I want the tactical data. I want to know how many acres have burned, how many houses. I don't care that it's roughly the size of Rhode Island, I can grasp how big Rhode Island is either. I want to know where the lines are drawn, which roads and freeways, if breached would be catastrophic. I want to be there to feel the shifting winds, calculate the odds from the color of the smoke. Like an armchair quaterback, I'm just yelling at the screen.
My apologies dear reader, I have nothing for you today. All my thoughts are bent to that small corner of the universe that hold a large place in my heart. I only hope that everyone who faces a wall of flame today is able to hold their own personal line in the sand, because in this, like most things, every inch we're forced to give up, effects us all.
The numbers keep climbing. All through the day yesterday I kept checking the news. 260,000 ... 300,000 ... 330,000 ... 400,000 ... 500,000. It becomes abstract. How big is an acre? What does it look like, standing on the ground. Charred hillsides as far as the eye can see. And homes. Up to eleven hundred this morning. Eleven hundred families who have lost everything. Ashes of memories fall down and cover the unburnt parts of the city in sadness.
My friend returned to find her house still standing. The day had been kind. The Santa Anas were not nearly as bad as the day before, and there was some hope of offshore flow. I went home after work and took a look around, trying to decide what I would save, what was important to me.
I think it's going to be a better day.
Mom swept ashes from the driveway three times yesterday. She said the sky was black. I was trying to imagine it. I knew it wasn't a nighttime darkness with it's soothing coolness. It would be an eerie orange blackness, the thick air sooty with fear, somehow at once in and out of step with the season. I cough reflexively at the thought of all that smoke going into my lungs.
My best friend left her house this morning. The fire was half a mile from her place. Her twin sister lives just a few blocks away. I have other friends spread all over southern california. My attention is drawn to the town I grew up in though. The fire jumped the 118 freeway this morning. All that lies between the fire and my hometown are houses and dry brush.
It's harder this way. Not knowing if your friends and family are going to be okay. 400 miles away, I can't feel the shift in the wind that might tell me if it's getting worse or if it's getting better. I keep checking the news. Clicking on the pictures that I hope won't look familiar. I almost prefer the earthquakes. You can tell the extent of the damage immediately. There isn't this awful ... waiting.
Synchronicity: At the stoplight I glanced over, cell phone in hand, at my friend who was also talking to someone. Mentioning this elicited an anecdote from C -- years ago, her ex had seen his friend talking on the cell phone to someone and upon pulling up next to him rolled down his window and asked laconically, "Girlfriend?" "Yeah. You?" "Yup." As my friend headed the wrong way on 880, I knew that the night was still young.
Samaritan: A caucasian in his early 30's driving a blue 4Runner dinged my car on Wednesday, or so the note said. A total stranger, walking by my car, had decided to try to correct a minor injustice that she had just witnessed. I wonder if I would have done the same. I wonder why I wouldn't have done the same. I would have thought, "It's none of my business. I don't know that person." Ah, but it is just that type of thinking that makes it possible for us to do such awful things to each other. And prevents us from doing nice things for each other. So thank you Sarah, it was more than help with my insurance that you gave me.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. -Albert Einstein
Gifts: How much is too much to spend on a gift? When I was in college, my "sweet spot" was $20. Since graduating, I find that $20 is more a minimum than an average. Of course, it's not just a gift, it's usually a gift plus dinner -- split (n-1) ways. Sometimes you throw a movie or a night out in there too. At the end of a night my wallet is usually $50 lighter -- recently my friends have been organizing large gifts so I'm getting away with $20 more and more frequently. That's just birthday gifts. Then there's wedding gifts where I average $100 plus airfare, after all it only happens once (except when you're a guest ... then that happens again and again and again.) And there's Christmas gifts, which I'm usually a little more stingy on because there's just some many at one time. Anyway, the point is I spend and have spent a lot on gifts ... is it excessive? I might drop anywhere between $20 to $50 dollars on a gift without blinking an eye. Anywhere between $50 and $100 with only a second thought. Get me in a store to buy myself a $50 shirt, I'll hem and haw for a good ten minutes about whether it's worth it or not. Maybe I need to fix something in my brain.
Once again my lack of updating has left me with too much to say and not much time to say it in. Carol's computer died last week and Friday night was spent trying to reinstall windows. Carol was pretty disconsolate after many a failed attempt and it wasn't until the next day that I remember that I had my old computer sitting at home. Saturday, then, was a busy day. I decided, finally, to get a new cell phone on my way to meeting up with Anita, Stephanie and Wynham for dim sum. I am the proud owner of a snazzy new LG VX 6000 camera phone. Woot! I think it's pretty cool. Though after looking at some of the phones offered by ATT I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have switched. Ah well, buyer's remorse....
After Dim Sum, I rushed into the City for my appointment with my stylist ... that's right, no more Supercuts hair! IMHO, I think paying a little more for a haircut is worth it, especially since he shampooed my hair and put some product in. Usually I leave the salon with the itch to wash away the still-clinigng flecks of hair, but not this time. I dropped off my old computer at Carol's place afterwards and we sat around for about an hour before heading off to San Mateo to meet up with Erwin, Amanda, Ting and Tosh. (Arcadia-Uni Connection #1) That was my Saturday.
Sunday saw a lot of driving. Trekked up to someplace in Marin County with Richard, Ji, Davey, Kevin, Tina, and Amy to eat oysters. Long drives and windy roads with a stomach full of oysters wasn't really doing great things for my constitution, but overall it was a good trip. I give raw oysters a thumbs up. Afterwards I drove back into the City to meet up with Carol friends. James, Trish, Darren, Anish, Alice, Carol (Arcadia-Uni Connection #2) and I went to La Luna for James' birthday. And then, as quickly as it had begun, the weekend was over.
Beware BART police.
BART police you say? Any speeder worth his salt knows that Rent-a-Cops can't pull you over, so why worry about BART police? This was my thinking when the lights started flashing in my rear view mirror. Then I started noticing things. The fully loaded Crown Victoria with the shotgun holder in the center seat. The cop walking toward me with radio and sidearm. I started thinking, "Hey, this is a real cop!" In the end, it was no big deal, I just hadn't received my new registration from the DMV and he noticed that. Moral of the story, treat BART police like CHP cause they can write you up.
Six of these and a half dozen of the other
A co-worker of mine asked me to distribute this to some people on our mailing list. When I first read the article, I was outraged by the audacity of the racial remarks by LPGA golfer Jan Stephenson. Asian players are "killing" the LPGA? Ridiculous. Curiousity however, got the better of me and I started reading the other articles about the incident. I didn't know that they held 2 day pro-ams where amateurs pay a lot of money to play with pros. I didn't know that because of it's tv limited exposure the tour relies a lot on these monies. Does that mean I that think that her comments were acceptible? Absolutely not. However, I started thinking that the point of her comment was lost, if not the overly apparent envy and distain her has for her asian peers. That point is sport is a business; it's a business of spectacle. And if female Asian golfers aren't holding their end of that business then something should be done.
A day or two later, I heard the same article on NPR. Presented in an even more biased way - biased towards outrage that is. Of course, at some level, I know that NPR is far from being an unbiased source of information, but this seemed particularly skewed to me. Then came the kicker. Korea, where many of the top female golfers hail from, is the second largest tv market for LPGA events. Samsung, a Korean manufacturer, sponsors one of the tour events. Ah, I thought, there's both sides finally. Yes, these athletes cost the tour some money in pro-am events, but they bring in some from increase media revenue and sponsors. Does any of this change the racism in Jan Stephenson's comments? Does it change the fact that it went relatively unnoticed? No. But I think what it does is waste a lot of people's time and effort. Effort that should be spent figuring out better ways to promote the sport. Why aren't wealthy foriegn amateurs being flown in to play with pros that they can converse with and have a good time with? Why isn't the LPGA marketing to the global audience? Why? Because people are too busy talking about the deteriment of race, too busy arguing about whether or not something said is acceptable, too busy to take a look at the other side. Too busy to say, "Yes, they are hurting us in this way, but if we just changed the way we look at our business, we could make this a lot better." Maybe if they did, they could get morons like Jan Stephenson to shut up.
Richard Scrushy, former HealthSouth CEO, testified in front of an investigative Congressional Panel today. That is, he invoked his fifth amendment right over and over and over again. In fact, he wanted to invoke his fifth amendment right before he was even sworn in. When asked to stand and raise his right hand, he sat there confused as to why he wasn't being allowed to plead the fifth instead being placed under oath. After a bit of consultation with his lawyers and some insistence by the chairman of the panel, he finally stood up and allowed himself to be placed under oath. This is one guy I want to play poker with. Now I'm not saying he's guilty, but for a guy who's trying to act innocent, he really sucks at it.
I joined the American Civil Liberties Union today. Why? Because I read about how at protests the Secret Service allegedly moves the more vocal protesters away from the center of the action allowing supporters or at least more passive protesters to be more visible to the cameras. I don't know why it was today that this news moved me to act -- if ponying up $20 can be considered acting. But I figured I had put off until tomorrow enough things. I think tomorrow I have quite enough to do. I think I'll have to do it today.
Richard managed to will his way up a 5.11c yesterday. Congratz to Richard on a new personal best. (I, on the other hand, managed not to kill myself for the 9948th day in a row ... yea me!) After accomplishing our personal bests, I went home to find my new wireless router waiting for me. My new wireless network proved to be a snap to set up. However, when I tried to tweak the settings so that my neighbors wouldn't be getting free cable broadband from me, I got all fouled up. I managed to fix what I had screwed up, but my network isn't anymore secure than when I first plugged it in. Anyone want to help me secure my network? Didn't think so.
It's somehow strange to think of all this information being sent across empty space. I'm so used to thinking of connections as physical. But of course, that's all a figment of my imagination. My daily interactions over cell phones are proof of that. Do you remember when you first learned that everything was composed of atoms? And that these atoms were mostly empty space (or space that was empty most of the time)? A curious thing to think that everything of substance is seperated by so much space, that all substance is mostly space. There's a song by Dave Matthews call The Space Between. It's about how, between all the things in this world (bad things mostly it seems) there's something good waiting.
I catch myself thinking that somebody is reading this right now. Thinking it's eloquent, thinking it's crazy, thinking that I think too much. I heard somebody in the gym say, "Fitness is not a goal, it's a journey." A journey is simply the space between two destinations. Perhaps one day I'll be as good a climber as Richard, perhaps one day he'll be as good as Jimmy, I don't know. But until then I'll be counting the days from today back to birth, a distance of some significance to me.
Since my last update I've: won $10 playing poker with Richard, Ji, Franklin, Alex and Davey; went to a fundraising dinner where I bumped into an old friend that I haven't seen in a long time and heard a dynamic presentation about the Asian Art Museum given by the Director; helped Richard buy a leather reclining sofa and loveseat set; visited Marc, Mary, and Maribel (there's something about that duplex and cats that is effusive with nostalgia); ate some pretty good Japanese food at Kirala; saw Kill Bill vol. 1; and had a scrumptuous dinner at Raffles Cafe for Greg's birthday. But enough of the tchotchkes of my absence, the thing that you've been all waiting to hear ... I finally have a roommate! Yes, Jackie moved in during the weekend and the house finally looks like people live in it. The one disturbing thing is that I only saw her for a few moments during her arduous weekend. Makes me think that someone could slowly steal everything from my house over the course of the weekend, fill the house with balloons and leave without me knowing it. A nightmare indeed.
On a side note: it is nice to be relied upon. Thanks for considering me reliable even as I am running around trying to cover all my bases.
There's an aircraft carrier outside my window. The USS Midway to be exact. It's quite a site. I'll try to take a picture of it one of these days. For those who care about military history, the USS Midway was the flagship in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Midway is one of the most northwestern of the Hawaiian Islands. The Battle of Midway is considered the turning point in the fight against Japan in the Pacific theater in World War II. I used to know alot about that particular battle. It was a favorite of mine, up there with the Battle of the Merrimac and the Monitor during the Civil War. Alas, I don't suppose there's a point to all this; I've forgotten almost everything that I once knew about this subject. And yet there's something that tugs at a peace-loving heart. Something that remains of dreams of glory and romance. Whispers of something worth fighting for, lost in the the morning mists that shroud an old aircraft carrier. It is quite a site.
A brief update. My guests are gone now. One of my more pacifist friends suggested that I use cinnamon to deter the ants. I'm a big fan on non-destructive means of detering pests (as an card carrying arachnophobic, it's sometimes difficult for me to catch and release, but I try) and to that end, I have tried cinnamon on various occasions. It is quite interesting and I highly recommend trying it at least once. The cinnamon of choice in my house is Costco ground cinnamon. (Mostly because I'm too lazy to grind my own cinnamon.) Anyway, once you pour cinnamon on an ant trail, the ants freeze for a second and then very cautiously start picking their way through it. I'm not quite sure if it's because it muddles their sense of smell, effectively rendering them blind, or because they don't like to touch it. Anyway, it doesn't seem to do any long term harm. It also doesn't keep them from going where they want to go. Anyway, it suffices to say that the ants are gone for now. I'm sure they will be back. They, of course, know that I cook tasty food.
Otherwise, housework isn't going too well. Probably because I made a lot of phone calls yesterday. Calling old friends after a long interlude can be quite interesting sometimes. One tried, somewhat successfully, to bite my head off (mmm, crunchy); it's nice to know that somethings don't change. Others were much more pleasant. Anyway, by the time all was said and done, it was 10:30 and I was thinking about sleep. Nevertheless, I did finally get around to reading my medical policy and cleaning up some bills and statements that were lying around the house. But that's about it.
In an effort to do some housework so that Jackie (my soon-to-be roomie) will have a place to put her stuff, I am going to try to write about housework all week. Perhaps it will motivate me to do housework so that I have something interesting to write about.
I arrived at home today from my day in The City to find the ants raiding the liquor cabinet. I couldn't really tell where they were going, but I'm guessing they were going for either the Grand Mariner or the Peach Schnapps. They might like Midori, but it hasn't been opened yet, so I'm sticking with my other two guesses. Anyway, earlier in the day I had swung by Target to pick up some anti-ant stuff. I'm really not that fond of genocide, but I figure I should try to keep them out of my house and my backyard to some extent. Anyway, I settled upon this gel which comes in a syringe-like device. To date I had only tried the traps, which had worked after a little effort of cleaning up what ever it was the ants were going for. I still haven't determined what the ants in my bathroom are looking for. One of them picked up a stray hair that was on the counter, which was quite a feat I thought! But my best guess is that they like the smell of my retainer (Ewww!)
Anyway, before inflicting a deadly poison my little visitors, I took a look on the package that the gel came in and it read: "Effective against Argentine, Carpenter, Cornfield, Pharaoh, White Footed, Odorous House, Pavement and Little Black Ants." Heh. I was getting worried because I didn't recognize my ants as any of the types listed ... until the last one. They are of course, little black ants. Now that's what I call smart marketing.
Well, I took the tip off the syringe like the instructions said, and carefully placed a small drop in the area where the ants were coming into the house (I didn't want to scare them and have them start running around all over the kitchen floor.) I thought they would go a little crazy when they first noticed the gel, sort of like when you put a trap down on their trail and they think they're being attacked, but they didn't. I don't think they bothered to inspect it, they just started drinking it. Oh man, do these ants love this stuff. They started climbing over each other to get to it. Madness. I'm telling you, if I wake up in the morning and the ants are gone, I'll never go back to traps again.
Why does it seem like suddenly I can't get away for the weekend? I've been trying to find a free weekend to go down and visit my mother and go to various things that I've been invited to down south, but I can't seem to make it work. At first it was going to be the weekend of the 18th but, mea culpa, I was already past the 21-day advance purchase window for Southwest. Then it was going to be the 25th, but there's a bachelor's party and it seems all the flights are booked anyway. I suppose I could go on Halloween, but that seems a bit odd. Plus my new roommate is coming in this month so I really should be fixing up the house and what not (I think my house is mad at me, it likes to open the garage door when I'm not there.) I hope November is a better month. But looking at my calendar ... I don't think it is.
I've been looking for a new phone. Currently I've been trying to decide between a camera phone and a pda/phone. I've never had a PDA and hence, that's why I can't seem to schedule anything. If you ever hear me mention that I have all these things to do, it's not actually true. It's just that I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing and as a result, I think that I have stuff to do even when I don't. On the bright side, it makes me think that my day is full and that's what counts I suppose. Anyway, what I really want is a small, light-weight phone/voice recorder/organizer/camera. I think this would be pretty nifty. I wouldn't need a full sized PDA screen since you wouldn't be running office apps or anything complicated. Just and address book and a calendar. Camera's are getting easier and easier to fit on the small phones and of course, with a receiver, the voice recording capability is easy to fit. Some voice recognition software so that I wouldn't need to use a stylus would be nice too. Maybe someone from Sony will read this. But then again, maybe I should just stick with what's out there....
Ants and spiders spend more time in my house than I do. In fact, in the last couple of days, they have been making themselves right at home. I'm very glad that they like my house. I like my house. It's a nice house. I like my backyard. It seems that the pigeons and weeds like my backyard too, though for different reasons. (Seems the weeds like it as a home and the Pigeons think it's a nice place for a duece) In fact, the other day, I saw a squirrel sunning himself on the patio. I think they are trying to tell me something. Now if I could just figure out what that was.
I've been having trouble keeping up with both journals lately. In fact, budgeting my time has been an excercise in futility. Mostly I've been reacting to things. I am hopeful that this will be a month of progress; what begins as a hodgepodge of thoughts will hopefully come to some meaningful point. But as it is just a beginning, I won't try quite so hard today.
In a couple of weeks I will have a new roommate. I'm a bit apprehensive because I've grown quite comfortable living alone, ie, walking around my house naked and such. I guess that will have to stop. That won't be a problem for the moment since the weather's taken a colder turn, but when it gets hot again....
I'm eating way too much sitting in front of the computer at work. I need to stop buying snack foods. Lord knows how much longer my metabolism can keep this up. At least I manage to get in one day of climbing every week. Seeing how much I pay for membership, I really should try to go more often. Besides, Lily's already starting to make 5.10Bs look easy. You better step back girl, I'm the second best climber in this group! :P
Happy Birthday to my dear friend Linda. You are much loved. Particularly for your uncanny ability to take as much time or even longer to retell an event than the event took to happen. Quite a feat indeed.
And on a more serious note, please remember to vote next week! I'll have daily annoying reminders to that effect. People are dropping out of the race left and right. What started out as a wide open field seems to have gravitated to a two party race, much to my despair. And remember, there are two important propositions on the ballot too. For myself, I have often hid behind the veil of ignorance as my defense for not voting. If you don't vote, you'll never have a chance to make the wrong choice. And if you never pick the wrong thing, you'll never learn to be informed.