The blog of the thirty-something fag- July/August 2006 Edition
Always get married early in the morning.
That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day.
-- Mickey Rooney
August 23rd, 2006

Tommy gives a wine review.

August was a wonderful month filled with travel and funtime activities.

Bang and I traveled to Central California's Wine country. Solvang, Santa Ynez, Ballard and Buellton (See the movie Sideways) . I'm not a wine snob, or conissiuer, kind of the arm-chair fine-wine lush because of my association with people who know what the hell their drinking.
On our outing we tasted a lot of wines, none of which I was liking. The hosts at these tasting places said the acid taste was probably because the wines were young, needed to spend more time in the bottle. After a few places I was pretty much done. The last place we visited on Saturday was a tiny little shack called Longoria, and everything changed. The tasting room was lined with all these fabulous jazz illustrations, artwork for their Jazz Curvee labels, a commemorative bottle they put out every year. I was esecially taken by the 2001 for it's body, smoothness, and the fantastic label illustration. I loved it so much I bought 2 bottles and the poster! Check this wine out if you can find it. It's a savory little bottle, awsome from the cork, but it smooths out tremendously after it's been open to breathe a little while. We had a happy hour with 1/4 bottle on Thursday, and Friday evening it was like a different wine altogether. I savored it with such sweet bliss it took me an hour to drink one glass. If you like reds, (I'm more partial to whites myself) you will really enjoy this wine, it's a terrific example of how California wines can surprise you.

Feedback to this article HERE
August 10th, 2006

I'm over it

Yes, I'm pissed about the Burplink Fiasco, and it looks like it'll be another week before I can get any service, but I'm done with that shit, My wireless PC card from Verizon wireless is 5 times faster than Earthlink's Dial up, so I've figured out why Earthlink can say their dial-up speed is "Screaming Fast". It's so NOT, it makes you scream.

I'm back in San Diego, this time to do a little Virul Video for the" Art of Original Thinking" book. This is a marketing plan to put AOT on the YouTube.com map.
We're shooting on Saturday, and so far it looks like we're going to have some real fun with this. I'll keep you posted . . . . .

Feedback to this article HERE
August 9th, 2006

I tink I did a bad ting

In the interest of saving money, I cancelled my AT&T DSL service and signed up for the Blazing speed of Earthlink DSL at $19.99 for the first year.
Since I'm already paying for the Earthlink email dial-up, I figured I would save a ton of cash and switch. I completely forgot about my earlier experiences with Dorklink . . .

#1- Promises, assurances and LIES LIES LIES
I asked my Irklink sales rep if I will have my service interrupted. I'm currently working from home and I need a smooth transition. "Oh no sir" my outsourced irklink representative assured me through his/her thick and almost unintelligble Phillichinetnamesian accent, "We hab a relationship wit ATNT, you will not hab yer service interrupded".
BOOM: AT&T DSL service goes down on Friday at 2 p.m.

When does my new Irklink modem arrive? ( I'm also informed I can't connect without it) Wednesday p.m. Coincidence? Hell no!

#2 Customer disservice
You know it's going to be a long day when you jump through all the hoops of the 800# customer-service prompts and are then informed your wait time is less than 90 minutes.

DejafuckingVU!
The modem, when connected to the phone jack, says my DSL is not connected. Then it is . . no . . it's offline . .wait . . . i'ts on now . . no . . . off SHIT!

This exact same thing happened on a regular basis when I had burplink DSL at the Silver Ridge house. Since I've been with AT&T, this has NEVER HAPPENED.
I'm beginning the think I made a HUGE mistake. HUGE!

A new commercial I'm writing:
A man clips his cell phone to his hip and heads outside to do some yard work, classical music is playing softly in the background.
Cut to a woman, with a cell phone open and clipped to her hip, polishing her silver, Brahms gently playing continuosly .
Cut to another man, phone flipped open, classical music playing. He's nailing shingles to his roof. The music is interrupted by a woman's voice "We're sorry for the delay, your call is important to us, please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly"
Tired of crappy customer service? Try AT&T broadband DSl!

Digitally constipated
I have been OFFLINE now for five continuous days, with only crappy shitlink dial-up to connect me. My modem is V92, and the dial up number is supposed to be too, but I can only seem to connect at a rate of 40000 bps. That's less than HALF the speed my outdated modem is capable of doing. Please do not send me any files larger than 100k

Feedback to this article HERE
August 5th, 2006

And I did it without Viagara!

I took my kite to the beach yesterday and the wind was perfect. In one attempt, my foil lifted effortlessly into the sky, and with my newfound knowledge about steering(pull it, don't turn it) I was able to get it up and keep it up for as long as the wind would blow.
I'm going to try it again a few more times before I sign up for classes. The heat wave in the midwest has something to do with a low pressure system in Northern California creating a unique wind situation in Southern CA, namely- none, or very little. The breeze that we are getting is coming straight off the ocean, so it's much cooler here, thank you, but this makes for lousy kite weather. The size of my kite needs a minimum of 10 knots to fly, and we've been pulling gusts of 9-11, and that's it!

M'God, when did I get so technical sounding?

More kite-surfing stories to come, keep coming back.

Feedback to this article HERE
July 28th, 2006

Midlife crisis manifestation # 132

On the way home from San Francisco, during the AIDS/Lifecycle ride, we rode through Santa Barbara and happened upon a beautiful sunlit bay full of kitesurfers. I had seen this site before, and thought how cool would it be to learn to do that.

For those of you who have never heard of this new sport, kitesurfing(also known as kiteboarding) is a kind of a cross between kite-flying, parasailing, windsurfing, waterskiiing, snowboarding and assisted,self-induced suicide.

The power kite pulls you through the water as you surf/ride the waves, and if you time it correctly, can actually lift you out of the water into amazing heights, and gently(or not so gently) set you back down in the water again.

This week I took the first steps in learning kitesurfing. I took the advice of a kite surfing instructor and got myself a training kite, and a video to learn how to fly the "Power Kite" before I spend the money and take the plunge to learn how to participate in the actual sport.

On my first attempts at launch, I spent 2.5 hours trudging through hot sand to try to "right" my kite to launch it. Each launch attempt saw the kite soar in the midday breeze to a height of 20 feet, then turn and comically crash like a kamikaze pilot into the sand (Then me, trudging back the 75 feet to the kite to straighten it and try again)

I went out looking for a flight, and went home with a sunburn and shoes full of sand.


Once I cover this hurdle, I'm sure I'll be ready to sign up for my first lessons in kiteboarding, and I'll have lots of fun and interesting pictures to show you.

Wish me luck

Feedback to this article HERE
July 28th, 2006

Where is my foot anyways
I read in the Los Angeles times this morning that another old person drove his sedan willy-nilly into a crowd of unsuspecting bystanders AGAIN!
This week, the 92 year-old senior who drove 60 mph into the Santa Monica Farmers market, killing 10 and injuring more than 60 is on trial for vehicular manslaughter, and just to make sure we dont feel it's all over, a Chinese American 84 year-old senior took out 10 people as they sipped their lattes at a Pasadena starbuck's outdoor cafe.

No one was killed, two were criticallty injured. Seems he was just parking his car and mistook his gas pedal for his brake, and lurched onto the sidewalk.
Each time we hear of a senior having a mistake like this, it always involves the brake/gas confusion. In 2002, my sweet 80-year old Aunt Marge was parking my Cousin Michael's Jaguar XJ6 when she fell victim to the phenomenon, and mistook one pedal for another. Luckily there were no consumers shopping or dining anywhere near her, and she backed into a tree, totalling the car and upping Michael's insurance rates to a nosebleed of a high.
Apparently this was not an isolated incident.
The question presently poised here is, of course, what the heck to do about it? Ban anyone over the age of 75 from driving?
Do we make each senior driver take a very strict road test? And what if they fail? What about those seniors who simply cannot depend on others to take care of them, when we have so many things to drive to (the bank, post-office, and pharmacy come to mind)

Anyone have any ideas?

Feedback to this article HERE
July 28th, 2006

What the . . ?
I know, Im a little late, but we've been so BUSY, and honestly, it really hasnt been blogging weather.
Bang and I traveled to Montreal earlier this m onth to celebrate our combo-holiday; Birthday/Anniversary/Independance day. We're making it a goal to visit a different country each year, so me being the cheapskate that I am, decided to get mexico and Canada over with quickly. For our out-of-the-country trip next year, w e're looking at Texas . . .

In Northern New York, my 40-something sister Pecia married Vince, the actual boy-next-door. Her new last name is Le Mieux. As a present, my sisters and I pitched in and bought them a Canieux~
"is that an Adirondak tradition?" bang asked me, when he saw me an a handful of Teen nephews hoisting the 15ft river-boat from the back of a pickup truck. I thought about the answer before I replied, because I think it certinly could be.
As far as I know, they've used it every weekend. Perhaps we'll start a tradition in the family, and start giving away Canoes as wedding presents. I rather like that idea.

Era End Approaching?
I'm starting to recondsider the blogging thing right now. Life has so much to offer, and these days staying indoors during our free time and spending an hour or so on the computer logging seems like a waste of a nice day.
The difficult part is not in the dispatch, but each month developing an new page, image and layout for the month. It can be a bit of a drag when the first 30 minutes you spend blogging is all in prepping the page. What a pain in the ass.

Perhaps the solution would be to join a blogging space, like bloger or typead. This way, all I have to do is login and the site does the work for me.
Now all I have to do is a find a way to "redierct" the hell's basement linkers to the nnew location. I think I can do this . . .

Feedback to this article HERE