It Really Sucks When... Archive

My little female cat Fil has been missing since about 2pm yesterday and I'm just sick with worry about her. She's escaped from the house a few times, but I've always managed to catch and get her back in within 30 minutes or so. Last night, we stood out on the porch and called her, left the door open, to no avail. For the first time in the last seven years, I went to sleep at home with Fil. It made me awful.

I went home for a few hours today and Quel & I plastered the neighborhood with flyers, offering a 100 dollar reward. We tried to go down the Oakland SPCA to file a report, but it was closed. I've got ads up on Craigslist both in pets and lost and found. Short of that, I don't know what to do.

I hope that she just wandered into someone's house and since she doesn't have a collar, they didn't know what to do with her. She's such a friendly and precocious love whore, that she can charm anyone. Since she doesn't have a collar, what are they going to do with her? Keep her, of course.

My neighborhood is full of speeding cars and pit bulls, so there's always that, but I think Fil is too smart/scared to get near the roads or the dogs, but she is only a cat, right?

Hopefully the flyers will produce a lead. I already did get two calls from neighbors, but they were both false alarms. Just other tortoise shell tabbies wandering around the neighborhood.

I guess I'm stuck with my clunker for a little while longer. The Subie is a great car, but it only gets 20 mph on the highway. I don't even want to tell you the city mileage. As gas has crept up past 3 bucks a gallon and my daily commute from 0 to 35 miles a day, this has become a serious pain point.

When you live with cats, your going to, occasionally, notice a slight acrid urine smell around the house. It's just part of the program.

For the most part, these smells are isolated to the litter box, which is how it should be. Every once in a while, I'll notice a smell outside the box, which means that one of my cats, usually Fil, has decided the litter box was not clean enough for her liking and she decided to improvise her own box. I have two boxes for them and I've become fastidious about keeping it clean, but she still pisses on various throw rugs, newspapers or piles of clothes, now and again.

I'm sort of used to the odor by now, having lived around it for six years, and usually I can find the litter box du jour and toss it in the washing machine or dump it out in the trash. But every once in a while, I catch the whiff of cat piss, but can't for the life of me locate the smell. There's a hint of an acrid smell in the air, I search for it, can't find it, and then it goes away. It hits me again, then I lose it.

This happened today. It took me all morning to realize that FIl had peed on my pajamas and I was carrying the smell with me all over the damn house. Fucking cats. Can't live with 'em. Can't drown 'em.

It's been two days since my backpack was snatched off the beach at Vina del Mar. Of course, I'm still annoyed by it, but I'm not going to let it spoil my holiday. At least I didn't lose my passport. That would have been a serious nighmare. Instead it's a mild irritant and an expensive object lesson.

Almost everything I lost was replaceable. The major loss was my camera. Not only did I lose 4 days of what I think were some beautiful pictures, but I lost the ability to take more pics. I have a camera on my Blackberry (blessedly not stolen) but it's not the same.

This is what was taken (I think):

Blue JanSport backpack ($35). Of course the pack is replaceable, but not having one now means carting my shit around in a plastic bag until I can find a suitable one.

Canon G9 ($450) I already found a replacement on craigslist for 295. The trouble is, it's in San Rafael and not in Argentina. This was a great camera. I was just starting to get used to it as I've had it less than a year.

Canon G9 case ($90) bought specially from a vendor in Japan because the case they sell in the USA is total crap. The one I had a classic rangefinder feel to it, made of hand tooled leather.

Grabzilla tripod ($40) Just bought this thoing at REi before the trip. Tried to use it once in Santiago but it was too weak for my G9. I was going to take it back when I got home.

4GB SanDisk Extreme III Memory card ($18). Not so much the money but the hundreds of photos I'd taken since I arrived in Chile all gone. I'm going to try to remember and describe them in another post.

50SPF Banana Boat Sunblock ($8) almost empty anyway. Bought a replacement in Mendoza for 25 pesos. It's about 3.5 to the USD.

80GB iPod Classic ($299) that's what I paid, but certainly not what it worth, which is next to nothing. It stopped working properly a little more than a year after I bought it-out of warranty, of course. The iPod would reboot every few minutes, so you'd be listening a song and it would just crash and restart. In order to get it to work semi-properly, I had to download special software to install old as fuck firmware. Still the volume controls didn't work right. Details can be found on this site by searching for iPod. Serves whoever ends up buying my iPod from the theif that it won't work right. I'm bummed that I won't to be able to listen to music, learn spanish or entertain myself with audiobooks on the two 17 hour bus trips I have ahead of me, but ill live.

Headphones ($13) left my earphones at home and had to buy a cheap replacement at Hartsfield. No major loss here.

Hotel Keys (n/a) replaced quickly, easily and with much sympathy by the ladies at the Reloj de Flores which almost absolves them of running one of the worst B and B's in the world.

Oakley Rx Glasses ($175) looks like contacts at night for the rest of the trip. Two years old. Scratched and kind of tired. Needed to be replaced, but still cool. Never saw anyone else with them. I called my optometrist to have them email me my Rx and I will go about getting a new pair in Buenos Aires. I should just get my eyes tested again. Como se dice "better, same, worse?" en Espanyol?

US Bank Visa & WAMU Debit MasterCard (n/a) both canceled. Temporary card on it's way to my hotel in BA.

Black Leather Wallet ($20) totally falling apart. Have been looking for a new one since I arrived in South America.

Cash (about $30) split between one USD20 and Chilean pesos.

BART ticket ($5.25) can someone pick me up at SFO?

Lonely Planet Chile (free) Picked it off the free shelf at Book Soup on Telegraph ave. in Berkeley

Various: gum, zip locks bags, small value Chilean coins for foreign coin collection, 3/4 empty water bottle, 2 pens, 1 mechanical pencil, body shop sunblock for face (hardly used), one small gift.

There were probably a few other things, but nothing major. I have insurance through my credit card company, but I didn't have time to get a police report so I doubt ill recover anything. It sucks, but it could have been a whole lot worse. Most of my money, my passport and my bus ticket from Vina del Mar were safely locked in my bag at the hotel. I could have been broke with no passport and had to find my way back to Santiago somehow.

Luckily, I had remembered to store the telephone numbers for both my credit cards in my phone so I was able to cancel both quickly before either were used. After some difficulty dealing with US Bank to get a replacement, they finally put me through to Visa international who were extremely helpful. They are going to send the temporary card and offered to wire me money, which wasn't necessary, but nice to know it's an option.

In some ways I feel unburdened without the need to lug my backpack everywhere nor take photos of everything interesting. If that sounds like a massive rationalization, it's because it is and I'd much rather go back to bearing that minor burden.

On the bus to Mendoza, I was talking to this older (he was born in 48) couple from Brooklyn, Paul and Doris. When I told them about my theft, they told me the story of how the were in some tiny town in Guatemala about 10 years ago. While they were walking around, someone slit a hole in Doris' handbag with a razor. They didn't notice it at the time, but everything fell out including all their money, their passports and their plane tickets. Here they were in a small town in the north of country and they had to get back to Guatemnala City to replace everything. First they had to return to Flores where they were staying and they managed to get a free ride on the bus. Then the woman at their hotel called Amex. They were on the phone for two hours getting everything sorted out, including being able to get money at the back with a verbal password since they now lacked identification of any sort. At the time, I'm sure it was a painful ordeal, but given the perspective of time, it's now just a story to tell.

Time + Tragedy = Character + Story

Anyway, Paul is very sanguine about it. He says to me, look, if you're going to leave your home and travel you're going to lose things and be robbed. That's just a fact. You can choose to stay home, but think of all the experiences you'd miss.

I couldn't agree more.

As someone who was robbed and could have been shot 100 yards from my front door for my Blackberry, I know that this sort of thing can happen anywhere. I wasn't hurt, physoically anyway and I'll live.

In retrospect I probably should have booked a room in Vina del Mar before I arrived. It's become so easy with the Internet (more on that later), that it just doesn't make sense not to. But I didn't. Mainly because the place I wanted to stay, Casa del Sol, couldn't be booked online. I could have had the guys at Hotel Don Santiago call for me, but I didn't. I just rocked up and hoped for the best.

When I reached Vina, it was mid-day and it was a long sweaty walk from the bus station to the hotel. I had directions, but it was still tricky to find, even using Google Maps, because the place was set in amongt the winding hilly streets to the north of town.

I wasn't sure I arrived at the hotel, because, like the Don Santiago, there was no sign. For security reasons, I suppose. I rang the bell and woman answers "hello", and I asked if this was the Casa del Sol and she said yes. At which point I expected the door to open, but it didn't. I felt like an ass, but I had to say "can you open the door please". There was a couple, English guy and Chilean girl who had just alighted from a taxi waiting. And they laughed. At the situation, not at me. But the door opened and we went up into the hotel.

So it turns out that they didn't have another room, but there was one avalaible at the sister hotel, the Reloj and if I could just wait a few minutes while she checked the couple in, she'd take me down there.

Half an hour later, Marina is walking me to the hotel. She tells me it's 32 dollars a night including breakfast. It seems expensive, but then all of Chile seems inordinately expensive to me. I don't want to deal with finding another place. Plus if it's anything like the Case del Sol, ill be very comfy there. When se asks me where I'm from and I say California, she tells me I look very Californian and asks if. I know Brad Pitt. Sure, we best buds.
We arrive at the hotel after a brief walk. Outside, the place is very nice. A smoky red building with shimmering white crown molding and an elegant etched glass sign mounted outside. I guess there were no security concerns here. Maybe it something to do with the angle of the street which was monstourous, like a 25% grade. When I was trying to decide if I could ride my bike up it (probably not), Marina figured out which key to use and led me inside.

There was a sunny common room with a lightly flapping white linen sheet canopied below the sunlight with the room a distincly warm and breezy feel. Benches covered with pillows lined the perimeter. There was a kitchen off to the right and a computer with Internet to the left. I thought, this will do nicely.

Then Marina showed me the room.

She opened up the French doors to the room and revealed a space like a postage stamp. There was room for a twin sized bed and little else, but somehow they were able to jam in a TV and an end table. There was no place for luggage. No place for anything. There was a door that out to a small balcony with a view of the Pacifc through some buildings which was nice.

I was hesitant. For 32 dollares Americanos, I expected a bit more. But I didn't feel like dealing with finding another place, so I relented and paid for two nights in advance. As I became more familiar with my room, I'd realize what a mistke this was.

Marina then showed me how the shower worked. In order to get hot water, I had to go into the kitchen and start the hot water heater. I'd halso have to not set it too hot or I'd get a scalding shower. Then she gave me a map and told me how to get to various places and not to be sucked by the craft dealers in Valparaiso when I get the same thing for tenth the price at the Feria de Artensas in Vina, which was helpful. Then she 3:34:46 PM and I never daw her or anyone else who spoke English again.

I got organized headed to the bus station to get my ticket to Argentina and then to the beach. I got back to the Reloj about 8pm, before the sun was setting. I tried to take a shower but it was a disaster. I got the water heater started after a few attempts, but I couldn't get the water to stay a constant temperature. It either unbearably hot or shockingly cold. It was torturous.

It was when I went back to my to enjoy the evening on the balcony with an empanada de pollo for a snack and a good book that I realized some of the limitations of my room. The French doors locked from the outside with a padlock. From the inside, there was not only no way to lock them, there was no way to secure them. So they just kept flying open. This was never more true than when the balcony door was open as the evening breeze would swing my French doors wide open. There were latches on the bottom of the door, but no one had bother to drill the hole necessary in the floor. I suppose they get an A for effort.

The balcony door was clear glass and there was no curtain. That and the front door that wouldn't behave made changing a trick. There was also a hole about half a dollar in diameter right at the eyeheight of the average Chilean. Not that I thoght anyone would look in, or that it mattered because I couldn't keep my door closed anyway, but I stuffed the end of one of shirts in the hole and it made me feel better.

The metal bed frame was so rickety that even the slightly movment would cause an echoy squeak in the whole room. Having sex in the bed would cause a cacophony of sound that wake the house. Having freaky circus sex would wake the neighbors and involve Chile's equivalent of FEMA. Lucky for everyone within earshot, I was alone.

There was a light on the endtable but. Was fitted with a new eco-friendly fluorescent bulb that was s weak I could barely see in the room after dark and sported a shade designed for a standard incandescent so it listed like a staggering drunk.

Right as I settled into bed, I saw my nemesis, a hovering mosquito. I tracked it along the white ceiling but lost it in the red painted wall behind my bed and woke up with a fresh, swollen bite in my left arm.

I've stayed in smaller rooms. I once had a room off Kao San Rd in Bangkok that was so narrow I could touch both side walls at the same time. But that place cost less than 2 dollars and included a banana pancake and fresh juice for breakfast. But I had never stayed in a room with so many little problems. And certainly not one that cost this much.

Despite all this, I slept well. I woke in the morning very refreshed and went out to breakfast. Since this was not a hostel, but fancied itself a B&B, I expected great things. That was a mistake.

Inside the little kitchen there was a table set for 8 people, but no one was around. Each setting had a piece of fruit, either an apple or banana, a small container of yogurt and a microscopic bowl of cornflakes. There was a thermos of hot water along with Nescafe, sugar and something that looked distinctly like powdered milk. There was also a sandwich on untoasted bread with one slice of some kind of indescribable mystery pressed meat. This was truly disheartening.

Just to put this into perspective, the Don Santiago (in Santiago), which is a hostel and not a B&B, served up fresh coffee, lightly scrambled eggs, toast with fresh strawberry jam and a fruit plate of banana, cherries and oranges, all in seemingly unlimited quantities. My room there was spartan, but it was spacious, the door locked from the inside and it now seems like an unbelievable bargain at 22 dollars a night.

I tried to make Nescafe with the powdered milk but it would dissolve and I couldn't drink clumpy coffee so I chucked it down the sink. There was a toaster, so I chucked the mystery meat in the basura, made toast and scrounged in the fridge for some butter, finding some unnatually looking yellow substance called mantequilla which I know means butter but looked more some sickly margarine. I don't know how long ago thew table was set, but it was long enough that the yogurt was warm and runny. Perhaps some people like it way. Not me. I ate my banana and left the dry cornflakes and I didn't think they'd be all that appetizing sprinkled with powdered leche. This was just a sad and pathetic attempt at breakfast, one of the hardest meals to fuck up and it had been done on what can only be described as a masterful level.

My bus tomorrow leaves at 9 in the morning which means, sadly, I have to miss breakfast which is served at the Reloj at 8:30. Then again, juding from the temperature of the yogurt, the breakfast table might be set the night before and I can grab my baloney sandwich on my way out the door.

I was robbed at gunpoint by 2 kids at 545pm as I was walking home from the bus stop. All they got was my blackberry before they got scared and ran off. I'm still a little freaked out. I'm not hurt. Didn't lost my wallet or any money, but I don't have a phone, which really sucks. More details after I calm down a bit.

Okay, here are the details for the morbidly curious:

It happened around 5:45 as I was walking from the bus stop to my house. I was walking down the street reading the New York Times on my Blackberry (obviously a mistake in my neighborhood). Two kids, African-American, probably between 17 and 21, maybe younger, I don't really know, wearing identical white hooded sweatshirts, baggy blue sneaker and white high tops, came up behind me. One jammed a gun in my lower back and when I turned around, told me to drop my cell phone. I thought he was kidding at first. I couldn't believe I was being mugged in daylight on a busy street with cars going by, but I was.

The kid had the gun wrapped in the sleeve of his white hooded sweatshirt. I could see the muzzle and it looked enough like a real gun. I wasn't going to risk being shot over my phone, so I dropped it. The other one picked it up and then demanded my wallet. I was stalling and something scared them and they took off back up the street.

I wanted to call 911, but I didn't have a phone and I don't have a land line at home, so I tried stopping cars. The first couple ignored me, but then someone stopped. When I told him what happened, he said he just saw the cops stop a couple of kids up the street. I didn't know if it was true or not. I ran back up the street, but didn't see anything. It was too much to expect that they'd be caught that quickly, let alone at all.

As I was walking back to my place, I saw one of those white "unmarked" state police vehicles going the other way. I flagged him down, told him what happened and he called the Oakland PD. I gave a statement, told the cops I'd help with the investigation and prosecution in anyway, but I don't think this will exactly be a top priority case. Officer Moore said something about new technology that would enable them to track cell phones, but I'm skeptical since he didn't ask for any information about the phone other than the number, which I now have with a new phone. We'll see.

So they only got my Blackberry. As irritating and expensive as it is to replace a phone, at least I didn't have to cancel credit cards or get a new driver's license. I had most of my addresses/phone numbers stored on my Blackberry. It's probably a good time anyway to check in and get updated contact info. So please send me your phone numbers and addresses and I'll start the tedious work of rebuilding my digital address book.

When I finally got back to my car after the ride, it was dark. I was exhausted, dirty and just wanted to go home. I had dragged my bike, bag, tent and sleeping back from where to the bus stopped to the now almost empty parking lot. I looked at my car and noticed the gas door was open. And I thought, well, that’s sort of weird. Except it was probably more like, WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?

I don't think I had filled the tank in weeks. Sort of surprising that it would be open. I wasn't really thinking straight because I was so tired. Then I noticed that the back seat was up, which was even more odd because I had put it down to transport the bike from my house to the parking lot adjacent to AT&T Park, which was the staging ground for the MS Waves to Wine event. I didn't put it up, did I? No, I don't think so.

I walked around to the driver's side and the door was unlocked, the glove compartment was open and there was stuff strewn all over my car. Fuck, someone has definitely been in my car. It's been tossed. All the doors were unlocked. The stuff I had behind the front seats was now sitting on the backseat. Everything in my glove box was on the floor. The console in the arm rest was empty. (What did I have in there again?)

It took me a while to realize that the portable Garmin GPS and dashboard mount that my brother had given me for my birthday/holidays last year was gone. One of the best gifts I have ever received, vanished on a cold, dark San Francisco night.

I guess I was stupid to leave it in the car at all, but this was supposed to be a secure, protected lot. There should be a reasonable expectation that my car wouldn't be forcibly opened and my possessions rifled while I'm away on the ride, right? Maybe not. Maybe I'm just an idiot and I have to take my medicine.

Anyway, it was a fucking shitty way to end what was otherwise a great weekend.

This morning I was standing waiting for the Transbay F bus at Market and Stanford and the bus which normally stops right in front of me, just kept going. I was stunned. I hesitated because I was so stunned. And he who hesitates misses the bus.

I went running down the street chasing the bus. It was stopped at the red light at Adeline, but right before I could catch and pound on the side, it took off. I was left a panting sweaty mess.

About 15 seconds behind, the local came by and I jumped onboard, asked the driver if she could catch the F. She said she'd give it her best shot. At 40th, the F made a right, I jumped off the bus I was on and went running again down the street, fantasizing about the tongue lashing I was going to give the drive, but I never did catch the damn bus.

Not only was I going to be late for work, but I felt disgusting. My shirt and my jeans stuck to my body. I was fuming. There was nothing I could do, but wait for the C to come down 40th and take it across the bridge.

I ended up about 30 minutes late for work. I didn't miss any meetings, but I was pissed. I don't know why the driver didn't stop. I took a later bus than I usually, so I didn't have my normal driver (didn't have any driver, in fact), but that's no excuse. If I'm waiting at the bus stop, the bus ought to stop, right?

Encryption? It's for pussies. Wouldn't want to make too hard for criminals to get at your hard earned money.

In yet another unbelievable story of data irresponsibility, the Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon lost two sets of unencrypted backup tapes containing private data belonging to 4.5 million individuals. Third-party vendors misplaced the tapes during transport to off-site locations. According to the bank, the tapes "included shareowner and plan participant account information, such as name, mailing address, Social Security number, and transaction activity."

Good thing I'm not one of those 4.5 million people. Those people are fucked!. Oh, wait, I am. I've had an account with BNY Mellon since they took over custody of the ConEd dividend reinvestment program. As someone who's already been the victim of indentity theft, I'm not looking forward to see how this one plays out.

Are you outraged yet?

I can't believe I was complaining about this. Those were the good ole days.

So, on the 4th day, in the interest of not blowing our their legs, they rested. It was beautiful, blue sky day, and I had a tough time not saying anything about how nice it would to be on the slopes today, but I held my tongue.

We went to Edwards for lunch. Found a little Mexican place in Riverwalk called Fiesta Jalisco. I had this dish called Carnitas de Res. Basically it was a concoction of grilled sirloin and peppers in a red enchillada sauce with rice and refried beans. It was delicious, but it struck back with monster truck force. Maybe 20 minutes after lunch, I was in the bathroom at the The Bookworm re-enacting the campfire/beans scene from Blazing Saddles. It was out of control. We stopped at Safeway on the way home and I picked up some pepto. It helped out, but not before I had a reprise of The Bookworm pyrotechnic flatulence event. I was farting so hard, and so long, I couldn't stop laughing. It's a damn good thing we have two bathrooms in the condo.

Ok, so I'm not 50. Not even close. But I did get an ivitation to join the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) that accused me of being 50. While it's flattering to be invited to join thier club with all the rights and privleges, etc., and as much as I'd like to retire and become a man of leisure, I can think I can wait a few years.

It really bothers me how reactive American airport security is. Some guy tries to bomb a plane with his shoes and now we all have to take off our shoes at security. There's some plot to bomb planes with some liquid explosive and little nazi-esque security dwarfs scream at us to put all of our liquids in a 3 ounce container and place them in the zip lock bag (forget the fact that don't make available 3 oz. bottles or even zip lock bags for this purpose). Next thing you know we'll hear of someone who tried to blow up an airport with his boxers and we will all be forced to fly commando. It's crazy.

So when I went through security in Austin, they confiscated my unopened 8 oz bottle of water. When they took it away, the TSA guard asked me if I wanted to drink it outside and I just looked at him like he was nuts and said, what do think, that I'm going to blow up a plane with this bottle of water? What does he respond? "Terrorists are creative." Right. Whatever. Forget that he's accusing me of being terrorist. I suppose they have to be somewhat vigilant, but this is just beyond absurd.

Can you imagine a scenario where a terrorist comes to an airport with explosives in a bottle of water that he's fastidiously sealed ("Terrorists are fastidious") only to have it taken away by the TSA? What would he do. Would he take the flight and be forced to contemplate his mistakes. Fuck!--Next time I'm going to put the liquid explosive in cargo. Would he go ballistic? He wouldn't do anything because it would never happen. Even if it did, he wouldn't be a redheaded jew and it wouldn't happen in Austin.

The joke is on them, because the oh so vigilant TSA screeners in Austin let me get through secutiry with an unsealed pint of (very liquid and extremely suspicious) sherry viniagrette salad dressing that I bought at the Driskoll Hotel in downtown Austin.

When we woke in the morning on Sunday, the snow was coming down hard and the wind was hurtling gusts over 50 miles an hour against the side of the condo. It was a pretty easy decision not to ski. Only a handful of lifts were open anyway. Even though the snow would have been great, visibility of nothing and the threat of the being blown off the lift was enough to keep us inside, toasty and warm.

We made a huge brunch and debated about the best time to leave, all the while continually checking with Caltrans to make the roads were still open. The last time we called around 11:15, just before we took off, highway 50 was open. It was time to go. We'd at least make it home for the Academy Awards which started in 6 hours, right? Not quite. We didn't hit Emeryville, my town just across the bay from San Francisco until 9:30. Here's the tale of My Sysiphean Nightmare.

The first thing you have to navigate when you leave the covered garage at the condo is a steep, icy, now snow covered driveway. When I came in on Friday night, it was so slick, the Subie couldn't make it on the first try, even in 1st gear. I had to back it up down the street and get some speed to haul up the hill. Coming down, the brakes locked up and started skidding. It was a damn good thing there wasn't a car turning the corner or I would have plowed right into it. I pumped the brakes and got the care under control, but that only kept me out of the snow bank across the way. I should have taken this as a bad omen and gone back inside. But, what can I say? I'm an idiot.

It was smooth sailing down the 207 to the lake and there was the typical traffic on the 50 past the casinos and across the stateline. There's snow everywhere. Californians and toursits don't know to drive in the snow, so I'm on edge. I'll stay on that for roughly the next 8 hours.

Right after you get into California, you can make a left turn on th Pioneer trail which is a shortcut to Meyers, the last Tahoe town before you start heading up into the hills and back to civilization. This is where the problem started.

Once we hit the Pioneer Trail it was bumper to bumper. It normally takes about 15 minutes to navigate it without traffic. After an hour we hadn't hit the T intersection at the 50 and the traffic came to a complete standstill. We called Caltrans. The 50 was closed indefinitely for avalance control. Fuck me. This was going to be a long day.

So, we could either sit and wait, not knowing for how long, or make a U-ey, head back to town and wait it out. We chose the latter. Don't let me forget the whole time it is just dumping snow. The wind wouldn't let down. Huge gusts of wind blew the snow that accumulated on the road and in the trees into these veils of misery. But that's why they invented heated seats.

Back in Tahoe, we went to a bookstore, shopped for skiis, grabbed some snacks (unagi avocado rolls for me) at the market, had a coffee to get cafffiened up. After an hour, we called Caltrans again. The road was back open. Time to jet It was just after 1pm.

Back to Pioneer Trail and the cars are barely moving. The weather has let up a bit and the sun even makes an appearance, but it's just a tease. Cars coming in the other direction are careening off the road, getting stuck in the massive snowbanks that have built up. We we're going nowhere. I had plenty of time to take pics. I guess it could have been worse. I could have not had sushi.

It took us almost two hours to make the T at the 50. The culprit? The light was out and flashing red. I thought it must have been an accident, but I was wrong. I was wrong a lot this day.

The next thing I was wrong about was chain control. I thought for certain that after we hit chain control, the traffic speed would pick up. Not so much. Chain control was right in Meyers, just a few hundred meters after the T. The Subaru got waved through, no chains needed, which I why I have it, and it was just a crawl up and over to Placerville.

How bad was it? Normally it takes a little more than an hour to run the 60 or so miles from Meyers to Placerville. We didn't hit the In 'N Out on Forni Road just past downtown Plaverville until 7:07. There were points when we were going 4 miles an hour and saw a sign that read "4 miles to the next passing lane". I nearly cried thinking it was going to take us an hour at that rate to reach a fucking passing lane. It was worse when the traffic just stopped. People got out of their cars to stretch. I got out to remove the ice from my wipers. This is was just a nightmare.

The rest of the way was mostly a soggy mess. Didn't even get ski and missed the Academy Awards. I did have some great sushi followed by a Double Double and a cheesburger at In 'N Out, but that hardly made up for the suffering.

This was about as close to my idea of hell if ever it existed. Here's what it would take to complete the picute:

1) You would never arrive at your destination.
2) You would never go faster than 13 miles per hour.
3) You would be driving stick and constanting switching between 1st and 2nd gear.
4) There were only 3 radio stations that came through. The first was Country & Western. The second was right wing talk radio. The third was evangelical preachers. No commercials.
5) Your windshield wipers would work perfectly except for a two square foot area in front of your face making it impossible to see. It would never stop snowing.
6) The engine made an irritating high pitched whine whenever you hit 13 miles an hour.
7) You are on the edge of falling asleep.
8) No heat. No Defrost.
9) The driver side windows is leaking from the top and water is building up in your left sock.
10) You have a take a leak really badly and you're not wearing your astronaut diapers.
11) Chapped lips. No chapstick.

My days of trying to fix other people's computers is over. I'm swearing it off. I will never touch anyone's computer with the aim to fix anything. It just isn't worth it.

Case in point: I needed to use my dad's computer to do some research about the MacBook that I wanted to buy, but his PC is just dog ass slow. It's not just the dial up connection, which is bad enough. The machine is just a total dog. It's a Pentium III with only 128MB of RAM and he's trying to run XP. It's meets the minimum requirements, but just barely. Then his 10GB hard drive has less than 100MB of free space, which means you've got no room to breath. There's no place for a swap file or for temp files and you can't defrag the damn thing.

So like a dutiful son, I started trying to optimize it. I deleted every temp file I could find. I downloaded a few programs to remove spyware and was in the process of creating some space when the whole system crashed. Blue Screen of Death. I couldn't get it the PC to restart. The OS was annihilated. Fried. Wiped out. Gone. History. I'd adios'ed the OS.

This was on New Year's Eve day. So what did I do on New Year's Day? Did I relax in front of the TV and watch bowl games until I blissed out in an EPSN induced narcoleptic funk? Nope. I went down to Fry's to get a new hard drive. That was around 1 o'clock. By three o'clock I'd given up trying to get the PC to read the new drive and headed back to Fry's. Turns out they sold me the wrong drive. It was too large (300GB) for the Pentium III to handle. I'd either need to get a controller board for it or get a smaller drive, which they weren't sure they had.

I've never dealt with a controller and didn't really want to so I forced them to root around in inventory to find a sufficiently small enough drive for dad's PC. They found a 20GB drive and only half the price of the 300GB drive. What a bargain.

Back to the house, I hung the drive, reinstalled XP, reinstalled all the applications. Then came the fun part. My dad uses this computer as his business computer. His entire business is run off this machine. Much of it was backed up, liked his Quick Books and other essential documents, but his Outlook files were not.

I had to install his old hard drive as a slave and hope I could recover the data. I had to muck around the jumper settings, which for whatever reason, are never as straightforward as they should be. But finally, I got the old drive hung and migrated all the data over to the new drive. I found the old PST files and backed up his email. I got everything but the last month. I'm sure it's on there somewhere, but I didn't have time to find it. For some reason, the OS stopped recognized the floppy drive, and I couldn't figure out why. I tried half a dozen hardware configurations, tried to install and reinstall the drivers, but I never did figure it out.

I was up til two o'clock in the morning on New Year's Day night after being locked out of the house. Then I was up again at 5 to finish up. My flight left at 7:30am back to Oakland, so I didn't really have much time. It's amazing that I got it working at all.

I barely made my flight. I had to beg the skycap to the let in front of the long line at Burbank and was the last person on board after squeaking through security. On the flight home, I swore to myself that I would never touch anyone's computer. I have enough opportunity to fuck my own computers, thank you very much.

Last night I came home to my dad's place around 11pm and the front door was locked. The front door is never locked when I'm staying over. I don't have a key. Locked out. Normally, I'd ring the door bell and wake my dad up. He'd apologize and let me in. It's happened before. It will probably happen again, though I suspect I might be getting a key the next time I head down to LA. But this time my sister was also in the house and her 2 year old, Mateo, had been sick, had trouble sleeping and I didn't want to take the chance to wake him up.

So after not getting any response to my light knocking on the front door. i skulked around the house to see if the back door or any windows were open. Nope. I came back around front and knocked some more. Nothing. I called my dad's cell phone, but I could hear it just on the other side of the door ringing away in the kitchen. No one was going to hear that.

I gave up after about 30 minutes.

Since it was almost midnight, I called my friend John in Sydney to wish him a happy new year and commiserate with and understanding soul. Always good to catch up with old friends. While we were chatting, a coyote ran past me down the road and turned to look back up at me when got about 100 fet beyond where I was leaning against the brick mailbox. He was sizing me to determine if I was edible. Clearly I'd be separated from the heard and was a reasonable target. I decided I needed to get in the house.

My 11 year old brother Alex has a room that faces the street. So I started throwing little clumps of dirt against his window, hoping that he'd open the blinds, see me and come downstairs and let me in. That didn't work either. It just scared the shit out of him. He thought he was having a nightmare and went running into his parent's room (I found out later).

After about an hour of being outside, I finally said, screw this and called the house line and right as I did, I could hear someone coming downstairs to open the door. Lots of apologizes, blah blah blah. It was really no big deal. It turns out my sister had to get something for Mateo from the car and when she came back in she just locked the door. Sheer force of habit.

I woke up this morning and there was ice on my windshield. Not frost, but ice. I'm not adverse to the cold. I'm against this dry cold. If it's going to be this cold, it must snow.

I've been sleeping reasonably well lately, but I have a long history of insomnia and tonight, it doesn't matter what I do or how long I toss and turn, I cannot get to sleep. It's such a curse. I don't even know how long I should be trying before I give up. Tonight I tossed and turned for about 3 hours before I gave up.

I had one of those mad dashes to the airport. I was out having Bangladeshi food in Brick Lane, East London. Finished in plenty of time to get back to the hotel, collect my bags and make Heatrow well before departure. The taxi drive drove like a madman. The fare was 52 pounds and change. More than a hundred bucks, but he did exactly what I wanted, drive like Jensen Button so I told him to round of the fare to 60 quid. I'm paying by credit card, I had no pounds left, and he runs the card on the machine and the tab comes up to 66 pounds. Knowing I was in a hurry, he tried to fuck me. I couldn't really say anything since I'd have missed my flight, or so I thought. So I just signed it and I'll deal with Amex later.

The check-in line is blissfully short. The woman at the desk tells me the flight is on time and I have about 25 minutes to get through security and get my tuchus to the gate. I even have time to stop off at the BA lounge and grab a cold drink. Security is not nearly the pain in the ass in Europe as it at home. No pointless taking off of the shoes, for example. And I'm cruising to the gate. Only I get to the get which is at the ass end of Heathrow Terminal 1 and there is no one there. No passengers. No Attendants. No Pilots. Just a plane and a deserted gate. I asked someone at another gate and, well, it turns out the flight is delayed. An hour. I head back to the British Airways lounge to see if I can't have a shower.

My brother, who is a huge Steelers fan, which makes sense, because like me, he grew up in a hard-working blue-collar steel working family in the heart of Pennsylvania, got an invite to the Steelers visit to the White House last week:

You are cordially invited
to the White House for an event

honoring the

Super Bowl XL World Champion

Pittsburgh Steelers

Friday, June 2, 2006

The White House

South Lawn

Gates open at 12:50 p.m.

Arrive no later than 1:15 p.m.

This invitation is not transferable and space is limited. Please RSVP with your full name, date of birth, and social security number to Tracy Smith at or (202) 456-5170

no later than 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, May 30th

Guests should arrive via the Southeast Visitors entrance.

In the case of inclement weather the event will be cancelled. Please call 202-456-7790 Friday beginning at 7:30 a.m. to check the status of this event.

Photo ID is required for admittance onto White House Complex.

The event was cancelled due to "inclement weather" and instead he was invited to a reception at the office of man on dog boy himself, Rick Santorum, with a few of the players. I don't know if know if he went (Brian did you go?). He was so excited about seeing the team at the White House. It would have beem great. Sorry, Bri.

My large green piece of luggage, which has served me so well and which, like an idiot, I didn't put away right after I returned from New York, is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Filemu.

The official team bus to be used by the United States during the World Cup will not bear a flag for security reasons.

The 32 official buses were presented Thursday in Frankfurt and the other 31 buses have large national flags of the their teams painted on rear sides.

German and U.S. security officials came to the conclusion to leave the flag off the U.S. team bus, an official of the German organizing committee said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the topic.

Get that? Of all 32 teams that made it to the World Cup Finals in Germany this year, only the United States has to move its players around in stealth and not proudly show off the American flag because of fear of a terrorist attack. This is what happens when you sqaunder the good will of world and everyone hates you. It's pathetic.

Most Americans couldn't give a shit about this. Only a tiny fraction even carry passports and have little or no interest on what goes on outside our borders. But as some ne who travels, who has traveled extensively in muslim countries around the world, I find this profoundly disturbing.

The whole stoy is below the fold.

Anyone who skis with me knows that I don't fall. It's not because I don't ski hard. I do. It's because I know my limits and I'm always (or almost always) in balance. But on Saturday morning, I had the biggest wipeout of my life.

Before I get into this, let me just say that Brian and I had a great weekend skiing at Heavenly. Sure, Brian had some equipment problems (what's new?) but we got that solved, we had great conditions and the mountain was virtually empty.

On Friday night we drove through a blizzard to get dinner. While we ate, about 45 minutes, 4 inches of snow had piled on the car. In all there was 18 inches of fresh powder and blue skies when we woke at 7am on Saturday morning. We had breakfast at Heidi's Pancake Haus and were on the mountain by 9am. No one around. Pretty shocking for Saturday. I guess the roads must have been closed for most of the night and it scared people off.

The snow was deep almost everywhere. If you're not used to, it can rip up your leg muscles. Early on, Brian made it clear that he was suffering with his boots and had to take a break. He went off to the Lakeview Lodge to stretch out and I went off to ski by myself.

Up on the Canyon Express at the top of the California side, it was pretty socked in with low clouds. Visibility was maybe 20 feet, but he light was perfectly flat and you could not see variations in the terrain. I should have taken this under consideration, but, foolishly, I didn't, because I thought I was skiing a groomed track, Ridge Run. It was groomed, at least most of it. I made a few turns and headed towards the steeper portion where I hit a bank of power that I did not (and could not) see. I was launch out of my skis, flew through the air and landed face first into a fat pile of snow. It happened so fast I didn't even realize what had happened. One milisecond I was skiing looking into a white world, the next I was buried in snow looking into darkness. It was stunning.

Naturally all this happened right under the lift, so I as I gathering myself and did a sanity/body part check, I could hear people above me saying, nice yard sale, dude! I got up, looked around. I could see my two poles and one ski. I dusted the snow off my body, my hat, my goggles, my face and went searching for the other ski which fortunately turned up quickly. I snapped on the bindings and took off, thankful that I was in one piece.

Throughout the day I started noticing things that were a little awry. There was some pain in my right thumb. I must have hyperextended it when I landed. There was the beginnings of a bruise on the outside of my right wrist. I could have landed on my pole, but I'm not sure. The inner thigh on my left leg was a little tender. And most inexplicably, there was a dried patch of blood under my chin. It's nothing major. No broken bones. No head injury. No need for Ski Patrol. If that's the worst thing that ever happens to me when I ski, I'll be very fortunate. But I'm sore all over and I'm not sure how much it has to do with skiing 3 hard consecutive days for the first time in 2 years and how much was a result of my "cushioned" wipe out in the powder. I'm sure it's nothing a few days rest and some Advil won't cure.

I don't go into the city all that often. It's even rarely that I go in midweek. But I signed up for a marketing class with Berekeley Extension that started last night in downtown SF at 6:30. And when I have to go into the city, I don't want to fight traffic. I take BART. It's quick. It's convenient. It's cheap (cheaper than the toll, gas & pakring). But only when it's working. And it wasn't working last night.

I left work about 5:30. I wanted to have enough time to get into city, figure out where the buidling was and grab some dinner before class. I thought I had it all figured out. It get walk into the class until 7:30. Just an hour late for my first day of class.

I drove to the West Oakland BART. Parked. I had a ticket already, so I just went through the gate, up the escalator and onto the train, which was just sitting on the track. I thought, how lucky, there's a train here. I'll be in the city in the few minutes. I was kicking myself for not remembering to bring my ipod, but it was short ride. I'd be there in about 5 minutes.

Then the announcements started. First it was that there was a computer problem and the train was delayed 20 minutes. Then 25 mintues. Then 30 minutes. All the time, I'm thinking, fuck, I'm stuck here, but what am I going to do? I'm not going to drive into the city. I can still make it to class on time if the train leaves at 6:20, so I just stuck it out. Most people did. They didn't have any other choice.

Then another announcement, 40 minute delay. Then a few minutes someone came on the PA and said they had the problem fixed and that the train would be leaving in 5-10 minutes. A few minutes another announcement saying there was a 45 minute delay. Then they said the computer was fixed and the train would be leaving momentarily. Then it was 50 minute delay. Then an hour. We're they fucking with us? What a joke. I just couldn't take it anymore. At 6:30, the moment my class started, I left BART, got in my car and went over the bridge.

Traffic wasn't so bad, I was in the city in 20 minutes, but I had no idea where to park. I drove around for at least half an hour, first trying to locate the building and then trying to find a parking garage nearby. It was madening. FIghting traffic, not finding a place to park, having no dinner.I wanted to kill someone by the time I finally found a place to park and walked into class. The prof made a joke at my expense, which I clearly was not in the mood for, and then asked me if I was a BART victim. Clearly I wasn't the only one.

When public transportation works, it the greatest thing. But when it doesn't, it's absolutely infuriating.

What should you do when you get a gift from someone that is totally innapropriate from someone who should know better? Do you thank them and hope that you never get a gift like that again? Do you thank them with a caveat? Do you say nothing?

I found a centipede in my shower yesterday morning. I couldn't believe it. At first I didn't know what it was. I just saw this brownish/black thing against the stark white floor of my shower. Was it a clump of hair? Was it a pile of lint? I had no idea. But as I got closer, I could see the legs, I could see the segmented body. It was a fucking centipede.

I grabbed the squeegee and lift it up and out of the shower. It was small, maybe an inch an half long, not one of the long monsters that would frequently invade my apartment in Samoa (and once bit me). But it's the little ones you have to watch out for. They are quiet and their bites, so I hear, hurt a hell of lot more than the larger ones.

I thought I left the damn centipedes behind in the islands, but I guess not. Hopefully that's the first and last centipede to invade my Oakland oasis.

This morning, before I went to the gym, I made a quick stop by the garbage to throw out the refuse from the litter box. I walked down the stairs and turned the corner and I could see someone standing in the area where are the dumpsters are. I knew what was going on immediately. A fucking bum was relieving himself on my apartment building. C'mon, dude.

The guy saw me and tried to hide, but I was carrying a sack of cat shit that needed to tossed and I wasn't about to turn around. I press forward, and I see this with his dick in his hand standing in front of a puddle of urine, and looking seriously embarrassed. This is happening in Alameda. Fucking Alameda.

Now Alameda is not the lily white suburb of San Francisco that it was in the days when the Naval Air Base was operating at the tip of the island, but it's a far, far way from the city where, if you don't come to expect this sort of behavior, you at least tolerate it to some extent. My apartment bills itself as a "luxury apartment home" and the houses across the street have yachts and sailboats moored out back. So the last thing I expect to see is some transients pissing on my building in broad daylight.

Since I had a good idea that Russell and I were going to be only people up at the house this weekend, I decided it was time to pick up all the clothes that have lined my bedroom floor or been stuffed in the closet up to Tahoe and run them all through the washing machine. I brought four bags of laundry. Russell was laughing at me when I jammed them all in the Pig, but, fuck it, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to clean and purge.

So we get up here, move all the bags into the house and I start running loads. The first load goes fine, but I use up the last of the laundry powder. When I put the second load it, I just grabbed the plastic bottle and started pouring it on top of my clothes before I looked at the label. As I was pouring, I noticed the word "Bleach" prominently featured on the label. Fuck!

I tried to wash of the bleach under the flume of water streaming down on the clothes, but to no avail. Large white and magenta spots started to appear all over the clothes. Sigh. I just ran the load and just planned to deal with it when it was all dry.

There were a few causalities, a few shirts I liked, a pair of khakis from the Gap, some sheets, but nothing in there was less than 5 years old and in general, my wardrobe is pretty dated. I haven't bought much in the way of clothes since I got back from Samoa which means that most of what I wear is at least two years old. Some it dates back to college.

So it's probably time to rid myself of some of these old duds anyway and if it takes a laundry room mishap to force my hand, so be it.

Is this what happens when wingers run every branch of our government or this just the logical ad absurdum conclusion to the Justice Department's endless domestic War on Terror in post-Columbine America?

Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding

A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday that the "writings" that got him arrested are being taken out of context.

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

Poole disputes that he was threatening anyone.

"It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing," said Poole. "Half the people at high school know me. They know I'm not that stupid, that crazy."

On Thursday, a judge raised Poole's bond from one to five thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.

Poole is being held at the Clark County Detention Center.

Is common sense is that shockingly uncommon? Forget that the "authorities" think this constitutes a felony and successfully raised this kid's bail because he's such a threat to society. If my grandparents did that to me, I might do something that actually is illegal, like burn down their house with them in it.

I'm not sure how to catorgize this post as. It could be "televsion", "cinema", "travel", or "I'm a complete idiot", but i'll go with "it really sucks when" because it really sucked.

I skied Sunday at Kirkwood with Russell and Dino. We got there early, skied hard and left early, around 2pm, because we were all beat and Dino took a nasty spill on his snowboard, smacked his head against the mountain and was mildly concussed. We got back to the house around 3, I had a shower, finished up my laundry and hit the road around 3:30 thinking I would get ahead of the weather (it was suppsoed to snow all night) and the traffic, and make it home in time for the Academy Awards. I was wrong on all three accounts.

I was hauling ass out of town and then traffic came to a complete halt for 45 minutes for no apparent reason on the 50 just before Placerville. When that finally cleared up, it was smooth sailing until I got just west of Sacramento when the skies busted loose and it was raining so hard it was giving me a headache. The pace slowed down to about 35. It was dark. I couldn't see shit out the windows. It got so bad, I pulled over and went to Target to get some kitty litter and let some of the traffic get ahead of me.

When I finally got home just before 8, four and half hours after I left Tahoe (the ride normally takes 3), Chris Rock was introducing Gweneth Paltrow as the only woman ever to breast feed an Apple. It was the only joke I heard from him. I saw Jamie Foxx win, that was great. I saw Clint win twice. And that was it. The show was over, I missed it and it was time for Barbara Walters.

Days Skied This Season: 11

Yesterday I was going to my friend Michael's house and I got a flat. I was driving down the 101 and I heard that thump, thump, thump, thump coming from the right rear of the car. Fuck. I pulled over immediately. Got out of the car. Looked down at the tire and, sure enough, it was flatter than Kansas. At least it wasn't raining. So I pulled the mini spare and the jack out of the boot and got to work. Just as I put the lug wrench to the nuts, I hear this guy say, you want some help? I look up and there's this guy in an Oakley Blades and a orange vest looking down at me. Sure, why not. He grabbed a serious jack from his tow truck and changed the tire in less than five minutes. It was surreal. It turns he's part of the new Los Angeles Freeway Motor Service which helps stranded motorists "to relieve some of the transportation delays associated with your daily commute." I'm here to tell you that the program works.

I know I promised lots of pictures from Tahoe this weekend, but it's not going to happen, because like the idiot that I am, I forgot the camera in my other jacket. Next time. I promise. Take it to the bank.

I came home from the casino early Sunday morning around 3:30am. My nose was clogged from the combination of cigarette and cigar smoke that hangs like a low fog on the gaming floor. I went into the bathroom to grab the little of nasal saline spray in my toilet bag and accidentally "rubbed" the tip of my thumb against my razor. It didn't really hurt at the time, but it's in such an annoying spot that it's become unbelievably irritating. Note to self: stop being such a dumbass.

I like my life to move along smoothly. I like the car to start in the morning. I like to be on time. I like everything to work they way it should. And I sure as shit like the toilet to flush when it's supposed to, like after I've taken a honking big crap, for example.

I've been to some strange places and shit down some seriously questionable holes. But there's one advantage to shitting down a hole, namely a hole doesn't backup turning your toilet into a fecal soup threatening to overflow into your otherwise pristine bathroom and ruin your life.

I just moved into my place, so I didn't have the implements of destruction needed to take care of the situation. I tried to borrow a plunger from the maintenance guys, but every time I went down to their office, no one was there. I would come back up to my place, note that the water had gone down (leaving a lovely ups-brown excrement scum in its wake) and I would decide to try to flush again, hoping that it would finally take all the shit down with it. No luck. You don't have to tell me, I know, I let this go on for far too long.

Last night, with my sister and her newborn coming over with my mom to hang out, see the apartment and meet my cats, I had to take of it once and for all. I went to Walgreens to buy a plunger. They had two options, the standard pink suction cup on a wooden stick and some new-fangled "master plunger". I too a look at the sorry thing on a stick and bought the latter. Big mistake.

I brought it, thinking my worries were about to end. I plunged away. The master plunger sucked. Literally. It sucked in shit water and spit it out all over the place leaving the bathroom a mess and the toilet still stopped up. Fucking piece of shit. I tried a few more times and then gave up and decided to run the fan, light some vanilla incense to mask the smell with a plan to escort my sister or my mom to the gym restroom, should the need arise, which, of course, it did, but without incident.

In the morning, I tracked down Roman, one of the maintenance guys, who lent me a plunger that looked startlingly like the one I passed up at Walgreens. I brought it up to my place and plunged away, but the plunger kept inside-outing itself instead of clearing the shit-strewn toilet. It was nasty, it smelled bad and looked worse. It was making me gag, but I finally got the thing to work and cleared up the plumbing issue once and for all.

The next big question is do I have the chutzpah to take back the "master plunger" to Walgreens? Something to think about on the way home.

How did people survive before remote control? I can't be getting up from the couch everytime I want to change the program. Honestly, I can't believe how dependent I am on flipping through TV channels for entertainment. I don't know how much longer I can wait before I have to buy a replacement.

Natural disasters are part of life on earth. I've been through my fair share with all the earthquakes in California, but I've never encountered anything like the images that I've seen on TV the last few days.

I've traveled through a good chunk of the hardest hit areas in Southeast Asia. I was in Thailand for Christmas and New Years exactly ten years ago. I stayed for 2 weeks on the hard hit island of Penang in Malaysia. I spent 2 months in Sumatra back in 95. For 3 weeks I stayed on Island called Nias off the east coast that was really badly hit. Last I heard their hadn't been any contact with the island. Nias is a surfing mecca and like much of the world, it's shoreline is heavily populated. There would have been no warning. Just a massive wall of water crashing down and evaporating lives.

It's frightening to even consider. Just take a moment a think about how you would feel if a massive wave exploded into your living room, taking with it everything you own, some of your loved ones, and your pets.

Well, it's bad enough that the tsunami hit these heavily populated areas. The devastation is horrendous. But it hit during the highest tourist season of the year. That easily could have been me, naked, with a broken pelvis, clinging to life on a fucking tree while I watched people I was just having breakfast with swept out to sea. It must have been hell for everyone who was unlucky enough to be on the Indian Ocean rim. My heart goes out to all, locals and visitors, who were affected by this tragedy.

Now I know where to go to find free online poker. I don't need 54 unsolcited comments on my blog anymore. Enough already.

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas. The massive center honoring his life sits in the small central California town. But the public library named after him along with the only 2 others in Salinas will be shutting it's doors as part of a budget crisis that will also reduce the police force, downsize the fire department and mothball all public recreation programs. Salinas will become the largest city in the country with no public library.

It's a sad day for democracy when public libraries are closing their doors. But the combination of changes in Salinas, at the same time reducing protective services and shutting down public recreation and leisure, is a recipe for disaster. I think it's safe to predict that something horrible is going to happen in Salinas in the not too distant future.

Until this weekend, I hadn't bought a new computer game in years. When I worked for Electronic Arts, I had every game every made at my fingertips. I think the only game I bought when I was working there was Quake III, but I had to have it because we played together online after work all the time.

Anyway, the original Half-Life was such a sweet game (Game of the Year back in 1998) that when I saw Half-Life 2 for 40 bucks at Best Buy, I snapped it up. I've been waiting for this one for a long time. It was supposed to come out a few years ago, but has been delayed for various reasons. Now that's its here (and on sale) I had to have to it.

Well, if game play is the only measure, HL2 was certainly worth the wait. The graphics are beautiful. The environment is rich. The storyline in compelling. Everything about the game is fantastic. Except the setup. And first impressions are everything, right?

Electronic entertainment companies have been burned so badly by piracy that they are taking whatever measures necessary to ensure that their games are not duped and resold. If you buy a game from Valve, which means Half Life 2, then you have to deal with Steam.

Steam is the engine that is used to verify and run the game. In a word, it sucks. The first problem is that you have to be online to verify the game. I installed it, but I couldn't play until I managed to get online. This was such a disappointment. Long gone are the days of bringing home a game, opening the box, installing and playing in a matter of minutes. HL2 has 5 disks. Which means it took forever to install. That's okay because that means more game for me.

However, I don't (or didn't) have an account on my notebook at home, so I had to get an account (Netscape) and register online. Only a minor pain. Then I had to install Steam. Then I had to verify the game and download god knows how many files which took hours. There's a message on the website:

Product Authentication Delay When Installing Half-Life 2
Some consumers may experience delays in authenticating Half-Life 2 during the installation process. This is due to the high volume of consumers who have purchased Half-Life 2 and are installing the game, which is causing high traffic on the Steam authentication servers. Please inform any Half-Life 2 customers that encounter this situation to keep trying, as this is a temporary delay.

That's helpful. I don't know when they put that message up on their site (it's undated), but the game has been out for a few weeks so depending on your definition of temporary this is either not a big deal or a big deal. I tend to think the latter.

Anyway, then and only then could I play, but only when I was online. I can't play the fucking game unless I'm attached to the Net. I try to start the game and get this infuriating message that says, "The operation cannot be completed when Steam is in offline mode." Well, fuck you, too. There's a way to do it and I talked for a long time with a nice young lady in tech support (an Indian, big surprise) who told me what to do, but, alas, it did not work.

There's no information about it on the so-called Half Life 2 Knowledge Base

Now, I'm pissed because I can't take the game back. The stores won't accept it because once the game has been installed once, you cannot install it on another machine. Which also means that I can't sell it. That's seriously fucked up. That's always one of the things that I can tell myself before I buy a game. I'll buy it, but if it sucks, I'll turn around and throw it up on eBay. That is no longer an option.

I honestly don't know what to do about this. I can write a letter to complaints@vugames.com, but what's the point of adding another email to huge digital pile that must be amassing on their servers? At some point I'm sure I'll be able to figure out how to play offline but what a enormous fucking hassle this has turned into.

On Saturday I ventured out to Marine World, only one day before the park shuts down for the season. I got free tickets when I gave blood earlier in the month, so even though I don't ever want to go to an amusement park on the weekend, it didn't bother me that much because I didn't have to shell out 45 dollars to get in.

The place was packed. It was hard to navigate through the seas of people. Sharks patrolling. Walruses playing around. We saw the sea lion show. Cute but corny. We had lunch. We went to the dolphin show and had great seats (we got there 20 minutes early) when we found out that the entire park had lost electricity and they couldn't open the grates to let the dolphins into the show pool.

We headed into the land animal section. Goats. Prairie dogs. A trio of adorable tiger cubs. Cheetahs looking pensive. A cougar hiding in the brush. There was sort of show at the tiger pen with two massive Bengal tigers, one standard one white, showing off for little pieces of meat. Since there was no electricity, no PA, and not much of a show.

Butterflies. Kids feeding apples to pliant giraffes. People were gathering at the killer whale show and we joined them to see an abbreviated show. Awesome because we got to see Shuka in action without the "show" for the kids. The whale is amazing. Like an Idiot I didn't bring my camera.

It was at the whale show that we found out that the park was shutting down and people should head to the exit where they'd get a rain check ticket. We thought about it and decided we should probably head out as fast as possible to get ahead of the crowd, get to the car and get the hell out. But it wasn't to be.

By the time we hit the parking lot, there was already a massive line. With no option other than waiting around, we got in line with the rest of the lemmings and spent 2 hours in a slow moving parking lot. Do you know how long two hours seems when you're going less than one mile an hour? It's interminable. We got in line with the car at 5:01pm. We listened to the traffic reports and the news. We watched the sun set. We listened to Prairie Home Companion. Just after 7pm, we emerged onto city streets. It was excruciating.

It turns out that we were lucky. We could have been behind the accident on I-80 where some driver hit a utility pole and left "power lines draped across" the highway and been stuck behind blocked traffic for hours. Or we could have been one of the unlucky few who had to be rescued from the rollercoasters (none of which we were able to ride, I might add).

It's over now. Marine World is closed for the season, so we'll have to go back next spring on a weekday.

I got a letter the other day from the City of Oakland which is still puzzling me despite numerous phone calls to state and city officials. The salutation is "Dear Business Owner (s)", which is weird, because I've never owned a business. Then it starts, "Thank you for replying to our notice regarding the AB63 Business Tax Registration Project." Again weird, because I don't recall replying to any such notice. Then it continues, "We will need additional information to determine if you are subject to the City of Oakland's Business Tax an/or your tax liability." Fuck, I'm being audited, by THE CITY OF OAKLAND!

After one abortive attempt to replace the broken glass in the Subie (SafeLite Auto Glass called me yesterday as I was on the way to the appointment to let me know that they didn't have the glass in stock), my car is now secured and looking good instead of like a deadbeat, cardboard modified piece of crap.

The crazy thing is the total to replace the window was $274 and change. That means with my $250 deductible my insurance company will only have to pay out slightly more than 24 bucks. If they even hint at raising my rates I will flay them.

Today, I got in my car to go to the gym and as I drove down the street, there's was this odd crinkling sound coming from the back. I turned and looked quickly as I was driving, but didn't see anything. At the stop light, where I had more time, I turned completely around and saw that my right rear window had been shattered. The crinkling was the from small pieces of glasses falling into the station wagon as I drove. I'm sure I swore something awful under my breath and I didn't even know then that the dude who busted my window stole my gym bag with climbing shoes carabineered to the outside.

I turned around and parked to assess the damage. I don't know how I didn't notice it before I got in the car. There was glass everywhere. On top of my things. In the little whole that the seat beat comes out of. On the ground beside my car. Everything that was in the car last night was there, except my Camelbak Hawg gym bag. I shook my head in disbelief. Went upstairs. First I called the cops. Then I called my insurance company.

The officer came out quickly, but basically to tell me that he wouldn't dust for prints (had I asked?) because it would be a waste of time. I would probably never see my gear again. I should check around for the climbing shoes in dumpsters around the area. Great.

Then I walked down the street to Safeway to get some cardboard. The boarded up car looked pathetic, completely insecure and cosmetically a joke, but it would suffice for a day or two. I removed anything from the car that anyone could possibly want to steal and went inside to make arrangements to get the glass replaced.

I called the local Subaru dealer, but there were a waste of time. They didn't have the part in stock and it would take at least 5 days to get it in, which they couldn't guarantee. I did find out that the window cost 179 bucks. My insurance company called back to tell me that they would be sending someone out from SafeLite Auto Glass to fix the window, but the earliest they could schedule me was for next week. I looked online and found that SafeLite had an office in Concord up the way. I called and made an appointment for the next day.

My deductible is only $250 bucks, which is low, but that's $250 that I don't have. Plus to replace all the things in my bag, not to mention the bag itself which cost about 70 bucks, is going to run another 200 or so. The only good news is that I thought I had my old passport in the bag and worried sick about losing it. It's such a great piece of my personal history. But I later found it in the car. Fa'afetai le Atua.

So now I can't climb until I pony up for a new pair of shoes and a chalk bag.

It all started innocently enough. A comment here. A comment there. But more and more, I'm getting these absurd spam comments and always, for some reason, on ancient posts from my site. The latest, just a few minutes ago, is on a post that I wrote in April of last year.

Is anybody else having this problem? Is there anything I can do to stop it?

I know that there isn't someone manually entering these comments or they would stick them on the most recent posts, so there must be some kind of blog spamming bot to do their little dirty work for them. The absurd part of it how the hell do these people who are behind it convince themselves that spamming a blog is going to be anything but negative for them? As if I'm going to go online to a new pharmacy selling generic Viagra or hawking barely legal porn. Idiots from some "going concern" that is cheapening the value of my blog with their despicable sales methods.

Every once in while, ok , a few times a week, my housemate Roy, a 40+ year old South African, will come home shit-faced and start yelling all sorts of crazy stuff. His latest bit of fun is to burst into my room and tell me that I have to leave. That always makes me feel really good despite the fact that he forgets about it in the morning.

Roy tends to be argumentative at the best of times and a complete ass hole at the worst. And he knows it too. He's classic example of what the Aussies call a "shit-stirrer". Roy told me that several times that he has come out of the bar to find that his tires have been slashed or someone has poured crazy glue in his door locks. Once, he said, someone broke into his car and poured crazy glue down the ignition. Now he uses a screwdriver to start his Nissan Pathfinder.

It's no fun dealing with belligerent drunks anywhere, but especially in your own home. It came as no surprise to me when Lilla, Roy's erstwhile wife, told me that they were getting divorced and the only thing preventing it was that they still owned this condo we live in. It's not on the market yet, but clearly it will be soon, so I need to get out of here. The problem is that it continues to be hard to find a place where I can live with the kittens.

So I'm standing in the back office at the Mountain Sharpshooters shop in Lionshead Village and I'm catching a bit of a conversation between Kurt, the manager, and Pepa, a cute, but very spoiled Argentinian girl, about proper attire for the store. Pepa is wearing a pair of red cords and we're supposed to wear black pants in the shop.

Kurt comes fuming into the back where I'm standing, his face red like something you'd see in a Popeye cartoon and proceeds to smash the shit out of the drywall, making a fist-sized hole about shoulder high. This would be bad enough but there are 3 or 4 other fist-sized holes in the dry wall in the back office.

This is just one more indication that Kurt does not exactly have the right mentality to manage a group of J-1 foreign student photographers, even in a low stress environment (at least it would be low stress without Kurt around) like ours.

Never before in my life have I had credit card denied. Then it happened twice in Los Angeles. First time at Sportmart. Second time at Big 5. It was both embarassing and annoying. It wan annoying because I haven't even come close to my credit limit. I'm not within 80% of it. And I've had this credit card for over 10 years and have not once failed to make a payment on time.

So what the fuck?

At Sportmart, I called US Bank and the women at customer said for me to tell the merchant to call the credit authorizing company. I said, what does that mean. She said, it means tell the merchant to call their credit authorization company. I said, I understand what you said, but what does it mean. She said, tell the merchant to call their credit authorization company. I wanted to reach through the phone and rip her heart out. I told the merchant to call their credit authorization company and the transaction went through, but it took about 20 minutes.

At Big 5, the next day, the same thing happened. Only this time when the chick at Big 5 called the credit authorization company, the transaction was denied. What the fuck again? I called US Bank and this time the customer service rep tells me that they put a random hold on my account to do a security check. Well, thanks for securing my account, but next time how about informing me so I don't waste my time nor look like a total ass in front of the sales clerk. He said he would "reinstate" my account and I should be able to make the transaction in 10 minutes, which I did, but it took another 10 minutes of waiting around. Did I really want to buy thermal underwear from Big 5 that badly? I suppose I did.

Now I want to cancel my credit card, because they've been such pricks, but I've been with them for a long time, it's the only credit card I have at the moment, and I accrue miles on KLM, my favorite airline. What to do.

It really sucks when you're just about to publish a post, the computer crashes and you haven't saved what you've written.

I was writing a post about my visit to my sister's second grade class last week when the computer decided to spontaneously reboot. It was a good story too. I might try to recompose it when I get to where I'm going and I have some time.