Random Stuff

Sat - February 12, 2005

juggling in the rain

The weather out here was uncommonly beautiful last week, for about five days, and I felt myself catching the juggling bug again. (Two years ago, around Easter, I picked up my clubs again and wandered into the Berkeley Juggling Club on a Friday afternoon. I was totally hooked.)

Anyway, my new job has me working until six or seven every night, and Corey and I usually go out on Friday nights. Not to mention the fact that it's been extremely cold, and it gets dark somewhere between five and six o'clock. So I haven't been doing any juggling in the last several months.

But I caught the craving again. And I caught it bad. Went up to the park last Sunday, it being so mild out, but none of the usual jugglers were up there, so I juggled alone. (Not the same.) A couple of young'uns happened by, so I got to get them started on a basic three-beanbag cascade, which was nice, but still not the same.

When I found out this week that our weekend plans had been canceled, I started getting my hopes up. If I could get out of work early, and if Corey and I were able to go out another night this weekend, and if people were going to show up . . . I might just get to satisfy my craving.

So five o'clock hit last night, and I was out the door. The moment (I mean the moment) I stepped out, I felt the first drop of rain. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Grrr. Undaunted, I got in the car and drove over to campus. I'd been battling a cold all week, so I really didn't relish making it worse. I knew the guys had secured an indoor spot for juggling in the winter, but I didn't know how far I'd have to walk in the rain . . .

But I was not to be deterred. I found a parking spot (finally) WAYYYYY on the western edge of campus, put some change in the meter, slung my bag of clubs over my shoulder, and started hiking. It was still raining, but just barely. Misting, really. And I got to the building in about ten minutes. Man, it felt good to walk in and hear clubs dropping again.

So I got myself warmed up a little and joined in. It took me a little while to get my arms going, but I found myself falling into the pattern again. It was GREAT!!!!! There's nothing quite like throwing things back and forth with someone. Kind of like "playing catch" multiplied by six.

Before long, I started to feel my own out-of-shape-ness start to catch up with me. After about 45 minutes, my arms felt like rubber. But I couldn't stop. How often do I get to do this??? So I made mistake after mistake after mistake, but I stayed in there and played hard.

There were about seven of us all together, and a couple of the more experienced guys suggested we do something with all seven of us . . .

Let me just say that I've done things like this before, where we all get in a line and we're catching from one side, throwing to another, passing a club down the line while each of us continues juggling. And that's hard enough. This was something entirely new.

There were four of us in a line. A B C D. Imagine that A and B are facing to the right and C and D are facing to the left. B is passing clubs with both C and D, and C is passing clubs with both A and B. Simple, right? Yeah, except that's only four people. By the time we added another three, my head was spinning, and I was struggling just to keep myself from getting whacked in the head by a stray club. But I made a couple of good throws. And I didn't give up. Which is the important thing.

And it was great.

I need to remember to make time for this in my life.

Anyway, Happy Saturday to everyone. Get out there and make some mistakes.

Posted at 12:22 PM Read More

Tue - February 1, 2005

days are drifting quickly by

So my new job has me working some serious hours. Usually 11 or 12 hours a day. And going pretty hard the whole time. The funny thing is, I love it! I'm finding it extremely rewarding, and I can see lots of great adventures in front of me.

But I'm not used to the pace of these days yet. Corey's being a house-husband right now, so I get home at 6:30 or 7:00 at night, sit down to a wonderful hot meal, then hang out with Corey for a couple hours. Then it's bedtime. (Shortly, in fact. See? No time for blogging!) I used to get depressed when I got home from work because I felt like I wasn't doing enough during the day. This time around, I'm feeling fine. I work really hard during the day, so I really don't feel guilty about giving myself a few hours of rest at the end.

And rest is what I'm feeling like doing now. I'll write more soon.

Posted at 09:55 PM Read More

my new toy

So my days of carrying around a Palm Pilot like it was a third arm have given way to this little monster. It's called a BLACKBERRY, and it's a vicious little thing. Not that different than a Palm Pilot, really, except for two things: always-on email and cell phone. So there's no escape. You're reachable wherever you go (at least wherever the nice folks at T-mobile have elected to place an antenna). I find myself reading email while I'm in the car, while I'm watching TV (okay, I have a laptop so I'm used to that), while I'm sitting in a movie theater waiting for a movie to begin, while I'm eating breakfast at a restaurant . . .

Crazy.

But I found myself adapting to it extremely quickly. I've been a gadget-freak my whole life, and I could always imagine myself being able to do these things with a Palm Pilot or a cell phone. Now that the technology has caught up, it was easy for me to pick it up and run.

I remember my first Palm Pilot. I installed a program called AvantGo, that allowed me to download a bunch of websites while it was connected to the computer, then take the data with me later. I used to sync it every day at work, then take the stuff with me to read later. So this isn't actually that much different. Slower, actually, since it downloads them in real time.

And the Blackberry is far from perfect. The little keyboard up there is far from terrific. I picked up "graffiti" (Palm's stylus alphabet) within a few minutes, so I was perfectly happy entering data with a stylus. This thing requires you to push those little keys, then wait for it to guess what you're trying to type (notice there are two letters on each key). It means constantly looking between the keyboard and the screen. Hardly efficient.

The speakerphone is nice and loud. A+ there. And the phone is relatively easy to use. But the organizer half of the device is really inefficient compared to a Palm. You have to use the little thumbwheel on the side to navigate anywhere, and that's not always very fast. With my Palm, I could just tap wherever I wanted to go.

And my biggest complaint is the lack of software development. Palm has a gigantic developer community, so I could find new programs every week (and usually free ones) to load onto my Palm. Not just games either, but useful little utilities that would help me track my mileage, do currency conversions, set alarms, or read movie listings.

(Corey just walked in and called me a geek for spending all this time writing about my Blackberry. Yes, I am!!!!!)

Anyway, I like the new-gadget-ness of the Blackberry, but it's not the most elegant, beautiful piece of technology I've ever had. Feels a little like going from a Mac to a PC.

Posted at 09:44 PM Read More

Sun - January 16, 2005

just a few questions

Corey and I were at a dinner party with some friends last night and our pal Jamen pulled out one of these little electronic games. It was called "20Q" and it was one of the most mind-blowing little gadgets I've ever met.

Here's how it works: it's basically the old game of "20 questions", but the little ball (about the size of a yo-yo) asks all the questions. And you can press one of four buttons after each question: YES, NO, SOMETIMES, or UNKNOWN. The yo-yo asks you a series of twenty questions (most of them pretty standard, like "Is it flat?") after which it guesses what you're thinking of. And about eight times out of ten, the little magic yo-yo gets it right. Yeah, really! We thought of things as obscure as "plutonium", "jicama", "shopping cart", and "torpedo", and the damn thing guessed them. Unbelievable. We were able to stump it, but were surprised more than not to find the word that we were thinking of printed on its little screen.

The website claims that it has "artificial intelligence" but I have to admit that I don't really know what that means any more. Does it learn from each round of playing? Does it adapt to how I answer the questions? One of the scientists at my new job has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence. Maybe I should ask him.

Anyway, we played with this thing for hours. Great fun. Click on the picture above, and you'll be deposited at a website where you can play a virtual version . . .

Posted at 10:01 PM Read More

Sun - January 9, 2005

i gave the big brown box . . .

. . . to the nice lady at the UPS Store. It is now (supposedly) in transit, and should be in Mom's hands by the end of the week.

But I'm not promising anything yet.

Posted at 03:18 PM Read More

Fri - January 7, 2005

a big brown box

Okay, so here's how the story began . . .

When I was home visiting my parents for my brother's wedding, I was driving my mom's car a lot. When I flew home, I still had Mom's car key in my pocket (realized it just after I went through airport security, too, so it was too late to run it back to her.

<sigh>

Mom had one more key, so it wasn't a huge deal, but she still needed her key back. So I promised her that I would drop it in the mail as soon as I got home.

(That was my first mistake. "As soon as I got home?" Okay, that just wasn't ever going to happen. But I gave it the old college try. I really did. And "try" is the operative word. All of my recent leadership/personal development training has taught me that when I even think the word "try", nothing happens.

So I "tried" to mail Mom's key for several weeks.

I have this thing about post offices. Well, it's not really a thing. It's just that I hate them. I loathe post offices. They feel old and archaic and pointless and stupid and slow and dirty and . . . I just hate them. And there's one at the bottom of my street now.

So Mom's key just sat on my dresser.

After a couple weeks (and a couple more promises to Mom) I managed to get the key into a padded mailing envelope.

And after a few more weeks (like, about six) I managed to drop that stupid key into a mailbox.

Mission accomplished.

So when Mom and Dad checked out of their hotel after Christmas, then called us from the plane to let us know that they had left some things in their hotel room, and would we mind picking them up, putting them in a box, and shipping them home . . . well, I just sighed.

But I was determined this time.

So I took a box that someone had used to ship us Christmas gifts, threw all the stuff in there, taped it shut, wrote the address on it, and schlepped it down to the freakin' post office the next day.

No joke.

The next day.

And I triumphantly called Mom to let her know that I had mailed the box, paid a little extra for priority mail, and that it should arrive by the weekend.

But the post office gods had other ideas.

Came home Tuesday night to find THE BOX on our front porch. Yeah. It was back. Like a recurring ear infection. Like a childhood nightmare. Like . . . . I don't know what it was like, BUT THE GODDAMN BOX WAS ON MY FRONT PORCH!!!!!

Get this. I never removed the label that had been used by Corey's brother to ship us Christmas gifts. It was a ratty, old label taped to the bottom of the box. Half of the address was torn off, even. Ya really gotta hand it to those post office guys -- terrific detective work, fellas. And nobody bothered to check the TOP of the box or the postmark to figure out where the package was actually supposed to go.

So the bloody thing has been sitting in the apartment all week.

<sigh>

Sorry, Mom. Tomorrow's Saturday, and I WILL have it in the mail to you!!!!

Here endeth the lesson.

Posted at 10:52 PM Read More

Sun - January 2, 2005

finishing touches

My last official day of vacation. The company I work for closes its offices between Christmas and New Year's, so I've had the last week off. Which was good, because we did so much painting and cleaning and organizing and furniture-schlepping that we both needed a break. So how did we spend our break?

We slept a lot.

It's been freezing cold outside (in Northern California, that means like fifty degrees) so that hasn't been conducive to a lot of hard work. And it's also been raining, Seattle-style, ever since Christmas day. This morning, we woke up to a lack of electricity, which also didn't help. But that didn't last long, so we got ourselves out of bed and made a day of it.

The kitchen needed one more coat of paint, so I tackled that this afternoon. This red color has been terrible to work with. Our first two coats were semi-gloss, which didn't quite work in the kitchen, so we covered it with a coat of primer. Then two more coats of the red in a satin finish. That was as far as we made it before Christmas. But it wasn't quite enough, so I did one more coat tonight.

Corey just got home from getting groceries, and we're watching Will and Grace, and my eyelids are starting to close, so I think it's time to call it a night.

Good night, everybody.

Posted at 10:37 PM Read More

Thu - December 30, 2004

beyond words

(photo credit: NOAA via Wikipedia)

As we celebrated Christmas with our family and friends, we paused in horror each time we saw a news report or headline. Too terrible to imagine. September eleventh pales in comparison, and this time there's no "Axis of Evil" to blame it on. Really puts the idea of tragedy into perspective. Blame is pointless. The best place to put all of that anger and helplessness that we're feeling is into the relief effort. That's all that matters now.

We sat around the breakfast table Tuesday morning and all decided to send some of our Christmas money to the victims of the tsunamis. So I invite you, if you had a wonderful holiday, to do the same. The photo above will take you to the Wikipedia page that has lots and lots of links to agencies where you can donate. But I'll post a couple more here:

The American Red Cross - Amazon.com has a 1-click page set up for donating directly to the tsunami relief effort. As of this writing, they've collected 5.5 million USD.

The World Food Programme - An international organization, focusing on the food shortage. This is where we donated.

As a holiday, Christmas tends to remind me how much we are all connected. How much we depend on each other. How, when it comes right down to it, we're all the same little specks on this big planet.

Let's not forget how lucky we are right now.

Posted at 01:50 PM Read More

Wed - December 29, 2004

Why I haven't written (really)

It felt so good to sit down at the keyboard this afternoon and post to this blog. And since it's the end of the year, I found myself flipping back through old blog entries, reading them and getting nostalgic. I noticed that the dates of my postings have gotten more and more sporadic, peppered by a few half-hearted explanations about why they've gotten more and more sporadic.

I remember that I started writing in this journal because I wanted to connect with people, both people I knew and people I'd never met. Yet I had let that connection fade over the last several months. There must be a reason . . .

Well, there is. It's not a complicated one. I simply got scared, so I stopped writing.

Back in the beginning, I had very clear boundaries in my head about what was appropriate and what was not appropriate for this journal. When I lost my job in April (due, in large part, to the content on this website) I found those boundaries had been shaken. My heart was broken after losing my job as a teacher, and I no longer knew what was appropriate for posting. Rather, I was afraid I was going to get "punished" again for writing on my website. So I wrote, but I wrote with hesitance. And eventually I stopped. I let other things in my life take the place of the work I was doing here.

I regret that. Not because a website is more important than other forms of human connection, but because I turned away from this connection out of fear.

Having acknowledged that, I'm ready to move on.

Good to see all of you again.

Posted at 10:02 PM Read More

Sun - December 19, 2004

Keeping Busy

So my intention was to start writing again. Obviously not a committed intention. Corey and I have been having fun redecorating our apartment. Today was all about COLOR! Painted three rooms today, and I'll be doing one or two more before the week is out. Mom and Dad and John and Leigh Ann and Marvel (my grandmother) will be flying out Thursday night to spend Christmas with us, and we can't wait.

But it means I'll be pretty busy until about 6pm on Thursday. I promise to post something over the holidays.

Posted at 09:34 AM Read More

Sun - September 26, 2004

one crazy september

Wow! What a wild and crazy month this has been. Brian (my bro) got married on September 11th, and it was an AMAZING day. Beautiful weather, a really nice ceremony, and a great reception. Perfect. Pictures to come. Then, a mere six days later, Corey treated me to a great big adventure in the sky for my thirtieth birthday. That's me up there, mom!

I've ALWAYS wanted to skydive, but never given myself the opportunity. (This is where having an amazing, thoughtful, loving husband really pays off!) Truly, there is no better way I can think of to cross the threshold from twenties to thirties than to throw myself from a perfectly good (although small and rickety) airplane.

People ask me if I was scared, and I have to tell you that there was one brief moment. My head and upper torso were hanging out the door of the smaller-than-my-volkswagen (but-still-safer-than-freefall) airplane. The instructor (who was strapped very tightly to my back) told me to put my right foot on the landing strut, right next to his. I put my foot outside the airplane, touched it to the strut . . . and slipped.

Horror, as I imagined my body being sucked out into open space (yes, it was only 10,000 feet, but I may never get closer to outer space than this, so allow me the exaggeration, okay?). Anyway, my leg just flapped in the wind for a second or two and I pulled it back in, planted it firmly on the landing strut, and waited.

In the movies, there is a long period of waiting between when the jumper (me) is given the signal to jump, and when he actually jumps. I was expecting to have that long period . . . at least to consider the possible ramifications of free-falling at 10k. I was not granted the luxury of that moment to think about things, though, as my instructor was ready to go . . . and he was behind me. It was a simple rock forward (you mean now?!); a rock backward (wait a minute! What if . . . ?) and JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

And believe me, if I could have made any sound at all, it would have been the scream that Goofy makes when he falls off a cliff.

Thank you, Corey. I'll never forget that experience.

Posted at 05:50 PM Read More

Wed - August 11, 2004

The Paper Street Soap Company

Our good friend Adam (from back when we lived in Cleveland) is staying with us right now. He and I are taking the i-impact courses together. Our 3-month course starts this weekend, and Adam has decided to take the plunge and live out here for the whole thing. We're really excited. It's been great having him here, and I think he'll get so much more out of it if he's actually here than if he were doing it via conference calls, emails, etc.

There are some ways in which it's a little weird having someone else in the house, though.

For instance, we've come to think of Meera (our cat) as our little daughter, talking to her as though she were a young teenager who doesn't have to go to school or get a job, but instead lies around the house all day and makes important furniture-scratching contributions to the household. We feed her in the morning and scratch her behind the ears when we come home from work.

Adam doesn't scratch furniture (yet) but he does eat seafood, so he's really just like Meera. As I was dropping him off at work this morning (he's doing temp work for Office Team) I found myself needing to resist the urge to hand him his lunch (like any good mother would) and kiss him good-bye. A small tear formed at the corner of my eye and I felt pride welling up inside me. Our little boy . . . a working man!

<shakes his head to clear the cobwebs>

Posted at 10:39 AM Read More

Mon - August 9, 2004

The future of doug's online journal

There's a new man in town! That's right, folks. I'm through sitting on my butt waiting for the next ten years of my life to pass me by. I'll turn thirty next month, and this is going to be the best decade of my life! It took me ten days of serious self-reflection and the support of dozens of very wonderful people (thanks to the folks who do life training at i-impact) to help me rediscover the man I've been just dying to become all my life. And I wouldn't have made it far enough to even walk through the door if it weren't for eleven years of love and support from my amazing husband, Corey. (Thank you!)

So you can expect very large changes from this side of the world in the next ten years. And that brings me to my reason for posting today. I would very much like to keep this journal around, but I can only do so if I feel that it has value for those reading it. If not, the time and energy I put into this website simply must go into other things.

So here's what we are going to do:

IF you like reading my journal, and you want me to continue posting in it, you need to tell me so. You need to click on the link at the end of this message that says "Post Comment" and tell me why you want to keep hearing from me. No emails, please. I'll determine this by how many folks leave direct comments. And I'm not going to assume anything, so this means former students, parents, family and friends, perfect strangers, newcomers, etc. all need to write in.

I will make a decision on September 17, my thirtieth birthday. In the meantime, I will keep posting, but this post will remain at the top, so be sure to check underneath for new entries.

Have a terrific day!
Douglas

Posted at 06:02 PM Read More

Sun - July 18, 2004

yard sales and spiders and pounds of beef

Hi folks. Welcome to the busiest week of my life. It actually started a few days ago . . .

Our friend Adam, from Cleveland, came to visit on Friday evening. Just in time, in fact, to help us prepare for the big yard sale we were having on Saturday. So Friday night was filled with all manner of business: putting dollar-values on many of our possessions, labeling them with little stickers, yadda yadda yadda. Then, on Saturday we had to rise very early, borrow a vehicle with which to haul the long tables we were borrowing. The day continued in much the same fashion, and by the end of it we were all dead tired. Corey and I had gotten about four hours of sleep the night before, and the day was full of manual labor, constant sun, and . . . oh, I almost forgot the church board meeting I had to attend right in the middle.

So going to dinner and a movie was probably more than we all wanted, but it's all we felt like doing.

Posted at 06:33 PM Read More

Wed - July 14, 2004

federal marriage amendment dies on senate floor

Well, the vote was rejected on the Senate floor today, as expected. HRC called it a "stunning, bi-partisan vote of 50-48". I was stunned, actually, to find that it was so close. We won by two votes????

And notice that the numbers don't add up to 100. Two senators did not vote. You know who?

Kerry (D-MA)
Edwards (D-NC)

I have to tell you, that pisses me off. I've watched "The West Wing" enough to know that when a bill doesn't have the votes it needs, you vote along with your party to save face. But this is a news story, too. And this vote tells me that half of the country believes my marriage should be invalidated. Half of the country!

Posted at 04:43 PM Read More

Thu - July 8, 2004

orkut

I first heard about "orkut" a few months ago. It was a new community-networking site built by the folks at Google. Since I'm already a big fan of Google, I wanted to try it out right away.

Unfortunately, this was an "invite-only" service, not unlike their new mail service. The only way you can join orkut is to receive an invitation from someone who is already a member. That way, they will always maintain this weird "six degrees of separation" thing, and (according to their website) will not grow too quickly. Everyone on orkut has at least one other person on the site who will "vouch" for them.

So I wanted to join, but didn't know anyone who was a member, so I would just have to wait until the cyclone of connections and relationships finally caught up with my little corner of the world.

It caught up yesterday.

Posted at 04:24 PM Read More

Mon - June 28, 2004

benefits of living in oakland (and america)

No, I haven't seen it yet, but I can't wait! Fahrenheit 9/11 has officially become the highest-grossing documentary of all time. Nice. Tonight, I thought I would pop over to Michael Moore's website and see what he has going on. On his front page is this picture, from Oakland's own Grand Lake Theatre. Notice their promise not to enforce the R Rating for the film. Very cool. Sometimes there are many reasons to hate Oakland, but every once in awhile, my fellow Oaklandians surprise me.

I also find it refreshing (and encouraging) that people are seeing this movie in such large numbers. I often find it difficult to wade through all the news-media bullshit and figure out just how divided we really are as a country.

Funny aside: I read stuff in the Wikipedia every day, and today I read the entry about the 2000 election results. Turns out that it really was just that close. When every single last ballot was counted (later on, by an independent research group), it was still Bush OR Gore by a few hundred votes. It really depended on how you counted them.

Posted at 09:15 PM Read More

Sun - June 27, 2004

impacted

Corey just finished "Realize", the second part of his i-Impact training today. (Click the logo to go to their website.) He's not allowed to tell me anything until I take the course myself, so I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the program.

What I can tell you, though, is that he is definitely a changed man. He's gotten more out of this ten-day experience than anything in his life. I can already see him looking at the world through different lenses, and it's really a wonderful thing. Something they did in that cheesy little office building has cracked his heart wide open, and I'm incredibly grateful for the new life he's been given.

I went to his "graduation" tonight, and it was really inspiring. I've been feeling kind of frustrated and resentful lately, since he's going through all of these life-changes, but not able to tell me about any of them. Tonight, though, entering that room full of spouses and kids and best friends (many of whom had gone through the same process) I felt really excited. Can't wait to sign up for my own turn!

Posted at 10:20 PM Read More

Tue - June 22, 2004

another day in paradise

It's called a "bad day", folks. See that right front tire? This '89 Toyota Camry hit Corey so hard that it snapped the wheel right off his truck. It's just hanging there by a couple of frayed nerve endings, like a loose tooth that's ready to come out.

Posted at 11:04 PM Read More

Mon - June 21, 2004

thoughtful words from two of my Elders

My grandmother (we call her "Marvel") clipped this guy's column out of the Cleveland Plain Dealer the other day. Click his picture to go to the text of the article. She sent it to me in a real envelope with a lovely, handwritten note inside. By the time I had read both, I was nearly in tears.

I've been thinking about why this little column affected me so much, and I guess it has a lot to do with the author and the audience. I remember seeing Mr. Feagler's face all over the TV and the newspaper when I was growing up. Been around forever. He's a Cleveland institution, it seems. And I guess there's kind of an assumption out there about old newspaper reporters, especially ones from Cleveland. I guess we figure they are all rich, republican, and homophobic. And maybe he fit into that latter category at one time, but he seems to have opened his heart a little and discovered some new things.

Wow. That's really something.

Posted at 10:33 PM Read More

Tue - June 1, 2004

a little juggling

Posted a little juggling video today. Click on the photo to go to the page . . . one of the kids at school took some footage of my friend and I while we were practicing our club passing.

Nothing new today. I'm working on an imovie slideshow for my other job. They're having an annual awards ceremony, and they wanted kind of a video retrospective to go along with it. So I'm playing with Apple's "Ken Burns Effect" and panning across lots of old photos. It's fun, but I wish I wasn't in such a rush. Really looking forward to leaving for vacation on Thursday.

I've scheduled some time at Light on the Hill retreat center, near Ithaca, for some good old fashioned spiritual renewal. I think I'm probably looking forward to that time the most. This has been quite a year, both personally and professionally, and I really need the recharge.

And it will be great to see the family, too. We've gotten much closer in the last two years, and it's made me realize how much I miss them. We talk a lot more on the phone now, but that doesn't make up for genuine contact. Going out to dinner, playing cards, hanging out in front of the TV, trying to get the dog to stop barking . . . all those things that mean "home".

Oh, and my readership has spiked again. Over 400 hits today. Someone left a comment on my now-infamous "Baby Jessica" entry about how she just graduated high school, and so has been in the news lately. My site comes up on the second page of google's search results. How excruciatingly odd.

Anyway, it's good to be blogging again. 'night.

Posted at 10:58 PM Read More

Tue - May 11, 2004

radio silence

Wow. Haven't been this quiet all year. Not sure what that's about. Obviously, feelings are running pretty high right now, especially regarding what I put up here, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. But I've also been quite a bit busier than usual.

The school year is winding down, and the kids are starting to show it. Oh my God they are a handful right now. Can't say that I blame them, what with the blue skies and sunshine every day, but I don't think I counted on such a ramp-up at the end of the semester. It really shows all the holes in a classroom management system, though, doesn't it? (Making notes for next time!)

Posted at 01:07 PM Read More

Tue - May 4, 2004

silicon gunslinger

I've been kicking my computer business back into high gear lately. It's part of "the plan" that I made when I started this new career. I've been tutoring people on computers for three or four years now, but it's always just been a financial afterthought. Nice to bring in a little extra money once in awhile . . . that sort of thing. Since teaching pays a little bit less than I'm accustomed to earning, I decided that I would need to increase my marketing efforts and drum up a little more business than usual.

So I took out an ad in a local "free" publication, the kind that advertises things like therapists and massage practitioners, new age healers and workshops designed to enhance your self-esteem. You know, a Berkeley kind of magazine. Anyway, like it or not, I'm one of those people. I speak that language. I have a degree in "Consciousness Studies". Even though I teach computers, I'm really more interested in helping people reach their potential. The computer is just the instrument. The music is what I'm all about. I'm "The Friendly Computer Tutor".

Posted at 10:38 PM Read More

Sun - May 2, 2004

an old-fashioned barn-raising

Some days I love my job. Well, actually, most days I love my job. But yesterday was especially nice. If you've been reading for awhile, you know that, in addition to teaching, I also work in long-term care. And this summer, I'll be doing an "Eden Alternative Intensive" with the two facilities I work for. This weekend, we had a gardening party to kick off the summer events.

At this facility, we have a courtyard that sits right in the middle of all of our buildings. It is grassy and sunny, but not much else. Just a big blank space waiting for something to happen to it. For a long time, we've been wanting to do something creative with it, and this weekend we finally did.

We found some raised bed gardens online, then ordered a bunch of them. Then, we went to Home Depot and bought a big pile of dirt. Then we invited some of our residents to come out on Saturday and help us build the garden beds. (That was the best part.)

Posted at 10:08 PM Read More

Wed - April 28, 2004

a great big pile of dirt

Haven't been to Home Depot in awhile, and today I needed to go there to buy dirt. Yup, dirt. And lots of it. Seventy-five cubic feet of dirt and seventy-five cubic feet of lava rock. We're planting some gardens at one of the nursing homes I work at, and since they are raised up high for wheelchairs, they require a lot of dirt.

So there I was, shopping for dirt.

Posted at 11:21 PM Read More

too hot to move

Losing your job over a photograph

lessons in humility

another over-the-counter drug trip

welcome to my madness . . .

a break from practicing

back to basics

the voices in my head

sweeeeet

My two favorite people

million dollar idea