August 2005 Archives

My heart goes out to all the poor people down in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama who got caught up in the Hurricane Katrina disaster. And I do mean poor.

There are two thing that are astonishing to me as I watch this disaster unfold on CNN. One is that every time I think I've seen the worst possible image, I see something that blows my mind. Lines of school buses under water. Not just complete neighborhoods submerged, but everything from one horizon to the next. New Orleans inundated. People escaping from their homes by carving holes in their roofs. People wading neck deep through city streets. Refugees fleeing into and then out of the Super Dome. It's unbelievable. Two is that in almost all these pictures, the people involved are black and poor.

Now I know there's a large African-American population in that part of the country, but nothing that would belie their numbers in the news except that clearly the white folks with the means and the wherewithal to evacuate did and the blacks who had no place else to go tried to stick it out.

I know that the final death toll at this point is unknown, but when it's all said and down and all the bodies are located, I'm wouldn't be surprised if the black/white breakdown is the exact opposite of the national figures, if not worse. It's just an incredible tragedy.

The other thing that I want to briefly mention is that the level of looting and lawlessness is disturbing. This was a massive natural disaster, completely disrupting the normal order, so it's not too surprising. However, what I keep thinking about is that if we're see this level of chaos with this event, which seems that authorities were clearly under prepared for, what's going to happen if we have a major terrorist attack in a large city? After watching the Homeland Security Dept. in action, I don't hold out much faith that they are up to the task. If you look at Katrina as a window into our future, the future ain't pretty.

What do you when you have a fucktard cat who doesn't understand the litter box and sprays through the seem where the two pieces of the box join? I've tried to hold him down and make him watch his sister use the box. Nothing. I've tried pushing his ass down when he's taking a leak. Nothing. Next step is to just tie tie him to the back of your bumper, but the people from Peta would be all over my ass. So as much as I'd like to inflict seriously bodily harm on the little shithead, I just bought a top entry litter box and am praying to my lord and savior that it does the trick.

I've have the new box in the house for a two weeks to get them used to it. I put some cat nip in there so they'd check it out, which they did, but have pretty much ignored it since. I just put the litter in it and Filemu, the good cat that she is, got right in and took care of business.

So will the fucktard get in there too or will he shit in the darkest corners of the apartment? Stay tuned.

I haven't been posting much lately, but that hasn't stopped me from noticing that when people are trying to comment on the spare posts, they are getting bounced for what Movable Type calls "questionable content". Hopefully this isn't meant as some sort of commentary on my site, although I'd probably agree with them. I don't what's going on or why it's happening. It could have something to do with MT-Blacklist, the spam blocking plugin that stops spam in its tracks, but seems to be shielding everyone, which is rather pointless. Might as well just shut down commenting altogether.

In the meantime, if you want to comment, and you should, just sign up with Typekey. It's free. It's quick. It's a impostion, but relatively painless. You'll be authenticated by the man and you can post away. Up to you.

I don't know what gas prices are like where you live, but here in Alameda, the cost of unleaded has shot up from 2.82 to 2.96 in the last two days. Is it the effect of Katrina? Is it our lack of refining capacity? Is it demand driven by massive manufacturing in China? Who knows.

I just can't keep watching prices go up and do nothing about it, so today I held my nose a picked up a few hundred shares of Chevron, that's CVX for you home gamers. For me, Chevron is always the gas station of last resort. Their prices are almost always higher than the station across the street or around the corner. But to hedge against paying higher prices, I'm going to get me a piece of that sick petroleum action, as much as it kills me. And if gas prices come down and CVs along with it, I won't have a problem with that, but I doubt it will happen. The big petroplayers like Chevron are always quicker the fleece they public by raising prices at the pump than they are to drop prices when the a barrel of crude drops. But with the price of a barrel hovering around 70, there's a lot of padding in the system. If commodity prices continue to rise, Chevron will just pass on the costs to consumers like you me. If oil drops, that's where Chevron and Shell and Texaco and Exxon cash in because they never, ever react to lower prices of unleaded with the same knee-jerk gauging reaction.

In the meantime I'm looking into buying a hybrid next year when the fat tax credit that might have been the only good part of the "conservative" Energy Bill comes into play.

While I was away back east to do computer training at the behest of my company, my cats (I'm not sure which one, but I have my suspicions) dragged my Chiron fleece from my desk into the living room and annointed it with their foul urine. Think they're trying to tell me something?

It's amazing to walk around downtown Philadelphia and come across a sign that reads, this is where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Don't get much stuff like that out here in California.

This is best shot (so I think) from a series of photos that I took of my little guys playing king of the hill on the kitty condo a few days ago. I love it when the cats sumo. It's mostly harmless. Mostly. But I almost never have a camera around. It usually happens so fast that If I don't have a camera in my hands when the action goes down, I miss it.

But not this time. This time I had the camera close at hand when Mak & Fil dueled it out for supremacy on the condo. It's hard to capture cats in the middle of doing much of anything but sleeping, so I really feel lucky to have captured this action on "film".

It's not a great shot, technically speaking. I was too lazy to get of my ass and move from the couch where I was sitting to take better advantage of the light coming from the sliding glass doors. And the composition leaves a lot to be desired, but the action, well, the action doesn't get much better. If anyone ever doubts the ferocity of the Samoan Fighting Kittens, all I have to do is bust out this photo for them to behold.

I'm off the Philadelphia for a week of lovely SAP portal training followed by a weekend in DC visiting my brother. Hard to believe but this will be the first time I've been on a plane in almost two years (United direct to Phily - first class). I've been around, but all my travels have been on the ground. Arizona to Southern California and back. Arizona to Vail, CO. Vail to Northern California. Northern California to Southern California a few times. Alameda to South Lake Tahoe about 20 times. Lots of driving. No flying at all.

I'm looking forward to it. For one thing I desparetely need this training. We're running the web site that I'm producing on it, and I really don't know the first thing about the manage the damn thing. Plus I've never been to Philadelphia and I while I don't think I would ever voluntarily agree to visit during the middle of the summer, I'll take it because it's on the company's dime (and I'm flying first class on the way there - coach, sadly on the way back from DC).

I don't know what my access to the Internet will be, but I should be able to post some pics here and there and maybe even catch on my lazy blogging. Time to pack. See ya.

Here's a shot of my sister, her husband Paris and their boy Mateo who was a champ at his baby naming yesterday. In front about 20 people gathered at my sister's place in Richmond, there was no crying, no tantrums, nothing but smiles as we witnessed him being given the now seemingly apt Hebrew name that translates to "Gift of Peace".

The little guy is really adorable, and I'm not saying that just because he's my one and only nephew. He wasn't exaclty a looker when he came into this world, but he's starting to look like a classic 50s matinee idol with that shock of dark hair and blue eyes. He looks quite a but like his dad, but those blue eyes undoubtedly come from his grandfather, who, in his neglect, failed to hand them down to me.

More photos of the baby naming here on Flickr.

Has anyone seen Morgan Spurlock's (Super Size Me) Show on F/X called 30 Days? Interesting show.

In the first episode "Minimun Wage", Spurlock and his wife try to survive on 30 days working for 5 dollars and 15 cents an hour.

Considered by many to be one of the best James Bond films ever made, this second outing moves between Venice, Istanbul and other European locales as agent 007 tries to nab a top-secret Russian decoding machine. Features the first appearance by Q (Desmond Llewelyn), a blond Robert Shaw playing a nasty heavy, and even Bond author Ian Fleming in a brief non-speaking cameo during a scene at the train station.

This is description of From Russia with Love from AMC which is showing the movie as part of it's Complete Bond series. Somehow, in all my years of watching Bond films, I never caught a screening of From Russia with Love. So it was refreshing as hell to see Sean Connery in a new setting with a new plot after seeing all the other films god knows how many times. On top of that, AMC is showing completely remastered versions in, get this, letterbox. Holy fucking shit, will wonders never cease.

I signed the papers today and on Monday, I return my status as a full- time slave to the corporate machine. Ironically, I'm making the make exact same salary I was at the time I left Electronic Arts in 2001. It's almost like the last four years never happened...

I'm just a bill
Yes, I'm only a bill
And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill
Well, it's a long, long journey
To the capital city
It's a long, long wait
While I'm sitting in committee
But I know I'll be a law some day
At least I hope and pray that I will
But today I am still just a bill.

Okay, the process is a bit more complicated, but still, Schoolhouse Rock did introduce hundreds of thousands of kids to the basic innerworkings of government. Damn liberal television! Wanting kids to learn shit and stuff.

Personally, I like the Simpsons version better:

I'm an amendment-to-be
yes an amendment-to-be,
And I'm hoping that they'll ratify me.
There's a lot of flag-burners
Who have got too much freedom
I want to make it legal
For policemen to beat'em.
'Cause there's limits to our liberties
At least I hope and pray that there are
'Cause those liberal freaks go too far.

Now that we have that little piece of education behind us, take a look at how legislation actually gets passed in this article from Rolling Stone by Matt Taibii. It ain't pretty.

Here's but one juicy nugget about how your government is run under one of the most currupt regimes in the history of this country:

The Rules Committee is supposed to wait out a three-day period before sending the bill to the House, ostensibly in order to give the members a chance to read the bill. The three-day period is only supposed to be waived in case of emergency. However, the Rules Committee of DeLay and Dreier waives the three-day period as a matter of routine. This forces members of Congress to essentially cast blind yes-or-no votes to bills whose contents are likely to be an absolute mystery to them.

Thankfully, we're exporting our version of "democracy" around the globe.

It all started innocently enough, as these things often do. I woke up on my birthday, checked my email and came across this one from Wells Fargo:

Bank Online: It's Easy, Secure & It Pays Get $20 for Accessing Your Accounts Online* Banking online helps you control your finances more easily: NEW! Choose to receive FREE email alerts about account activity See updates of withdrawals, deposits, balances, and more Transfer money between accounts Pay your bills using Online Bill Pay1 It's easy to get started – and to get your $20 just for using your Online Banking to access your Wells Fargo accounts online – in one place, with one password: 1. Go to www.wellsfargo.com 2. Sign on to Wells Fargo Online® Banking by entering your     Username and Password under View Your Accounts 3. Do this three times from August 1, 2005 through September 30,     2005, and we'll credit $20 to your primary deposit account Plus, we guarantee that you will be covered 100% for any funds removed from your Wells Fargo accounts without your approval, while using our Online Banking service2. To get your $20, simply use Wells Fargo Online Banking to access your account three times by Sept. 30, 2005. Get started or call 1-800-956-4442. We're available 24/7.

I hadn't checked my Wells Fargo account in a long time. Maybe that's why they were prodding me back into it. I don't know. Who cares, right? It doesn't take much effort to log into the site three times in a month and if they thought it was worth $20 to do so, I wasn't going to complain.

I probably think about retirement more than I should. I'm not in any hurry to grow old and grey but I am looking forward to not working while I travel around the country and the world. Since travel ain't cheap, it's time to get my finances (back) in order while I still have a 30 year investment horizon.

Since I graduated college, my work experience has been, well, sporadic. A year here. A year there. A year in the Peace Corps. And lots and lots of traveling. I've enjoyed it. But it really does put a hole in your retirement planning when you're globetrotting and not working and spending and not saving or investing. Time for that change.

Stern Grove. I have lived in the Bay Area for most of the last 17 years and until this weekend I had never heard of Stern Grove. Either I'm completely oblivious and I have no idea what's going on around me or there's so much going it's hard to keep track of everything.

The odd thing is I had driven by the grove dozens of times over the years. It's a stand of tall eucalyptus trees in the southwestern corner of San Francisco right off 19th Avenue, the main thoroughfare into the city from the south, one that I used to take whenever I drove up to town from Santa Cruz and Burlingame. I can remember seeing banners hanging there in the trees promoting some event or another, but I never paid much attention, probably because I was too anxious or excited to get to the city to pay attention to what the trees were saying.

On Sunday Jennifer and I went to see some opera music at Stern Grove featuring mezzo-sopranoDenyce Graves who was a last minute replacement for Carol Vaness. But, damn, she was impressive.

The concert started around 2pm, but we arrived at noon to get a decent spot to sit, eat lunch and watch the music. Even two hours before the concert, the place was packed. All the tables and chairs were spoken for. People laid out blankets all across the terraced grass and the granite steps. We had to climb up the hill above most of the spectators to find a seat just beyond last stone wall. We threw down some blankets and settled in, enjoying a leisurely picnic while we waited for the program to start.

I was responsible for all the food and drink. Here's what we had:

My posts have been very sporadic as of late. I don't know why, but I'm finding it harder and harder to sit down and write for this blog. I think about what I want to write all the time, but when it comes down to sitting in front of the computer and actually writing, even though I have tons and tons of time to do it, I just don't have the energy or whatever it is. Just looking over recent post history, there were fewer combined entries for the last two months than the previous one. I just looked again and I noticed that I write exactly 20 posts in June and 17 in July for each of the last two years. Totally unplanned. Must be some sort of a summer slump.

My birthday is coming up later this week. My manager is giving me the day off. Now I just need to figure out what I'm going do.