January 2005 Archives

I just had a realization this evening that made me really excited, and of course I'm probably setting myself up for a major fall, but... I get to do Boy Scouts with my two boys, and I can run them through D&D adventures. Some day, if I'm still cool enough, my boys and I are gonna do cool guy things together. Stuff that I enjoy, stuff that I know kids their age enjoy because... I did them, and I still do them. One day, if I'm lucky, I'll have my kids look to me, smile and tell me that I'm 'so cool!'. I live for that day. Already Eli and I have our own private stuff, our 'burp games', our own adventures. Adding Isaac to the mix is going to just drive the energy through the roof. Of course, I'm going to have to wait until the kids get to a certain age until they're both in 'the zone' -- probably when they get to be 5 and 9, through 8 and 12. At that point, I figure I'm pretty close to losing Eli to his teen friends, and I will be delegated to the category of uncool. I consider myself fortunate if I make it even that far. But for a few golden years in there, I'm going to be the king of cool. The Master of fun. And I'm going to milk every single moment of it.

On a side note -- look! A whole month of blog entries! I know, I cheated a few days there, but there is an entry for every single day, even if I was 8 hours late a few times. check it out! Now only 11 more months to go, and I've made it the whole year. I have to say, this has been an excellent exercise for me. Yay me!

Tonight I was out late filling up my tank on my car and I saw a family out with their young boy, maybe about 3 or 4 years old -- same approximate age as Eli. It was 11 at night, and way later than I would keep Eli up or out if I had a choice, but at the same time, I really feel jealous. It made me think of the Talking Heads song, "Up All Night". I really do love Eli so much that it hurts, and there are times that I allow my mind to wander into the place that all parents know, but none of us like to talk about. It's that place of utter vulnerability, when you think of the fact that your child could get hurt, at any time, and you are completely and utterly helpless to prevent the possibility. They could get hit by a car, or kidnapped, or burnt, or one of many various possible painful things, and the image of that just paralyzes you and makes you want to hold your child and protect them from the entire world. Of course, you can't protect them from the world -- the world happens all around them, all the time and will for the rest of their lives. Nonetheless, you just get so scared, and you have to shove the thought out of your head. In about 5 weeks to the day, I'm going to double the chances of one of my kids being hurt. I'm going to be 100% more vulnerable, and 50% less capable of stopping something catastrophic from happening. I know that I'm going to love my boy, Isaac, and he's going to light my life up in ways familiar and entirely new. I can't wait to meet him and get to know him in the ways I'm getting to know Eli. I can't wait to see how similar he is to his big brother, and yet how completely different. I am scared about his birth, and his first weeks and months. I am frightened about all the things that might go wrong, and the things I can't prevent. And yet, I am courageously entering into that space of parenthood and accepting the challenge to live in a place of uncertainty and vulnerability; to wear my heart on the outside of my chest. I know the experience is part of maturing and becoming wiser, but I do it not for the possibility of personal growth. I do it because I don't even know Isaac yet, but I already love him, and love is a force that you cannot compromise. I am compelled into the space of danger and uncertainty and I dive headlong into that realm with a smile on my face.

Tonight Julie and I went out to a play in Mill Valley called 'Fortune' that was a simple 2-hour, 2-act, 2-performer play that was funny, engaging and emotionally touching. I keep forgetting how much I really love going out to the theater, and yet I just don't seem to make it a priority in my life. Other than seeing Mark recently in 'The Princess Bride', I haven't seen any live theater in several years. There's something viceral and magical about the interchange between stage actor and audience, and the fact that a stage performance is different every single time it's performed, with no second takes or time-outs. I hope to someday (after Isaac is old enough) to incorporate theater into our regular schedule. I find the experience is quite nourishing to the creative self.

Last night (I'm dating this back to yesterday) I spontaneously went to hang out with a friend from like 11pm until 4:30am, looking over astrological charts. I had my chart done a few years back on a lark, and the information is uncannily accurate in many ways. Whether you believe the reasons are planetary influences, social influence, or blink luck plus a bit of self-convincing, the general affect is the same -- introspection. Astrology provides a common language for discussing issues psychological. It's just like color personality theory, meiers-briggs, or Jungian analysis -- it allows you to talk about who you are in some articulate fashion.

I'm not going to bore you all with what my chart says or what the stars are supposed to manifest in my personality, but what is interesting to me is this impulse to know who I am, and its auspicious timing. I feel like issues of identity are up for me right now, with the appearance of another kid on the horizon, and also because in a few weeks I'm going to go to Banning (a place in Palm Desert) on a long car ride with my dad to meet my great aunt Norma -- the oldest living Archer, and a keeper of knowledge of my family history. I don't know very much at all about the Archer side of the family -- I never met my grandfather, because he was a bit of a bastard and left my dad's family when my dad was relatively young -- in high school or just after graduation. Grampa Don (I think his name was Donald) left my grandmother to raise a family of six on her own, met some woman and told her that his family had died in a car accident. Some years later, when she found out the truth, she forbade him to see the family of his past. Anyhow, he was a bit of a shit and never bothered to reach out to my dad until the very end when he was dying of cancer. His children went to see him die, and try to comfort him. I had an opportunity to meet him then, but I truthfully had no interest. I've had a hole in my knowledge about my father's side of the family which has plagued me since I was young, and in truth I've had a hole in my desire to know as well. My dad has told me all sorts of things about my family; who I'm related to, what they did, etc. I never bothered to listen very carefully. My sister knows more than I do. I turns out, I'm 1/8th Dutch. Didn't even know it. No wonder I know how to party!

So, this is a month of introspection and self-exploration. Who am I, as man, son, and father. What is my place in the chain of my descendency. It should be a healing trip, not only for me, but for my dad. He's been trying to get me to go for over a year, and I think it's because he has a need for my reintegration into the family story. I've been removed from that story, self-imposed exile. Perhaps now the warp and weave will be mended, or if not mended, at least made so as not to tear completely clean. I run a real danger of missing an opportunity of knowing my family heritage, as one by one the people who know die away. It's my duty to at least try to carry on their story. They lived entire lives, and it would be a sad shame if all their work and all their experience just fades into oblivion.

Let the personal healing commence.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2663486

I love that people are still attempting to speak truth to power. And it's this sort of shit will continue to happen, from the sides where they don't expect it. How dare they throw such an austentatious party while we have men and women losing their lives in Iraq. Not only is it in bad taste (let them eat cake), but it's fiscally irresponsible. 40 Million dollars (not including security costs) could buy a hell of a lot of armor.

I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like I'm on the fringe of depression. It's either depression, or it's breakthrough. I'm not sure which. I've been withdrawn and introspective and I've also been centered and grounded, but tonight, for some reason, I feel a sadness. Earlier tonight Julie and I had a rough interaction, and that brought up a lot of things for me, like I haven't been feeling very intimate lately, and I feel somehow distanced from my own life. I have a little baby coming in about a month, and maybe that's making me dig inward. I have all this crap that is floating around me, all these obligations, and so much left unfinished. I'm feeling like I need to put this house in order, but I'm unable to reach out and get help. I'm feeling kinda alone in a strange way, but I also can see how I'm feeling at the same time, and I feel myself moving through it. Mostly, I think I'm afraid and I'm in need of connecting with Julie, but I'm having a hard time articulating it, or letting myself move into that space. My issues have always been with intimacy, and my defense mechanism is to shut off. So my fear makes me cold, distanced, some sort of efficiency machine. And of course, this is when Julie needs me the most. But admitting it is the first step, I suppose. In a sense, the depression I am starting to feel is a good sign -- it means my emotional capacity is starting to reconnect. Tomorrow is a new day. I'll make the most of it.

My eyes are barely staying open, so I'm going to make this short and quick. I had some of my best friends come over and hang out for 'Full Moon', or men's group, that we used to do more regularly, but is something we haven't carved the space out for in a long long time. We all reconnected, and shared a bit of what's going on in our life -- this group's work is important, and something we have to reclaim. So, for this entire year I've got all the full moon times recorded, along with their 'names', and this will allow me to make regular party evites as the time grows nigh. Okay, I'm officially babbling now and falling asleep at the wheel, so it's 1:41AM, I'm going backdate this thing, and save it.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about staff attrition.

Evidently Eli has a girlfriend at school. Liza is her name, some cute little Swedish blonde-haired blue-eyed child that worships the earth he walks on. I have yet to meet this little beauty, but it warms my heart that Eli has found a bond with one of his peers. Of course, this is a fleeting fancy and he'll end up marrying Iris or something, but hey, for the time being, this is damned cute. Eli has already proclaimed his intentions of marrying Liza, but we all know what a man will say to get a girl.

I so want pictures of them together.

Are Whoppers diet food?

I could write a long blog tonight, but really it's too late and I'm too tired to be entertaining or meaningful. Check in tomorrow.

I'm not going to blog very long or very interesting tonight -- It's Julie's birthday and we're having a game-night party, and I'm gonna drink wine and play fun games. Talk to you tomorrow!

Tonight I went out with a friend and we spend three hours just writing. I got out 9 pages on a new science fiction story I just started. So far it's in its infant stages, but I think I might have something. I'm just letting the crap flow and I'll go back later and excise and edit. I'm trying to not stop the flow by refusing to look back and correct and nit-pick. Back in high school and college, I would write my papers as first-draft-is-final-draft, spending most of my time going over and over a page until it was just right, before moving on to the next, etc etc. What I've discovered is that you can't write a story (read -- I can't write a story) in one draft, if you want it to be anything other than crap. So, I'm just letting it be crap for now, get all the ideas out on paper, then I'll worry about making it good.

As a teaser, the story is about a 'Black Hole Computer' (Scientific American Dec '04) named 'Stephen', aboard Hawkings Station. That's all I'm saying for now.

The Bush presidency is officially more than half over.

Can we really survive another 4 more years?

Okay... so maybe it's my fault, or maybe it's just a phase, but I just spent a frustrating 30 minutes arguing about pajamas because there were no more super hero pajamas left clean, and Eli would not wear anything else to bed. He's got a whole drawer full of pajamas, but because there's no superman, batman or Incredibles in there, he's just not interested. Finally, we settled on turning his skeleton pajamas inside out so he'd look like Darth Vader.

I got a little frustrated with the whole ordeal, and maybe was a little hard with him, but when you've got 15 pairs of clean pajamas laid out around you, and none of them satisfy your cranky son who's a half-hour past his bedtime, it can be a little rough on the nerves. What I do realize is, it's time to buy the boy some more pajamas. I mean shit, you're only a kid once, and if you can't have a whole drawer full of superhero pajamas at 4, when can you? I want to get him everything -- batman, superman, green lantern, whatever. I always wanted underoos as a kid, but my parents couldn't afford them, and I've never quite recovered.

It's amazing to what depths you find yourself falling in the futile quest to get anything with chlorophyl down your child's mouth. Tonight I find myself participating in this dialog:

Me: "Eli, have you ever heard of Popeye?"

Eli: "poop-eye?"

Me: "No, Popeye. He's a sailor."

Eli: "Poop-eye? What kind of sailor is Poop-eye?"

Me: "Popeye is a good guy, and you know what? He's got super powers."

Eli: "What kind of super powers?"

Me: "Popeye gets super powers from eating spinach. It makes him strong so he can beat up the bad guys. I love spinach and it gave me super powers too!"

Eli: "What kind of super powers?"

Me: "I'm super smart! But you don't know what powers you get until you try it."

Eli: "Spinach gives you super powers?! How?"

Me: "Well, there's special stuff in spinach called vitamins and minerals that give you super powers. Spinach has calcium which gives you strong bones..."

Eli: "strong bones?!"

Me: "yeah! and it has iron in it which gives you strong blood, and makes you not get tired as easily. And it has vitamin A to give you super vision!"

Eli: "What's super mean?"

Me: [pause] "Super means much more than normal"

Eli: "What's a power?"

Me: "A power is the ability to do something."

Eli: "What's a super power?"

Me: "It's the ability to do something way better than other people"

Eli: "What super power does spinach give you?"

Me: "You can't tell until you try."

Eli: "Will it make me fast?"

Me: [pause] "Yeah, sure" (at this point, I know I'm so going to hell)

Eli: "Okay. I'll try it."

Me: "Great!"

Eli: "Will it make me fast like a Cheetah?"

Me: "You can never tell."

Eli: "Faster than Dash?"

Me: "Try it and find out" (I AM SO GOING TO HELL!)

Eli tries it a bit, and doesn't spit it out, but he's wondering when the powers kick in....

Eli: "Am I fast?"

Me: "You might need more than a little bite."

Eli takes another small bite.

Me: "Try a bigger bite"

Eli takes a large bite, but he kinda gags on it and spits it out.

Me: "That's cool, at least you tried it."

Eli: "Am I fast now?"

Me: "Well, go give it a try!"

At this point, Eli starts to run around the house pretty fast, and of course I give him the kudos he's desiring...

Me: "I think you are a bit faster. I guess you'll just have to try it later in the future to get even faster!"

Yes, I totally manipulated my son into eating spinach, and it worked... this time. He only had two very small bites, but it's a start, and I'm so proud of him for giving it a shot. If you ask me, he did get super powers -- the powers of super cuteness. I hope he forgives me in therapy twenty years from now.

I have all these things I can blog about today, but the one thing that keeps coming back is I feel this itchiness in my lungs that I think is related to accidently breathing in some crazy-ass yellow mold that I found in-between the redwood facing and the support beam on the front of the garage. It's totally gross, and it has eaten a good portion of the wood away in the beam. Sometime over a week ago I had a contractor come in and assess what I assumed to be bad beam damage in the front of the garage, and his reaction was at first -- it's probalby just cosmetic, no big deal. He removed one of the covers on one of the beams to uncover extensive rot and termite damage. So, we had to splice and replace a portion of that beam, but the other should be fine. Earlier today we had a peek at the other of the main two beams, and we found live termites and rot. My curiousity got the better of me, and I peeled back the facings on the main cross beam only to find piles of yellow mold, termite activity, and large chunks of rotted wood. I haven't told the contractor yet, but he'll see it tomorrow when he comes to work on the garage. I'll leave him a note to make sure. So while looking, maybe I breathed some in. Maybe I'm just paranoid and I'm having a psychosomatic reaction. In any case, I had a puff of asthma medicine, and the feeling has subsided a bit. What hasn't subsided is the sinking feeling that we'll have to spend thousands of dollars on fixing the garage beams, and I hope there isn't hidden damage elsewhere.

Tonight Julie and I went out to dinner with Serena, Eric and Jesse to a restaurant in the City called 'The Elite', which serves awesome Cajun-style food. The place looks a lot like Galatoire's in New Orleans, without as many layers of paint or as much grime, and everyone is dressed in white outfits with bowties and vests -- totally southern style. The service was awesome, and the food... incredible. I had six fresh oysters to start (three from california, three from washington) which were totally amazingly fresh and delicious. They didn't serve with Minionette (only horse radish and red cocktail sauce) which was a bit annoying, but they were delicious nonetheless. Julie got popcorn shrimp, and I had a few of those as well -- they came with a really nice remoulade that was fairly mild, but big on flavor. After that, I had a cup of gumbo, because you always have to try the gumbo, and it was really delicous. The roux was nice and toasty without being burnt, and the ingredients were stewed to a soft goodness. There was chicken, shrimp, sausage and fresh oysters in the gumbo, and the oysters in particular were mouth-watering. After this, we had a reprieve as our stomachs adjusted for the main course onslaught. I got the jambalaya with duck confit, and it was by far the best jambalaya I have *ever* had, hands down. I didn't finish it, and I'm looking forward to the left-overs tomorrow. The duck confit was crunchy and salty and perfect, and was the perfect compliment to the smoky flavors of the jambalaya. I ate way past where I should and I paid for it later, because after the main course we had bread pudding with bourbon sauce that was so sugary sweet that my teeth literally ached. Julie and I shared one between the two of us, and despite a valiant effort on both our parts, we did not finish it. We were both bloated like overfed pigs, and as we waddled to the car, I realized once again just how much of a food junkie I am. If food is a drug, tonight was an exquisite binge on the best crack that money can buy.

Vive le gastronome!

Sometimes fame works exactly the way you want it to. You go to a concert or a movie and you are entertained with what the famous person is doing. He or she does their job, you pay your transaction for the experience, you are entertained, you go home satisfied.

Sometimes, however, fame backfires and what you really just want is connection, but fame gets in the way.

Last night I went out to the city with Julie and Matt and I had a double-whammy of fame backfire. First we went out to see Wil Wheaton sign at the Borders on Union Square. I've been following Wil for a while now, a couple of years at least since my friend John at work turned me on to his web site, and I picked up his book 'Dancing Barefoot' at the 2003 Open Source Convention in Portland. I got a chance to meet him briefly when he was signing on the sales floor at the convention, and I got all tongue-tied because fame does that sort of thing to your interactions, and I just didn't know what to say to him in a signing line other than 'I love your book, man!'. What a dork! I saw him a week later at the San Diego Comic Convention, in a writer's panel, and I felt similarly like a dork when I rose my hand to say 'you're a great writer!' or some other silly nonsense. the truth was, I wanted to tell him 'your stories tell me how much we are alike, and as much as you feel a need to tell the public who you are, I feel a need to tell you I am like you.' But, really, why should he care? Anyhow, a couple years later now, I'm at a signing last night for his book "Just a Geek", which I got and read last year when it came out, and it's like a repeat of the entire experience, except now I'm not nervous and clammy, but I definitely don't get out what I want to get out. There's this intense pressure to communcate in that brief slice of time you've got in line, and I had been standing in this frickin' line for so long, I already felt lame and pathetic. I had just stood in a line for an hour to get Wil's signature on a book, which I really didn't care about at all. I just wanted a moment of his time. I wanted to connect. Why should I really care? I don't know. I mean, maybe it's because he likes all the same things I do, and he's involved in stuff I think is incredibly cool. I fumbled about a bit, told him I love his writing, that I felt he had honesty, integrity, wit and sensitivity, I jerked him off a bit, and finished with a 'do you play Pirates of the Spanish Main?' To which he says, yeah, I play that with Nolan all the time! (or what is Ryan?). I tell him I've got good wind rules, and I'll send them to him, and we connect briefly. Julie of course, saves my cheese and does the great 'you're an awesome father' line, which of course he loves. Who wouldn't, after all? Anyhow, I leave happy that I connected briefly, but feeling a little hollow. It's stupid, but I'd really like to be Wil's friend. I sense a kindred spirit, and I find myself wishing he was never in Star Trek, that he wasn't famous in any way, because he'd be totally cool to hang out with. But, no -- I'm glad he's had those experiences. They make him who he is, and they belong to him. It's his success, and there are so few people who are cool like him in a position to collect on fame and success. I just am outside that circle for now. I told him I'm writing a Sci-fi comic, and when it's done I'd like to send him a copy. Geez, am I pathetic or what? But you know, Wil really is a cool guy, and I'm glad he's out there speaking geek-to-power for the rest of us.

I left the signing with Matt and went over to Cafe Du Nord for a concert of my friends' Matt and Mike from Excite for their band, Oranger. We get there late, and they're selling out of tickets. Matt and I get two of the last three tickets for the show. We get in there, and I weasel up to the front of the stage to say hi to my old friends from Excite. I wear my Excite hockey jersey for a laugh, figuring they'll appreciate it. I see Mike setting up, and I grab him pretty quick to say hi. I give him a hug, but he seems really busy because of course he is, so I say I'll catch up with him after the show. I don't manage to get Matt's attention at all. Matt (who came with me) and I settle in for what turns out to be a short set -- they only play 8 songs. It's part of some collection of bands, and they didn't have a lot of time to play. They went on at 11pm and were off the stage at 11:45. We hang out at the front, trying to get Matt or Mike's attention to say hi. I manage to bump into Matt, and he says 'hey' while carrying stuff off the stage. Later I grab him to ask if I can buy him a beer or something, he says 'I'm okay for now', and goes back in. We wait for a while longer, and it becomes obvious that they're not coming back out, so I decide it's time to clear out of there. Some other band is coming on next, but I didn't come for the music. I came to say hi to some old friends from work, which evidently wasn't going to happen. Too much time had passed, and they were no longer interested, or just too overwhelmed or busy to make it a priority to spend a moment with me.

So, I cleared out with Matt and we ended up at 'Amber', a bar around the corner from Du Nord, where our friend Marcus works. I figured, at least Marcus will treat us nice and give us some of that attention I'm looking for. Of course, It's his night off so Matt and I have a drink and then I have had enough of the evening. I'm getting tired, I know I have to get up the next day, and I just have felt like I've had a couple of odd experiences I want to put behind me.

It's then, that I look over at Matt and realize he's been part of this adventure with me, and wow -- here's this other person with whom I connect very readily with and who isn't too distracted to spend time with me, and who knows me for me and not some crazy 'I'm your biggest fan' guy in the signing line. We're almost home, and I tell him to take a detour and we drive up a hill near my house that overlooks the valley, and I just spend a moment appreciating Matt. Here's this really good friend that I have, and who I don't spend nearly enough time with but it doesn't matter, because he appreciates me and I appreciate him and we connect readily.

It's in this moment that I realize that I don't care about famous people at all because of their fame. It's just part of that same bit about me that makes me make all sorts of friends, to try to keep too large a stable of folks around me, and why I get upset if I feel like some of my friends haven't been giving me the love and affection that I desire. Whenever I see someone I feel kinship with in any way, I feel an instant impulse to try to connect. I guess that's common, but I wonder how many people see that impulse for what it is. The biggest problem is, you only have so much time in your life and so much space, and you have to make choices of where you put your energies. I'll probably never get to be friends with people like Wil not because he's famous and I'm not -- he's already proven time and time again he doesn't really care much about that shit -- but because we're both way to busy in our own lives to make room for another person, without extenuating circumstances. So, I give a nod in his direction, and I'll send him the wind rules for Pirates (which were co-designed by Chuck, and I will give proper attribution), and I will just let go of my irrational desire to befriend him. If our paths cross again, then fantastic -- I'll reach out and have that single-serving connection. If circumstances put us in the same circle for some reason, great. I will be satisfied he's out there doing his thing, as I am here doing mine. I've got plenty of people to hang out with, and really I don't have time for many more.

Okay, it's just too freakin' cute!

check it out here

I'm watching that goofy movie Hackers, and aside for really bad tech and acting, it's very entertaining. Angelina Joli is sexy with short hair and bad 80's make-up.

(photo courtesy of Adrienne Rappaport)

Okay, so maybe it was a circle inside the square. I was awed, and lost all rationality.

This is that row of shuffles I was telling you about.

Adrienne turned me on to this livejournal community called 'uberlists' where people create a list of x things to accomplish in year y, where x is y - 1900, if you follow me. This is my list:

1. Drop my weight below 200 lbs.
2. Read twelve books (at least six of which are fiction, and two of which are poetry books)
3. Finish six comic scripts.
4. Produce one finished comic issue
5. Write six poems
6. Write one short story
7. Publish something
8. Send letters to all those people that still send me cards and I never reply.
9. Start or join a writing group in earnest.
10. Take a writing class.
11. Start counting points again.
12. Set up a new style sheet for my blog.
13. Find out more about my heritage.
14. Get involved in voter reform, in specific trying to enact a initiative on the ballot to require a paper record of every vote.
15. Blog every day.
16. Do yoga every day.
17. Write morning notes every day.
18. Organize my life better.
19. Spend one day every month balancing my finances.
20. Go to APE
21. Go to Wondercon
22. Go to San Diego Comic Con
23. Finish all my web page obligations before Isaac is born
24. Do something with housegame.net this year.
25. Do something with yaboogie.com this year.
26. Do something with the brothersdigital.com site this year.
27. Read a news source every day.
28. Do full moon every month.
29. Hold a poker game every month.
30. Take more pictures at least one a month, and post on my blog.
31. Write one political blog entry a month.
32. Start up a board game night on a semi-regular basis.
33. Get something nice for Julie for after Isaac is born.
34. Fully digitize my music selection at high (enough) quality, and put it on the network.
35. Read the latest Neil Stevenson trilogy.
36. Finish this list before January 15th.
37. Build a wooden play structure for the kids in the back yard.
38. Create an online menu / dieter's database for family and friends.
39. Put together a professional website for Julie's painting.
40. Put together a website for Emily's baskets.
41. Put together a website for Various & Sundries.
42. Acquire enough hosting clients to break even on the server.
43. Start waking up early enough to get done all my morning tasks (and/or start doing them the night before)
44. Drink a glass of water a day.
45. Make six music mix cd's for friends.
46. Keep good business records.
47. Stay more up to date on the blogs that I read.
48. Organize my gaming stuff.
49. Start some sort of physical sporting activity.
50. Learn 3 songs on my guitar.
51. Play with Garage band.
52. Mix a techno song.
53. Finish creating digital versions of the mix tapes Julie and I have accumulated across the years.
54. Make a short film.
55. Finish the trim around the door in the garage.
56. Finish the ceiling trim and floor trim in the garage.
57. Finish out the area around the fridge and furnace in the library.
58. Finish the garage work area.
59. Learn six new recipes.
60. Install the gate on the side yard.
61. Buy a book off of audible.com.
62. Watch (and participate in) my second son being born.
63. Listen to one book-on-media a month.
64. Do something on an open mic night.
65. Go see Alana in one of her comedy shows.
66. Record off all of the movie footage of Eli before Isaac is born.
67. Write a song.
68. Learn about Garage Band.
69. Learn how to produce flash animations.
70. Get more sleep (6+ hours a night, if not 8).
71. Go to one new place I've never been before.
72. Eat one new thing I've never eaten before.
73. Meet my Aunt Norma.
74. Go to New York again.
75. Make a ren faire costume for Eli.
76. Make Dickens faire costumes for the family.
77. Do my freakin' taxes.
78. Play more games.
79. Look into the Masters in Education program at SSU.
80. Listen to more music in my life.
81. Go out to live music at least every other month.
82. Do a Tarot reading for myself once a week.
83. Increase my strength.
84. Buy an iMac mini to become our new media center.
85. Update my website.
86. Visit the gym at least twice a week, but aim for 4 times a week.
87. Write a science-fiction story (any length).
88. Go to the movies once a month.
89. Make more sushi.
90. Make a basket.
91. eBay all the stuff in the office that needs to be eBay'd.
92. Finish putting together computer for Serena and Eric.
93. Clean the rugs professionally before the baby is born.
94. Get window coverings for the kitchen windows.
95. Get passport renewed.
96. Get a physical.
97. Do something about my high blood pressure.
98. Brew something every other month.
99. Meditate every day in some way.
100. Take vitamins.
101. Get more sleep.
102. Have a garage sale.
103. Restore the garden.
104. Paint a picture.
105. Take a drawing class.

This is my new media center:

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

bluetooth wireless keybaord and hooked to the TV, this is my drop-in replacement for the 400-disc cd changer.

Great, so now staying up late is making me fat!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/01/11/sleep.weight.loss.reut/index.html

Joshua wakes up at 6:15 AM, realizing he's fallen asleep next to his wife instead of getting back up again to finish his blog before midnight, but feels no regrets. He merely gets out of bed, takes a quick shower, throws on some clothes and then climbs into the glass-and-steel contraption he keeps in the secret room of the house. After a pull of a few levers and a twist of a few knobs, the machine is set to take him back to 11:50 PM the night before. The lights dim as he presses the large red 'GO' button in the middle of the vehicle. A bit of a blur and the machine's whine slows and falls silent. The room is dark, as is the rest of the house. He must have been successful. He checks the clock on the kitchen oven -- 11:50 PM. Perfect, he has just enough time to post a quick blog before the midnight deadline and thus preserving his streak for the year. Or at least his ego.

I'm hanging out on Sunday evening, trying my hardest to forget it's a work day tomorrow, and chilling with my good friends Ian and Lisa. It's nice that they've been hanging out a lot more these days, and it's great we can just hang out together on a night before a school day and just try to deny reality for a few hours longer. Most people wouldn't want to give their Sunday evening over to anything but trying to get ready for the week. Sure there's stuff not getting done, but I can guarantee we're enjoying our Sunday much more than most people. Ian is one of my best friends from since I was seventeen, and we've lived a lot of our lives together. It's been an awesome ride of self-and-other-exploration, and we're still deep in it, but instantly able to reconnect again, to remind ourselves that we started this whole ride together. Lisa I've known since college, and she and I have a tremendously close connection -- not a surprise, really considering our common link. But Lisa was one of those girls who when I met her, I pretty much could have date her / fallen for her, if the stars were adjusted slightly differently. She's crazy and irreverent and spiritually connected and totally intense and present. She loves to party harder than anyone else I know, and she loves to play with my son. I'm so glad she's stayed in my life, and in particular as the wife of my best friend.

Thanks guys, for being you!

Tonight I went to Fremont to spend the evening with my mother, since it was her 50th birthday (let's just pause to say OH MY GOD, my mom's only 50!), and driving through town evoked the same emotion it always seems to evoke, those of strange nostalgia, like I'm driving through the shadows of my past.

Okay, it's far too late for me to be waxing philosophic. I'll talk more on the subject tomorrow if i remember.

Tonight I'm in Sacramento, at my good friend Chuck's house, so I don't have a lot of time I want to commit to my blog tonight, but a commitment is a commitment, so here I am inputting my .02 for the day.

First cent - On my way up there was a helicoptor cop shining his lights on the highway and around on the road, and for a brief moment (a second or two) the light was on my car. It was the strangest feeling, I felt like a fugative.

Second cent - I had a interesting musing on the way up on how certain professions are undervalued, such as writing, singing, basically much of the arts, mostly out of the arrogance of the common person to thing that just because they have the ability to do rudimentary art, that they are an artist. A person with a good voice who took a few classes of choir in high school is not a singer. A person who got A's in English class is not a writer. There is a great deal of effort and commitment and training and pain that goes into becoming an artist that is completely overlooked by the general populous, but because the best work is so accessible, the work behind it is often not seen.

That's it, I'm off to play with my friends!

I am frustrated with work right now. For the last few weeks, but really for the last few months I've felt totally over my head. I'm working in an environment of classes and frameworks and products and platforms that I just don't fully understand. I've barely got a handle on it all, and I've been working on the same goddamn bug for 2 or 3 weeks. Basically, I feel like a joke, and it's only because I lack the experience to properly be effective in this environment. I know logically what needs to happen, but we're writing in frameworks whose logic eludes me. I'm like a child that can hold an adult's hand and watch the adult do things, but as soon as the adult goes away, I'm at a loss for how to do anything myself.

I know, it's all dire and doom, but the truth is -- I'm drowning. We have a demo in mid-February to make, and I'm seriously questioning whether or not we're gonna make it. I thought we'd be so much farther along than we are, and tomorrow we're gonna have a developer team meeting that's going to put my weakness out for the world to see. When I'm the only developer working on the project, the project doesn't advance. I just don't have the knowledge to work by myself. I need lots of hand-holding, and there's no time for me to come up to speed. I'm really good at direction action, and figuring out the higher-level design issues, but really -- the code is a complete mystery. If things were in a more familiar language, I'd know exactly what to do -- and that's what's so frustrating to me. The code looks overly complex to me, and highly inefficient, and it's mostly because I don't understand a single thing of what's going on. The main developer that created most of the code and frameworks is a undeniable genius. Unfortunately, he's gone in Hong Kong, and has been for weeks. The other excellent programmer who knows this stuff like 10 times better than I do (yes, you do D'Arcy) has been swamped with other pressing concerns. That's pretty much left me to fend for myself, and it hasn't been pretty. I literally spend hours staring at the screen, unable to move forward, not even knowing where to start.

It sucks.

Alright, on the way in to work today I was listening to NPR and Forum was doing a program on the prison system, and on child offenders, or some such story, and I got this brilliant idea, which I am almost ashamed of, but in a certain way, it makes sense.

There are two simultaneous problems that are plaguing the United States that could possible help solve each other, with a little bit of creative thinking. One of the major problems that we face as a society today is a disproportionate amount of people in our prison system. We have to feed, clothe, and house these people at a sum of over $60k a year per person. Not only that, but these individuals are held in conditions that are almost assuredly guaranteed not to rehabilitiate them. Many of these offenders are first-time offenders, or repeat offenders of non-violent or victimless crimes (such as possession of controlled substances). Many of these criminals are young, in their late teens, early to mid twenties, and look forward to a lifetime of repeated incarceration and deeper and deeper institutionalization and training in violent and criminal behaviors. Let's face it, our prison system sucks, and it's bleeding us dry.

The second problem that is facing our nation in this time of war is a lack of volunteers in our army. We are in a state where we have been forced to call in our national guard, a force which is traditionally used to defend our own personal borders, to refit them as regular troops and ship them off to Iraq. Those who are serving, are serving terms in excess of six months, many over a year, with no real sign that this is about to change. This is what many are calling the 'backdoor draft', and let me tell you, with four more years of Bush in office, it's not going to end any time soon. If anything, we can look forward to a real possibility of a draft of our youth in the next year or two, if conditions continue as they are today.

Now, I know many can already see where I'm going with this, and before you brand me a looney, just hear me out. Why don't we take those who are sentenced to prison, an environment that is almost assured to further ruin the lives of those who have made transgressions against the law, and enlist them as regulars in our armed forces. There are several merits to this idea, namely cost reduction to our national debt, increase of the morale of our current troops, increase of the future prospects of the offenders, and a general increase of the national welfare.

First, the amount that it takes to recruit an armed force plus train them, and pay them for their service to our country is way cheaper than what it takes to keep someone in prison, and even if it worked out to be equivalent, you're not having to pay this amount twice if you take a person out of the prison system and put them into the armed forces. Plus, the average prisoner contributes absolutely nothing to the general welfare or economy (save those few individuals making license plates or really uncomfortable school desks), but an enlisted troop in the armed forces provides a tremendous value to the safety and security of our citizens at home and abroad, not to mention the amount of oil they can secure for use towards the American way.

Second, the armed forces are famous for taking individuals from many different walks of life, stripping them of their individuality, and rebuilding them as a member of a unit, completely loyal and devoted, subservient to commands of superiors, generally well-respected cogs in our great society. When someone enters the prison system, they are release into the world generally in a worse condition than when they enter. When someone enters the military, they are release into the world in a generally more subservient and useful member of society, with a sense of loyalty to the common weal, and skills learned on the job that they can employ in the work force. We would be bettering society, protecting our borders, increasing our oil flow into our country, and all at a cheaper cost than it takes to send folks to prison now.

Now, I know this idea has some kinks, but I'm sure they can be worked out. You wouldn't want to send your most violent of offenders into the ranks (unless they're grunts on the front lines), and you wouldn't want entire platoons of soldiers from the prison system. You would embed those serving time 'for their country' into already existing groups of volunteers. But seriously, you could reduce the prison population by half, and give those people a sense of self-respect and a real future. You would be, in effect, saving their lives. Not to mention, some are likely to die in combat, so its even cheaper than calculated costs. They would die heroes, instead of living like animals. Go ahead, find flaws in my argument, but you all know deep down inside that this is a good idea. The problem is, it would never fly with the public. People have all sorts of confused ideas about what is right and wrong, and there are those on the right that would say the criminals don't deserve to get off so easily. There are those on the left that would say the criminals shouldn't be forced into the military. Fine, make it voluntary. And if they act up or out, their prison sentence is doubled. It's just the details now, people. This is a really good idea. Or perhaps I've just had too much coffee today and I'm trying to dodge work.

...by the way, you all know I'm full of sh1t, right?

I'm on a quest to put a blog entry a day into here for the entire year -- even if it's nonsensical and gibberish (and let me tell you, some days it will be), you'll have something to read every single day. I even have a fantasy of having themed days (monday political forum, tuesday music review, etc.) but let's not get ahead of ourselves. One entry a day, that's my commitment. If I miss it, you can spank me. Hell, you can spank me anyways, as long as you are wearing leather.

Crack site of the week: allofmp3.com. if you like cheap (but legal) music (and when I say legal, I mean of questionable legal status but not shut down and in business so get 'em while they're hot), then this is the site for you. Limit yourself to $10 to begin with.

So last night at 2am Eli wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to 'snuggle' with us, which sounds cute, but really is annoying when you want to get some sleep and you know that all 'snuggling' will end up being is hours of fidgeting and kicking and lost sleep for everyone, so of course we say now. Eli proceeds to throw a tantrum, which causes me to get 'tough' with him and tell him to get to his room. I of course go and spend time with him, and comfort him and give him some love before returning to bed, but it definitely brings up both guilt and sadness in me. Why shouldn't I snuggle up with my boy as much as I possibly can, while I can? I mean, the topic of Julie being 7 months pregnant and needing her sleep aside, how many nights do you have available to you to snuggle up with a cute little child? Not enough, I can tell you that.

Okay, the truth is out. I weighed myself in at 236 this morning. That's just unacceptable. Tomorrow I start my points counting in earnest. I just need a device for storing said points. I've decided to use this as an excuse to purchase a new palm device, also because I can get them 1/2 price through work, and my current palm will not work with my current computer (damn those serial ports!).

Tonight I had my last scoop of Haagen Daaz for a while. Hear the mournful tones strain.

I am well into the 40's on my list of 105 things for 2005. Maybe I'll finish up sometime this week.

Tomorrow I head back to work after a week off - and I use the word 'off' in the most liberal of senses. I didn't have to go to my day job, but I certainly didn't get any time off. Ugh. ANYHOW...

I need to go to the gym tomorrow.

As part of an exercise in creative future planning, I've joined a group on live journal where the participants make lists of things they plan on doing in the next year. This year it's 105 things for 2005, and it's a daunting process. The first thing on my list, however, is to drop my weight below 200 lbs. I've packed on about 15 lbs over the last few months, and it's not a happy sight. It's hard giving up the vacation eating, because -- let's face it, it tastes good, and it's easy. Eating low-calorie can be difficult, especially when you're living with a pregnant lady and an almost four year old. But, I refuse to climb back up the weight ladder, so it's time to start counting my points again. I briefly considered doing another juice fast as well, and still might, but I am not feeling the particular motivation to start it just yet. So, starting effective tomorrow (Sunday) I'll start counting points again.