Thanksgiving Reflections

This morning I went out on my Thanksgiving bike ride, to prepare for the events of the rest of the day, and I was reminded of when I got back into biking, another Thanksgiving 2 years ago. I remember that ride well. I started from my house, went through ASU Research Park, and came back. In total, it took around 50 minutes. Today, I started along the same path, and less than 20 minutes later I was at the south end of the park.

Normally when I get to this point, I tend to head in a south-westerly direction, through Tempe and into Chandler. Today, I decided to head east instead, because I had never done it before. I traveled through neighborhoods that I had never been to before, along roads that I never knew existed, and altogether had a great ride, the disgusting uniformity of red tile roofs and stucco notwithstanding.

One of the things I love about biking is how it gives me an opportunity to let my mind wander, and today my thoughts were on how a ride that once left me tired was now barely a warm-up. Of course, this is true of everything in life; The first time we try anything, we aren't very good at it, but as we do it more often, we get stronger, smarter, and better at whatever we do. But the real trick is getting started in the first place, to be willing to severely suck. And we have to accept that we may never get good.

Moving on from these thoughts, I reflected back on this past year, and came to the unfortunate conclusion that I'm basically the same as I was a year ago, unfortunate because I like to have progress and change in my life, to keep things from getting boring and myself from getting complacent. Well, I did get a pilot's license, lose a family member, met a lot of new friends, lost touch with others, reconnected with a few that I had lost touch with, started playing softball, lost about 10 lbs, traveled to Show Low, Denver, and Seattle, was the best man at a wedding, and had the first year since I started playing out in 2004 that I didn't perform on a stage in front of an audience (yet). But I'm sure that none of these things has had a significant, lasting impression on who I am.

TV at 3AM

At 3AM, there are a lot of infomercials, the music channels may actually play a video or two, the religious channels keep preaching the word, obscure news analysis shows try to help cure the insomnia, and old movies and TV shows, usually fairly odd ones, are there for the watching. By far the most unexpected offering that I came across today is Reading Rainbow on PBS. And there are 4 episodes back-to-back. Honestly, it never occurred to me that late-night television market was under-serving the pre-teen market, but there you go.

The most remarkable thing that I learned from this is that Reading Rainbow was in production until last year, with LeVar Burton the host for the show's entire run. The episode that I started watching was much older, from the days that I was in the target demographic, and it reminded me of how much I disliked being talked down to when I was 10.

An ending, of sorts

On a brighter note, today my company started training on the software system that my team has been developing for the last 20 months. It went off with very few glitches, and no major problems. While there is still work to be done on the system over the next few weeks, including the inevitable bugs that always manage to appear, the important thing is that I finally have something to show for the past two years of my career (not to mention the untold amounts of capital that I've burned through in that time).

So, next time I drink, it will be to celebrate, not to attempt to cope with stress. I wonder if anyone will be able to tell the difference.

Raping my childhood memories

Recently on television (which I generally only watch between 1AM and 3AM) I have seen commercials for a new children's fantasy movie, The Seeker, which is based on a novel called The Dark is Rising. Now, there are a lot of bad fantasy movies out there, but this one looks like it's going to be up there among the worst. The previews have contained terrible dialog, terrible acting, and terrible special effects. The Dark is Rising also happens to be one of my favorite books from adolescence, and seeing it blasphemed in this manner is nearly enough to bring me to tears.

What really gets me is the complete senselessness of the whole thing. I doubt that this movie will bring in more than $10 million over its lifetime, which can't possibly recoup all the money sunk into it. I mean, who's the target audience? Mentally disabled children who read complex morality tales, yet are willing to sit through dialog not quite good enough for a George Lucas flick (one such brilliant line: "I'm supposed to save the world? I don't even know how to talk to a girl!")? I can't imagine anyone else who has read the books and would not feel like emptying their stomachs upon the briefest glimpse on this abomination. Granted, there aren't a lot of kids' movies in the theaters, and there are parents out there who will feel the need to drop off their spawn for some peace, quiet, and illicit activity, but most people I know don't actually hate their children enough to subject them to this.

But, of course, the movie industry is nothing if not filled with talentless, uncreative hacks whose sole purpose in life is to try to emulate the success of others' art without the capacity to understand what made that art great. So with the success of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, the assumption is that "children's books = money", thus we get crap like Eragon and The Seeker. Unfortunately, Eragon actually made money, despite being one of the worst adaptations I've ever seen, but it's a much more recent and popular series than The Dark is Rising. I just really wish that someone had the decency to say "This is a terrible movie, and there's no way that we will cover our costs if we continue. Let's kill this whole thing right now, never speak of it again, and be glad that none of us will be associated with this."

Purely hypothetical, but...

Let's say I wanted to run for public office, and because I presumably want a chance of winning, I decide to run as a member of one of the two major parties, would I be allowed to run as a Republican, or would my heterosexuality get in the way?

As it turns out

I really like to watch people dance badly. My favorites are the ones who couldn't approximate the beat if you were kicking it into their ass. Does this make me a bad person?

Goodbye, Grandma

My grandmother (on my mom's side) died this morning at the age of 100. As much sadness as there is in this, it certainly wasn't unexpected. She's been in poor health for several years. The last time I saw her was at my brother's wedding 4 years ago, and it was really hard on me, because most of the time she wasn't aware of what was going on, and she didn't recognize me most of the time. To see her like that, especially considering the love of life she used to have before her brain gave out, was heartbreaking.

At least she got 20 years more life than most people do. In fact, all of my grandparents have made in into their 90s (at least). If I can keep myself healthy and avoid the Alzheimer's, I should have a very long time to look forward to. Of course, medical science is making advances all the time, so who knows how long I can go if I take care of myself. Some of the big troubles that have plagued my grandparents' generation, like hip/joint trouble, have much better treatments today, and will have even better ones in the future. I'm actually looking forward getting my first bionic implant, because I figure 20-30 years down the road, those things will be even better than the original organic parts, and I want to be a cyborg.

Rest in Peace, Agnes Peters.

Springtime in Seattle: Day 1

Quick bit of background: Lacuna Coil & The Gathering are playing together on the Hottest Chicks in Metal tour, Seattle is the closest location that I can see them at, same day my sister has an interview at the Naval Shipyards in Seattle, so I take an extended Memorial Day weekend.

Debby and I arrive in Seattle on time, and it takes no more than 20 minutes from landing until we have our luggage off the carousel. It then takes us 40 minutes to get our rental car, because, on a holiday weekend, there is exactly one person at the rental agency. When we got to the line, there were 5 groups in front of us, by the time we got through to the counter there were about 20 groups behind us. And, of course, about 1/3 of the people have special needs, like "I've never rented a vehicle before in my life, and I just learned English last month", or "I reserved a minivan because there's 7 of us. No, a Ford Escort will not work."

I was also supposed to call my friend Kristin when we got in to arrange dinner, but I forgot to put her # in my phone, meaning that I had to get to the hotel and get Internet connectivity to look it up before I could reach her. Fortunately, she was really close to the hotel when I called her an hour late, and we were able to get some food and drinks at a small restaurant with really good seafood.

Her friend Bill also joined us for dinner. Apparently, Bill had been on some of the same newsgroups that I was on back in the olden days before HTML took over. For you whippersnappers out there, "newsgroups" were text-based message boards that we used on the Internet back before social networking sites (or any other web site, for that matter) existed. Somehow, Bill managed to metaphorically paint a target on his forehead very early in the evening. Maybe it was when he mentioned that he was going to meet up with his ex-girlfriend in Las Vegas (and share a room), maybe it was when he mentioned that he had no idea why the gay waiters at the restaurant always hit on him.

After dinner, we visited a small neighborhood used-book store that had about 10 cats living in it. Fortunately, the owners kept it clean and free of that "lived in by cats" smell. While not terribly large, it still managed to have an impressive collection of books of all sorts. What interested me most about this store is how difficult it would be for a store like that to exist in Phoenix. Not just because it's a weird store, but mainly because the typical layout there is a 1 mile X 1 mile grid of primarily single-family homes, with commercial areas limited to the edges of these grids, which prevents both the population density and the ambulatory lifestyle that contribute to the viability of smaller retail outlets. Since we have to drive anywhere to do anything in Phoenix, this also means that we spend a considerable amount of resources on transportation ($3/gallon of gas!) instead of more useful (or at least indulgent) pursuits. This also explains why the number of DUI's is so high: very few drinkers live within walking distance of the bars, or at least of bars that they want to go to.

Reflections

This past Saturday, I got to see a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in several years because he moved out of town (John). While there, I caught up with a lot of people who I very rarely see. What interested me the most was how much I had grown apart from them in the meantime. For the most part, they all were exactly the same, just older, but still doing the same things. When you talk to someone almost all the time, it becomes easy to run out of things to say. If you talk to them less frequently, getting together allows you to catch up on the interesting experiences. If you talk to them even less frequently, you lose a lot of common ground, and with the gulf of years, it becomes very difficult to know where to start.

In the time since I've talked to most of them, I've changed jobs, changed (or at least stopped seeing) girlfriends, been in two active bands, briefly got involved in the movie industry, and got a pilot's license. However, when talking to them, a lot of this doesn't come up, even though it's new to them, it's old to me. How much have they gone through in that time that I'd love to hear about, but they've grown weary of, or forgotten?

Sunday, at the coffee shop, I ran into some other friends. I was wearing my "Don't try new things, it may change your boring life" t-shirt, and one of them asked me what new things I'd done recently. The last significant thing I've done is get my license, and that was a couple months ago. Which means that it's time for something new. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I haven't heard anything about the drummer & guitarist we jammed with last Thursday. At this point I'm incredibly skeptical, since it generally doesn't take this long to hear back from someone if they want to be in a band with you. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take, really. So maybe I'll try something new, and see what happens.

In vacation news, I'm still planning to go to Seattle at the end of May, and it wouldn't hurt to have travel companions.

A milestone

Today, for the first time in my life, I had to fire someone. I can't go into the details of who or why, but suffice it to say, the reason was stupid. On the one hand, if it were actually my decision and not a serious matter of corporate policy, I would have let things slide. On the other hand, a lot of people's time was wasted because what happened was entirely preventable, so the irresponsibility of the whole thing makes it hard for me to feel sorry. What angers me the most is that I thought I was done with interviews for a while (I hate interviews with a mad, irrational passion).

The band is supposed to be trying out a drummer and guitarist tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. A couple weeks ago, we were supposed to try out a different drummer/guitar combo, but that fell through before we even had a chance to get starting. I hate musicians.

In happier news, I am planning a trip to Seattle over Memorial Day weekend (leaving either Friday or Saturday before, and coming back the Wednesday after) to see two of my favorite recent bands, Lacuna Coil and The Gathering. If you know me, and are interested in taking the trip, let me know soon, as time is running short. Other than the show, I would like to take a tour of the wineries in the area, but I don't have any other specific plans.

Illness: Nature's way of telling you to get some damn sleep

Saturday night, a few of us were supposed to see Stephen Lynch at the Marquee. Unfortunately, it got postponed due to illness. Which is amazingly coincidental, because I wasn't feeling all that great that night either. Sunday wasn't any better. Monday was worse. And I hate wasting a sick day on actually being sick.

There was an interesting band development Saturday night. On the good side, we apparently have a drummer. On the bad side, we no longer have a singer. Bear with me here, and don't make any judgments until you've read the whole thing:

Mike has decided to give up lead singing and start playing the drums. He and Aaron decided that, since he does in fact have a pretty damn good sense of timing and rhythm, it would be better for the band if he switched sides. My initial thought was "I thought I was the designated abuser of mind-altering substances in this band", followed quickly with "Maybe these two need to start abusing some mind-altering substances." But I soon saw the rationale behind this, without the help of mind-altering substances: Not only do I not have to deal with a drummer, but, um, I, uh, don't have to ... deal with a drummer. At least, not of the stereotypical, flaky, unemployed, debt-ridden variety.

Walking to Mike's apartment from the Marquee gave me some time to reflect on this proposition, especially as we passed the Tempe Music Festival, and I was able to listen to a good deal of drumming from other bands, and noticing the almost child-like simplicity of it. And I don't mean simple in a "stripped-down, raw, intentionally uncomplicated" sort of way, I mean simple in the sense that the drummers seemed incapable of playing more than one beat between them all, and certainly were at a total loss to put any kind of passion or emotion into it.

The only thing I'm curious about, and what makes me wonder if Mike's really thought this all the way through, is that the drummer is normally at the back of the stage, where he doesn't get quite as much attention as the rest of the band. Maybe he thinks we'll let him set up his kit in front of the singer.

Night: The perfect time for dark thoughts

The dead are those with great wisdom,

we can put words in their mouths, and the living cannot argue with them

The dead are those who've done great deeds,

and no one is left to remember their humanity

The dead are those who were greatly wronged,

they cannot forgive, and no penance paid will ever be enough

The dead are those who we cannot bear

to accept that we will never see again

So we give them a home among the gods

and pray so that we may join them soon.

No more road trips

Today I made my first flight as a private pilot, taking Debby up to Show Low to visit our cousin Shannon. After lunch we only had about an hour before heading back to return the plane, so she gave us a quick tour of some houses in the area, including a few in the 7-figure range. It's amazing how much people will pay to have a house that they will live in for no more than two weeks a year. I wouldn't mind having a vacation home up there, of course, but even the small ones would run about $300k.

The trip up there was uneventful, but the trip down started around 3:30, just in time to catch the hottest part of the day, so (jargon alert) not only did we have plenty of turbulence and wind shear, but it turns out that the density altitude was about 1700 ft above actual, and since this plane has a service ceiling of 11,000 ft, I was fighting to keep this plane at 8500 ft. Of course, every once in a while I'd catch an updraft, and within a few seconds I'd be about 300 ft higher than I wanted to be. Next time I head up that way on a warm day, I think I'd prefer a plane with more than 160 hp available.

So, who's up for lunch in Sedona in a couple weeks?

I also have a Public Service Announcement:
April is Alcohol Awareness Month. For those of you who are not aware of alcohol, it is a marvelous liquid that can make you happy and self-confident, promotes morality by acting as a truth serum, and allows you to see the inner beauty of others and become much, much less concerned with superficial physical beauty. I know that I myself will become very aware of alcohol about 10 minutes after I've paid by taxes.

Guess what I did today?

If you said "woke up, went to work, had dinner, went to gym, had some drinks, went to bed", you'd be absolutely right (except you'd need to add "wrote a completely inane blog" between "drinks" and "went to bed").

Maybe you're curious what I do while having drinks. Then again, maybe you're a stroke victim. Tonight I had some drinks @ TGI Friday's with my friend Jay. We mostly talked about upcoming movies, music, and vacation plans that will probably never happen.

Movies: "300" will kick ass. It's also coming out in IMAX, which just sounds ridiculous. Also, I almost cried when I heard about the new Fantastic 4 movie, "The Rise of the Silver Surfer", because the Silver Surfer rules, and the Fantastic 4 was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Music: Drummers suck. The only reason to deal with them is because you need one to stop playing acoustic. For the moment, I really want to get back on stage, so I'm going to get together with Mike, who has completed his Bar exams, and try to get a few acoustic gigs underway.

Vacation plans: I really want to go to Japan. My main reasons: sake, sushi, and the culture. By "the culture", I of course mean that I'm very attracted to Japanese ladies.

To reward anyone who may have made it this far, I want to leave you with the following thought:

The more confident a person is in their knowledge of a subject, the less they actually know. This is largely because a more knowledgeable person has a much better concept of just how much they don't know. In fact, a good rule to live by is that the only people who are completely confident are the completely ignorant. This is not the actual thought, and hopefully isn't something that you are unaware of, it simply a lead-in to the important thought: The human masses are attracted to, and will always follow, the most confident available leader.

A scary realization

The past 6 months are a complete blur for me. I really don't remember most of what I did in that time. I know that significant things did occur. For example, I achieved a Private Pilot's license. I saw a few movies, went to see a few shows. But the months of September and October are a complete loss to me. The only thing that I remember in October was staying home on Halloween.

November isn't much clearer. I remember going to my friend's birthday party and having a lot to drink, and that's about it for the month. Now that I think about it, I remember the times that I've had a lot to drink more than I remember the sober times.

I definitely remember things that have happened, but I'm having a hell of a time remembering when they happened, or what order they happened in.

The past month has been a little better. At least I remember spending a lot of time at work. I even remember coming across some code that someone had written, and trying to figure out who wrote it, only to find, based on the change logs, that I had written it a couple days beforehand.

So I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. One possibility is that I've lost my mind (not such a stretch, really). Another possibility is that my life, with a few exceptional circumstances, was so incredibly mundane that there's nothing to remember. The explanation I'm leaning towards, though, involves a combination of those two factors, with the fact that learning to fly a plane takes a lot of waking up at 6 in the morning (and consequently a lot of lost sleep for a night owl like me).

So what can I do? I've noticed that my blogging, which has never really been very prolific to start with, was nearly nonexistent in that time period. The couple of entries that I had in that time have helped a little bit in reconstructing the events of the past half-year, as have a few entries in my friend's blog that involve me. We'll see if committing myself to more posts will help me reconstruct the soon-to-be past. Now I just need to find something better that "woke up, went to work, had dinner, went to gym, had some drinks, went to bed" ad nauseam.

I really need to get out of town. At this point, all I need is a destination and a couple days free.

A confession

I have something I need to get off my chest.

I'm the real father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter.

That is all.