Life in General Archive

The explanation usually given for the "stuck on 39" running joke is that he had celebrated his birthday on-air when he turned 39, and decided to do the same the following year, because "there's nothing funny about 40." Upon his death, having celebrated his 39th birthday 41 times, some newspapers continued the joke with headlines such as "Jack Benny Dies - At 39?"

Happy Festivus to all!!!!

Diablo got more than a dusting of snow yesterday. There are some amazing pictures of the frosty, snow-blanketed Mt. Diablo on Flickr here and here.

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.

Ok, so I'm not really going to recover my stuff that was stolen when I was in Chile, but I'm well underway in the process of replacing everything. Here's what I've got so far:

• Canon G9
• 80GB iPod Classic
• Oakley Jackknife 6.0 frames & lensesv
• 4GB SanDisk Extreme III Memory card
• House keys
• Leather Wallet

So far, it has cost me about $785 to replace everything. An expensive lesson. I'm not going to replace it all. I can't even remember everything in the bag. And some things like the wallet and the iPod needed to be replaced anyway.

In an increasingly common occurrence, area man Andrew Hecht was rushed to Berkeley Alta Bates hospital following a major cardiac arrest induced by his two cats, Makelani and Filemu.

The events unfolded around 10:33pm when Mr. Hecht opened his bedroom window before going to sleep because of the unusually warm evening. In a sleep deprived state, also caused by the cats, he opened the window just a bit too much, investigators said. They estimate sometime between 10:33 and 10:47, the cats slipped silently out the window.

Mr. Hecht was able to rescue both animals, return them safely inside and call 911 before losing consciousness. He was rushed to the hospital after EMT first responders discovered him passed out the floor of his living room.

"It was ugly", said EMT Jarvis Greenview, the first licensed medical person to arrive responding to the man down call. "I arrive on scene. I notice the 'man down' is still down. And the cats were just sitting on him. Surveying the situation and surroundings, it was clear as day: the cats did it."

In the past year alone, Greenview has been called to the scene of 43 cat-related coronary incidents.

Mr. Hecht was rushed for emergency treatment to Alta Bates where he revived after several hours in the operating room.

"Mr. Hecht is lucky to be alive", said James Gostowski, Head of Cardiology at Alta Bates. "Feline-induced Myocardial Infarction is one our top killers. It's one the most fatal forms of cardiac arrest."

Feline-induced Myocardial Infarction (FIMI) is an acute episode of heart disease marked by the death or damage of heart muscle due to insufficient blood supply to the heart muscle usually as a result of a coronary thrombosis or a coronary occlusion. It is characterized especially by chest pain, shortness of breath and proximity to one or more cats.

Aasif Gupta, a third year cardiology intern at Alta Bates, summed it up. "Sure, cats can be cute, and, while not fully researched, the healing powers of purring is undisputed in the medical community. But they are killers." Gupta added, "you'd be foolish to keep one or more at home."

Mr. Hecht will remain at Alta Bates for several days under close observation. When reached for comment, Makelani and Filemu just stared blankly.

Somehow managed to score "best original costume" at the halloween party I went to last night. The hat made the costume, but the ensemble was pretty impressive since I picked most of it (vest, tie, shoes, jacket) up at Goodwill earlier in the day. The pink and grey stripped socks (not pictured) also were a big hit. I still really need a cool pocket watch to finish the costume, but it obviously went over pretty well.

Here's the Wonderland crew, Chesire Cat, The Queen of Hearts, and, of course, Alice:

Here are some bullets from the the three day weekend

• Rode 50 miles with the Yelllowjackets in Marin. Started to lose my voice.
• Had a 4:40 flight from Oakland to Burbank. Got to the airport 60 minutes early. The place was a ghost town. I breezed through check-in and security in under 5 minutes
• First plane was grounded because of a pressurization problem. Boarded second plane and pulled back but before we hit the runway, we had to head back to the terminal because of engine problems. Better to discover that on the ground, but still annoying. Had to get a second boarding pass. Suck. Boarded second plane (third for my bags, with any luck) and landed in Burbank 3 hours behind schedule. Festival seating rocks!
• Picked up my Mercury Grand Marquis from Hertz (thanks to Hotwire). What a fucking boat.
• Got lost on my way to the restaurant even with the Hertz "Neverlost" GPS system in the dash. Went up and down Caheunga five times. Turns out I was on the wrong Caheunga. Had to be talked down by Michael which was tough since my voice was shot.
• At the restaurant, our waiter, who couldn't pronounce an Italian word to save his life, brought me angelotti (pasta) instead the angello (lamb) which I ordered. Odd since I asked for it medium rare. I ordered mint tea with honey and lemon, but it smelled like artichoke. Great to see Michael, Josh & Jason. Seeing them was really all I did since I could barely talk.
• Breakfast at my Uncle's house in Encino with Aunt, Mom, Sister, Nephew, Brother and his girlfriend. Aunt has a new Wheaton Terrier—Ethel to go with Lucy. Very cute, but needs a haircut.
• Almost had a panic attack when the key Michael gave me to his front door wouldn't go in the lock. Eventually I got it working after Michael talked me down. He's a saint.
• Alex & Becky, my little brother and sister were bar mitzvah'd in the same chapel by the same rabbi and same cantor almost 25 years to the day of my (and my brother's) bar mitzvah. Very surreal. Alex & Becky were amazing. I was stunned.
• My voice had been coming back, but blew up when I was talking to my dad's sister at the reception. Couldn't really talk to anyone after that. Kinda unfortunate since there were people I haven't seen in a long time and probably won't see for a while that I simply could not talk to. Most notably my first cousin who is married to the mayor of San Diego, also in attendance.
• Drove the Merc 62 miles and it cost a mere $18.71 to fill up. Yikes.
• Hertz's "Neverlost" directed to to their offsite rental parking lot rather than the return location. More panic.
• No problems this time on the Southwest flight home.

Any day you fail to carve out out even a short time to spend doing what you really want to do is a wasted day.

--Hakan Nesser, Borkmann's Point

Words to live by.

Almost every day I pass by this memorial to a cyclist killed by a car. It's right around the corner from my place. It is always lovingly maintained. The bike has been stolen and is always replaced. The white bike is a stark reminder of how unsafe the roads can be and how dangerous my new hobby is. But the message is clear:

SLOW THE FUCK DOWN OR YOU'RE GOING TO KILL US!

I try to be careful but as I share the roads with cars, there's only so much I can do.

More photos here.

It sucks to lose things. It really sucks. You've earned money. Paid taxes on that money. Diligently researched what you want to buy. Shopped around for the best price. You've invested a lot of time and energy into "stuff". And then just to lose it? Well that fucking sucks.

It's even worse if what you lose is something that's either precious and irreplaceable or expensive. With a camera, it's often both. You have the cost of the replacing the camera and the memory card and the case and whatever other accessories might have gone missing. Plus you lose the film or memory card and all the pictures you've taken that just can't be replaced.

I once lost a camera while I was skiing in Turkey. It was at the end of my Turkish
adventure. I regretted losing the camera, even though it was a shitty Olympus point and shoot. It had a roll of pictures in there from my day of skiing and it was attached to an old school mini tripod that my grandfather had given me. I think it fell out of my backpack, but I'll never know for sure.

I thought I had a repeat of this event this week. When I got back from Santa Cruz on Sunday, I couldn't find my new Canon G9. It simply disappeared. It wasn't in either of the bags I brought although I searched both thoroughly several times. It wasn't in any pockets of clothing. It wasn't in the cooler. It wasn't in any of the places I normally stashed it. It wasn't in the car (or so I thought). I figured maybe I left in on the roof of the car when I drove off, which I've done before (thankfully not with a camera). Or maybe I left it at my friend Karen's house. I just didn't know.

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the last time I used it and the only thing I could come up with was that I had taken some shots of Santa Cruz from West Cliff just before we went off to meet Karen. After that it was all blank. It was all but written off. But the morning, I had an epiphany that I had put it in the glove compartment. I couldn't remember doing it. Couldn't imagine why I would. But when I went to check it, there it was, sitting in the glove compartment, safe and sound.

*Of course, this is sort of a stupid thing to say. If you're looking for something and you find it in the first place you look, it is de facto the last place you look. But I think you know what I mean.

I went for a little ride after work today. It was fucking hot. Scorching in the city. Over 90 degrees in Emeryville, which is really unusual. I saddled up around 6pm,. It had cooled off somewhat, but the sun was still beating down on me. I took two frozen water bottles with me, but it wasn't really enough. Within 45 minutes, they were both warm. I headed over to Lake Merritt and wound my way through the Oakland hills to Montclair. It was a killer. I got lost, ended up on some unnecessarily steep hills.

About 10 miles and one hour into the ride, I hit Joaquin Miller Park and it got really steep. I don't know the grade, but it's enough to get me out of the saddle for most of its 5.7 miles. I think I would have made it to the top, but I'll never know, because right near the summit, my chain seized up and I toppled over. Lucky for me, I was only going about 3 miles an hour, so breaking my fall with my hand was no big deal.

It always sucks to go over. It's stunning in the moment just before you crash when you realize that you're going to hit the pavement and there's nothing you can do about it. It all happened so fast, there was no way to clip out. I was just along for the ride on the machine.

This past week, while I was down in LA for my high school reunion, the Governator gave the commencement address at the graduation. His daughter is in the class. Apparently Jack Nicholson was there.

And then I went on I went on from there and did the action movies. And of course I broke all the rules again, because you're not supposed to go from action movies to comedies. I went to comedies and all of those kinds of things. And since then, of course, between Jack Nicholson and myself, we have won three Oscars. (Laughter) They're all his, but who wants to go into details right now? It doesn't really matter.

I guess Jack had a relative in the class as well.

Ok, time to tell tales. Actually, there's really not much to tell. Like I said, I got pressured into going to my high school reunion. Come on, everyone's doing it. You know you wanna.

Anyway, I succumbed and headed down to LA. First of all, it was great to see my old friends. You know who are you. I see them a few times a year, but it's never enough. We've been friends since the 7th or 8th grade. It's more than 25 years now and I've known them way longer than I haven't. Way longer.

I stayed with Josh who was housesitting a brand new 8 million dollar homage to minimalism in the hills above the Beverly Hills Hotel. More on that later. Saturday morning, I had breakfast with Andrew, Josh & Michael at The Griddle, with their stupidly large pancakes.

That afternoon, Josh and I went down to Venice Beach and watched the disappointing Belmont Stakes at some bar/grill along Washington Blvd. Peter met us in his new Bently. We went back to the house to get ready and then it was off to the reunion.

Ok, so here's the meat of the story. The reunion was held in the north quad of our high school campus in Brentwood. I hadn't been at the school in more than 15 years. It was really odd to be back—the beginning of what felt to me like one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

I headed off today down to LA for my 20th High School reunion. (ok, so there haven't been 20 of these things, but it's been 20 years since I graduated). I have religiously skipped all previous reunions. The way I've always figured it, I hang out and am in touch with my close friends from school. And the other ones, well there might be some I'd like to catch up, but there are many more that I couldn't care less about. Why would I want to spend any time at all with them?

I hated high school. I was awkward and socially retarded (ok, so little has changed there), and did I really need to be reminded of that? Even in my tiny class of 64, there were people (mostly girls) that I didn't utter a single word to in six years of school. Would I talk to them now? Probably not.

Anyway, after excessive nagging and cajoling from my friends, I decided to go, so I'm flying down to LA tonight for the big event tomorrow.

It's Earth Day, so what the fuck, go save the planet. I'm a big fan 17, 20, 21, 33 and 47. Number 4 is a joke though.

I recently accepted the challenge of cycling in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure fund-raising event. The Tour de Cure is a series of cycling events held in over 80 cities nationwide.

The Tour is a ride with different route lengths from a leisurely 10-mile course to a demanding 100-mile journey. 100 miles is a bit too intense for me at this point, but I'm going to push my limits and go for 50 miles (the most I have ridden to this point is around 40). The goal is to have fun and get some exercise while supporting the American Diabetes Association's mission: to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes.

So on May 4th (a mere two weeks from now), I will saddle up and ride along with Team Schwab in our company's efforts to raise $125,000. My personal goals here are very modest. Only 200 bucks. Every little bit helps even if you can only give a few dollars. Of course, your contribution is tax-deductible.

It's fast and easy to support this great cause - you can make your donation online. I appreciate whatever support you can give.

More information on the American Diabetes Association, its programs and diabetes in general can be found at the Association's Web site.

***UPDATE*** [2:28PM - 4/22] Got my first donation from my first cousin Rana (incidentally the First Lady of San Diego). I'm 1/8th of the way there. Please help me get to 200 bucks, MAKE A DONATION TODAY.

***UPDATE***[3:24PM - 4/22] Thanks to Pete I now have 63% of my $200 total. Of course, Pete meant to bribe me to attend our 20th high school reuninion in June. I'm sure you'll have more noble reasons to donate. MAKE A DONATION TODAY.

Ok, so I must be getting old because I just bought my first recliner. But this isn't your father's recliner. This ain't no fricken Lazy-Boy. It's more like a work of art.

I'd been looking at this chair for months and months. Every time I went down to 4th street in Berkeley to go shoping, I'd stop in at Slater Marinoff, I'd stop in and sit the in the chair. But I didn't buy it, because it was insanely expensive. The name should tell you all you need to know, Slater Marinoff. This isn't exactly IKEA.

The furniture and decor inside is exquisite. The smallish woman who runs the place reminds me of Edna Mode, the pint-sized fashion designer to superheroes from The Incredibles.

I just started a started a job in the city (SF) and I notice that just about every working age male carries some sort of messenger bag. Where younger men used to carrry backpacks and white collar guys, brief cases, now everyone has a Timbut2 orJack Spade or Frietag or whatever. To me, this is just an excuse for men to carry a purse. Do I carry one? Of course. I need to a place to store my umbrella (weather in the city is notorious unpredictable, my book (I need something to do on the bus, right?), my iPod, keys, gloves, etc. etc.

Not everyone can say they met Hitler, but I can.

Back when I worked for Sharpshooters, our psycho manager, Kurt, had a staffing problem. He was stuck dealing mostly with spoiled J-1 Argies who didn't like to show up for work when the snow was good. He did everything he could to keep the staff full and our sales numbers up. In midseason, he hired this Brazilian guy. His name was Hitler. I am not shitting you. Hitler. In fact, I know I have a picture of him somewhere. I'll have to scare it up. Naturally, Hitler is snowboader.

Now Kurt had a bit of a whacked sense of humor. On afternoons when the store when the store was full of super rich Vail skiers dropping huge $$$$ on really bad photographs, Kurt liked to shout at the top of his lungs, "Hey Hitler, get over here!" You can imagine the reaction.

The other day when we were at the French Deli for lunch, I was telling this story to Russell and Brian and we were all cracking up about it. When we finished our lunch, this woman came over to clear our plates. She looked so familiar, like one of the Argie managers at Sharphooters, only quite a bit heavier - I guess working at a French Deli will do that to you. Anyway, so we had one of the oddest conversations ever (recorded by Russell):

Andrew: Didn't you used to work for Sharpshooters?
Girl: Yeah
Andrew: Are you from Argentina?
Girl: Yup
Andrew: What's your name again?
Girl: Liza
Andrew: Oh, right. You probably don't remember me but I worked at Sharpshooters four years ago.
Liza: (nods)
Andrew: Do you remember Kurt Warner?
Liza: Sure
Andrew: Do you know Hitler?
Liza: (less sure) Yeah

She smirked, I think, walked away, and then avoided us for the remainder of our lunch. Hard to imagine why. :)

I sent my final check in to Capital One today and now the Subie is free and clear. I have no other debt. No student loans. No credit card debt. No Mortgage. I feel like a free man, and, damn does it feel good.

One of the reasons It feels good is because I'm not directly contributing to the fiscal disaster that's facing this country. My fellow citizens (and American persons) owe more than 1 trillion dollars to the credit card companies. Who knows what untold dollar amount is owed to banks in underwater mortgages. And worst of all, the US is like some piss poor debtor country with almost 10 trillion in debt.

This is the legacy of Reagan, Bush, and that retarded chimp that now occupies the White House. Thank you, Republicans. Fucking morons. Thanks for caring more about the unborn children of other people and frozen embryos than our balance sheet. I'm putting all my money in euros and pounds.

Here are some details:

• U.S. National Debt Clock
• America's Total Debt Report
• When credit cards put you in jeopardy

Before I headed out to the airport this morning, I made a little humanitarian mission. Last week I received a letter that should have gone to my same address on 57th street, but the handwriting wasn't shit hot, so it ended up in my mailbox on 59th street. It was from an inmate at San Quentin State Pen.

As soon as I got it, I was torn about whether or not to open it up. I was just so curious. Wouldn't you be?The letter sat on my coffee table for a couple of days before I picked up. To my surprise (but I shouldn't have been surprised), it wasn't sealed. The inmates probably don't bother since the guards probably read evrything that leaves the prison anyway.

The letter was mostly a plea for this guy's mom to get him a lawyer. He was innocent (of course) and had been transferred to San Quentin, which clearly didn't agree with him. He was adament about his mom retaining a lady lawyer. I wonder why that should be?

The year is not even three weeks old, but we've had nothing but sunshine, except for one day with a little rain in 2007. I want it rain so it snows in Tahoe, but who can complain about sunshine, right? Except that it's been hovering in the 30s and 40s during the day and getting well below freezing at night. It snowed in San Francisco. There was ice in my parking lot at work. Routinely there's frost on my windscreen. So it's not as if we can enjoy this sunshine. It's the worst all worlds. If it's going to be this cold, rain, damn it!

Following on the little 3.7 tremor of the other night that sent the cats into kniption fits, we had another 3.7 last night followed by what seemed to be a larger quake just a few moments ago. The cats seems to be adjusting well. They still get startled, but Fil does not seek refuge under the bed (she's actually smart-finding one of the safest places in the house) and they both recover to normal fucktard activities fairly soon after the event.

That's all good. The worry now is that we've had 3 quakes, albei minor, in very quick succession. I'm no geologist, so you can pretty discount everything I say from this point on, but it seems like we're building towards something. Many earthquakes speak of "The Big One" in terms of not if but when and how big. It's inevitable. All the fault lines that converge on the San Francisco Bay Area are again going to unleash death and destruction on a monumental scale. The only question, as the experts ask, is when and how big.

So I never confronted the manager who gave me the gift card with the missing money. I was never going to. I just thought it was funny. I decided I was going to spend the money and I was going to buy a rack for my car, something I've been eyeing for a long time. I had originally decided to buy one from REI, but at the last minute I decided to go to the Sports Basement in the city, just to go into the city. I got the address off the Internet, but when I arrived at the place, there was a hand drawn sign saying the store had moved. I sort of got lost in Potrero Hill trying to find the new store. I passed by a boutique pet shop and stopped to check it (bought new collars for the cats). As it was getting dark, I found the Sports Basement. I found a parking spot right in front. I walked up to the front door. There was woman standing there who asked me if I wanted a 20% percent coupon. She was shopping, but couldn't find anything she wanted. Sure. I'll take it. How lucky that turned out to.

If I had the right address, I wouldn't have run into this woman and I wouldn't have gotten the coupon. If I didn't stop at the pet store, I wouldn't have run into this woman and I wouldn't have gotten the coupon. If I had gone to REI as I originally planned, I wouldn't have run into this woman and I wouldn't have gotten the coupon.

But I did, I did and I didn't. And I got the coupon.

Now fucking racks are expensive. I went with Thule, because Sports Basement only carries Thule, but the two brands are basically the same. They both sell everything "a la carte". I had to buy a set of towers($130), two load bars($57), a set of locks ($50), a set of plastic caps for the load bars ($4) and a farring($53). That's 293 bucks before you ever buy a hunk of metal that holds your gear. Add a single bike rack ($90 and a ski/snowboard rack($120) and we're well over the $500 bucks of my gift card (actually $494.05 if we're being far.

But, add in a 20% discount and I saved 100 bucks. It allowed me to buy a new ski jacket and get the rack for the dough on the card and 35 bucks. Not bad. Now if I can just figure out how to the rack on the fricken car, I'd really have something (and if it snowed, I might be able to wear the jacket).

*I don't actually believe in karma.

"The Rapture is not an Exit Strategy"

Joyce Vincent had been dead for more than two years when her body was eventually discovered in January this year. She was surrounded by unopened Christmas presents. The television was still on and so was the heating.

Housing officers came to her north London bedsit only to repossess it because the rent was thousands of pounds in arrears. A locksmith drilled the door open. A giant pile of unopened post, the earliest dated November 2003, lay on the doormat.

Vincent lay on the sitting room floor. Her body was so badly decomposed - her remains were "largely skeletal", the pathologist said - that she had to be identified by dental records. Detectives told the inquest last week that, inasmuch as it was possible to tell, there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death. The coroner recorded an open verdict. Vincent was 40 years old.

This is from a story in the The Times of London that I found on my friend Ursula's site. The amazing thing about this story is that this woman was 40 years old. She was in the prime of her life. She lived in an apartment building with 200 units. She had a family. She worked for a advertising firm. She must have had some friends. And yet there she rotted in her apartment for 2 years before her decomposed corpse was discovered. It's just startling.

Now, if I died alone in my apartment, I would hope that the situation would be a little different. But it certainly gets you thinking. My landlord wouldn't wait even a month if I didn't pay the rent, but she lives next door and I see her almost every day. My cats, what would they do? I have no idea. They'd probably sound the general alarm and start caterwauling after a few days of not being fed and shitting all over the place when the litter box was full. Would they lick me? Would they eat me? I don't know. They'd probably eat me. My family would start to wonder after not hearing from me and I suspect that the handful of the readers of this blog would be curious about the sudden lack of posts and if went on for more than a few weeks, they'd start to inquire. I live around the corner from work and my boss would probably try to track me down since I'm an integral part of the team and I don't have that much PTO after my trip to Canada.

So I might last three weeks at the most before my rotting hulk saw the light of day. And I would hope that the bulk of the people in the world be found much quicker. But I think in an increasingly urban world, where more and more people live dissassociated lives, Ms. Vincent's experience, if a dead person can experience anything, might be more frequent, sad to say.

I found out this morning that the average rainfall in San Francisco for April is about 1.5 inches. So far this month, less than half through, we've gotten 4 inches of rain. That's a lot of rain. I'm not complaining too much because that's also a lot of snow. However when the weekend is done and the skiing is over, I do have come back down here and live and it's been a really, really we life lately. Today the sun is out and we have blue skies and feels almost wierd because it's been so long since we haven't had a miserable soggy day. It's gotta end sometime, right? It can't go on raining like this forever. Right?

Could there be anything finer than floating alone at sunset in an Olympic-sized pool heated by geothermal power to a 101 degrees? Probably. Definitely. But it was pretty damn good and I highly recommend it if you get a chance.

We just had a little earthquake here. The place, this building, which is like a warehouse, starting shaking. There was an audible BANG! and the lights were swinging. Nothing damaged and no one hurt, but pretty freaky all the same..

I received this letter from the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic in the mail earlier this week:

Plate: CA5KEX274

We have received your inquiry regarding the parking citation listed below.

We have reviewed your claim and found it valid. Therefore, the citation has been dismissed.

No payment or further action is necesary. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Citation Number: 636150690

Ok, so maybe it's not proof of the existence of a higher being, but it did put a smile on my face.

I don't know why, (It's not a particularly nice day. It's been raining. It's overcast. A little on coolish side. I) maybe I needed the fresh air after my visit to the dentist this morning, but I decided for the first time since I moved to Oakland late last year to walk home. t took me 13 minutes.

On Sunday, I did something that I've wanted to do for ages, but never got around to. I went to a live auction. It was an estate auction at Clars in Berkeley of all sorts of objects ranging from oil paintings, antique furniture, Persian rugs, crystal chandeliers, grandfather clocks, china sets, musical instruments, old bottles of wine, even a 2000 Ford Mustang. I didn't buy anything but it was fascinating all the same just to be there in the room and watch how the auction proceeded.

There were maybe a hundred people in the room who slowly moved around the warehouse as different objects were put on the block. The auctioneer, Reg, who owns the place too, either sold items from the stage or from a portable dias so he could see the objects and all the bidders. At the same time, bidders were coming over the internet on an eBay property called Live Auctioneers (you can see this auction here) and there were Clars employees with cellphones handling interested parties who wanted to bid, but couldn't be there on site. The whole scene reminded me of Red Violin, but on a much, much smaller scale.

Some of the people in attendenace were dealers looking for cheap buys for the shop. Some were people just collecting for their homes. Many, like me, were just there to watch. Everyone had a small yellow piece of paper with their bidder number. Mine stayed in my pocket the whole time.

The one thing that I was interested in was a 3 foot ceramic sculpture of a samurai by someone named Yashima Gakutei. It had a warn green patina like copper. It thought it would look great in my place. In the catalog, the estimated price was from 100-300, which normally meant that the opening bid would be 50 bucks. There were hundreds of objects for sale at this auction. A few were battled over fiercerly in escalating bidding wars, but more often than not, the first bidder got in there and no one else bid, so an object with an estimated price of 500-1000 dollars would sell for 250 bucks. I was hoping for the same with the samurai but was quickly disabused of that notion as the opening bid was 100 bucks (becuase of "lots of interest", as Reg said) and it went finally for 475 bucks, way out of my price range, especially when you factor in the 8.25% sales tax and the 17% bidder fee that goes to the auction house. Easy come. Easy go.

I might not rush back to Clars, but I will definitely check out one of the several other auction house around the Bay Area.

It's been a very wet late December and early January (so far). We haven't gotten any real torrential rain. It's just been more of a constant drip with cobalt gray skies more reminiscent of the Pacific Northwest than the Bay Area. Normally this time of year I would be cheering this weather because it means snow in the Sierras, but this percipication hasn't exaclty translated to massive snowpack yet. I bought my season pass for Heavenly ($319) just before I left for Costa Rica and like last year, I didn't get a chance to ski before New Year's. I wanted to go on Christmas Day or the day after, the last two days before my pass was blacked out for the remainder of the year, but then it was 48 degrees and raining in Tahoe, so I stayed indoors in Oakland. Hopefully I can make the pass worthwhile this season. I probably will not ski as much as last year when I rented a house in South Lake and was up there just about every weekend. I figure if I can get 10 days in inclduing a trip to Vail to take advantage of the 3 free days there it will have been a great season.

Looks like I left Alameda in the nick of time. When I came home yesterday there was a jury summons in my mail box.

After years of suffering with my Peace Corps replacement glasses (even with a missing nose piece for the last two weeks), I've finally got new frames courtesy of my health insurance and few hundred bucks.

I'm now the proud owner of a sleek pair of Oakley Thread 6.0 Rx specs. Picked them up last night and I love them. They are light. They fit perfectly. And, best of all, they don't make feel like a completely useless dork.

I had wanted to get a pair of Lunor frames. I found one that I loved, the Lunor XX, sleek, modern, ultralightweight. Tried it on and they were perfect. But the $625 price tag convinced me to go with the Oakley's.

Before and after pictures to come...

I went yard/estate sale shopping around Berkeley and to a flea market in Concord to pick up a few things for the house. I haven't done anything like this in years. It was really fun and I scored some great stuf. Here's a sampling:

Classic Cuisnart (new) - 25 bucks
Panasonic Bread Maker - 5 bucks
Oster Ice Cream Maker - 4 bucks
Stoneware Bundt Cake Mold (new) - 2 bucks
Martini Shaker - 2 bucks
Large Whisk - 2 bucks
(2) Huge Pieces of Tupperware - 2 bucks
DVDs (The Contender, A Beautiful Mind, Keeping the Faith. F9/11) - 11 and a half bucks
All the President's Men - Woodward & Bernstein (hardback) - 1 buck
Innocents Abroad - Twain (hardback) - 1 buck
Blind Ambition - John Dean (hardback) -1 buck
Set of mid-20th Century Travel Books (hardback) - 5 bucks
(3) Vintage Cameras (Kodak Brownie, Hawkeye etc) - 17 bucks

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.

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.

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.

I went with some friends to see fireworks in the little town of San Ramon, about 30 minutes east and south of Oakland. It's like another world over there. It's so white. It's so suburban. Miles of SUVs and minivans. It's so Norman Rockwell white picket fence America. And it's just 30 minutes from Oakland and San Francisco. Not there's anything wrong with that. Just an observation.

I bought a few shirts at Banana Republic the other day. When I was in line to pay I overheard the cashier telling the person in front of me that if something they bought gets marked down in the future, they can come in with their receipt and get a "price adjustment". I thought I was hearing things.

Today, I returned one of the shirts. I decided it was too big. Before I got in line, I had a look at the racks (it was a different location) and I noticed that one of the shirts I bought was indeed, marked down from the price I paid.

So, I mentioned it to the salesperson when I returned the shirt and it turns that both of the other shirts I bought had been subsuqently marked down and I was refunded the difference. I can't decide if I should be shocked that Banana Republic can stay in business do that or appalled that their sweatshop made clothes are so cheap to manufacture that they can still make money refunding post-purchase markdowns to people like me.

On Father's Day, I was walking down the beach sidewalk in Alameda with my sister and her newborn, Mateo. People coming the other way, walking, jogging, cycling, were wishing me a happy father's day. Isn't it what people assume about a man and a woman walking down the street together?

I'm sitting here in a computer classroom in the city (SF) in the middle of the second day of my training for Adobe InDesign. I really have no idea what I'm doing here. My boss sent me to this class, but I have no real need for a page layout application for anything I do for work. It would have come in handy for the designing the Belly Dancer of the Year program, but it's not really necessary. I am learning a few global Abobe shortcuts that I missed out on because I'm self taught, and that's pretty cool, but the rest of this is mostly a waste of time.

But it is nice to have a change of pace and be in the city, such a huge change from Emeryville. There's so much going on here, so many people walking around, so many places to eat, things to see, distractions, whatever. It makes me think seriously about picking up and moving to SF once and for all. I've lived all around it, Burlingame, Oakland, Walnut Creek, Lafayette and Alameda, but now it might be time to move inside it.

The Belly Dancer of the Year Pageant is happening this weekend and I was asked by my ex-girlfriend to do some pro bono work and design the program and a few promo materials. I've never really done anything like this. I've made some websites here and there and designed a couple of posters, invitations and CD labels at work, but nothing as serious or as visible as this program.

I had last year's program to work off. It was pretty dull and amatuerish. I wanted to give it a little more umph and make the whole thing look a little more professional. No typos. Solid typography. (You can click on the image to see what the real printed type actually looks like). If you want to get an idea of how simplistic the design around the Pageant normally is, just check out their website, something I might lend my skills to next year.

Once we decided that we were going with an Art Deco look, it was really a matter of just finding the right pictures to go with the program. Shoshana who won last year's competition was going to be on the cover and I identified this pic and the one I wanted to use because it was so dynamic.

The only problem was that for some reason we weren't able to get full reolution images. I don't know why. Some communication problem with the photogrpaher. Anyway, the photos ended up being a little pixelated because I had to stretch them to 300 dpi for the printer. That's the really the only issue I had with this project. Otherwise I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Esepcially since I'm not a graphic designer and have absolutely no training whatsoever.

You can see all the parts of the program here. I'm curious to know what you think.

Last night was the first Friday night since the first week of the season that I slept in my own bed. I've either been skiing or traveling almost every weekend this year, so it was really nice to change things up, not have to go anywhere and sleep in.

There's only a few days left in the ski season. We did get more snow this past week, but it was an inch or so, and it just didn't seem worth it to go up to the house in Tahoe. No one else RSVP'd and the house would have been empty again. Then there's always the possibility like last Sunday that the Sky Chair would be closed. And that's a problem.

When the Sky Chair is closed, and it was closed for a good reason, namely 60 MPH gusts, there is no way to ski from the California side of Heavenly to the Nevada side. This traps skiers in a bottleneck at the Canyon Express that results in long lifts lines on a day when there should be none. It also means that half of the terrain on the top of the mountain, where the best snow can be found on increasingly hot days, is inaccessible.

Now you can ski down, get in the car, and drive over to Nevada, but that's not much fun. If you're game, you can hike from the top of the Canyon Express to the top of the Sky chair. It might take 45 minutes or so. Maybe less. It's really not that far, but it is a hike. Then you can ski down the cat track to Nevada and take any of three chairs back from Nevada to California. I was down for this, Russell, who took a hard digger the day before was not, so we just skied for the few hours and then took off in the early afternoon.

I'll be up next weekend, the last of the season for Heavenly. I want to ski to get the last few runs before the long drought of summer. We're also having a blowout party, so it should be pretty wild.

Days Skied This Season: 23

It's pissing down rain outside and I feel trapped. I'm basicially killing time watching one of my favorite movies, The Spanish Prisoner, which is on IFC. I did come down to LA to see Michelle and I'm glad I did, but the drive down sucked, I got a flat on the freeway, and now I'm trapped inside with not much to do. I want to see some more friends and will do that later tonight, but right now I'm stuck high up in the hills of Encino. I could leave, but what's the point? Most of the places that I like to see or thing I'd like to do are all outdoors. I could go shopping. I could see a movie. But I can do those things anywhere. If I'm going to be stuck inside watching a good movie, I'd much rather be curled up with my cats. I hope they're doing alright. They're probably as bored as I am.

MY COUSIN MICHELLE WITH MY NEPHEW MATEO

The reason I'm in LA this weekend was to see my cousin Michelle who's got a terminal case of ovarian cancer. She arrived at the house a few hours after I got there. There were lots of people around (Meyer and Linda: "We were at your Bar Mitzvah". Me: "That's interesting because I was at your wedding."), so I didn't have much of a chance to talk to her one-on-one or play a few games of backgammon, which would have been great, but I got to see her and that's what really counts.

I hadn't spent much time with Michelle before I went to visit her at Kibbutz Ketura in Southern Israel back in 1999. She took off for Israel shortly after graduating from college in the mid 1970s and didn't come back all that often and when she did, it was to New York or traveling around the west milking cows at one farm or another. She didn't come to LA. I would just hear stories. Michelle's joined the army. Michelle's running the drip sprinkler system at the kibbutz. Michelle is working offsite at a wildlife preservation center. Always little tidbits. Nothing really substantial. Just enough to let me know that she was still out there.

When I went to Israel in 1999, I hadn't seen Michelle in years. I didn't even really remembered what she looked like, only a vague idea from photographs. I spent tons of time with her sisters, my other cousins, Rana and Elissa, from New York and their mom, my aunt Renee, but, like I said, Michelle was never around. When I arrived at the Kibbutz, Michelle wasn't there. I was hanging out with these environmental students from South Africa while I waited for her to arrive. I was sitting in the dining hall looking at every face that came in. Finally Michelle comes in. I stand up to give her a hug and says something like, have you been eating eggs? I hate eggs and if you've been eating eggs, please don't touch me. It was a strange re-introduction, to say the least. I hadn't been eating eggs, I assured her and she acquiesced to a hug.

I spent the next three weeks hanging out at the kibbutz, talking to people, gazing at Venus and Mars, reading, lounging around and having a great time in general. Michelle would wake up early in the morning to milk the cows and then head off the Chai Bar, a wildlife preservation center that was dedicated to reintroducing native animal species to Israel. I went with her one morning to milk the cows and it is bitter, hard work. Not for me, but right up Michelle's alley.

The day I went out the Chai Bar, we cleaned the cages in the nocturnal enclosure and fed the snakes, the owls, the hedgehogs and the fruit bats. Then we took the jeep, loaded the trailer up with alfalfa and fed and counted the oryx, the addax, the asses, the vultures, and ostriches. It was a hot day. Most of the animals were passed out in the shade of the flat acacia trees. We fed the ostriches in this long, raised trough that we filled with seed. There were only a few around. It was mating season.

There was this one male ostrich who found the jeep alluring. We'd be driving along, He'd be following alongside us. Poking his sharp beak inside the cabin, which freaked me out. Then he would stop, lean down, a starting rolling from side to side in some sort of a mating ritual. He wanted to make it with the jeep, this somewhat deluded Ostrich.

Then it started raining. It doesn't rain often in the Arava. It's the low desert. But when it does, it doesn't fool around. We're in a fucking torrential downpour. The roof of the jeep is just this little canvas covering. It full of water and starting to leak. It's dark. The skies have gone gun metal gray. It's getting cold. It's getting more and more miserable by the second. For me, that is. Michelle is loving it. She's howling and whooping it up.

We head back to the Kibbutz. I just want to get inside, take a shower, get dry and have a bowl of soup. Michelle is trying to see if she can wrestle up a car so we can ride up in the hills and go flood spotting. I thought she was out of her mind and was secretly hoping that she couldn't find any kind of vehicle, but she managed to hijack a minivan so instead of go inside like normal people, we headed up to the hills to go for a hike in the pouring rain.

We followed this winding road up into the hills above the kibbutz. The road to turned to dirt, or mud really and we kept going. We passed stranded motorists and other "hikers" along the way, until Michelle decided the time was right to get out and go the rest of the way on foot. We trudged through the mud, the rain still coming down in sheets, past rivulets of water streaming along the ground in ancient riverbeds. We went on like this for about 45 minutes until we came to the most amazing sight, a waterfall in the mountains in the desert. It was amazing. There was no one around. Just Michelle and I. And there was tons of water flowing down the hills and pour over this precipice making one of the beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen. I forgot about being cold. I forgot about being wet. I forgot about being miserable and I just stood there in amazement of the beauty of nature.

Of course, I hadn't thought about this adventure for years until I started getting the email from my dad and Elissa about Michelle's condition. When I we sitting around the kitchen table, I brought it up and Michelle smiled and told the story and when she was done she said that the reason it remains so vivid is that it hasn't rained anywhere close to that since I left. I was just lucky to have been there, in the Arava, with Michelle, when they had these biblical rain storms.

Michelle, Rana and Elissa took off to go whale watching in the Sea of Cortez and probably having a great time checking out the Blue Whales and whatever other sea mammals get trapped in the Gulf of California.

My brother is in town for the weekend. I'm going to have lunch with him and my siter in a few minutes here. It's been a while since I've seen him--he came out to Vail for a few days of skiing last spring--so it will be nice to catch up. The dilema is that he's only here for the weekend and I want to go skiing at Heavenly. It's been raining down here in the flats which means snow in the Sierras, a foot of new stuff to be exact. So should I hang out in the city with my brother or take off for Tahoe? Maybe I can split the difference and get one good day in.

Can you believe it? 2005 already. Seems like these last 5 years have gone by in a blur. If the amount of snow that is falling in the Sierras is any indication, this is going to be a great year.

Ok, well it wasn't really my first Christmas. I did celebrate it one year when I lived in Australia, but it wasn't same since it was in the middle of the summer and I had to hang out with my girlfriend's yobbo family. This time it was different. I had almost a complete gentile experience. And it was fun.

About a month ago Jen and I went tree shopping. We went to the tree lot at Long's drugs, then to Target and back to Long's where We picked out a lovely 5 1/2 foot noble fir. We carried it back to my car and put it the back where the tree kindly shed a good chunk of pine needles leaving a major mess but also a nice fresh smell.

We dragged the tree out of the car, up the stairs and into the apartment. We trimmed the tree with lights and ornaments (Can you believe I'm 34 and have never done this before?). It was beautiful. (I'll have a picture up tomorrow).

Then I started shopping. I would buy Hanukah presents for my family and Jewish friends and stick them under the tree. It looked great. I kept them under there as long as I could before I had to box them up and ship them out or deliver them in person.

Last night I came over to Jen's for dinner. We didn't have turkey or ham or anything major, just a nice little dinner. The Elvis was sining Christmas Carols on the stereo. After dinner we exchanged gifts. It was very simple, but good clean fun and it's easy to understand why people like it so much.

Just after 4pm yesterday afternoon at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco, Mateo A. Cintron Deshong arrived (well ahead of schedule and possibly under budget) making Marni and Paris (my sister and her husband) the happiest people in the Bay Area.

I'm thrilled for them. It's very exciting. My parents are now grandparents for the first time. My brother and I are uncles. Most importantly, my sister is now a mother.

That's my sister who for the longest time continually told me that she didn't want to have kids despite my protests that she would make a great mother. That's my sister who used to teach preschool in inner-city Oakland. She's an incredibly nurturing and grounded person. Matteo is very lucky to have her as a mom.

Hopefully I'll get to see Marni, Paris and Mateo today. I've got my digital camera with me so pictures will be forthcoming.

My cousin Bradley is working to get ahead of the curve of America's aging population. He's started a business, Senior Transitions, that helps seniors locate ideal communities to sunset their lives. It's a great idea not just because he can make money, but he can make money while helping people have better lives.

Here's the blurb from the site:

Senior Transitions is dedicated to helping seniors find communities that will meet their growing needs as they age. From Independent Living to Continuing Care, we can access some of the best residential facilities across the country. Let us help you ease the transition from your home into a senior community.

My sister's water broke last night and it looks like I might be an uncle before the night is out. Pretty damn exciting!

Who uses that word "frightful" anymore? You can't use it for anything but winter weather because of that stupid song.

Anyway, Jennifer and I were out shopping for her Christmas tree last night. It was cold. Probably in the low 40s. Jennifer is a fair weather girl, if ever there was one. Our breath was visibile and I was joking that it was so cold my spit would freeze before it hit the ground. Not very funny, but at the time...

This morning I woke up and my windshield was covered with ice. It turns out the mercury did fall below 32F last night, which is unusual for the Bay Area anytime of year, but especially in the fall. Fucking frightful, indeed.

Well, not really because grandmother has passed on, but you get the point. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! FOUR DAYS OFF!! Whoooo-Hoooo! (well, not really either because I have to shoot a race in the SF on Sunday.)

Am I the only who thinks it really sucks when it gets dark at 530? It's bad enough that I have spend 8 hours a day chained to a chair in a cube, but to leave the office and drive home in the darkness is depressing.

I was shocked, shocked I tell when I got to the front of the line of at the local pumpkin patch to find out that the mishapen pumpkin that we plucked from the ever dwindling stock was going to cost us $18. EIGHTEEN BUCKS!!?!!

Anyway, we plunked down the money in the spirit of the season and carved the mutha up with a happy design to entice people into our apartment block, but alas, we had only one trick or treater, and we almost missed him because he knocked when we in the middle of making dinner.

Carving up the pumpkin was fun and we made two batches of roasted seeds onw with olive oil, salt and rosemary and one with butter, cinnamon and sugar. Delicious.

I can't remember much of what I learned in college. The eight years seems like a blur from a distant lifetime. But something I will never forget is the concept of "opportunity cost". For those of you who didn't take macroeconomics, it goes like this. Say you spend 200 bucks on cat toys. Then that's 200 bucks you can't spend on your car insurance or food, for example. Therefore the opportunity cost of the cat toys is the insurance or the food. It's a pretty simple concept.

Today my good friends Rutger and Marielle are having their wedding reception in Amsterdam. We met almost exactly three years ago in a mini bus going from Bangkok to Siem Reap in northern Cambodia. They had quit their jobs as DHL managers in Holland and were on a year long trip around the world. I had been laid off from Electronic Arts just before my scheduled vacation to South East Asia. We hit it off immediately. We hung out together in Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Sianoukville. Then I had to go home. When I came back to South East Asia in Apirl, this time Indonesia, we crossed paths again in Bali where Rutger and Marielle had rented a small house. When they came the States, we spent a few days in and around San Francisco. Since then, Rutger and Marielle have moved back to Holland and I went into the Peace Corps, but we've stayed in touch by email.

I supposed to go Amsterdam for the wedding. I was really psyched to go. On top of that, I was going to housesit their place while they went on their honeymoon. But the opportunity cost of taking a job that started last week was canceling my trip. Like I said, opportunity costs suck, but I really needed to get to work.

While I'm not there in person, I'm definitely all there in spirit. Not that you need it, but best of luck, Rutger and Marielle. You guys were made for each other.

Well, it's finally happened. I've put down my camera and taken up the web producing thing again. Yes, a real job. A good thing to announce on Labor Day, right?

I'm going to be working at Chiron in Emeryville. My main project will be first to update and then to redesign the site for Chiron's Blood Testing Division, eBloodBank. The person who previously did this job has been out on leave for 10 months so there's lots of catching up to do. I'll be busy for long time, which I'm thrilled about.

It all happened at warp speed. Last week, on Wednesday, I went into Adecco Technical Staffing in Concord on a whim. The recruiter, Mark, looked at my resume and said, hmm, we have a place at Chiron that might be perfect. I thought it might be perfect too since one of my best friends happens to work there. I filled out all their paperwork and left the office 45 minutes later with the promise of an interview on the horizon. On Thursday, Mark called to ask if I could interview on Friday. On Friday, I went into Chiron at 1pm to meet with my potential supervisor. It must have gone well because by three o'clock I not only had the job, but the pay rate had been bumped up a few bucks. I start on Wednesday.

Next step, finding an a place to live.

I didn't do much to celebrate my birthday. I did have dinner with my sister at an Indian restaurant in Albany, just north of Berkeley. I hadn't seen her since her wedding last year, so it was nice to touch base again, especially since she's in her second trimester and moving steadily down the path to make me an uncle for the first time.

Thanks to all of you who wrote me today with birthday wishes wondering where I have been. I didn't really go anywhere. I just needed a mental vacation from updating the site. Now I'm back.

I grew up in the city. There were county fairs, of course, but they were so far away and in such a horribly hot and smoggy place (Pomona) that I never once went. And what's a County Fair when you live closer to Disneyland and Magic Mountain?

I went to my first county fair, San Mateo, back in 2002, with my brother and sister. San Mateo isn't excatly Iowa, it's right smack in the middle of Silicon Valley, but they still had pigs and chickens and that 4-H jazz. They also had the comedian Gallagher as the main act. There he was smashing watermelons for the blue-haired set audience of less than 500 people. It was pretty pathetic.

So this past monday when I went to the Alameda County Fair in Pleaston, I didn't exactly have great expectations. It was just a diversion. In amongst the questionably attired indivuduals, the disgusting array of overpriced junk foods and cras commercialism, there were a few gems.

The best of the lot was definitely the All-Alaskan Racing Pigs. How could not like racing pigs? Just look at them. They are adorable.

Tonight about 8:45, when the sun was setting and darkness started to fall on Walnut Creek, we drove up into the mountains west of here to Grizzly Peak in the heights above Oakland and Berkeley to (try to) watch the fireworks up and down the San Francisco Bay. From up there in the mountains, you can normally see from Marin in the north all the way down the SF peninsula to Mountain View.

But the fog had rolled in. The whole bay was blanketed in white. It was so thick you couldn't even see the Golden Gate or the Oakland Bay Bridge. You couldn't see anything but a few lights down on the peninsula, maybe Redwood City or Foster City. Looking at the fireworks was like being in an airplane above an electrical storm. We could see flashes of light in the clouds, but that was about it. It sucked. We had to settle for watching fireworks on CNN and a hearing a few firecrackers courtesy of the neighbors which scared the cats silly.

My DL is missing, and it's a real pain in the ass. I've been avoiding getting the damn thing replaced, hoping, in vain it seems, that it's going to show itself eventially. Meanwhile I've been going around with my passport (expired) in case I need ID.

The last time I can remember seeing it was when I crossed back into California from Mexico on Memorial Day Weekend. I showed it to the border patrol guard, but she didn't seem interested. She just wanted to know what country I was a citizen of (USA) and how long I had been in Mexico (a few hours). Then she let me go.

As I was driving away, I was so shocked (the back of my Subaru was full of bags that could have contained anything from an illegal alien to former Soviet plutonium) at how easy it is to get into the US, that I may have thrown my DL out the window. I don't know what happened to it. It just vanished after that. It's probably time to throw up my hands, head down to the DMV, shell out 10 bucks and get a new one.

For the last several months I've been fighting a seemingly never ending battle with the California Deparment of Motor Vehicles over the title to my last car, a 1999 Midnight Blue Saab 9-3, which had been an absolute dream to own until I didn't own it, but was still responsible for it.

In September of 2002 I was trying to sell my Saab, but I didn't have much luck, but I was under a huge deadline. I was leaving for the Peace Corps. By the time I got on the plane in mid-October, the car was still not sold. My brother had expressed interest. In fact, there was a plan afoot for him to fly out from DC and for us to drive cross country together. A sort of a last hurrah before I went off to Samoa for two years.

Anyway, for one reason or another, it didn't work out. I left. The car was unsold and my brother kept driving his old Saturn. But sometime during my frequent trips back from our training village in rural Upolu to the capital, Apia. I worked out with my brother that he would buy the car simply by taking over the payments on the loan, which were extremely reasonable. We would both benefit. I would be rid of the car and continue to improve my credit rating and Brian would have a great car. But there was a problem.

Somehow, somewhere, some one forgot to deal with the title. There was a specific person who had a limited power of attorney to deal with matters of the car, yet the title slipped everyone's mind, that is until Brian has to register the car in DC and doesn't have the title to do it. This is where the mess begins and we've spent a good part of this year trying to untie the Gordian knot of the DMV bureaucracy. Fortunately we managed it, but it was starting to look like it was going to get the best of us.

It's never easy to deal with the DMV. Long lines, complete incompetence and a computer system that predates the Nixon administration are the hallmarks of this less than stalwart organization. The problem was exacerabated by the fact that neither my brother nor I resided in California at the time, so it would all have to be handled by mail and phone, never a recipe for expediency.

Brian obtained all the documents, or so we thought. I just needed to send them into the DMV with a check for 15 bucks and it would be over, right? I even express mailed it with a pre-paid express envelope. For my efforts I received all the documents back and a note that said I needed a copy of the back of one of the forms. When I called the DMV to find out what I needed to fill out on this form, they said, nothing, we just need the form. What? COULDN'T YOU JUST HAVE PRINTED OUT ONE OUT? Too simple. I send the forms back in, again with the express mail thing (this costs 27.50 each time just for postage.) I even included a note for them to call or email if there was a problem.

This time I got the forms back in the mail (not so much as a call or email) and was told that I needed a lien holder release from the bank, even though the loan had been paid off months ago. So we contacted the bank and got a notorized release and sent the forms back in and waited, and waited, and waited.

Then I moved to California and thought this would all end. I could just go down to the DMV, which happened to be right around the corner, and settle the matter. But I was wrong. I went in. I was told they couldn't access the account. That their computer system was so old that they couldn't even put a note to change my mailing address so that the title would not be send to Colorado where I had been living. There was nothing to do but wait or resubmit the paperwork to this branch office which was not an option because I didn't have a copy of all the forms, a mistake I will never make again.

With my patience growing thin, I called Sacramento, the DMV HQ, two days ago, only to be told that the title had been mailed on the 26th. It should arrive any day now, and, amazingly, it did, that afternoon. I signed the pink slip in all the right places, or so I hoped, and overnighted it to my brother in DC. This afternoon, I got the following message from my brother:

cool news.

got the title today at around noon. was at the dmv at around 1pm, and out the door at 3pm with DC plates, registration, parking sticker and the title in the
mail, due to arrive in 15 business days.

my long national nightmare is over.