June 2005 Archives

they make the bagpipes music en españa!

it's... way cool.

farghlgh!!!!

set out to do 4mi and stopped a little after 2.

my shoes suck.

well, not my shoes. my feet suck. they don't fit my shoes. i need new ones. i could have pushed on but i don't want to be injured or even sore for this weekend's trip. i'm still sore from last weekeend's 15 miler, and monday's squats. i still plan to squat tomorrow night, but i'm less likely to be injured by that than by running in these shoes that don't fit quite right.

blegh. i wanted to do 4.

restless i churn
i hurt
i miss you

loaded up my new backpack to see how i came in.

i ended up with about the same or more (40lbs with no water) as my last overnighter. that's lots, eh. i'm not sure what i can cut back on. let's guess:

coffee grinder: prolly 1-2lbs
bear vault: 2lbs
1st aid kit: 1-2lbs
tevas: 3-5lbs
rain fly: 2lbs

that's uh... 9-11 lbs. BUT this pack is so nicely balanced and fit that it makes it feel about 20lbs lighter than the ALICE pack.

i spose if i was a brave man i could ditch the tent for a bivy or even just a mosquito net and save 4-5 lbs.

going backpacking this 4th o july weekend. made the camp res only today. it's a real simple-like trip as far as planning is concerned. only one night, there and back from state park parking lot. 10-12 miles for each of "there" and "back". it's my second backpacking trip ever.

i'll be filtering my own water.

i'm going by myself because i have no friends.

i'll probably die or catch a waterborne disease and wish i'd died.

should be fun.

naturally, when i wear my kilt folks ask me if i'm scottish (oddly, they never seem to ask if i'm irish).

as it happens, i do have some scottish heritage on my dad's side. i'm not sure who estabilished this, but it was probably my mom, who was very much into genealogy when i was younger. apparently my dad's line can be traced back to nova scotia and the clan maclean, though I haven't the faintest idea how the lineage goes. i certainly couldn't tell you the maiden name of my dad's grandmother.

my mom could.

according to pa, we can trace us back to nova scotia and somehow connect us to maclean, but no further, due to a courthouse fire that destroyed the records.

This has been on my mind a lot, lately. I may find myself involved in genealogical research as a result of my seattle-made kilt. heh.

friend-o-mine proudly informed me last night that he'd recently deadlifted 225.

great jorb, yo! way to go.

the only thing cooler than lifting that big iron is looking back at it and thinking how light it is.

soon enough you'll be lifting 225 for warmup reps, friend-o-mine.

i miss having a dog.

no, honest, I do.

after 4 days of a-kilting, today i wore trousers.

i think now i really understand the UK slogan "we sell freedom".

i just finished the 2nd book in the "dune" series.

i know i read "dune" in HS and may have read the 2nd one too. i dont remember much of it from then.

but the books (the first more so than the 2nd) are quite gripping and involving. for me, at least.

now i get nervous when i see people wasting water.

maury_cohen : i h1xx0r3d 15.5 miles this weekend
maury_cohen : and the feeling is finally coming back to my toes
b********m : hixxored?
b********m: that's a word?
b********m : heh
maury_cohen : yeah, it's like hiking
maury_cohen : only more 1337
b********m : h8xx0r3d i'm f8m1ll18r w1th
b********m : but h1xx0r3d?
maury_cohen : it's wh47 3y3 d0 wh3n n07 h4xx0r1ng

my boss was visibly disturbed today when i offered "because i'm airing it out" as my reason for not wearing the kilt today.

actually, i washed it, too. gonna be wrinkled when i wear it in tomorrow. it says to drip-dry, we'll see how that goes.

time only to act

oregon guy says my suspenders make me look like a logger.

i was aiming for fireman, but at least i no longer look like a "software engineer".

i wonder what he'll think the kilt makes me look like?

oh, right: "idiot".

okay, my boots suck.

or my socks maybe.

it's the boots. they look tough and they feel okay for work, but they're not hiking boots.

my toesies are all swollen and numb feeling. i dont think they're actually swollen, they just feel that way. bleh.

(un)fortunately, rei is having a big sale. har.

maybe i should have used a little sunscreen today.

no worries, it's not as if i come from families with histories of cancer.

oh... right.

i always have. bagpipes make me feel happy. ready for battle. alive.

tragically, i don't have a large collection of bagpipe music. that's going to change.

my long love for the pipes plays some small part in my comfort in a kilt, I'd say. all the better.

o|< (<--- me in my kilt)

hm. maybe i need a new category.

shazam!!!!!

there we go.

now, as i was saying:

best hike evar!!!!111

this was the one I meant to do last week: black mountain trail to page mill and back. 15.5 miles (the GPS read 15.3 at the end of it all, but it had crapped out several times along the way, and additionally, as a bodybuilder/weightlifter, I am accustomed to inflating my numbers).

it was not an uneventful hike.

i brought 4 liters of the clear stuff this time, and that was just about right. instead of the abominable honey-mooseturd-ham subway footlong all at once, i brought 3 PB&J sandwiches and ate 2 of them at different points along the route. that was far better on the old blood and guts.

the weather was fantastic. arrived at the trailhead at 11am, same as last time. a little cloudy. enough for me to pack my fleece but not wear it. better to have it and not need it, i figured, than to need it and not have it -- like last time. turns out i didn't need it this time because the clouds kept the temp just right and let the sun come through at the right moments. it was swell. super swell.

the first 5 miles were rough, like last time. lots of uphill. not much to look at. not much shade. but i wasn't bored because i somehow managed to make a hiking buddy.

yeah, i know: i go out there for the solitude and the exercise and not to chit-chat with my fellow trailwalkers. when i started at the trailhead, there were 2 folks (not together) ahead of me. i went back for a piece of gum and they got even further ahead of me. well, along with all the rest of my incredible attributes, the good lord saw fit to bless me with a pretty good pair of legs and a set of lungs that manage to perform pretty well when they're not choked up with allergy fleggm.

(yes, I know how to spell "phlegm".)

so there i was, hikety-hiking up the hill in monstro strides with the accompanying loud and heavy breathing. i passed one hiker. i came up close to the other and then our paces kind of matched. i hate that. it happens on the trail, on my bike, when i'm running, all the time. if i pass them, will i be able to stay in front, or will they pass me again and make me feel all awkward? if i expend the energy to pass them will i get all loud and sweaty and then have to stop for a rest and get passed and then do it all over again?

yeah. well, there's not much else to think about out there.

so as i passed, one of us struck up a conversation, and by the time we reached the backpack camp, the following facts had emerged :

- she lives in sf
- according to the bike ranger, MROSD has openings for rangers
- she knows what poison oak looked like, and now i do too
- "scree" is the kind of loose gravel that you find near the tops of mountains such as kilimenjaro (which she's ascended) or whitney (which she's ascending next weekend) and is not a lot of fun to walk through
- the both of us would really prefer park ranger type jobs if such jobs paid anywhere close to our cubicle jobs
- the both of us prefer a nice, fast-paced, challenging hike to a slow, scenic, nature-walk
- i don't have a lot of confidence in my ability to correctly spell "scenic"
- neither of us approve of the facking horrid Trump Casino on I10 near palm springs
- many technical details about national parks, leeches, poison oak, hiking, backpacking, waterproof boots, REI, and outdoor bathrooms
- she wasn't planning to go as far as the backpack camp
- she had actually been to the backpacking camp previously but hadn't realized it until we arrived there
- i am evidently a stroger hiker than she, and not terribly good at hiding it. on the other hand, i'm not the one backpacking up whitney next week. still, it's swell to find out that i'm in pretty good hiking shape after doing it for only a couple of months.
- in addition to poison ivy, the east coast has leeches. ick.

at the black mountain backpack camp we stopped to use the john and i ate my first PB&J sangwich. as I was planning to go to page mill road before turning back, we parted ways. upon reaching page mill, i consumed my second PB&J.

i went a little bit past the parking lot until the GPS said 7.5 miles. then i turned back. not a lot happened on the way to or from the lot, although a lot of scenic scenery was seen. a helicopopter passed noisily overhead. i began to become tired.

when i reached the backpack camp (and hence, the end of the uphill portion of the trip) it turns out that the helicopopter was a medevac chopper. there were about 3-4 ranger/fire vehicles, and no fewer than 10 emergency and park personnel present. the rangers had blocked off the trail so hikers wouldn't be decapitated by the chopper while they evacuated a mountain biker who had taken a spill and broken... something. a bystander said "leg" but I suspect it doesn't take that many people and that much time (the chopper was there at least 15 minutes before i arrived and 10 minutes after) to evac a dude with a broken leg. i'm guessing "spine" or "neck" was broken.

anyhow, the ranger directed me to a detour which I am pretty sure added a half mile to my trip. i praised the patron saint of satellites (saint newton) that I had a gps when i arrived at a fork and couldn't tell which way to go. my gps breadcrumbs showed the way.

i ran down most of the steep bits. it just feels better and more stable than walking, i dunno why. i never see anyone else doing it.

somewhere along the way i had a clif bar (finally diminished my vast collection). i drank lots of water. i got angry at noisy hikers that i was unable to outdistance.

my feet began to really hurt. i may have to get honest to graud "hiking boots" and "hiking socks" rather than my combat boots and combat socks. i guess hiking != combat.

but it ought to, dammit.

somewhere along the way, i thought to myself: hey, wouldn't it be cool if my hiking pal left some contact info on my car? she saw which one i got out of (it was parked next to her massive jeep).

when i got back to my car, tired, sore, and glad to be done, there was a park map under my wiper. "mike - if you ever need a hiking buddy, call <phone number>".

cool.

GAG HALFRUNT (psychologist): in my line of work, ve don't make many friends.
PROSTETNIC VOGON JELTZ : ahhhh, professional detachment.
GAG HALFRUNT : no, ve just haven't got ze knack.

i never really had the knack either, until now. i guess all it takes is to open my pie-hole once in a while.

on the way home, i cranked up the bagpipes.

dig the polka-dot umbrella in the background, ooooh yeah.

"what's with the kilt?"

I heard that, more than once. I didn't want to go into the full answer so I tried out some canned joke replies.

The fact is, it's damned comfy, it looks good on me (imho), it's utilitarian (as the name suggests) and it's damned comfy.

Why wouldn't I want to wear it?

But those are minor reasons. The real reasons I'm wearing it (and will continue to wear it) :

1 - because i want to
2 - because i don't want to

It's part of my ongoing projects to quit being a pansy and do what I want to, fearlessly.

Yeah, I'm wearing a kilt. Yeah, you can call it a skirt if you think that's funny. I don't care. You're the one that has to unzip to take a piss.

It took a bit of courage to wear it. I would never have dared a year ago. I'm pushing the limits of "I don't care what people think." Many people say it but few mean it.

I reckon I have this in common with the body piercers (many of my kilted brethren are heavy piercers, like the chainmail guy on Telegraph). Maybe that's part of what they're about.

I used to be an outcast and then I got over that. Now it seems I want back out, so to speak.

Places I went today with my kilt (i was fackin busy!) :
- goodwill to drop of t-shirts and other bifurcated garments
- work (staff meeting + fire drill == pretty much everyone saw me)
- lunch in redwood city at a shawerma place (tarboush)
- san carlos REI
- the laundry room (to wash t-shirts and other bifurcated garments)
- a restaurant for dinner
- the grocery store
- now I'm off to bart to pick up W

wish i had more places to go... there's always tomorrow =)

W is taking an accelerated Japanese course.

Now when she calls me up I can't tell if it's just bad reception or if she's speaking Japanese at me.

placeholder pic until W comes over and takes some real ones.

HERES ME IN MY KILT!!!!111

what more can i say?

i love it.

pics soon.

picked up a 10pack of DE razors from walgreens. made in the USA. different grade of steel than the German Merkur blades I've been using. about half the price, as well.

i've wanted a local blade source because i don't really enjoy mail ordering consumables. i dont mind ordering soaps and aftershaves because those last months and months and months.

the walgreens brand blades feel different. very different. i'm pretty sure the difference is simply that these blades are duller -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing. it did the job with minimal irritation. i've had better shaves, but not tremendously better with a fresh-from-the-dispensor blade. i'll probably get more of these blades i reckon.

actually, i may have spoken too soon. the cheaper blade seems to have left more stubble. it didn't shave as closely. i reckon that's the way it should be.

maury_cohen : dude
maury_cohen : the apartment office signed for my kilt but didnt leave me a note
b********m : LOL
maury_cohen : and i read the email that said it had shipped
maury_cohen : but didn't even register
b********m : better make sure nobody else wore it first...
maury_cohen : i just re-read it now and thge facker's been sitting in the office since yestersday
maury_cohen : hah
b********m : well
b********m : just make sure you wash it before going commando

i missed my allergy injection.

immunotherapy. been on it for 5 years, never missed a shot as far as i can recall.

i was down to once a month when the allergist informed me that because I'd switched PCPs my insurance would no longer cover shots with him (the allergist). my choices were to switch back to the shitty PCP that I'd just left or go with my new PCP's allergist.

i thought of a third alternative: finish off my last vial of syrum (which would cost me 2-300 buxxors to replace) at 35 bucks a shot (i.e. a month, as i said above) and then quit the shots.

i'm not going to get any more cured than i am now, after five years of this crap.

so i was down to once a month, setting my cell phone to tell me when the next shot should be. it's easy to remember to go in twice a week like i was doing in year 1. harder to remember once a month, especially when i've got a life (which i didn't in year one).

so i forgot. i just realized it yesterday. that explains the burning eyes, the stuffy head, and probably even some of the crappy nights' sleeps i've been having.

so i decided: fuck it. if I go back now they'll drop down the dosage and make me come in once a week for 3 or 4 weeks (hey, I guess i *have* missed a shot before, otherwise i wouldn't know that, right?).

i'm done. i'm as cured as I'm gonna get. my PCP said he'd write me prescriptions for my allegra (without which I am a total invalid) so i have no more use for the allergist. i'll keep my 35 buxxors a month and spend it on kleenex and eyedrops.

and when i say "i'm as cured as i'm gonna get," what I really mean is "not much at all". yeah, i'm better (measurably -- I had them do another skin test last year) than when i started. but i still feel crappy when allergies hit, and they hit me year round. indoors, outdoors, it doesn't matter. and it doesn't help that i like to be outdoors, and that when i'm outdoors i tend to be inhaling deeply (hiking up hills and running). screw it. i decided long ago not to let my allergies keep me inside or in bed. now i'll find out if i'm able to keep my money where my mouth is.

whatever that means.

skip to bottom for EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.

with the sony dead, i went out and got an onkyo HTIB (home theater in a box). the htib was attractive because 1) i've never had a subwoofer and they make a BIG difference 2) i have 5 speakers but most new receivers are 6.1 or 7.1 3) even though the speakers that come with a HTIB are "crappy" by audiophile standards, my speakers were crappy by anybody's standards (they started out crappy and all the times they were dropped probably didn't help -- plus they were likely mis-wired).

so on monday night i went down to frys (because of their return policy) and was pleased to find that they had the system i wanted for 50 bucks off: $350 + tax. they had it in black, too. it fit in my car with lots of praying and help from a friendly fry's employee, and i managed to get it out of my car with even more praying, risking serious injury to my car.

then, risking serious injury to my back, i managed to muscle the 113lb 4.5-ft tall box up to my 2nd floor apartment.

it was relatively easy to set up, though it took me well over 4 hours to do it. i had to unwrap the components, carefully attach the wires, remove all my old crap (speakers, wire (monster cable, wow), unused computer hooked up to the teevee, etc), talk to W on the phone, read through the manual. in the process of hooking it up W suggested (via phone) that i rearrange the room, and I agreed it was a good idea. the old setup was rather poor for a subwoofer and would require buying a speaker stand for the rear center (the "6" in "6.1"). Instead, I moved the couch up against the wall and discovered that the new room configuration freed up a huge amount of space, kept the couch several inches further from the teevee (old setup kept the couch too close to the boob tube), and provided some storage behind the couch (previously there was no "behind" the couch).

i ended up putting some screws in my wall and hanging the rear center upon them. (i found out the next morning that I once again have a neighbor behind that wall, but s/he smokes, so fuck em. it's a center-rear speaker, anyhow, not a subwoofer).

i moved my DVD racks from one side of the room to the other. did i take the dvds off before doing this? hell no! but my collection is now in a seriously funny order -- they were alphabetized across two racks (a-b on top shelf of left rack, b-c on top shelf of the other, c-e on 2nd shelf of left rack, f-i on 2nd shelf of the other, etc), and now the racks are on the wrong side. heh.

but all this is boring. what matters: does the new system rock my socks?

yes, it does.

it was too late to watch a movie when i finished setting it all up. i played a little pink floyd to see if i had all the speakers working (i did). the next morning i watched the good parts of 1977's Star Wars and was impressed by the full sound of my speakers and the good separation. yep, impressed by a $350 system. not a $35,000 system or even a $3,500 system. this $350 system (which costs less than what I paid for just the old receiver) totally blows away my old setup.

last night I watched terminator II and was very impressed. explosions exploded. bullets whizzed. i even noticed things in the film I'd never seen before (when the T1000 is flying the helicopter he's got at least 3 hands: 2 for flying and 1 or 2 for shooting!). Okay, that has very little to do with the sound, but I've seen T2 a bajillion times and never noticed that before.

the system is great. what makes it even greater is that i spent very little money on it (since i likely won't use it much anyhow). what makes it even more greater is that i'm satisfied with the default wiring and won't have to spend $200 on monster cables and banana clips and shit. what makes it even more better greater is that i rearranged the room into a bitchin new configuration. i'm completely satisfied with my purchase.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

if you're in the market for a HTIB and don't consider yourself an audiophile (and dont want to spend a shitload of cash to impress your friends) get the Onkyo HT-S770. it will rocks your socks.

my receiver died last night. i bought it with money from my internship when i was in college : my first (publicly acknowledged) real job. it was almost exactly 6 years old.

my plan then was to get the best receiver i could afford (the de925 fit the bill nicely -- it was sony's top of the line consumer model. and altho i was intending to become an audiophile, i had some good reason to allow a sony into my home at that time. can't remember what it was. oh, right: poverty) and pair it with crappy speakers, then buy real epxensive 2k/speaker speakers when i got a real job.

then when I got the real job i realized i didn't want to spend ridiculous amounts of money on speakers when i could spend it on beer and sushi instead.

so i never upgraded my system, i'm still using the same crap speakers and cables and dvd player and TV that i bought in college. now my college receiver is dead.

i'm considering replacing the whole mess with a HomeTheaterInABox system, such as this (no dvd player -- i'm proud of my 2nd gen panasonic that still more or less works).

what i'd really like to do is just chuck the whole mess and not bother with it anymore. the only time i really watch movies any more is when i'm ill or when i force myself. i haven't been ill enough in a while to watch them and when i forced myself last night, the movie sucked (plus i had no surround sound).

bleh. if i chuck it, what will i do with all my dvds? chuck those too?

tried something new today with the safety-razor: shaved against the grain. lathered up, shaved normally, then re-lathered and went the other way.

if i'd tried that with my mach3 i'd be in major pain right now.

as it is, i'm in minor irritation and have a mighty close shave (with a couple embarassing missed patches, heh).

all hail the mighty safety razor. retro-power, biotch.

rules.

i have just one complaint about openBSD :

their "cp" hasn't got a "-v".

that's all.

oh, and disklabel kinda sucks, too.

other than that, it rules.

yay.

i have a headache and i'm bored and lonesome.

but at least i have a fresh install of my OS.

ever find yourself wishing you could send a sainttoad.com link to someone but the url was too long, and you didn't feel like patronizing tinyurl.com or tinylink.com or any of the others? no?

well what the hell's the matter with you?

okay, let's pretend that you right this very minute find yourself wishing you could send a sainttoad.com link to someone but the url is too long, and you don't feel like patronizing tinyurl.com or tinylink.com or any of the others. what? too hard?

use your freaking imagination, dammit!

you haven't got one? pretend that you do, just for a minute.

okay, where were we?

right, you were about to go here and enter in the sainttoad.com-related URL that you'd like to shorten.

go on now! (and send me a bug report if it breaks.)

you want to know what gubbish is?

read this

otay, so the other day i got these bright ideas:

1 - i need a "tinyurl" workalike, hosted at my webserver written by me
2 - i need to update the blog software i'm using (MT) to the latest and greatest
3 - i need to reorganize the directory structure of my website/blog
4 - i should learn more about apache's configuration file
5 - i should learn more about mysql
6 - i should reinstall the OS at sainttoad.com

as a result of 1-5, the blog was down for a day or two. it's back up, but images have been moved around to more sensible places. for example, W has her own directory now. So do I.

i still need to fix a couple of links. i did some really fun scripting to update the database and learned a fair amount more about how mysql works. all in all, a great jorb.

went out to a new SM restaurant last night with W.

because it's new the service is slow, but the food and menu and atmosphere are all very nice.

after we'd finished our salads but during the seemingly-interminable wait for our pupusas, i ate the lemon slices that had come with our salads. not because i was hungry or in the mood for citrus or worried about scurvy; just because i was boreded.

during my lemon-eating, i recalled that as a young-un, i would often eat lemons fresh off my grandpa's tree. as it happened, W had her camera phone with her and captured the joy of the moment.

the following photos are not exactly candid, but they're not definitely not faked or posed:

I don't think i made those faces as a young-un.

ordered a utilikilt.

website (worst web-ordering system ever, btw) says it may take 6-8 weeks :( whatever happened to instant gratification?

changed the blade in my razor today. as i suspected: i get a better shave with a somewhat dull blade. when it's fresh outta the dispensor, it's too sharp. doesn't seem to make sense to me, but that's how it is. not really a matter of razor burn (altho that's a little worse with the sharp ones), more a matter of simply not cutting close. that makes no sense at all to me -- a sharper blade should cut closer, right?

i dunno.

the fact is: i've shaved every day this week, and this is the first crappy one i've had. go figure.

ran 4 miles last night. stopped only 1 minute. that's my best run:walk ratio yet. total time was about 37 minutes, I think. less than 10min/mile.

i wasn't last this time, either. found some extra energy at the end to beat one of my runningmates, who has run a marathon in the last year. heh.

we both remarked that if we hadn't been running with each other, we'd have stopped at least twice. go team!

bleh.

the time is coming.

there is no escape.

found a car-smelly-tree thingy when cleaning up so i put it in my car.

that mofo smells BIG TIME.

didn't think anything could smell so strongly. it even overpowered the most powerful odors I could emit. that's strong stuff.

but it hurt my eyes so i threw it out. i didn't throw it far, it's in my parking stall. i'm a litterbug.

my eyes still hurt after being in the car, even without the thing. fack.

i fixed my car.

i didn't die.

i feel manly.

the cigarette lighter socket in my car was pulled out.

i have no idea how to fix it without electrocuting myself.

hope i figure it out.

big time.

except the bathroom.

also didn't dust or vacuum.

but believe me, even w/out those 3 things, this place looks a LOT nicer.

a LOT.

biggest clean job i've done in more than a half-year.

W let me use the froom at her work.

i used the ladies room to take a #1.

i left the seat up when i left.

now i don't. two reasons:

1 - i want to travel lighter. yeah, camera doesn't weight much, but it slows me down when i'm whipping it out every 5 minutes.

2 - you want to see the cool stuff i run into? come with me.

i checked. this is my 10th weekend hike in a row. (counting camping). plus i did weekday hiking in the desert last week.

this time it was at henry cowell park's fall creek unit (heh, "unit").

i had an itinerary from bahiker.com, but i only printed out a hacked up summary and it didnt help. i went the wrong way. now, there's really no "wrong way" to go on a hike (as long as i have enough water =) so i ended up running around near some spooky high school and up and down some really poorly marked and even more poorly maintained trails. fun stuff. up and down hillsides and tree trunks and stuff, wondering where the hell the trail went because i'm pretty sure i was on it just a minute ago.

i'm much better now at spotting poison oak, for some reason. don't think i got any this time. yay.

wore my suspenders. that's what i got em for -- to keep my pants up when i hike. seriously. i don't like a belt while i'm hiking. they rocked my socks, for sure.

the gps doesn't work under redwood cover so i have no clue how far i went. i was out 1-5, approximately, and on prior hikes i have kept about a 3mph pace. 12mi seems like a lot, but 8 seems like too little, so i'd guess i did maybe 10mi. i stopped because my 2liter camelbak ran out of water. gonna get me a 3liter, for next time.

got water in my boots. thought those fuckers were sposed to be waterproof. wtf?

and this coca cola classic, which, according to the stamp on the bottom, expired march 14, 2005.

bleargh!

in 5 more months i'm 28.

fuck.

i thought i'd be having a lonely dinner tonight but W and i rescheduled some stuff and now we'll be dining together.

huzzah.

i was moody and sad today 'cuz my W had to leave early and i didn't get to give her a proper goodbye and i thought i wouldn't be seeing her until really late and and and...

but now i'm happy again =)

as per the demands of his new employer, my bro got a haircut.

now he's asking me for hair product advice.

and i have lots of it -- product and advice. heh.

I read Rosie's blog.

I really like Rosie's blog. She always writes in a funky verse-ish prose, or photoblogs. She takes pics of herself when she looks like she's just out of bed. The blog-Rosie is not the celebrity-Rosie that I knew and didn't much like back when she had a show. blog-Rosie is a real person with real-person opinions and real-person empathy.

She feels sorry for MJ and hopes the people that fucked over her magazine will rot. She's human, not just a pile of makeup behind a camera.

Best of the blogosphere, for sure.

She said something today that I really like. I'm not (often) sure precisely what she's talking about:

those who say it can’t be done
should never
interrupt the people doing it

.

chefjef : and i get paid weekly
maury_cohen : and if you spend even a cent of that in the casino
maury_cohen : i will personally fly down there and smack you upside the head

i've lost my gift of gab.

nobody wants to hear my talk, anyways.

i'll keep my lame-ass musings and potificating to myself.

i never expected being in love or having a gf to simplify my life, and was i ever right. my life is 10 times more complex now than it was a year ago. I have trouble scheduling stuff. I have difficulty for the weekend, and even more difficulty getting away for a week or a month. i dont plan elaborate, periodized, multi-month workout schedules like i used to. i hardly ever play video games, watch movies, cook, or read any more. i've dropped my hebrew studies and i'm not obsessive about coffee (relatively).

i never relax.

i'm not complaining. those are facts. here's another fact: my life is 100x better than it was a year ago. i'm happy almost all the time. i have love in my life and it's not going away.

i invited W to consider moving in with me. i can think of a plethora of reasons why this would be good for me. i can think of a few reasons why it would be bad for me. the number 1 reason it would be good: W would be around much more.

some folks would consider that a bad thing, having their unmarried SO around all the time. maybe i'm young and foolish, but i see it as a good thing.

W's got a lot on her plate. she's starting summer quarter at a community college in a week or two. six weeks after that is fall quarter. if she moves in, she'll have to transfer to a different CC. She'll also want to get a local job. plus she'll be moving, which is also tough.

originally when i asked, i was thinking moving in would simplify our lives. it may, eventually, but initially it will complicate things a lot.

i think my concept of "moving in" was different than what W imagined. i hope that's been cleared up. maybe it hasn't. a live-in-lover is not the same as a roommate. when i say "my house is your house" i mean it, fully and literally. it doesn't matter who is paying more rent -- it can't matter. we're not roommates. if a disagreement (and there will be disagreements) ends with "it's my apartment, take it or leave it", then i've failed. if W feels like she can't ask something or change something or do something in our home, then again, i've failed.

coworker found an old work photo. this was from halloween a couple years ago, maybe 02 or 03.

compare to this monday:

i didn't get any prettier, but my fashion sense certainly has improved.

comfortably numb is perhaps my favorite song ever.

luthor wright's version just came on.

it's upbeatly country and very cool.

if he pulls off the guitar solo i'm gonna wet my pants.

life's not so bad once you make it your bitch.
-- me

my bro finally got a jearb!!!

well, mister moneybags, I want you to remember just one thing before your great joreeeeeeearrrrb goes to your head:

dude at work shared his mp3 collection with me.

i'm listening to "luther wright - rebuild the wall".

seems to be a country music remake of pink floyd's "the wall".

i'm diggin it.

was sposed to go running after work with the coworkers but it looks very much like rain.

i axed my runningmate whether he minds running in the rain and he said "yes".

looks like it'll be just me and the rain, then.

suspenders only.

belts are for the weak!

we are a chariot
two, together as one
hurtling through the world
exploring
shielding one another from the things we don't want to see or do
and the people we don't want to meet
we are two and we are one
apart we are restless and lost and still
together we move
and everything around us is a blur

Peter Griffin:
Nothing else has worked so far
So I'll wish upon a star
Wonderous shining speck of light
I need a Jew

Lois makes me take the rap
Cause our checkbook looks like crap
Since I can't give her a slap
I need a Jew

Where to find
A Baum or Steen or Stein
To teach me how to whine and do
my taaaaaxesss...

Though by many they're abhored
Hebrew people I've adored
Even though they killed my Lord
I need a Jew

Max:
Hi, my name's Max Weinstein,
my car just broke down,
can I use you phone?

Peter:
Now my troubles are all through
I have a Jew!

Max:
Hey!

when she says she'll never leave me
my mind contains no doubt
and when i tell her that i love her
there's one little word left out

forever is a scary sound
it may promise more than i can give
but even should i die at the end of time
i'll love you as long as i've grace to live

while i was home waiting for grandma to die (sigh :/) i picked up this book at borders:

in my former life i held HIT in low regard. the people whom I respected held HIT in low regard so I took it as gospel that it was, as they said in all their humor, sHIT. but i needed something to read so I got it.

HIT is all about abbreviated workouts (1 set per exercise, 8-12 exercises per workout), low volume (8-12 reps, 1-3 times per week), and lots of rest.

as my priorities shift from indoor weight training to outdoor running, hiking, backpacking, and camping, i find myself strongly drawn to a methodology that advocates training only twice a week.

my first workout (which was not HIT -- HIT advocates training each set "to failure", something I've never done in 4+ years of training. i need to un-train myself) lasted 25 minutes for a total of 11 sets. whether it was pointful remains to be seen.

W sent me a quote from Herman Hesse:

If I know what love is, it is because of you.

She meant it from her to me, but this is true for both of us.

So I went to look for a pile of love quotes, and found these. Some favorites:

Rumi:
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Rumi:
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.
Someone sober will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be.

Sir Arthur Pinero:
Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.

Tom Robbins:
The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.

Ambrose Bierce (included only because I love AB):
Love: a temporary insanity, curable by marriage.

Ann Landers:
If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.

Barbara De Angelis:
Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.

C.S. Lewis:
Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.

Emily Dickinson:
That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love.

Erich Fromm:
Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved."
Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love."
Immature love says: "I love you because I need you."
Mature love says: "I need you because I love you."

Francis David:
We need not think alike to love alike.

Franklin P. Jones:
Love doesn't make the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

George Sand:
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
The sage said, "The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love. That is the only way out of it. As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget.

Henry David Thoreau:
There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Ingrid Bergman:
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

Isha McKenzie-Mavinga:
On reflection, one of the things I needed to learn was to allow myself to be loved.

James D. Bryden:
Love does not die easily. It is a living thing. It thrives in the face of all of life's hazards, save one -- neglect.

Jimi Hendrix:
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

Lisa Hoffman:
Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

Pascal:
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.

Paul Tillich:
The first duty of love is to listen.

Pearl S. Buck:
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

Roger de Bussy-Rabutin:
Absence is to love as wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small and kindles the great.

Roy Croft:
I love you
Not only for what you are
But for what I am
When I am with you

This one is my favorite:
Margaret Anderson:
In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person.

This one kinda scares me :)
Mark Twain:
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

here's why

got 3 hours of sleep last night with no sign of a nap opportunity today.

i only got to open up the notebook to touch up some photos for the obit.

grandma died this morning aroung 5am.

i have her smile when i laugh, and if i'm laughing and looking in a mirror, i think of her.

i told this to my mom.

went geocaching. google it.

it were fun.

did it from 10pm to midnight. in the dark. with flashlights. found 2 out of 4 caches.

fun!