13. Early evening phone meeting with the fellas in Taiwan. With all the background noise (someone’s wife and small child), heavy Chinese accents at that end, miscellaneous Asian accents at this end … I cannot follow the conversation. Makes me feel like an irrelevant old yankee and considering how my country acts in terms of maintaining its technological lead (i.e. doing nothing), that’s not inaccurate.
12. Mid-afternoon ice cream. Some work group had a celebration and overdid the catering. Emails went out: Come and get it! Countless Dilberts emerge from their holes and converge on the scene. The hired staff with their temporary badges are surly. Ice cream is melted. Big bowls of nuts and cherries and crumbled cookies and chocolate ants and rows and rows of whipped cream cans. No wonder we look like we do. But it’s a fun chance to catch up with that random person you know and aren’t sure from what past intersection of careers you know them. Catching up consists of vague expressions of doing good and polite nods.
11. 3 ½ mile lunchtime run. Talking with the other runners, old white guys like me. Political sentiment is often driven by where you live. In California, as you go eastward from coast through farm country and into mountains, you get more conservative, and these guys live in the foothills. They think Bush betrayed the country by starting the bailout, and Obama is going to finish the job. They’re not sure he’s smart enough to know that destroying the country is what he’s doing. They are sure Bush wasn’t. I don’t disagree but I don’t really know, of course. One thing’s sure, we’re fucked, and it’s been awhile since we had a real chance to avoid being fucked. Hope and change? Please. A cheesy advertising slogan.
10. Mid-morning energy burst. That brief but blessed time of day when it seems as though questions are answerable, problems are solvable, the company has a good future, and my boss isn’t figuring out legal ways to get rid of me.
9. Morning shower and breakfast. Our hot water heater died the other night so I showered at the workplace rec center. (Put the new one in today.) Immediately after, time to meet my breakfast club, get my tea, stir hot water into my little one-serving bag of instant oatmeal, and sit around a table talking about manly home projects while watching attractive female fellow professionals pass through.
8. Early morning rounds. Bad night of sleep but no worries, I don’t remember dreams, something to do with helping my mother water a garden. Crawled off the mattress wondering whatever became of waking up refreshed. Went out the laundry room for boxers cause I’m way behind on folding clothes. Weird music from upstairs, choir music, and that’s weird for six in the morning. Went up and found several teenage boys asleep and oblivious, cast about the floor and furniture like discarded underwear, the menu screen for “Boondock Saints” playing over and over and over on the TV.
7. Late night reading. A book is a must if one is to crowd out the real world and actually sleep. Enjoy tremendously Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. I love it when good scholarship and good writing converge to make sense of huge questions in a rational and believable manner. Put it right up there with Breaking The Spell for putting reality into context. Every night the same instant of crisis: Eyes won’t stay open, sentences run together, time to stop, put book and glasses on nightstand and hope to god that simple act doesn’t wake me all up again.
6. Evening miscellania. Haul dishes back and forth to the alternate dishwasher that’s fed by the other hot water heater. (Yeah, we have two of each, long story.) Admire puppies. Watch mama ignore them long time, then grudgingly sniff around, lick all their little heinies clean and wake them up, then lie down with a sigh and roll over and let them squeak and crawl all over her and suck away at her spigots. Get sleepy.
5. Okay, I.
4. Ran out.
3. Of time.
2. For any more, so.
1. Goin’ now. Got a restaurant date. We got married twenty one years ago today. Goodness.
Showing posts with label Thursday Thirteen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thursday Thirteen. Show all posts
Thursday, June 11, 2009
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.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday Thirteen: Gold Rush Days
Annual event down in Old Sac. Some pix I took when I snuck my camera out of my pocket, something not at all compliant with the 19th Century garb that was stuck to me. Cell phone neither. But the coal-fired variety is just too heavy to carry around in that heat.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Thursday Thirteen: International Teleconferencing
1. Do you say good morning when it's morning at their end, or at yours?
2. Whoever's first to say good morning/afternoon/evening wins and sets the default time zone.
3. It's hard to drive the meeting and take notes at the same time.
4. I'm real glad I'm not a project manager and have to drive the meeting an/or take the notes of record.
5. I can listen with one ear, and with the rest of my body occasionally check the agenda and speak up now and then and generally do whatever I want.
6. Wireless Bluetooth headsets are nifty cause I can walk all the way over to the men's room and back and not lose the signal.
7. Wireless Bluetooth headsets suck when the batteries are weak.
8. When the people on the other end don't speak English very well, I think maybe this would go better in Instant Messenger.
9. When the people on the other end don't speak English very well, I hope someone is taking good notes.
10. I try to but my mind wanders.
11. You can't be shy about asking if such and such has been covered already.
12. When the people on the other end don't speak English very well, you can be excused for not being sure if such and such has been covered already.
13. It's vitally important that the project manager is someone you can go to afterwards and say, what the hell did we just talk about anyway?
2. Whoever's first to say good morning/afternoon/evening wins and sets the default time zone.
3. It's hard to drive the meeting and take notes at the same time.
4. I'm real glad I'm not a project manager and have to drive the meeting an/or take the notes of record.
5. I can listen with one ear, and with the rest of my body occasionally check the agenda and speak up now and then and generally do whatever I want.
6. Wireless Bluetooth headsets are nifty cause I can walk all the way over to the men's room and back and not lose the signal.
7. Wireless Bluetooth headsets suck when the batteries are weak.
8. When the people on the other end don't speak English very well, I think maybe this would go better in Instant Messenger.
9. When the people on the other end don't speak English very well, I hope someone is taking good notes.
10. I try to but my mind wanders.
11. You can't be shy about asking if such and such has been covered already.
12. When the people on the other end don't speak English very well, you can be excused for not being sure if such and such has been covered already.
13. It's vitally important that the project manager is someone you can go to afterwards and say, what the hell did we just talk about anyway?
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Thursday Thirteen: Teenage Romance
Thirteen memories of back when they showed porn in real theaters
1. My girlfriend wanted to see The Story of O.
2. I didn't really understand it.
3. In Berkeley, California, in 1976, the theater people didn't care that my girlfriend and I were only seventeen.
4. Probably why I didn't understand it.
5. Pretty sure it was the California Theater at Kittredge and Shattuck. Maybe not. Long time ago.
6. The only other people in the theater were single men scattered about the place.
7. We also saw The Joy Of Letting Go. For someone reason that is my fondest porn memory. You can't get it on DVD or even VHS. I've looked.
8. And looked.
9. The single men ignored us, I think.
10. We didn't do anything anyway.
11. Not in the theater.
12. Other than pulsating body parts up on the screen in humongous technicolor detail, it was a normal theater like any other.
13. I'm so glad my kids don't have an adult theater with an open door policy to go to but instead are home alone watching instructional videos downloaded from the safe and well-regulated internet.
1. My girlfriend wanted to see The Story of O.
2. I didn't really understand it.
3. In Berkeley, California, in 1976, the theater people didn't care that my girlfriend and I were only seventeen.
4. Probably why I didn't understand it.
5. Pretty sure it was the California Theater at Kittredge and Shattuck. Maybe not. Long time ago.
6. The only other people in the theater were single men scattered about the place.
7. We also saw The Joy Of Letting Go. For someone reason that is my fondest porn memory. You can't get it on DVD or even VHS. I've looked.
8. And looked.
9. The single men ignored us, I think.
10. We didn't do anything anyway.
11. Not in the theater.
12. Other than pulsating body parts up on the screen in humongous technicolor detail, it was a normal theater like any other.
13. I'm so glad my kids don't have an adult theater with an open door policy to go to but instead are home alone watching instructional videos downloaded from the safe and well-regulated internet.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen Things That Annoy The Mess Out Of Me
With sundry notes as deemed fit.
1. Cables that tie themselves into knots.
How do they do that? I toss a pair of headphones and an audio cable and a couple of USB cables into my suitcase and by the time I get to my hotel they have knit themselves into a ball so tight only the sword of Alexander can untangle it.
2. Garrison Keillor.
I picture hoards of NPR listeners gathering round their radios to enjoy his homespun stories and high-pitched mellifluous voice and am transported to a warm world of muted tones and glowing windows and Saturday Evening Post covers and Thomas Kincaid prints and before you know it I want to barf.
3. Thomas Kincaid.
4. 158th and 185th Avenues being consecutive exits.
Once you get out of the airport and figure out how to get past Portland and finally find yourself westbound on U.S. Route 26, it should be enough to know that your exit is a numbered street with a 5 and an 8 in it. Why should any out-of-towner anywhere ever have to remember more than that? So you see 158th Ave -- that has to be it -- and move over to exit. But wait! The next exit is 185th Ave! Fuck! Which one do I want?!
5. George W. Bush's voice and everything he says with it.
6. The American date-style (mm/dd/yy).
The rest of the civilized world uses dd/mm/yy, as is only logical; and if you interact with the rest of the civilized world, you have already experienced no end of confusion over whether a given milestone was supposed to be the 5h of April or the 4th of May. I strike back by using the European style if the date isn't ambiguous, for example yesterday at Kaiser I dated some forms "28/02/07". Today I would have written "01 Mar 07". It is up to each of us to subvert the system!
7. Leaving a brilliantly hilarious and insightful comment at someone's blog somewhere and wanting to follow up on the undoubtedly riveting conversation that surely ensued and being totally unable to remember where the hell it was.
8. Television "news" media.
Yes, all of it. Every aspect.
9. The United States still not having gone metric.
10. Use of the present tense in television documentaries.
Worse yet, mixing past and present tense and evidently not being aware they are doing it.
11. Jokes about Mexicans, Nee-gros and queers.
I don't care if your name is Carlos Mencia, enough already.
12. People who drive the speed limit when they're in front of me.
13. Developing the best damn character-building and plot-moving dialog ever and not being able to recreate one sentence of it once I get out of the shower.
1. Cables that tie themselves into knots.
How do they do that? I toss a pair of headphones and an audio cable and a couple of USB cables into my suitcase and by the time I get to my hotel they have knit themselves into a ball so tight only the sword of Alexander can untangle it.
2. Garrison Keillor.
I picture hoards of NPR listeners gathering round their radios to enjoy his homespun stories and high-pitched mellifluous voice and am transported to a warm world of muted tones and glowing windows and Saturday Evening Post covers and Thomas Kincaid prints and before you know it I want to barf.
3. Thomas Kincaid.
4. 158th and 185th Avenues being consecutive exits.
Once you get out of the airport and figure out how to get past Portland and finally find yourself westbound on U.S. Route 26, it should be enough to know that your exit is a numbered street with a 5 and an 8 in it. Why should any out-of-towner anywhere ever have to remember more than that? So you see 158th Ave -- that has to be it -- and move over to exit. But wait! The next exit is 185th Ave! Fuck! Which one do I want?!
5. George W. Bush's voice and everything he says with it.
6. The American date-style (mm/dd/yy).
The rest of the civilized world uses dd/mm/yy, as is only logical; and if you interact with the rest of the civilized world, you have already experienced no end of confusion over whether a given milestone was supposed to be the 5h of April or the 4th of May. I strike back by using the European style if the date isn't ambiguous, for example yesterday at Kaiser I dated some forms "28/02/07". Today I would have written "01 Mar 07". It is up to each of us to subvert the system!
7. Leaving a brilliantly hilarious and insightful comment at someone's blog somewhere and wanting to follow up on the undoubtedly riveting conversation that surely ensued and being totally unable to remember where the hell it was.
8. Television "news" media.
Yes, all of it. Every aspect.
9. The United States still not having gone metric.
10. Use of the present tense in television documentaries.
Worse yet, mixing past and present tense and evidently not being aware they are doing it.
11. Jokes about Mexicans, Nee-gros and queers.
I don't care if your name is Carlos Mencia, enough already.
12. People who drive the speed limit when they're in front of me.
13. Developing the best damn character-building and plot-moving dialog ever and not being able to recreate one sentence of it once I get out of the shower.
