Another birthday drive in the books - part I

Woohoo! We just got back from the BDD (Big Damn Drive). The route: Get over to the central valley on 580 and then head to Modesto, 132 to Coulterville and a stop at the Northern Mariposa County History Center, 49 to Jamestown, county road to Tuttletown, 49 to New Melones reservoir, stop at the boat launch area on the south side of the lake, cruise over to the New Melones Lake Visitors Center & Museum, 49 to Sonora and drop off S. and Rosie, criss-crossing and retracing and backtracking for the next two and a half hours trying to find some public access way to get to Funk Hill eventually ending up in Angel's Camp as the sun went down, 49 to Sonora to pick up S. and Rosie, 49 to 120 and then back to the central valley and from there home. Eleven hours. 450 miles. Four main stops. Highways I'd never been on before: 132 (I think we drove the entire length) and the section of 49 from Coulterville to Chinese Camp. Places to potentially revisit: Coulterville - the History Center when my bladder is empty and the hotel bar across the street when I'm not on a time sensitive mission.

Now for some quick observations.

The Northern Mariposa County History Center (located on the northwest corner of 132 and 49 in Coulterville) has an amazing historically accurate scale model of a local hotel. The builder spent 4000 hours constructing it and the scale is probably close to 1 inch = 1.5 feet (could be way off on this - basically, it's a very large model, at least twenty square feet of footprint). The craftsmanship is amazing. Every interior room is decorated: the attached stores have fully stocked shelves, all the tables in the dining room are set, the staircase is beautiful. The rest of the museum is cool but that model was the centerpiece by far. Every single component, with the exception of the rails on the balcony railing (is that what you call the vertical components of a railing?), was scratch built. The docent told us that the builder initially wanted to do a smaller sized model but the size-determining-factor was related to the balcony rails - he made the decision not to hand turn close to a hundred of those so he bought them. The scale of the project was dictated by the size of rails he found. I'm glad he couldn't find smaller rails. It's an absolutely phenomenal piece of work. (Note: All estimates are subject to large margins of error since I was so impressed with the gestalt that the actual details got lost in the shuffle).

The whole reason for going to the History Center was because I'd read on-line that they sold "The Big Oak Flat Road to Yosemite" by Margaret Schlichtmann and Irene Paden. I was hoping to find some information on the stage line from Copperopolis to Sonora in the book. They did have a couple of copies of the book. It was shrink-wrapped in plastic so I couldn't browse. I am now the owner of said book. It has none of the information I was looking for. Oh well. It still looks like a fascinating read.

I also got another reading tip from the docent, "Bacon & Beans from a Gold Pan" by George Hoeper as told by Jesse Coffey ("an unusual true-life adventure of a young couple who camped in the mountains of California to make a living panning for gold" - from the front cover). According to the docent (and why didn't I ask for her name?) this is a story of a couple who moved east from San Francisco during the depression to squat on the land and try to survive by prospecting. She has been trying to get that book for the history center but hasn't been successful - it is available through the Tuolumne County Visitors Bureau website (cross-county rivalry apparently).

And that was just the first stop.

A couple of things more to relate while they're fresh.

As I was driving up and down O'Byrne's Ferry Road, looking for some way to head east and getting stymied time after time by gates and "No Trespassing" signs impeding access to promising looking dirt roads, I couldn't help think of one of the forgotten verses of Woody Guthrie's classic:

Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing —
This land was made for you and me

Unfortunately, I didn't follow Woody's example.

S. having our emergency cel phone was a good idea. I still dislike the philosophy behind cel phones in general. In this one instance, it simplified our lives. It was for situations like this - trying to meet up in a town neither of us have visited in 6 years after two and a half hours - that we decided to get the dang thing. Now let's hope we never have to use it again. (On a side note, the reception sucked. It took a minute of me screaming into a gas station pay phone the alternating words, "Mocha" and "Coffee" before S. was finally able to hear that I was hoping she'd have some caffeine waiting for me when I picked her up. Alas, all stores that sell the nectar of the marvelous bean were closed and the only result was that patrons of that particular gas station now think I'm a raving lunatic).

The iPod to car tape-deck adaptor simply ROCKS! From Oakdale until we got home we were treated to The Cars, Queen, and The Ramones absodamnlutely commercial free.

More tomorrow, I'm spent.

Taking a breath of air

Pretty busy with real world type stuff so just a few brief thoughts.

I have a location all picked out for the birthday drive. Me, S., and Rosie should take off sometime Thursday morning heading east. Hopefully there will be no clouds come night as there will be a full moon and it's been far too long since we've taken a full-moon-drive.

I just finished reading David Neiwert's excellent essay, "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism." It's available from the main page of his blog, Orcinus - which is on my daily reading list. Still processing, and I'll have to collect my thoughts and do a post sometime in the future. Definitely required reading for all Americans, IMHO. Neiwert's three books (one upcoming) have just made my future purchases list.

Now it's back to work.

The four-footed natives are restless

S. and Rosie made it back home today and the house rejoiced. Well, I rejoiced. I think S. rejoiced. And I'm pretty sure Rosie rejoiced (although she's just a generally happy and excited animal - it doesn't take much for rejoicing to happen). The cats? Not so much. Tiger, our young adult cat, seemed to take the reappearance of the bouncy bundle of energy that is a Yorkie puppy in stride. Ocey, our adolescent cat, appeared a bit nonplussed at having to share the floor with a dog again. I think she was under the impression that the apartment had been rezoned for cat-occupancy-only over the past few days. I could be anthropomorphizing but I always interpret atypical behavior on the part of the cats as an indiciation of a general sense of unease. Tonight, as I was watching TV, Tiger crawled into my lap to sleep (which is not too big a deal) and then Ocey crawled onto my chest to sleep (which is not too big a deal). What is a big deal is that neither one of them bothered the other, usually one will leave.

Two things I never thought I would be are a cat owner and a small dog owner (although, in all fairness, Rosie is S.' dog) and yet, today, I find myself living with 2 cats and a Yorkshire terrier. It's two and a half cats if you count the stray who lives in our backyard and who we leave food out for - she doesn't really have a name, we just call her Mama Cat. There's a long story back of that, but S.' entry from August 4th of last year covers it quite well. While I never imagined living with three animals, I wouldn't change a thing. Each of them has managed to worm their way into my heart.

Dogs and cats... Living together... I wouldn't have it any other way.

Beer run

It's still Saturday night for me, so disregard the date stamp on this post.

I have a couple of learned behaviors left over from my college days. The first is an unconscious awareness of the nearing approach of two in the morning - the time when stores stop selling alcohol (this has been true in every county I've lived in). I often catch myself looking in the refrigerator, usually after one in the morning and even if I'm about ready for bed, to make sure we have beer. When I used to work as pizza delivery I would get off very close to the spirts-witching-hour and sometimes barely make it to the store in time. Not coming home to the house with beer, for a young working man of twenty-two, would've been a cardinal sin.

There always seemed to be a rush on the all-night market right around two. My favorite anecdote happened while I was waiting in a long line watching the minute hand of the clock hit 1:59. I only had groceries in my cart, so I wasn't stressing the approaching deadline, but plenty of others in front of me had their money already out and were tapping their feet anxiously (this particular checker had a reputation as a stickler). There must have been less than ten seconds to go when a man came flying through the door, ran to the checkstand, threw a bill at the clerk and yelled over his shoulder - as the clock struck two - something like, "I'm getting a 40 of Bud. Keep the change." Everyone kind of stared at each other in awestruck silence - the checker included - while he grabbed a 40, wheeled around, and walked out the door. I think we were all impressed and I'm sure the guys who didn't make the cut that night were kicking themselves for not thinking outside the line.

There was an added bonus, at least for the hardcore drinkers, to living in that particular town. We were six miles from the border of Oregon and the neighboring county stopped selling alcohol at 2:30. As I was mopping up at work I would often see people walk out the door of a bar as it closed, get in their car and make a beeline for the highway south. Since not a lot of people lived in that direction I always assumed they were going to a liquor store to stock up for a continuation of the night.

The second learned behavior I have is drinking with my left hand. Whenever I drink with my right hand, it feels wrong (unless it's wine since I never drank that when I was younger). This trait stems from a drinking club that me and my friends were a part of. It was called the Buffalo Club and it only cost a penny to join. The only way to get out of the club was if you could find the exact same penny you used to pay your admission and return it to your sponsor. Most pennies were flushed down toilets or thrown out the window of a car on the freeway. My sponsor got creative on my ass - I later found out he dropped it right behind me as we drank in a ballroom at an Orange County hotel. A Buffalo only had to worry about two rules: you must always drink alcohol with your non-dominant hand and, if a fellow Buffalo asks you if you are a Buffalo you must respond with the following six words, "Once a Buffalo, always a Buffalo." The best bust was when one of the guys got popped drinking Nyquil with the wrong hand - that's how anal some of my friends were. The penalty seemed minor but it induced a cascading effect where one tiny mistake could very easily lead to worshipful adoration of the porcelin god.

Speaking of cascading effects, I'm reminded of a drinking game that my friend H. loved to introduce people to. Sadly, he died of meningitis in his mid-twenties but he was one of those energetic laughing persuasive people who others have a hard time saying no to. He used to always have a pack of cards in his pocket and cruise around parties looking for a target. The game sounded simple: place ten (It think it was ten, could've been a few more) cards face down in a line; turn cards over one at a time until you clear the pile. It was anything but simple. Every time you turned over a face card you added to the line (four cards for an ace down to one for a jack) and took a corresponding number of drinks (swallows for beer, sips for harder stuff). I once saw a game go through more than five shuffles of the discard pile. Nine times out of ten you were drunk by the time the game was over.

It seems like this post just won't die. Everytime I end a segment the closing sentence sparks another anecdote. I'm reminded of one of the few times I was drunk before noon - and not on purpose. I was fishing and managed to put a hook deep into my finger. It became a comedy of errors. People ransacking cars looking for pliers. Me forgetting to cut the line and having my finger jerked painfully as someone knocked my fishing pole over. Various wannabe doctors stepping up to the plate to remove the hook and then backing out at the last minute. Finally, I ended up grabbing the pliers myself, pushing the hook through enough so that I could cut it, and then extracting both pieces. In retrospect, the solution was simple - it's just that none of us had any experience and were lost - just a bunch of city folk playing at fishing. While I was waiting for this whole drama to play itself out people had been passing me beers. When the hook went in I was stone-cold sober. By the time it came out I was buzzing quite nicely.

Hmmmmm. I'm waiting a bit to see if any other stories pop into my head... Nope. Looks like this will have to do as an ending.

Decisions, decisions

So I've spent most of the evening poring over my California book collection trying to determine a destination for the upcoming birthday cruise. I'm hoping to go to a place that has some connection to a historical incident that interests me. Failing that, I'll settle for a really cool road. No firm decision yet, but I've shaken things down to five alternatives:

1. Coulterville (Mariposa County)
   
2. Funk Hill (Calaveras County)
   
3. Milton - Copperopolis Road (Calaveras County)
   
4. Downieville (Sierra County)
   
5. Priest Valley (Fresno/San Benito County)
   

The big source of ambiguity at this point is the weather, as it's been raining off and on for the past week in Northern California. Even if next week is rain-free, the ground will probably still be saturated. This tends to weigh against any dirt road excursions through steep terrain (Funk Hill and potentially Priest Valley).

If the weather had been dry it would be a no-brainer: Coulterville to Funk Hill to Milton (by way of the Milton-Copperopolis Road). Even with muddy roads I can still do the Coulterville to Milton stretch. Downieville and Priest Valley are extremely unlikely - and Priest Valley only makes the list because I've been wanting to go there for years.

Coulterville is only a shopping trip, really. It's the home of the Northern Mariposa County History Center. In the bookstore of the Center should be a book I've been wanting to get my hands on, The Big Oak Flat Road to Yosemite: an account of freighting from Stockton to Yosemite Valley by Margaret Schlichtmann and Irene Paden. This is a reprinting (at least the fifth) of a book originally written in 1955 that I've heard amazing things about - in terms of the research on local families and regional history that Schlichtmann and Paden accumulated. I could buy this online from Abebooks, but what would be the fun in that? There is a slight problem with this shopping trip, however. The History Center is only open from 10-4 Wednesday through Sunday. Since my birthday is on Monday, S. teaches on Monday and Wednesday, and I usually meet with my advisor on Wednesday, that could push the trip up to Sunday or back to Thursday. Valea. It's not a deal breaker.

Funk Hill! Man I love the sound of that. I've been on this Funk Hill jag today. This was the site of the last stage robbery by Black Bart. I want to walk the hill and get a feel for the lay of the land so I can make my own assessment as to his skill as a robber (Black Bart has gotten positive historical accounts - I'm not sure if it was because he was seen as an intelligent man - a self described PO8, albeit not a good one - who never shot at his vicitims, or if it was because he was an older dapper white man.). I've found that, for my own understanding, the geographical context of historical events is as important as the actual facts: I didn't realize how much of an idiot Fremont was until I stood on top of Fremont Peak at about the same time of year as he built a fort and declared war on Mexico (no water, easily surrounded, fog rolling in on a regular basis); How fucked up what we did to Americans of Japanese descent was didn't sink in until I walked around Manzanar during the winter; And nothing brought home the absolute absurdity of a camel regiment in California quite like cruising around Fort Tejon; I could go on and on.

Funk Hill was on the main stage line between Sonora and Copperopolis. This all changed when they built a dam on the Stanislaus River to make New Melones Reservoir. Now, the only way to approach Funk Hill is through a series of dirt roads. I spent all evening poring over online versions of the USGS topographical 7.5 minute maps for the area and plotting the best way to get close to the hill. But I really won't know how passable these roads are, under current weather conditions, until I get on the scene.

Ever since I read online that the Milton Schoolhouse had finally succumbed to the elements I've wanted to go re-visit that tiny town. It's also been six years since I last drove one of my favorite roads, high time for a refresher. Since Funk Hill is four miles east of Copperopolis, and the Rock Creek Road takes off northwest from Copperopolis to Milton, this should be a nice alternative if I don't feel like getting stuck in the mud.

Downieville is kind of an ad hoc addition. While leafing through my collection of books I came upon the story of Juanita, a Mexican woman who was three months pregnant when she was lynched by a white mob in Downieville in 1851. Carey McWilliams retold the story as part of an essay on mob violence against Mexican miners perpetuated by white Americans during the early years of the gold rush. Leonard Pitt adds the detail that she was a prostitute in his book, The Decline of the Californios. I'm not sure why I want to go see Downieville - or what makes Juanita any more deserving of recognition than the thousands of other lynching victims. I guess I just hope that not a stone of the town is remaining and that there is salt liberally sown in the ground. Or something.

Priest Valley has been on my list of places to visit for more than a decade. It was the reported location where Joaquin Murieta and his lieutenant Three-Fingered Jack were killed. The reason why I use the word reported is because I'm from Southern California. A little background. Murieta was one of five Joaquins listed as evildoers of the highest order by the State government. The state put up a reward and a former Texas Ranger (for all those of Mexican descent here is the part where you either boo, hiss, or shriek in terror) named Harry Love decided to hunt down a Joaquin, any Joaquin. Love went hither and yon back and forth across the state chasing Joaquins. He didn't have any luck until, amazingly, right before the reward expired he surprised Joaquin Murieta and his band in Priest Valley and killed the leader and one of his henchmen. He cut off the head of one man and the hand of another, preserved these, and brought them back to the capital (the head hung around for fifty years until it disappeared during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake). The government awarded him $5000. Case closed. But not quite. Angelenos knew as fact that Joaquin Murieta was in the southland during the same period of time. Another disturbing fact is that a group of Sonorans and Californios, who were catching wild horses, were ambushed in Priest Valley and returned to southern California to report that Joaquin Valenzuela (not a bandit) had been killed. It probably wasn't the first, and definitely not the last, time a Texan got creative with the truth. (Leonard Pitt has the best run down on this that I've seen. The records of the state are also illuminating).

So those are the potential candidates. I will probably only make the decision as we're walking out the door. Should be fun.

Supplementing yesterday with visuals

To help me in preparing yesterday's entry I pulled out my photograph box. I haven't been too progressive in converting to digital so pretty much all of my photos are prints. After reading through the entry I felt like something was missing so today I scanned in some of my favorite photos from the various years. Click on thumbnail for larger view. Enjoy.

1999: Calaveras County
S. took these photos. She's more patient in her shot framing and just generally a better photographer than I am. That pale person in the photographs is me.

Campo Seco: Wells Fargo Building

Campo Seco: Wells Fargo Building

Milton: Milton Masonic Cemetery with Schoolhouse

Rock Creek Road: View of Rock Creek

2000: Texas and back, getting my kicks on Route 66

Route 66: Glenrio, Texas hotel

Route 66: Eastern New Mexico

Route 66: Eastern New Mexico bridge

Route 66: Eastern New Mexico structure

Route 66: Eastern New Mexico gas station

Route 66: Eastern New Mexico hotel

2001: Timbuctoo and a Covered Bridge
This is the only picture I could find. I shot digital video and this is from one of the frames. I'm pretty sure that I also shot film but haven't been able to find the photos.

Bridgeport: Covered Bridge

2002: Point Reyes and Wine Country

Mt. Tamalpais: Tree

Drake's Beach: Surf

Drake's Beach: Cliffs

Point Reyes: Lighthouse

Point Reyes: View north

2003: Down the Coast and over to the Fort
These pictures were actually shot by my dad in 2000 (the only major difference is that there is now a security presence at the boundary of the fort - post September 11). I haven't been able to find the photographs I shot on our trip. S. took digital photos but she and her computers are not here at the moment.

Fort Hunter Liggett: Alternate river crossing

Fort Hunter Liggett: Boundary of Fort property

View from highest overlook

Campground on Highway 1

2004: Cache Creek Casino
We didn't take any photographs on this trip, it wasn't that kind of excursion. Here, however, is a link to the Casino.

And many more, on channel four

A few years ago I decided the best gift I could give myself would be to take a drive on my birthday. Touring is one of my favorite activities but, what with one thing or another, I hadn’t been getting out as much as I used to. To remedy that I started what has become a yearly tradition: the birthday cruise. Since the big day is coming up in less than a week it’s time to dust off my maps and collection of reference books and pick a location. I’ll post the outcome of that process soon but today I felt like reflecting back on some of the more memorable aspects of that first year’s trip.

1999: Calaveras County
I retraced an earlier trip to show S. some of my favorite Gold Rush towns. We stopped by the old Wells Fargo building in Campo Seco, some adobe structures in Jenny Lind, and then spent some time in Milton. There’s not much going on there today and you’d never guess the important role this town played over a hundred years ago. The main sights to see were the old schoolhouse, the Masonic Hall (which I think was transported from somewhere else), and the Milton Masonic Cemetery. I’ve since learned that the schoolhouse finally succumbed to the elements a couple of years after we stopped by. That’s too bad seeing as how it was so picturesque. That same word also applies to the cemetery – it’s a very peaceful spot for a stroll.

But the biggest reason I went to Milton was to take the road from there to Copperopolis. At one time, this was the main stagecoach line to Sonora, now it simply has the title Rock Creek Road (I can’t remember where I picked up that bit of information about the stage line – and I haven’t been able to verify it). The stretch of road from Milton to the Salt Springs Valley Reservoir is one of my favorite drives in California (definitely in the top 10). The road is old, and narrow, and windy and, as if those weren’t good enough selling points, the scenery is fantastic.

After making it to Copperopolis we headed over to Highway 49 and cruised north for a while, checking out stores along the way. Once it got dark we stopped in Sonora at a fancy restaurant that S. had scoped out and had a delightful dinner. All told, we spent most of the day on this excursion and these three paragraphs in no way can convey all the places we visited. It was definitely a great way to kick off the tradition.


Each year after that, I have gone some place that I’ve always wanted to visit, or a place that piqued my interest, or to re-drive a favorite road. I’ll just include a short description to whet the appetite.

2000: Texas and back, getting my kicks on Route 66
This was a mammoth undertaking. I’d always wanted to drive on one of the old sections of Route 66 and, through a stroke of fortune, I was able to use this trip as a final project for a class. Over the course of three days I covered two thousand miles and broke in my new (well, new to me) truck. There were too many anecdotes to try to cram into one paragraph but, of all the portions of Route 66 I covered during the trek, my favorite was the section heading west out of Glenrio, Texas. The old road has been covered with dirt but, if you dig down enough you can see the cracked surface. For miles and miles the road stretches straight ahead, nothing but terrain, abandoned buildings, and the raised bed of an abandoned railroad (sans ties and rail). It was very easy to pretend it was the thirties and I was moving out to California to escape the Depression – or at least start over (the same way one of my grandfathers did).

2001: Timbuctoo and a Covered Bridge
I don’t remember where I stumbled upon the name Timbuctoo, Calfornia. But ever since I became aware of it’s existence I’d wanted to go. That way, I could truthfully tell people that I’ve been to Timbuctoo (and if people don’t ask me to spell the name they’ll never know I wasn’t in Africa – not sure why the town founders misspelled it, by the way). I headed north and east to Nevada County and pulled off the main road by Grass Valley. Not much going on there these days but I shot some video of grass covered walls and old buildings. The cooler structure, by far, was the covered bridge in nearby Bridgeport. It’s billed as the Largest Covered Bridge in the US and is a National Civil Engineers Monument. I don’t know if that label is accurate but it is quite impressive.

2002: Point Reyes and Wine Country
I’d seen pictures of the Point Reyes Lighthouse and they looked spectacular so I decided to take a solo trip and check it out. In person, the view is even more dramatic. The rest of the drive wasn’t bad either. I spent some time winding around Mount Tamalpais and coming down the backside on a nice windy road. At Drake’s Beach I took one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken, IMHO. Ended the day by heading over the hills to Wine Country. Not much more to say about this trip. Although I did a lot of driving and stopped at a lot of places, there really wasn’t one stretch of road or site that I would need to go back and re-visit.

2003: Down the Coast and over to the Fort
One of my favorite drives in California is the road from Fort Hunter Liggett to the ocean. You start off climbing oak covered hills and then break through at the top of a mountain looking out across the Pacific Ocean with Highway 1 way down below. My dad did artillery training at the Fort and he liked to take us up there on occasion. The first time I remember taking this drive was as a passenger in my grandparent’s duel-rear-wheel truck (the one they used to tow their RV). We crested the top of the mountain toward the end of the day and my grandfather got angrier and angrier as he tried to navigate down the windy narrow steep road into the blinding setting sun. He wasn’t too happy with my dad for suggesting the route. I try to drive the road periodically but for this trip S. and I took the road in reverse, starting on the coast and driving over the mountains. We got to the Fort in time to do a little walking around at Mission San Antonio Padua. Of all the California Missions, I think this one in particular is the most authentic (in terms of the surrounding area).

2004: Cache Creek Casino
Okay, this one wasn’t really an extended drive. One thing I’d always wanted to do since moving to the Bay Area was check out the Casino at Cache Creek. Well, been there, done that, no need to do it again. S. did well at hold ‘em. I didn’t do so well at slots. The best part of the birthday was solving S.’ treasure hunt before we left the apartment. But it’s good to finally get that thought out of my head, now I can ignore the commercials.

2005: ?

Waiting in the on-deck circle

Danger, Will Robinson. Danger! Link-filled entry coming up.

The majority of books I buy are science-fiction/fantasy paperbacks and there’s a couple of used bookstores I check out on a regular basis: Know Knew Books and BookBuyers. If there’s a particular title I’m looking for, and those two stores don’t have it, I might make a run down to Recycle Books in San Jose. One thing I can’t stand is leaving a used bookstore empty handed so, if I haven’t found the particular book I’m looking for, I’ll usually browse for anything by an author I like and buy that.

These substitute books are relegated to the bottom of my reading list. Since I only pick one up to read if there’s nothing else available, and I add one every time I go to the store and don’t find what I’m looking for, the stack had gotten quite large. I finally had enough, last month I decided to not go to a used bookstore until I’d reduced that pile to nothing. After a month of work, here’s the last five books standing between me and the end to my self-imposed exile:

A Spadeful of Spacetime, edited by Fred Saberhagen
This is a collection of short stories that, "explore new, original ways to bring together the future, past, and today – without Time Machines!" [according to the back cover]. I picked it up for a couple of reasons: the editor and the topic. Fred Saberhagen is an author who has given me a lot of enjoyment over the years. I own a number of his novels as well as all the books in the Empire of the East, Book of the Swords, and Book of the Lost Swords series (I’ve been holding off getting into his most famous work, the Berserker series, but it’s only a matter of time). Saberhagen hooked me with his exploration of what happens when the gods create weapons that can kill even them and distribute them to humans as part of a game (the Swords). As far as the topic goes, the sub-genre of science-fiction dealing with adventures in time is a particular favorite of mine, along with the similar sub-genre of parallel universes. I was curious to see what the authors would do, given the constraints.

Two Crowns for America, by Katherine Kurtz
Here’s the blurb from the back of the book, "Bestselling fantasist Katherine Kurtz combines magic, Freemasonry, and revelation in this spellbinding tale of the American Revolution as it might have been…" I liked the alternate history angle, but the real reason I bought this book was because of the author. Katherine Kurtz is probably best known for her Deryni Saga, which I haven’t read. The first book of hers that I read was a collaboration with Scott MacMillan, Knights of the Blood. I’ve also purchased and enjoyed the books in the Knights Templar and Adept series (the latter one written with Deborah Turner Harris). I’ve always been fascinated with the Freemasons and the Knights Templar and I love how Kurtz combined those two elements, along with sorcery, in her series.

The Excalibur Alternative, by David Weber
This book takes place in the Foreign Legions universe created by David Drake. The reason why I bought it is that I’m working my way towards owning every book David Weber has ever written. He’s one of the few authors whose work I purchase new in hardcover format. I first got hooked on his Honor Harrington series – I love how he updated the whole Horatio Hornblower concept for space of the far future. I’m also a huge fan of the Assiti Shards series (he’s written one book, 1633) that was started by Eric Flint.

The Rose Sea by S. M. Stirling and Holly Lisle
I first read S. M. Stirling’s Islands in the Sea of Time trilogy, where Nantucket is transported back in time to the bronze age. I immediately added his name to my list of authors I look for. He is now working the other side of that concept, what happened to the earth that Nantucket disappeared from, and the first book in that series, Dies the Fire was outstanding. He’s one of my favorites in the realm of alternate histories and parallel universes – The Peshawar Lancers and Conquistador were quite enjoyable. The Rose Sea is more along the lines - at least I think it is, my opinion might change after I read it - of his earlier Fifth Millennium collaborations with Shirley Meier and Karen Wehrstein (I’m still looking for Shadow’s Son to round out my collection).

Hunt the Toff by John Creasey
This is part of my ongoing quest to own all the Toff books. John Creasey was an amazingly prolific writer who penned more than five hundred books using a variety of pseudonyms. He wrote a number of different series, my favorites are the detective type mysteries (Roger West, Gideon, Patrick Dawlish, The Baron, and Dr. Palfrey – just to name a few of his major characters). The Toff, that aristocratic antagonist of crime, is my favorite of his many creations. Creasey’s books are like an old flannel shirt. They may not be flashy or of the highest quality, but they’re extremely comfortable. I know exactly what I’m going to get when I sit down to read a Creasey, a couple of hours of enjoyment. I think this puts my total of Toff books close to forty. Just another twenty to go. This book actually shouldn’t have been on this list, but I’m saving it for last because it’s a known quantity.

Five books is not a lot. I should be back shopping in used bookstores very soon. I’m just glad I gave up on The Childe Cycle of Gordon R. Dickson and packed away every book that didn’t have a Dorsai as the protagonist. The Chantry Guild, Young Bleys and Other were all decent sized and The Final Encyclopedia was just plain long. I liked the Dorsais, just didn’t care about the books that dealt with the bigger pictur

A few quick thoughts on Valentine's Day

There’s so many things that are right about the following story: 'Thank you for the roses', by Barbara Boxer. I love the fact that Senator Boxer has a diary over at dailyKos. I love the simple concept behind the campaign, conceived by Stacy Davies of Claremont, that resulted in all the roses. I love what happened to the flowers after the photos were taken. And I love the fact that I’m proud of my state Senator for the work that she has done, and continues to do, in Washington.

I spent most of the afternoon puttering around at home as part of my Valentine’s Day apartment cleaning and general re-organization, all in preparation for a surprise I was working on. S had brought a TV back with her a few weeks ago and set it on the kitchen table. She mentioned that it would be nice to have cable available on that television for when one of us is working in the kitchen. And that was it - the TV sat there for quite a while. Today I bought the splitter and extra cable and routed the line through the wall that divides the living room and kitchen. When S. got home from class this evening she was happily surprised.

I’ve been ambivalent about the whole second television in the kitchen. My family didn’t have a TV for the first part of my childhood. Around the time I was eight my grandfather donated us an old television set because he felt we were deprived. It took another twenty years before my parents bought their second TV, which they put in the bedroom. A television in the kitchen just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s an alien concept.

I’m quickly becoming a convert, however. I just discovered that I can see the television perfectly from the toilet.

Link of the day (I)

Okay, so the day's less than eleven hours old, but this is funny as hell.

Ebay listing for Jeff Gannon James JD Guckert White House Credential.

From the comment by Joshua Norton, posted at the AMERICAblog web site in respose to the late Sunday post titled, "First Hint".

AMERICAblog is also the best source for the Gannon/Guckert story.

Culture clash

I just finished cleaning the bathroom and the last thing I did was moisten a sponge, cut it in half lengthwise and place a piece on each side of the faucet. Why? Well, it’s the easiest way I’ve found to prevent water from pooling on the countertop. We could try to fix the leak ourselves and, if we weren’t renters, that’s probably the direction I’d prefer. We could call up the property manager and request that he send a plumber; And then call him again next week; And then write him a letter; And then play voice-mail tag for a while (I think you see where this is headed – He’s not the most responsive of managers). But all I really care about is that water doesn’t pool up on the counter and drip onto the floor and make a general nuisance of itself. The sponge works perfectly.

I grew up in a family that values the ability to fix things. Whenever an object does not function as desired the first thought is, “What can I do, right now, to get this thing working again?” Paying someone to fix the problem is way down on the list, about on par with throwing the offending piece away. This practice has led to some interesting situations.

After completing high school in 1990 I applied to, and was accepted by, a small liberal arts college in southeast Washington state. My parents decided to caravan up with me and help in the settling in process so we packed up the cars, my ’80 Mazda 626 and their ’79 Seville, and set off on the thousand mile trip. Things went fine the first day out, we stopped for the night somewhere in the vicinity of Redding, woke up and turned off the 5 at Weed to cut through central Oregon.

South of Bend (but probably closer to Chiloquin) things took a turn for the worse when Murphy reared his ugly head. My fan decided that it was tired of being tied down in a job with no opportunity for advancement and broke loose. Freedom was short lived, however, since the fan spun forward only about two inches before it came to a halt after carving its way into the radiator. The radiator proceeded to spew coolant and I become aware of the problem when the temperature needle started moving upward with alarming speed. In retrospect, I probably should’ve been driving with the stereo a little lower - the bump of the bass must have camouflaged the sound of the fan meeting the radiator.

It took a while for my parents to realize I wasn’t in the rearview mirror and they turned around and came back to find me parked by the side of the road with the hood up. The radiator was a loss. The engine worked fine but we couldn’t run it for long without coolant. My first class was the next day and it was beginning to look like we’d have to leave my car by the side of the road.

While I started unpacking everything from the Mazda my dad and mom headed to the nearest town. After what seemed like a couple of hours they came back with the solution to our problem: they had scoured the town and found the only radiator remotely close to the size I needed. Unfortunately, it was from a riding lawnmower and had only about half the cooling area of my radiator. But beggars can’t be choosers.

My mom and I started separating out my dad’s clothes and repacking all of my possessions into the Cadillac. Meanwhile, my dad pulled out the radiator and tied in the one from the lawnmower with baling wire. After some modifications to the hoses and refilling of coolant we were ready to turn on the engine and test out the patch. It worked pretty good but there was no way the new radiator would cool the engine for an extended period of time. However, it would have to do.

We went our separate ways: me and my mom heading north in the Cadillac and my dad heading south in the Mazda. He had to stop as soon as the temperature needle started to move and wait for the engine to cool down but he made it, in leapfrog fashion, home to Los Angeles more than seven hundred miles away. Once he had the Mazda home it was a simple matter to track down the right radiator and make the replacement (although there were additional repairs that needed to be made and we ended up just replacing the engine with a low mileage block from Japan – but the whole job cost much less than buying another car). I got another nine years of life out of that car and it retired with 250,000 miles on the odometer.

Late last year I was reminded of the fact that different people have different attitudes towards things that break. My brother and his family were hosting a Christmas Eve party and there were plenty of children running around excitedly opening and playing with their presents. (I just have to interject that it’s not right to open presents on the night before – it’s just not right – but what can you do). My twelve year old nephew, actually my niece’s cousin, almost passed out from delight when he unwrapped his first slot car set. He and his friends proceeded to unpack all the parts, assemble them in a reasonable facsimile of the picture on the box, scrounge up the necessary number of batteries, place the slot cars on the track, plug in the controllers, and ready themselves for some serious racing action. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The cars didn’t budge. There’s nothing quite like a disappointed twelve year old on Christmas Eve – there should be a law against that.

The person who gave him the gift, a boyfriend of one of his aunts, consoled him by promising to take the set back to the store and replace it after the holidays were over. I immediately got out the instructions, pulled everything apart, and proceeded to re-assemble the set (making sure the brushes of the cars were touching the metal, verifying that the batteries and the plugs were inserted correctly, pushing each section of track together tightly, etc.). The thing still didn’t work. At this point I was sure that I had eliminated all but two potential sources of error: either both cars didn’t work (which I put at a low probability), or there was a break in the circuit and current was not flowing (which I put at a high probability given the fragile nature of the wiring and the vigor with which it had been handled).

I talked to my brother and made sure that he had all the necessary equipment (tester, soldering iron, wire, wire strippers) and then I explained the situation to my nephew. I told him that he had two options: he could wait until after the holidays to get the replacement or he could give me permission to try and fix the set that night (I put the probability of success at 90 percent – just because I don’t give ironclad guarantees). The only caveat was that, in the process of testing and repairing the circuit, I would be doing things that would void any warranty and probably make it impossible to get an exchange. When I asked him what his choice was, based on that information, he thought about it for a while, looked at me solemnly and said that he’d rather just wait until it could be exchanged at the store. I respected his decision, and had to console myself with the knowledge that his culture was different from my own – at least with respect to this one issue.

But I totally could’ve gotten that thing working.

Is that a bellybutton I see before me?

Two buck chuck is a very good thing.

So today marks the end of my first week as a blogger. Not quite sure how I feel about the whole thing, seeing as how the opportunity fell into my lap (or, to put it another way, was gift wrapped for me by S. after she put in quite a bit of time setting the whole thing up). But on this, the smallest of milestones, it seems appropriate to engage in a little reflection. After all, isn’t that what this whole enterprise is built around, introspective navel gazing?

I tend to treat most things I do on a regular basis as manufacturing problems. It’s a game for me: identify the desired product, track the necessary stages of production, look for efficiency producing changes, make those changes and, after a period of time, assess the outcome. So what are the lessons I’ve learned in only seven days of practice and what changes, if any, will I make?

The short answer is, not many. I’m satisfied maintaining a frequency of one post a day. That feels about right. I have, however, already instituted a change in how I go about preparing each post. I started out using the blogspot interface, typing my post in the form, uploading and then editing as required. The end result was that each entry, no matter how much editing I did, carried the time stamp from when I first initiated the process. This didn’t feel right. To me, the time stamp of an entry should indicate that no changes have been made since that point.

Trivial? Yes. A valid concern based on how much wine I’ve had to drink? Absolutely. So my new manufacturing technique is to adopt a three step process. The first step is to write out my entry in a word processing program (we all know which one I’m using, but I hate to advertise for the MSMonopoly), making full use of the spell check function and editing drafts as required. Next, I go through the potential entry and determine if linking to external pages would add value. If so, this leads to a Google-enabled digression. Finally, I paste the completed entry into the blogspot interface and upload immediately.

Of course, I could just manually adjust the time stamp instead. That, however, would take too much effort (if you can’t see the tongue in my cheek, it’s there). Now, I think there’s a bottle of wine that’s in need of emptying.

Salud!

PS. One final thought. If you ever happen to print out a document to edit and then forget to bring a pen with you on a smoke break, never fear. Simply delete any extra words by pressing the lit tip of a cigarette against the paper at the appropriate point. Just make sure to snuff out the burning segment with your fingers before the page bursts into flame. If you have to add words or rearrange sentences, well you're SOOL. You really should've brought that pen.

Memory floodgates still open

Two stories stand out as I think back over my little league career. One would be my high point as a middle school ballplayer. The other, not so much. I wouldn’t describe it as a painful memory, in fact I find it quite humorous. It all stemmed from the fact that I’ve never been able to throw the ball very far. My second year coach figured this out early on and I was relegated to the role of catcher. This proved to be a rather unfortunate decision on his part.

The first game of the season and everyone was excited. Our team was the home team so I settled in behind the plate, ready to officially begin my catching career. We may have gotten the first batter out, probably not, but at some point the other team put a player on base. The opposing coach decided to test our defense and sent the runner, who easily stole second as my throw bounced somewhere in the vicinity of the pitcher’s mound and dribbled its way ever so slowly toward the shortstop. Like a group of sharks in a feeding frenzy, the other team proceeded to steal base after base with each of my attempted pick-off throws showing remarkable precision and abysmal accuracy. Finally, the umpire saw the writing on the wall and made a judgment call. For the rest of the season players would not be allowed to steal. In one half inning I had single-handedly changed the rules of the game.

I don’t remember being upset by the experience. This was probably due to the fact that I didn’t expect to be good at sports. I enjoyed playing them, but I understood from an early age that my strengths were more cerebral than physical and so my self-esteem was never tied to how well I performed on the ball field. Because of this, anytime I did something exceptionally well it was a bit of a surprise, as illustrated in the second story.

If there was one position that was even more of a wasteland for talent than catcher, it was the outfield. Coaches were resigned to the fact that any ball that made it past the infield would probably not be caught and would result in at least a double. I was unsurprised when I was assigned to left field my last year in little league. What was surprising was that I was good at it. Not with my arm, I still couldn’t throw too far and needed an extensive relay system, but with my glove. If a ball headed in my general direction, I could catch it.

My crowning achievement as an outfielder came in one of the last games of the season. We were playing the league leaders, who were an offensive juggernaut. They were anchored by a huge monster of a boy. I don’t remember his real name but we all called him “Ox” and it was rumored (although this was probably sour grapes) that he had been held back a few times. Ox’s specialty was hitting towering fly balls that made outfielders look like they were auditioning for a spot on the Keystone Kops as they ran to and fro trying to track down the small speck of white. As if that wasn’t enough, he was also a switch-hitter.

He came to bat at a crucial point in the game. I was standing out in left field fully expecting to be tested to the utmost. And then his coach yelled at him to hit lefty. Immediately, my coach yelled at me to switch with the right fielder. So I ran all the way across the field and got squared up, just in time to see Ox switch back to hitting right-handed. My coach yelled. I ran back. Ox walked to the other side of the plate. At this point, the umpire stepped in (seems to be a recurring theme) and made Ox commit to one side of the batter’s box. He chose to hit right.

The pitcher finally got into the action. I don’t remember how many pitches were thrown. I do remember the last one. Ox swung his bat and hit a majestic shot that soared high into the sky before rocketing back to earth and landing perfectly in my glove. As I came running in from the outfield, still tightly gripping the ball, the entire team converged on me in celebration. It was the pinnacle of my little league career.

To this day I remember how hard that ball hit my glove. My hand must have been sore for a week.

Jack Smith and the dump

[I started this entry a couple of days ago and was unsatisfied with where it was heading. I'm much happier with the revised version.]

I was taking a break from working on the computer this morning, idly scanning the bookcase, and my eyes happened to fall on the title "Jack Smith's L.A." by Jack Smith. Being reminded of the fact that I own this book brought a smile to my face. I don't remember where I found this treasure, probably Recycle Bookstore in San Jose, but the pencilled price on the inside says it was a steal at $4.63. The quick way to describe it would be as a collection of essays, on various aspects of Los Angeles, written during the seventies by Jack Smith. I'll have to add a little context to explain why it is so much more than that, for me at least.

From about the age of ten, until I left LA for undergrad at the age of eighteen, Jack Smith's column in the Times was the only part of the paper that I read on a regular basis. He was an extremely talented communicator and two things always came through in his work: his love of Los Angeles and his ability to write about the city as if it were a small town. His columns often felt like a conversation with a neighbor you happened to bump into. I particularly like this descriptive blurb, taken from the back cover of the book:

Jack Smith writes like your father would write if he could, like your brother would write if he could, like your neighbor would write if he could. He is wise, he is witty, he is heartwarming. We need him, because he is us.

- Ray Bradbury

[Apparently, Ray thought that mothers and sisters already wrote well enough, so mentioning them would be unneccessary.]

Of course, the fact that we really were neighbors (in Los Angeles terms at least) might've had something to do with the attraction. He lived in Mount Washington - part of a collection of hills rather than an actual mountain - and we lived on the other side of those hills in Glassell Park. Every so often he would write a column detailing some aspect of life in Northeast LA and those were extra special. Skimming through the book I came across one of my favorite examples of that type of column:

County Landfill No. 4

Spring must have come late to County Landfill No. 4, also known as the Scholl Canyon dump. The road to the dump rises through the hills above Eagle Rock, and I found the wildflowers, weeds and bushes in full bloom when I drove up with a load of trash.

It was early Monday morning, the dump being closed on Sunday. I had started cleaning out the garage over the weekend, and this was my first load of nonbiodegradable debris. I was cleaning out the garage for the last time, I had promised myself, and was determined that this time everything must go, including the sentiment that had caused us to accumulate so much junk in the first place.

The road trembled under the huge rubbish trucks grinding their way up to the landfill site and back. It was a mile or two from North Figueroa Street to the summit, where the weigh-in station stands beside a small green oasis. I pulled up behind an enormous white truck and another one pulled up behind me. It was a thrill, driving my little green minitruck up there with the big boys.

...

I have my own fond memories of the Scholl Canyon dump and reading these paragraphs brought them rushing back. When we had our almost-fire a large number of possessions suffered irrepairable smoke damage and we ended up taking many of them to the dump. There was something so utterly cool about disposing of our garbage right next to the dumptrucks while the huge earthmovers worked in the distance. Kind of like getting a peek into the locker room at a professional sporting event or being invited into the swanky dining room at the uptown country club. I'm sure there was no romanticism involved for those who did this on a regular basis but for me it was the chance to see into another world - a world with huge powerful monstrous machines - and not just as an observer but as a participant. I really loved those excursions.

The dump figured in my childhood in another way - the older section had been turned into baseball fields and this was where our little league played. It wasn't off the same road, instead of entering from Eagle Rock you had to go into Glendale and all the way up Glenoaks canyon, almost as if they were trying to disassociate the park with the dump. By no stretch of the imagination was it a state-of-the-art facility and the outfield, where I roamed my last year of little league, was especially bumpy. But it was much better than the place where we played our away games - the one with the cement home plate and the rock garden in left.

There was an additional section, slightly up the hill from the baseball fields, that had a golf course and tennis complex. Unfortunately, this part was often closed to the public. Apparently there was still a lot of volatile decomposition going on and the presence of flammable gases rendered the area unsafe. Even on the best of days there was a hint of methane pervading the area. Many people, however, interpreted the road closure as optional and you would see them walking in the closed off areas. It didn't help that the route to a favorite Rose Bowl overlook led past the shuttered complex. Our family walked that trail many times, and to this day I do not understand why a person would pay to watch the Fourth of July fireworks show when they could hike for half an hour and watch it for free.

This has turned into even more of a ramble than usual, but it's a perfect example of why I love Jack Smith. His best columns spark mental digressions as I bounce from memory to memory and, at the end, I'm left with a warm fuzzy feeling. I read his work and am reminded of something I hadn't thought about in twenty years. He truly was a gifted chronicler and the city of Los Angeles lost a great spokesman when he died.

So here's a toast to Jack Smith and County Landfill No. 4. One is no longer with us and the other will always be there.

It's a feature, not a flaw

The title of this post is one of the phrases I picked up early in my graduate school work. It was a favorite of the professor who taught the corporate-sponsored team-based design sequence. Whenever a team designing a product would identify an unintended side-effect, the professor would use the phrase and then challenge the team to figure out how to re-imagine this as a selling point to the client. In other words, treat this potential problem as an opportunity.

One of the by products of being a member in various organizations (ASEE, ASME, AOPA, and two different alumni organizations) is that I get quite a few magazines each month. These magazines quickly pile up and what I usually end up doing is to dump all of them in the recycle bin. This activity invariably leaves me feeling guilty, so last month I instituted a change in behavior. I went through all my old magazines and clipped out articles that looked mildly interesting before I recycled them. Every day I read through at least one of these articles, decide whether or not it is worth saving and jot down the relevant points so, if the topic arises in the future, I have a handy way of finding the article again.

Today's article, written in February 2003, was a brief survey of two companies working to develop sea turbines to harness ocean currents. Like many of the articles in Mechanical Engineering (the ASME publication), it serves as a long advertisement while also providing interesting information about an up-and-coming technology. I'm intrigued enough that I'll file the article and periodically check back on the progress the two companies are making (currently, both IT Power and Blue Energy Canada have installed prototypes and are in the testing phase).

The next to last paragraph of the article, however, was good for a nice chuckle:

IT Power's Thake [senior engineer Jeremy Thake] says that because the rotors of the turbines are relatively slow-moving, they pose little threat to fish and other small marine life. "Fish will likely be accelerated by the movement of the rotors, but not cut up by them, " Thake said. "It's like moving through a revolving door."

Wheeeeeeeee! Sounds like fun. Now, how do you go about charging fish for thrill rides?

Wrapping up loose threads (and maybe starting new ones)

This is a quick follow up to yesterday's post. I was about half done with my original task when I shot off onto the Trekkie tangent. Since I had a few extra minutes today, I decided to go ahead and finish what I was working on. As a refresher, I was curious to see how much it would cost per episode to own an entire sci-fi television series on DVD. My initial large list was whittled down to ten due to a couple of criterion: the series had to have been concluded and all of the seasons had to have been released on DVD. So, without further ado...


Cost per episode

1. Firefly ($2.50)
2. Star Trek Voyager ($2.83)
3. The X-Files ($3.12)
4. Star Trek Next Generation ($3.28)
5. Babylon 5 ($3.36)
6. Star Trek ($3.37)
7. Crusade ($3.46)
8. Star Trek Deep Space Nine ($3.62)
9. Battlestar Galactica ($3.75)
10. Farscape* ($5.28)

* This was the only show that does not have a complete series DVD boxed set. All four seasons have to be purchased separately. I would expect this price per episode to go down once the complete series set is released.

And, just for good measure:


Number of episodes

1. The X-Files (202)
   
2. Star Trek Next Generation (178)
   
3. Star Trek Deep Space Nine (176)
   
4. Star Trek Voyager (172)
   
5. Babylon 5 (110)
   
6. Farscape (88)
   
7. Star Trek (79)
   
8. Battlestar Galactica (24)
   
9. Firefly (14)
   
10. Crusade (13)

Now I wonder how that compares with non sci-fi TV show DVD boxed sets? I should probably pretend I never had that thought...

Trekkie-Gouging

Starting in August of 1999, Paramount Home Video began releasing episodes of the original Star Trek television series on DVD. Each volume contained two episodes and had a list price of twenty dollars (although Amazon discounted them down to eighteen). They released two volumes at a time, issuing the last volume in December of 2001. Fans of the show had to pony up $800 for all forty volumes (or, $720 if they used Amazon – not counting the shipping charges). That’s a pretty hefty chunk of change, even if it was spread out over close to two and a half years.

Three years later, Paramount decided to take another shot at fan money and began releasing boxed sets. In August 2004 they released the first season, followed shortly by the second season in November and the third, and final, season in December. Each of these boxed sets had a list price of $130 (although you could get them for $97 from Amazon). So you could own the entire series with additional features for only $390 (or $291 if inclined to shop online).

At the same time they released the third season, Paramount released a jumbo set containing all three seasons. This monster of a purchase had a list price of $380 (or $266 from Amazon).

If they wanted to own every single episode, fans ended up having three options:

1. Shell out $800/$720 over 28 months
2. Wait five years and then shell out $390/$291 over four months
3. Wait a little more than five years and then shell out $380/$266 at once

So if a fan had known in advance, way back in August of 1999, they could have just put aside five bucks a month and had enough to buy all the episodes when they were released en masse in December of 2004. To sate their thirst in the interim they could have used Netflix to rent each volume as it was released (1999 was the year that Netflix started). But that’s assuming that Paramount was up front with the fans about the different combinations they would be releasing. Instead, a lot of fans probably ended up spending more than $700 to get their hands on all the episodes (and considering the size of the Trekkie contingent, I’m sure there were many people who fell into this category). So congratulations to Paramount for squeezing as much money as they could from fans.

Why do I care? Well, after my recent conversion to fanboy status (of the Firefly variety), I have a lot more sympathy towards other fan groups. It just seems sleazy that corporations would take advantage of someone’s passion. But hey, that’s what the free market is good for.

Why did I do this anaylsis? Well, I was playing around on Amazon and doing searches for science-fiction television shows, trying to get a feel for how much it would cost per episode to own a complete series, and the sheer number of DVDs that were listed for the original TV run of Star Trek surprised me (I didn't think there were that many episodes). One thing led to another, and this is the end result.

Oh, and the cost per episode thingie? I never did get around to finishing that... (Just a little teaser: Firefly - $2.50 an episode, Original Star Trek - $3.37 an episode).

Driving while long-haired

There was a time in my life when I had a full head of quite longish hair. During this period of time I was getting pulled over by law enforcement officers on a regular basis. When it got to the point where I was averaging a traffic stop every month I figured it was time to do a little investigating. At one of the family parties, I cornered some friends who were police officers and outlined the number of times I had been pulled over, why the officer said I had been pulled over, and what was the eventual outcome of the traffic stop (at the most, a warning). The general consensus of my friends was that these were nothing more than warrant stops - I fit the profile of a person likely to have an outstanding warrant and, as such, was an easy mark. Since, in actuality, I did not have any outstanding warrants I was let go with a warning.

I asked them what, if anything, I could do to lessen the number of times I got pulled over. The answer was nothing. We did, however, work out a basic plan of action that I could take whenever I got pulled over to minimize the risk to myself during the encounter (this was based on them agreeing that the most dangerous thing they do is traffic stops and they are continually on edge). From that point on whenever I got pulled over I exhibited the following behavior: I made sure that my hands were visible and on the steering wheel as the officer approached the car; when asked for my license and registration I told the officer where each of those items was, told them that I would be reaching for those items, and then slowly accomplished that action; and I waited patiently with my hands out the window while they went back to the patrol car and ran my license through the computer. After instituting this program I found that the amount of time I spent sitting by the side of the road during a traffic stop went down.

Of course, once I cut my hair, the number of times I was pulled over by law enforcement dropped to zero.

Updating the skills resume - Part 1

I've held a number of different jobs over the past many years that I neglect to put on my resume. Every so often I like to think back and reflect on lessons that I learned through those varied work experiences.

Elementary School Janitor - There is nothing quite like cleaning a boys restroom to harden a person to the disgusting nature of all things gross. Whenever anything bad happens to a classroom (such as someone stealing or using the phone to dial 976 numbers) the janitor is the first person that is blamed. Never, under any circumstance, investigate the foul odor emanating from the desk of the most hated teacher in junior high.

Real Estate Management Office Clerk - When you have to send out thousands of bills at the end of each month DON'T lick the envelopes - it might be more efficient than using a wet sponge but there are few things more debilitating than a paper cut on the tongue. The machine that tri-folds paper will always chew up the most important document. If you are bored and start getting creative while copying renter's agreements, it's a good idea to remove all copies of various body parts before stapling anything.

Framer's Assisant - Blueprints are really only suggestions. When one of the guys has the shakes during the morning, and the afternoon calls for building some tricky angled walls, don't buy him a 40 for lunch - something will invariable get done backwards and have to be taken out. Nail guns don't shoot nails all that well. If the boss is running out of profit margin guess who's the first person to feel the pinch?

College Dorm Housekeeping - Wear gloves when laundering shower curtains for a dorm that houses undergraduate males. The three most important words to remember when cleaning showers and bathrooms in that same dorm are bleach, bleach, and more bleach. Make sure to use lots of wax on every wooden banister you can find - it leads to hilarious misadventures.

Pizza Delivery - After they order, many people think they can sneak a quickie and be done before the pizza arrives - they are often wrong. The best customers are the ones who are high - they are extremely happy to see you and they usually give you quite a large tip. The reward for 2500 accident free deliveries is a crappy little pin. If you are walking past someone while carrying a pizza bag, they will more than likely say, "Hey. Is that for me?" and think they are funny as hell for being the first person to think of saying that. The richer the house, the tinier the tip.

And that brings us up to 22 years of age. Jobs I've held since then that will be added to this list in the future are: Church Custodian, Valet Attendant, Web Site Designer for Company on the Verge of Bankrupty, Data Entry Temp, Telemarketer, Machinist in a Union Shop, Machinist in a non-Union Shop, and Customer Service Temp. There is a separate list of jobs I've held that actually end up on my resume due to their relevance to my field of expertise. For the most part, they've resulted in far fewer amusing anecdotes.


On a side note, I'll be periodically personalizing the first few entries in this blog with my own comments in brackets. S. did a great job setting up everything and doing a few samples to show me the ropes but I feel the need to leave my scent (I've been living with cats too long, apparently).

What's in a name? (and a picture)

A couple of preliminaries as I start this thing off.

The picture on this blog is not me. It is the actor Franc Ross, taken from a screen capture of his guest spot on the TV series Firefly. Much more will be said in later entries about that ill-fated series. For the moment, it's enough to say that Firefly was an excellent science-fiction show that was cut down early in it's life by the decisions of short-sighted studio executives. Firefly is now getting a second lease on life through the feature film Serenity, in theaters at the end of September. The sad thing is that the episode Franc Ross appeared in was never aired in the U.S. (it is, however, included on the DVD). I use this picture as my avatar on the fan site Fireflyfans because I really liked the character (even though he only got a few minutes of screen time).

Fireflyfans is also the place where I first started using the nickname SoupCatcher. There was a section of dialogue between Franc Ross' character, Monty, and the main protagonist, Malcolm Reynolds (played by Nathan Fillion) that immediately resonated with me.

Mal: (looks closely at Monty) Something's different.
Monty: (smiles proudly) Yup.
Mal: You look -- there's something --
Monty: (strokes his chin)
Mal: -- the beard! You shaved off the soupcatcher!!
Monty: Yup.
Mal: I thought you were going to take that ugly chin-wig to the grave.
Monty: (chuckles) So did I. But she didn't much like my whiskers...

For most of the past fifteen years I've had facial hair. This has covered the spectrum from pencil-thin-moustache to big-bushy-birds-nest-of-a-beard with much variety in between. Each drastic change to my facial hairstyle (whether through pressure from employers or to please significant others or due to the necessity of appearing clean cut in court) is a traumatic event. Not capital-T traumatic, just a general sort of uncomfortableness. So when I first heard the above exchange I thought, "Hey. I've been there. I'm with you all the way buddy." Since my upper lip and chin was covered by a goodly bit of soup-straining hair at the time, it seemed fitting that I take that word as my nickname.

I eventually got tired of the extra effort required to keep something like that clean and have gone back to a close-cropped goatee. But I think I'll keep the nickname.

So that's that.

Settling in and getting used to that new blog smell

So here I am, all done screaming. I'm still kicking the tires, checking under the hood, settling down into the driver's seat and adjusting the mirrors. Looks like I'll give this whole blogging thing a shot. Much thanks to s. for setting this place up for me (all on the sly), typing up some sample entries, leaving a link on my desktop, and then drawing my attention to the link after a few days had gone by with me not noticing. This here is just official notice that I've moved in and take full responsibility for any entries from here on out.

'Nuff said. For now.

Politics as usual...

Yay to Senator Olympia Snowe for standing--I mean, sitting against Bush's Social Security privatization. Surrounded by fellow Republicans who jumped to their feet applauding the president's SOTU words, Snowe remained seated and smiling. From Josh Marshall, who is cracking me up with his designations of the Fainthearted Faction (Demos), and the Conscience Caucus (Repubs).


[One of the stories I have been following with interest is the attempt by the administration to phase out Social Security - variously referred to by proponents as privitization / private accounts / personal accounts / personalization. I've learned a lot from reading Kevin Drum's posts on this topic over at Political Animal. I've also been following the impressive work Josh Marshall is doing over at Talking Points Memo in tracking where Senators and Representatives stand on this issue. To me, this is the first big test of how able the Democrats are at functioning as an opposition party. - SoupCatcher].


And Kos picks up the story of City Commissioner Linda Coates who was blacklisted, along with a number of other local Democratic leaders, from a attending a Bush speech in her own city of Fargo. Must. Not. Have. Dissent.

Finished Nevada Barr's High Country... I think this one would make a good movie.


[On second thought, I think I'll take back this comment. The sections of the book that are the most dramatic take place either at night or in low visibility fog - kind of hard to portray that using the silver screen. - SoupCatcher]

[Bush's] Family Policy

1. I'm a virgin. My twin daughters, Jenna and Jenna's sister, are both virgins. And my wife became a born again virgin after she ran over the last guy who had sex with her. We want all of you to be virgins too.

--from Jesus' General


[One of the blogs I read on a daily basis is Jesus' General. I love the satirical approach he takes to highlighting the absurdity of some of the more close-minded members of our society. I hope he doesn't catch me calling his work satire, however, or I'll be branded a Frenchman. To cover my lapse, here's a toast to that most heterosexual of warriors in the battle against the libruls, General JC Christian. - SoupCatcher]

Stumbling onto the information superhighway

i'm making him do it, i swear. every morning he has just too many thoughts bursting out of his head, and i can only hear so many before i get annoyed at the interruptions to my own work. start a blog, i always tell him; you read so much, have so much to say, you should share it with others. especially the sci-fi stuff, which i don't much care for, but which titillates his creative brain beyond that huge stack of books in his room. so this is my attempt to shove him onto the information superhighway, kicking and screaming.... he's a bright man, you really should read....


[Once again, thanks S. for setting all this up - I can take the hint :-). And I also appreciate the compliments, even if I am worried that you've set expectations a bit high... - SoupCatcher]