Random Access

Thursday
Day Three of “The Fastest Work Week in History!”

I’ve been listening to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for the past couple of days; I think that it’s one of the reasons that the days have gone by so quickly. Here’s a helpful hint when transferring mp3s from one computer to another: Make sure that you transfer ALL of the mp3s for a given book from Computer A to Computer B. Hearing the entire story makes a book so much more enjoyable. *gah* Fortunately, I also transferred another book (from the Harry Potter series) to the laptop at the same time, so I wasn’t completely book-free. UNfortunately, HGTTG doesn’t seem to be on the server any longer… so, I may not be able to get the rest of the book. BAH!!!

The first hour of Talk of the Nation talked about the restructuring of the F.B.I. Someone actually asked “What kind of F.B.I. do you want?” Julia and I cracked up at this comment.

• Me: “Just what I’ve always wanted. MyFBI.”
• Julia:“Suit. Notebook. I.D. Shades. I am an F.B.I. of one.“

Tomorrow is Friday. Well, I guess that technically today is Friday. And that is definitely something to be glad about. Unless you have to work weekends. But it’s still Friday. Hoo-AH!

Peace.

Wednesday
Another workday that was over far more quickly than I had anticipated.

Talk of the Nation spent the first hour talking about the upcoming World Cup tournament. The primary focus was: Why hasn’t soccer caught on in the U.S. as it has in (most of) the rest of the world? The callers and guests made a few interesting observations/comparisons.

• One likened soccer to poetry, as opposed to the prosaic nature of baseball.
• Someone else said that soccer’s pacing and tempo reminded them of jazz.
• Another observer said that soccer had one attribute that made it stand out from many, if not all, other sports: Anyone can play. Unlike basketball (tall is good) or football (big and/or fast) or boxing (BIG), one does not have to have a certain body type to be able to play soccer.

I just finished watching the anime Metropolis. It was interesting, to say the least. It was set “in the near future,” but there were parts of it that seemed quite retro. And, in an unusual twist, it had a jazz and ragtime-ish soundtrack. It also featured Ray Charles’ version of “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” which caught me totally by surprise… but integrated seamlessly (and rather poignantly) into its scenes. This definitely merits another viewing… or two. In fact, this has renewed my desire to watch the 1927 movie of the same name (different plot) again.

Peace.

Tuesday
First day of the work week. And it was over pretty quickly. Three more to go.

NPR/PRI
There was a story on The World about a research team in Australia that wants to reintroduce the Tasmanian Tiger. Here’s a little background: The animal is actually a marsupial (think kangaroo, wombat or bandicoot) – it carries its young in a pouch.. And, I think that I should also mention: It’s extinct. That’s right, boys and girls, extinct. And it has been that way since 1937.

It seems that they have found DNA from the remains of a female tiger pup. Now, they want to genetically (re-)engineer the animal using this DNA and DNA from two males. Assuming that the DNA is viable, this is now a scientific possibility. The one thing that flashed through my mind when I heard this was: Didn’t any of these people read Jurassic Park or see the movies?!

If God, Mother Nature and/or Darwin decided that the creature had served its purpose, why do these scientists think that it needs to be brought back for an encore presentation? Seriously, what purpose does bringing it back serve? Julia also mentioned that viruses remain in their hosts if they are not eliminated. Thus, if it was a virus that destroyed the Tasmanian Tiger, it could potentially be recreated and reintroduced if the animal is created. If the virus has survived preservation and survives the cloning/genetic engineering, what’s to say that it wouldn’t destroy the host? Can you say “Possible Catch-22,” boys and girls? I thought so.

Quotes of the Day:

• Dee and Harmon worked Monday. At some point, they were talking about a diet that Dee is starting. It is based on the diets of the rather long-lived residents of a village in China or Japan.

  Harmon: I wish I had a Chinese name, like…. Fond Ling Dong.

• 3^rd Rock from the Sun
  • Dick: Nina, do you think I’m whipped?
    Nina: You…? Whipped…? By Doctor Albright?!
    ::: both laugh :::
    Dick: Hilarious, isn’t it?
    ::: both laugh :::
    Nina: You are wrapped around that woman’s finger like a yo-yo… and she’s always walking the dog.

  • Dick and Harry: (back and forth) You da man! No, YOU da man!
    Dick: Dammit, Harry! I’m the High Commander! If I say ‘You da man,’ then You da man!!!

And, that wraps it up for tonight.

Peace.

Monday
Another nice day. Again, the weather was pleasant.
I hope that everyone’s Memorial Day was safe and enjoyable.

• Slept in. This is (almost) always a ‘good thing.’
• Had a missionary from ‘The Church’ come a-knockin’. *shrug* Utah has a distinction that I believe is unique: One can simply say ‘the Church’ and it is tacitly understood that the person is referring to the LDS Church. Kinda like a spoken shorthand.
• Went to Sandi and Jim’s for a little cooked-out chicken goodness.
• Came home.
• Gettin ready to go bowling.

Time to get outta here and get a little pin and projectile exercise. Later!

Peace.

Sunday
Nice day. Perfect weather. Nothing on the “must be done today” agenda.

• Went for another 5-mile bike jaunt this afternoon. I discovered something after I got home: Riding, even though it makes my legs a little achy on the uphill stretches, is not that bad. In fact, it’s fun. Especially when the endorphins kick in and I get that “Let’s go another mile-and-a-half” feeling. The thing that is bad is having to carry the bike back up the damned steps after riding. Oh, well.
• Went to lunch with Jess before she went to work.
• Went to Wheeler Farm again. Walked around a took a few pictures.
• Went to B&N and had a cup of frozen mocha goodness while I sat in the cafè and drew.
• Came home.

We have Cottonwood trees here. In the Spring, they bud and produce cotton-like… spores, I guess… which blow all over Creation. (Here’s a simple way to visualize them: If a dandelion grew to the size of a tree, the “cotton” would be the puffy spores.) “Cotton” is ALL over: In the air, on the ground… everywhere! In fact, it is so prevalent around here that it looks like it is snowing.

Take a look at this story by . Make sure that you give her lots of feedback!

“That’s all I have to say about that.” – Forrest Gump

Peace.

Saturday
It was a fairly uneventful day. That is always a nice way to start a long weekend.

• I talked to my uncle and Kris, my youngest sister, today. Kris is ready to get back to campus for summer school – she says that it is “too boring” at home; home being in a rural N.C. community. *twitch*
• I’d tell you how bowling was, but we didn’t go. We were all set to go, but the manager-on-duty decided to close up early “because there weren’t enough people to warrant remaining open.” According to our friend who works there, plenty of people showed up. BAH!!!
• We (Jess, Julia, Mary, Shawn, Larry, Adrian and I) went to the Village Inn instead. A short while later, the after-the-bar crowd came in. There were more victims of fashion faux pas and bad hair than I care to remember. Tonight was also Jaysin’s last night at V.I.; he will be working at the Olive Garden now.

  Shawn showed us a copy of a picture that was up during the Olympics. It was of an ice hockey goalie; a fabric “blow-up” of that picture was hung from one of the buildings downtown. I wish that I had gotten a better picture of it when I was taking shots of the area: The goalie is Shawn. For a (tiny) glimpse of the picture, click here. I’ll look for a better picture or get a scan of the ones that Shawn has.

• Home.

I seem to be winding down, so I think that I shall fall into the gentle oblivion that is sleep.

Peace.

Friday
The end of the work week is upon us! Let the three day weekend begin! Work wasn’t bad; I had six or seven hours in flats, too. That helped the day zip along fairly well.

Other things …

• On All Things Considered, there was a segment about Gay Athletes. Here’s the summary from the ATC website:
  

  Liane Hansen talks to Wall Street Journal sportswriter Stefan Fatsis about homosexual athletes in team sports. Earlier this week, a New York Post gossip column intimated that a star on the New York Mets baseball team is gay. Mike Piazza, the team’s catcher, held a press conference after the report’s release to say that he was not gay — and that he would not care if a teammate “came out.” (4:00)
  

  This segment irritated me. Why? Quite simply because I feel that a person’s sexual orientation is their and their partner’s business. Period. They brought up the point of sponsors, fearing some manner of public backlash, possibly pulling an athlete’s endorsements. Have we taken a giant leap backwards? This reminds me of the problems encountered by African-American athletes attempting to (and finally succeeding in ) break the color barrier in sports. The thought that someone would not back a certain team or athlete because of sexual preference makes an interesting parallel to Hank Aaron approaching and surpassing Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1973; there were MANY people who didn’t like the idea of a black man breaking (not to mention setting) records. Yet, today, there are kids of all ages and races who “want to be like Mike” (Michael Jordan). This instills me with hope. Maybe, just maybe, people will stop judging others based on their sexual preference and judge them on the content of their character.

• Angie, Julia and I hung out for a while this evening. That’s usually fun; tonight was no exception.
• I like Steve Harvey; he was a guest on the Conan O’Brien show tonight. He canceled his last scheduled appearance on the program because the RCA Building, where the show is taped, was being evacuated due to an anthrax scare. When Conan jokingly asked why he had canceled, Steve replied: “I was at Comedy Central, taping another show, and I looked at the TV and saw all these people [at the RCA Building] running around in space suits; I have a suit, it doesn’t look like that! I’m from Cleveland. This show doesn’t mean THAT much to me! I canceled.”

  When asked about his thoughts on the current problems facing the Catholic Church, he declined to make a comment about the clergy. He said that, as a whole, a number of good things had been done for the laity by priests and that he would not make light of them because of the transgressions of some of their number. He did, however, have a few comments about the man who claims that he was molested until he was 23. He thought that this was merely a case of someone coming ‘out of the woodwork’ to get some attention and anything else they can from the publicity: “You were 23… 23! You weren’t molested… brother, you were dating! You may have been crying about what was going on, but you were crying while you were driving over there.”

Today’s Quote of the Day comes, once again, from Dee: “If my ass had an ass, this place would suck that ass.”

It’s early and I have to get up later, so I think that I will stop here.

Peace.

Thursday
Work was pretty much cake today. I even got some time in flats processing to help speed the day along. 32 down and 8 (assuming I make it for the full shift) to go…

I finished listening to Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse, Book One in his “Incarnations of Immortality” series. The series proposes that there are seven “Incarnations” who represent Death, Time, Fate, Nature, and War, Good and Evil. On a Pale Horse follows the life (and semi-afterlife) of Zane, the new Incarnation of Death; we meet him just before he assumes that role. Readers accompany Zane as he learns what it means to be Death and as he learns the ins and out of his station. As if that was not enough, we also discover a masterful and insidious plot that could threaten to upset the balance between Heaven and Hell. It’s is also of note that Zane, well… more specifically, Death… is caught in the middle of this power play.

Being something of a sci-fi and fantasy fiction fan, I found this book to be a fun reading listening experience. It has been quite a while since I have read anything by Piers Anthony; he did a great job with the characters and their characterizations. This story also reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. That series featured the seven members of The Endless: Dream, Delirium, Desire, Despair, Destruction, Destiny and Death. (Note: For those of you who are unfamiliar with this title, I suggest that you go, posthaste, to your favorite bookstore and pick up a copy of “Preludes and Nocturnes,” the trade paperback that reprints the first eight issues of The Sandman; the entire series has been reprinted in this format which collects entire storylines under a single cover.) As I listened to Pale Horse, I recall drew many comparisons to The Sandman. “Many favorable comparisons,” I should say.

NPR/PRI Programming
Talk of the Nation had their Annual Summer Reading List segment during the first hour. Four guests, along with callers and emailers, offered their ideas on books to enjoy over the next few months. Click here to see the list of books that were suggested, if you choose not to listen to the segment.

The second hour dealt with Vietnam Now and how the country has changed over the last thirty years. This segment piqued my curiosity, as I have no recollection of events (i.e.: news) during the Vietnam War era; I was roughly five years old when the last of the American troops were pulled out of Vietnam. I know that my father was stationed there, but I haven’t thought to ask him about what he did. Another item of note was that they had Adrian Kronauer, who was ‘portrayed’ by Robin Williams in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, as a guest for the last portion of this segment.

Quote of the Day: Tonight’s quote comes from an episode (“There’s Something about Dr. Mary”) of Frasier. Kim Coles made a guest appearance as Frasier’s new engineer/producer… who drove him up the wall. Soon after starting, she began making comments and suggestions to the callers of the show, which infuriated Frasier. When she started calling herself “Dr. Mary,” that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back!

• Frasier: A cat can have kittens in the oven, but that don’t make ’em biscuits!

Peace.

Wednesday
Let’s try something radically different and get a post done before midnight…

Got up this morning and got ready in fairly short order. It was necessary. I was on a mission:

Jess and I were talking last night and she we wound up talking about something that we had first talked about two-and-a-half years ago; we laughed when she made the comment that it took her a little while to see some things. I started counting… and asked for a big-screen TV.

She asked if I was asking for that now because it took me a while to process things. I told her: Nope, I don’t have a that much of a time-delay problem; pick up most things fairly quickly¹. I just figured that if I asked for a big screen TV now that it would be almost perfect timing to arrive for Christmas 2004! She thought that it was funny, too. (Thankfully!) She then said that she wanted a Hummer®; actually, she has told me this on many occasions. Not only does she want a Hummer, she wants a yellow one. It seems that her time in the Army has spoiled her on this type of vehicle. And, thus did my mission begin…

Before work, I went to one of the local Toys ‘R’ Us stores in search of a Hummer. A yellow Hummer. You would think that they would be easy to find; it took me ten minutes to find them. They were hiding in plain sight. *ARGH* But, I got it! A radio controlled Hummer. Yellow. Booyah!

I brought it home and put it in the office on her computer chair. Then, off to work! She called me a few hours later to tell me that she had found it.

Mission accomplished.
Mission: COMPLETE

Work wasn’t bad. It was rather painless.

NPR/PRI Programming
The first segment of Talk of the Nationwas about foster care in America.

There are over half a million children in our nation’s foster care system. But the number of families willing to take these children into their homes is falling. In this hour of Talk of the Nation, join guest host Melinda Penkava for a look at why foster parents are burning out and how they would change the system to make foster care more attractive.

This was an interesting segment. Listening to the guests and the callers, it seems that there are a great number of disparities between the standards of the foster care systems of some states. Some of the issues included:

• Better services need to be accorded to foster parents for children under their care;
• More homes/families are needed for minority and special needs children;
• Stipends for foster families should be more commensurate with the ages and needs of the foster children;
• …and, unfortunately, some foster care providers (I refuse to designate these people as ‘parents’) are using the monies that they receive for personal gain and not for the benefit of the children under their ‘care.’

There were also positive accounts of some states’ foster care systems. I highly recommend listening to this segment.

Quotes of the Day:

• Lynn: What is your major malfunction, Private Maybury?!
  Jim: Looking at you, Sir! I told that to a drill instructor once….
  Lynn: THAT‘s why you have two assholes!
  Jim: No… but I did have KP for a month.

• Dee and I were talking with Jenny about a DJ/trance show that she attended. Some of the patrons were doing X and Jenny was telling some of the things that she saw.
  Dee: That’s why I could never do X: Anything that makes you that willing to step outside of your sexual boundaries… HELL NO!

Peace.

¹Some physics and calculus concepts have proven… more elusive.

Tuesday
It was a grey, dreary day.
Worked.
Came home.

And, for …
NPR and PRI

Tuesday on Talk of the Nation, guest host Melinda Penkava takes a closer look at the trial of Bobby Frank Cherry, a former Klansman accused in a 1963 Birmingham, Ala. church bombing that killed four black girls. How can revisiting past wrongs affect race relations today?

This was a very good segment; it was also interesting to listen to the opinions of the panelists and the callers/emailers.

• One caller recommended establishing a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” like the one that was established in post-Apartheid South Africa, to help everyone come together to address socio-economic and political issues and to simply open avenues of dialogue between the races.
• Melinda Penkava asked the question: “Do you think that whites and blacks see… looking at the past differently?” It was, in my opinion, a very astute question.

  Sonia Jarvis, one of the guests, answered: “I think it’s not so much that blacks and whites might view history differently; I think that the effect of different events, over time, have affected those communities differently.” She then cited the O.J. Simpson trial as an example.

  David Garrow, another guest, posed the idea that America possesses an “incomplete memory” with respect to civil rights era crimes. He then said that a more focused study of civil rights era and minority-American histories (he cited the World War II-era Japanese-American internment camps) might help to fill some of the gaps in our national awareness/knowledge.

You can hear the entire segment here, in RealAudio format.

And with that, it’s time for bed.

Peace.

I just checked The Weather Channel’s webpage for an update on the weather and was more than a little surprised by what I found there.

No, I wasn’t shocked by the fact that it is 45° here, I had noted yesterday that we were about to have a minor cold snap; we are going from temperatures around 85° (over the past few days) down to the mid-50s. *twitch* Okay, I can handle that.

What shocked me was looking at the Doppler Radar map on the page: It showed green (light precipitation/rain) around the Salt Lake City area… and white (snow…..snow?!?) around Elko, NV. That had to be a mistake! It’s (roughly) the end of May, not March! I checked the weather page for Elko. 34°. Light snow.

::: braincramp :::
There is snow on the tops of the Wasatch. That I can grok.
Falling snow? In late May? That one’s a little harder to get my mind around.

Peace.

Monday
I went to work; it was rather uneventful day… until they started calling overtime for some groups. Not for me though! 20:30 came and I was gone, baby, gone! I talked to
I came home.

Sissy the Wonder Kitty is now craving attention.

::: hears meowing from another room :::
Great. I probably closed Xena in the pantry again. Cats. *sigh* Back in a minute…

::: checks pantry :::
No Xena. Meowing continues.

::: checks balcony :::
Enter Xena, running across the living room and down the hall.

Hmmm. I checked the balcony before I closed the sliding door; I didn’t see either cat. Of course, I probably should have turned on the light when checking since both cats have all-black fur. *shrug* Oh, well. I’m sure that the time in the fresh air was good for her.

I went into the bedroom and laid down on the bed to administer some reassuring petting. Apparently, this translates into the native cat language as “Climb up and lie on my chest.” (Note: If anyone has a Human-to-Cat dictionary, please let me know where I can get a copy.) I pet her, she purred and nuzzled my hand; this was good. A few moments later, I discovered that if the whole “being a housecat” thing doesn’t work out, Xena has a potential future in the lumberjack games that they show on ESPN: I rolled over, in an attempt to get her to jump onto the bed so that I could get up. No go. She simply ‘walked’ as I rolled, maintaining her position; if someone had been watching, I’m certain that it must have looked like the log-rolling¹ event.

That’s all the news for now. Tune in tomorrow morning for traffic and weather updates every :10, starting at 7 AM.

Peace.

¹ Log-rolling:

• Place two logs in a river/lake/body of water.
• Add one (1) lumberjack per log.
• Have each lumberjack walk along the circumference of the log as it rolls in the water.
• Have lumberjacks increase their pace.
• See who can stay atop their log the longest.
• Drink beer! (Optional)

  Variant Method

• Place one log in a river/lake/body of water.
• Add two (2) lumberjacks atop the log.
• Have lumberjacks walk along the circumference of the log as it rolls in the water.
• Have lumberjacks increase their pace and/or change direction of rotation.
• See who can stay atop their log the longest.
• Drink beer! (Again, optional)
  

…and the rest of my day was good, too.

• Lunch at Outback.
• A couple hours’ worth of drawing.
• Talking to various members of the family unit. I even discovered something: Apparently, my grandmother enjoys watching horse racing on TV; she watched The Preakness (which is held a couple of miles from my father’s house). I was too busy laughing about this news to ask her if she liked all racing or just the Triple Crown. That will have to be a question for the next time we talk…
• Being quite lazy with my evening.

A good day, indeed.

Peace.

Another bike jaunt.
Somewhere between 4½ and 5 miles.
I’m a little tired, but feel good.

Now, if I could just figure out what has possessed me for the past two days to get out and do this. Not that it’s an overall “bad” thing. Aside from the tired/achy feeling in my legs when going uphill, I am enjoying it.

Endorphins GOOD!!! ::: gesture :::

Off to enjoy the rest of my day…

Peace.

Holy too-pooped-to-pedal, Batman!

I took my bike out for a 4.5 mile jaunt a little while ago. It was good to finally go for a ride. Until I got back home.

First ride of the year
+ Not going to the gym for (length of time deleted to avoid embarrassment)
+ 4.5 mile ride
+ 85° (give or take a degree or two) weather
+ Carrying bike back up three (3) flights of stairs
————————————————————–
1 Tired Rob

All in all, it was good; methinks that I’ll have to do it again… before another 6 months pass. Have to get back into that gym-thing, too.

Peace.