Horizontigo

The TV cabinet completed

2011-10-04T22:51:00.000-07:00

I finished it this spring but forgot to post here.

Slow and steady...

2011-03-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

A couple hours here, half an hour there...and a week or so later, here we are, at the first dry-fit of the core of the case.

A "dry-fit" is basically an assembly with no glue. You use them to check the fit of parts, and to plan your actual glue-up (where seconds count). The dry-fit is where you find out whether your measure-to-cut ratio was high enough, and if your accuracy was on or off. So far, so good.

So far, there are about 25 biscuit joints in this thing. And they all lined up.

I expect to do a LOT of dry-fitting on this piece - it's going to have to be assembled in stages, and I will need to make sure that I plan the right step in the process to bolt in the 75-lb TV lift mechanism...which by the way has to be perfectly balanced and plumb...

It's actually coming faster than I'd expected - a little time after dinner here and there has really been productive. I find that when I'm not rushing and don't expect to make a huge milestone with each session in the shop, the accuracy goes up as I'm just trying to get each step just so rather than plow toward finishing. When the accuracy goes up, I spend less time fixing errors, scratching my head about how to proceed, and "re-working the design" unexpectedly.

Educating Jasper

2011-03-10T21:59:00.000-08:00

So I just got back from a neurology lecture and book signing that I attended with my 10-year-old son. The author of the book gave a presentation along with some readings, basically describing the composition of Mind, as illuminated by disease, walking up from the level of the atomic, to the molecular/genetic, the cellular (intra- and inter-), to substructures, the brain itself, and then alluding to the further extension to the body and even beyond into the environment. It was a little over an hour of one guy talking and showing powerPoint slides with mostly words, and the occasional picture. No animations, no movies...just stories and concepts with the odd illustration. The audience sat on folding chairs in a small gallery - by the end even I was getting fidgety.

I'm not sure which surprised me more - the fact that he was not the only kid there (it was close - there was one other family speaking French to each other and English to the presenter), or the fact that he actually seemed to enjoy it.

Some background - a few weeks ago, we pulled him out of the local public school. It wasn't an easy decision in many ways; we actually liked the school (he was there K-3rd and up through March of 4th grade) and had put a lot into supporting it. Lee was extremely active in the PTA and on campus in general, I chaired the School Site Council (and still do, actually, for the rest of the year), and we knew the faculty and many of the parents very well. They are good people trying to do good things for the kids. It had simply become the wrong place for our son.

A little more background. This school is a very small neighborhood school, walking-distance from our house. The student body is a little over 300 kids, K-6. When we moved to the neighborhood, it was one of those schools people move to get into. The principal at that time had instituted all these fantastic programs, the test scores and API's were excellent, the culture was close-knit yet diverse. Then the budget crisis hit.

Since we enrolled Jasper in Kindergarten almost 5 years ago, we've been through 4 principals (5 if you count the one we never even met who was hired in June and had quit by August). The school narrowly escaped closure 2 years ago, and is now threatened again. Many of the more involved families have left, unsure of the school's future and tired of the emotional roller-coaster and the uncertainty. The budgets are miniscule and getting smaller, and the district is basically a giant money-sponge between the state and the actual classroom (or so it seems to me). Classes are large and in some cases chaotic. The district-imposed curriculum, with it's burden of no-child-left-behind-ism, has cut everything but math and language arts to the bare minimum, while doing the same with the number of hours/days of instruction in a given year. There is no funding or support for GATE or other programs for gifted and talented students; instead, the focus is on bringing those who are performing at low levels up to grade level standards - a very good and virtuous goal, and one that I support. Unfortunately, in the current budget climate that only has room for one priority, it leaves the kids who could go farther and faster to fend for themselves, and to become bored and demotivated - and at the critical middle-elementary stage, puts them at risk of becoming disenchanted with education as a whole.

This is exactly what we had started to see happening with our son the last couple of years. In the beginning, he was really excited about school and learning. But gradually, as he started pulling ahead in some areas (his mutant power is reading - he was reading at an 11th-grade level in 3rd grade) there was nowhere for him to go in class. In other areas, he was quickly learning the tricks of doing just enough to get by and escape reprisals. It didn't help that the bar is set so low in many cases. Like any other kid, he was starting to live down to expectations.

So when a string of incidents (I won't go into them here) started to get us worried about not only the academics but the overall climate of the school, we decided that it was time to change the strategy, and we got connected with some local families who were homeschooling. We could have transferred to another - larger - school, but right now transfers, especially mid-year, are hard to pull off unless there's a disciplinary issue. We could have gone to a private school...but even the lower-end of that spectrum is just beyond our means on one income (which is how we like things - we feel the "luxury" of one stay-at-home parent is something our kids should have). So, emboldened by the stories of a few friends and a strong network of like-minded people, we're giving the homeschool approach a try.

One part of the homeschool scene that many people (including me until recently) are unaware is just how much opportunity there is to, well, attend classes outside the school environment. There's a geology class at a nearby Natural History museum especially for homeschoolers - there are 6 sections of it, and we got the last spot of the last one. They're going to go visit a volcano at the end of the unit. We'll be doing some Oceanography, culminating in a trip to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. Basically, we'll be building a curriculum from components, filling in the spaces with impromptu lessons (using math to calculate the tax at the grocery store or convert units in the kitchen, for instance), and using resources out there to make sure we're keeping track and documenting progress against benchmarks and that kind of thing (the one we've chosen is affiliated with the state, and even provides a certain amount of funding for independent classes). Living where we do, there really is a wealth of opportunity to design your own education.

Which is what brought me to this small gallery, to spend an hour in an uncomfortable folding chair, listening to a doctor and professor of neuroscience discuss the nature of the mind and how it relates to, and transcends, the physical structures it inhabits in the form of the brain, body, and environment.

With a 10-year-old boy, who sat through the whole thing in rapt attention, seemingly finding it just as fascinating as I or anyone else in the audience.

He listened to the various discussions brought up by the attendees, even asking a couple of questions himself. At the end of the lecture, he wanted to buy the presenter's book so he could get it signed, which we did. I think it's going to be a while before he can actually read and comprehend it, but maybe not. At the very least, it sparked an interest and something to reach for, in a way that wasn't specially-packaged or downgraded for kids.

Right now, at the beginning of this journey/experiment/adventure, I think that's what excites me most - the notion that we can give him the opportunity to learn about and participate in the real, actual world of real, actual ideas, on its own terms as well as his. Rather than picking an education from a menu that started out akin to McDonald's and is now trending more towards White Castle, we can take him to the farmer's market, and even the gourmet store now and then, so he can get not only a better educational meal, but a more real connection to its ingredients and where they come from.

It may not work out at all - we may discover that it's just not effective for him, that he doesn't take to it or progress well with it. Ultimately he may end up back in "regular school" if it becomes apparent that it's better for him. Then again, if it's really great for him, I'm glad we're giving him the chance to find out, and to take a shot at defining his own mind and its boundaries from the inside out. Or maybe from the atomic up.

Back in the Shop Again!

2011-03-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

Today, I finally started the actual work on a furniture project I've been designing, planning, and generally preparing for for over a year - my stealth-tansu plasma TV cabinet. Here's what it will look like if I do everything just right...

The idea is to have a place for my new 50" Plasma TV to hide so that we don't have to look at the monolith from 2001 lying on it's side every time we walk in the room.

The TV will be lurking in there, waiting for someone to summon it, at which time it will rise from it's slumber behind the false back in the cabinet. Ideally, when you walk into the living room, there will be no sign that a television is even present.

For those who don't know, when I'm not working at my paying job, I spend my spare hours out in my woodshop, which is basically a detached 2-car garage in which I will never park a car, but instead have filled with various machines, hand tools and workbenches. I'm always happiest when I've got a good furniture project going, which really just isn't often enough.

Today, I spent about 4 hours in the shop, and made exactly 5 cuts. The dimensions of the cabinet are 89" long by 18" deep, and the base is 1" thick plywood. Since I don't have a big heavy cabinet saw with a luxurious cast-iron top, using the table saw for this was impractical, and probably dangerous. So I had to use the old SkilSaw, which is always a little tough to control especially when cutting thick stock. I solved that problem by building a fixed sled for the circular saw. Basically, it's a cleat that holds the saw to a piece of plywood with another cleat at the side that rides along the edge. The saw blade cuts through the jig and extends down to cut through the workpiece underneath. Below is a picture midway through a cut into the nice, shiny prefinished maple plywood I'm using for the case.

I gotta say, this thing worked like a charm. Managed an 8' long rip through 1" plywood with no wiggles, no burn marks, and leaving two nice, flat, 90-degree edges. The lesson here is: if you think building a jig to make a couple of simple cuts is a waste of time and materials, think again. Trying to make these long cuts with just a straightedge against the foot of the saw would have been dicey at best, and never would have come out as clean.

I finished up my day in the shop cutting the top of the cabinet and beveling the ends for the miter joints I'll be using to join the case.

Next step is to cut the sides of the case. Hopefully I'll be able to get to that next weekend, so stay tuned....

This is My Coffee Cup

2011-03-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

It has been for a very long time. I bought it 20 years ago at my first job after high school. I've had this cup for over half my life.

I still remember acquiring it. There was a Denny's catty-corner from the plaza that housed the Tower Records where I worked. They had these lousy, brown plastic coffee cups in the backroom of Tower, and there were hooks by the coffee pot where people would hang them up, often claiming one particular cup as their own by branding it with a Merlin label bearing their name. I had one of these for a few months, but it quickly started to taste like an old washcloth, no matter how many times or how thoroughly I washed it.

I used to eat at that Denny's a lot. It was open 24 hours, and you could get breakfast anytime. My usual spot was a table back in the "lounge" area - it was dark, sparsely populated, and you could smoke. I got to know the waitresses pretty well, and they knew me. I was fond of the grilled ham and cheese with french fries. Often I didn't even have to order - they'd just bring it out without even asking. Once I only had $2, and was just going to get fries. The waitress brought me out my usual, saying "here's your fries." I don't remember if I ever paid her back, but I like to think I probably did.

The cup was $5, on sale at the front counter. It had this heat-activated design that started out as a blue-grey, mopey-tired-drowsy face that disappeared when the cup was filled with hot liquid to reveal a smiling, cheerful-awake-rosy-cheeked face. I bought it, took it back over to the Tower back room, stuck my name on it in Merlin's heat-transferred Helvetica bold, and hung it on a hook by the coffee maker.

I worked for Tower for about 7 years altogether, at 4 different stores over that time. Did everything from stock clerk, to shift supervisor, to book and magazine buyer, to deposit clerk. Some of my closest friends to this day were part of that first crew. It was the place I met my wife and mother of my children, had some of my most fondly-rememberd youthful indiscretions, and made the connections that ultimately landed me in my current career. And I got this cup.

It's still my "work coffee cup." It's sat on every desk I've occupied since, through 7 companies (including a brief return to Tower during the cold spell after the Internet Bubble burst). The heat-activated feature stopped working long, long ago, and now the face has this ambivalent look - it's mostly happy in appearance and expression, but there's this dim, hazy patina of fatigue overlaying it - most apparent around the eyes.

Kinda like me, actually.

This cup is almost a totem, a talisman - like one of those "horcrux" things from Harry Potter (the things you read when you have kids...), it's more than a possession at this point; it's become a kind of vehicle for a piece of my self. Like me, it's survived well enough, but has developed a permanent stain, not unlike a well-seasoned Meerschaum pipe, from all the things that have been poured into it and drunk from it. It's loyal - perhaps because nobody else but me would want to have anything to do with it. It ain't fancy, but it's serviceable. It is what it is, and it does the best it can.

Right now it's sitting on my desk, in my office. I'll see it there when I go back in, and I'll take it to the break room to fill it with whatever is in the urn - hot, fresh, mediocre coffee, or tepid, stale mediocre coffee...maybe tea instead, depending on the state of my stomach in the morning. I'll fill it up and drain it several times that day, and the next, and the next. One day it may follow me to a different desk, a different office, a different routine. Or it might stay where it is for years to come.

Either way, I hope it doesn't get broken. I need to keep it for awhile yet. One thing it has always done well and it continues to do well is to suffice. In every way, it continues to suffice. Day in, and day out. Kinda like me.

Who wants to see these two things fight?

2010-02-24T22:02:00.001-08:00

I know I do.

Missed Opportunities for Inappropriate Behavior

2010-02-24T20:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I entered the lobby of the office building in which I come to do my daily work for Dazzling Company of Masterful Success. It was raining pretty hard, and I had my umbrella. I saw that there was a 14-foot stepladder folded open right in the path coming in from the door. It took the full measure of my restraint to refrain from opening my umbrella, right underneath the ladder. How I longed for a mirror, some salt, a black cat or two...

Then today, someone sent me a text announcing that she was "expecting 12-24 inches in my parts" and would therefore likely need to work from home...

All I could say was "yikes."

I tell you, sometimes, it's just not fair that I have to be a grown-up professional type person. My inner Bill Murray wants out. And I'm talking about the Caddy Shack/Home on the Range/Meatballs Bill Murray, not the Razor's Edge one. Yes I know it's the same guy. You know what I mean.

Portrait of the Author as a Somewhat Younger Man

2010-02-22T22:08:00.000-08:00

In what was probably the least valuable way I could conceivably have spent the last hour and a half - including playing Wii Table Tennis or simply eating honey-roasted peanuts until they start to back up my esophagus (oh wait, I actually did that last thing...) - I collected the postings from my old blog and re-posted them here, back-dated to their original date of creation.

Mostly this was something I did to feel better about canceling the hosting account that supports that site. I mean, hey, in this day and age, $17.50 a month is worth saving, isn't it?

Reading back over it all as I copied-and-pasted, some of it I still find kinda funny. And man, how badly do I wish the kiddos at O.C. Chopper actually had made a "Pope Benedict Chopper..."

2005-04-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

Next on American Chopper, it's a real "hail mary" when Paulie and the boys start work on a bike to commemorate the annunciation of Pope Benedict XVI!

[Paul Jr on screen]

[Paul JR] - "Probbly the toughest thing about doin' the Pope Bike was figurin' out how to attach the bullet-proof plastic bubble. I knew goin' into it that gettin' that thing to stay in place, and still allow enough clearance for the back tire was goin' to be a challenge"

[cut to shop]

[Paul Sr] - "Hey Mikey, what the hell are you doin' just standin' around over there? You was supposed to get that font off the truck so's Paulie can get it on the back behind the seat there!"

[Paul Jr] - "I don' care about the font right now, I need to deal with this bubble, I can't get it to -"

[Paul Sr] - "I don' wanna hear no more crap outta you! If I want anymore crap outta you, I'll squeeze your head! Just get the f[beep]in Pope bike done!

[Paul Jr] - "We're workin' on it, Dad, we'd get -"

[Paul Sr] - "I don' wanna hear it, Paulie! This has to get -"

[Paul Jr] - "we'd- we'd be gettin' it done a lot faster if you'd just shut up about it -"

[Paul Sr] - "This has to get to the Vatican in two weeks so the Pope can ride up to the dais on it to say mass."

[Paul Jr] - "I know, I know it does, and it'll get done, but you just -"

[Paul Sr] - "All's I'm sayin' is that if the Pope's ass ain't in that seat in two weeks, it'll be YOUR ass, Paulie."

[Mikey] - "Aw, crap!"

[Paul Sr] - "Oh, terrific, Mikey just broke the font. Now there's one more thing I gotta ride your ass about, Paulie."

[cut to Paul Jr]

[Paul Jr] - "Well, we ended up scrappin' the bubble idea. After we brazed it to the tank, we realized the exhaust was going to fill the chamber and probbly asphixiate the pope, so we cut it. But after all we went through with that, the scenter-styled handlebar grips, the Holy Water font on the back of the bike, and the pope-hat-styled headlight, the worst was yet to come."

[cut to shop]

[Vinnie] - "Hey, Paulie, we got a problem with this gold leaf over here."

[voiceover; Paul Jr] - "The gold leaf we had Nubbie put on there wasn't stickin' to the powder coat. It was comin' up where it bordered with the chrome, and that just wasn't gonna fly. With just a couple days left to get this bike done for the mass, we had to send it back out to Nub's."

[cut to Paul Jr on Phone] - "Hey, Nubs...Yeah, what's up?...Hey listen, this gold leaf you did for us ain't workin' out...naw, it's comin' up where it meets the chrome...no, I know man...I know gold leaf isn't somethin' you usually work with...no, I know man...yeah...okay."

[Paul Jr] - "He says he can get it done by Tuesday"

[Paul Sr] - "Tuesday? That's not gonna be soon enough Paulie."

[Paul Jr] - "I know, it's - it's -"

[Paul Sr] - "That bike needs to be ready to ship tomorrow, Paulie. You don't P[beep]s off the Holy See, Paulie."

[Paul Jr] - "Nubbie says he can - well, maybe if we was to - "

[Paul Sr] - "No excuses, Paulie! You think they called Cardinal Ratzinger 'God's Rottweiller' for nuttin'!?"

[Paul Jr] - "Look, Nubbie - "

[Paul Sr] - "I don't care what Nubs is doin', I said it was gonna be your ass, now it's your ass! That's it, I'm done. I'm done. It's your problem - "

[Paul Jr] - "I know it's my problem, I - "

[Paul Sr] - "It - It's your problem, you take care of it."

[Paul Jr] - "I - Iam takin' care of it. It's taken care of."

[Paul Sr] - "Yeah, it better be. It better be..."

[Mikey] - "Aw, Crap!"

[Paul Sr] - "Aw. fantastic! Mikey just spilled the holy water down the manifold!! Paulie, I swear, this is the last time..."

[cut to the Vatican]

[Voice-over; Paul Jr] - "After all we went through, it was worth it, 'cause I could tell the pope really liked the bike."

[Pope Benedict XVI] - "Ah, Grazi, bellisimo!!" [sprinkes the bike seat with holy water, crosses it]

[voice-over; Paul Jr] - "I know the pope was happy, and I think when the 1.6 billion or whatever catholics in the world see him ride up on this thing, they're gonna know they're dealin' with a pope who's the real deal. He's gonna save a lotta souls on this bike."

[Fade out on Pope Benedict XVI riding off into the sunset on the bike, his robes furling out behind him. Just before the scene fades, his hat comes off in the wind.]

2004-12-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about integrity. For most people, the word means some combination of ethics, trustworthiness, and dependability, with maybe some morality thrown in depending upon how you feel about such things. Basically, when someone thinks of a "person of integrity," they envision someone who says what they do, does what they say, and can be depended upon to act in the best interests of a particular context - professional, personal, etc. This is how I have always concieved of the quality of integrity, and is how I believe most people do. In fact, the first definition listed for "integrity" in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition. 2000) is "Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code."

Lately, though, I've been considering the actual word "integrity," and it's led me to a somewhat different interpretation. The Etymology (a linguistic term meaning "where a word comes from") of the word "integrity" is described thus in the aforementioned AHD:

Middle English integrite, from Old French, from Latin integrits, soundness, from integer, whole, complete.

I can't help but think that almost nobody would disagree with the idea that integrity is a good thing to exhibit. It is infact often used as the most basic qualification for jobs, relationships, leadership roles or positions, and anything else involving judgement and responsibility. HAving no integrity is very nearly synonymous with being undeserving of any confidence or trust whatsoever. A percieved or stated lack of integrity is almost a guarantee of losing one's position in any of the aforementioned contexts, as well as many others.

The interesting part, on which I have been re-thinking my understanding of the whole concept, revolves around the phrase "within a particular context." In many conversations that I have had, often with people I deeply respect, when the subject of integrity comes up, it is always isolated to a particular context.

For example, consider "professional integrity," in which the term is used to describe the quality of putting the needs and goals of one's employer or organization first, and putting all personal concerns thereafter. By personal, I don't just mean selfish - personal concern for a co-worker or customer is included. Both are only considered valuable inasmuch as they align with the needs and goals of the business. Another parallel example which has been given a lot of attention recently (for obvious reasons) is "political integrity," which has been colloquially defined as an ability to separate one's personal goals and beliefs from one's decisions and actions in a governmental capacity. The most brightly-flashing neon display here reads "separation of church and state."

Don't get excited - this is not an essay on the separation of church and state. Personally, I believe that one can be resolved by it's corollary, the separation of church and FAITH, but that's for another entry.

What I'm really getting at is that I have begun to harbor the belief that people's general definition of integrity, as embodied in the aforementioned examples, is in direct conflict with integrity itself. Let's look at the third definition from the same lexical source cited throughout this writing for the word "integrity:"

"The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness."

The two examples I've given for Professional and Political Integrity both exhibit a trait which absolutely contradicts this definition - each requires the supression of one set of values, held by an individual, in favor of another, held by an institution, either temporarily or permanently. In effect, in order to meet the definition of integrity for either of these models, one needs to be not only of two minds, but of two selves, the direct antithesis of being undivided.

When we look for integrity in our leaders and in ourselves, how do we measure it? Do we expect people to be "the same person they are on Saturday night that they are on Sunday morning," or are we looking for someone to play a role, to be an embodiment for an institution rather than a consistent human being? If the former, we should not expect politicians to keep their faith out of their politics, nor should we expect our managers to draw a distinction between personal and "just business." If on the other hand we DO expect our leaders to take on the persona of an institution, in effect to become a stand-in for another entity, then we should really not be surprised if they themselves exhibit a lack of personal integrity - such a lack would actually become not a disqualification, but a requirement.

Personally, I can't quite buy into the latter position. I would rather have my definition of integrity, well, show a little more integrity itself.

This will no doubt require much work on my part.

2003-08-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

"Corporate procurement services, how may I direct your call?"

"Yes, Hi, I was asked to participate in a survey about the new procurement application, and I'd like to decline to participate."

"Well, (pause)...Why do you want to do that?"

"Well, I've never actually used the new procurement application, and I think my feedback would be rather irrelevant."

"Everyone's feedback is important."

"Yes, but..."

"It's a very small group that were asked to participate, so we really need everyone's participation."

"I understand, but I've never even seen the new application."

"Besides it's too late to get anyone else. The survey list has already been sent in. That's why you got the email."

"How did I get on that list, exactly?"

"There was a selection process. It's a very short survey, but if you feel that you would rather not participate in evaluating new initiatives, you can talk to your manager about that."

"No, it's not that, I'm happy to participate in this kind of thing, it's just that I really have never even seen the new application at all."

"Well, we need to know why people have chosen not to use it as well, and the survey helps with that too."

"I have nothing to do with procurement, so I'd really have no occasion to choose one way or the other. I don't know the first thing about the procurement process with or without the new application-"

"Procurement is how you get all of your equipment, like your computer, your phone-"

"Yes, I understand that, I'm just not directly involved in it."

"So you're declining to participate."

"Yes...but, I mean...there's no point in my participating in this particular case."

"Well, I'm sorry you think your input is not valued or appreciated."

"That's not...I mean, all I'm saying is that you'd get as much value out of having my next door neighbor participate in the survey as you would from me!"

"Oh, does your neighbor work for Wescott MultiCom too?"

"No, he's a groundskeeper at a Cemetery, actually."

"Well, then, I can't imagine what he would have to contribute..."

"That's exactly my point."

"Okay, I get that you don't want to take the survey. I'm going to put you on the line with my supervisor now..."

"Why?"

"...so that she can explain to you what you need to do to excuse yourself from the survey, and remove yourself from the list of potential survey participants."

"Well, I don't... - Fine."

"Okay, here she is."

"Good afternoon sir, my name is Portia, and I understand you would prefer not to participate in the quality survey process."

"That's right."

"Might I ask why?"

"...No."

2003-05-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

Last night, I spared an ant.

It was one of those ubiquitous black kitchen ants, somehow separated from its detachment like a lone T.I.E. Fighter leagues and leagues away from the Death Star. It was crawling in my bathroom sink, and instead of mashing it, poaching it with the faucet turned all the way to hot, or drowning it with a mouthful of toothpaste (all of which I have done with glee in the past), I allowed it to live.

Let's be clear. I hate ants. They are one of the few species on this planet that I would genuinely like to see go extinct. I can't begin to estimate the number of times I have left a dinner plate out for even a couple of hours, and returned to find it and my countertop in a state resembling a TV set tuned to a non-broadcasting channel. They come in force from any breach in the house's hull, no matter how slight. They set up infiltration camps in houseplants and cupboards. They march in wide, brazen phalanxes across the kitchen floor to pillage the garbage can. They mass in huge numbers somewhere under the house, fear neither man nor God, and have no regard for those they torment.

I call them "Little F**kers."

My son, on the other hand, calls them "Little Guys." In truth, he's kind of ambivalent about them; when he notices one crawling on his possessions or person, he gets very distressed. "Oooh, there's a little guy on there!" he'll exclaim, dancing frantically from foot to foot and pointing, waiting for my wife or me to come and "please flip him off!"

He also, however, frequently asserts that a lone enemy scout, caught on a reconnaisance mission to the coffee table or pantry, is "just walking about" or, more often, "looking for his family." "He's funny, Papa!"

See, when it comes to ants, my son epitomizes the kind of Wasp-ish liberal sensibilities described by Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon - "I love gays and blacks and latinos; as long as they don't move next door." He finds them quaint, cute, and amusing, but doesn't really want them to touch him or his stuff. I, on the other hand, am Lyndon Johnson, Jesse Helms, and the Georges Bush all rolled into one. Kill them all. They're the Axis of Evil. Somebody hand me a can of RAID and a Nuke.

So yesterday, when I was helping him wash his hands in the bathroom sink, he saw a "little guy" on the edge of the basin. "There's a little guy! He's washing his hands!!" he exclaimed, grinning and laughing. "He's so so funny!"

My son, the seditionist, the enemy sympathizer.

So later that night, when I had one of the dirty little guerillas right in my sights, I was moved to mercy. This could be a fatal break. Maybe it's the turning point where the ants finally gain the upper hand, attacking me through the soft heart of my son.

I feel I should say that I didn't actually help the ant out of the sink, thereby aiding the enemy. Instead, I left him (or more likely "her", given the organization of ant colonies) to her own devices. Maybe she got out, maybe she didn't. It doesn't matter - there are so many, many others where she came from, and they are relentless and without remorse.

Little F**kers.

2003-05-05T16:21:00.000-07:00

So today, just for kicks, I decided to do a search on Google for Horizontigo.

This website was not only the first result returned, but the first TWO results.

Granted, "Horizontigo" is not exactly a premium key word (like "Auctions" or "Nude Girls," for instance), and the total results returned only fill 2 pages. Still, getting popped to the top of a Google search, an oft-coveted holy grail of website marketing, gave me pause.

For one thing, the "word" (which it isn't, in case you were wondering) is beginning to pop up in disparate conversations on subjects ranging from travel (http://boar.com/days/usa_02/return.html) to media studies (http://www.v-2.org/displayArticle.php?article_num=34).

Now, I'm no linguist, but as I understand it, this is essentially how words are born - once usage is common enough to indicate a grammatical or semantic niche, a non-word achieves status as a "real" word. It's sort of like the process of speciation in nature (I actually wrote a paper on this in the one linguistics course I did take in college - I believe the response from the professor started with "If you had bothered to do the homework...").

If in fact "Horizontigo" is destined for lexical cannonization, might I infact be in a position to influence it's ultimate definition? More to the point, am I responsible somehow by virture of the fact that I have locked up a piece of the increasingly-important vocabulary real estate of domain name land? Would it be at all cromulent of me to assume such a position?

Well, anyway, based upon the newly-increased threat of people actually visiting my site (Did you mean: Horizontal), I have made some resolutions.

I will upgrade the site, add some stuff, and make it more like Target, and less like K-Mart.

I will not allow several months to go by without adding new content.

I will not start new entries with overlong, gratuitious appologies for allowing several months to go by without adding new content.

I will endeavor to always uphold the nascent meaning of the word "Horizontigo," whatever that meaning may turn out to be.

Thank you for visiting.

2003-05-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

Overheard conversation. The actual names of the participants are not known - I have added fictitious names that I felt reflected their physical presence and aspect. When this did not seem like quite enough, I also added some other details about their lives that may or may not be true.

Delbert Bumfuddle:
Mid-30's, skinny guy.
Works as a stockclerk in a grocery store 10 minutes from his parents' house, where he still lives.
Is a Giants fan, but still likes Sammy Sosa, and is pretty conflicted about it.

Sally "Big Sal" Murtz:
Heavyset blonde woman, late 30's or early 40's.
Owns a "Lark", but has no medical condition that would justify its use. She calls it her "Groshry-Helper".
Enjoys listening to "'skynrd."

Sal: "I do believe though... really, they'll be able to beam us one day. Some day... I mean, that's for sure gonna happen. Technology is too powerful. It has to."

Delbert: "Yeah they can already...see, at IBM they just a little while ago already beamed a molecule. They can do that all the time. But with a person...it's...a person is made up of like, billions or millions of molecules..."

Sal: "Yeah, uh-huh..."

Delbert: "...and there's just not enough computing power...there's no computers that can handle that much information."

Sal: "Yeah, but there will be someday, if Bill Gates has his way."

Delbert: "heh...yeah...but there's this other thing, Einstein came up with called the Hindenberg Principle or something like that that says it's too hard to do it. There's somethin'...like, some really super-crazy mathematics that just can't be done."

Sal: "If there's a big enough computer you could do it."

Delbert: "Yeah, probably, but I think it's a theoretical limit or somethin. Like, you can only know so much information. At least with computers."

Sal: "yeah, that's right."

Delbert: "Einstein was autistic, did you know?"

Sal: "Really?"

Delbert: "Yeah, or maybe it wasn't autistic, maybe it was some other disorder...or disease or whatever...like when you're a savant, that can do all these amazing things and you're really smart, but it's just this condition. Einstein had, like, classic,...like, textbook signs. All of 'em...he had, like, all the signs."

Sal: "No way!"

Delbert: "Yeah. Newton too...Isaac Newton. And Edison. Prolly all those guys."

Sal: "Wow."

Delbert: "Yeah, it's wierd. You know - you think all these people are, like, geniuses and stuff but they're just...it's all just this disease they have."

Sal: "Hmm. It'll sure be cool, though, when they can beam us."

Delbert: "Oh, yeah, cause then they'll be, like, no traffic, or crowds, or any of that stuff...no more waiting in line, or traffic jams, and the roads'll be like, totally empty for everybody...hell, they'll probly tear down the roads and build, like, condos or somethin."

2003-03-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

Here's something about which I don't quite know how to feel...

Now, to start with, I never, NEVER dream about famous people. Ever. Actors, musicians, politicians, medical curiosities...oh, wait, when I was in my pre-adolescence, the Elephant Man showed up recurrently in some disturbing ways...I think that's the only exception, though. It certainly hasn't happened in my adult life.

During the night following Tuesday, March 18th, I had this dream.

I, Lee, and our son were waiting to meet someone, I can't remember whom, at the airport, and we found out that President George W. Bush was going to land there in a few minutes. In the dream as in my waking life, I was not a big Bush fan, but I thought "this'll be something [our son] can tell his kids about some day. We should try and meet him." So we went over to the gate where his plane was supposed to land.

Oddly, there were only about a dozen people, mostly reporters, waiting for his arrival, and we got right up to the front. When Pres. Bush arrived, he walked off the plane waiving (like you'd imagine), but then came straight over to us. He picked our son up, and held him in his arms. He said a bunch of things I can't remember to us, and to him - I remember he seemed to think our little boy was very important for some reason. He kept smiling, and holding our son up near his face for pictures. Somehow it seemed like more than just typical political baby-kissing and photo-op'ing - the fact that it was our son was somehow significant.

When it was time for him to go, for some reason we were being escorted along with him - the President was carrying our son, and we were following just behind. At one point, I turned back to get something of our son's - toys, or something like that - that he'd forgotten. When I turned back around to follow them again, my son was running towards me, and I heard the secret service guys shouting "The President is down! The President is down! He was trying to pick up his own hat!!"

When I looked, they were loading Bush onto a gurney. His head was wrapped in bandages. I remember thinking he must've fallen and hit his head during the risky hat-retrieval maneuver. As they loaded him into the ambulance, he waived at us and smiled. The ambulance sped away, and I woke up.

The next evening, U.S. forces launched the first strike against "targets of opportunity" just outside Baghdad.

I have not told Lee about this dream, becaus I had forgotten about it until just now. She would probably be disturbed to learn that I had let George W. Bush hold our child. I myself am a little disturbed by it.

He had seemed nice enough in the dream, though.

2002-08-16T02:27:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was talking to my Dad about the absurdity of "business-speak," the acronym-studded, jargon-laden, nonsensical babble that you hear in conference rooms these days. Sure, we've all heard the jokes about TLA's (Three-Letter-Acronyms), we've listened to opaque and seemingly-interchangeable technical terms that seem to serve no purpose other than to inflate the speech balloon over the speaker's head to bursting, some of us have even been lucky enough to hear people with C's in their titles tell us we need to "Grok the opportunity that [this or that endeavor] represents."

I've heard this said. No kidding.

Yes, these are sad and frightening trends, but what I've been noticing is more sinister trend towards blurring the line between the two most fundamental linguistic elements, Nouns and Verbs.

Now, nouns and verbs and their dichotomous interplay form the very basis of our language. The fundamental rythm of subject-verb, subject-verb, with the occasional coda-like addition of a direct object conducts the dance of ideas from mind to mind. The rythm is almost as natural as breathing in and out. Noun, Verb. In, and out. Dominant, tonic. Like waves on the shore. Pause, and step. Pause, and step.

But there's now a move underway in the business world to squash this semantic ballet by creating a new form of word that is neither noun nor verb, but a blurry smear of both - the "Nerb".

Consider the bastard creation, "decisioning," as in "that issue is currently going through the decisioning process," or "our company delivers decisioning software to Fortune 500 companies." How about "actionable?" There's a fun one - trying to masquerade as an adjective by hiding behind that "-able" suffix. Don't be fooled. It's a nerb at heart.

These are words that should not be. Their parentage is not only questionable, it is discernably monstrous. These are the linguistic Cat-Dogs that are being bred in the secret chambers of our lexicon. And this is not happening in the gutters and asylums, my friends, oh no, it's being done in the cathedrals of power - the boardrooms, the conference tables, the executive toilets. Like the Royals in England, these combinatory mistakes are destined not only to exist, but to rule.

Apart from just sounding absurd, these words actually do something potentially harmful, and I suspect that this is the competative advantage that has allowed these mutants to survive, even thrive, in a business environment. Like the passive voice, they remove responsibility from action.

Here's how. Consider the sentence "That issue is in the decisioning process." Compare it with "We are deciding that issue," or even "That issue is being decided." Even the latter, which is in the passive voice, seems more direct. "Decisioning processes" (or the previously-cited "decisioning software") actually place the responsibility for deciding on an external, often inanimate thing; a process or a program. "Wait," you might ask, "Isn't it the words "process" or "software" that actually obscure the responsibility by replacing the human actor?" In a way, this is correct - the word "decisioning" is just a modifier; it is actually the thing modified (a noun) that picks up the responsibility of the subject or actor. However, the blurriness of the word "decisioning" makes it easier to take as a modifier for poor scapegoats like process and software - somehow "deciding software" or even "deciding process" sound more awkward, are more difficult to swallow.

By the same token, the phrase "I decisioned that" doesn't work either. The use of the Nerb seems to force the use of the passive voice. Since there is already a more appropriate transitive verb ("to decide"), the brain doesn't accept the use of the Nerb ("decisioning") in this same role. The introduction of the Nerb into the sentence is made palatable only by the use of the passive voice. Perhaps the fact that it is part Noun allows the Nerb to assume some of that responsibility itself, thus removing it from any subject whatsoever.

They're wiley, these bird-fish.

Like most business-speak, the goal is to soften, to obscure, and to beguile; to shift the responsibility for action or inaction away from the human beings involved, and to artifically place it on abstractions, systems, processes, and the like.

Who knows. Perhaps one day in the not-too-distant future, we are bound to try to determine if our date is "wifeable" or "husbandable". Our Salami and Swiss will be "put through the sandwiching process," and we will read about the "deathing" of convicted felons in the paper.

Actually, more likely, that kind of news will be Televisioned.

2002-02-21T19:45:00.000-08:00

So I was talking to this guy I know the other day (we'll call him "Mike," because that's his name) who had just visited the SF MOMA for the first time. "Wow, What'd you think?" I asked, "Isn't it fantastic?"

Mike was not as enthusiastic as I had thought he might be. "Well, I liked some of it, but a lot of it was just stupid. Like there was this one painting, it was just this huge gray canvas, with like one little tiny squiggle of white paint at the bottom. I mean, what the hell is that?"

This is not an uncommon response to modern art, particularly the more abstract stuff. When my Dad got a membership to the SF MOMA, he only went once, maybe twice, and expressed much the same opinion - that there were some things that were interesting, but a lot that just didn't seem like art to him. "Where's the talent that goes into putting a bunch of rocks in a circle?" he once asked me, "Why does that get put in a museum?"

Now I'm no art connoisseur - I mean, I can identify Van Gogh's Sunflowers when I see it hanging in the Dentist's office, and I can even sometimes be counted on to differentiate between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, but for the most part, I'm pretty ignorant, particularly when it comes to making value judgements. I can't say I totally get what makes "Piss Christ" a valid work, nor can I really support either side of the argument as to whether or not Andy Warhol does, indeed, suck a big one. Despite my ignorance, however, I have developed certain opinions about modern art, particularly the stuff that "looks like my neighbor's three-year-old mentally-retarded kid could paint it."

Modern art asks us to appreciate not the talent, but the message. The statement it makes is not so much "Look what I can do" as "Look what I have done." Where more traditional, representational forms come to us with an answer in the form of a picture, modern art comes often with a question in the form of an image. Modern art doesn't ask for admiration (the artists generally do - but that's a whole separate issue). It asks for a reaction, a response, a willingness to go down the path that the image directs us towards, even if that path is covered in leaves and brambles that make it difficult to see, much less traverse. In a sense, "Why would anybody call that ART?" is exactly the appropriate question. Rather than make the answer obvious by way of depiction ("Here's a Lion. He's pretty scary."), modern art goes in for more subliminal, subconscious suggestions that may lead you to any number of further questions ("Here's some yellow. How do you feel about ducks? What does butter make you think of? What are you so afraid of?").

It doesn't help that so many people who DO profess to know a great deal about art are so deliberately obfuscatory and intellectually territorial. The fact that the general public, with the hearty support of popular culture and the media, considers modern artists shysters and ninnies is probably the most natural response to being told that that big white ball in the center of the room surrounded by magenta pilotfish with flaming batons in their mouths is representative of the artist's anger at the repression of women in central Zamibia. I've heard tour guides say this kind of stuff countless times to their tour groups. They always seem surprised when eyes begin to glaze over, and smirks begin to appear. People don't like to be made to feel stupid, so in defense to having their intelligence insulted, they just reject the whole thing as artsy-fartsy hogwash.

The truth is that it's not that the meaning of the work is inaccessible, it's that it isn't intrinsic - each person experiencing the work brings a critical part of the meaning with them. By trying to prove the value of the work through elaborate pontification and parroted criticism, the percieved expert actually destroys the effect of the piece by bringing the audience to a particular destination without undertaking the journey. It's like going to Disneyland, waiting in line for the rides, and then being shown to the exit right before you get on. "So, what'd you think of Disneyland, kids?" "It SUCKED, Dad!!"

No duh.

So, next time you're in a modern art museum and find yourself confronted with what looks suspiciously like, and may actually be, a piece of moldy Keilbasa with a cockroach pinned to it under a display case, rather than discounting the thing out of hand, try going down the path. Take the journey. Go along for the ride. Don't rent the audio-headset-tour-with sister what's-her-face. Ignore the guys in berets and goatees who walk around smelling like cloves and sneering at everybody. For God's sake, don't talk to the docents. Just go with it. It's a dialogue between you and the work. It goes something like this:

You: "Why the hell would anybody take a picture of a naked dead guy with flowers coming out of his head?"

Art: "Exactly."

You: "What's the point of hanging a Urinal in a gallery?"

Art: "Yes."

You: "I can't believe anyone would smear elephant crap on the Virgin Mary!"

Art: "Well, there you go."

You: "What makes this pile of dog kibble with a flag in it significant?"

Art: "I don't know, let's figure it out together, you and me. What do you say?"

2002-01-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

Last night, several of us were sitting around talking about how we'd like to be disposed of when we die (I think it came up because we were watching "Ocean's 11" - the original one). We discussed the merits of building your own casket, the rules about embalming, and that episode of Northern Exposure where they catapulted that dead biker into the lake. Lee expressed a fondness for the idea of a pyre over which mourners could toast marshmallows. Rob wants to be blown up (exploded, not inflated).

Now as for me, being a claustrophobe and thus rather averse to the idea of spending forever in a box not big enought to roll over in, standard burial isn't too appealing either. Honestly, I've always kind of liked the idea of being posed and encased in a block of clear Lucite, kind of like a human version of those novelty bug-in-the-ice-cube gags. I could have a clause in my will that whosoever should inheirit my vast fortune would be obligated to prominently, yet tastefully display my smiling, waving corpse on the grounds of my estate. Of course, this would be rather expensive, and it would suck if my estate ended up being a condo by the freeway - exhaust fumes are hell on Lucite.

I've also thought taxidermy would be a nice condition in which to carry out my eternal rest, but I don't know if any reputable artisan would undertake the task, and I don't want any disreputable artisans having unsupervised access to my vacated earthly vessel. Lord knows what kind of satanic tomfoolery my remains would be subjected to by the kind of person who would actually stuff a human. I've watched enough tabloid TV to know better than to fall into that trap.

Of course there's cremation, but that always seemed like a cop-out to me - you either end up dispersed into the air, where you will probably be breathed in by countless jerks and lazy people, dumped in the sea, where fish will eat you and poo you out, or sitting in one of those stupid urns on somebody's mantel, just waiting to be mistaken for coffee grounds or tea by some idiot house guest in a cheesy, farcical sitcom-episode-come-to-life incident.

So what's a body to do?

Then it hit me. I'll combine the convenience of cremation with the class, staying power and affordability of taxidermy.

I've decided to have an animal stuffed with my ashes.

It's brilliant, really. Not only do I become part of my own memorial, but I'm infinitely portable, and there's little or no risk of Desecration By Beverage. And really, if you were a little kid, and someone had to point to something on the mantle and say "That's your Great Grandpa," which would you rather it be - some old dusty urn, or a friendly old badger? Faulknerian metaphors notwithstanding, to me it seems an easy choice.

Only one question remains. Which of God's many creatures would make the best final resting place? With the whole of the animal kingdom to choose from, it's a pretty tough decision. There are so many factors to consider, such as size, personality, endangered species status...the list goes on and on. What if it turns out that reincarnation is for real? Would the animal I go out as influence the results of how I'd come back? What about the many varying religious interpretations associated with various animals? I'd sure hate to be immortalized as a snake if that whole "Fall of Man" thing turned out to be true. And don't even get me started on Aesop's Fables. When you think about it, this decision is as fraught with pitfalls as any of our toughest life choices.

Take, for example, the common city rat. While this might seem an appropriate choice from the standpoint of Chinese Astrology (I was born in the Year of the Rat), the unpleasant associations with the plague and general nasty living conditions tend to rule it out, as does the risk of being nick-named "Ben," "Templeton," or "Chuck E. Cheese."

Now a Lion on the other hand has lots of fantastic qualities and associations - bravery, royalty, the whole apex predator thing - that would tend to recommend it as a worthy choice. Unfortunately, lions tend to be on the large side, and would take up quite a bit of space in the sitting room. Moving the thing around would also present a problem, and kids would always be sitting on it, hanging on its neck, and generally abusing it, so that's kind of out, too.

Really, this tends to eliminate most if not all of your basic large mammals. Birds carry too much easy, trite symbolism. Fish? They've got too much of a victim mentality. Invertebrates are right out. Maybe a whole family of shrews? Might that give people the wrong idea, like maybe I was a multiple-personality case?

Of course, I've always had a soft spot for weasels...

2001-12-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

So yesterday at noon, while sitting in the opulent break room in the building where I work as a data-entry chimp, I heard a message come over the intercom...

"Attention, everyone, attention. Oakland Police have given us the all clear and informed us that it is now safe to enter the building."

...What!?

We had all been in the building since 8:15 that morning, and none of us had any idea what they were talking about. No evacuation had occurred, no warning was issued, and nobody knew anything was going on at all until the aforementioned announcement.

Today, we found out that the bomb squad had blown up a suitcase suspected of containing a bomb at the Marriot across the street. At first, I assumed that since it had blown up, there must've been a bomb in it, since socks and underwear are not known for their explosive properties (unless we're talking about those belonging to certain of my familiy circle who shall remain nameless - speculate at will), but it turns out that the bomb squad brings their own bombs to blow up things that are suspected of being bombs.

...What!?

2001-11-04T16:14:00.000-08:00

So Halloween went by without much notice in our house this year. Halloween is usually one of our favorite holidays - Lee's window paintings of skeletons and stuff, the carving of mutant pumpkins, the trips to Home Depot for costume materials, etc. Then we usually have some kind of barbecue or party of some kind. We were even especially looking forward to this halloween, because it would be Jasper's first - we were going to dress him up like a squid, which would undoubtedly be more fun for us than for him.

Instead, we blew it off. With my current lack of gainful employment, even the expense of costume materials and sugary snacks for the local urchins and miscreants was deemed excessive, never mind barbecue and party stuff. We've become exceedingly cheap over the past few months.

Turned out, we weren't the only ones who skipped the festivities this year. Trick or Treaters were conspicuously absent from our street.

It was wierd.

Last year, Lee bought a TON of empty calories delivery vehicles to hand out to the roving gangs of costumed extortionists, and even made up like 50 little goody bags so they'd get something cool, not just another undifferentiated drop of sweetness into the candy oceans contained in the various pillowcases and plastic Jack-o'-lanterns. By the time I got home from work that night at 7:00, the goody bags were gone, and the reserves of snack sized Sugar Wads, Choco-Cruds, and Dento-Destructo Bombs were nearing zero. We had to shut down distribution a little after 8, and there were still tons of the little buggers running around the street for hours after that. It was a masacre. We didn't stand a chance.

This year, the street looked like World War II London with the air raid sirens wailing. Not just the porchlights, but the windows of every house on the block were black, as if they'd been painted out. Not a breathing soul walked the street, which is unusual even on a regular night.

Were people scared to take their kids out this year? Were they afraid that, this Halloween, the Tricks would all be excessively violent and destructive and the Treats would necessitate agressive courses of antibiotic treatment? I heard that other neighborhoods had an average crop of trick-or-treaters; even a few blocks away, I'm told, they were out in force. Not on my street though. It was completely deserted.

All in all, it was the creepiest Halloween I'd ever experienced, due to its conspicuous absence.

2001-10-31T00:02:00.000-08:00

I'm still without anything I'd like to call a real job, but I did start a temp job that features tedium of mind-crushing caliber today. I'm sure that will give me fodder in the future.

So now for the story.

This past Sunday, Lee, Jasper and I went to dinner at my Mom's. It was nice - she made chili, the baby did all his cute baby stuff, etc. etc. After dinner, though, my sister had some bad news.

"Oh, Jaeson, I forgot to tell you. I have some bad news. Mr. Frackenthrass passed away."

So, Mr Frackenthrass (not his real name) was my senior year high school English teacher, and my absolute favorite teacher from my whole pre-college education (he's in a three-way tie with two of my English professors after that). This made me really sad. I actually briefly considered attending my 10 year reunion just on the off chance he might be there, which if you know me says a lot. Being in his class changed the course of my education, and very likely my life.

In fact, right now, I feel bad about giving him such a silly fictional name for this piece. He deserves better. Oh well, too late now.

Too late now is also what I was thinking on the drive home as I remembered running into him about 5 years ago in a Barnes & Nobel in Oakland, when I told him I'd like to go have coffee with him sometime, and got his phone number, which I never quite got around to dialing, being too busy investing my time in a career that was destined to implode in 5 years anyway, albeit unbeknownst to me.

I thought about the guy for the rest of the night. Stuff he'd said, things I'd learned in his class about literature and the appreciation thereof, as well as the appreciation of what drives the creation of literature, namely, life and the experience of it. It was depressing. I really wished I had given him a call.

So today I started that temp job. They took us on a tour of the office, and described the mental gymnastics we'd be expected to perform in our duties as UC Application Processors. As we were shown the employee lounge, I found myself looking at the back of this guy's head at the coffee machine. He turns around, and HOLY SHIT!

"Mr. Frackenthrass!"

He now works at the place where I'm temping.

"Hey, Jaeson! How are you? Are you going to be working here?"

"Um, yeah, for a little while...hey, you might want to know this...um...my little sister..."

"Amber, right?"

"...yeah, well, she told me you had passed away..."

"Really? I don't seem to remember doing that."

"...yeah, clearly...Hey, it's a relief to see that those reports were exaggerated."

"Yeah - well, I'll see you around the office, then!"

"Yeah...See you."

Sometimes, the Universe comes up with plot twists that no novelist would ever be able to get away with. Such license is enviable.

2001-08-06T02:42:00.000-07:00

So, I'm beginning to get used to the idea that, for the first time in almost 15 years, I am out of work.

So far, none of my big fears about the situation is coming true - the biggest being that within days of my losing my job two big guys would come from my mortgage company and say "So's we's heard that you's lost yer job, eh? Tha's too bad. Especially since the people that we represent have a certain interest in your payin' your's debts, if you's know's what we's sayin'..."

Yeah, it's a pretty irrational fear.

Truth is, nothing's really changed yet, and won't for a few weeks at least. The biggest change is that when I wake up in the morning, I have this overwhelming urge - no, need - to get up and go to work, but there is nowhere to go. I find myself wondering how far I could get, how close I could come to actually going in for a regular day at the office. I could certainly go catch BART and ride it into Embarcadero. I would get off the train unmolested. I'd go up the escalator, put my ticket in the gate, and exit the station. I'd ride the next escalator up to the street. No one would stop me from walking down Drumm street, Crossing over through the park, continuing past the Safeway, through another park, and then onto Front street. I could walk down Front, turn left on Green, and get as far as the 50 Green street entrance. This door isn't locked, so I could go in. I could get in the elevator, and ride up to the 2nd floor. I could knock on the back door, and someone would probably come to open it...

...or, instead of going in at 50 Green, I could continue up to Battery and go in the front door. I'd be able to get into reception, then I'd have to call someone to buzz me in...

But then what? "Hey, man, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, just here to work, you know. Another day, another dollar, and all that."

"Umm...yeah...so really what are you doing here?"

"What do you mean? I've got a deliverable for a client I need to work on," which is even kind of true. I was in the middle of a competitive benchmark assessment (yes, that's a real thing) when they let me go. The truth is, even after being released, I find that I'm STILL thinking about that document, how to make it better, how to deliver the most value...it's disgusting really, "now can I please get to work?"

It's wierd. I imagine it to be somewhat akin to the institutionalization phenomenon, where long-term prisoners are released from prison, and they don't know what to do with freedom, and all they want is to be back in their cells.

Now, there are lots of ways in which one might compare a job to a prison sentence, one being that being removed from either is often referred to as being "released." One similarity that really really seems to me to hold water is that after enough time, both become a significant portion of who you are. When that is abruptly taken away, you have to find something to take its place, which turns out not to be so easy, so you immediately try to get yourself back into precisely the same situation you just left as quickly as possible.

In the case of prison terms, the word for this is "recidivism." I don't think there's a corresponding term for getting back into a job. While the former is considered a weakness, the latter is considered a virture, born of the protestant work ethic, or something similar. In both cases, though, it really is a sort of retreat, running back into the arms of the familiar. And in both cases, it seems to be born of a lack of knowledge of what to do with freedom.

Now, I am faced with this choice. Given the opportunity, I will choose recidivism in a heartbeat. I have too many things to protect - a home, a family, my own wellbeing - but I can't help but wonder wether I am simply too afraid of freedom, the freedom to extract my living as I see fit, rather than have it handed to me in return for giving the majority of my waking life to some larger business entity, to really take advantage of it.

Let me back in, boss. I miss my cell. I miss my scheduled time in the yard, my circumscribed two-day furlows, my regimented waking and sleeping, my savant-like existance. Provide food and shelter for me, I don't know how to do it myself. I've never had to. I can't take life on the outside. I'm not made for it, I don't know how it works. I'm afraid of this new freedom, afraid I'll use it badly, or not at all. Let me back in. Please. Let me back in.

2001-08-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

There's this joke that Bob "Bobcat" Goldthwait used to tell...

"So I lost my job...well, I didn't really lose my job aa-aa-aaa I mean I KNOW WHERE MY JOB IS STILL...It's just w-ww-w-when I go there there's THIS NEW GUY DOIN' IT!!!"

So, after walking between the raindrops for the toughest year the Internet industry has seen (yet), the pink slip with my name on it was finally written.

They're not pink, by the way.

Today, I drank a bloody mary at 11:30 am, shared a final conversation with my former co-workers, and carried my own box of personal effects down washout lane as I'd seen so many others do before me.

Funny, somehow I thought I'd have more to say, but I don't just now.

2001-07-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

Song Fragment, to the tune of the Willie Nelson classic (you know the one):

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to build websites.

Don't let 'em learn Java or HTML,

They'll just end up on the Gravy Train to Hell.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to build websites.

They'll work 'til they drop, and then they'll get laid off,

And try to move back in with you.

Still working on finishing it.

2001-07-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

My son never has bad breath.

He's 6 1/2 months old, and he's never had bad breath. Not once. Not when he first wakes up, not when he's been crying for hours, not right after he eats...never.

For an adult, 6 and a half months without a single episode of halitosis would be a feat worthy of television coverage, or at least an interview in a local paper...maybe in the "would you believe" section. For babies, though, it seems like the rule rather than the exception. Granted, their diet is somewhat limited; no garlic, onions, or other known dietary/olfactory offenders. Still, my kid eats squash, and peas, and carrots, and other stuff that kind of stinks just in and of itself, with nary a zephyr of fetidness to be detected in his diminutive respirations.

I'll bet if you think about the various breaths you've smelled, you'll find that the majority of them have been bad. In fact, it seems to me that I only ever really remember somebody's breath when it reeks (case in point: my high school physics teacher, who seemed to exist solely on coffee and cigarettes. A classmate of mine aptly described his breath as "smell[ing] like he ate a 10-foot asshole for breakfast"). That octagenarian Sunday School teacher who was always whispering far too closely into your face to "be quiiiiiet during the seeeeermon,"...that girl whose mouth you were so ravenously devouring last night, much to your distaste and disbelief this morning (cigarettes are sexy...)...the merit-smoking, braunschwagger-munching aunt who always wanted a kiss...look at how smelling their breath influenced not only how you felt about them at that moment, but you view of them in general. Think of how you feel about yourself on those mornings when it feels like a baby bear used your mouth for a toilet. The eyes may be the windows of the soul, but the breath, like that smell of pent-up dog in the otherwise impeccable living room, is what first hits you when you walk inside.

It's primal. An evolutionary echo to our pre-hominid existance. Smell was vital to our survival, be it in evaluating a meal (or mate), finding our way home, or detecting a threat. Though the areas of our brains that process smells have atrophied considerably over the eons, there is still hefty evidence that smell is strongly tied to the unconscious. It has been shown to trigger memory and influence emotion. Studies have purportedly shown that students taking tests do better when in the presence of certain smells (particularly if they were present when they were studying), and that sexual attractiveness may be significantly affected by odor, and I'm not talking Chanel No. 5. Smell seems to be one of those direct mainlines to the unconscious - slipping in, often unnoticed, past the gates of the conscious mind to install code right on the hardware.

And breath, ahh, breath. It was how God placed life in our clay forms, and how we first check for its presence when we suspect otherwise. Breath infuses all we do. The Latin root spirare, meaning breath, is the etymological root not only of respire, but inspire, perspire, expire, and spirit. Breathing not only sustains us, it defines us. So many of the things that pollute our whole selves also leave their stain on the air that enters and leaves our bodies - tobacco smoke, alcohol, coffee - vices that all exact a tax on the body and mind as they leave their trace on the breath. Ultimately, breath binds us all together. We all breathe the same atmosphere, each breath like the proverbial drop of water that becomes the sea as we inhale and exhale all from this same ocean of air. Breath is life. Breath is soul. Breath is essence. The breathing of another's breath is like receiving, for a time, their being into our own - the most intimate of connections. The breath of another is a fleeting experience of their very soul. We need it, we share it, and cats are said to steal it. Breath is essence. Breath is soul. Breath is life.

The breath of my son smells to me like innocence.

2001-07-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny joke.

Sneak into a co-worker's office, steal their desk calendar, and change it to April 1. Then, when they come into work, you can play a trick on them, and yell "April Fool!" They'll look at the calendar and say "Oh, you got me."

Then you can say "HA, Ha, it's not really April Fools' Day!! You're an IDIOT!!!"

This joke works best on days that are close to April Fools' Day, and is least effective actually on April Fools' Day.

2001-07-05T21:01:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was the 4th of July, the day on which America celebrates the birth of our nation by blowing up a small piece of it (that's a stolen quote; I stole it from Lee, but I think she stole it from somebody else first; I don't know to whom it is originally attributed). As for me and my family, we sort of eschewed the whole fireworks thing...it was cloudy, sort of cold, and we were all full of barbecued meat and vegetables. We watched a movie instead.

Does that make us less patriotic? I don't know, but...

The most memorable fireworks display I recall experiencing was on July 4, 1994. I was celebrating the birth of my nation by leaving it: "Happy Birthday, America, sorry I couldn't stay for cake and presents and stuff, but I gotta get outta here for awhile. You understand."

At 6:30pm, I was boarding a plane for Prague, in the Czech Republic, where I would spend the next 6 weeks. I was going over to teach English to a bunch of Czech high-schoolers, presumably so that they would be more able to participate in the "Global Economy," which was and is pretty much dominated by American rules, ideals, and cash. I was reasonably sure that my friend Jeff would be there to meet me when my plane landed; I hadn't actually spoken to him about it, but I'd sent him my travel plans, and his parents had assured me that they had spoken to him and he knew I was coming.

I really had no contingecy plan if he wasn't there. I had never been outside the US, except for Tijuana, which doesn't count. I was on the plane, it was in the air, and I was going to be on Czech soil in 22 hours (with an 8 hour layover in London).

As the plane flew eastward and the sky darkened, I saw the first of the fireworks. They were relatively small, seen from 37,000 feet, but they were still strangely engrossing. Gradually, more and more fireworks began to appear. From our airborne vantage point, we could see several displays at once - at least a dozen were visible at one point - all these little concentrated displays of enthusiastic nationalism and love of country. It was strange, seeing all of this from above. It was unifying, in that you could see that the whole country was celebrating the same thing at once, but at the same time, the displays were so small from our viewpoint, and so localized, each seeming to have nothing more than coincidence to connect them.

In 1990, the Berlin Wall had come down. In 1994, I was on my way to Central Europe, where nations were simultaneously trying to join "The Global Economy" and reclaim their individual national identities. The effort continues to this day with the endeavor to create the European Union. Even in the U.S.A., people still argue and fight about Federal vs. States rights. As someone who has grown up in California and then travelled to other states, it has often seemed to me that we're no more unified than the separate nations of Europe. Culture evolves in pockets and eddies, be it within a single nation or distributed among many. Common language, common currency, a certain measure of common law, and still we're pretty divided.

So, what? "The more things change, the more they stay the same," or "variety is the spice of life," or "vive la differance," or "diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks?" What am I getting at here? Am I getting at anything at all?

I don't know. I just know that usually when looking at the earth from great altitudes, I am struck by how contiguous it all is, how the lines disappear, and all that. But this one time, when the Sun was down and the bombs were bursting in air, I saw the opposite, and began to wonder at what it means to be one of the largest nations, and arguably THE most powerful, on the globe. I wonder sometimes if it's real. Just who is the U.S.? Is it really us?

2001-05-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, It's about 20 to 1, and I just got back with my lunch, a Turkey and Ham with Cheese (#26) from Togo's. I go there fairly regularly; it's nearby, it's cheap, and the people who make the sandwiches wear rubber gloves, which makes me feel a little bit better (I'm sort of a Howard Hughes when it comes to food. As a result, I almost always get "the hair", or "the toenail", or "the squirrel head", or whatever...but I digress).

Anyway, Here's the point. I really don't like mayonaise. I had a bad childhood experience with it. I do, however, like mustard. I like it a lot. It's one of nature's greatest gifts.

Apparently, this makes me some kind of freak.

Whenever I order a sandwich with no Mayo, and no further explanation, I have about a 50/50 chance of not getting any mustard either. I don't know if there's some statistical correlation between liking mayo and liking mustard or what, but I always have to spend at least 3-4 extra sentences explaining that I DO want mustard but DO NOT want mayo. It doesn't matter where I go, or how strong a grasp of the English language the sandwich maker appears to have. This is a nearly universal problem. I decided I needed to find an easy phrase with which to make my sandwich needs known, one that would be clear, universally understood, and would roll off the tongue as easily as "small-26-on-white".

I used to always say "no mayo", which as mentioned above was often insufficient. I then started saying "no mayo, but with mustard," which I thought would surely do the trick. Nope. Tried "without mayo, with mustard." People still screwed it up, or looked at me quizzically, and asked "no mustard?".

"!!!!"

After extensive experimentation, I have found one phrase which seems to work almost all the time, "no mayo, yes mustard." Of course, this makes me sound like some kind of linguistically impaired pinhead, but people seem to get it.

So now I order my lunches from Togo's thus:
"Small 26 on white with provolone no mayo yes mustard."

Realizing that I have now written 2 entries in a row about lunchtime dramas, I resolve to write about something else tomorrow.

Maybe something about prairie dogs?

No, probably not.

2001-05-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

God Dammit.

Somebody stole my lunch.

We have a refrigerator here at the office, and this policy where you have to label and date everything you put in there so people know whose it is, since apparently people have trouble recognizing things that aren't theirs.

So, sometime between 9am and noon, some asswipe made off with my clearly labeled and dated burrito.

I have only one consolation. The burrito in question was prepared by my father-in-law on his last visit. Roy is an extraordinary chef, especially where mexican food is concerned.

And he does not mess around.

Roy's burritos are insidiously spicy. They taste really good, and there is definitely some "heat" to them, but they save their most potent weaponry for their journey down the lower ailamentary canal about 12-14 hours after eating.

To anyone who has not yet built up a strong tolerance to capsicum, the spicy element in peppers and chiles, the effect is not unlike having Vick's VapoRub mixed with hydrochloric acid injected into your anus every time you evacuate your bowels, which will be about every 15 minutes over the course of 3 hours or so. Basically, these things employ a slash-and-burn, scorched-earth policy on the diner's colon.

So whoever you are, you burrito-theiving heathen, all I can say to you is I hope you enjoy your evening on the toilet.

Slash and Burn, baby...slash, and, BURN!!!

2001-05-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

So my wife, who is far more brilliant than I, came up with the perfect name for this contraption. "Work on Machine". That's what I'm going to call this thing. Here's the back-story:

Once upon a time in San Bruno, Lee, Dave, myself, and Dave's friend Nate were at a very fine flea market. Among the many mysterious treasures, lying on a table that held mostly unfilled bullet shells, slugs, wadding, and empty black powder containers, we found an old datebook, circa 1965 by the look of it. It had been well-used by the previous owner; almost all the pages had been filled up. Here's the wierd part. Every day, EVERY, SINGLE, DAY, had the same appointment - "Work on machine." Really. I'm not making this up. Every day said "Work on machine." No mention of what the machine was, or what work was to be performed, just that single, automaton-like imperative, "Work on machine."

As we continued to page through this remarkable masterpiece of autistic savantism, we found that after a few months, the guy had switched to just putting ditto marks on each day. There was never any mention of "Finish machine," or "Test machine," or "Unlease machine on unsuspecting populace," or any indication that this endeavor ever bore any fruit. Maybe that's a good thing; given the other artifacts on display at that particular table, I can only shudder at what the nature of this all-encompassing project might have been.

Every time I think of this artifact, I slap myself in the head, hard. Because, no, I did not purchase it. I don't know why I didn't - I thought it was beautiful when I found it, and I think it was like 75 cents or something. Maybe I was just overloaded by the detritus of human lives that surrounded me, like the broken Felix the Cat clock and the Penthouse Swizzle Sticks that turned into naked ladies when you put them in your drink. For whatever reason, I passed up a golden opportunity, and I will forever regret that.

So here it is. Welcome to "Work on Machine." I hope you enjoy it, for as long as it lasts. Don't get too attached. I'll most likely delete it in the morning.