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Suitable
Posted 12:25 AM, Sep 27, 2006 |
in an effort to write
something suitable for children, i remembered
trying to paddle a rowboat home
on lake superior. in the curving cradle of aluminum
lay an early girlfriend, too drunk to realize she’d
passed out in an unseaworthy ship. i climbed in next
to her, the alcohol on my breath stronger
than the smell of fried smelt that hung
over the point of land i now found
myself trying to escape. her head turned and she moaned
as i pulled an oar out from beneath her, the wood
against metal like an alarm bell in the calm,
lapping waves against the metal boat. the folly
of rowing the two of us home - i lived
near the airport, at the end of a long driveway
over the hill without sight of water - missed me
in my alcoholic swagger. i didn’t even know where
she lived - if you asked me then, i didn’t even know
her first name. but i put the oar in and pushed off,
the curved end pressing into the sand like a hand
into peanut butter, rocks like peanuts, my mouth
thick with the taste of it all. i half-heartedly paddled
a few strokes until the waves took over. i let the oar
slip from my hand and drift next to us, and when i woke up
it was to the sound of wood against metal, the oar
a stinging alarm clock in my head, hungover.
the footprints of my girlfriend crested the dune
of sand, mixed among the grasses in the afternoon.
the tourists watched me play detective, following each
footprint until i reached the parking lot where
she may as well have learned to swim
through the wide sea of asphalt. i saw her
the next monday at school, standing near her locker,
her hair perfectly pushed and pulled like a wave
frozen in place, but was too embarrassed to ever speak
to her again, and too afraid to set foot in a body
of water, my body having decreed it unsuitable,
until this evening, when i realized
that i couldn’t remember her name and didn’t need to,
both at the same time.
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Catalina / Server Vacation
Posted 7:04 PM, Sep 26, 2006 |
In case you were wondering about the lack of updates lately, and I know you were:
1) The interface through which I update the site was down temporarily due to a change in servers by my host. The change in servers should provide faster speeds and greater reliability, or so I’ve been told. And now, to my knowledge, the change of servers is complete, and the site is (obviously) functional again, so it should be a smooth ride from here on out.
2) I was on vacation Sunday and Monday and Tuesday morning on Catalina Island. I’ll have photos later, but it’s a pretty large gallery, so maybe not tonight, as I’ve been working since I got back and still have to unpack and then unwind from what turned out to be a pretty stiff White Russian.
Sorry for the absences. If I was a pet, you would’ve given me up for dead by now.
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Most Valuable Player?
Posted 12:11 AM, Sep 20, 2006 |
After Justin Morneau’s 5-for-5 game yesterday, it’s hard to disagree that he’s a serious candidate for MVP.
His biggest competitors are David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, Johan Santana, and some guy named Obi-Wan Kenobi, who doesn’t even play in this galaxy, let alone in the league.
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At the Car Wash
Posted 11:58 PM, Sep 19, 2006 |
The other day, my esteemed companion and I were sitting in my car, in line for the automated car wash. I’d paid my money and had my magic 5-digit code in hand. There were three people in line in front of us, and one car had just pulled into the car wash. As we sat there, a couple cars pulled in behind.
All of us, to our dismay, consternation, and confusion, watched the minivan in the car wash pull forward, then reverse, then forward, back in reverse, and so on, for about 5 minutes. One’s natural assumption here would be that the car wash was broken and was not turning on. One’s natural assumption would be half correct. The car wash was not turning on.
Now, after about 5 minutes of this forward-and-back routine, a couple Shell employees come out and I see one of them go into the car wash, which is still not on. They then come out and stand near the next car in line, which has pulled up to the code entry machine. I assume they’re going to go down the line, telling each person in turn that the car wash is broken.
Except I already told you that the car wash wasn’t broken.
What the employee is actually doing, rather than talking to the person in line, is entering the code for the car currently in the car wash.
The person hadn’t entered the code, but rather just pulled right into the car wash, expecting magic to start right then and there, with a total disregard for the logical problem that then anyone could pull in and get their car washed for free. Or maybe they thought the car wash had retinal scanners.
Of course, they’re forward-and-back routine was to trigger the car wash / retinal scanners, which didn’t work. The Shell employee returned the receipt to the person in the car wash, and then got out of the way as the car wash started.
My esteemed companion and I later (while still in line) saw two Shell employees laughing about it. We laughed right along with them, and also cried, just a little.
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Change of Server
Posted 4:44 PM, Sep 18, 2006 |
For those that were wondering what happened to the site over the weekend, and I know you were, my web host switched servers and I wasn’t notified - it was posted on their “Server Status” bulletin board, but I don’t read, um, ever. So anyway, everything should be back to normal. I’m sorry if the outage caused you any lack of sleep over the weekend.
In slightly-related news, perhaps, the comment feature is broken. Again. I only noticed because the new server is much faster than the old one. So you’ll all have to refrain from leaving comments for a while, okay?
Update: I removed all the individual archive pages. This means that anytime you want to view any archive, or if you click on the title of an entry, you’re just going to go to the monthly archive page for that entry, anchored by individual entry. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
Also, the comments feature isn’t broken anymore. It’s gone. (Well, I guess it’s broken in the same way that a car in the junkyard, squeezed into a little cube of steel and glass, is broken, i.e., it’s so broken that it’s unrecognizable as what it once was.) I was spending way too much time fixing a feature that’s:
a) supposed to be easy to use, and
b) isn’t,
for
c) very few people,
that I gave up. If you have something to say to me in particular, email me using the address on the sidebar. If you have something to say to everyone, start your own blog.
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Foggy Mirror, Pulse, Links, Bonus Material
Posted 10:24 AM, Sep 15, 2006 |
A few little links, like fog on a mirror, just to let you know I’m still here:
A recent Married to the Sea comic.
A set of brilliant wallpapers of satellite views of Earth, all constructed from Google Maps.
And, now that football is back, here’s a link to Gregg Easterbrook’s columns, so you can enjoy those as much as I do, if that’s humanly possible.
Now that the NFL season is back in full swing, I find myself continually wavering between being really excited about it (as excited as I can get about football, anyway, which is not much, relatively speaking (see below)) and being totally sick of it already.
The way it worked last week is that I was sick of preseason and excited for real football, and then I tuned in for about 15 minutes and then was tired of it already. Then, of course, it dominated ESPN and all my usual media sports channels from Thursday until Tuesday. This week should be better, with the games consolidated to Sunday and Monday.
I play in two fantasy football leagues, neither of which I take terribly seriously. Last Sunday afternoon, my esteemed companion and I headed out to Q’s Billiards to play pool. Q’s is generally really quiet on Sundays, but, ah!, not since football started, apparently. They close all the tables, put covers and boards over them, and use them as tables. They’ve got a ton of TVs and the place was pretty packed, at least downstairs.
(This is a long way to go for a fairly pointless story.)
So back to fantasy football. Every person I looked at had some fantasy football roster in front of them, pen in hand, or else they were cheering for the Arizona kicker and also Terry Glenn, maybe. Just nonsense. Nobody was watching the games for the games’ sake, which I guess is ok - I watch with an eye towards my fantasy teams, too, at least until the season goes on too long and I stop caring.
But this guy behind us at Q’s, every time some substantial play would happen, would unleash a string of profanities that would make George Carlin blush. This guy was taking things way too seriously.
Is all it takes is one person to be way too excited about something to make you feel self-conscious and kind of dumb for doing it at all, even if you aren’t nearly the zealot that the person is.
So that’s kind of my take on fantasy football.
And by the way, that link to the Google Maps wallpapers was from kottke, I think.
Lastly, this turned into quite a post. Consider it extra bonus material for an otherwise slow week.
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Letter to Doug Grow, Star Tribune Columnist
Posted 10:42 PM, Sep 11, 2006 |
Subject: History Lesson for Youth
Doug,
Regarding your Star Tribune article about Bert Blyleven, Jon Gordon, and Walter Winchell, keep in mind that comments like “Time out for those under 50: Walter Winchell was a multimedia guy bigger in his day than a combo package of Rush Limbaugh and Katie Couric today.” are actually insulting to some of us under 50. I’m 28, and don’t need a history lesson, because I already knew who Walter Winchell was. I know, it’s amazing that I might know about something that happened before my time.
Comments like those are insulting, assuming your younger readers have no sense of history and don’t know who people are. We know about lots of things - The Industrial Revolution, The Renaissance, the Boer War, and Pangaea. To assume we don’t because we weren’t alive then, well, not only is it insulting, but it’s kind of ridiculous, as I assume the above list illustrates.
Another, (possibly) more interesting note:
I was watching the OSU/Texas football game and, in one shot of the crowd, saw a girl wearing a shirt that read, “F**K Y’ALL, I’m from Texas!” Now, granted, she had covered up the first word with her hand.
Also, I live in Los Angeles, and saw in a storefront the other day (I don’t remember the store, but a major one, and the fashion “label” is a major), giant letters spelling fcuk.
So what all the hubbub is about Blyleven is beyond me, especially since it was an accident.
And I enjoyed your story from Jon Gordon.
So all in all, a good piece.
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Gallery: Minnesota Buildings
Posted 7:01 PM, Sep 7, 2006 |
The last in a series, this gallery basically of things that didn’t fit anywhere else. But they are all buildings, if you make a slight exception for the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, MN, which is both a building and a roadway.
Minnesota Buildings
That’s it for the galleries from the trip to Duluth - hopefully you enjoyed them. Tomorrow, back to the usual drivel chitchat.
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Gallery: Minnesota Things
Posted 6:16 PM, Sep 6, 2006 |
Another new gallery, this one of exciting things! A variety of things - a lot of flowers, some barrels, a file cabinet, a butterfly, and even an oscilloscope!
Minnesota Things
Year of Glad: Your home on the web for pictures of oscilloscopes.
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Gallery: Minnesota Sky
Posted 9:21 PM, Sep 5, 2006 |
Here’s the new gallery, with the rest to follow this week - this one’s a small one, 5 pictures, and only 3 scenes, but hey, Audobon only painted birds (I think).
Minnesota Sky
More to come.
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Gallery: Minnesota Water
Posted 10:39 PM, Sep 4, 2006 |
Due to lack of a better way to categorize things, I’ve arranged the pictures from my recent trip to Minnesota by type.
Minnesota Water
Future installments to include Sky, Buildings, and the aptly-named Things. Stay tuned! Collect them all!
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Return to LA
Posted 8:22 PM, Sep 4, 2006 |
I’m back from a long, long trip to Duluth, Minneapolis, and Winona. I was gone for a total of 9 full days, 10 nights. Too long. I had a fantastic time everywhere I went, but that’s a long time. Next time it will be shorter, cut off a day here, a day there. But again, I had a blast seeing everyone, visiting all the old haunts (sort of), checking up on the Twins in person (back in the wild card lead as of this post), attending a wedding, and taking tons of photos.
I’m sorting and sifting through them now - there might be a gallery later today, and if not today, then soon, and there will probably end up being 3 galleries altogether. About 105 photos taken.
Not much in other news. Unpacked, had some food, did some work today (about 6.5 hours, in addition to traveling from Winona to Minneapolis to Los Angeles), so am pretty tired. Too tired to use pronouns any longer.
Check back soon, as things slowly return to normal.
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