I Ain't Got Time to Bleed
I don't know why, but I still get a kick out of watching Predator even after like the 100th time. Maybe it's all the extreme characters. Or maybe it's just those lines...
Billy: "We're all gonna die"
Dutch: "Stick around"; "Get to da chawper!"; "If it bleeds, we can kill it"
Mac: "I'm gonna have me some fun" "Anytime"
So on Friday afternoon, some of my old direct reports showed up a few minutes early for my former boss's farewell lunch at Long Life Noodle Co. We ended up perusing
Schuab's. After all these years in Palo Alto, I had
no idea this place existed. It was one of those times that I wished I had a camera phone. There, sitting in the frigid glass case, was the most marbled piece of bone in NY Strip that I have ever seen in my life. I mean, there was barely no red left. Two and a half inches thick and $27.99/lb. That's right,
twenty eight dollars a pound. And the whole time I was going through my Moo Go Gee and Mango Martini, that was all I could think about...a fat ass steak. Oh yes, I will be back, and that steak will be mine...for some special occassion, like celebrating Monday. Or a Wednesday. Or celebrating days that end in Y.
Before I die, I want to make one bad-ass
Cibachrome print. Hopefully with some luck I'll get to snap that one picture filled with all the colors of the spectrum...maybe the wildflowers in Mojave, or the Joshua trees in full bloom, or the turning of the leaves in the Blue Ridge mountains, or... Working at a photo lab back in high school, I still remember seeing my first ever Cibachrome print sitting there in the back on a table. It was a 20" print of a bright yellow hot rod sitting under a canopy of trees during what must be late October. I was blown away by how amazingly intense the colors were, and how the image literally jumped out at me.
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God Save The Queen
And so it isJust like you said it would be;Life goes easy on me,mostof the time.That was quite an enjoyable evening. Maybe my co-worker was right...earlier this week she caught me off guard and asked if I would consider being a project manager. Quite surprised, I explained how disorganized I am and how really terrible I was at time management. But thinking about the dinner tonight, it felt like a little "project" of my own...
(Man, watching Buck Rogers now on SciFi I totally forgot how really hot Erin Gray was; no wonder I had a childhood thing for her)...There was all the planning, trying to set it up so that everything finishes at just the right time. The roast was in at 2:30, with frequent internal temperature checks throughout to get it to finish on time -- it ended up finishing at around 6:30 with lots of fiddling with the oven temperature. Then getting the roasted garlic in the oven early (they take for
ever!) and getting the potatoes peeled, sliced, and boiled; chives chopped; bacon cooked (which I forgot to do -- boo) . It was quite fun. But then there's that whole control freak thing that keeps me from being successful. Everything had to be done
a certain way. From the au jus reduction, to washing the dishes. It's something that keeps me from being truly effective as a manager...
I didn't know they actually made a
sys admin day.
Man, it's been so long since I've used 120/220 film, I spent 10 minutes staring at the open back of the Fuji 6x9 camera I borrowed, trying to figure out how to load the roll on the spool! Then realized that I was confusing the load procedure with the loadable backs of the Mamiya units (which have to be loaded in reverse). I'm excited to try this thing out.
Holy crap, Buck Rogers is
so freakin' cheesy. Awesome.
beedeebeedee
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Closer
Man, what a good film.
But jeeeeeeez...talk about jacked up sado-masochistic depressive deceptive cheating lying and downright evil characters! I dug how the film stuck to its on-stage roots and the characters were
extremely well played, and the dialogue was just great. But man, these are some evil people.
I think I'll watch it again. heheheh
And that stupid Damien Rice song is my head too.
So the past 3 days all I've been thinking about is that fat 12 lb rib roast sitting in the fridge. Can't wait! Just gotta figure out the cooking times...4 hours maybe?
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My Ever Changing Moods
I've been churning over how to continue my little stories - there's a thought that lies lurking in the back of my head - but work has been quite hectic lately. One of these days I'll get around to it. So for now, just mindless rambling...
It's all a matter of
perspective.
Yesterday I was going through a pile of resumes from Waterloo (Canada) for some co-op NCGs. Got some good ones (about 3 out of the whole pile of 20) but what caught my eye was this one candidate who actually used the word "fabulous" in his resume: "fabulous organization and time management skills". His lack of proper capitalization throughout was pretty much a reject for me, but I would've loved to have seen him write "FABulous organization and time management skills".
Hot or Not + Google Maps =
this.
And check
this out -- kinda freaky.
So there's a 5 rib roast dry-aging in the fridge right now. I'm rethinking the decision of whether to cut from the loin end or the chuck end. I think the loin end is more tender, but the chuck end has more flavor. But the butcher kinda confused me, convincing me that I should get from the chuck end -- I think he was trying to swindle me, and save the best cut for himself. :)
This is a cool beer ad.
Does anyone remember making tapes? I've been putting together a bunch of Desert Island Discs and started thinking back to what it used to be like. I mean, all this digital stuff is kinda cool -- easy to use, just drag & drop! But the
magic of it all is sort of lost. It used to take hours to make a tape...first you had to set the right bias for each tape, then choose the noise-reduction filter (C was hella cool, but I only had one deck that could play it back so everything was pretty much in B). Then each song had to be level-checked on your 3-head deck, making sure that the levels were set just right so the loudest passages on the song was loud enough so that the hiss was gone but not too loud that it didn't distort. And yes, this meant you had to
know where the loudest parts of the song were. On top of all this, you were going through your record/CD/tape collection and figuring out which song would go next -- the mood you were trying to set; what felt right after this song; etc. etc. I guess most people would actually plan out the entire tape, but I usually had just one or two to get me started, then as I listened to the recording -- real time, remember? -- depending on the mood I'd go off and diverge.
Yeah, the technology is definitely better. But the outcome doesn't seem to have that same sentimental charm that it used to, when you would hold that $14 TDK MA-XG cassette tape, solid metal frame and all, and know how much effort was put into it. Whoa...people are still selling these
things on eBay!
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I'm a Thumbprint on the Window of a Scryscraper
So now I understand the reference to Pinot Noir being made popular by the film
Sideways. What a great film...(although I would've loved to have seen more stylized camera work). I wonder if my palate will ever develop; I'll go pick up something interesting from K&L tomorrow to see. Besides, I'm going to need something for my steak. hehehhehe.
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Quality
Damnit...I get so irritated at poorly executed products. I'm sitting here trying to rip my Style Council box set into 192kbps mp3s with MusicMatch Jukebox and it refuses to detect CD changes! So I have to waste countless minutes finagaling with starting/stopping the app, with the drawer closed/open, with the CD in different drives, and the stupid app refuses to recognize the disc change. AAaaargh. And when it does work it's some strange combination of leaving the drawer open, exiting the app, starting it, then closing the drawer after waiting for a minute or so. Downright irritating.
What's really frustrating is that it took such a long time to find an app that did what I wanted it to do when ripping CDs. MusicMatch was at the time (2 years ago) the only one out there that'll look up the CD name through a far superior database (CDDB)
and let me configure how it organizes the ripped mp3s (I like it to store them in subdirectories named: artist - album)
and let me specify the ripped format (wav/mp3/wmv)
and it uses a pretty decent encoding algorithm.
Anyone know of anything better out there? But wait, that's the problem. Why do I have to keep getting different versions of software, from different vendors? You buy a piece of software and if it solves your problems why should you go through the hassle of learning something new? Man, Lotus 1-2-3 was one
badass piece of software.
Grrr...I just long for the day to come when software engineering establishes itself as a proper engineering form, like building cars and bridges and buildings and electronic components. It's so frustrating that everyone treats software as kiddie toys. I mean, if I press the brake pedal and the gas pedal at the same time in my car, it doesn't blow up. But it happens all the time in software. Press this button, press that button, ka-blam-o.
Sigh. It's all a pipe dream. 10 years in this business has shown me the reality: companies dump as many features as they can into a product, push outrageous schedules, and try to get away with as little infrastructure investment as possible (best practices, QA, good engineers, better managers, unified company concern toward quality) while maintaining the bare minimum of customer satisfaction. Maybe one day it'll all change?
Hrmph. I shouldn't have started washing clothes so late. The last load is still in the wash, and there's a pile of whites to hang.
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Long Hot Summer
I really should be watching Battlestar Galactica right now. But six+ glasses of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Chianti is just making it difficult to concentrate. And I really should respect Rondalla practice more. Playing music with great friends is just such a wonderful experience that I never want to end. I can't imagine stopping playing with "the crew". It's one of the few things that I look forward to each week...good dinner, good wine, and good music. Tonight it was tri-tip night. Hopefully the group was satisfied, I was thinking that people would bring more food but there wasn't much...so I had my mac-n-cheese (I really need to make it the real way a-la Alton Brown instead of this crappy Kraft Mac-N-Cheese shit -- at least I used real butter this time!) The Stubb's BBQ rub seemed to turn out OK, but I think I left the tri-tip a bit too long on the grill; it was a bit high on the medium side. (Damn this chianti is good). I let the thermometer hit 130 degrees...I should've pulled it at 120. Oh well, lessons learned.
You know, I think I'm beginning to really like Bryan's PowerBook keyboard. I just gotta figure out how to get it to single click when I tap the touchpad. And I think i've
finally figured out all the Ctrl/Alt/Option/Apple Button crap and can maneuver through text reasonably well with the keyboard (I
can't stand using the stupid mouse). I think I
need to get a Mac.
Next week it'll be prime rib via special request from Kuya Rudi -- I think I'll turn it into a nice Brazil sendoff for my kick ass musician friends. Maybe I'll cheapen out with some Chateau Briand or beef tenderloin or Diamond Jim roast. But man, Prime Rib is just SOOOOO good, and next to impossible to mess up (and makes me look like a kick-ass cook for not doing shit -- friendly tip for y'all out there, always buy GOOD cuts of meat. USDA prime, well-marbled. And dry-age it if you can. You don't really have to do
anything for it to turn out right.) We'll see, I'll just make it my gift to the cool ass rondizzy crew.
Speaking of which...I was sitting on the crapper tonight (maybe that Penne Norcina from
Pasta Question Mark messed me up? Or the bruschetta? That lunch with my group was pretty nice -- they seem to get along well, a nice diverse, intelligent group of people. But yet, they're still in the "forming" stage of that old Forming/Norming/Storming/Performing metric). Anyways, I was sitting on the crapper tonight, and listening to the group play Habanera Jovencita and Aray, I suddenly felt this rush of joy...I was just so happy to be able to spend once a week with my friends in the Rondalla, to share a bottle of wine, enjoy some good food, and play some fun filipino music. Well, except for those damned rural songs that really dig into my skin...like Itik Itik. But I shouldn't complain, it's all
our music, and I should be proud of 'em, no matter how repetitive...and I should work at making them my own, throwing in different progressions and transitions. But that takes practice, and I'm one lazy son of a bitch. :)
I really need to stop drinking...I'm afraid my liver doesn't like me anymore. I think it's time to start smoking.
Man, I haven't driven the Honda in over a week now. Tomorrow awaits. Maybe I'll bring my camera along and go picture hunting. Or maybe I'll go visit K&S and pick up a nice large format camera to play with. Or maybe I'll just work on my "ernie's list of life-changing things to do" list. Or maybe I'll wash my clothes. Or wash the car. Or buy a new shirt. Damn. I live one hell of a freakin' exciting life. Yay oh yay.
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Born Slippy.
There is this place that exists now only in the darkest recesses of his mind, a place that he once knew.A time, a land of pure beauty and essential freedom that once filled his heart with song and lit his soul with fire. He remembers how wonderful it was to just be there, to be in the middle of it all...to realize that this is all he needed in life
; that nothing else matters but this moment.He sits alone now, with only a 3 hour old glass of semi-decent cognac and the music of The Killers
to keep him company. And all he could think about is that one time when all was right and all was good. When he was so happy with living for the here and now, when nothing else mattered but the pure essence of the moment of being there. And it's all he can do to try to rekindle that magic, that spirit now long lost in the annals of history; of times long gone. But he persists with some sliver of hope that maybe in some strange one in a billion alignment of the planets that everything will go back to the way they were... that this strange land that he suddenly finds himself lost in will instantly revert to this one place that he once knew. A place where his heart was filled with endless joy and neverending song.shit.
It's amazing what several (quite a few) glasses of chianti & chardonnay and a glass of Parrot Bay rum & Pepsi can do to one's ability to type at a keyboard. :)
I really think I should take the Honda out tomorrow for a rip snorting romp through six gears and nine thousand RPM.
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Tuesday is Soylent Green Day
Oh My God.
I can't believe they took the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and tried to make an R&B song out of it. Maybe watching Noggin' isn't really a productive thing to do on a Thursday night. Maybe drinking two bottles of wine with Manok isn't a really productive thing to do on a Thursday night... Pras Michel. What da fuck where they thinking?
And what da hell is De grassi? Shit...time to change the channel.
Oh man, have times changed. I remember pretending to play aircraft carrier out of our garage on my black Huffy bike with the banana seat on those hot summer days in junior high school. And hangin' out with my neighbors across the street break dancing to Art Of Noise. And riding the moped on those late fall evenings, trying to break the 35 mph speed barrier down Fowler Street with my hands freezing and the 2-stroke motor whizzing away beneath me, tucking my head down to get better aerodynamics...36 MPH!!!
Oh My God.
I can't believe I'm watching Golden Girls with Manok.
I should've stopped at that first glass of wine.
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You Can Sleep While I Drive
So I'm notorious for overprocessing and worrying over the stupidest littlest thing...I'm driving home tonight on a gorgeous sunny afternoon through the foothills of Menlo Park and my mind is off on its own compiling a list of things that scare me the most (don't ask why I do these things). I'm going through traffic at a moderate pace, when I do my usual onramp vehicle check via the rear-view mirror and lo-and-behold...black Ford Crown Vic with white roof, entering the freeway, sneaking behind some traffic. I back off the throttle to a modest 65 and tuck in front of some Camry in the #4 lane, waiting for California's Finest to move on. I
really hate speed limits. Don't get me wrong, I am happy for the service that our state's Highway Patrolmen provide. But I just
hate limits. Its just a constant reminder saying "you don't know how to drive safe", that there are stupid people out there on the road who will ruin it for all of us driving way faster than conditions. But on a beautiful sunny afternoon like this? On one of the nation's most well designed freeway? Stop keeping me from doing what I enjoy doing, at the pace that I feel comfortable. But I guess I can see why it'll never happen, it's just too much of an attitude change, with a horribly broken driver education system, and the need to raise money through easily executed traffic violations -- everyone and their grandma speeds.
Anyways. Something that I have yet to understand... 34 years and I still don't get why I'm a terrible planner, fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants, put my faith into fate kind of guy and yet, I still find myself constantly overprocessing and worrying about stupid crap. Maybe I have a slight case of ADD and my mind is repeatedly searching for things to focus on? I remember how wonderful it was when I was working on code...there was something so very calming about tracking a hundred different function calls, input output parameters, static variables, class definitions...It just felt so easy to just block out the rest of the world and find that I've spent 14 hours perfecting the implementation of some socket service.
Whatever. Enough of this...Time to grab myself a bowl of Blueberry Morning cereal. Or maybe a turkey sammich. With alfalfa sprouts. And swiss cheese. On sourdough bread. Aw crap, I don't have mayo. Damnit.
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Skepticism is the First Step Toward Truth.
What an interesting fortune...I took my old group out to
Chef Chu's for a nice welcome lunch for their new manager on Monday and that's what I found inked on a small strip of parchment inside of my fortune cookie. Skepticism...it's something so essential to success in my line of work. Question everything. Critical analysis of all situations. But they're all things that I struggle with -- a big part of me likes to feel hope, likes to think that there's brighter days ahead. And it 's something that undermines my ability to be a powerful QA Manager; hell, even just a plain old manager. Otherwise, you'll get caught unprepared for unexpected situations, when you should've been looking days, miles, months ahead and preparing for the worst. But alas; I have yet to find that balance between the extremes of not caring about tomorrow and being so engrossed with crap that
may happen
years from now.
Eh. I'm just rambling.
So driving home last night, I started thinking about a list that I've always wanted to compile: Money no object, five cars that would be in your garage...
- 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S (993 model). Silver or Black. I remember pulling out of UCSD's North Parking Lot some 10 years ago and seeing a silver one turn onto southbound La Jolla Village Drive. Slight squat in the rear end, a cloud of dark smoke (going full rich) and 3 seconds later it was some half a mile away. Four wheel drive. Last air-cooled 911 turbo. Two turbos. Two intercoolers. Sure, there's better Porsches out there (Carrera GT, GT3, etc.) but there's something about the original 993 body style. This would be great as a daily driver exotic -- the F355 would be cool, but I've always had a place for the anal-retentive execution of techno-wizardry by those crazy German engineers from Stuttgart. And the sound of an air-cooled turbo flat six is just too cool. And I can spend years trying to master the art of handling in a rear-wheel drive car with the motor hanging way out over the rear bumper. Must be great fun!
- 1993 BMW M5 (E34 with the 3.8L S38B38 motor). Black. There's a crapload of better cars out there now, but BMW knows sports sedans, and in my opinion, the E34 was the penultimate example. The E39 is just too bloated and feature rich. The E28 is too spartan and raw. This would be my long distance hauler for 4, I could envision 700 mile days in this thing averaging 95+ on the interstate. And hell...I've lusted for one ever since 1995, so I'd shoot myself for not ever getting one.
- Ferrari F355 Spyder. Screaming bright as fuck Yellow. And screw the paddle shifters. I wanna hear the clink clink clink of a gearshift banging against the open metal gates. And I wanna hear that outrageous wail of a 40 valve 3.5 L V8 screaming at 7000 RPM. I've heard it only once in my life, and I'll never forget it. Walking out of work to my car one day for a lunch break (when I was working near campus) I saw a yellow one screaming up La Jolla Village Drive crossing the I5 overpass. The sound was unbelievable and just out of this world. Yeah, this will be the boulevard cruiser on hot summer Saturday nights.
- Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec (R32). Grey. This'll be the project car. What better platform to modify than the venerable iron block of the RB26DETT. I'll stroke the motor to 2.9L, throw on a pair of GT 3037 ball bearing units, with a fat ass HKS intercooler that fills the entire front bumper and a 3-inch titanium exhaust out the back. Get some nice Work wheels and keep the rest of the car subtle. And I'll rev the hell out of it...with the right hardware on the top end, 9000RPM should be a breeze. It's definitely not no 1100hp trailer queen Supra, but it'll be fast as fuck enough to scare the bejeezus out of me. Sure, the R33 is better looking and the R34 is one dominating piece of machinery, but the R32 is the original Godzilla, and the looks are just so damned honest to me.
- 2005 Dodge RAM 2500 SLT Quad Cab 4x4, 8ft bed with shell. Dark Blue. 5.9L Cummins Turbo Diesel Engine backed by a 6-speed HD manual. Come on, 610ft-lbs at 1600 RPM? 2500 lb payload capacity and 12000lb towing? Enough said.
Shit. I got the tow vehicle, but haven't chosen a race car. Damnit. Hell, there's room for one more in this make believe garage! Let's see...open wheel would be cool, but I think I'll stick to touring cars. I'll start out small and move on to bigger and better things once I establish my racing career...I know, E30 M3 Sport Evolution II. Black. Just because I can. Super duper ultra rare, and the most winningest race car in BMW's history. That must be fun to run a 2.5L 16 valve four through its paces, uncorked with a wide open exhaust. Just imagine clipping those apexes, gas out on exit as you unwind the steering wheel, countersteering right when you feel that rear-end twitch. Screaming down the straight, then banging down the gears entering the next corner blipping the throttle under braking and getting that front end to turn and point you to the next apex. Hammer down, crank it up through the gears and touch 120 down the back straight, wind careening in through the window net, palms sweaty, heart pounding as you threshold brake for the hard off-camber left hander...
One can dream, can't he?
Damnit, I didn't even include a drift car! Or a crazy wild turbo wagon! Or an elegant classic car! Or a snorting muscle car! Oh well, I'd be happy to have just *one* of these things.
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Feed The Tree
I passed my smog test today! I guess they randomly send old cars to these special "test-only" centers where the mechanics aren't allowed to tweak your car to make it pass. Looking over the test results, it looks like I gotta start thinking about a new cat within a couple of years...the oxides of Nitrogen and carbon monoxide are pretty high, near the limit. So I'm sitting there in the waiting room, anxiously awaiting the outcome of the test and I almost set into a panic -- what if I don't pass? What if the guy comes back, "sorry, your car didn't pass"? Then I'll be flagged a gross-polluter and all this CARB-legislated crap will reign down on me like some unstoppable force from those know-it-alls in Sacramento. And so I start running through reasons in my head -- what da hell am I doing driving around a 10 year old car with 203 thousand miles on the ticker? A car with torn CV boots patiently waiting for me to install the brand new Raxles sitting in my living room? A car with a clutch cable that's been groaning for at least 80K miles now, and a clutch that's still hanging on despite 120K miles of use. I mean, it would be so much easier to have something to not have to think about anymore...like a nice new car that all you have to do is throw gas in the tank and pump air in the tires. Yeah, that would be nice. But then I remember why -- depreciation; monthly car payments; registration fees; taxes. All a bunch of
crap that makes me hesitate from really
driving and
owning the car. Sure, the G20 has its quirks, but I don't have to worry about keeping the miles down to maintain resale value or worry about driving it
hard.
And I see all the cars pass outside the test center window -- Lexus luxoboats, Ford S-U-Behemoths; all big complex vehicles loaded down with so much excess crap nowadays: GPS, anti lock, anti skid, traction control, all wheel drive, electronic activated hydraulic center differentials, seven speed automatics with electronic overdrive, tv screens, dvd players, power operated doors - just so much crap that takes away from the purity of the driving experience and the simplicity of transportation: gas, brake, steering. But I guess that's how this country is supposed to work -- pile on as many low-cost features as you can and rake in the profits on the huge margins. Make people want more, desire more, make 'em want to get the latest and greatest, and they'll come knocking at your door with fistfuls of dollars begging you to sell them your stuff... So I start realizing how stupidly complex I've made my life. So much clutter and crap polluting my room, the garage, this house. Why do I let myself get distracted with all this
stuff? Do I really need all this?
I envy those of you out there, well organized, goal oriented, and focused. That's a skill I need to develop -- not only for personal reasons but also to be more successful at work. Must be nice to have a clear distinct focus and a set of priorities to define the direction of your actions and choices. It used to be so easy to just live for the here and now and not have to worry about yesterday or tomorrow -- carpe diem were words a girl I knew in college used to encourage me to live by. So I guess it all changes when you get older? :)
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Here's Where The Story Ends
So during Rondalla practice last night rockstar Orenthal was messin' around as usual and played some chords that totally reminded me of The Sundays...now that's a CD I haven't heard in ages. And there's a reason for that -- I go digging into my CD binders and wouldn't you know it...2 blank slots in between Swing Out Sister and Lisa Stansfield. All I have is their Blind album. Grrrr...another CD that was lost with that blue wallet containing some 20 other CDs. To this day, a year and a half later, I still can't figure out what da hell happened to that wallet. It just magically walked away, probably now enjoying the warmth of a white Honda Civic driven down Geary by some hot Filipina chick whose boyfriend just happened to find the wallet on the street somewhere and gave it to her as a gift. She's probably listening to my Sundays CD
right now!
Whatever. There's a Tower next to the Rite Aid in Mountain View. After I pick up my pills I'll stop by and check out the records. Hehehehhehe..."records". I remember those days way back in high school of using my lunch money each week to go buy some vinyl at Tower Sports Arena. I wonder if they're still there? And then going home and immediately transferring the album to tape -- because you don't want to wear the record out! -- and then sticking it in that old Craig cassette deck in that old brown Ford Fairmont station wagon. 3.3 liters of carbureted 6-cylinder pushrod fury! What a great car...88 hp, 3 speed automatic (column shifted, of course!), 0-60 in an eternal 3 hours with a top speed of 85 mph...manual pumawis steering, Fox chassis (same as the Mustang!), bench seat, manual windows, and fold down rear seat. Now
that was a high school ride to be proud of... Oh yeah, and don't forget to pretension the tape before loading it into the deck, or else bye bye tape!
Think I'll take a spin out in the east bay tonight -- they say it dips into the 80s at night...
perfect convertible weather
.
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Love Vigilantes
Everything was so simple before, so clear. For her, there was but one primary focus: independence. She had struck out into the great unknown, armed only with her wits, a desire for the unexplored, and a measly bank account. Others had told her "it'll be hard"..."you won't make it"..."better find yourself a rich guy to marry". But she persisted with reckless abandon, knowing that "comfortable" and "safe" were words absent from her vocabulary. And now, years later, everything just became so complicated. The corner coffee shop downstairs that once gave her the daily fill of fresh faces and even fresher coffee now stands as a glaring reminder of her loneliness and failure at managing her personal life. Those same neighbors that engaged in wonderful diatribes of exciting lives now bore her with the same old stories about leaking pipes and their overbearing boss. For the first time in her life, she found herself truly lost and unhappy.
She takes another sip of her usual Saturday afternoon tea as the hurried sound of the traffic below fills the unseasonably humid afternoon breeze. She thinks back and tries desperately to work through the insane logic that made her leave the safety and comfort of that old house standing now a million miles away. It must be a nice day there; they all must be watching TV just about now, sitting on that nice old leather sofa and drinking a nice round of freshly made halo-halo. She can't go back; to her, that would just signify defeat. No, retreat would just be an acceptance of all the criticism laid on her. No. Not this highly independent aspiring young marketing manager. She worked her whole life and gave up way too much to get to where she is; she's not going to let this little "rut" throw all that away.
She was too engrossed in her own introspection to realize that the rain has now roared to a ferocity not typical for this time of year. It's really coming down hard now. As she moves to close the window, the doorbell breaks the interminable silence like a hammer crashing on a plane of glass. It nearly startles her. Upset at the disturbance to her weekend afternoon getaway, she hastily (yet curiously) swings the door open only to find him
standing there, drenched from head to toe. Through the unmistakable smell of fresh rainwater and the now wet wooden floor, her troubles and worries slowly begin to fade away, leaving behind a purity, happiness and simplicity that just fills the spirit. Right now
is all that matters...the rest is just useless clutter in a once empty existence.It's quite enlightening breaking in a new peer at work. It reminds me of the first time I showed up at the door, filled with grandiose ideas and wonderful visions of the way
QA should be done. And somehow, over the past three years, I lost sight of that...and I see it again when someone new joins the team. You could just see it in their eyes as you slowly fill them in on how we do things... I hope that this time we can really accomplish what we had been wanting to do for so long. And so it brings renewed energy into the organization, a "spark" if you will. Only time will tell, but so far things are going well.
I
really need to get myself a digital camera. But one thing that I know will be lost in the digital world is that bit charm that's typically associated with film...there's that planning you set forth on each roll of film, limited with a finite set of pictures -- each picture is planned, anticipated, knowing that some frames later, you're going to have to hit the rewind button. I remember shooting a football game once, and planning out the rolls for the whole night... this one for huddle shots; this one for line of scrimmage; this one for scenery; this one for the celebratory win. And having to constantly monitor your remaining filmstock remembering to pace yourself. Then there's that excitement and tension of dropping off the film for processing, not knowing if any of your shots were even worth a damn, trying to remember each and every frame that you shot and hoping and praying to god that they came out right. The best part of this was printing your own shots, sitting in a darkened room filled with the pungent smell of stop bath, towel on your shoulder, watching the image literally come to life in that tray of developer...(and then watching the image get blacker and blacker and blacker and then realize that you overexposed - test strips? test strips are for wusses! heheheh). Yeah, there's something about film...how the silver emulsion reacts and forms images, all the work put in to create a picture, that casts an almost romantic glow to it all. My co-worker put it succinctly: "Oh, you still use film? How quaint." Quaint indeed.
Maybe if I find a need (or hell, the time) I'll get myself some old twin lens reflex camera for shits and giggles.
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Everything's Gone Green
As I'm waiting for this crappy Windows video capture software to finish downloading clips, I'll spend a few minutes putting up some useless bits into the ether... Sunday's racing was unbelievably excellent. Not only did Nicky Hayden put on a dominating flag-to-flag win for his first ever MotoGP win, I won yet
another carne asada burrito from Randy. That makes three!! First two from back-to-back wins at subsequent D1 events and now this. I honestly couldn't believe that Hayden won it -- I was just making a total longshot bet. But hey! Victory is mine! heheheh. For a taste of the weekend's festivities, check
this out (it's a rather slow download, so be patient). I can't wait til next year.
So...lessons learned from video taping my first motorsports event:
- Let the audio levels ride right into the red. The audio subsystem can handle a bit of overloading without much distortion.
- Leave the mics at home. The built in mic is just fine, and the core sounds are much too bulky.
- Need a telephoto. The 10x zoom is just OK, but there were spots when it would've been super cool to have something stronger, especially when filming all the grid activities.
- Need a unipod. The optical image stabilizer is pretty nifty, but at full zoom, there's still a bit of queasiness
- Pay attention to the record indicator! I've blown some shots because I left the camera on in the wrong state. Canon should've rigged a better record trigger.
Man, this Sex and the City show is just hi-larious. I need to go visit New York again. I can't believe it's been 16 years since I've been back there. I wonder how clean it is now.
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Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)
The dull greenish glow of each street light passes overhead with a rhythmic time similar to those white strips of lane markings passing beneath. Although the temperature is cooling from the scorching heat of the setting sun, it's still quite warm for this time of the summer; it is an unusually hot night. But with the power operated canvas top tucked neatly into the rear, the hot dry air appears cool to the skin as it tumbles over the sloping windshield, into the cabin, and all around the leather trimmed interior. Neil Sedaka is blaring away on the Nakamichi, drowing out the incessant thump...thump...thump... of the expansion joints from the old concrete road beneath the thin layer of hastily paved asphalt. A strange choice in music to some, but to him -- a cornball at heart with an eclectic taste in music -- it was a desperation attempt to take his mind off the trainwreck that has become his lifeOh Carol,I am but a fool.Darling I love youThough you treat me cruel.To many, it's disheartening...he lives in some imaginary world conjured up from bits and pieces of old black and white movies and cheesy songs written by dead musicians from an era long lost in the annals of time. And yet for some reason he finds comfort in it...hope? The idea that somewhere else,
someplace different,
someone new,
may hold the answers to the questions he's asked his whole life. So he pushes on, with no destination, no origin. With him he brings a full tank of gas, the lingering memory of a time filled with hapiness and joy, and the faint hope that somewhere down this lonely road, he'll find the answers.MotoGP was a blast. There was a nice cool onshore breeze off the Pacific to keep the temperatures down. In fact, it got quite chilly late in the day as we sat on the hill between turns 10 & 4. Rossi was just his typical unbelievable self. After setting the tone with comments of low safety margins and "old-school" track layout and difficulty learning the track, he proceeds to qualify second overall. But of course. He goes through 3 practice sessions floundering in 9th or so in the 1:25's and in the last five minutes of the final practice session proceeds to blast through a 1:23 flat, second only to Nicky Hayden's 1:22.8. Unbelievable. And so was the noise. Earplugs were the order of the day, as 5 minutes was enough to tempt a headache. But the sound was thrilling -- the open pipes from Honda's RC211V was just nuts! Not as loud as the horrific wailing of the Ferrari 550 Maranellos @ ALMS, but still quite an experience to behold. And the crowds were outrageous. At least twice as large as a World Superbike event. I can't wait until tomorrow -- sheez, I have to be outta here in like three and a half hours. Time to sleep.
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Catalyst
cat·a·lyst (kăt'l-ĭst):
noun.
One that precipitates a process or event, especially without being involved in or changed by the consequences.
An open flame over a pool of kerosene.
A moment of blind inspiration after days of writers block.
The magic of a gentle touch, a simple look, a single sound, or a soft fragrance long since forgotten that sends you careening backwards in time to an era when all was fine and wonderful;
or the best one yet...finding out this morning that your boss is leaving the company.
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you will be mine. oh yes, you will be mine.
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Just Can't Get Enough.
Oh LordWon't you buy meA Mercedes BenzMy friends all have PorschesI must make amendsSo I spent the better part of this morning uncluttering the mess that is my room. Purged a pile of now useless textbooks sitting in my bookcase (only 3/4 of them were able to fit in the recycling bin). The manager in me would normally be questioning such menial tasks and evaluating the ROI. If my burn rate is $XX dollars per hour, what am I doing wasting my time? But alas...there's a hidden value there that isn't obvious to the casual observer. It's only when you begin undertaking the activity that you realize the true purpose of such tasks...it's relaxing. Trying to find order in all the clutter -- travel books on this shelf; car books on that shelf; SCC issues over there; Maxim issues under here -- really helps refocus my thoughts and lets the truly unimportant stuff fade away. I mean, when it really comes down to it, will anyone really care about Test Design Specifications, headcount estimates and annual budgets in 5 years?
As I pulled textbooks off the shelf, I realize the futility of it all. Computer Architecture - all about instruction pipeling, pre-fetching, and all that crap. Modern Physics (3 books from the 3 different times I've taken that stupid class and failed) - let's see: Heisenberg Principle, time shifting and how someone ages faster when they travel near the speed of light as observed by someone in normal time (or some shit like that). Psh. Makes for great conversation at parties! Ha! And I think about all the energy that was expended to drag these books along for (oh jeez) what must be almost eight years now? ...there's all the effort to make the bookcase that holds 'em all. And all those times I've moved, lugging along these oh so precious purveyors of all conquering knowledge. Did I honestly believe that they'd be useful for me in the future? Sheez, I'm such a freakin' pack rat.
It's too bad libraries won't take textbooks...I was hoping that someone somewhere would be able to make something out of these things. Nevertheless, recycling bin it is. That reminds me...I gotta find that episode of Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t! aired a while back. Supposedly, they proved that recycling in fact depletes
more resources than it saves and costs significantly more than landfills...and it's just the superior brainwashing abilities of a specific group of people that convinced us that recycling is good. It's frustrating sometimes how you could spend fifty bucks a month on some 200 channels worth of programming when at any given point only less than 1% is truly worthy of your time.
Break's over. Time to relax my soul some more and vacuum this (now roomier) abode of mine.
MotoGP in less than 5 days!!! Woo hoo, can't wait!! Hopefully it won't be too much more crowded than World SuperBike was. I could just smell that sweet delicious smell of unburnt race fuel and flying race rubber...
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We all got it comin', kid.
"It's a hell of a thing, to kill a man.
You take away everythin' he's got...
an' everythin' he's ever gonna have..."The flight back at 3 wasn't too bad, sitting in row 10 of a barely half full 737. I was able to push through another 40 or so pages of my current book, with a little over 80 pages left to go - man, that book is heavy. Good, but much too heavy. Standing in Southwest's "A" line, I was able to have a pleasant conversation with a couple of women...one married smiling forty-something white lady and a twenty something girl (also white) who was flying back to the bay area for good. Small talk is always good, especially when you're flying alone -- a nice little slice of humanity in this rush-rush world.
It's been a long time since I've had one of these evenings. (I think the last time was back in the Bexley apartment) After getting three months worth of dust, grime and brake powder washed off the Honda (finally!) I made a stop at Albertson's and made a feeble attempt at a dinner. Walking around under the humming illumination of that familiar flourescent green, inspiration struck, hinting at something Italian. With a very limited repertoire, I went with the old standby of Chicken Parm. But this time I avoided the sauce on the breaded chicken slabs while they were in the oven. Turned out really well, with a nice crispy breading. 40 minutes later and I'm now staring at a tomato & basil sauce stained ceramic plate and a 1/4 full bottle of Pinot Noir. I could have gone sentimental and popped in a nice couple of CDs, but got lazy and stuck with the (censored and pan&scanned) Robocop airing on KRON. I was also really itching to pull out
Unforgiven, or
Once Upon A Time In The West but this wine started to kick in. And Robocop was just to classic to pass up: "Dead or alive, you're coming with me!", or "I'd buy that for a dollar!", or "I like it!" hehehheheh...that reminds me of
Smash TV.
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why you don't eat mac & cheese while typing at your computer. I know this is a 2 year old photo, but I get a kick out of it
every time. I still remember that feeling holding that ceramic bowl in my hand and thinking "i really shouldn't be eating this in my room". And wouldn't you know it, oops...mac n cheese everywhere.
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Mr. Brightside
He sits restless, yet frozen, on the coarse cheaply upholstered twenty dollar chair that he picked up from that closeout furniture sale a while back. He's been holding her now slightly faded photograph for quite some time now, taking his eyes off only to take a swig of the cheap brandy that he's been unconsciously swirling in the sniffer with his hand. It's a routine he's practiced for quite some time now: nervous anxiety as he slides open that lower right hand drawer in his dark solid oak desk; building excitement as he rifles through ten years of keepsakes; and victory when he finally locates that one memento that wielded more power than anything else in that desk drawer ever could. It was a photo of someone that he once knew, who years ago has since moved on to greater things. At the time, he didn't know what he was feeling, because he was always a man of control and stability. His friends used words like, "cold" and "calculating" and "analytical". Emotions never ruled his life. But for some reason, he just couldn't shake those feelings, and they took hold of him with a ferocity that he never knew before... That nervous excitement whenever she entered the room; that cool calming whenever her soft skin brushed his arm; that distraction whenever she spoke, no matter how many conversations where going on. And so his pathetic attempts at recapturing a single fleeting moment in time continued relentlessly, until he forgot how the past really played itself out. Memories clouded by years of sentiment morphed into conjured up images of things that didn't exist, of emotions that weren't really there. The tragedy of it all was that he knew this, and yet he continued to wallow in a never ending spiral of self torture of things that never were and times that could never be. It was the thought
that something
could have been there that keeps him blind to the truth.He takes another swig of brandy. So driving my brother's E36 today, I got a terrific kick out of German engineering. There's just something very weird about those guys in Garching that put these cars together. The plastic is just so hard. And I mean
hard. From the tight door handle that forces you to pull really hard, to the click of the mirror adjustment switch to the way the side windows seal and unseal whenever you close or open a door. And I still haven't gotten used to the shifter, clutch and gas combo. Why can't they get it so that the revs match perfectly the moment the gear shift slides into the next position? And the sloppy shifter requires just so much effort to engage gears. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the slick-shifting Honda, with its short throw clutch, and rifle bolt action shifter - snickety-snick-snick. Or maybe I just need to spend more time in the M car. Whatever the case, one thing is clear... I absolutely *love* the S52 motor. A twist of the key and it literally "fires" to life, settling into a subtle high-pitched rumble. And the torque on this thing makes the 3500lb 2-door behemoth leap off the line. I just wish there was more top end. But then again, I'm just so used to the freakish nature of my Honda's F20C.
Man, I'm so itching to stretch out the legs on the S38 sitting in an old M5... 6 individual throttle bodies, tuned dual-chamber intake plenum, 3.6 liters and a 7000RPM redline. And from what I've read, a 3rd gear pull that just screams. I wanna know what it's like.
It's so freakin' hot in San Diego. And traffic has gotten so bad out here. Thank God the Mexican food hasn't! I just realized we spent $40 at Super Sergio's to feed 5 people...Carne Asada Chips, Carne Asada Fries, 4 Horchatas, pollo asado plate, carnitas plate, chicken tacos plate, and 6 rolled tacos with guacamole and sour cream. It was damned good, but man I gotta take care of my health. Eating like this must be super bad for you. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll go for a walk on Coronado Beach...I miss the sand in my shoes, the pungent smell of the sea, and the chilly air under the morning overcast.
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