Random Access

Our apartment faces the pool and basketball court in our complex.

This morning, I was awakened by the sounds of two kinder-forms playing outside. Actually, it wasn’t the ‘playing’ that woke me up… it was the yelling. And the laughing.

My first thought, after I realized that I was conscious, was “What in the Nine Hells is going on out there?!?” But, being FAR to lazy to actually get up and investigate, I laid in bed and listened a little longer. The exchanges went something like this:

• Child 1: *yelling something* *laugh*
  Child 2: *laugh*
  ~ running footsteps ~
  ::: repeat :::

Child 2 actually said/yelled something a couple of times, but the above pattern was the norm.

I listened to them for a few minutes before rolling out of bed. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a roll. Maybe it was a controlled fall. Maybe it was a graceful, almost poetically acrobatic exit. *shrug* Whatever it was, I got out of bed. I still didn’t look out of the window.

When I thought a little more about the kids, I actually started laughing: Many rains ago, that would have been my friends and me running around the “tot lots” (mini-playgrounds in most communities/subdivisions) in Columbia, MD or our babysitter’s house and yard in Ellicott City.

It was a nice “full circle” kind of moment. Thought I’d share.

Peace.

Friday
My faith in George Lucas has been restored.

Angie and I went to see Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones tonight. I went in praying that it wouldn’t be a repeat of The Phantom Disaster, and it wasn’t.

Watching it was like watching one of the ‘middle’ movies. There was some dialogue that I thought could have been changed (or eliminated), but I can only think of one scene that seemed a little… hmmm… disjointed – it looked like a bad editing job. Other than that, it was a good movie. There were also nice bits of foreshadowing. I may even have to see it again.

If I can’t be Benjamin Sisko when I grow up, I want to be Mace Windu.

They say that Mace Windu is one bad mutha…
Shut yo’ mouth!
I’m just talkin’ about Mace.
We can dig it.

And I have an all-new respect for Yoda. He’s the Man Jedi!

Peace.

Thursday
I did it. I wrote. Actually, I killed two birds with one stone: Not only did I ride, but it was a post in . But, I wrote! And it was good. Amen.

NPR and PRI Programming

• I was listening to The World and they had a story about the 2003 elections in Mexico and how a new law will add more women to the ballot. The new law will require that 30% of each political party’s candidates to be women. This is an effort to not only increase the role of women in government (according to the report, this will be something of an uphill climb) , but to also increase the female turn-out at the polls. You can listen to the segment here.
• There was also a segment on…. I might as well let you see for yourselves, I don’t think that I could do it justice:
  

  Student Read
  In most countries, if you’re about to become a graduate, the month of May means studying for finals. Not so in Norway. Across the country students celebrating the completion of twelve years of schooling have a rather unconventional tradition: They don identical overalls, kind of like a one-piece jumpsuit, and go on a major party spree. It’s kind of an organized chaos, and behind part of the organization this year is 19-year old Andrew Watson, who heads the committee responsible for 8,000 graduating students in the Oslo region. He says they’re quite a colorful bunch, literally.

• And, lastly, they did a report about Marlene Dietrich. Ms. Dietrich was born in Berlin, but left before World War II because she did not want to be associated with Hitler’s regime or the type of society that he promoted. She did choose to be buried in Berlin. Thursday, on the 10th anniversary of her death, she was made an honorary citizen of Berlin. Maybe I’m missing something, but…. wasn’t she a German citizen, and more specifically a Berliner, by virtue of birth? Okay, I just saw something that might shed some light on the subject: It seems that she became an American citizen in 1937. I’m not sure how recently dual-citizenship became a legal option, but I’m thinking that it is a fairly recent (past 15-30 years) item.

Friday brings not only the start of the weekend, but I’m also going to see Star Wars – Episode II:Send in the Clones… umm, I mean Attack of the Clowns…. no, that’s not it either… Attack of the Clones. Bingo! That’s the one. After the debacle that was The Phantom Disaster, I’m trying to hold preconceived visions of doom in check until I have actually seen the film. Hopefully, Mr. Lucas’ bout with insanity will have been a transitory illness. We’ll see.

That’s enough for one night. Now, it’s time to sleep.

Peace.

Wednesday
Mid-week. And a self-induced short week, at that. Life is good. Surely, Providence smiles upon me.

And now, we return you to your regularly scheduled LiveJournal post…

Even though I’ve mentioned this umpteen times already: I enjoy good writing. The rediscovery of this revelation came, as it so often does, from last week’s comics and episodes of X-Men: Evolution and Justice League. Even though the sources are somewhat divergent, they share a trait: The plots contained stories that were more or less contained within the given issue/episode, but they also had elements that develop larger multi-issue/episode story arcs.

Something else that I enjoy is finding that a small, seemingly irrelevant detail in a story winds up being an important part in advancing to overall arc. Sometimes, you can see it coming. Other times, you find that it has been biding its time and amassing a power and life of its own until suddenly it leaps out of the shadows to stand ominously before you. Were the signs there all along? If you had been wary, would you have noticed it before it reached fruition?

I hope to be able to correctly employ these techniques in my writing. Umm… when I finally get back to writing, that is. While keeping this journal updated has been good practice at maintaining something of a writing schedule, it’s not quite the same thing. Hmmm. I shall write today! I’m not sure what it will be, I don’t even know how much I’ll write, but something, other than a journal entry, will be written today.

Peace.

Tuesday

Oh my stars! An actual post that consists of more than: “I’m sleepy. I’m going to bed.” And now that we’ve established that point, let’s get down to brass tacks…

Today was good: I took the day off and got to spend it with Jess. We didn’t do much, but it was nice to have a common day off. Monday wasn’t bad, either. Not too much site-hopping and a good night at the bowling alley.

And now: The Arizona Trip
To say that I’ve been “to” Arizona, before this weekend, might be something of an overstatement… but not a lie. I have been there on a few occasions:

• On stopovers/plane changes between here and the East Coast. In fact, my first visit to Utah was through Phoenix’ Sky Harbor Airport.
• The fifteen minute stretch of I-15 that cuts through Arizona between St. George, UT and Mesquite, NV…. and, by extension, Las Vegas.
• The trip to Four Corners, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet at one point.

After this weekend, I can now add Arizona to the “States I’ve Visited for More Than an Hour” list. That’s right, girls and boys: Land, Julia and me on a road trip to The Grand Canyon State. Four days, two laptops, and more miles than I care to admit. The weekend broke down something like this:

• Thursday
  • Work. 8 hrs. Yay.
  • Quick stops at Radio Shack (for an cigarette lighter adapter) and home (to get a few DVDs that I had forgotten).
  • Drive to Page, AZ
    • LONG drive.. about seven (7) hours. IF there had been a straight line route, it would have shaved at least an hour-and-a-half off of the drive time. But there are a couple of National Parks in the way, so…. long, slow drive.
    • Stayed up and talked to Julia, who opted to drive.
    • We arrived at Julia’s mother’s somewhere between 03:00 and 04:00 AST; Arizona (and part of Indiana) does (do) not change time for Daylight Savings Time.
    • SLEPT… for a few hours. Sleep was a welcome oblivion since I had been up since 9-something that morning. I. Was. TIRED.
• Friday:
  • Woke up somewhere around 08:00 and then performed the necessary hygiene rituals and then…
  • Off to Tucson! I was only able to stay awake for about :30, and then the world faded into oblivion once more…
  • I woke up just outside of Flagstaff, about 2-1/2 hours later. We tooled around town for about :20 before we got serious and got back on the road.
  • We stopped in Camp Verde for gasoline and something to eat at the local Dairy Queen. This was something of an experience: Just after we walked in the door, three U.S. Marshalls (one in uniform, two plain clothes…. ALL with guns and badges prominently displayed) walked in. Everyone in the DQ looked a little nervous. They didn’t find whomever it was that they sought. On the other hand, I did see what was touted as the “World’s Largest Kokopelli,” so it balanced out.
  • When we got to Phoenix, I noted an inordinate amount of pink as a major color in the architecture and in the gravel in the medians. Odd. (More on this in Quotes of the Weekend, below.) However, I did have a BEST BUY sighting! Noah had a dove and an olive branch, I have Best Buy. Go figure.
  • Between Phoenix to Tucson, we passed a verdant orchard, which struck me as a little… odd… being in the middle of the bleedin’ desert!!! We also passed an airplane museum/graveyard in Pinal. And… we saw more pink architecture.
  • After getting to Land’s cousin’s and resting a bit, we made a Best Buy excursion!!! ~genuflect~ That was followed by a trip to Starbucks and dinner with Land’s family: Kendra (cousin), Jessi (aunt), Logan (cousin), and Don (uncle). We entertained each other with stories of each other’s families over dinner. A short while later, a few more family members arrived from California: Tenderly (cousin), Chance (her son), Brad (her husband) and Tambin (cousin). More family stories. Great amounts of laughter. Land’s family is not only entertaining, they are quite nice; I enjoyed getting to meet them.
• Saturday:
  • Went to Kendra’s graduation ceremony. I witnessed two rather unusual things:
    1. One of the school’s deans, who was apparently retiring, danced (that’s right: DANCED – he got up and broke it down) around the podium before presenting his department’s candidates for advancement. He wasn’t bad, either.
    2. Students and guest threw tortillas, in a frisbee-like manner, throughout the ceremony. When I asked how/when this tradition started, no one seemed to know the answer. It was even more amusing that when one of the administrators asked that people desist from throwing them that a flurry…. no, a barrage of tortillas hurtled through the air.
  • Back to Kendra’s. We ate, talked and met other people.
  • BACK to Best Buy ::: bliss :::
  • Dinner
  • Back to Kendra’s and not too long thereafter, off to The Dreaming.
• Sunday:
  • Drive back to Page….
  • We stopped in Phoenix for gasoline…. and Powerball. Go figure.
  • Since I was awake (and driving), I got to see all of the things that I had missed on the way down. Translation: “Rob became a tourist.” And like a tourist, I had to take pictures of just about everything I could.
    • Wupatki National Monument
    • Cameron, AZ and the suspension bridge over the dry bed of the Little Colorado River
    • The Grand Canyon overlook just south of Page; this is the North Rim of the canyon.
    • Glen Canyon Dam, also just to the north of Page
  • We drove back to SLC… and watched Bridget Jones’ Diary on the way. Cute movie.
  • And then, we were back.

And that was our interpretation of Smokey and the Bandit. Of course, we were not a black Trans Am and/or a semi with cowboys on it. Nor did we return with a truckload of beer. Bonus points if anyone can remember:

• Where did they start?
• Where did they have to go?
• How much time did they had to complete the trip?

Quotes of the Weekend:

• Me: Pink is not a construction color; it’s a decor color or accent.
• Land: Natural resources have little to do with a nation’s prosperity; look at Sweden.
  Me: Sweden had ABBA…. they got lucky.

• Dee and Land were talking about ecology and how man affects the environment around him. SOMEHOW, Land made a reference to elk and how they maintain a balance of available food and the size of their herd. He also noted that man was the only creature that could not only adapt to his environment, but also to enhance his environment. This led to the statement: Elk don’t have the sense to irrigate. When we mentioned this to Julia, on Sunday, she made an addendum to the comment: “Rabbits try, but they just don’t pee enough.”

And that also wraps up this post. Now, it’s time to wait for Morpheus to pay me a visit so that I can find a nice quiet corner of The Dreaming to inhabit until after sunrise.

Peace.

I had quite a bit that I wanted to say.

Actually, I still have it…. but I’m beat.
I think that getting rest overrules posting, and thus shall I retire for the evening.

Peace.

Sunday

Made it back.
Had a great time.
I’m tapped.

Tune in tomorrow night for: Weekend Recap.

Peace

Wednesday
Today was my brother and stepmother’s birthday. Two for the price of one! What a bargain!

The workday flew by pretty quickly. After work, I made a trip to Shack d’Radio and the local Borders. And then, home again home again (but no jiggety-jig).

Quote of the Day: At lunch, we were debating some of the vagaries of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Things that we covered included:

• If you are mounting an invasion of a giant battle station, let alone in the middle of said invasion, do you really have spare personnel to watch each pilot and point out things like “Luke, you turned off your targeting computer…. Is something wrong?” Why wasn’t this guy telling him something useful: “There’s a TIE Fighter on your tail” or something like that. On the same note, why didn’t Luke mess with that guy and say something like:
  • “It’s the damned droid! He’s turning shit off and on and I can’t make him stop!” or….
  • ” *BEEP* Sorry, I can’t answer the com-link right now. I am trying to fly a spaceship down a trench that is barely large enough to navigate. Please leave a message at the tone.” or…
  • “‘Is something wrong?!?’ I’m attacking a planet-sized space station with a one-man spaceship AND being shot at AND trying not fly into anything! What makes you think that there’s something wrong?!”
• If using The Force was rated on a 1-to-10 scale, Darth Vader was about a 20 (thanks to Episode I – The Phantom Menace‘s ‘immaculate conception’ idea), which would make Luke and Leia 10s, WHY didn’t they get some kind of feeling about either each other OR Vader when they were around him? I’ll actually give Luke a ‘bye’ on this one and chalk it up to raging hormones. Why? Think about it: Teenage farmboy meets (nominally) hot space woman. Do the math.
• And now, for the first time ever: The Visual Quote of the Day!
  We started talking about why the Sith Lords never used their powers in more… ‘creative’ ways:
  • The Force Wedgie.
  • Smashing ships into the walls of the Death Star using the Force.
  • …you get the idea.
  • Dee: Why didn’t Darth Vader simply use The Force to ‘poke’ the Luke in the eyes, like this, and cause him to crash?
    Harmon: Because Luke would have just done this and been okay.

Links of the Day:

• The first link comes to us from John, Rana’s significant other. Yes, she’s in the Ukraine. No, he’s not. I’m not here to discuss the logistics of long-distance relationships, I’m just here to relay a link. And speaking of that link, here it is; the page’s title is “Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About.” John left it for me in an IM while I was at work; it is a long page, but it’s damned funny. I poked around the rest of the site… it’s just as funny. Enjoy.

  And on a serious note,

• Joe (the one who was here last week) has gone back to New York for the first time since he moved to Florida last spring. He sent me this URL; it is a series of pictures that he took from the World Trade Center site. Joe is a native (and until last year, a life-long) New Yorker; he told me that it was difficult to be there and see the emptiness of the area. I can only imagine.

I am going to Tucson tomorrow night, and probably will not post again until Sunday night or Monday morning… but who knows? Road trips. Gotta love ’em! And that’s all the news from Lake Saline… where all the women love to argue, the men are unimaginative Lords of the Sith, and the children have their own ideas about what “Use the Force” means. Goodnight, everybody!

Peace.

Tuesday
Nothing out of the ordinary:

• Woke up, slacked around and lazily got ready for…
• Work.
• Home. I’m not sure exactly what brought on this domestic kick, but I cooked again tonight. And, once again, this helps to eliminate the “What will I take for lunch” factor.

Now, I shall heed the call of Morpheus and meet the other denizens of The Dreaming.

Peace.

A friend of mine is having a bit of a problem.
We talked about it for a bit tonight.
It seemed to help… somewhat.
I hope that it did.

Peace.

Monday

• Work. Pinballed through a few sites today. Even did a little flats processing. We are also beginning to see increased mail volume for Mother’s Day; some crews were called to work overtime tonight.
• Went to the airport to get Sandi. She’d gone out of town for a couple of days; I was the closest and most readily-available person to pick her up. I picked her up, drove her home and then I….
• Came home. Cooked spaghetti and Rob’s secret p’sghetti sauce. AND… it minimizes the ‘What am I going to take for lunch’ factor. Bonus!

Talk of the Nation

The first hour topic focused on whether pilots and flight crews should be armed; I was interested in this since I often fly when I travel. People phoned and emailed comments from both sides of the issue. They also bandied about whether the crews should have firearms or non-lethal weaponry like tasers.

Someone, I believe that he was a panelist, said that there wasn’t any (or too much) danger to the plane or passengers if a plane’s fuselage or cockpit is pierced by a bullet. HELLO?! No (or little) risk!? Did I miss something? The last time that I checked: An airplane’s cabin is pressurized and the air at 30,000+ feet is… umm…. THIN! And what does that mean, boys and girls? That’s right. Say it with me: “Low pressure.” Why is that important? That’s pretty simple: The air under high pressure will seek a low pressure environment. That’s not usually a problem in-flight since the cabin is sealed. What happens if the seal is broken or an unsecured opening is introduced to the equation? Decompression. I don’t have the aeronautic engineering background to say “the cabin would tear open,” but I am fairly certain that everything in the cabin trying to get out through a hole roughly an inch in diameter is not a good thing. I could be wrong about that… but I don’t think so.

Quote of the Day: Today’s quote comes from King of the Hill.

Bill: My face hurts.
Hank: And it’ll match your ass when I get done kicking it!

That’s pretty much the day in a nutshell. Walnut. Macadamia. Almond. Take your pick. Same brand, different flavor.

Peace.

Sunday

• Slept in a bit.
• Went to the Hogle Zoo with Shawn, Kerry and their kids. I’ve been in Utah for 3½ years, and this is the first time that I’ve been there. We were there for a smidgen over 3 hours… and I got 127 pics out of the deal; I haven’t had time to edit ’em yet. Sidenote: We saw something that we weren’t quite expecting to see – we were in the Primate House and saw a couple of primates… umm… prime-mating. Orangutans. He was doing what he apparently thought or felt was his duty; she had a look of “Oh, bother. Not this again…” Go figure.
• Post-zoo, we all went out for lunch.
• Jess went to work and I went to see Monster’s Ball (the movie for which Halle Berry won her Oscar®) with and Angie. I liked it; it was a good movie. It was definitely not a ‘happy, feel-good’ movie, but a good movie.
• Went to coffee with and talked a bit about the movie and life, the universe, and everything (not to be confused with Life, the Universe, and Everything, by the late Douglas Adams).
• Home.

And now, the call of sleep beckons me like a siren sings to a captain at sea. I am helpless to resist.

Peace.

Saturday
“…in the park, I think it was the Fourth of July.

Actually, it was the Fourth of May, but Chicago Transit Authority (more commonly known as ‘Chicago’) didn’t do a song about the Fourth of May, so deal with it.

Today was a good day.

• Talked to Mom and Kris. Mom told me that a friend of mine interviewed for a position at my stepdad’s school; I told her that I knew about it last week. It was one of those “You may be the parent, but I knew something that you didn’t” moments. We laughed about it. Things are going well there. Mom’s school chorus Spring Concert is tomorrow. Hopefully, she’ll have someone videotape it and will send me a copy.
• I finally saw Spider-Man… and the trailer for Ang Lee’s Hulk. I liked both. Quite a bit. They did a few changes in the basic Spidey story, but nothing that isn’t faithful to the character; in fact, they were similar to the changes that were made in and for X-Men.

  I am happy to say that the teaser for Hulk was just that: A teaser. No giving away what the Hulk will look like, but you get the idea that he is a powerful and destructive force. I still think that it was funny how Ang Lee slipped a little foreshadowing of this movie into the mini-film/commercial that he did for BMW last year. If you haven’t had a chance to see it, click here; see if you can spot what I’m talking about.

• Bowling was also good. My scores were acceptable, but Angie owned the lanes tonight.
• Traditional late night eats at Village Inn. Jaysin waited on us tonight, but Jon and Mike came over to say ‘hi,’ too.

Quote of the Day: We were talking about the Hulk trailer at V.I. and Angie spouted this gem:

“Wasn’t the Hulk on vegetables? No, wait… that was Green Giant.” Larry and I got a good laugh out of it.

I think that covers everything.

Peace.

Friday

• I spent most of the workday in flats processing.
• After work, Angie and I toyed with the idea of seeing Spider-Man tonight, but opted out; she, Jess, and I will go sometime after the sun makes an appearance.
• I came home, called up Dominos and had them fetch hither 2 pizzas and a partridge in a pear tree an order of Cinnastix®.
• I ate my ‘za and watched taped toonage. Nothing like a lazy and quiet night with hot pizza and taped episodes of X-Men: Evolution (rerun, but a good one) and Justice League (new).

It’s getting early and I have to get up later, so I think that I will shortly take “going to bed” from theoretical concept to practical application.

Quote of the Day: A comedian named Alonzo was on NBC’s Late Friday Night, or whatever they call it. Part of his routing talked about relationships and some of the differences therein.

Women ask dangerous questions. And the worst one that they have is: “Do you remember…?” I’m a man. No, I don’t remember! We invented instant replay because we forgot things that we just saw!

Peace.

Thursday
There are things in life that I look forward to. Some are simple pleasures. Some take a little planning to bring to fruition. Either way, they elicit a favorable response.

Today, or rather ‘tonight,’ I had something that was a little bit of both in mind: Going to see the 12:15 am showing of Spider-Man!

Spider-Man!
Spider-Man!
Does whatever a spider can!
I should have consulted Mr. Murphy, or at least brushed up on his rather popular ‘law,’ which states: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” It seems that the tickets we got, which were ordered from the theatre’s website (screenshot) were NOT for tonight.
::: braincramp :::
According to the manager, “Sony won’t allow us to show the movie before 9 o’clock tomorrow.” Unfortunately, we didn’t get THAT answer until after a few minutes of teeth-pulling. Translation: Words…words….static…zhkkthzhzzzht

Let’s back up a couple of steps and review:

• My friend, Paul, ordered the tickets online Wednesday night.
• He went to pick up the tickets…. and NO ONE at the ticket window said anything to him about anything looking out of the ordinary.
• We showed up approximately an hour early for the screening.
• We were told that they were NOT showing the movie.
• They had apparently sold tickets (50 or so) to other people who had seen the same listing on the website.
• The manager did not seem to understand (or care, I’m not sure which it was) why we weren’t happy about the incident. And, rather than apologize and explain the Sony issue up front, something that you would expect from a rational person in a management position, she was argumentative and confrontational. Unnecessary and unprofessional. I could have accepted the situation FAR better had she been forthcoming with the truth from the beginning of the dialogue. After all of the hullabaloo, she gave us passes to see the movie at our convenience.
• As of 01:10 on Friday morning, no attempts have been made to correct the error on the website.

I understand the constraints of business contracts. If something cannot be done or undone due to a binding agreement, so be it. That’s fine. Don’t attempt to tell me that I am wrong because of a mistake on your part. While I will see Spider-Man, I have not decided on my overall feelings about returning to that theatre to see it or any other movie. The five of us were not happy; I wonder how the other 50-odd people felt. If we and/or they tell how difficult it was to get the truth out of the manager, I wonder what the negative word-of-mouth opinions could potentially do to their business?

::: gets down from soapbox :::
I feel better now. Not better than James Brown, but I’m at least reasonably calm. Besides, there’s that pesky little “Thou shalt not kill” commandment to remember. Of course, I don’t remember seeing “Thou shalt not maim” nor “Thou shalt not tell others about your bad experience….” so there is still hope!

Peace.