The Name
“What Is Hip” is a song that will turn your funk all the way on! (WARNING! Video link featuring smoking horns AND Carlos Santana.) But this page is not a tribute to god-like purveyors of East Bay Soul Tower of Power, all those visitors who plug “what is hip” into search engines notwithstanding.
So what is What Is Hip? What Is Hip is the What Is of Hip, formerly known as Hippolyte Lizard, or Hip Liz for short. Once upon a time I needed a nom de net for those pointless battles in Usenet. I thought about it for maybe seven seconds and combined the French / Argentine pirate (“California’s only”!) who raided Monterey one fine autumn day in 1818, with a scaly creature who lies around in the sun a lot. I thought it was a fitting and ridiculous handle that could be twisted several different ways. I liked being called Hip, as if I was (as if). I liked that “Liz” gave me some extra androgynous camouflage. I thought there would be other fun ways to twist it such as Hoplite Lazyrd, Hip LeZard, er, I dunno. I was a dork. Yeah. Good times.
The Man
Light brown/blond, medium length, short sideburns. Six foot one, one hundred eighty pounds. No distinguishing marks or features; tattoo on left shoulder blade. Eyes hazel/green. Wouldn’t have hurt to shave today. Several nose hairs need plucking out. No thanks, I got it.
Born in Berkeley, CA, on the thirteenth anniversary of Hiroshima and the sixty-eighth of the first execution by electric chair. Not quite a 49er: my ancestors didn’t start trickling into California until the 1850s. Parents split up when I was four. Played trumpet (jazz etc), lettered in soccer, Berkeley High School (grad 1976), wasted my early twenties not doing shit. Married at 29, graduated college (BS Electrical Engineering, CSUS) at 30, became a proud father at 30 and at 32. Various techie jobs (all hardware, virtually no software, for those who care), Master’s Degree (Computer Science, CSUS) at 43, owned a couple houses, been a landlord (it sucks). Wife was general contractor on current house nestled in verdant bucolic surroundings.
Presently employed by Infamous Megamultinational Corporation, Cube Farm Division, doing obscure technical things in the service of obscure corporate objectives. Occasional international travel, self-driven, team player, blah blah blah.
Random fact: I’ve dreamed of being a writer since sixteen. Aspire to write historical fiction, alternate history, mystery and any good stories that just draw you along. Have learned that when it comes to writing, wrestling self to ground and kicking self out of way is a lifetime’s work.
More random facts: I can not live without music and love all kinds. Different kinds of music serve different kinds of needs, so get out with your preferential snobbery. Though I tend to alternate socially between shy and reasonably not-shy I am relatively fearless as a musical performer. Voice is bass / baritone, nearly three-octave range on a good day (two and a half more typical), can sight-read pretty well. I don’t particularly like the sound of my own voice but what can you do.
The Blog
Same as every other. A place to write stuff. Post pictures. Interact with all you weird people. Write more stuff. This part is kind of self-explanatory and naturally evolves with the subject. If you still don't get it, you won't.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Revelations
Things have to change around here. I keep wrestling with the blogging concept. This (mis)use of time and energy is not highly regarded by certain people in my life. But I keep not quitting. Quitting just ain't happening. So I figure, all right, something's got to change, so what I'm gonna do is post more, not less. There's never a shortage of material. Just a shortage of "interesting" material. Or at least of time to present it really well. So, screw that, it's only a blog. Let's see what comes out, quick and random.
Doing dishes, I quickly and randomly scanned channels for the TV. Stopped when I saw Tony Bennett singing. PBS had some sort of thing on with him singing with various artists, like Sting and Elton John and k. d. lang. Oh my God I love his voice (lang's too). So that was it for me. I washed dishes and sang "For Once in my Life" with Tony and Stevie Wonder, and so on.
So? Well, here's the deal. Tony B. sounds great, looks great, and he's only six months younger than my dad (well, my dad looks pretty good too). These guys are WWII vets, past 80 years old. To sing so well, there's more than luck involved. He's been doing his bel canto exercises for a long time. I figure, all right, I want to live to be a fine old singing dude, I should be singing bel canto too. So maybe I will. Maybe for '08 I'll do something I've never done in my whole life: Take voice lessons. Hey? I was actually thinking of restarting the martial arts training, but what the hell. What will really save your ass when things go bad outside a biker bar at one o'clock in the morning? Some attempt at shou shu that'll just piss the guy off, or a nice rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening"? Huh? Seriously.
Doing dishes, I quickly and randomly scanned channels for the TV. Stopped when I saw Tony Bennett singing. PBS had some sort of thing on with him singing with various artists, like Sting and Elton John and k. d. lang. Oh my God I love his voice (lang's too). So that was it for me. I washed dishes and sang "For Once in my Life" with Tony and Stevie Wonder, and so on.
So? Well, here's the deal. Tony B. sounds great, looks great, and he's only six months younger than my dad (well, my dad looks pretty good too). These guys are WWII vets, past 80 years old. To sing so well, there's more than luck involved. He's been doing his bel canto exercises for a long time. I figure, all right, I want to live to be a fine old singing dude, I should be singing bel canto too. So maybe I will. Maybe for '08 I'll do something I've never done in my whole life: Take voice lessons. Hey? I was actually thinking of restarting the martial arts training, but what the hell. What will really save your ass when things go bad outside a biker bar at one o'clock in the morning? Some attempt at shou shu that'll just piss the guy off, or a nice rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening"? Huh? Seriously.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Unlaid Off
I got another job the old-fashioned way: networks and good old boys.
1. Looked on the internal online open job requisitions tool for jobs that weren't total non-starters for me.
2. Took note of the hiring manager and then searched for him in the internal online managerial hierarchy tool to see if there was anyone in his group whom I knew.
3. Also searched everyone who reported to his boss and to his boss’ boss to see if there was anyone in the tree whose name at all sounded familiar.
4. Contacted them and asked what they do (and how they're doin' and what's new and blah blah blah).
5. Wrote the hiring manager with a newly-adjusted CV attached and dropped names of people whom I now knew he knew, sometimes with an “unsolicited” comment coming from them as to how good a fit I’d be.
6. Had a filtering interview in which the manager decided how full of shit everyone was, or wasn’t.
7. Had other interviews, mainly technical, with other people in his team.
Did this with several different groups. Looking for a job was pretty much a full-time job, until finally on the Friday morning before Christmas I got a job offer and took it.
It’s true what they say: It’s not what you know, and it’s not who you know, it’s who you know and then it’s what you know.
I know when a manager has open slots, he or she wants to fill them with good people right away, especially here at the end of the quarter cause when a new quarter hits, the money for those openings can be yanked away faster than a Presbyterian collection plate. My new boss wanted it all done so he could go away for Christmas and not have to worry about it any more. That worked for me. I shift over on the new year. Will find out then whatever it is I now do for a living.
It was a strange coincidence that most of the laid off people I knew best were white males over fifty (or nearing it, in my case). It was clear that if I didn’t grab something by year’s end, I’d likely be done at Infamous Megamulti. It would be very hard to get back in (used to be, people came and went a lot during the cycles). Now the place shrinks without growing so much later, and when it does grow, there’s a strong preference to hire the URM*, experienced or not, when bringing folks in from outside. I really have little against that policy. “Diversity” is a modern corporate value, whether or not it benefits the bottom line, and encouraging women and minorities to enter the technical fields is all good as far as I'm concerned. But I need a job too, so the smarter I am about ducking these layoffs, the better.
And no, no pay raise or any other change. You kidding? No more travel either.
* URM = Under-Represented Minority
1. Looked on the internal online open job requisitions tool for jobs that weren't total non-starters for me.
2. Took note of the hiring manager and then searched for him in the internal online managerial hierarchy tool to see if there was anyone in his group whom I knew.
3. Also searched everyone who reported to his boss and to his boss’ boss to see if there was anyone in the tree whose name at all sounded familiar.
4. Contacted them and asked what they do (and how they're doin' and what's new and blah blah blah).
5. Wrote the hiring manager with a newly-adjusted CV attached and dropped names of people whom I now knew he knew, sometimes with an “unsolicited” comment coming from them as to how good a fit I’d be.
6. Had a filtering interview in which the manager decided how full of shit everyone was, or wasn’t.
7. Had other interviews, mainly technical, with other people in his team.
Did this with several different groups. Looking for a job was pretty much a full-time job, until finally on the Friday morning before Christmas I got a job offer and took it.
It’s true what they say: It’s not what you know, and it’s not who you know, it’s who you know and then it’s what you know.
I know when a manager has open slots, he or she wants to fill them with good people right away, especially here at the end of the quarter cause when a new quarter hits, the money for those openings can be yanked away faster than a Presbyterian collection plate. My new boss wanted it all done so he could go away for Christmas and not have to worry about it any more. That worked for me. I shift over on the new year. Will find out then whatever it is I now do for a living.
It was a strange coincidence that most of the laid off people I knew best were white males over fifty (or nearing it, in my case). It was clear that if I didn’t grab something by year’s end, I’d likely be done at Infamous Megamulti. It would be very hard to get back in (used to be, people came and went a lot during the cycles). Now the place shrinks without growing so much later, and when it does grow, there’s a strong preference to hire the URM*, experienced or not, when bringing folks in from outside. I really have little against that policy. “Diversity” is a modern corporate value, whether or not it benefits the bottom line, and encouraging women and minorities to enter the technical fields is all good as far as I'm concerned. But I need a job too, so the smarter I am about ducking these layoffs, the better.
And no, no pay raise or any other change. You kidding? No more travel either.
* URM = Under-Represented Minority
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Happy St. Stephen's Day
We went to the Christmas Eve service. My mother was visiting, and it was important to me to go find a local one and go with her. We all went to a little old Episcopal church near here, founded in 1856 (that’s truly venerable for these parts), small and wooden and peak-roofed and decorated with Greek Orthodox artwork. It was a little old place with a little old choir made up of little old people and full of celebrants who may or may not have been regulars, very small town stuff. 
We three men tried to sing bass when the hymnal provided it and just the melody otherwise. My guys, who aren’t church-goers anymore either and were baptized Presbyterian anyway, found the experience sort of new and interesting if not strange. Somehow I got the giggles. Really not supposed to get the giggles in church, especially when you’re old and mature like me, and I got in trouble with my wife for it. But what the hell, it’s Christmas, it’s a joyous time! Too joyous to recite the congregation’s part of the Eucharist in such dour and dreadful tones, but that’s how Episcopalians do it. All my kid had to do was add the tiniest bit of inflection to his voice and I was off giggling again. And then we went up for Communion, and I tried to give instruction but you know how hard that can be when it’s something you learned as a child and just do. So I knelt there with the wafer a little bit and the priest got to my son first, and he didn’t know what to do and didn’t pop that wafer into his mouth soon enough, so it got grabbed and dipped in the wine and he didn’t get to drink from the cup and was all disappointed afterwards and wanted to go back around but I didn’t let him.
Everyone has beliefs and the beliefs of thoughtful people are true for them and due full respect. I don’t tell my sons what to believe, I only tell them what I believe. It doesn’t happen to include a God at this time but my outlook on the universe is sort of mechanistic. Other viewpoints are equally valid, so long as they are arrived at honestly. My kids’ sort of disdain for religion is due to their callow youthfulness, I think, and will mellow with age. Who knows, they may become believers, as they find ways to fill the spaces they discover within themselves. Whatever truly works is good. Meanwhile I suppose I’m a hypocrite for going through the motions at a church service. But at Christmastime I enjoy it. The reasons are buried within my psyche and do not really require a lot of analysis. My boys got exposure to a part of their own culture, both at the family level and in a broader sense. All the observations they had the opportunity to make are theirs to use as they see fit.
In other news, the kid that made me laugh has become a big opera buff. Even put a few classic operas on his Christmas list (and got ‘em). The other one is developing a healthy taste for jazz and for classical music, and insists I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People now that Christmas is over with. It’s his Bible. He’s sixteen. Kids these days.
Now it’s St. Stephen’s Day (“Bright the stones which bruise thee gleam, sprinkled with thy life-blood's stream”), or Boxing Day in some parts, or, around here, Kid With A Retail Job Has To Work Nine Hours Day while the rest of us kick around wads of wrapping paper and eat leftovers.
We three men tried to sing bass when the hymnal provided it and just the melody otherwise. My guys, who aren’t church-goers anymore either and were baptized Presbyterian anyway, found the experience sort of new and interesting if not strange. Somehow I got the giggles. Really not supposed to get the giggles in church, especially when you’re old and mature like me, and I got in trouble with my wife for it. But what the hell, it’s Christmas, it’s a joyous time! Too joyous to recite the congregation’s part of the Eucharist in such dour and dreadful tones, but that’s how Episcopalians do it. All my kid had to do was add the tiniest bit of inflection to his voice and I was off giggling again. And then we went up for Communion, and I tried to give instruction but you know how hard that can be when it’s something you learned as a child and just do. So I knelt there with the wafer a little bit and the priest got to my son first, and he didn’t know what to do and didn’t pop that wafer into his mouth soon enough, so it got grabbed and dipped in the wine and he didn’t get to drink from the cup and was all disappointed afterwards and wanted to go back around but I didn’t let him.Everyone has beliefs and the beliefs of thoughtful people are true for them and due full respect. I don’t tell my sons what to believe, I only tell them what I believe. It doesn’t happen to include a God at this time but my outlook on the universe is sort of mechanistic. Other viewpoints are equally valid, so long as they are arrived at honestly. My kids’ sort of disdain for religion is due to their callow youthfulness, I think, and will mellow with age. Who knows, they may become believers, as they find ways to fill the spaces they discover within themselves. Whatever truly works is good. Meanwhile I suppose I’m a hypocrite for going through the motions at a church service. But at Christmastime I enjoy it. The reasons are buried within my psyche and do not really require a lot of analysis. My boys got exposure to a part of their own culture, both at the family level and in a broader sense. All the observations they had the opportunity to make are theirs to use as they see fit.
In other news, the kid that made me laugh has become a big opera buff. Even put a few classic operas on his Christmas list (and got ‘em). The other one is developing a healthy taste for jazz and for classical music, and insists I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People now that Christmas is over with. It’s his Bible. He’s sixteen. Kids these days.
Now it’s St. Stephen’s Day (“Bright the stones which bruise thee gleam, sprinkled with thy life-blood's stream”), or Boxing Day in some parts, or, around here, Kid With A Retail Job Has To Work Nine Hours Day while the rest of us kick around wads of wrapping paper and eat leftovers.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Wie treu sind deine Blätter
Paula requested a picture.As usual the thing is about twice as tall as me. Every year I discover how much stronger my sons have become. Not so long ago I did pretty much all the work of hauling it and setting it up, with assistance that could best be described as willing. Recent years it has almost gone up by itself. Once up, I string the lights, as that takes a combination of tactics, long arms and acrophilia that haven't yet entirely passed along. Then the Miz takes over and the decorating happens.
Why don't I help decorate it? There is no certain answer. I don't mean to leave that part be, but I have increasingly complex reactions to the Christmas season and the Miz has learned not to wait for me to gear up for it. I don't really get into Christmas until a few days beforehand -- yeah, like now. Until then, I am full of emotions, most of them variants of depression, as well as a weave of procrastination and preoccupation that accomplishes nothing helpful, not to mention my increasing disdain for the religion of consumption that is this particular festival's most visible hallmark. But a time comes when all that begins to pass, and the beauty of the tree, its needles green and true, helped along by some seasonal music by Buxtehude, soaks into my soul, along with a sort of peace, and it all finally begins to make a little sense.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
New Post if by "Post" we mean "Whine"
This title was directly ripped off from Roy. I changed it a little so as to be guilty of a lesser form of plagiarism. Much worse than George Harrison's when he allegedly borrowed the tune of the Chiffons' "He's So Fine" for his big hit "My Sweet Lord". I think they went overboard on that. I was listening to country the other day and heard what I swore was a country rendition of "Shooting Star" (Bad Company) except they'd made some major changes, it wasn't the same song at all, and I realized, huh, that's a total rip off. Yet so far as I know no one's said a word about it.
I looked up old George on Wiki and I thought it said he was an influential satirist but no, they said sitarist. If I had a sharper wit I'd make something of that, needles to say.
So anyway my employer, a division of IMC that was supposed to lead the corporation into a new marketing space by acting like a start-up, instead acted like a start-up run by a corporation and went through some pseudorandom head cuts and the heads cut included mine. But I still have an office and go to staff because I am still an employee until Jan 2. This is to provide me some benefit for being full-time employed throughout the year, has to do with bonuses and health insurance etc.
It was fun to sit in staff yesterday and hear the boss say we're in pretty good shape, got allocated this many millions of dollars, and though we're headcount constrained we can hire contractors and consultants as needed. Needles to say, I mean needless, I very nearly pointed out that contractors generally cost more than in-house engineers unless of course your staff is expected to keep shrinking. But I said nothing. It's unprofessional to be snarky and besides, the remaining heads need to figure that out for themselves and take steps. Some did so a few months ago and have jobs in other divisions. I now wish I was as smart as them.
My whine is that I am now in my last week. The holiday season effectively shuts everything down, so there will be no more interviews and hiring decisions after this week until I am officially out. So to stay employed, to stay within the inconstant embrace of the mother corporation, the people I've been talking to need to decide to hire me within the next few days. No one's said yet they won't, but no one's said they will either, and Christmas is right around the corner, and I just haven't been able to get my mind into it, and my wife has run the numbers and determined we can't afford for me to be unemployed after all, and it's cold and rainy outside, and when viewed from the outside with the path ahead rapidly crumbling, the world looks very cold indeed. Yes, I have many blessings to count, but I have also often looked at the world through the eyes of my inner homeless person, aware that but for a few lucky chances I'd be at my rightful place under a blue tarp at the river, watching the rain hit the water, and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do.
There are so many ways I could explore that theme.
One of them would require a very rugged typewriter.
I am still trying to produce the Christmas-gift DVD. Never mind the details, I've been working on this thing for months. It overtaxes the old desktop I got maybe five years ago. Finally, I appropriated yesterday the machine my son and I rebuilt last year. Cleared a space on the backroom desk and set it up. It is a Core Duo with a big SATA hard drive and is working out much better. Wish I'd done it months ago. Last night I was up until two trying to get video to render. Still getting errors and errors, but I am getting them faster, and that helps.
My coordination of the Christmas tree pick-up fundraiser is working out, at least. We make a couple grand off of that typically, or used to, to pay for badges and supplies and defray the cost of summer camp etc. But every year, sales are down. People have artificial trees these days and don't need the Boy Scouts to come round after the holidays and take their trees away for a small donation. Those small donations add up but they don't add up like they used to. Maybe next year we'll station scouts at a few tree lots to solicit sign-ups. The grocery store isn't yielding enough customers. We have learned that every shift needs a cute new scout to offset the older cynical scout, and that properly asked, people will make donations even if they don't have a tree. But still.
I looked up old George on Wiki and I thought it said he was an influential satirist but no, they said sitarist. If I had a sharper wit I'd make something of that, needles to say.
So anyway my employer, a division of IMC that was supposed to lead the corporation into a new marketing space by acting like a start-up, instead acted like a start-up run by a corporation and went through some pseudorandom head cuts and the heads cut included mine. But I still have an office and go to staff because I am still an employee until Jan 2. This is to provide me some benefit for being full-time employed throughout the year, has to do with bonuses and health insurance etc.
It was fun to sit in staff yesterday and hear the boss say we're in pretty good shape, got allocated this many millions of dollars, and though we're headcount constrained we can hire contractors and consultants as needed. Needles to say, I mean needless, I very nearly pointed out that contractors generally cost more than in-house engineers unless of course your staff is expected to keep shrinking. But I said nothing. It's unprofessional to be snarky and besides, the remaining heads need to figure that out for themselves and take steps. Some did so a few months ago and have jobs in other divisions. I now wish I was as smart as them.
My whine is that I am now in my last week. The holiday season effectively shuts everything down, so there will be no more interviews and hiring decisions after this week until I am officially out. So to stay employed, to stay within the inconstant embrace of the mother corporation, the people I've been talking to need to decide to hire me within the next few days. No one's said yet they won't, but no one's said they will either, and Christmas is right around the corner, and I just haven't been able to get my mind into it, and my wife has run the numbers and determined we can't afford for me to be unemployed after all, and it's cold and rainy outside, and when viewed from the outside with the path ahead rapidly crumbling, the world looks very cold indeed. Yes, I have many blessings to count, but I have also often looked at the world through the eyes of my inner homeless person, aware that but for a few lucky chances I'd be at my rightful place under a blue tarp at the river, watching the rain hit the water, and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do.
There are so many ways I could explore that theme.
One of them would require a very rugged typewriter.
I am still trying to produce the Christmas-gift DVD. Never mind the details, I've been working on this thing for months. It overtaxes the old desktop I got maybe five years ago. Finally, I appropriated yesterday the machine my son and I rebuilt last year. Cleared a space on the backroom desk and set it up. It is a Core Duo with a big SATA hard drive and is working out much better. Wish I'd done it months ago. Last night I was up until two trying to get video to render. Still getting errors and errors, but I am getting them faster, and that helps.
My coordination of the Christmas tree pick-up fundraiser is working out, at least. We make a couple grand off of that typically, or used to, to pay for badges and supplies and defray the cost of summer camp etc. But every year, sales are down. People have artificial trees these days and don't need the Boy Scouts to come round after the holidays and take their trees away for a small donation. Those small donations add up but they don't add up like they used to. Maybe next year we'll station scouts at a few tree lots to solicit sign-ups. The grocery store isn't yielding enough customers. We have learned that every shift needs a cute new scout to offset the older cynical scout, and that properly asked, people will make donations even if they don't have a tree. But still.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Tuercas Locas
Haven't posted in awhile. Maybe I'll start again. Having been cursed with interesting times and all.
What gets me right now is evidently some Joe in PA has gotten into trouble for posting a sign at his restaurant requesting patrons order in English. I absolutely cannot believe he'd get into trouble for that. Was this not once a free country? If he wants to restrict his business to folks who aren't put off by such a sign, that's his right. The cawing by various lawyers and government officials that his signs "give a feeling of being unwelcome and being excluded" and "discourages customers of certain backgrounds from eating there" is a load of populist mob-rule hooey. Nor do they violate a city ordinance that prohibits discrimination in public accommodation on the basis of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, as those have nothing to do with language. Indeed, I'd like to know why anyone would expect to be able to order in Russian or Pashtu or Spanish or Chinese or whatever other languages are most common in his neck of the woods in the first place. Complaint over this is the kind of boneheaded nonsense reminds me our country is proceeding to eat itself alive.
To state the obvious, in case anyone is boneheaded enough to miss it: If he or anyone else wants to run their shop in Hebrew or Farsi or Hmong or French, they absolutely have the right to do so. There are plenty of stores in San Francisco without a speck of English anywhere in sight. Is anyone complaining who's worth listening to? Of course not.
What gets me right now is evidently some Joe in PA has gotten into trouble for posting a sign at his restaurant requesting patrons order in English. I absolutely cannot believe he'd get into trouble for that. Was this not once a free country? If he wants to restrict his business to folks who aren't put off by such a sign, that's his right. The cawing by various lawyers and government officials that his signs "give a feeling of being unwelcome and being excluded" and "discourages customers of certain backgrounds from eating there" is a load of populist mob-rule hooey. Nor do they violate a city ordinance that prohibits discrimination in public accommodation on the basis of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, as those have nothing to do with language. Indeed, I'd like to know why anyone would expect to be able to order in Russian or Pashtu or Spanish or Chinese or whatever other languages are most common in his neck of the woods in the first place. Complaint over this is the kind of boneheaded nonsense reminds me our country is proceeding to eat itself alive.
To state the obvious, in case anyone is boneheaded enough to miss it: If he or anyone else wants to run their shop in Hebrew or Farsi or Hmong or French, they absolutely have the right to do so. There are plenty of stores in San Francisco without a speck of English anywhere in sight. Is anyone complaining who's worth listening to? Of course not.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Tree and Leave
As we have done for thirteen years, we went up to Pollock Pines today to cut our tree at a family-owned, minimally maintained tree farm. My son took a hatchet because he felt like chopping things. My other son grabbed a measuring pole, even though we never need one because we always get trees that are longer than the pole. I carried the saw. I watched both the hatchet and the pole – really a length of PVC pipe – swing through the air as we went down the path between the trees. Boys never change.
“You have a battle axe,” I said. “And you a pike.”
“What’s that? Your battle saw?”
“My war saw. It’s a Polish weapon.”
Thirteen or fourteen feet of noble fir for thirty-three bucks. We’re going to need deals like that for awhile now. Last week my division went through its warned-against downsizing and I was among those hit. I am now looking for a job within a shrinking company at a time of year when budgets are short and staffing is static. If I don’t find one in the next two weeks or so, my twelve years four months as an engineer for Infamous Megamultinational Corporation will come to an end.
Seniority? Accomplishment? Capability? If you are familiar with high-tech you know they mean nothing. It is always about cutting headcount to make a number, and selecting whichever head happens to be in this bucket or that box for the bad news.*
Are there other high-tech sorts of jobs in California’s third-largest metropolitan area? Maybe a few. Not more than a few. And there is no shortage of engineer types vying for them. It will be a very interesting year, this one coming up. But meantime we will have a merry holiday season. Got a bunch of walnut and almond for the fireplace, plenty of leftover DiSaronno from the Italy trip, and my wife’s a fabulous cook. The severance package will get us partway though the Spring. Chin up and all that, what.
* - There is always much more to it than that, of course, but I never learned how to be popular on the junior high school playground.
“You have a battle axe,” I said. “And you a pike.”
“What’s that? Your battle saw?”
“My war saw. It’s a Polish weapon.”
Thirteen or fourteen feet of noble fir for thirty-three bucks. We’re going to need deals like that for awhile now. Last week my division went through its warned-against downsizing and I was among those hit. I am now looking for a job within a shrinking company at a time of year when budgets are short and staffing is static. If I don’t find one in the next two weeks or so, my twelve years four months as an engineer for Infamous Megamultinational Corporation will come to an end.
Seniority? Accomplishment? Capability? If you are familiar with high-tech you know they mean nothing. It is always about cutting headcount to make a number, and selecting whichever head happens to be in this bucket or that box for the bad news.*
Are there other high-tech sorts of jobs in California’s third-largest metropolitan area? Maybe a few. Not more than a few. And there is no shortage of engineer types vying for them. It will be a very interesting year, this one coming up. But meantime we will have a merry holiday season. Got a bunch of walnut and almond for the fireplace, plenty of leftover DiSaronno from the Italy trip, and my wife’s a fabulous cook. The severance package will get us partway though the Spring. Chin up and all that, what.
* - There is always much more to it than that, of course, but I never learned how to be popular on the junior high school playground.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Credit Cards Roasting on an Open Fire
Look, I don't follow the news much anymore. It doesn't help my immediate life much if I do. I got enough going on, trying to position myself at this nutty corporation so I am always perceived as having value, balancing productivity against my innate laziness, coming up with actionable ideas re novel writing, learning to write creativelike (though I'll never touch Raymond Chandler's pure pulp poetry), doing a thing or two around the house so the entire family edifice doesn't come a-crashing down, and being under the constant surveillance of my inner demons, I got enough of all that and more for the news to matter much to me. I especially get cheesed off when I overhear people talking about news that isn't worth a moment's notice anyway, national-scale gossip about some damn TV star or sports anti-hero.
But! What the flip are we doing to our country? I heard driving in that there is a big credit crunch hammering the economy, and that Citigroup Inc., one of the big banking thingies, has been bailed out by a huge investment from Abu Dhabi. Or the way I look at it, our profligate buying on credit has us teetering like a poorly loaded cargo ship and only a big heavy line from the Arabs is keeping us from rolling over and sinking. The Chinese have bought much of us up. The Arabs are continuing to do more and more of the same. The only thing that keeps me from sweating in panic is that the Chinese and the Arabs are not natural allies. I mean, it's not like one of them has a resource the other one wants, giving them both incentive to cooperate. Surely there's no reason to imagine a consortium of next-generation world leaders slavering over the big fat pig that is increasingly on the block and sharpening their knives for a feast. No, no worries about that.
Who's to blame? All of us, I guess. All of us who maintain deep lines of credit, who don't pay off our houses so we can instead buy SUVs, who keep our economy buzzing by enriching the middle men who sell us plastic electronic gizmos manufactured on another continent and that really don't do a lot to enrich our lives in return. What does that shiny new iPhone really do for you? Just more shit to learn how to do, and you know it will break before you adapt to it enough so that it becomes a true enhancement. And if you didn't have a credit card you would never have been able to buy the damn thing in the first place. Would that really be a loss?
All right, so worrying about yet another foreign investment may sound like so much paranoid nativism. Don't we want a truly open global economy and isn't this another step towards reaching it? Maybe, perhaps, I don't know. It just doesn't feel right. And as I not only witness but personally participate in the continuing shift of some of the most productive elements of our economy -- manufacturing -- to factories and business parks in distant countries, and compare the focus and willingness to work over there with the attitude of millions of Americans who collect welfare and live in houses built by underpaid illegal immigrants, I can't help but expect we are setting ourselves up for a fall of historic proportions. Was it Nixon who shifted the dollar from being based on gold to being based on oil? Was it really to prevent Saddam selling oil in euros that we went to war? I doubt that, and I don't know why I should care that oil is sold for a basket of currencies and not just dollars. I don't know anything, in other words. But I don't think my concern is based solely in ignorance.
So here we are starting that special season when we show our love by buying people stuff and waiting until we get our meager income tax returns months later to pay for it. The connection between that and the finer points of the Christian mythology completely escape me. I like Christmas, parts of it. But the decorations and the canned music and the sales and above all the concern of commentators over the importance of "consumer confidence", which is nothing more than an exhortation to treat consumerism as some kind of social or moral or at least patriotic duty, they all make me want to just visit with family, play games, eat a lot and be careful not to buy a damn thing.
I don't know if this post was going somewhere, but this is it. Time to, uh, work now.
But! What the flip are we doing to our country? I heard driving in that there is a big credit crunch hammering the economy, and that Citigroup Inc., one of the big banking thingies, has been bailed out by a huge investment from Abu Dhabi. Or the way I look at it, our profligate buying on credit has us teetering like a poorly loaded cargo ship and only a big heavy line from the Arabs is keeping us from rolling over and sinking. The Chinese have bought much of us up. The Arabs are continuing to do more and more of the same. The only thing that keeps me from sweating in panic is that the Chinese and the Arabs are not natural allies. I mean, it's not like one of them has a resource the other one wants, giving them both incentive to cooperate. Surely there's no reason to imagine a consortium of next-generation world leaders slavering over the big fat pig that is increasingly on the block and sharpening their knives for a feast. No, no worries about that.
Who's to blame? All of us, I guess. All of us who maintain deep lines of credit, who don't pay off our houses so we can instead buy SUVs, who keep our economy buzzing by enriching the middle men who sell us plastic electronic gizmos manufactured on another continent and that really don't do a lot to enrich our lives in return. What does that shiny new iPhone really do for you? Just more shit to learn how to do, and you know it will break before you adapt to it enough so that it becomes a true enhancement. And if you didn't have a credit card you would never have been able to buy the damn thing in the first place. Would that really be a loss?
All right, so worrying about yet another foreign investment may sound like so much paranoid nativism. Don't we want a truly open global economy and isn't this another step towards reaching it? Maybe, perhaps, I don't know. It just doesn't feel right. And as I not only witness but personally participate in the continuing shift of some of the most productive elements of our economy -- manufacturing -- to factories and business parks in distant countries, and compare the focus and willingness to work over there with the attitude of millions of Americans who collect welfare and live in houses built by underpaid illegal immigrants, I can't help but expect we are setting ourselves up for a fall of historic proportions. Was it Nixon who shifted the dollar from being based on gold to being based on oil? Was it really to prevent Saddam selling oil in euros that we went to war? I doubt that, and I don't know why I should care that oil is sold for a basket of currencies and not just dollars. I don't know anything, in other words. But I don't think my concern is based solely in ignorance.
So here we are starting that special season when we show our love by buying people stuff and waiting until we get our meager income tax returns months later to pay for it. The connection between that and the finer points of the Christian mythology completely escape me. I like Christmas, parts of it. But the decorations and the canned music and the sales and above all the concern of commentators over the importance of "consumer confidence", which is nothing more than an exhortation to treat consumerism as some kind of social or moral or at least patriotic duty, they all make me want to just visit with family, play games, eat a lot and be careful not to buy a damn thing.
I don't know if this post was going somewhere, but this is it. Time to, uh, work now.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving and all that
A beautiful day outside, bright and cool, leaves aflame. Very quiet. No one coming but my mom, who has to drive up from the Bay Area and is probably stuck in traffic right now. Wasn't supposed to be this quiet.
Mother in law lives in Idaho, was going to come down and bring her ten-year-old grandson. We were going to take him to the train museum and stuff, really looking forward to it. But when she found that out, and that we needed to go through some stuff she left in our closet, she freaked. Couldn't handle being faced with reminders of her husband, who died over five years ago. Yelled and screamed. Hung up and canceled the plane tickets. So my sons' only first cousin doesn't get to come visit after all.
The kid's dad can't stand her either, so she'll spend the day by herself. Kid'll go off with his mom's family and have a good day. Down here, just my mom, not that other one, so lots of peace and quiet. Looking forward to it.
Meanwhile I tie myself to the desktop, trying to finish the video, and write while the video editing software and the old computer crank slowly, slo-o-owly away. I'm nine days behind in NaNo, but that doesn't mean I quit. There's a still a story to write, a story I need to learn how to write, what viewpoints to use for what part of the story, what revelations of fact and motive, etc. So. A good day for all that.
A good day to all!
Mother in law lives in Idaho, was going to come down and bring her ten-year-old grandson. We were going to take him to the train museum and stuff, really looking forward to it. But when she found that out, and that we needed to go through some stuff she left in our closet, she freaked. Couldn't handle being faced with reminders of her husband, who died over five years ago. Yelled and screamed. Hung up and canceled the plane tickets. So my sons' only first cousin doesn't get to come visit after all.
The kid's dad can't stand her either, so she'll spend the day by herself. Kid'll go off with his mom's family and have a good day. Down here, just my mom, not that other one, so lots of peace and quiet. Looking forward to it.
Meanwhile I tie myself to the desktop, trying to finish the video, and write while the video editing software and the old computer crank slowly, slo-o-owly away. I'm nine days behind in NaNo, but that doesn't mean I quit. There's a still a story to write, a story I need to learn how to write, what viewpoints to use for what part of the story, what revelations of fact and motive, etc. So. A good day for all that.
A good day to all!
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Book Stops Here
Not quite yet. But Friday I was three days behind with no chance to work on it, and with Thanksgiving looming I knew I needed to work double-time over the weekend so I could get back on track. Two to three thousand words per day was about what I needed to do. Two to three thousand words each day exploring an off-the-cuff mystery story that, against all odds, was starting to gel. Not necessarily on paper, but in my mind. Characters evolved, story elements and twists emerged, alternate beginnings were envisioned, solutions came to mind for certain problems with plotting that were caused by the need to be realistic, etc. etc. The value of the exercise is included in these discoveries. All I had to do was sit my ass down and write more and write it faster.
So I went backpacking on Angel Island.
Now I'm six days behind with way too much to do in real life to worry about catching up. Not done writing, though. Too much cool stuff thought of to just let it lie, arbitrary internet deadlines or no. The hard part will be continuing it in January.
Angel Island is a national treasure. If it hadn't been turned into a military reservation during the Civil War (when Confederate ships coming in and bottling up the flow of gold were a real worry), and then kept by the Army for various reasons until recent times, it would not now be a wildlife preserve but instead some sort of enclave for the wealthy. Not that there's anything wrong with that but I like it as it is. The views of San Francisco, of the ocean seen through the Golden Gate and its Bridge, of mountainous Marin County, of Richmond, Berkeley and Oakland, of the Bay Bridge, of Alcatraz, they are all unparalleled. You can even see the neighborhood I grew up in if you have some good binoculars (which I didn't).
Hiking, Bay Area style (no, not us!)
A view from the top (Mt. Tam etc.)
Easy camping, long-closed Fort MacDowell and the Bay down beyond
Ghost buildings, a century old
The old Nike base (and yes, I have been down through that hatch, but that is rather another story ... )
A nice view from the ferry, the top of a Golden Gate Bridge tower just visible in the fog
Me and the real reason I do this stuff (or almost anything, really)
So I went backpacking on Angel Island.
Now I'm six days behind with way too much to do in real life to worry about catching up. Not done writing, though. Too much cool stuff thought of to just let it lie, arbitrary internet deadlines or no. The hard part will be continuing it in January.
Angel Island is a national treasure. If it hadn't been turned into a military reservation during the Civil War (when Confederate ships coming in and bottling up the flow of gold were a real worry), and then kept by the Army for various reasons until recent times, it would not now be a wildlife preserve but instead some sort of enclave for the wealthy. Not that there's anything wrong with that but I like it as it is. The views of San Francisco, of the ocean seen through the Golden Gate and its Bridge, of mountainous Marin County, of Richmond, Berkeley and Oakland, of the Bay Bridge, of Alcatraz, they are all unparalleled. You can even see the neighborhood I grew up in if you have some good binoculars (which I didn't).
Hiking, Bay Area style (no, not us!)
A view from the top (Mt. Tam etc.)
Easy camping, long-closed Fort MacDowell and the Bay down beyond
Ghost buildings, a century old
The old Nike base (and yes, I have been down through that hatch, but that is rather another story ... )
A nice view from the ferry, the top of a Golden Gate Bridge tower just visible in the fog
Me and the real reason I do this stuff (or almost anything, really)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Comforting Snippet
If you are arrested in China, the U.S. Embassy is a friend indeed.
In cases of lengthy incarceration, we visit American prisoners at least every 30 to 60 days to ensure that American citizens receive treatment no worse than that accorded citizens of the PRC. -- U.S. Consulate WebsiteWell! No worries, then.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Trending Down
Not to bitch or anything, but there's a lot to do and probably I won't get back into a reasonably productive groove until next week sometime. Now, I've managed to squeak along. And now that I've hinted at doing worse I'll probably actually do better. Still, if you extrapolate from this, I'm going to have a lot of catching up to do the week I find out who gets laid off and who doesn't. [18,856]
Monday, November 12, 2007
I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning
Smells like … a long day. It’s dark and cold at five thirty in the morning, the stars softened by mist and the air redolent of the fuel trickling through an idling set of jet turbines. It still amazes me that it costs the company less to lease an Embraer 135 and run it back and forth than to pay for as many commercial air tickets and rented cars as the people here in this little private terminal would otherwise need to use. Probably there are additional considerations, large ones, strategic matters I can’t grasp, but whatever. I love this stuff. Meanwhile, the WIP whips along painfully, this scene and that aborted for lack of any real fire. That may be a typical symptom of the second week, so I’ll just keep trying. Somehow, I’m still only about a day behind, and that’s pretty good. [16,870]
Friday, November 09, 2007
Even Betel Nut Girls Get The Blues
They sit or stand in glass booths by the roadway. Colorful flashing lights and neon attract attention. Miniskirts and skimpy tops attract more. They run out in their high heels and sell betel nuts to truck drivers, and to anyone else who needs a mild stimulant and badly stained teeth. In between customers, they sit exposed at a high table preparing more batches of betel nuts. They don’t have time while doing this to write their NaNo novels.
Me neither. Stepping through meeting agendas, negotiating technical details and resource usage while outnumbered two or three to one (the Chinese don’t under-staff projects like we do), touring factories, going out with our hosts to huge dinners, doing the company email thing afterwards, getting to bed late and lying on a mattress so hard it cut off the circulation in my arms if I lay on my side …
Then yesterday we rode the Taiwan HSR from Taichung to Taoyuan and caught our plane where I sat in the second to last row, my keyboard on my stomach, my wrists bent double, my elbows jammed past my ribcage to the back of the seat, and my aching head and neck in contortions so I could see the screen. Wrote some; not a lot. Couldn't keep my eyes open in that dry air anyway. Last leg from San Fran to Sac was cancelled so I rented a car and grabbed this cloud’s silver lining to visit family strung out like gems along the highways home.
Counting today’s quota I’m only about 2 ½ days behind, and that ain’t bad. The value of the exercise is undeniable. Just gotta make time. Plan is to do so after the concert tonight and git it on this weekend in between other things. [12,194]
Me neither. Stepping through meeting agendas, negotiating technical details and resource usage while outnumbered two or three to one (the Chinese don’t under-staff projects like we do), touring factories, going out with our hosts to huge dinners, doing the company email thing afterwards, getting to bed late and lying on a mattress so hard it cut off the circulation in my arms if I lay on my side …
Then yesterday we rode the Taiwan HSR from Taichung to Taoyuan and caught our plane where I sat in the second to last row, my keyboard on my stomach, my wrists bent double, my elbows jammed past my ribcage to the back of the seat, and my aching head and neck in contortions so I could see the screen. Wrote some; not a lot. Couldn't keep my eyes open in that dry air anyway. Last leg from San Fran to Sac was cancelled so I rented a car and grabbed this cloud’s silver lining to visit family strung out like gems along the highways home.
Counting today’s quota I’m only about 2 ½ days behind, and that ain’t bad. The value of the exercise is undeniable. Just gotta make time. Plan is to do so after the concert tonight and git it on this weekend in between other things. [12,194]
Monday, November 05, 2007
Red Lights Reflecting
I imagine I looked very businesslike, sitting in the back seat of a large black car hurtling down a Taiwanese freeway in the dead of night, the glow of my laptop reflected in my glasses. But really, all I was doing was NaNoWriMo. I did do some real work on the plane. But my heart wasn’t in it. Can you imagine that?
I will focus much better on site anyway.
But it was fun, in my little kid heart, to cruise through a foreign city at night, red lights reflecting on streets wet from a recent rain, bright colorful signs in Chinese characters all around. Fourteen hours in flight or no, I still get off on the movie-ish-ness of it all.
I am right here exactly. Seriously. I tried to put the arrow right on my room. I am that kind of, erm, person.
So 10pm here means 6am back home. Last trip I was nine hours to the right. Now I'm eight hours to the left. That means to know the time here, take Pacific time and subtract eight hours, then add a day. Fascinating, yes. Could they ever pay me enough for all this knowledge? [10,789]
I will focus much better on site anyway.
But it was fun, in my little kid heart, to cruise through a foreign city at night, red lights reflecting on streets wet from a recent rain, bright colorful signs in Chinese characters all around. Fourteen hours in flight or no, I still get off on the movie-ish-ness of it all.
I am right here exactly. Seriously. I tried to put the arrow right on my room. I am that kind of, erm, person.
So 10pm here means 6am back home. Last trip I was nine hours to the right. Now I'm eight hours to the left. That means to know the time here, take Pacific time and subtract eight hours, then add a day. Fascinating, yes. Could they ever pay me enough for all this knowledge? [10,789]
Sunday, November 04, 2007
6439
Despite appearances (29% above yesterday's minimum goal), I am not ahead in this game. About four hours after my NaNoWhine I found out I needed to go to Taiwan. So instead of writing, I'm blogging at SMF, awaiting my connection to SFO, and dropping a note to the world in case my last trip is any indication of things and I wind up without internet for the next few days. The plan is to write like mad on the long flight and get way ahead. The reality will probably be a cramped seat, the person in front laying all the way back, and me trying to type on my tummy and wearing the special glasses that let me see a screen only a foot away and that give me a headache. But I know there'll be little to no chance for this stuff until Thursday, so that plan has to be the plan as it is the only plan. Since I signed up for this flight so late, chances are I will get one of those seats in the very center of the plane with two people between me and the aisle on either side. I'll make sure I don't have to go to the bathroom until everyone is fast asleep.
Ye WIP rolls along, Scene I still under way. I'm pretty sure how it will end, but not where I'll pick up afterwards. I didn't really settle on which half-baked story idea I would try and work on until sometime Thursday -- until I actually sat down on the front porch swing just past sunset with forty five minutes to kill before we went off to the high school water polo banquet -- and so it remains half-baked or less in its future portions, though the present piece is fairly crusty round the edges, and the cheese is all melted, so I'm not too worried.
Ye WIP rolls along, Scene I still under way. I'm pretty sure how it will end, but not where I'll pick up afterwards. I didn't really settle on which half-baked story idea I would try and work on until sometime Thursday -- until I actually sat down on the front porch swing just past sunset with forty five minutes to kill before we went off to the high school water polo banquet -- and so it remains half-baked or less in its future portions, though the present piece is fairly crusty round the edges, and the cheese is all melted, so I'm not too worried.
Friday, November 02, 2007
4394
The story rolls down through a gravity field of its own making, no turns needed yet, just roll roll roll, baby. A time will come when the current main character has to drop out and let other voices pop in, but that won't be for awhile yet, so no worries, the hardest part is to reach deeper into my skull and pull out more pumpkin guts and spray them with my typing fingers out onto the screen when I'd really really really rather do, let's face it, almost anything else. But I don't want to be a weenie. I don't mind being a weenie, don't get me wrong, it's being thought of as a weenie that I want to avoid, especially since they'd be right. They being the weenie-callers. Thought I'd clarify that.
See? That is how it's done. Don't stop, just write, stream it out, and don't worry about the next turn in the plot until your main character has suddenly had the realization flood all over him like the effluent of a busted sewer pipe that he is in a jail in China of all places with the circumstantial evidence rather strong that he got drunk and killed a local, and though the police really prefer to leave foreigners alone when it comes to their indiscretions, murder isn't quite the wink-wink it used to be, and with this realization that he is well and truly fucked comes another realization, i.e. that the author don't know shit about Shanghai police procedures and had best distract the audience with somebody else's troubles, as they can be knit to the first somebody's troubles later. No one has to know that most of the verisimilitude was gleaned from a handful of conversations with a local or two and does not reflect much in the way of real knowledge. Backup and facts n shit are for the rewrite.
See? That is how it's done. Don't stop, just write, stream it out, and don't worry about the next turn in the plot until your main character has suddenly had the realization flood all over him like the effluent of a busted sewer pipe that he is in a jail in China of all places with the circumstantial evidence rather strong that he got drunk and killed a local, and though the police really prefer to leave foreigners alone when it comes to their indiscretions, murder isn't quite the wink-wink it used to be, and with this realization that he is well and truly fucked comes another realization, i.e. that the author don't know shit about Shanghai police procedures and had best distract the audience with somebody else's troubles, as they can be knit to the first somebody's troubles later. No one has to know that most of the verisimilitude was gleaned from a handful of conversations with a local or two and does not reflect much in the way of real knowledge. Backup and facts n shit are for the rewrite.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
NaNoExcuseMe
I don’t know what I’m going to write, and I don’t have time to think about it. I like Roy’s idea, I forget where he said it, he’ll just follow his character as he drives his truck to work one day and see where it goes.
Actually, since I know how Roy writes, I want to read that book already.
Anyway I need to list out my excuses and put them up like ducks at the carnival.
1. I have to finish making my son’s DVD! He turned eighteen in June and I am still putting the DVD together that recalls his life to that point with lots of pictures, video and music. This sort of thing takes an insane amount of time, I had no idea. It has to be done in time for Christmas shipping and honestly I don’t know how that will be possible even without the writing thing.
2. My job is cranking into overdrive. We have an incredible amount of work to do by December and are understaffed at every turn. Been lucky so far not to let it leak too much into private time but the pressure will increase.
3. Again I am coordinating the scout troop’s big annual fundraiser for which nearly all of the groundwork must be done in November.
4. Car maintenance, yard work, real life, late night spousal discussions, ya da ya, none of that counts.
Four is enough. All I have to do is be far more disciplined and organized than I ever have been in my entire life. I accept the challenge. Well, today.
Actually, since I know how Roy writes, I want to read that book already.
Anyway I need to list out my excuses and put them up like ducks at the carnival.
1. I have to finish making my son’s DVD! He turned eighteen in June and I am still putting the DVD together that recalls his life to that point with lots of pictures, video and music. This sort of thing takes an insane amount of time, I had no idea. It has to be done in time for Christmas shipping and honestly I don’t know how that will be possible even without the writing thing.
2. My job is cranking into overdrive. We have an incredible amount of work to do by December and are understaffed at every turn. Been lucky so far not to let it leak too much into private time but the pressure will increase.
3. Again I am coordinating the scout troop’s big annual fundraiser for which nearly all of the groundwork must be done in November.
4. Car maintenance, yard work, real life, late night spousal discussions, ya da ya, none of that counts.
Four is enough. All I have to do is be far more disciplined and organized than I ever have been in my entire life. I accept the challenge. Well, today.
Monday, October 29, 2007
It was a Graveyard Smash
Saturday night was the night of Halloween parties, the Exotic Erotic Ball, radio station copycat events, people dressing up their inner slutmonster, acres of flesh and fishnet, a little fake blood and lots of alcohol. Good times! But alas we didn’t go do that. We went to our local roadhouse and babysat.
All right, we went a-people-watching. But when the average age in all five bands and the audience is twenty four with a standard deviation of two it didn’t feel entirely complete as a people-watching project. The Boardwalk is not large and it was not packed and after looking around I could not help but conclude there were three kinds of people in attendance:
1. Family and friends of the bands
2. Local weird fuck-ups who needed to get out of the subsidized housing for a few hours and this was the only place they could get to without having to resort to a bicycle
3. Us
About two thirds of this crew were either in costume (e.g. cute little bug antennae, miniskirt, striped hose and high heels) or in “costume” (e.g. Hawaiian shirt, porkpie, and a pair of aviators – alas, no cigarette holder). Given some of the costumes and the ages of the girls in them, you are right to suppose the view was not always objectionable, but mostly I ignored all that because, after all, well. Put it this way. There were five people in the place older than us, and none less than twenty years younger. But I liked the music, and it was for music and to watch the costumed crowdly dynamics that we went.
Generally alt metal hardcore fusion, I suppose, I don’t know. The subgenres escape me but they were actually singing, not screaming, so it was all good. I talked to the lead guitarist for one band – an Asian guy about five feet tall with a goatee and a cowboy hat – and told him his band sounded pretty good, I liked the sound. He said, hey, thanks, and went on about CDs and t-shirts for sale in the back but he was extremely friendly about it, and I asked if they were from around here (“here” potentially meaning any part of Northern California outside the Bay Area) and he said, you kidding, we all live just down the street.
Down the street. Okay, and the main act got started at the local high school five or six years ago. So it turned out we were supporting local music. That helped explain two of the five people who were our age plus: A middle-aged couple looking a little lost and self-conscious, no doubt absorbing what their kid has been doing with his prime college-attending years. They didn't stay very long. (The other three were one of the owners; a bouncer, who to be fair might only have looked old, it’s a rough life doing nothing but hanging out at a rocker / biker bar; and a mysterious first-cohort Boomer with a gray Prince Valiant haircut who carried himself with an intriguing lack of self-confidence.)
What else, I’m trying to wrap this up. Was I in costume? Not if a black Rob Zombie t-shirt isn’t a costume. Some might say it is the costume of a guy who dresses (and acts, or at least thinks) like a teenager, but since Rob Zombie isn’t a whole lot younger than me I’d say no, it was just my scariest black t-shirt. That doesn’t say much for my collection of black t-shirts. I’m going to have to work on that, or come up with a real costume, if we’re going to continue with this new gig of not having small children anymore and thus being free to go out at Halloween.
All right, we went a-people-watching. But when the average age in all five bands and the audience is twenty four with a standard deviation of two it didn’t feel entirely complete as a people-watching project. The Boardwalk is not large and it was not packed and after looking around I could not help but conclude there were three kinds of people in attendance:
1. Family and friends of the bands
2. Local weird fuck-ups who needed to get out of the subsidized housing for a few hours and this was the only place they could get to without having to resort to a bicycle
3. Us
About two thirds of this crew were either in costume (e.g. cute little bug antennae, miniskirt, striped hose and high heels) or in “costume” (e.g. Hawaiian shirt, porkpie, and a pair of aviators – alas, no cigarette holder). Given some of the costumes and the ages of the girls in them, you are right to suppose the view was not always objectionable, but mostly I ignored all that because, after all, well. Put it this way. There were five people in the place older than us, and none less than twenty years younger. But I liked the music, and it was for music and to watch the costumed crowdly dynamics that we went.
Generally alt metal hardcore fusion, I suppose, I don’t know. The subgenres escape me but they were actually singing, not screaming, so it was all good. I talked to the lead guitarist for one band – an Asian guy about five feet tall with a goatee and a cowboy hat – and told him his band sounded pretty good, I liked the sound. He said, hey, thanks, and went on about CDs and t-shirts for sale in the back but he was extremely friendly about it, and I asked if they were from around here (“here” potentially meaning any part of Northern California outside the Bay Area) and he said, you kidding, we all live just down the street.
Down the street. Okay, and the main act got started at the local high school five or six years ago. So it turned out we were supporting local music. That helped explain two of the five people who were our age plus: A middle-aged couple looking a little lost and self-conscious, no doubt absorbing what their kid has been doing with his prime college-attending years. They didn't stay very long. (The other three were one of the owners; a bouncer, who to be fair might only have looked old, it’s a rough life doing nothing but hanging out at a rocker / biker bar; and a mysterious first-cohort Boomer with a gray Prince Valiant haircut who carried himself with an intriguing lack of self-confidence.)
What else, I’m trying to wrap this up. Was I in costume? Not if a black Rob Zombie t-shirt isn’t a costume. Some might say it is the costume of a guy who dresses (and acts, or at least thinks) like a teenager, but since Rob Zombie isn’t a whole lot younger than me I’d say no, it was just my scariest black t-shirt. That doesn’t say much for my collection of black t-shirts. I’m going to have to work on that, or come up with a real costume, if we’re going to continue with this new gig of not having small children anymore and thus being free to go out at Halloween.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Nanothought
I don't try to think about it but the mad novel-writing thing starts midnight Halloween and I admit some of the darker corners of my mind are beginning to wonder what I'm going to write about. I haven't been thinking about plots and so on lately. My mind has been stuck on the usual conglomeration of work / family / house / work / car / family life perplexities. When the best things to blog are pictures, I have to wonder how I can set aside a couple few hundred hours of time next month to scribble out a half-baked story that may not ever get a second look. This confidence is expressed in the graphic. (It'll change when / if I actually start something so for future reference, I replaced "Participant" with "I signed up, anyway.")
Why am I writing this? I dunno. Why do any of us write anything? Gotta go!
Why am I writing this? I dunno. Why do any of us write anything? Gotta go!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
We don't drive Gondolas in your Toilet so don't Pee in our Canals
When you canoe down the Green River in Utah, you pass through a very dry country, so dry there aren't enough microorganisms in the soil to break down your, shall we say, leavings. You are strictly required to port your poo out, and to pee in the river.
When you come out of the train station in Venice and blink in the sunshine that bursts off the Grand Canal and for some reason really have to pee, the sight of that canal and your memory of the Green River will conspire in your mind. You must resist. Well, you should. The locals probably don't.
The two places defy any use of words to describe them. (Please click on pictures to get the full effect, as poor a substitute as they are for the reality.)
To the purist (you know who you are), yes, some of these were taken at Arches NP.
When you come out of the train station in Venice and blink in the sunshine that bursts off the Grand Canal and for some reason really have to pee, the sight of that canal and your memory of the Green River will conspire in your mind. You must resist. Well, you should. The locals probably don't.
The two places defy any use of words to describe them. (Please click on pictures to get the full effect, as poor a substitute as they are for the reality.)
To the purist (you know who you are), yes, some of these were taken at Arches NP.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A Placeholder Post while I Deal with Other Things
David Rochester has come up with a wonderful term, for a pride of lions of the domestic variety: a condescension of cats.
We have but one cat. She lives outside, and sleeps under bushes or atop piles of bags of potting soil, or way up on furniture stored in the garage if she can sneak in. She meows affectionately and likes rough handling when getting her pettings and scritches. But she’s an only cat and is not part of a condescension. Doesn’t seem to have much of it either. As a kitten she took a ride in the dryer that nearly killed her and was sort of weird and loopy for several years afterwards, but is now a gentle attention hound and a good mouser and birder and lizarder and in some ways treats us almost as equals. I wonder if the knowledge that she would surely die if she tried to sneak a nap in the house has something to do with it.
* * *
The blogging I would do is far more self-revealing, far more self-examining, open about doubts, dreams, questions. Some of the most interesting people reveal their inner lives online and the world is richer for it. From the feedback and interaction they receive, I think they are richer for it too. Sometimes I very much want to use blogging as a tool for that sort of interaction. It would serve as a means to balance my relentless private journaling and my lack of a meaningful social life. Sort of a third leg to my dysfunctional little tripod. But I can't, for reasons that other circumstances prevent changing, and it’s just as well.
I mean, some of those revealing blogs enrich the world, but I don’t mean to imply they all do. Most do not and should just as well shut down and save some virtual trees. Not referring to any I link to, needless to say. But I can see mine going there.
* * *
Airport codes are a plenty useful shorthand. My home port is SMF. For business, I go to PDX most often. I’m particularly fond of SFO. Recently I had the privilege to go in and out of MXP. When the three letters roll off the tongue in a reasonably euphonious manner it makes for a nice clear alternative (MXP in particular, since Milan has two airports and Malpensa is in fact twice as far out of Milan as the town I was working in, making any other way to explain things clumsy by comparison). But now and then, a designation is given that just SUX. (Might have to get the t-shirt.)
That last link included perchance an ad for Northwest Airlines (I don’t suppose they paid a promotional placement fee to Hitchcock for that movie). Forgive me but every time I see a big old plane with NWA on the side I start giggling and think, “They ain’t just with attitude, they got they own airline!” (The supersensitive closet racists can slam me now.)
We have but one cat. She lives outside, and sleeps under bushes or atop piles of bags of potting soil, or way up on furniture stored in the garage if she can sneak in. She meows affectionately and likes rough handling when getting her pettings and scritches. But she’s an only cat and is not part of a condescension. Doesn’t seem to have much of it either. As a kitten she took a ride in the dryer that nearly killed her and was sort of weird and loopy for several years afterwards, but is now a gentle attention hound and a good mouser and birder and lizarder and in some ways treats us almost as equals. I wonder if the knowledge that she would surely die if she tried to sneak a nap in the house has something to do with it.
* * *
The blogging I would do is far more self-revealing, far more self-examining, open about doubts, dreams, questions. Some of the most interesting people reveal their inner lives online and the world is richer for it. From the feedback and interaction they receive, I think they are richer for it too. Sometimes I very much want to use blogging as a tool for that sort of interaction. It would serve as a means to balance my relentless private journaling and my lack of a meaningful social life. Sort of a third leg to my dysfunctional little tripod. But I can't, for reasons that other circumstances prevent changing, and it’s just as well.
I mean, some of those revealing blogs enrich the world, but I don’t mean to imply they all do. Most do not and should just as well shut down and save some virtual trees. Not referring to any I link to, needless to say. But I can see mine going there.
* * *
Airport codes are a plenty useful shorthand. My home port is SMF. For business, I go to PDX most often. I’m particularly fond of SFO. Recently I had the privilege to go in and out of MXP. When the three letters roll off the tongue in a reasonably euphonious manner it makes for a nice clear alternative (MXP in particular, since Milan has two airports and Malpensa is in fact twice as far out of Milan as the town I was working in, making any other way to explain things clumsy by comparison). But now and then, a designation is given that just SUX. (Might have to get the t-shirt.)
That last link included perchance an ad for Northwest Airlines (I don’t suppose they paid a promotional placement fee to Hitchcock for that movie). Forgive me but every time I see a big old plane with NWA on the side I start giggling and think, “They ain’t just with attitude, they got they own airline!” (The supersensitive closet racists can slam me now.)
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
What do Delta Airlines and the Ice Pits of Hell Have in Common?
There's a moment when you travel, a special moment when time stops and your stomach turns into an ice-lined pit. I've had several lately.
Such as when I lost my wallet. For several moments I stood by the baggage claim groping my pants front and back like an oversexed middle-aged woman who'd suddenly taken over a man's body and was checking for, you know, inventory. After a few minutes the feeling faded and from then I only had to adjust to a new reality. Was it hope, hope that I was mistaken, that fueled my panic? (Say, I got it back. The airline totally came through.)
Another afternoon I stood on the marble roof of the Duomo, Milan's huge central cathedral. There was a stone ridge down the center that I needed to stand on to get a picture. It was less than two feet tall. I jumped. I jumped because I can. I can still do a standing jump and land on the kitchen counter. Hopping atop a little chunk of rock was no sweat.
Sweat. Maybe I was fooled by the slope. My toe caught the edge. The world wheeled around in slow motion. Isaac Newton was flying the ship now. Somehow as my shins scraped along the sharp marble edge I rolled so that I would land on the other side on my shoulder instead of my face. It was an instinctive move to save the camera. I flailed my camera hand in the air, willing to sacrifice the body for future photojournalistic opportunity. And in the silence that lived in the open mouths of horrified Japanese tourists, I heard the crunch of camera lens on marble.
Again, as I sat bewildered, the ice pit opened. I cared not if my wrist was fractured or neck snapped. I cradled my camera and checked for injury. And again, the pit melted away. The rim of the skylight filter was so bent it can't be removed, but the filter itself -- which I've broken and replaced twice on previous trips -- was otherwise undamaged. Likewise the lens and the camera itself. Luck city. A guard came and asked me many times if I was all right, and I insisted I was, and I really was, no aches or pains at all (except for a four-inch loss of skin along the ridge of my shinbone).
Another day we got off the #3 bus-boat at Piazza San Marco in Venezia. Our train tickets back to Milano were in my wallet, and a bunch of cash, and the ATM cards I'd got back when the wallet showed up, and everything. I'd been keeping it in a right-hand pocket. I checked for it. Wasn't there and the pocket zipper was open.
I stopped, my eyes like betelnuts, and said, "Oh, shit," thinking of Italy's famously skilled pickpockets. Thinking of train tickets. Thinking of yet another lost or stolen American Express card. Then I remembered moving it to the left side for easier access. Still there. The ice pit had formed but could go now. Color began to return to my wife's face, and she said I was hard to travel with.
Right now I'm at the airport in Atlanta awaiting my final flight home. I would die if I had to fly without reading, taking notes, whatever. My eyes are typical for my age and I can't do shit without a set of drugstore cheaters. Just before boarding at Milan Malpensa twelve hours ago, I checked for my glasses.
Yep. Ice pit city. Somehow they fell out, maybe while getting my boarding pass, manhandling luggage, whatever. Do they sell reading glasses right there in Terminal B? No. They sell water (frizzante o naturale) and magazines and little bottles of booze, but no glasses. But again, fate and luck and preparation intervened, and I remembered I had three spare sets in my laptop backpack. So all was well, as it always seems to be given time. But damn.
Such as when I lost my wallet. For several moments I stood by the baggage claim groping my pants front and back like an oversexed middle-aged woman who'd suddenly taken over a man's body and was checking for, you know, inventory. After a few minutes the feeling faded and from then I only had to adjust to a new reality. Was it hope, hope that I was mistaken, that fueled my panic? (Say, I got it back. The airline totally came through.)
Another afternoon I stood on the marble roof of the Duomo, Milan's huge central cathedral. There was a stone ridge down the center that I needed to stand on to get a picture. It was less than two feet tall. I jumped. I jumped because I can. I can still do a standing jump and land on the kitchen counter. Hopping atop a little chunk of rock was no sweat.
Sweat. Maybe I was fooled by the slope. My toe caught the edge. The world wheeled around in slow motion. Isaac Newton was flying the ship now. Somehow as my shins scraped along the sharp marble edge I rolled so that I would land on the other side on my shoulder instead of my face. It was an instinctive move to save the camera. I flailed my camera hand in the air, willing to sacrifice the body for future photojournalistic opportunity. And in the silence that lived in the open mouths of horrified Japanese tourists, I heard the crunch of camera lens on marble.
Again, as I sat bewildered, the ice pit opened. I cared not if my wrist was fractured or neck snapped. I cradled my camera and checked for injury. And again, the pit melted away. The rim of the skylight filter was so bent it can't be removed, but the filter itself -- which I've broken and replaced twice on previous trips -- was otherwise undamaged. Likewise the lens and the camera itself. Luck city. A guard came and asked me many times if I was all right, and I insisted I was, and I really was, no aches or pains at all (except for a four-inch loss of skin along the ridge of my shinbone).
Another day we got off the #3 bus-boat at Piazza San Marco in Venezia. Our train tickets back to Milano were in my wallet, and a bunch of cash, and the ATM cards I'd got back when the wallet showed up, and everything. I'd been keeping it in a right-hand pocket. I checked for it. Wasn't there and the pocket zipper was open.
I stopped, my eyes like betelnuts, and said, "Oh, shit," thinking of Italy's famously skilled pickpockets. Thinking of train tickets. Thinking of yet another lost or stolen American Express card. Then I remembered moving it to the left side for easier access. Still there. The ice pit had formed but could go now. Color began to return to my wife's face, and she said I was hard to travel with.
Right now I'm at the airport in Atlanta awaiting my final flight home. I would die if I had to fly without reading, taking notes, whatever. My eyes are typical for my age and I can't do shit without a set of drugstore cheaters. Just before boarding at Milan Malpensa twelve hours ago, I checked for my glasses.
Yep. Ice pit city. Somehow they fell out, maybe while getting my boarding pass, manhandling luggage, whatever. Do they sell reading glasses right there in Terminal B? No. They sell water (frizzante o naturale) and magazines and little bottles of booze, but no glasses. But again, fate and luck and preparation intervened, and I remembered I had three spare sets in my laptop backpack. So all was well, as it always seems to be given time. But damn.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Thurteen: Cammino al Lavoro
Here are some pictures of my commute this week. I go out into the lobby ...
... and along the side of the building, not yet ready for tenants ...
... up past an apartment building ...
... along where they put in trees just this week ...
... to the train station ...
... and underneath ...
... and up to the other side where I look back ...
... and then go on past some other civilized modes of transport ...
... and up the street ...
... and another street ...
... and so on ...
... and so on.
This is just the exciting sort of material blogging was made for, isn't it.
... and along the side of the building, not yet ready for tenants ...
... up past an apartment building ...
... along where they put in trees just this week ...
... to the train station ...
... and underneath ...
... and up to the other side where I look back ...
... and then go on past some other civilized modes of transport ...
... and up the street ...
... and another street ...
... and so on ...
... and so on.
This is just the exciting sort of material blogging was made for, isn't it.
Despite All My Rage I Am Still Just A Rat In A Cage
Moved last weekend to a brand new hotel. So new there's no internet. They are waiting on an Italian security bureaucracy to give them permission. Also no pay TV channels, and one channel in each of Spanish, French, English and German. The English one is of course all news all the time, from which it is kind of weird to get American baseball and football news in a British accent, delivid by BBC Weld. Spanish news is more dramatic. Italian game shows look horribly familiar.
My connection to the outside is solely through my work hosts' office connection, and it cuts out sometimes and seems to be slowly infecting my laptop with unfiltered, nameless diseases. A few daily reboots hold them at bay. Sort of an annoyance when I need to refer to documents, and Windows decides it can no longer open Acrobat or Word can't find templates.
My wife joined me and is now out there, somewhere, walking around Milano, Saronno, wherever she wants to go. The weather is almost exactly like home: Hazy, then clear, temps about 20, the leaves beginning to turn. The home office says I'm doing great, they'll decide later if I can or should stay next week. I think they'd rather I fix it so I don't have to. This means I have to balance fixing it so it looks like I have to stay despite all my efforts against the fact that I really miss my kids.
My wallet's journey has progressed from Paris to Bergamo and might actually arrive today. I haven't missed it. Might make use of an ATM card.
The writer inside needs to write and write and write (!), some people know how that is, but no dice, and from this the merest beginning I must go do real stuff now.
My connection to the outside is solely through my work hosts' office connection, and it cuts out sometimes and seems to be slowly infecting my laptop with unfiltered, nameless diseases. A few daily reboots hold them at bay. Sort of an annoyance when I need to refer to documents, and Windows decides it can no longer open Acrobat or Word can't find templates.
My wife joined me and is now out there, somewhere, walking around Milano, Saronno, wherever she wants to go. The weather is almost exactly like home: Hazy, then clear, temps about 20, the leaves beginning to turn. The home office says I'm doing great, they'll decide later if I can or should stay next week. I think they'd rather I fix it so I don't have to. This means I have to balance fixing it so it looks like I have to stay despite all my efforts against the fact that I really miss my kids.
My wallet's journey has progressed from Paris to Bergamo and might actually arrive today. I haven't missed it. Might make use of an ATM card.
The writer inside needs to write and write and write (!), some people know how that is, but no dice, and from this the merest beginning I must go do real stuff now.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
How Many Engineers Does It Take To Send A Postcard
Italians should live longer. After dining in the company cafeteria we took a long stroll across old downtown Saronno to a favorite cafferia. The weather was perfect: mid 20s, only a little haze above, a breeze here and there. Office workers and old folks and students were all out and about, strolling, sitting on benches, making a space for life in the middle of the day. A habit we should all get into but somehow, of course, we don’t. Not enough measurable value added.
On the way we went to a tobacconist for postage stamps. They had none of the type for sending postcards to the U.S. Not a place for American tourists. We stopped at another tobacconist. They too had none of the type for sending postcards to the U.S. After coffee, we continued further along to yet a third shop, with the idea that the next stop after that would be the train station. They at least should have them. But the third time was the charm. €4.80 to send five postcards, over a dollar apiece. The lady let me use her sponge.
I dropped them in the red box outside. I figure they’ll probably get home before I do.
Yesterday morning we came down from Montesolaro in a black Mercedes van, the driver in suit and tie. But it was just the company’s usual taxi. Maybe he had important people to get later. Never mind the bulge under his arm, the black wire behind his ear.
This green arrow points to my bedroom this week.
Yesterday afternoon I went down into Milano to get a replacement AmEx card. Despite the heat everyone was in a coat or sweater. I took the train, took the metro, walked a few kilometers at least. The AmEx office was a few blocks round behind the Duomo, its vast plaza full of people and pigeons. Back near the train station I strolled around Castello Sforzesco, all ancient brick walls and tourists. If I were a born journalist rather than a born layabout I might say a thing or two about these perambulations but suffice it to say, I’m not sorry I had to go down into town. I’m a California boy, raised on cars and long wide roads, so I love to walk for blocks and blocks, and to ride in trains. I also love to surround myself with self-absorbed urban crowds. Do I love cities? Or do I just love to visit them?
Last night I got email from Delta Airlines. My wallet was found on the airplane. In Paris. Since they don’t use the 767 to fly from Milan to Paris, this means it had gone to the States and then back to France. This in turn suggests they clean airplanes much better in France than they do in Italy or the United States. This also means I’ll get my driver’s license back and can rent a car if I want to.
If I do, maybe they’ll give me a Smart car. Those things are awesome. Though I’m told it can get a little uncomfortable when a great big truck comes to a stop twenty centimeters behind your head. Of course, there is a worse alternative.
So how many engineers does it take to send a postcard? Well, there were five of us, and I sent five postcards. So I guess that means one.
I was kidding about the bulge and the black wire.
On the way we went to a tobacconist for postage stamps. They had none of the type for sending postcards to the U.S. Not a place for American tourists. We stopped at another tobacconist. They too had none of the type for sending postcards to the U.S. After coffee, we continued further along to yet a third shop, with the idea that the next stop after that would be the train station. They at least should have them. But the third time was the charm. €4.80 to send five postcards, over a dollar apiece. The lady let me use her sponge.
I dropped them in the red box outside. I figure they’ll probably get home before I do.
Yesterday morning we came down from Montesolaro in a black Mercedes van, the driver in suit and tie. But it was just the company’s usual taxi. Maybe he had important people to get later. Never mind the bulge under his arm, the black wire behind his ear.
This green arrow points to my bedroom this week.
Yesterday afternoon I went down into Milano to get a replacement AmEx card. Despite the heat everyone was in a coat or sweater. I took the train, took the metro, walked a few kilometers at least. The AmEx office was a few blocks round behind the Duomo, its vast plaza full of people and pigeons. Back near the train station I strolled around Castello Sforzesco, all ancient brick walls and tourists. If I were a born journalist rather than a born layabout I might say a thing or two about these perambulations but suffice it to say, I’m not sorry I had to go down into town. I’m a California boy, raised on cars and long wide roads, so I love to walk for blocks and blocks, and to ride in trains. I also love to surround myself with self-absorbed urban crowds. Do I love cities? Or do I just love to visit them?
Last night I got email from Delta Airlines. My wallet was found on the airplane. In Paris. Since they don’t use the 767 to fly from Milan to Paris, this means it had gone to the States and then back to France. This in turn suggests they clean airplanes much better in France than they do in Italy or the United States. This also means I’ll get my driver’s license back and can rent a car if I want to.
If I do, maybe they’ll give me a Smart car. Those things are awesome. Though I’m told it can get a little uncomfortable when a great big truck comes to a stop twenty centimeters behind your head. Of course, there is a worse alternative.
So how many engineers does it take to send a postcard? Well, there were five of us, and I sent five postcards. So I guess that means one.
I was kidding about the bulge and the black wire.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
One Way Not To Start A Business Trip
I have a pretty good gig going, gotta admit. A lot of my coworkers are stuck on an endless cycle of flying up to Portland for some part of every week, and there’s nothing wrong with that the first few times, but it’s getting old. Six o’clock flights, cheesy hotels in the ‘burbs with little kitchenettes, and long hours in the vast gray or tan cubicle farms that the company has scattered about up there. Now, some of them are in Taiwan this week, and some others are in India, but no one seemed particularly excited about any of it. Meanwhile I got to come back to northern Italy.
It’s all business, of course. I wouldn’t be here if the project was going well and there isn’t much in the way of sightseeing on the agenda. Maybe a really good restaurant or two. But still. I’m a dozen or twenty kilometers north of Milan. No complaints allowed.
One thing I’ve done though that I really didn’t want to do was lose all my credit cards.
In Atlanta I bought lunch in between airplanes, and put my wallet in my laptop backpack so I wouldn’t have to sit on it during the long flight across the ocean. In Milan I came out into baggage claim and decided it was time to get some euros at the currency exchange. Looked all through my backpack: no wallet.
Do I really need to recount the ensuing three hours? Shuffling from lost luggage to the airline to the airport carabinieri, trying (mostly in vain) to get a net connection so I could get some critical phone numbers, hauling a backpack full of books and laptop and two heavy suitcases (tools, parts, a weeks’ worth of clothing, spare shoes, I don’t know) up and down and up and down to different floors, and finally after doing all I could do discovering that the rental agency wouldn’t give me a car because I also lost my driver’s license?
A car? Yes, thanks to some big festival, all of Milan and every hotel near a train station is booked solid, so I’m out in the boonies, a nice place I’m sure but no train station so I need a car to get to the office. This problem will be solved by the fact a colleague is joining me tonight, and he can drive. Unfortunately he’s from England, so I’m not sure he can drive in Italy.
Oh, of course he can. Brits drive on the continent all the time. So I’m told. Anyway, it’s five-ish outside and dinnertime but eight in the morning to me, and I stink, and no one within ten kilometers speaks English, but I did get some cash and a ride by using my resources, so I guess all will be well because it will end well, though the well part hasn’t happened yet. Traveling’s never really easy, but this could have been a whole lot worse, so still no complaints from me are allowed, no indeed, I get that.
It’s all business, of course. I wouldn’t be here if the project was going well and there isn’t much in the way of sightseeing on the agenda. Maybe a really good restaurant or two. But still. I’m a dozen or twenty kilometers north of Milan. No complaints allowed.
One thing I’ve done though that I really didn’t want to do was lose all my credit cards.
In Atlanta I bought lunch in between airplanes, and put my wallet in my laptop backpack so I wouldn’t have to sit on it during the long flight across the ocean. In Milan I came out into baggage claim and decided it was time to get some euros at the currency exchange. Looked all through my backpack: no wallet.
Do I really need to recount the ensuing three hours? Shuffling from lost luggage to the airline to the airport carabinieri, trying (mostly in vain) to get a net connection so I could get some critical phone numbers, hauling a backpack full of books and laptop and two heavy suitcases (tools, parts, a weeks’ worth of clothing, spare shoes, I don’t know) up and down and up and down to different floors, and finally after doing all I could do discovering that the rental agency wouldn’t give me a car because I also lost my driver’s license?
A car? Yes, thanks to some big festival, all of Milan and every hotel near a train station is booked solid, so I’m out in the boonies, a nice place I’m sure but no train station so I need a car to get to the office. This problem will be solved by the fact a colleague is joining me tonight, and he can drive. Unfortunately he’s from England, so I’m not sure he can drive in Italy.
Oh, of course he can. Brits drive on the continent all the time. So I’m told. Anyway, it’s five-ish outside and dinnertime but eight in the morning to me, and I stink, and no one within ten kilometers speaks English, but I did get some cash and a ride by using my resources, so I guess all will be well because it will end well, though the well part hasn’t happened yet. Traveling’s never really easy, but this could have been a whole lot worse, so still no complaints from me are allowed, no indeed, I get that.
One way out my window: | The other way: |
Friday, September 28, 2007
Think Of It As Sharing
More pictures. I've got a million of 'em. Every time I press the shutter I'm thinking of something, a story, a connection, a weird thought, something. Of course all of that is long forgotten. But the pictures remain, and I want to share. It's like putting a bowl of stale crackers on a table at work. Maybe no one will take any, but somehow putting them out there is enough. And think, even if it seems like it, you're really not trapped in my living room in front of a projector screen with a warm beer and a napkin full of stale crackers.
All this at the State Fair.
 Horny guy |  Stylish sheep constraints |  Weird guy walking weird |
 R/C feedwagon |  Baby piggies! |  Sac's finest |
 Lego golden bear |  Fine art |  Wine art |
 Night vision |  I want that one |  We've been a great audience, thank us very much! |
All this at the State Fair.
