprized. Their public library is simply awesome. 300+ free internet terminals!! Send an e-mail to Nic just in case she was at work and not home. Then went back and relaxed at Starbucks in the sun with my book. Nice day. She never showed. Oh well.

Then got back to the airport and flew into Oakland where I discovered that my bag had been shipped earlier and locked into their little room. Got it and Nikki picked me up. Then I crashed having been up for almost 24 hours and not sleeping much the night before.

The wedding on Saturday was awesome. Only 30 people and all were either immediate family members or friends of the bride & groom. Nikki and I took pics for Ryan and Elisha. The ceremony itself was quick. 15 minutes. It was very cool and fitted them perfectly. No unity candle either :-)

From there we piled into two stretch SUV limos and went to SF-Embarcadero for a very nice reception lunch. I peeked at the bill (Ryan was right next to me). A little over 2K for the 29 of us. Not bad considering. 70 per person is really cheap. And the food was really good too. About the only 'down' point was when the maid of honor gave the toast (there was no best man to do it). I know she didn't know it and would never do it on purpose, but it hurt me badly to hear what she said. Odd after 4 year that something so minor could hurt so bad.

THEN we took the limos to pier 39 and a catamaran cruise of the bay!! WOW. What a rush. It was a nice day, but crossing the bay is always choppy and standing on deck required some good balance. We went to Sausilito(sp?) and watched the clouds roll over the mountains and into the bay. Then back to pier 39. It was a wonderful day.

I'll put up pictures on my web site tonight and more to follow when the film ones are developed.

Sunday Nikki and I explored Rockridge and Berkeley. I got Zacharies pizza. Yum!! Then bought a new pair of sunglasses and discovered that someone had stolen my credit card number and charged up about $1000 on internet charges. So I canceled the card and had them send me a new one. They're also sending me a letter with all the charges. I get to pick which are real. I imagine that you could really abuse this type of thing. But I won't.

The flight back sucked rocks. Redeye from OAK to Dulles. 10pm to 5 am. I got maybe 3 hours of sucky sleep. Went home. Hosed off. Came to work.

Stood up

I hate being stood up.
Even more when it was the other person's idea to meet.

Now this wasn't a huge deal. I was in Denver with a long layover. I thought it would be nice to meet up with Nicole since we'd never actually met. I suggested coffee and she sounded excited and when I mentioned the 9 hour layover, she suggested lunch instead.

I e-mailed early in the week. She confirmed. I called Thursday. No answer. So I e-mailed and said I'd call when I arrive in Denver. I get into Denver, call. No answer. I leave a message saying which starbucks I was at in d'town. Then I find an internet portal and e-mail her where I am just in case she's at work. And she never shows. For 3 hours. I go back to the airport. sigh. I don't mind so much that she baled, just that she didn't call. I would have liked to have been able to do something else. Movie, museum. Something.

But I'm now in Oakland at Nikki's enjoying a Wyder's Pear Citer. And speaking of, here is her Blog:
http://livejournal.com/users/the_grrrl/

VEIP

I don't beleive this. Some months ago I got a ticket because my license plates were suspended. Why? Because my Emission testing had expired and I didn't know. The VEIP people didn't send me the notice ... probably because I just bought the car last year. Anyway. I got an extention to the deadline and a letter to show the judge that it wasn't my fault.

So this morning I drive to the testing stating. It's somewhere BFE Gaithersburg. Get there. Hand over the form to the technician and a $14 fee. He tells me to wait in the little room. Now in CA this proceedure is 30-60 minutes. So I brought a book ... I hadn't read a single page before the guy stuck his head back in to tell me it was finished!?! What?

So he hands me the print-out and I stare dumbly at the 15 boxes that all have a "NA" in them where the pass/fail results should be... there was only one box that was filled in with a "Pass" ... the one for seeing if the gas cap fit correctly.

That's it. The only thing my car needed to have certified was the gas cap.

Facts gawdammit!

FACTS ARE NOT ALL THERE IS TO HISTORY!!

I wish that it was but we don't KNOW the facts all the time. How can we?!? Even for events that happened last week we don't know exactly what happened.

What brought this up is an NPR story I heard tonight. It was a feature about Rossevelt HS in Los Angeles. RHS is 100% Latino ... now. A big feature of the story was how that history in CA is not Latino-oriented and that the teachers interviewed bemoaned the 'bias' against their kids.

Bullshit. Plain and simple. Bullshit. History is NOT about regurgitating FACTS! History is taking what you know to BE facts and synthesizing what you don't. These teachers should be exstatic that the enforced curriculum sucks. Use it as a tool to engage your students! "This is the fucked up history THEY want you to believe. Today's lesson is how to read between the lines and tell them that they're WRONG!"

How many kids do you know that wouldn't LOVE to take a big poke at authority. Especially one sanctioned by the teacher.

Shit. What a fucking cop-out.

Paycheck & pay

Raise your hand if you've ever lived paycheck to paycheck and really had to worry about buying food at the end of the month. How many? Oh, and not when you're a student. Those years don't count.

I did for the 3 years after I graduated from Davis. It wasn't too bad since I came from living on $500 a month. So earning $1500 a month after taxes was quite an improvement ... except that I was living in the bay area and owned a car. A lot of that 1500 dissapeared real fast. Even then it was never a problem. I never had to worry about paying for food or anything. Toys? Well, I never needed toys to be happy.

I've forgotten what it is like to have to make serious choices when you are in this type of situation. Two of my friends who are living in DC for the next few months to make some money before going on to other things (school, work, etc.) are stuck. They have one car between them and it broke down today. They need it to get to work, but they can't afford to fix it ... maybe. I was over at their place for dinner and they were talking about it. I would have offered to loan them the money, but I caught a serious undertone of something much worse going on. That kind of thing where any subject can boil over to mask the real problem. So I kept my mouth shut.

Wow

I really enjoy reading the Herald Tribune. Everyday they pull segments from 100, 75, and 50 years ago. This is the one for today from 75 years ago:

1929: 'My Son Is Alive'

PASSAIC, New Jersey:Nearly ten years ago Robert Preiskel, twenty-six-year-old son of Mrs Mina Preiskel, of Brooklyn, died of war injuries in France. The other day his mother was buried in a cemetery here, attended to the last by her six remaining children. They had succeeded, through nearly ten years of benevolent deceit, in keeping her ignorant of Robert's death. Even the father, Moses D. Preiskel, was a party to the conspiracy until his death in 1924. The Preiskel children sent letters from abroad to keep up the illusion.

Caffein Jitters and Food poisoning

Yesterday was free coffee day at Starbucks. Well not really, but the guy there wouldn't let me pay for refills. I think he was flirting ... or maybe he was just happy that I gave my order with a smile. Cute girl #1 was there as well. Maybe I'll ask her out. Probably not.

But to top off the roiling stomach from all that coffee, I went home and attempted to make Chicken Pot Pies from scratch ... except for the pie crust. That I bought. Well, I didn't manage to cook it well enough I guess because I gave myself a bit of food poisoning. Didn't throw up, but I was definitely down for the count last night. Bummer.

Oh. My. God!!!

http://www.illwillpress.com/vault.html

Go there NOW! These animation shorts are awesome!!!

Freeways suck

I hate the freeways around here. It seems that they are all named some derivative of 95. 95, 295, 395, 495. I managed to get lonst on the way home from Jo's tonight because my regular route was closed and I had to go through downtown DC. Oh that was fun at 2300 let me tell you. By the time I got home I made it half way to Baltimore, the OTHER side of DC, across the Potomac 4 times, and finally back to my place. I should have slept on their floor. Not my fucking day. At least the dinner was excellent. I love curry.

SPAM

My Blog has been spamed with Zoloft. Friggin A!

Choked up, if only ....

HIGHWAY 109

A drunk man in an Oldsmobile
They said had run the light
That caused the six-car pileup
On 109 that night.

When broken bodies lay about
And blood was everywhere,
The sirens screamed out ulogies,
For death was in the air.

A mother, trapped inside her car,
Was heard above the noise;
Her plaintive plea near split the air:
"Oh, God, please spare my boys!"

She fought to loose her pinned hands;
She struggled to get free,
But mangled metal held her fast
In grim captivity.

Her frightened eyes then focused
On where the back seat once had been,
But all she saw was broken glass and
Two children's seats crushed in.

Her twins were nowhere to be seen;
She did not hear them cry,
And then she prayed they'd been thrown free,
"Oh, God, don't let them die!"

Then firemen came and cut her loose,
But when they searched the back,
They found therein no little boys,
But the seat belts were intact.

They thought the woman had gone mad
And was traveling alone,
But when they turned to question her,
They discovered she was gone.

Policemen saw her running wild
And screaming above the noise
In beseeching supplication,
"Please help me find my boys!

They're four years old and wear blue shirts;
Their jeans are blue to match."
One cop spoke up, "They're in my car,
And they don't have a scratch.

They said their daddy put them there
And gave them each a cone,
Then told them both to wait for Mom
To come and take them home.

I've searched the area high and low,
But I can't find their dad.
He must have fled the scene,
I guess, and that is very bad."

The mother hugged the twins and said,
While wiping at a tear,
He could not flee the scene, you see,
For he's been dead a year."

The cop just looked confused and asked,
"Now, how can that be true?"
The boys said, "Mommy, Daddy came
And left a kiss for you."

He told us not to worry
And that you would be all right,
And then he put us in this car with
The pretty, flashing light.

We wanted him to stay with us,
Because we miss him so,
But Mommy, he just hugged us tight
And said he had to go.

He said someday we'd understand
And told us not to fuss,
And he said to tell you, Mommy,
He's watching over us."

The mother knew without a doubt
That what they spoke was true,
For she recalled their dad's last words,
"I will watch over you."

The firemen's notes could not explain
The twisted, mangled car,
And how the three of them escaped
Without a single scar.

But on the cop's report was scribed,
In print so very fine,
An angel walked the beat tonight
On Highway 109.

Weekend

I went to DC Saturday with Jo. We went to the Smithsonian Natural History museum and checked out a couple of the exhibits. That place is HUGE. I saw the hope diamond. Pretty, but I really don't like diamonds. I also saw my first IMAX film. Welcome to the 90's Lance :-)

Then we checked out my favorite little wine bistro. Jo applied for a temp job there. That'll be a hoot if she gets it.

We watched Brazil on Saturday. Freaky movie. But sooo predictive. Especially with terrorism and homeland security these days. A definite Buy movie.
Jo has an eclectic taste in movies. More than mine. Quite refreshing really.

I've got to find something to take my mind off of this.

Sound Familiar?

1929: Stocks Thrust Skyward

Faith in the prospective good works of Herbert Hoover sent Wall Street into the most bullish market since early in February and produced a turnover in shares almost equalling the record of the 'Hoover market' immediately after his election in November, 1928. Already labeled the 'Hoover inaugural market,' stocks felt the influence of that now magic name by jumping generally from three to twenty points, and in one instance, more than 1,000 points. The turnover today was 6,015,000 shares.

And 7 months later, the crash. Parallels to today? Ya think....

More Bush foibles

I saw a headline yesterday that Bush ordered the search for Bin Laden "Intensified"

EXCUSE ME! This is the guy that is (supposedly) responsible for the murder of 3000 people on American soil. Shouldn't the search for Bin Laden be the most fucking intense activety on the planet?

Or did the US take a break from looking for him when something else caught our eye ... like some minor problem in Iraq for example? Or is it that Bush is facing a very credible threat from Kerry or Edwards in the election this year and needs a quick boost in the polls to get reelected. And what better way than 'catching' the bad guy ... no, no. Not Sadam. The OTHER bad guy. The one that ACTUALLY killed Americans.