I've been out of the blogoloop, enjoying my down time from the angry jaws of stress in the two months that were August and September. I find that when I'm faced with too many things to do in my day for weeks at a time, I tend to get really lazy when the work slows down. In this case, all my stress makers peaked at the same moment, then stopped. Kind of like the moment after you make a date with someone you like, and within a few moments you feel a zit forming on the end of your nose . I had a web launch, a software launch, a house guest and a home improvement project all calling me to attention at the same moment. Oh, if cloning was only legal . . .
Just as remarkably, those projects wrapped up at the same time as well, leaving me to feel like a person who has just survived the violent experience of a tornado, wildfire or hurricane. Coincidence? Perhaps, but I have always been emotionally empathetic
I know my astronomer friends would telll me that the last 60-90 days have been tumultuos in the cosmos, so I don't need to ask. Jupiter and mars must be having some kind of showdown at the OK nebulae. With Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Tom Delay controversy, the fires in L.A. and my recent allergy attack turned head-cold somehow Mercury in retrograde doesn't quite cut it.
The good news is, for the most part, not great, but what under normal circumstances would be considered uneventful. This mediocre news seems somehow good because it's better than what it's been lately. Huh?.
I'm home, for one, and I love it here in this house. Rusty is now officially 100% healed from his ordeal from last summer (Did I blog about how he took on an automobile, and lost?) and I'm in the throws of a new relationship with a San Diego company that looks like a promising boost for my business.(though a paper route on Sunday mornings would be a boost for my business)
Regardless, for some reason it feels like the new month of October is going to be the fresh start we've all been waiting for. So let's look now at September, August and a lot of July as a nasty little phase we went through. A short round with a nasty badger of ill-fated meteorlogical events and piss-poor timing. We've gotten up off the ground, brushed ourselves off and we're ready to start all over again on a new month, 30 fresh new days to put all this mucky-muck that much farther behind us.
Tonight I'm hoping my sinuses will magically heal, putting an end to the abysmal torrent of snot that has been flooding my swollen face, and when the sun comes up tommorow it wont be forced to shine through the bruised colors of sooty smoke from yet another brush fire. I'll collect my checks, pay my bills, do my laundry, and maybe go visit some family just to round it off to a pleasant start. I hope you do a little of the same. See you next month-
Got home from San Diego yesterday and the neighborhood smelled a lot like smoke. Seems Simi valley was burning and the Santa Anna Winds were bringing the smoldery smoke all the way into town. Spending a few hours in my room with the air purifier going distracted my nose from the fact that the whole house smelled like a bar-b-que when I came out.
This morning Bang and I went out to walk the dogs and found are cars covered in ash. I know there's been fires near us before, but not like this. As of tonight, the fires have taken 23,000 acres, 1 home and is still only 40% contained. Cost so far, $40 million with 3,000 firefighting personell working to put out the flames.
Driving up to Arleta to see Peter Chin and found the hills of Burbank burning as well.
We've all seen this sign before, if we ever took the long way around to the LAX airport. It used to say, in big 70's style letters "NUDE NUDE NUDE" but apparently that just wasn't driving in the business the way it used to, so, in order to attract more attention, envelope-pushing strip club owner Howard White changed the main sign for his joint on Century Boulevard from "Live Nude Nude Nudes" to "Vaginas R Us." Neighboring merchants immediately complained, but city officials said that "vagina" is simply not an obscene word. However, the city did cite White's sign for being made of illegal combustible vinyl. At press time, opponents of the sign were trying to encourage the Toys R Us company to force White to abandon the name as too similar to its own protected trademark. [Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.), 8-8-05]
School Expels Girl for Having Gay Parents
The Associated Press
Friday, September 23, 2005; 7:05 AM
ONTARIO, Calif. -- A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.
Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday. ::more::
I have two comments on this subject: Mostly because I'm pissed off.
Number 1: Why didn't they fight it? If they wanted there kid in that school, they should have stood up for themselves and at least made a public scene, it's the LEAST they could do. What does a parents sexuality have to do with their daughters education? really? If no one told the school officials nothing would have come of it! Now the whole world will start thinking it's o.k. to push gay people out of their establishments for irrelevant reasons.
Number 2: If they aren't going to fight it, then why the hell did they go to the trouble of putting their daughter in such a closed-minded school environment in the first place? What were they thinking . . .?
I would love to tell you all about what's going on here at Casa Del Sol Dela Mañana, if there was actually anything INTERESTING going on here, but there really isn't.
It would be so easy for me to write massive paragraphs dripping with details about free fill-dirt, trucks, shovels and hired hands, but honestly I can't. I have lived it so deeply, so intensely and severly that the whole subject of home improvement is seriously starting to annnoy the living shit out of me, I swear to GOD if I have to say the word Retaining Wall one more fucking time my head will cave in, my face will slide off of my skull and I will collapse to the kitchen floor in a steaming heap of BOREDOM ( Did I just here someone scream "YES!" ?) You too huh? O.k, I get it.
We need dirt on people we hate, we need drama and lots of it, we need candid snapshots of neighborhood shenanigans to get this bitter blog back on track. No one likes a happy and satisfied fag, they're tedious and undeserving of our attention. It's dysfunction that makes this world go 'round, and it's my job to bring it to you in the form of clever witty one-sided jaded banter.
This week I vow to put down my leather work gloves and string levels and wheel barrow and seek out some sorry-assed souls to make fun of, and maybe get my hit-ratings back into the numbers they used to be. Like back when I was dealing with new and uninteresting humans on a daily basis and picking them apart by their dated hair styles, mediocre dress or flawed intellect. Sounds like such piles of raucus fun I can't wait to get out there and start JUDGEING PEOPLE~ Ooh, My Mother would not approve, but then again, this is all her fault!
O' course, this was just a trial run before makeup- Still gettin' Fitted!
We'll be in much better shape come show-time, I guaran-dang-tee it!
Capitol Hill is starting early in it's preparation for Trick-or-treating festivities this year. Rumor has it that Captain kinky, our be-loved and be-hated Commander in Chief is planning an extreme attempt to win the grand prize at the Cheney family Halloween costume contest this year. His Character, in Sky blue satin covered in toysized shotgun-style buildings, and sailboats will go by the moniker "Kristina Debris" - She'll be carting a 1/250th scale Astrodome as a bustle, and a rotating cloud-shaped wig. Hoping to out-do Bob Dole, with his Drag Queen alter-ego Ariannna Cruz(Are-We-On-a-Cruise?) who sauntered off with the trophy 2 years running in red sequined gown and 6 inch pumps.
The Profoundly reliable and loyal, William Randall Cook of Tupelo Mississippi
I did it again. I solicited the help from a friend in another state and finished an improvement project for less money and in less time and with less stress and heartache than if I had hired a local contractor. All you con-artists and contractors out there listen up, this is seriously infringing on your market profit.
Bill came out to L.A. from Mississippi with a small black bag of clothes, a briefcase satchel and a smile, ready and willing to help me finish what past-due- Bill left me with(see July 2005- Time to Admit Defeat!)
Bill Cook left his home and his Family(See Billy Got Married, May-2005) to come out here and help me build the great wall of Tommy, and in a few short days, we moved over 1 ton of block across the yard and stuck it together with mortar and cement to resemble the retaining wall that it should be. This is such a proud moment for me, God Bless you Bill, really!
On day four we had layed over 125 blocks, mixed a whopping 65 bags of cement, 25 bags of mortar and by 4 p.m., sat down in the lawn chairs, cracked open beers, talked about what an amazing thing we've accomplished and then I went inside to secretly push my hernia back in.
I am learning more than I hoped to in these days of home ownership, and I'm hoping it will a ll wrap up neatly soon!
Ikea is the swedish word for "Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering"
Well, after 7 days of scraping, peeling, sanding, screaming, yelling, storming, throwing things and pouting . . . . and painting, we finally got our bedroom finished and it is a beautiful space! We're both so exhausted excited! If I had a decent photo of it I would post for you, but right now we're busy dumping the clothes out of our old dresser and overstuffed closets and shoving them into the economy of space that is our new PAX unit from Ikea.
I had no idea what perfectionists the swede's are- no wonder their cocoa is so tastey, their cough-drops so profound, their massage so . . . oh shut up!
The directions had a series of absolutes in the assembly of this bohemoth of pressboard plastic, aluminum and 1/2th inch screws. Apparently you must follow all the instructions to the letter (each being 5.2 millimeters in length) or you will suffer consequences of exponential proportions, meaning mostly that the closer you get to finished, the greater the consequences will be when you realize your measurements were off.
If this über-closet we are installing is not perfectly flush with the back wall, balanced and leveled in all directions and facing 32 degrees north by north east, then apparently the doors won't glide smoothly, the shelves won't open, the mooon cycles would fall into disorder, the tides would not go out and the great wall of China itself would suddenly turn northwest and cross the snowy boarder into Siberia. We began construction at 2:30, broke for sleeping at midnight and wrapped the project up sometime one week later. NICE!
Stay tuned, and we'll show you the fantastic AFTER photos this blog has become famous for.
Bang and I got a bright Idea over Labor Day Weekend of "Let's Paint the Bedroom!"
Does anyone present have any idea how many languages I now have the skill to say "What The F*ck!?" in?
In other homes over the years, painting the room was a labor of moving furniture, mixing paint, laying tape, and washing brushes 'cause "You're Done!"
But NOOoooooo, In this house, it's an act of Major Reconstruction- The old paint wasn't prrmed, so it's coming off in sheets- Bang and I are playing a 'Name That State" game with some of the shapes the paint is coming off from the doors. We're now on Day 5, and almost ready to paint the walls.
It had to be done eventually, but it makes me wonder: "Is every little job in this house going to be practice in architectural restoration?"
Just this one political rant, and then I'll shut up.
Sometimes political cartoons make a huge reach in trying to get their point across, and sometimes they hit the mark pretty well.
I'm not usually the type to push a political agenda, but what the hell was happening in Texas for those first 4 days?
September 2nd, 2005
Shop talk- and then I'll shut up.
I recently got into a heated discussion with a consultant who represents a client of mine about my role in the design of their website, specifically in advising them against making very stupid design decisions-which this guy is quite prone to do.
Seems everybody believes their aesthetic is the sharpest, and clients who have a history in marketing or advertising are the worst. In this latest job, I have basically been reduced to "The guy who knows how to manipulate the software" so Captain Consultant can make the design look exactly the way HE wants it to look. I call this downgrade "Mouse pushing" because essentially, that's what it ends up being: "Move the photo a little to the left please, no, wait, back now, no wait . . ."
I feel like the truck driver, holding up one end of the couch while the lady of the house tries to decide where to put it.
I think my clients need to understand that when they hire a "designer" they should shut the hell up and let one do just that: DESIGN!. I have had great designs tweaked, plucked, prodded and dismantled for so many crazy, silly, conceptual or perhaps subliminal nuance-non-sensical, whimsery lets-just-see-how-it-looks kind of reasons I could puke. I mean REAL VOMIT!
A clients relationship with a designer is just like a romantic one; it needs balance, or it's just not healthy. If the skill to understand and manipulate the software is the sex, then the aesthetic expertise brought to the table from years of entrenched field work is the LOVE.
I tried to explain this concept to this guy, lets' call him "Some Dumb Jackass".
"You see . . .", I told him, "Sex without Love is just plain whoring, and I don't mind that so much if the money is good enough, but in your case, it is not!"
"Really" he said non-plussed, "Then what do you call love without the sex?"
"In this case?" I answered, "That would be "consulting".
Blogger Barely Escapes! or: Can I make it all about me for a moment? Just last week I made the treck from My Cousin Lisa's home in Atmore, Alabama to my cousin Ruthie's home in Huffman Texas, and the route I traveled is either littered with debris, or completely wiped out. The Hurricane went on a perfect path down the very center between my two cousins homes, if it had veered a few miles to the east or west, our family might be suffering some of the same tragedies that we're reading about in the papers today. I feel insanely lucky in many many ways.
Trying to say the least Ever have one of those days? You know the kind, where you're so hungry in the car on your way to work that you take too big a bite of the Pillsbury crescent roll, or other microwaved pastry that's always too hot on the inside that it's scorching your mouth, so you quickly take a huge slurp of coffee from that freaky styrofoam cup with the way-too-small-hole in the plastic lid and it's hotter than the pastry so you inhale to scream and the roll goes down your throat, all the while you're trying to negotiate an onramp in your outdated car with manual transmission and you're choking and trying to shift into third gear while you try to avoid careening off the shoulder but your hands are full and you can't breathe and then your phone rings?
September first was one of those days for me . . . ' nuff said!
Now let's turn our attention to the people who REALLY had a bad day, and I am of course speaking of New Orleans, and the town that was once known as Biloxi, but will go down in history(if not in the Gulf of Mexico) as "New Atlantis".
Talking with Cousin Lisa (she LIVES down there, so she knows this shit) NO Hurricanes for the Gulf 'o Mexico in 50 f*cking years, then 3-count'em THREE! in 11 months, all bad ones too.I know, I was just in Alabama and I saw the trees snapped in half, the buildings missing their roofs, windows or doors. I saw the piles of brush and debris on Everybody's front lawn, waiting to be hauled away.
I seem to recall a conversation not that long ago about global warming that predicted this type of meterologic behavior. Coincidence? I think not!
Got home from San Diego yesterday and the neighborhood smelled a lot like smoke. Seems Simi valley was burning and the Santa Anna Winds were bringing the smoldery smoke all the way into town. Spending a few hours in my room with the air purifier going distracted my nose from the fact that the whole house smelled like a bar-b-que when I came out.
Driving up to Arleta to see Peter Chin and found the hills of Burbank burning as well.
envelope-pushing strip club owner Howard White changed the main sign for his joint on Century Boulevard from "Live Nude Nude Nudes" to "Vaginas R Us." Neighboring merchants immediately complained, but city officials said that "vagina" is simply not an obscene word. However, the city did cite White's sign for being made of illegal combustible vinyl. At press time, opponents of the sign were trying to encourage the Toys R Us company to force White to abandon the name as too similar to its own protected trademark. [Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.), 8-8-05]
Now let's turn our attention to the people who REALLY had a bad day, and I am of course speaking of New Orleans, and the town that was once known as Biloxi, but will go down in history(if not in the Gulf of Mexico) as "New Atlantis".