It's Friday and its slooow at work.

It's been a while between posts blah blah. There is no procrastination. Just the absence of doing stuff.

Really though, I can't tell you how many times I sat down to post something here and immediately felt like I was getting bonked in the head with a big heavy thing. Of course, trying to post at 12:20AM is not probably the ideal time to put any thoughts down.

The protracted battle to fix the house continues. The contractors have been here all week and working late. It's kind of odd trying to sit and watch a DVD with shirtless sweaty Polish men working all around you. But that's life these days. If you want to watch a DVD, you have to do amidst the symphomic clamor of drills, hammers and saws interspersed conversations in Polish that I'm sure go something like:

"Peter, this wall isn't level."

"No surprise there Michael. This place was
built by retards. The ceiling isn't level either."

"It looks like an interesting part of their movie. I will now turn this drill on."

With luck, the guys will finish up today and we'll be ready for the counter-top guy to install our Maui colored Corian countertop in a few weeks. Then a week after that, the tile guy is going to come back and finish up the backsplash.

At that point, I think we will take three deep breaths, gaze at the rennovations and enjoy them for about 10 seconds and then call Century 21. Atlanta seems to have an abundance of tech jobs and the housing costs are still -- relative to Westchester Cty, NY -- cheap. Who knows really where we will wind up, but I can't imagine staying there too much longer. Of course, if I could work from home two days a week, we could buy one of those McMansions in the Poconos that you see advertised all the time in the Daily News and still put money in the bank. The future is wide open.


Most of last weekend was spent in total frustration as I tried and tried and tried again to successfully install a brand new, kick-ass ATI X800 XL AGP card. After installing a new Antec TruePower 430 psu for the X800 to feed off of, I tried to install the new vid card. Tried. And Tried. And Tried.

To say the least the litany of removing the old ATI software, installing the card, installing the Catalyst Software and Drivers was repeated again and again. All I ever got was screen defects and XP freezes and my monitor going into power-save mode interspersed with the occasional blue screen of death. I tried to upgrade my BIOS, but for whatever reason, the damn thing just won't upgrade. The most frustrating part of all this, is that the damn card actually started to work all of a sudden and continued to work for about 2 hours. Half Life 2 and Battlefield 2 never looked so good or played so well. I was amazed at all the new details, espcially in BF2 where the rotor wash from a helo will bend and shake tree limbs and leaves. Even more amazing was the way the jets and helo's handled in singleplayer mode - smooth and fast. What a difference a new video card can make. I was sooo happy. I thought about all the nice new kill records I would post and how my BF2 stats would climb.

Then the card crashed again and never came back. Tell you what - I really wanted to do a John Lydon on my PC. I wanted to hack it to pieces and whiz on it and give it the finger. But, I managed to retain my self control and put my old 128MB ATI Radeon back in it works fine. But, BF2 won't load now. So now I need to reinstall that. Grrr.

Basically, I know the problem lies with my older mobo and its frozen BIOS. I just need a new motherboard and chipset and to reinstall XP. But then I need to get a mobo that fits my Gateway case, which is going to be problematic. So, I already have a new vid card, a new power supply and a 1GB worth of PC3200 RAM. Throw in a new case and a new 478 pin motherboard with a 3.6 processor and I'm on my way to building a new PC. I could add new drives as I go and eventually pop in a RAID controller and upgrade the RAM. Decisions Decisions.


On a different note....

The guitar playing is coming along pretty well but the licks and rythyms of Robert Johnson continue to elude me. So, for the most part I stick with a master the blues book and CD and another book and CD combo that covers scales over chords. That stuff I am starting to get. Like, I can see how the major scale breaks down into the blues, minor scales and pentatonic. I'm even getting fairly comfortable playing, say a primary form of a scale up the neck, and coming back down with the secondary form. Things are starting to click there. Plus the PODXT is just a blast to work with. I'm always one nob turn away from the clean bluesy tones of a Black Lux to crazy metal tones. Freedom baby.



In a few hours I'm flying with my cousin, Jody, to Newport News for a family reunion with our Virgina Beach folks, the Gradels and Autens. The only downer is that Clarisa is not going. She's staying here and is with her cousins and uncle who arrived here today. The original plan was for all of us to go see Wicked and tour around the city. Then this reunion came up and with it a scheduling conflict. We talked about it and I decided to go to VA. It should be a blast though. The last time I saw these people, I was 5. That's an awful lot of catching up.

Hiking, Boozing and Breakfast Machines

I can't concentrate worth a crap right now.

I will say that last weekend was excellent.. I hiked, golfed, drank margeritas played and played guitar with a friend. Not bad at all.

The hiking at Ramapo Reservation was a blast. I went with Sfumato and his friend, Debra. Great conversation and good exercise. My ankles weren't ready for it. Hoofing it in NYC is not the same as climbing up to Hawk Rock - where we did in fact see a hawk and Sfumato treated himself to some hot stone therapy on cliff-rocks. Along the way we spotted lots of tiny little frogs and though we did not see one - Sfumato was convinced that there was a pheasant about.

Aside from an invite for the next hike, I took away one thing -- comfort in the fact that I'm not the only one who hasn't figured it out. Actually two thing -- the second being that we might actually have an Adventure Race team in the making. Spiff!

Later in the day I got a call from Dave - a long standing friend back from the Enterprise Rent A Car Days. We did an impromptu barbecue at his place and drank a couple of Margeritas and shot the shit outside in his back yard. Later on we played guitar for a bit - always a pleasure with Dave because he's really good and a good teacher. Go figure - he just got his Masters in Education from Fordham and he's a good teacher. Very auspicious. Then in the middle of playing, I get a call from Clarisa and she's all upset and freaked out and wants me to come home. The reason? A chandelier crashed down on our dining room table, just moments after she stood up. At first I thought it might have torn out of the ceiling, since we just had it moved and that the guys put it in wrong. Nope. The actual metal hook holding the lamp just snapped. Totally crazy.

It's fixed now. Clarisa put things back together on Sunday when I was golfing with my Pops. We went to Vassar and played 9 holes with a nice couple, Murray and Eileen. As it turns out, Murray's a Chinese Studies Historian at Baruch. Hey, how often do you meet a Chinese Studies Prof and how often do you actually have something thoughtful to say about Chinese history? I mean what are the odds?

In this case, 1 to 1.

Oh yeah, I finally got to talk about Cheng Ho and the Chinese Navy and the water clock they built and all that fun stuff I read in Boorstin's "The Discoverers". [DuffMan Voice] Oh yea! Putting knowledge to use. Fucking Cheng Ho the eunuch. [end DuffMan] On top of that - Murray was writing a book on electrical engineering with a focus on semi-conducters. As luck would have it, while my Pops knows nothing of sailing Chinese eunuchs, he just happens to have a PhD in Metallurgy and 30 years in semi-conducter fabrication with IBM. So he had something to talk about. Ah - so what does Arleen do though? She works in IT. Systems analyst. What a great networking opportunity. And they were pretty good golfers too!

I'm going to have to look Murray up. How many Chinese Studies Professors can Baruch have?

Finally - I'd like to leave you with this little bit of Family Guy. It gets funnier each time I watch it.

Soldiers. Cops. Bombs. Blues

A day after the first bombings in London - the powers that be posted a platoon of National Guard soldiers at the White Plains train station. The boys are armed and loaded and do a pretty good job of stopping in front of people with bags or backpacks and giving them a bit of a stare down.

After the failed subsequent bombing attempts in London, they added MTA police to the trains and maybe you've heard that they are stopping people and searching them. One of the guys at my job got stopped this morning in Secaucus. I told him it was because of his beady little eyes. Plus he's Spanish, which these days is close enough to match an Arab profile. And yes, I'm all for profiling in this case. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and is carrying Semtex like a duck, chances are it's a duck. Stopping every 25th person, even if it's Al Gore or Tammy Faye is silly. It's being PC to the point of stupidity.

Anyhoo, moving along...

This morning cops were taping off Madison and 42nd. Lots of police and lots of shooing people away. I can only assume it was a bomb threat. Nothing about it showed up in the news, and no news is good news when it comes to terrorism. Speaking of which - Bloomberg is apologizing all over the place for the NYPD storming a tour bus and detaining five Sikhs. You've probably read about it / heard about it or watched on the news. From what I've read, a Gray line worker called it in saying these tourists were suspicious. While it's better to err on the side of caution, is there some way to do a PSA which informs people that turban does not equal terrorist? Casting aside the sartorial splendor of the five detained and scared shitless men, here is a Sikh:


Here is a Shiite:


Note the subtle differences.


Moving on again...


Dammit, despite the recent attacks in London and spate of scares here in the U.S.A. I refuse to let the terrorists win. That's right - today I went and bought something! On the way to pick up some tickets for Wicked in two weeks (we got hooked up with Orch. seats and a backstage meet and greet through a friend!! Nicey Nice), I stopped in at Sam Ash's sheet music place on 48th and picked up a general Blues tab book and a Robert Johnson tab book.

Robert Johnson's blues - that's about as American as you can get.

The Gear Is Here....

Alrighty!

My Marshall MG15CD and my PODxt showed up today.

[Stimpy Voice]

Joy!

All I can say it is soooo nice to have an actual amplifier, even a little one, instead of playing through tiny PC speakers or headphones. I was a little down on my Samick, but the the lil' MG15CD is a major upgrade for it and it sounds much better. Fuller, richer, cleaner and all those other words a stereo salesman might use to describe a speaker's tone.

As for the POD - I didn't get a chance to use it. I forgot to order a second guitar cord and the headphones I have are for the PC only and I don't have an adaptor.

Total Bummer.

I will say this though - it's way way bigger than I thought it was going to be. I thought it would be hand sized, but this thing is the size of Paul Bunyan's kidney. It's all good though, 'cos I wouldn't want to have to be squinting at a tiny display and twisting tiny dials. For the plethora of nobs on the POD, bigger is better.

For whatever reason, Musician's Friend also threw in a 6-Pack Pedal Board case. I don't need it yet, but free shit is free shit. Free is cheaper than wholesale. For now I put the POD in there until I get the free POD case via rebate.

Thor is right. More gear is good!

And it's also good to cut loose a bit and just play. See what comes. More and more often, I'm surprising myself.

Mind Freak on My Mind. On My TV. In the Park.

I'm sitting here fiddling around with a deck of cards I found at work - a little Bridge sized deck that says Puerto Rico across the top and has the picture of a halter top wearing hottie playing a bongo that's decorated like the Puerto Rican Flag. Next to her is a frog waving two rattles that are also decorated like the Puerto Rican Flag. The frog, in a pique of festivity and Puerto Rican pride is wearing a bow tie and a cape.

Total tourist trap stuff. I love it.

Like I said, I'm hear fiddling with these cards and working through a couple of simple tricks and I just remembered that MindFreak is on AE now.

Aside from the barrage of publicity around here in the City and on TV - I wanted to check it out because I'm interested in magic right now, and because two days ago I actually saw Criss Angel perform one of his illusions / escapes in Bryant Park. The illusion was set up on the south side of the fountain in the park. Basically, there was this large box/tank deal with Plexiglas sides and inside of that was a sealed container with a transparent front and Angel was inside it already. The deal was he had 33 hours to escape before oxygen ran out. More like 33 hours of publicity!

When I went by again later that day the tank was a lot more cloudy and bubbles were coming up all over the place in it. Angel was still in it and I could see him responding to the crowd. The next morning I came by a bit late for work and no surprise - the guy was out of the tank and not a drop spilled. Pretty cool and pretty David Blaine-ish I thought.

As for the show tonight, I caught the second half with him doing some powerful card tricks and street magic and a boatload of astonishing levitations. Not one or two little tiny lifts after a huge build up a la Blaine. No odd camera angles a la Blaine. This was up close with people all around and the camera close up and from all angles. Don't get me wrong, Blaine is great but after seeing his specials and then this show, Angel's levitation is better, hands down.

I'm amazed.

On the show tonight, the guy levitated up an escalator, six feet into the air in the middle of a park and then floated a few passersby supposedly plucked from the street. Regardless of whether or not there were plants in the crowd, the illusion was just crazy.

I'm also smiling because I can't help but have the thought -- "Did that guy and those other people actually float? Levitate?" Kudos to Angel for tapping my sense of wonder.

And then I think "I had no idea the guy from RATT knew magic!"

A Secret Revealed. Notes Played. Tricks Turned.

Oh I am so pissed.

Really totally completely and utterly Pissed The Fuck Off. Angry Strapped Muppet Pissed.

I guess it's just my knee jerk reaction to being cheated on. It's just my knee jerk reaction to being cheated on 4 times over the past three weekends.

Like most despicable lies and secrets, this one wormed it's way to the surface in an innocent conversation. Like most subterfuges and ugly canards, it kind of just popped out. In this case it came up naturally in the course of the conversation with a common friend and relation. Poof! There it was. His wife gave him up without even knowing it. Amazingly - she did not seem upset!

Sfumato has been hiking without me!!! GAAAAH! With his brother-in-law!! OMG!!!

Fucking Sfumato and his big secret hiking in Ramapo. Fuck him and his so called Tiki Run which he hikes / walks and stumbles through whilst being swarmed by bloodthirsty mosquitoes bent on giving him malaria and West Nile. Maybe he could go faster if he wasn't stopping to set up a lab to measure the chemical composition of the food he got at the deli in feeble attempts to determine if it's right for his blood type.

All of the time I'm like -- Hey Sfumato, lets go for a ride. Hey Sfumato, lets get together and run. Hey Sfumato, lets go for a bike ride. Hey Sfumato, let me put you in a triangle choke and beat your ass down for a while. Invariably - the guy is booked more than Tony Robbins. Or. Or,if not booked he is:

• not into running
• not into mountain biking
• not into getting triangle choked.
• kick boxing and dreaming of Bob Sapp.

The fucking nerve.


[Dan Akroyd and Steve Martin enter from screen left. They are wearing leisure suits. Georg speaks] "That James, he is such a wild and crazy guy! Such a jokester. He jokes! Funny Funny man. He kids. He is a kidder. Everyone knows that Sfumato is the hippest cat to cruise after Tiki Barber in tight slacks since Claude Lemiuex!"
[They exit. They look disappointed that their writer could not come up with anything better]

:-) Nah - I'm not mad at Sfumato. Not even miffed. I am amused though! Now, if for a brief moment, you or he bought the rant and at first thought I was talking about cheating with a capital C, or thought I was pissed at him --- well, you could describe that as having been "Rizzed".

If you bought it, I'm like 1 - 0 against the Internet.

If Sfumato bought it at all I will have improved my record to like 6 for 375 lifetime against him.

Ok. Now to tie in the rest of the title of this meandering stream of a post....

I'm playing guitar again. Like AGAIN. At one point, ages ago when I was 15 I had a nice left-handed Ibanez Artist ( a double cut with a sunburst finish) and played till I was about 18 or 19 and then dropped it until I was like 26 and dropped it again when I was like, still 26. Then hard times hit and I pawned it and that was it for guitar. A couple of years back, lets call it three + I got an acoustic guitar from Samash.com. Nothing fancy, just a Japanese Fender dreadnought. Strum strum strum. Clarisa, bless her and her supportive nature, goes out and gets me a tuner and a stand. I actually I play for a while. Just long enough to get to sound like actual notes are being played and I lose interest.

Ah, no one saw that coming, right?

So last year I pick up a Samick Les Paul knock-off which goes by the moniker of "Avion". Let's face it, no one knows what that is. Not one to lie, when asked what type of axe I have a bravely say I have a Les Paul knock-off and try to explain that I am beginner. Still. After 20 years. Anyhoo, since I got the Samick I've definitely played more and longer, though inconsistently. I've even jammed out with some talented friends here and there. Each one waaaay better than me. Each one infinitely patient though and very supportive and each with a bit to offer in the way of teaching. A definite highlight was over this winter. I played with my friend Barry and covered the acoustic version of "Times Like These" by the Foo Fighters. It was the first time, ever that I actually played and sang. It even sounded pretty good.

So, I've been playing again. A little theory, a little scale work and a little cover action. Enough practice to get me craving some gear. In the honor of this latest phase I finally went out and bought an amp (I'd been playing it through my PC with a Line 6 GuitarPort which recently went tits up) - a little Marshall MG15CD 15 Watt Combo and a Line 6 PODxt Amp Modeler with Effects. Of course, the price of these two items is more than I paid for my Les Paul knockoff. The amazing thing is I had no problem dropping the cash. Spending 15K on renovations and praying for insurance checks kind of nipped that problem for me I guess!

Perhaps one day I will become enough of a player to get a Gibson Custom or Gibson Standard or an American Strat or some mixture thereof. Until then I'm going to beat on the two guitars that I have and figure out Ten Years Gone by Led Zeppelin, a few Neil Young tunes and some blues stuff. If I could play like anyone it would be like Johnny Shines or Robert Johnson. They are A-mazing.

Another emerging hobby is magic. All I've got so far is a a couple of card tricks, a rope trick and a rather poorly executed vanishing coin sleight. Naturally, I have a book (Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic) and when my fingers begin to ache from guitar I can turn to the cards and fumble through some knuckle busting tricks. The funny thing is, as much I enjoy doing it, I always feel like a bit of a charlatan. But I guess that would be right on the money though, no?

Finally, out of my myriad interests there's this blog and you, Internet. Thanks for listening.

Idling while Lance Races.

Pink Floyd is playing in my head.

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...fritter and waste the hours in an offhand waaaaay"

Ever feel like you are just idling? Biding time? If this were a movie, I'd be hoping for a blurry fade out or montage or some other device that would fast forward time and move stuff along.

But then, what is life if not to be lived? And appreciated? Even these quiet moments. Even these pensive moments - these little lulls that seem pretty great when the shit is hitting the fan. Enjoy the silence.

So let's see - what's going on...

Vacation was good. Clarisa's brother flew in to spend the week with us and help out with our place. While the contractors really took care of the bigger repairs, it was great to have him around to swiftly handle a few honey-do's that have been on my list. Plus he's just a great guy and I like having him around. Aside from house renovations we managed to see a Yankee game (the one last Friday where Wang pitched in the rain and gotten taken deep by phenom Grady Sizemore on the very first pitch of the game), take a trip to Brooklyn to see Auntie Joan and take a trip up to Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park to hang out with friends and family. All in all a good vacation.

Still, next time I go on vacation I really want an R&R vacation somewhere fun. Friends and family are welcome to come along - I just want to be out of NY when it happens. Some hotel off of Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda might be nice.

Work is on the upswing. I have a new immediate boss whom I have a good relationship with. He gets what I want to do and wants to help me do it. In turn, I really want to help turn the department around and get a few good quantifiable projects done. For one thing, I want to run a few usability studies. I also want to get my hands on some of the Mercury testing tools. Ultimately, I would like to get a usability department started at iVillage - with me heading it up of course. We'll see where it goes. I have some people that have my back on it. It's just that it's tough to overcome organizational inertia. If we manage to complete and act on a study and we get great results like increased traffic and longer video views, more article views etc -- it will be a lot easier to argue for an increased role for usability. Like anything - the first break is the hardest to get. I hope to impress if I get the chance.

Naturally, me being me, I spent some time this weekend researching Usability Engineering / HCI (Human Computer Interaction) MS programs. It turns out that all of the heavy hitter major tech universities have it - Stamford, MIT, RPI etc. but they are far away and there is this whole thing about me living and working here in the NYC metro area that kind of gets in the way of that. Plus, lets face it, getting into Stamford, MIT or RPI is not exactly a guarantee, even if I lived around the corner. Still, no local schools have it. Not NYU, Columbia, Fordham, Pratt, Pace, Parsons, Cooper Union - nada. The closest programs are ones at NJIT and at RPI.

One interesting thing I did find was a ton of QA jobs in Atlanta. Lots of usability jobs too. Housing is very affordable down there. And... Georgia Tech offers an M.S. in HCI and is ass cheap if you are a resident. Long term, that might be a plan - get a job and place in Hotlanta, go to Georgia Tech for my MS in HCI and work in a burgeoning field that I'm interested in and even matches up decently with my personality and interest inventory tests. I'd love to sell our place and be able to take that money and actually purchase a house house and down there, you still can.

One last thing - it's 2am here and that means Lance Armstrong is probably up and eating breakfast and getting ready for his Sunday Ride in the Pyrenees.

Sunday's stage from Lézat-sur-Lèze to Saint-Lary Soulan, is 205 kilometers (127.4 miles) and will cover six mountaintops. Portet d'Aspet, the first climb, is considered a second-category climb in terms of length, steepness and difficulty. The peaks that follow, Menté, Portillon, Peyresourde and Val Louron-Azet, are all ranked first category. The stage ends with a climb to Pla d'Adet, which is above the town of Saint-Lary Soulan. Pla d'Adet is the backbreaker, especially after the first five. It is a climb of 10.7 kilometers (6.6 miles) at a grade of 7.6 percent. It is beyond a category rating.

"Tomorrow's no cakewalk," Armstrong said. "It's the queen stage, the hardest day in the Tour."

I'm thinking, it may be the queen stage, but Lance is King of the mountains and is going to make the Peloton his bitch for the day. Bring the pain Lance. We're rooting for you!

Tears - Rain - A flood

I forgot to mention one other thing about Jenn. The medical examiner found a pulmonary embolism as well. It was not infarcted, which I guess means that it had not caused an artery in her lung to burst. Still - her girlfriend who found her said that there was blood in her lungs. As with a lot of things about Jenn and her death, it's unclear.

Still though, I can't imagine something like a pulmonary embolism not hurting tremendously. Add the pain of a degenerative back condition where your disks are crumbling to that and the confusion that a drug like Amantadine brings on and it starts to make sense why she might have reached for the painkillers.

Last Weds. we headed up to Poughkeepsie for the ceremony for Jenn. My step-sister, parents and a few friends of the family were there and I started to weep as I got out of the car and walked toward her headstone. Seeing her name there on the black granitewas a bit surreal and for a second I was taken back to October 18th, 2004 when we buried her. I'd been there before, but not with family and not with family gathering around the same way they had those months ago.

Father Rock, a Fransiscan priest who's a good friend to the family came to say some kind words about Jenn and to lead us through a few prayers. As he went along, it started to rain and he said it was a blessing. Maybe it was. The strange opening in the clouds right above us sure seemed to indicate it. Above us and a bit to the east was a bright blue eye with light streaming out of it that disappeared when Father Rock finished up.

After the ceremony we went to St. Andrew's Cafe at the CIA and had a bite to eat at the place Jenn loved most. It drizzled a bit, but nothing too bad.

Down in Westchester it was a different story...

It rained a bit up in Dutchess, but it POURED around Westchester. I think five inches of rain fell in just a few hours. The SawMill River flooded and roads got shut down everywhere. Anywhere there was a road with River in the name, there was a flood. That means the Sawmill River Parkway, The Hutchinson River Parkway and the Bronx River Parkway. To get home we had to drive through a section of the Saw Mill Parkway where the water was as high as the doors of our Santa Fe. We saw some other trucks blasting through -- so we did too. But just for one moment there I thought we lost traction and were actually floating. Drifting down into a swollen SawMill River would have turned a bittersweet / downer of a day into a Mongolian Clusterfuck of a day. As Clarisa might tell you a Mongolian clusterfuck is just like a regular clusterfuck except that it's a clusterfuck without hope.Yet here we are. Mongolian clusterfuck avoided. Score one for us.

Sadness, Anger. Regrets.

Tomorrow, June 29th would have been my sister Jenn's 28th birthday.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss her or think of her in some way. Sometimes I'm sad, sometimes I'm angry and sometimes filled with regret.

I'm sad because she's gone and because I'll never see her again and sad because there was a ton of potential in her that will never be realized. She was on her way when she started classes at the CIA - that was a real turning point for her. She was taking responsibility for herself, working hard and enjoying learning. When she had to quit because of her back - - looking back I can see that was the start of a series of troubles and mistakes and poor choices and just rotten fucking luck that somehow, in total, inexorably, killed her. She took a night shift job at IBM and tried to do a full load of regular college classes and could not keep up. She moved out into an aparment she could not afford, moved back and got involved in relationships she didn't really need, but needed to have. Then she moved to Oklahoma for a fresh start and to get a job as an assistant pastry instructor at a community college. She didn't get the job.

I'm angry. I'm angry at her even still. I'm angry for the lies she told and the truths she withheld. I'm angry at myself for not being a better brother. I held back from her and pushed her away when she probably needed me the most. I substituted distance and anger for compassion and love. Friends tell me that if they were in my shoes they would not have had me play it any other way. In retrospect, I'm not sure how right I was and am reminded of some advice I got from a psychologist years ago. He told me just to love her and accept her lies. He told me no matter what she said or did to just be strong and accept it and love her. No anger - no screaming. Just compassion. The irony of it is that last summer I was reading a lot of Buddhist literature and had started to meditate. I guess I was just reading it rather than living it. I was that pissed off at her.

I regret not having reached out to her. I regret not having called her after she moved out to Oklahoma. I regret that the first time she overdosed two weeks before she died that I did not call her to speak to her. I regret that when I finally came to my senses and called her after she had gotten kicked out of the rehab clinic she had checked herself into because insurance would not cover her that all I got was her cell phone voice mail. I was too late.

She died the next day from an overdose of Oxycontin.

The medical examiner in Oklahoma City also found Amatadine in her system - which is one of the large cocktail of drugs she was supposed to be taking as part of an outpatient addiction treatment program. Generally, its given to people with Parkinson's to stop their tremors, but some side effects include confusion and euphoria and in rare cases can make people suicidal. I've read where some doctors refer to it as the poor man's methadone.

So how did she get it (the Oxycontin)? Probably from another patient at the rehab clinic. Her girlfriend found a prescription in her car that was made out to a guy from the clinic she'd been hanging out with and driving around. Maybe she took it from him to stop him. Maybe he gave her some. Maybe she stole it. Who knows. Maybe she thought it was a lower dose than it was.

The night she died she spoke to her best friend and he tells us she was in good spirits, everything considered and seemed to feel better when they hung up. Her girlfriend says she was having a hard time of it though and had gone to bed early that night. She checked on her and decided to head out and get some stuff to make cookies for her so she could have some in the morning. Just a little token - just some comfort food. As she left she said Jenn had been coughing a bit. When she came back forty minutes later she was dead. She worked on her and the paramedics came but from what we can tell they took too long to get Jenn to the ER and that only a little bit of narcotan was given. We're not sure why. Of course, they couldn't and didn't bring her back.

Now I have pictures and clothes and some books of hers. I have some CD's back that had disappeared over the years. I really don't want any of them. I'd much rather she still be wearing her favorite hat or flannel robe or what have you. I'd really rather not have anything of hers if she could still own it.

Tomorrow I will be at her grave and see her headstone for the first time. It's polished black with a rough hewn matte top. I'm sure I'll cry even more then.


I'm glad the last word's she ever said to me were "I love you guys."

We love you too, Jenn. Until we meet again.





One last thing...

When you have really bad chronic back pain and need pain medication and are prone to addiction - it's a high-wire act. Constant pain or constant stupor. And they give it out like candy. The movies make light of it too. I can't tell you how many I've seen where vicodin or oxy or some other opiate is offered freely and in a comedic way, like it's something that can't hurt you and is FUN! That really eats at me. It's not a casual thing. It's worse than heroin and just because it comes in a little pill from a pharmaceutical company instead of a needle does not make it better. Get the help you need or help your friend or family member get the help they need. They need your love and support.

Moves. Monitoring. Blasting.

Well, we have our kitchen designed and our counter top and cabinets ordered. The contractor is coming on Monday morning at 8AM and we'll be on our way to a renovated house. The insurance adjuster also gets back on Monday. Here's to hoping our submitted expenses meet with no resistance.

Changes are afoot at work. My boss quit. Not sure what that means for me except that I might get a better position. The guy moving up to take his place realizes my untapped potential and seems to be for getting my ENFP ARI self cranking and happy. To that guy I say "Good luck with that!"

The company is also finally moving to its new iVillage digs on 7th and 38th - the movers are coming tomorrow to take our crap out of here and put if over there. All I have is a few books and folders. Not a lot at all. I'm not a big cube decorator. Not into it. Just not my thing. Even if I wanted to, I don't no how I could here in the worlds smallest cube, which is filled with three monitors, two PCs, a Mac and 2 notebooks. I'm lucky if I have room to touch myself. Word has it that the new space will give me, like, more space, man. Fine by me. I'll also finally be getting my hands on some Mercury monitoring and testing tools. If nothing else, it will be good to learn for the resume. People know Mercury is enterprise level, expensive shit. The logic goes if someone let me use it / administrate it, I must know my shit. Shit shit shit.

In other news...Battlefield 2 showed up in the mail yesterday and I got to play it for about an hour. Man o man. It's friggen great. Of course, the college kids who got it at 6AM had been playing it for over 15 hours and were already experts by the time I got it installed, but what can you do. It looks and plays great so far. There is definitely an added layer of complexity to it that was not there before - what with the Commander mode, which takes you out of the game and puts you in command, duh, of your troops, lets you direct artillery. Do satellite sweeps to spot the enemy and so forth. So now when I think about drawing, I am going to want to be blasting away, or checking out $4K gaming rigs.

When we were in Halifiax a while back we visited the graves of the Titanic disaster victims. This headstone of this unknown child is separate from all the others. I took it with a Canon Powershot A-20 and retouched it in Photoshop CS by converting it to B&W and then colorizing and tinting it. The original shot is in the upper left.
Photo By VanishingJames

"Well At Least You're Focused..."

Ah, there's nothing like the biting sarcasm of a close friend and confident...

Early last week I took some personality tests - first the Strong Interest Inventory Report and then the Myers-Briggs deal. The former measures your interests, confidence and personal approach to things and comes up with occupational themes to focus on while the latter informs you about your personality, how it operates and how to play to your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. All in all good tests and worth it.

I think the results I got back from the Strong Interest Inventory are pretty spot on, but even so its no crystal ball and presents a wide range of career possibilities for the occupational theme it came up with for me - ARI (artistic, realistic, inquiring). Tech showed up, but a little low. Go figure - I thought it would be in the toilet next to accounting and statistics.

So, I reviewed the test results, sent it over to Clarisa and I approached her about it the next day. I told her, "I figure I can do something in Graphic Design, Photography, Stained Glass, Pottery, Architectural Drafting, Editing, Medical Illustration, Package Design or Plumbing Engineering." And then I proceeded to detail what I thought were the pro's cons of each and how I might go about learning more about each field.

She of course replied, "Well At Least You're Focused..."

At first I didn't pick up on the sarcasm -- the reason being that I thought that actually was a narrow band of choices. After all, I had an official looking report that listed them out of millions of possibilities. I stood there looking at her and after a few seconds the sarcasm soaked in.

"You're being sarcastic...?"

"Duh."

"Holy fuck." I thought. Evidently - more focusing needed (& needs) to be done!

The next day I take the Myers-Briggs tests and get the results back quickly. Evidently I am a an ENFP:

ENFPs are typically enthusiastic innovators, always seeing new possibilities and new ways of doing things. They have a lot of imagination and initiative for starting projects. ENFPsÂ’ energy comes from what is new and different, and they are spontaneous and enjoy action. They can become so interested in their current projects that they drop other things that are less exciting. Because they see so many possibilities, ENFPs sometimes have difficulty picking those with the greatest potential. They dislike routine and find it hard to apply themselves to the sometimes necessary details involved in finishing projects, easily becoming bored. They are concerned about people and understand othersÂ’ needs and aspirations. ENFPs readily communicate their enthusiasm, and this can be infectious. They often inspire others as well. ENFPs are likely to be most satisfied in a work environment that is welcoming to people, innovative, and full of exciting new possibilities. Others can count on them to find new ways of helping people solve problems and overcome barriers.

And, if Typlogic is to be believed, I share my ENFPness with the likes of:

• Mark Twain
• Will Rogers
• Both Mickey and Andy Rooney
• Paul Harvey
• Elizabeth Montgomery
• Dom Delouise
• Robin Williams
• Sandra Bullock
• I. King Jordan
• Regis Philbin
• Andy Kaufman
  

What that means I'm not sure. Dig it though - friggen King Jordan, Mark Twain and both Rooneys. Who knew?

So what's and ENFP ARI type guy supposed to do? I could proceed with the NYU Applied Database Tech Certificate and probably get it. It's something I know I can do, but not what I would love to do and I think that the creative side of me deserves a shot. I've squelched it for sooo long. I'm thinking that somwhere in the realm of the visual arts - photography, graphic design, fine arts I'll find my niche.

Right now I'm content to explore and just starting doing stuff - taking pictures, drawing, mucking about with Photoshop and the like. We'll see what comes of it.

A Friday on the Lake

Tonight is a quiet stay at home Friday. Left work a tad early, went for a run and did some push ups and sit ups. My running is getting better - I ran about a quarter mile longer than I did last time and in about the same time. For the rest of the evening I think I'll just chill out and experiment with Photoshop, play a little Desert Combat and call it good.

Last Friday was quiet and relaxing but didn't start out that way - because it's always a pain in the ass to get out of NYC on a summer Friday and get anywhere. Me, I had to get to Lake Hopatcong in NJ to meet up with some Fordham buddies and go out on the lake. So, I flew out of work around 2PM, caught a train to White Plains, hopped in my car and...It won't start.

Dead battery. See what happens when you don't drive anymore!?

Luckily, I spot a cop in the parking lot near the White Plains Convention Center. It's really just a big gym, but lets pretend it's a convention center. Stick with me folks. Ok, so I spot this cop car and its at the red light waiting to pull out of the lot. The car is not close, but its not far. The light turns green and the cop stops to pull out when, miracle of miracles, a car coming in flags it down. So I turn into WhiteManRunning in the 90 degree humid air and make my way toward the cop, hoping the light doesn't turn or that the cop just decides to screw the no right on red rule.

I make it to the cop car. It's a female Westchester County Cop. I ask. She differs. I ask again and tell her what I'm trying to do and who I am trying to see and that every second counts when it comes to making it across the Tappan Zee on a Friday afternoon. She relents and tells me not to hurt myself and lets me use her battery to jump my car. I cast many blessings and good feelings her way and I'm off. I tell myself that maybe she helped because I was cute. It's a longshot, but what the hey.

I get home, rip off my clothes, walk the dog fast (pee dammit pee!!!) and hop back in my car and go off to battle the traffic on the Tappan Zee. I figured at 3:40 it can't be too bad. The normal 25 minute trip to Joe's place takes 40 minutes. Not horrible. Then Joe is dicking around and we wind up pissing away about 25 minutes. It's an enjoyable 25 minutes but every second counts because now traffic on route 80 west is mounting. Eventually, we blast off and make our way to Lake Hopatcong. Joe is a bit of a closet metal /hard rock freak and he's got System Of A Down's Mezmerize playing and we're just rocking out to it and talking about boozing and sex. (I wind up buying the album the next day on iTunes. Clarisa calls it my "Kill your parents" music. That makes me laugh. :-))

Eventually we make it and Paul and Jerry are there waiting for us. Seconds later we are on the boat and the world changes suddenly. Four lifelong friends are back together - just briefly we know - and it seemed like all our troubles got left in the wake of Paul's boat. We zoomed around. I got to drive a bit and we wound up dropping anchor and just jumping in the lake and floating around.

Nice rays, cool beer, floating around in a lake with life long pals -- priceless stuff. I'd show you all pictures of it but me, being the forgetful dumbass that I can be, remembered to bring my digital camera but forgot to load a CF card. So, all I have is mental snapshots. Let's hope they last! Even better - we need to get out on that boat again soon.

Golden Monkey. Drink it. Spank it. Drink it.

Last summer in mid July a few cool things happened:

1. My brother in law came out to see us
2. We saw a Yankee game in which El Duque made a successful return to Yankee Stadium
3. We discovered Golden Monkey (by Victory)

We were up in Rhinebeck doing a little site seeing and shopping with Clarisa. Bored, hot and tired and hungry and most of all, thirsty, we stopped into Schemmy's to sit down and refresh ourselves.

The waitress tells us they have a new beer in and asks us if we would like to try it. She gives a sample and we love it. It's a Belgian style beer with "abundant fruity flavors" and supposedly packs a kick. We order a pint for each of us. About 10 minutes later and 3/4 of the way through our beers I look over at Matt and feel compelled to make a declaration...

"I don't know how this is possible, but I'm buzzed going on drunk." I said.
"Me too!" Matt said.

We were amazed.

So we finished them and ordered another round and in effect wound up downing a six pack worth of regular beer in less than an hour. Why? Because our magical golden monkey of the fruity flavors and glowing goodness packs 9.5% alcohol by volume.

Oh yes. Golden Monkey is an effective beer.

After that day, I never saw Golden Monkey again. None of the stores down here carry it, or at least they did not the last time I looked. Not that I shop for beer at all really, but when the mood struck now and again I never could find it.

Until now.

A little beverage center that we just happened to stop in on the way to see some friends of ours had it. Not being one to pass up an opportunity, I bought a case of it. As luck would have it, my brother in law is coming out in early July for vacation and to help with the house and once again we will be able to lift a few. AFTER the repairs. Lord knows how fucked up things might get otherwise...

The added bonus of this beer is that you get to say, think and write things like...

I'm happy to share my Monkey. I'll show you where my Monkey is and then let you go get some Monkey 'cos I'm a Monkey lova. I bet you like my Golden Monkey when its cold. Someone help me find my Monkey! I bet you want my Monkey! [inspired by Joe Cartoon's "Look at my Monkey" -- go watch it!]

James catches a break

Good news! We had the insurance adjuster out here yesterday and it looks like all the damage is going to be covered. We already have the floor, so now we just need to head out to Home Depot and plan out a kitchen and bathroom and arrange to have them installed along with new wallboard.

In the meantime, the cats are fascinated with the new "corridor" between the master bath and the kitchen. They just think it's the shit and keep parading in and out of there like its the grand opening of the Chunnel.

Of course its not as horrible now as it was. We tore out all that filth and cleaned it up. It looks like crap, but its clean and neat and not going to stay forever and THANKFULLY we are not going to go broke repairing it all. Yay! So, to sum up, we are not letting our animals parade through the filth.

Anymore. ;-)

On a side note - I took Sasha running with me for the first time in ages and I have to say she was just great. In the past, she was a loon. All things living and dead needed to be checked out and she was just too much to actually run with. This time though -- she did her business at the beginning and then was content to just pad along side me down the rail trail right near our place. We've found our niche! I can't wait to take her tomorrow again.

See the little black eye looking thing to the left of center, just under the rusted metal? It's a little hole. A little tiny hole the size of a nail. A nail some SOB put into the pipe who knows how long ago. A nail that has caused a hole that caused the leak that caused all of this aggravation and accidental Buddhist mind training. Shit happens. Indeed.
Photo By VanishingJames

This is just a small sampling of the absolute Yuck that the leak in our wall caused. Fairly disgusting, right?
Photo By VanishingJames

Summer in the City

It was hot today in the city, and with the return of the heat is the return of the NYC's finest, and lets face facts in some cases, not so fine, cleavage.

Nonetheless the cleavage season is back and going to lunch is an adventure for single and married man alike.

As an added bonus, sometimes, like today -- the sky gets dark real fast and there is a flash storm.

And then mes froid chats, it's simply boobies galore. It's a wet T-Shirt contest with no cover.

Ahh. The guilty pleasures of the commute..

Leak Update and some other stuff..

I haven't posted for a while because I have been dealing with this unraveling disaster at my house. To recap - our washing machine door busted open a few weeks ago, spilling water onto and under our laminate floor. We could not get the water up so we thought we would replace the boards. Lo and behold though, there is water everywhere, too much to be just from the washing machine. Long story short - we had a leak from 3 inch "stack vent" pipe caused by someone, maybe the original builders, putting a nail into the pipe. Water pretty much runs down this pipe all the time and was slowly leaking out into the wood around the pipe and into the wallboard and all underneath our kitchen cabinets for who knows how long. Over time, that's a lot of water damage and that's what we have. If it was not for the washing machine spilling open though, the problem could have gone on a lot longer. We really had no idea the extent of the damage being caused. It was all hidden.

So far, we've torn out all the wallboard in our kitchen from counter-top height on down. It was soaked and moldy and just yucky. It had to come out so we armed ourselves with n-95 respirators, rubber gloves, detergent, bleach and any power tool we figured could help and had at it, taking pictures the whole way through. Even though its disgusting, I saved the wallboard we tore out. Its in garbage bags in our back deck. Our insurance adjuster is coming Tuesday to assess the situation and I need to make a call to a contractor to have our own estimate done. Because this was a pipe inside the wall - a common pipe too, I figure the condo insurance is going to get involved as well.

As far as how we are dealing with all of this -- we've moved through all the phases to acceptance. We cried, we screamed, we bitched and we've certainly worried. Of course, our friends and family have been there to support us. Now we just need to get the insurance issues figured out and we will be well on our way to having a livable home again.

On the job front, I'm wondering if it isn't time to pursue an advanced degree or a certificate and then a degree. In what, I'm not exactly sure, so I am going to take some assessment exams, like the Briggs-Meyers deal in order to find out what I might be interested in / good at. From a purely professional level, it makes sense to do something like NYU's Graduate Certificate in Information Technology (Applied Database Technologies concentration) and try to parlay that into an M.S. in Management and Systems. I figure if I am such a big picture guy, its better for me to move into management than to try and spend years becoming an expert DBA. At the same time though , I'd like to think that my DB skills will all improve through coursework, experience and my own studies.

Of course, this will be both a personal and financial challenge - but one that I've got to do. Maybe its the IT certificate and grad program. Maybe not. Something's coming though. Bet on it.

Pissed.

There has been no water coming out from the kitchen wall for about the last 5 days. It's been a little damp around the walls, but not weeping and oozing.

Until tonight.

SoFA King Un Bee Leave Able.

All we can do is be pissed and wait for this to dry out. Until then its cement floors and dormant power tools.

Part of me is like, this is good Buddhist training. Suffering is part of daily existence. Its something we have to undergo whether we like it or not. So, its just really my attitude that needs to be modified. I need to tolerate it (wet cement, torn up floors) more.

The other part of me is like: You are full of shit!

Tired Tired Tired.

I've been in no mood to write. It must be the weather, in part. It's cold and rainy and blechy. Today was the type of rainy blustery day that I always associate with my college days. The quality of the air, the wind, the light rain -- for whatever reason it makes me think of school and of mid-terms. Its also the type of day I would throw my covers back over my head and spend the day languishing in bed. But in this school you just get 15 days PTO a year, never mind a summer vacation - so you must choose wisely, lest you piss it all away.

Another reason I haven't written lately at all is that I am just tired. Tired tired tired. Its no wonder though, since my insomnia is kicking in pretty good and my brain just is not clicking the way I like it to when I write. I'm not sure if its really beneficial to my writing per se, but it certainly is more enjoyable.

Larry Block or some other author recommends you to write no matter what, even when you don't feel like it. Its important to me, and you dear Internet are important. All three or four of you that read this semi monthly. Or not. So here I am forcing it, for what its worth.

Onwards then...

Career possibilities are careening around my head again. Cinematography, photography, feature writing, screenwriting, graphic arts, painting, drawing, advertising. Even cooking school. Yep. If you check my IE history you will see FCI pages. If you look on my bookshelves you will see GRE and LSAT books. Somewhere there is even an application to CUNY Psychiatry program. I get Pace nursing school information. Westchester Community College sends me EMT literature because I had spoken to them last summer. Of course there's the Coldfusion, ASP.NET, SQL and SQL Server 2000 books as well. In short, I am all over the place. Part of me wants out of tech and another part of me thinks I might do well if I could just find niche and a mentor. That's not really working out though. Not yet.

So what does all these careening career thoughts mean? Just one thing. It means JamesBoDean here is none too happy with work and clutching at straws to find a way out. Still though, I don't think its coincidence I've tended to look at the less pragmatic choices - ones that take a ton of time and a ton of education (aka a ton of $$). Psychology would be a good example. It plays into my lightly held, very naive belief that you can do whatever you want, do whatever you put your mind to. No dream is too big and its never too late to change your life. But the reality of it is I am a bit old to pursue a PhD in psychology and it's not like I am coming off of twenty years of raking in the coin and I'm ready for a change of pace / second career type thing. I'm just starting to get this one figured out! However the advantage in choosing such impractical goals (at this juncture) is that one, I don't actually have to follow through and two, I get to feel miserable about it. Do you get it? The psychology of its pretty clear. I get to do nothing and be pissed off about it.

In my heart, I think I know what I need to do. I need to concentrate on one of these hobbies that I've laid aside (drawing, painting, writing, guitar and so forth) and try to grow it as best I can while performing the best I can at work. At least it would bring some balance to things. Anything else really seems like change for change's sake and rings false. I think Thoreau said it best...

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles.

Tooling Up

We've decided to wait till next weekend to put the new floor down. It's still too wet and this is not the type of thing to rush. The walls have stopped pushing out puddles of water, but the cement is still damp right around the kitchen wall, so we're running a fan on it and just giving it time.

We figure the water from the burst pipe froze underneath our master bath and kitchen floors and has been slowly melting and seeping into the dining area. Its the only thing we can think of to explain the water from the washer warping floor boards before the water from the burst pipe did.

Meanwhile, our dining area and hallway floors are a Meatpacking District loft cement chic.

There's also a growing arsenal of tools gathering in the dining area. We've got brand new Stanley screwdrivers, a Black & Decker 1/2" VSR drill/driver, a Ryobi 14 amp 71/4" circular saw, a mitre box and a Workforce workbench. Alas, I still lack the power sander that would grant me status and cachet amongst the Fordham Crew. Legend has it that our friend Jeff blew off a party of all parties because he had a new power sander and a deck to work on. Ever since, the power sander has taken on an almost mystical status. If you have one, you can get out of anything.

Huzzah!

Ok, its time to throw some props around.

• Lets here it for Joe Rizzo of Sfumato! Aside from his prolific blogging, Joe and his wife, Debbie, are going to have triplets (Pedro, Carlos & Mike)! On top of that, Joe has just made public that he has taken a job with Insight. On top of that, I belive Joe just covered the Mets / Yankees game tonight as a freelancer for SportsTicker. Pfffff. Yanks win. So again, much love and congratulations to Joe and Deb.
• Jeff Healy of the Fordham crew is expecting baby "cuattro" at any time. The Rizzo's are quickly closing the gap, but as Healy would say 'Eh, though. I'm one up."
• Dennis DeRobertis of D2 is slinging code and dodging bullets at Clarisa's old stomping grounds - Mastercard. Dennis has also signed a contract to write a book on how to use FrontPage. He's also got a children's book in the works.
• Dave Chepiga is graduating Fordham University this weekend and getting his Masters in Education. While I cannot confirm, I will allege that he did it with a 4.0. Freaking great! It'll be nice to have him around again too now that his studies are winding down.

So that's it. People that I know are out there getting it done and movin' and groovin'. Way to go folks.

I finally get around to saying thank you

Here it is, May 18th. Fourteen years ago today I graduated Fordham University with my very worldly, but not very practical liberal arts degree (BA in English). Its a cliche, but it sure does seem just like yesterday that the "Fordham Crew" was closing down Clarke's Bar and gathering later on with our families for the commencement ceremonies. Denzel Washington, a Fordham Lincoln Center Alum, spoke under sunny, warm skies.

As great as it was to be together that one last time as college kids, moods were tempered somewhat because we were all feeling for Paul, whose brother had just gotten into a very serious motorcycle accident earlier that week. For a while, it was touch and go whether or not he would be ok. Luckily everything worked out.

Everything really has.

As a group, we've had our share of setbacks, struggles, trials, tribulations and any other synonyms you want to throw in for "shitty, crappy times", but we've also seen wonderful, successful, remarkable times.

What's more, we've always been there for each other in good times and bad.

My turn came seven months ago today on October 18th, 2004, the day we buried my sister, Jenn. I can't believe its been that long already. I'll say the same thing again next month, and probably the months and years after that. Its always going to seem close. I can't imagine it not being that way. Big memories always do.

When she died, me, my parents and the rest of my family were wrecks, but we got a huge amount of support and love from all over the place that helped and is helping us all cope. People came in from all over. Brooklyn, PA, Virginia, New Jersey. Flowers came in from everywhere. The house filled up. People helped out however they could. Through most of it, through the cloud of my grief, it hardly seemed to help. I could not imagine feeling worse. In retrospect though, I see exactly how much it did help and how much of a comfort it was to have family and friends around. I'm pleased at the number of friends that Jenn still had in the area that showed up for the wake and funeral too.

Of course, the Fordham guys all made it up. If you were there, they were the "Good looking young men in suits." as one of my aunts put it. They were there when I needed them and I leaned on a few - especially Sfumato who put aside his own troubles for me.

It could have been so much worse. We could have gone through this alone, but we didn't.

Thank you.



As for what happened to Jenn. That's coming.

Wet Floors. New Floors.

Well, the trip to Home Depot was successful. We wound up getting a little over 300 square feet of new, different laminate flooring.

Of course, it really wasn't that easy. I've got issues, man. As a recovering credit card junkie, I get pretty jittery spending anything over $500 dollars. I get buyers remorse, post cash-partum depression or whatever you want to call it. So, basically, when confronted with having to spend any amount of money these days, I become a difficult asshole. A passive aggressive difficult asshole. At least I'm aware of it though and try to rein it in.

Like I was saying, it wasn't that easy. I made the trip reluctantly and apprehensively. Reluctantly because I really wanted to be at home playing Desert Combat and configuring all sorts of different cool-mo-dean super high powered gaming PC rigs that I might want to gift myself. Apprehensively because I know money was going to be spent. Clarisa, when it comes to non-clothes shopping - shops like a man. She walks in and bang, she knows what she wants and buys it. Knowing this, for me the buyers remorse can actually kick in before the purchase.

Yeah, I'm pretty flaked out when it comes to spending money. But I'm not a tightwad. Its just that I flake out and hem and haw about it.

Naturally, I was hoping to get away with just buying a few replacement boards. One box at most. Maybe two. Clarisa, having hated the floor since we moved in, wanted to go for the gusto and just replace everything. We had the money, and its not rocket science installing laminate flooring - so what the heck?! I managed not to drive her from Home Depot in tears and we got the new flooring.

Good thing we did too, because when we got home we pulled up a few boards where we thought the water was, and then we pulled up a few more and then a few more until we'd cleared close to 200 hundred sq feet of board. Water everywhere. Obviously, a bigger problem than anticipated, but not really that surprising in retrospect.

There was even water under there from the great pipe bursting incident from this winter. Argh, that was disgusting. Its amazing there aren't more problems - the boards looked fine but underneath there was a layer of gunk and ooze Swamp Thing would love.

Right now the floor is ripped up, furniture all moved around (the bedroom has become the dining room) and we've got to bring in the flooring and let it acclimate for three days. Then we can start putting the new stuff down. In the meantime the place can dry out, too. It sure needs it.

But while I'm putting stuff down, I'm thinking "out". We've got to move out of here. Anywhere within an hour's train ride of the city and I think I'm game.

I clean my office yet must still face other responsibilities...

I spent most of the morning and this first part of the afternoon straightening up around the house, mainly in my office, which tends to ebb and flow from neat to cluttered to oh fuck and back to neat. I like neat, but I'm disorganized and a procrastinator -- so when the office gets bad it gets pretty bad but then some switch flips and I kick into clean mode. I even enjoy it. Perhaps its that buried inner chef in me, pissed off at my neglected mis en place.

Right now, Clarisa is still asleep with the cats piled around her. Saturday is her sleep in day. As for me, I try to sleep in, but rarely can unless I'm medicated and even then most times I'll just wake up stoned and try to deal. Not that it's a common occurrence. Given my family history (addictions seem to run rampant) and what happened to my sister - pills aren't really my favorite thing. However, when my insomnia is in full bloom and I'm getting like two hours of sleep a night for over a week - a pill does help.

I have to admit one thing -- I've straightened up around here today and been quiet and tried not to wake Clairey because I don't want to go do the run around errand thing today - like go across the Tappan Zee the Palisades Mall and Home Depot. I figure maybe if the place is clean and if she sleeps in long enough she'll think its too late to go.

Oh well. That's not too be. Just as I typed that last paragraph she got up and came straight into the office and announced we will be going to Home Depot.

Now is that ironic? My not-so-elaborate stupid plan...foiled.

See, its the procrastinator in me. I know we need to go because we need to replace our floors because we had yet another flood a few days ago. This time our piece of shit washer door flew open and sudsy water poured out and underneath our laminate floor. The floorboards are bulging and the water is still sloshing around in there despite my efforts to wet-vac it up.

So its something that needs to be done. Really.

Yet here I am hoping somehow to avoid having to do anything about it. At times like these I must seem 13.

I miss you.
Photo By VanishingJames

Conjecture

Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" seems to owe a lot to Snoop's "Drop it Like it's Hot".

Listen to both of em and tell me if I'm right.

I just wonder if the similarities are on purpose or if Snoop just rubbed off on Gwen and her crew of Harajukus. Or maybe its just the emergence, at least to me in my own little world, of a new "hit song" structure, akin to the minor 6-4-1-5 structure John Mayer explains in June's Esquire.

Why the hell this might be of any importance is beyond me, but its what's going through my mind now and I'm grateful for it and any other non career worrying non technology implementing thoughts that might float by.

The Not Exciting Vacation Post.

Prior to the near fisticuffs recounted in my last post, the vacation was going really, really well. Lots of R&R and doing stuff and seeing stuff I had never seen before.

Four Wheeling

On Monday of that week, Matt and "The Dick" Arlyn loaded up Matt's supercharged turbo V8 truck of doom, hitched a trailer loaded with 4x4's and took off for the fireroads above the Shasta Dam. The mountains are only about 20 or so minutes outside of Redding, so its just a bit of a drive and then all of a sudden, every turn of the road is a vista. 199 from Redding to Eureka is like that. Just beautiful. Now, I love the Catskills and New England, but I get a bigger sense of vitality out of there. Like I was saying, we went 4 wheeling. I'd gone once before with Clarisa and Matt on a short trip, but this was a loooong ass trip. Gone in the morning, back in evening, 60 miles over fire trails type of trip.

Driving the damn thing was a pain in the ass. For some reason, I thought I should sit back on it with my legs out in front of me slightly. Well, the damn thing is drifted on me and the steering was all light. I could not imagine these things being so hard to control. As luck would have it, we hit a couple of downhill slopes that pulled me forward into more of a motorcycle position that I kept when I finally came off the very steep slope that I locked the rear brake up on and slid sideways toward the cliff on (not a fun moment, but definitely memorable). Once I found that position, things were so much easier.

Anyhow as we made our way up, it just got prettier and prettier. At our furthest destination, we were on the top of some peak, and as best I could tell, Shasta lake was southeast of us and waaaay down and to the west were what Matt called the Trinity Alps. Not sure if that's a local name or not, but they were huge and far away and half covered in snow. Where we were, there was just a smidge of snow here and there - and we were high up, around six thousand feet. On the way back we had to turn on our reserve tanks with about an hours worth of riding left. The quote of the day came from Matt, "I'm almost 50% confident that we will make it back." But we did, probably by the skin of our teeth too.

To the Coast

Two days later we headed out for the coast, driving along 199 from Redding to Eureka. Vista. Vista. Vista. Vista. About 10 miles or so from the actual coast, the skies grew overcast and you could smell moisture in the air. As we came out of the mountains a few farms appeared. Cows were grazing in lush long grass and a light fog covered everything, especially along Arcata Bay. Once in town, the first thing we did was head to the Samoa CookHouse, an old lumbermill chow hall that's been converted into a familty style dining place. Its the type of place where the food is brown, hot, and there is lots of it. The waitress who served us was overweight, weathered and cheerful. I had the feeling she had not seen a lot, but what she had seen, she'd seen a lot of. A few diners in NY near here have her type, but not many.

Belly's full, we drove Matt's truck out onto the beach. Coming from NY, this was a real novelty. Anywhere I have ever been, trucks on the beach aren't allowed. Or if they are, its a college type crazy thing. Out there though, there were a few trucks here and there, none very close to each other. The tide was coming in and pushing piles of kelp up the beach. I was not going not go into the water after coming all this way. It would be a waste, freezing ass cold or not. For starters I just kicked off my shoes and rolled up my pants and strode in.

Oh shit was that cold. No swimming for JimmyBoy, no matter how far he'd come. Still though, there were surfers out there. They were down the beach to north a half mile or so. Right in front of me and to my left was a huge jetty built to protect the bay entrance. At the end of it there was a pile of huge cement structures that looked like God had scattered some of his jacks there. The opposing jetty to the south was covered with the same structures, but from a distance they looked like a huge grave site.

While we puttered around there I saw a sea lion and a bunch of starfish while I walked out onto the jetty, beyond the chain and sign that was spray painted, "LA FAGS GO HOME". Anyhoo, undeterred by the sign, not being from LA or a fag, I ventured out more. Eventually I found a starfish on top of the jetty, half dead. It must have been a big ass wave that hit to have brought it that far in and that high. Not really wanting to see it bake in the hazy sun, I pried it off the cement and tossed it back in. Either it lived or it died and became a meal. Either way I figure I helped something out.

Another curious site on the beach in Eureka were the small sand dunes, covered in flowers and plants and overtaking the WWII bunkers that had been installed there. You don't think about it much, and laugh at it in the movie "1941", but California was really terrified and serious about protecting itself and the nation from a Japanese invasion. From what I read on the plaques out there, lots of subs were spotted and destroyed. In NY, if you tried riding a 4 wheeler through the dunes in the Hamptons, I think you might get lynched. Things are definitely more relaxed out there.

The strangest site while out there - Arlyn pissing on a WWII bunker. Freaking surreal.

Once done with the coast, we drove up it. We got to see the "Goonies" rocks and more gorgeious views as we made our way up the coast into Crescent City and into the Redwood Forest.

Redwoods

Big. Trees. Wow. I had no idea. And aside from genetics, I guess the fog that's always there really nourishes them and lets them get big. They can live to be 2000 years old. Wow. Thank god we protected them, or at least most of them.

The big surprise came when we hit the coast drive in the Redwood National Forest. Aside from seeing this just absoloutely stunning view of the Pacific coast with its primordial forest, high bluffs, rocks and beach...we saw whales. About 6 or so of them. Huge black and mottled with spots making there way up the coast about 300 yards offshore. A little Internet research makes me think they were Gray whales, but they might have been Humpbacks. Regardless, I'd never seen a whale in the wild, and for just us to see them right then and there was striking.

I remember looking at the whales, looking to the south down the coast and seeing just one of the most spectular views I'd ever seen and just waiting. I just stood there for a bit, soaking it all in and waiting. Waiting for some sort of intimation. A further sign. Nothing came though. Just me and that view for just right then. A place I could not stay but will forever stay with me.

From there we drove up into Oregon to meet up with I-5 in Grants pass. I guess we were not too far from Portland. Maybe another trip.

My Vacation, In which I do not appear on COPS

Since Clarisa’s mother died in November 2002, we’ve taken to traveling out to Redding, CA for vacation to see the some of her family. Last time we went it was a last minute decision because one of a great many hurricanes that year was busy beating the crap out of Florida and ruining our trip to Universal. This trip, though, was planned.

We left on Friday, April 22nd. Clarisa picked me up in hired car on 36th and Broadway a little after 4pm. It was cool cloudy and drizzling. Traffic on the way to JFK was slow, but we made it in plenty of time for our flight at 7:05, thus proving my father’s concerns about leaving Manhattan three hours before departure baseless. Score one for the kids.

On the plane, some of our fellow passengers could not get it together enough to find their seat and stow their shit in a timely fashion. While we waited, a zillion other planes packed the flight line. The pilot called the plane-jam he saw “impressive”. So we waited an hour on the tarmac to take off, but hey, there was that 6”x 4” TV with 36 channels on it. Six+ plus hours of TV. Oy.

Thought it was just my third trip out there, it was all very familiar. The night flight, the long drive north up I-5 through the Sacramento River valley past miles of nothing. Sacramento receding. The glow of San Francisco behind the shadowed mountains to the west following us for a bit. Denny’s. RV Park. Motels. Nothing. Nothing. Grain deal of some sort. Denny’s. RV Park. Car Dealership. Straight driving at 80mph. Never any traffic. A late hotel check in. A hard bed. Amazement in the morning as I step outside and see the mountains again. Mt. Shasta to the north, Mount Lassen to the East. They seem close, but I know they are far.

This time though, it started to rain like Hell about halfway to Redding. Actually it was more of a deluge. Not fun. Not fun especially when your wife is driving and you are nodding out constantly and waking up with the false sensation that your car is hydroplaning and you are zooming sideways across the road. In other words, totally fucked up. Muchos kudos to the missus for maintaining her composure has I jolted awake each time with a "Gaaaah!".

Rain and relatively cooler temperatures would punctuate the vacation, but overall it was a great relaxing time and I got to do and see things I’d never done or seen before. Highlights of the trip include racing RC buggies on an indoor dirt track, a pizza party with Hannah and a bunch of her friends, 4 wheeling through the mountains above Lake Shasta, a 531 mile road trip out to Eureka on the coast, up to Crescent City and into the Redwood Forest and then northeast into Oregon and back down I-5 from Grants Pass. Those were all great things to do. Really. Fun. Stuff. However, I will get to those things later. Now, I want to jump ahead to Saturday and my aborted appearance on COPS.

Saturday. Afternoon light. Sunny skies. The air is warm and a slight breeze is blowing. We can see a little windmill set up in the backyard turning at a relaxed pace. There are kids playing basketball in the park beyond the backyard. My brother in law, Matt, and I are chilling out on the back deck of his place. Clarisa is inside and so is her stepfather, Arlyn. In our house, he is often lovingly referred to as “Fucking Asshole”, or “Dick”.

The two of them don’t really get along. Actually its more one sided than that. Clarisa hates him with a furious passion, and with good reason. Arlyn, on the other hand is just too blocked, stupid or in denial to recognize why she hates him. Let’s just put it this way, a lot of the shit that would get you put in jail or your kids taken away today was just business as usual for Arlyn back then. Family accounts corroborate it.

So why are we there? Well, Clarisa wants to see her family out there and have a relationship with her brother. To have that she is willing to tolerate being around her step-father. To her credit there has not been an altercation. We do this dance. She tolerates him, I try to buffer things and just be polite.

Until this time.

Just after the thought, “She’s been in there a while…she should not really be left alone with him…” enters my head we hear an angry shout and then a loud sound of something falling or being slammed. Right away Matt and I know it’s on.

We come in the through the screen door to the dining room and Clarisa is on the left, screaming at Arlyn and he’s saying something back to her but I can’t quite tell what at first. Then I hear him hurl some insults at her. Words like whore and bitch are being used and Clarisa is trying to tear into Arlyn but Matt’s holding her back. She’s raging. Among other things, I hear!”

“I may be a bitch but I’m no child molester!” she screams. She’s clawing at Matt, trying to throw him aside. But Matt’s a big and he’s got her contained.

Arlyn really doesn’t like what she said. Things escalate. He calls her a fucking whore. She wants a piece of him.

The dog, Max, an eighty pound shepherd mix, is freaking out and jumping up on the two of them and barking like mad. For what seems like a long time I look at the three of them there to my left and keep Arlyn to my right. I see that the dog is not biting and that Clarisa isn’t being hurt so I turn my attention to Arlyn. I step in front of him. I get close.

“You better just shut your mouth. Shut the fuck up right now. Don’t. Talk. To. Her. Like. THAT.”

He’s hardly paying any attention to me though and is saying something about “This is my house!” and “I’ll show you.” He heads over to the kitchen phone.

The guy is going to call the cops! What a pussy. This is just a screaming match and he’s losing. I guess the rules change when you aren’t the one doing the screaming or beating or molesting.

Matt manages to fend off Clarisa and get the phone out of Arlyn’s hands. More screaming. Clarisa is letting him know how he ruined her life, how he took her childhood away from her. She is unloading a lifetimes worth of pent up anger. Arlyn is heading toward the garage door in the kitchen and I’m behind him, pissed off now myself, saying mean shit to him. He’s yelling that Clarisa’s told everyone he fucked her. He’s also restating the claim that its his house. Those are both lies. I respond sarcastically.

“Shut the fuck up. You rent. You mother-fucking scumbag. You piece of shit. She is so much better than you.”

Now he is pullng something out of his pocket and saying “I’ll show you!” (again). At first I think it’s a knife and I contemplate what I think I need to do. Jump him? Run?

It’s a phone. Again. He’s going to call the cops. Again. Unbelievable.

I go back inside and tell Matt. Matt comes into the garage and takes the phone away from Arlyn. He’s telling us just to leave, which is a good idea at this point, and that he’ll call us in a bit.

Even as we leave though, I’m trying to goad Arlyn into a fight. I really want a piece of this guy, seventy years old or not. I keep hurling the insults. He charges at me when I call him a fucking scumbag again but stops short. Its all show. Things are different when it’s not a helpless kid.

Then we are in our rental and Clarisa is still screaming and giving him dual birds. My knees are feeling a bit weak from the fight or flight dump of adrenaline I’ve got coursing through me. We pull out and I know I will never see that house again until Arlyn is on the wrong side of the grass.

Once we are down the street, I ask Clarisa, “What the hell happened?” All of this went down without me knowing why, but the answer was not too surprising. Clarisa had gone into the garage to pick up her vacation cigarettes (she only smokes with other smokers and whilst on vacation) and Aryln was out there too. He asked angrily “What do you have against me?”. She said she did not want to fight with him and asked him to drop it. He said she’d always been a fucking bitch as she went up the stairs. I guess he thought she’d let it go?

Anyhow that’s what set it all off. She finally got to tell him what and why and where to go.

She calmed down really fast in the car. We went to a nearby mall and sat at a table outside. Matt called and met us out there after closing the garage door and giving his father a piece of his own mind first.

All in all it was pretty cathartic. I know the two of us have been a lot closer since it happened.

UFC Highlights - better late than never...

It's a little late to be topical, but I just have to put some thoughts down about the Ulitmate Fighter show and the UFC matches this past Saturday.

How happy was I (and thousands of other viewers) that Forrest kicked the crap out of Sam and made it to the light heavyweight final against Bonnar? Man, that was just about the best goddamn fight I've ever seen. Bonnar and Griffin went at for three long ass five minute rounds at a pace that matched Hagler vs Hearns with both taking and dishing wicked shots. Personally, I would have given the fight to Bonnar with him taking the 2nd round and a split between the 1st and 3rd. For one of those guys to go home without a contract for the UFC, to say that one was worthy of it but the other was not would have been a real mistake. My opinion is they both have a good future in the UFC and of course there is the possible drama of one or both of them fighting Liddell or Couture at some time.

I think Diego Chavez has a good future - but he better cut some fat and bulk up a bit if he wants to roll with Matt Hughes and or St. Pierre. I just can't see him at middleweight and competing. Of course, I could be wrong - the kid has a ton of heart. Speaking of which, how sick is Matt Hughes? In the UFC welterweight championship match against Frank Trigg, he showed tremendous grit and skill. About midway through the first round, Hughes has his back to the cage and is clinched up with Trigg, who then knees Hughes right in his groin. Hughes manages to break out of the clinch and moves to his left along the cage and looks at the referee for some help with the low blow, but none comes and Trigg follows up on Hughes and smokes him a few good ones and winds up taking his back sinking a rear naked choke. Hughes defends, gets out of it and winds up picking up Trigg and carrying him across the octagon like a bag of peat-moss and then does an WWE-riffic body slam, takes Trigg's back and sinks a rear-naked on Trigg to end it in the first round. Fucking great.

I give the best quote of the night to Renato "Babalu" Sobral, when asked by Joe Rogan to describe how he finished off Travis Wiuff with an armbar:

Gracie Jiu Jitsu

How great is that?

All in all it was a great night of fights with a good number of submissions. As for the big match of Couture vs. Liddell, well it ended too fast when Liddell just smoked Couture with a right a little over two minutes into the first round. Kudos to Liddell, but so much for the great fight I was looking forward to.

Back in the Day...

In a little while I am going to tool up the Taconic to see my good friend and buddy, Mr. Dennis of http://www.d2stuff.com, for some beers, some barbecue and to watch the UFC PPV matches tonight.

What a great way to spend an evening.

Of course, the big highlight match is Liddell vs Couture. It seems Den is routing for Couture because of his age and his demeanor. Me -- I have no idea who I'd like to see win, in fact I'm pretty sure it does not matter to me. I know both guys are great fighters -- I just want to see a great fight. Its pretty disappointing to see someone just get taken down and get beat on till the ref stops it, especially when you are paying cash on the barrel for your blood sport.

Anyhow, Den's gotten all into MMA since I've started BJJ. He's actually probably into it a bit more than I am. If his schedule ever allows it, I think he just might wind up at the NYMAG in Poughkeepsie and getting his roll on. That'd be cool. That would mean that I'd finally have someone to Mountain Bike and BJJ train with.

We met about 6 years ago whilst working as contractors for Texaco. I'd originally been hired as an Admin Asst. and managed to transition to doing some intranet web stuff for a few departments there. I really had no idea what I was doing, but welcomed the opportunity to learn some skills create some sort of a career path. A month or so into treading water and trying to figure out what the department wanted and how the hell I was supposed to do it, they brought on Dennis to help out.

Of course, at first I ignored him. It just seemed the Texaco way. Plus he was inching in on my turf and that pissed me off. I guess he got tired of lonely office life because one day he just came over and said "Let's get some lunch". I have to mention that they gave him an office. But, the powers that be made it clear that it was not his office. He was just in it. The staff would go out of their way to reference / reinforce the relationship between Den and the office. If there was a meeting they would say: "I'll be in a meeting with Dennis in the office that he is in." It was freaking odd. But hey, that odd bunch paid him and me a ton of cash just to do exactly what they wanted for their website, no matter how fucked the requests were. We were contractors, and as such were kind of like guns. They'd just point us and fire and we'd execute the disaster they had designed.

Suffice to say that we did not get a whole lot done, but what we did do we did a whole lot of. Towards the end, when Texaco had been bought by Chevron and we knew our days were numbered, we'd just take off for a hours at a time and walk the huge campus. There was an apple tree with apples to make a stop at, a beaver pond to sit and stare at along with, and I shit you not, the occasional Coyote. Ostensibly we were in the "server room" which was far far away from our department in the first place, and a place our boss did not have access to, so it was a perfect place to "be".

Ahh, those were the days. The people there were great, we had every other Friday off and for the most part, we could do what we wanted. Plus, I cut my teeth in tech there and learned all important workplace rules of thumb like the 3x rule - that is a person needs to ask you three times to do something before you do it. Otherwise, its just a bullshit pipedream request they are not serious about and you should not waste your time. The other all important rule is Perceived Work + Actual Work = Real Work. In other words, yeah you know that you can do what's needed in about 5 minutes, but they don't know that. Why fuck yourself into increased expectations?

Of course these were lessons Mr. Den helped me learn. Oh the looks of consternation I’d get when our boss would ask for something and I’d turn it around in no time like a good Boy Scout. I learned though.

Amazingly, though, it seems I've perfected things too far because this latest job is a purgatory of productivity. I’m still dying for stuff to do. Not the worst of job fates and waaay better than having to wash a car outside in the summer in a suit. Well, nothings forever and I'm sure that at some point I'll be chalking this all up to a transitional period.

Alrighty then -- its off to beers, bbq and choke outs.

Ramblings from a fevered mind...

I'm sick and on top of that I'm hurt.

Being that I ride the train to work everyday and work with people that do not stay home when they are sick, its no surprise that I'm nursing another head cold. Stay home people! On the other hand, whatever the hell went wrong with my left hip flexor is beyond me. I was fine all day yesterday but when I got up to leave at around 6PM my left hip felt stiff and when I walked my leg felt locked up and a little numb. Once I got home, it got worse and gave me a hell of a time getting to sleep. It still hurts right now, but at least my fever, sore throat and runny nose seem to be in check and I don't feel as drained as I did earlier.

So, I stayed home today and just slept and blew my nose and slept. Of course this happens just when I'm feeling a bit better about things and came up with a weekly diet and exercise plan. I get a little bit of a rhythm going and boom, something always seems to happen. Its not our problems that are so important as how we respond to them, right? Well, right now I'm having one hell of a time, and though I really try to respond positively to challenges like this little bit of discomfort among other things, there is a part of me that wants curl up and take a bath in my frustration, pain and self pity. If you read Death of Salesman or Notes from Underground you'll note its not an uncommon condition in the author's eyes. Like the characters in those works, you play it safe, you observe, you bide your time thinking that there is always tomorrow, or maybe you get hung up on something you can't let go or maybe theres always some excuse not to act. Ultimately, you paralyze yourself.

What a shitty way to go through life.

Fuck Willy Lohman and fuck Dostoevsky's Underground Man. I have things to do and people that count on me.

Choked Out

Last week, a six-foot tall, one-hundred-ninety pound purple belt taught me what a cross collar choke is really all about. I waited too long to tap and passed out for a second or two after he’d let go. What a very strange experience. My vision went all white and I went deaf and I went out. Poof! It was very “floaty” and I think my mind was still working but the outside world had just, for a moment, ceased to exist. A “release” is another way of putting it I guess. I came to on my own and the guy was asking me if I was ok and I just had to lay there face down on the mat and grasp for a second where the hell I was. I got up, rested a bit, we shook hands and went at it again. About 30 seconds later he took my back and gave me a rear naked choke.

I thought to myself, “This is ‘Make James Your Bitch Day'.” I also thought, “You’re learning from this, so its good.”

The next day in no gi I arm barred an experienced blue belt. I’ll take it.

Herald Square Hilarity

Its finally nice here in NYC today, so I took the opportunity to have a quick bit of nosh in Herald Square Park and do some people watching. I wound up on a little chair on the outside of the park facing north near 6th with, of all things, a very computerized pay to use public toilet directly ahead of me. So I’m sitting and noshing on my overpriced Roman Lemon Chicken when a commotion of embarrassed shrieking and laughter kick in from near the toilet. The door is open and the woman inside is hiking up her skirt and a friend / brother / cousin (not boyfriend, no sane boyfriend would laugh at this) is laughing his ass off while being lightly shushed by a girlfriend / sister /cousin. He puts fifty cents in again, the door closes…and about 5 seconds later, for whatever reason, opens up again and the woman is jumping up again and now the guy is just howling. He steps inside to check out the scene and comes out a few seconds later but with a 4 foot strand of toilet paper stuck to his shoe, so now girlfriend is laughing, but the lady inside thinks she’s laughing at her…

And so it went for about three minutes while they tried to get the HAL the toilet to work and HAL turning on every light but “occupied” and opening the door just when you thought it would stay closed. Finally they gave up and I alerted the guy to the toilet paper streamer attached to his right shoe. Last I saw they were wandering toward Macy’s. Man, Jay Leno should get crew down here to film all the bladder challenged folk struggling with this contraption.

Anyhoo, I took a moment to look up the manufacturer of this toilet and by the press and the design of these things, you would really thing that the future is here now! These toilets play you music, self clean after every use, cleaned 3 times a day and are supposedly monitored via a central server. Now if the door would just stay closed. Oh yeah, there is also a 15 minute time-limit to how long the door will stay closed with someone inside, ostensibly to deter people from doing drugs in it, having sex in it, moving in et cetera. Come on now, not that I’m bragging here but 15 minutes is plenty of time to do some drugs AND have some wild sex if you just focus!

Harper's Classified Weirdness

I picked up Harper's on a lark at Hudson's newsstand in Grand Central last night and casually flipped through it on the train, managing an article or two before hitting White Plains. Nothing great. Basically I'm finding it a bit boring. Not willing to just trash my $5.95, I gave it a second chance this morning. Right away I found myself at the classifieds, since I tend to flip through magazines backwards looking for items of interest. Now I know any news or lit rag with classifieds always attracts a few racy odds and ends and my attention span is short short first thing in the morning, so I stop to take a look. Harper's classifieds do not disappoint, though they are missing that sex position foam pad ad that's everywhere these days. First, I notice:

FEMINIST PIN UPS: Powerwomen, Soldier, Policewomen etc.

Not bad. Somehow fitting for Harper's. I catch myself wondering if the Army's mud wrestling enlisted women are featured... Then I get to the education section to find this little ad with a Yahoo email as the only contact information:

DEPT OF EDUC. GESTAPO TACTICS: Scaring elderly, low income citizens into paying on bogus, non-verifiable loans.

Wow. That's pretty ballzy. Either its recruiting people to scare elderly people or this guy thinks that the Dept. of Education is like the Gestapo and scaring the elderly into paying on loans. Who knows, maybe Harper's classified is a sordid underbelly of recruitment for grifters? Then we slip into the truly oddly disturbing an inch or so over in the next column. This ditty appears under the heading of Human Rights:

RACISM-GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA! Strange Fruit hanging from the Gainesville Poplar Trees. Contact (same guy as the preceding ad!)

My knee jerk reaction is that a white supremacist org is recruiting in Harper's of all things and looking to fund itself by ripping off old people! What the hell?! On the other hand, maybe someone knows about racist attacks in Gainesville and heavy handed tactics by the Dept. of Ed.? Either way, though a bit disturbing, those classifieds proved way more intriguing so far than the sleep inducing abstract trippiness of Daniel Mason's story entitled "A Registry of My Passage Upon The Earth" which has a kind of a The Sound and The Fury point of view thing going in on it. I'm too tired to figure it out.

The same classifieds are not on Harper's online. Perhaps they removed them and the intern that missed them the first time around has been properly disciplined and relegated to loading the stapler for the on-staff post modernist deconstructionist critic?

Oh yeah, one more ad, this one right after someone pimping a philosophically slanted baseball rag and before another selling remote viewing tips:

PROVACTIVE SPANKING EROTICA: Our "Prep-School Punishments" feature both a rebellious co-ed and a sophisticated female teacher being spanked by handsome faculty members

Imagine that! A rebellious co-ed AND a sophisticated female teacher! How the hell does that work? You finish up some articles about strip mining in West Virginia, Social Security and peruse a few Readings and then...well you must just feel like getting your spank on? That has to be it or the ads wouldn't be there. Luv it.

Jenn in her CIA whites.
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