2007

There were 200 posts published in 2007 (this is page 15 of 20).

I Can’t Get No Rest

I had a tough time getting to sleep last night. We went to bed early enough, but I made th mistake of composing a weblog entry in bed before turning off the lights. Sometimes this works, but most of the time it’s a recipe for trouble. My mind races. I lay there, unable to drift off. Such was the case last night.

I rested on my side, listening to “Hawaiian Rainfall” on my iPod (i.e. white noise), trying to keep my mind blank. I practiced meditating, being mindful of my head, my shoulders, my breathing, etc. But all I really noticed was Toto growling and Kristina snoring. I thought that perhaps I should get up and have a little whiskey, or take some melatonin, but dismissed these ideas. “I’ll be asleep soon.”

When the Hawaiian rainfall ended, though, I realized an hour had gone by. (I’d heard parts of that soundscape that were new to me — I’ve always fallen asleep before.) I was still wide awake. Kris was still snoring. At least Toto wasn’t growling anymore.

I opened my laptop and surfed the web, trying to kill time until I got drowsy. It never happened. Eventually I fell asleep sometime around one o’clock.

Max and Nemo woke me at 5am, ripping through the house, scampering over the bed, tumbling down the stairs. They love to tussle in the early morning.

I got out of bed and worked a bit on my sites. I made a vow that, when I to Custom Box, I would finish all my work quickly so that I could take a nap (or meditate), and then have time to get new entries up at every site.

Things went well at first, but then the phone started to ring. Each ring was an interruption, a further delay of my nap. Eventually I discarded the idea altogether. I needed to get my weblog entries posted. I started to work on those.

Then Nick arrived and wanted to speak to my in that cryptic way of his where I have to guess what he’s talking about. I like to talk with Nick — he’s an intersting man — but, as Tony once said, “Talking to him is like talking to the wind.”

After Nick left, I spent half an hour on the phone with somebody discussing a future series of articles for Get Rich Slowly. (Can you believe I have business calls about my blogs?)

Finally, at noon, I forced myself to sit down and meditate for twenty minutes. I’ve been using recorded mp3s of guided meditations in order to relax and ground myself. Nothing mystic. Just good, solid mindfulness.

Of course, this didn’t work either. Nick came in after ten minutes to tell me that he’d seen Little Miss Sunshine over the weekend. While he talked, I tried to do some box quotes. The phone rang. Several times. Then Trent IMed me to let me know that my sites were down. “I think all of Dreamhost is down,” he said, referring to the company that hosts my web sites (and his). (Dreamhost has been a flakey mess for months, and they seem incapable of fixing the problems.)

Nick came in again. The phone rang. My computer beeped to let me know I had new e-mail.

I was going crazy!

Finally at about two, everything calmed down. I found time to whip out four quick weblog entries. At 3pm, I sighed, put things away, and headed home. “At least I can meditate or nap at home,” I told myself.

When I got home, I put all the cats outside so they could not bother me. I turned on the heat. I put on my slippers. I found a fleece blanket, pulled it over my head, closed my eyes, and turned on my iPod. I was going to do a pzizz nap, and goddamn it, I was going to enjoy it. The music started. The narrator began to guide me to sleep. I was drifting off when…

RING!

The telephone jarred me awake. I swore. I started the nap over from the beginning, but again the phone rang. It was Nick with a box crisis.

The universe was conspiring against me to keep me from getting any kind of decent sleep. I gave up. I sat down and wrote this entry. And once I schedule it to post tomorrow morning (or now, since you’re reading this), I’m going to get up and play the Wii.

I’d better be able to fall asleep tonight.

When Kris got home, I told her my tale of woe. She listened patiently and then asked, “Do you want realistic Kris or sympathetic Kris?”

“How about a little of each,” I said.

“Nobody’s going to feel sorry for you,” she said. And here she made a mocking voice, “Oh poor me. I’m not able to meditate at work. I can’t write my weblogs.”

sigh

I guess she does have a point.

Birthday Weekend

It was a quiet, low-key weekend at Rosings Park. I turned 38. We celebrated by being frugal, and by loafing around the house.

On Friday night, Tiffany joined us for dinner. We made meatloaf using beef that we purchased in bulk last fall. With our meal, we drank a $3 bottle of wine. After dinner, Tiff and Kris sipped tea. I played Wii. (Kris and I have been playing a lot of Wii lately, actually.)

On Saturday we spent time in the yard. Kris worked on her flower gardens while I weeded the lawn with my weed-popper. I went for a walk. While walking, I listened to The Secret, which is a maddening book. It purports to share the important truth that great minds throughout the centuries have known: The Law of Attraction. It dresses this garbage up in pseudoscience. There’s some valuable stuff here about positive thinking and setting goals, but the core of the book — The Law of Attraction — is pretty much just bunk.

On Saturday night, we went out. We stopped at Powell’s for a while, where I drooled over their notebook selection. I exercised restraint and only bought one: an amazing book with 100 tiny little lines and about 20 columns. I have no idea what it’s supposed to be used for, but I love it.

“You know,” I told Kris. “I just had another great idea for a weblog.”

She groaned. I’m always having great ideas for a weblog. (I haven’t even told y’all about my million-dollar idea, but that’s because I need to register the domains.) “You don’t need another weblog,” she said.

“This one’s easy,” I said. “It’s all about notebooks. I’ll only post to it a few times a year. Whenever I find a good notebook, I’ll buy it and post it to the blog.” I paused. “I even have a great name for it! I can call it Spiral Bound.”

Yes, dear readers, I have registered spiralbound.org, and soon I will have a notebook blog. I can sense you all simultaneously laughing and crying, but I don’t care. The Foldedspace Blogging Empire will be triumphant!

After my notebook epiphany, we went across the street to the Bagdad Theater to catch a 7:50 showing of Children of Men. “Is this line for the movie?” Kris wondered aloud. People were stretched down the block. We were amazed. Admittedly we don’t go to the Bagdad often, but we’ve never seen a line before. Usually we walk right up, pay our three bucks, grab some pizza, and head to our seats. Not this time. This time there was a wait.

There was a longer line for food. “Yikes,” I said. Kris went inside to save seats. I was only halfway through the line when the film started, so I gave up. I went to stand in the entrance while waiting for the line to end. I watched the first 20 or 25 minutes of the film standing up, missed a few minutes, then had a seat.

Children of Men is a bleak and interesting film. It’s from the same genre as THX-1138, which I reviewed last week, though it’s of a much different style. It is amazingly well made. Midway through I leaned over to Kris and whispered, “This film scares the shit out of me.” And it did.

Children of Men posits a near future in which the entire human race has gone infertile. It’s 2027 (or thereabouts) and the last child was born in 2009. The world has descended into chaos. Countries have been nuked. Terrorism is rampant. The human race is dying out. For some reason, England is the last bastion of civilization. There’s a huge illegal immigrant problem. (Why? Is it because England is the last bastion of civilization? I’m not quite clear on that.) Why is the human race dying? Is there hope for the future? That’s what this film’s about.

I liked it. I felt it lacked something at first, but the past 48 hours have only improved the film in my mind. In fact, I intend to purchase it tomorrow to add to my science fiction library. I’ll probably watch it again before this weekend, taking care to analyze things.

(It was only later that I realized why I found the film so frightening. I believe that many of the scenes were filmed in one take. Looking back, for example, I cannot remember a cut during two scenes: the motorcycle attack and the escape from the farm. I think these are filmed all in one take, and that adds a huge visceral element to the film.)

On Sunday, we lazed around the house. Kris baked me birthday cookies. I mowed the lawn — or half of it. During the mid-afternoon I became nauseated and had to halt my mowing. (I hope I can finish today.) Instead, I wrote. I got a lot of writing done.

Also this weekend, I spent some time working on a list of goals. I hope to share that list sometime later this week…

In all, this was a fantastic birthday weekend. It was relaxing. It was productive. It was fun.

The Golden Compass ‘Sizzle’ Reel

I have a couple of real entries in the works, but I couldn’t let my birthday pass without posting something. And what I’ve decided to share is awesome (assuming it’s not pulled from YouTube). Here’s the ‘sizzle’ reel for The Golden Compass:

Outstanding. I love the look. I first wrote about this movie in January, when I shared a set of film stills. I’m very excited about this film.

The best part? Peter Jackson is not involved with this production.

30 Minutes

This entry is in response to those who were concerned about my last entry, in which I described speeding to work in an attempt to make the journey in 25 minutes. This is not something I do very often.

My normal drive is a sleepy sort of thing in which I listen to an audiobook: Patrick O’Brian, Thomas Hardy, or something about personal finance. It’s not perfectly legal, but then few drivers ever make twenty mile trips completely within the law. As I mentioned before, it usually takes me 28 or 29 minutes to make the trip.

Out of curiosity, I made the trip on Friday obeying every traffic law — I used cruise control to keep me within the speed limit. How long did it take me? Exactly thirty minutes.

Also: I don’t speed through school zones. I’m pretty careful about that. It does frustrate me when people can’t read the parameters for school zones — “20mph 7-5 on school days”, “20mph when lights flash”, etc. — and simply drive 20mph through the stretch all the time, but you’ll never find me exceeding the posted limit.

25 Minutes

Most days it takes me 28, 29, 30 minutes to drive to work. I should know. I time the trip every day. It takes me roughly ten minutes to get from our house to the middle stoplight in Oregon City; it takes another ten minutes to get from there to the first stoplight in Canby; and then it takes ten more minutes to get to the office.

On days with bad traffic, or when I hit the lights wrong, it can take as much as 32 minutes to make the drive. A good day is 27 minutes. Sometimes, in the summer, if the roads are dry and maybe there’s a holiday, I can do it in 26 minutes, but that happens maybe five or six times a year.

I have never been able to make the drive in 25 minutes, though goodness knows I’ve tried.

This morning it hadn’t even occurred to me to try for this golden goal. I wasn’t late (the usual impetus for trying such a feat), and I didn’t feel especially in a hurry. I planned to be alone with my thoughts on the drive to work.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice that the clock on the dashboard flicked from 6:33 to 6:34 just as I was pulling out of the driveway. There’s always a greater chance of a good time when the clock flips as I’m starting. (It buys me an extra thirty seconds on average, you know.)

When I made it through the middle stoplight in Oregon City at just over seven minutes (I’ve never made it in seven), thoughts of a personal best began to flit through my head. Then I made the stoplight at the tracks and the one at the top of the hill. “Whoa,” I thought. “A clean run through O.C. Eight minutes. I have a real chance here.”

My chances improved when traffic between Oregon City and Canby was light, and I had two cutters in front of me. A “cutter” is any scofflaw willing to break the speed limit, clearing the path ahead of me of any possible law enforcement. If I’m in a hurry, I try to find a cutter and then linger a quarter-mile back while he takes all the risk. With two 65mph+ cutters in front of me, things were looking great.

I made it to the stoplight in Canby at 6:51, seventeen minutes after I’d started. This is a great time (I’ve never done it in sixteen minutes), but what made it better was that the light was green. And, in a sort of miracle, so was the next one! (On average, these two lights probably stop me 1.4 times per trip.)

I took the smugglers’ run, turning off the highway and onto the side street in order to bypass the next light, but this is standard operating procedure. I have to make a left-hand turn against the flow of traffic, so if I didn’t do this, I’d be stuck waiting for a minute or more. I turned onto Ivy and crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t encounter any obstacles. I was pleased to see that the car in front of me took the school zone at 40mph (which is something that I won’t do — I stick to 30mph max). No problem there. I was even more pleased when the final light was green.

I don’t think I’ve ever made the trip without hitting a light until today. It was perfect. What’s more, I was on target for 25 minutes. It was in my grasp. That coveted target would be mine.

There was a slight snag on the Marquam highway, though. Two cars ahead the driver was following the speed limit. That’s fine. On normal days, I follow the speed limit, too. But this wasn’t a normal day. I was chasing a goal! I wanted to be free, unfettered, able to lay into the accelerator. Because the driver was traveling the speed limit, it didn’t bother me much, but I confess to getting a little antsy.

I turned onto Gribble Road at 6:58. I had less than two minutes left to realize my dream. It was doable. To my delight, there was no traffic. Here I committed the gravest driving sin of the trip, flying down the center of this narrow country road at 80mph. The clock turned 6:59 just before the Kayas’ house. I knew my work was cut out for me.

I turned onto Oglesby and floored it. Again: no traffic. I flew past the chicken farm — 6:59. I flew past Mom’s house — 6:59. I flew past the Carlsons’ — 6:59. I had it! I had it! I was going to make the trip in 25 minutes! But then, seconds before I turned into the driveway, the clock flipped to 7:00.

Alas!

My goal of making my commute in 25 minutes remains unfulfilled. I came close. A couple of little things held me back. If only I’d realized at the start of the trip that a record was possible! I could have picked up my speed on River Road. I could have stayed closer to my cutters on the highway. I could have used my secret nuclear arsenal to destroy the cars in front of me coming out of Canby…

Ah well — maybe next time.

(Note for picky readers: Yes, I realize that what I’m actually describing is an attempt to make the drive in 25:59 or less. That’s fine. My definition of 25 minutes in this case is loose, and only makes use of the starting and ending times on the dashboard clock. It’s a small intellectual conceit I allow myself.)

The Waltons

Nick’s been after me for years to watch The Waltons. “It’s great,” he tells me. “I think you’d really like it.”

I remember The Waltons from when I was a kid, though I never watched it then. In fact, I remember making fun of it in grade school. “What makes you think I’ll like it?” I asked.

“It’s about the pastoral lifestyle,” he said. “Plus it has a lot of old-time stuff from the Depression. You like that stuff, right?”

Finally, after years of sitting on our Netflix queue, the first disc came tonight. It’s alright. It has potential. I do like the pastoral setting, the large family, the “wholesome” storylines. Elements of the show remind me of gorwing up in the country and seeing my cousins down at Grandma’s place.

The episode I’m watching right now is cracking me up, though, because it’s a total conglomeration of all the things I like. The Waltons are in bad financial straits. They’re broke. The family uses too much electricity. The truck brakes an axle. When their milk cow gives birth, they face a hard choice: they’d like to keep the baby, but it’s a bull, and a bull has no economic value. (If fact it’s a liability.) They sell the calf for $9.

This upsets the children. Worse, it upsets its mother. Ma and Pa Walton (or whatever they’re called) hold a discussion about how animals have emotions, and how the cow misses her calf.

And, of course, there are the ever-present trappings of the 1930s: the old cards, the magazines and books, the family gathered around the radio listening to Edger Bergan and Charlie McCarthy.

Meatball loved this episode. He sat on the coffee table and stared at the television for more than twenty minutes. He was especially interested in the cows.

I do like how The Waltons reminds me of my childhood, but I’m not convinced I need to watch many more episodes, But if Max likes it this much, I’m willing to get at least one more disc…

Goose Nexus

Custom Box Service is located in farmland outside of Canby, Oregon, which itself is rather rural (though less rural than it once was). About a mile from the office there is a pond. In the late winter and early spring, this pond is home to hundred (thousands?) of geese.

For whatever reason, every couple days these geese get into a fit about something and start clucking and squawking. Most of the time they stay back by their pond, and we simply listen to what their complaints.

Sometimes, though, they engage in a display of goose fireworks. They rise above the tree-line and take to the sky, flying in great V-shaped platoons. Several platoons cluster together, crossing back-and-forth among each other, individual birds dropping from one V and joining another. The entire battalion of birds swarms through the sky, honking a fearful din, moving slowly to some new destination.

Today this army of geese took flight and passed directly over my office. What a noise! I had been preparing to go outside for my walk. But I put off my exercise a bit for fear of the bombs this air force might unleash. I’ve been pooped on before by a goose. It’s not pleasant.

Though I’ve returned to my regular posting pace here the past three or four months, I still get people who tell me I’m not writing enough. I think this is really just code for, “What’s going on with the chicken?”

I looked out the window just now to see what was making such a ruckus. Here in the country, we often get strange machines roaring and rearing in the nearby fields. In this case, something had been growling for a couple of minutes, but I couldn’t see what it was.

“Oh look,” I said to Jeff, who had just come into the office. “That silly chicken is up here foraging for food.” I hadn’t yet fed it its daily chicken-flavored cat food. “I should take a photo with my computer,” I said.

But when I went to open the window, a fat juicy yellow jacket dropped from the blinds. This happens often during this time of year. I don’t know where they come from, but yellow jackets spontaneously appear in my office. They especially like to pop out from the light fixture.

I have a bee phobia, so when this happens, Jeff knows his duty. He strips the ball cap from his head and thwack thwack he pummels the poor bee into a pulp.

“Thanks,” I said. And I leaned out the window to take a couple snaps of my chicken friend. Enjoy!


Look carefully. The chicken is in the lower right, between the two bushes.


Ours is a free-range chicken. Note the mossy sidewalk.

THX-1138: A Future Without Hope

I’ve always had a taste for dystopias.

  

I find tales of bleak alternate realities and possible futures fascinating. Some people find them depressing, but I find them inherently filled with hope. I like to believe that I would be that lonesome sole, able to shake off the shackles of the oppressors.

Here are just a few of my favorite dystopic stories: We, Anthem, The Dispossessed, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Planet of the Apes (the book is superior to either film adaptation), The Handmaid’s Tale, The Children of Men, On the Beach, The Wild Shore, The Quiet Earth, Mad Max, The Island. (Note: I realize I’m using the term dystopia broadly here to include post-apocalyptic scenarios. These two sub-genres share features I find appealing.)

  

It’s time to add a new title to this list: George Lucas’ first film, THX 1138, from 1971. It’s brilliant.

I’ll admit at the outset that this film is not for everyone. In fact, it’s probably not for many people. It’s strange. Much of it is observational rather than plot-driven. But wow is it intriguing.

THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) lives in a vast underground city. The residents of this city — who may or may not be clones — are bald, sedated, and dull. THX works in a cyborg factory, installing radioactive brains. When he returns to his apartment, he watches holographic pornvids and, covertly, falls in love with his roommate, LUH 3417. (As with many dystopias, sex is a crime in this world.)

When LUH becomes pregnant, the pair is imprisoned in a vast white emptiness with other deviants. (This section reminds me of a Star Trek episode, the name of which escapes me.) This part of the film feels very experimental, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. With bald people. LUH is killed. THX escapes with the help of two other prisoners.

  

The final part of the film is an extended chase sequence though the underground city. While not particularly exciting (The French Connection, released a few months later, featured a better chase), it’s visually striking. THX eventually escapes when the budget for his recapture is excited. He climbs from a hatchway to the world above. (A scene which, I now recognize, has been used many times in subsequent films.)

I liked THX 1138. The story is difficult to follow at first, but gradually becomes more clear. Because it’s an observational film (kind of like Altman’s stuff), most people would not enjoy it. But the cinematography is beautiful, and the movie is filled with ideas. I also like that much of the Star Wars aesthetic can be found here, six years earlier.

  

And now George Lucas brings us crap like Attack of the Clones.

(For a full review, check out Alexandra DuPont’s take. She likes it too.)

Six Years of Foldedspace

What a gorgeous day. The sun is out. It’s 19 degrees centigrade. (That’s 66 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you who home-school your children.) The camellia and magnolia are in bloom. My lawn is newly mowed. The birds and squirrels are chattering while the cats — all four of them — explore the ground below. (Max was amazed — amazed! to see that the back doors allowed him another way in and out of the house.)

I’ve dragged the card table and a couple folding chairs out here onto the porch, so that I can have a real and proper writing table. I’ve been puffing my pipe. I’ve been reading comic strips. I’ve been answering e-mail. In short: life is grand.

And soon Kris will return from Virginia, making things that much better.

Today marks this site’s sixth anniversary. I’d had a site before that, of course, and even an “online journal” (which is what we called them back before they were blogs, back when we coded them by hand). But it was six years ago today that I signed up at some place called Blogger and began my experiment with formalized writing for the web.

That first year was rocky. I didn’t post often. I posted typical “here’s what I ate for breakfast” entries. I worried about the upcoming Lord of the Rings films. (With some cause, as it turns out.) After Septemeber 11th, I went silent for a whole month as I tried to wrap my brain around it. Notable entries from year one:

During the second year, I left Blogger, which at that time was too unstable and inflexible for my liking. I moved to a new platform called Movable Type. It was great! It lived on my own server and offered all sorts of flexibility. Notable posts from this period of 2002-2003 include:

In retrospect, this blog’s third year was its Golden Age. It had many readers, and they left many comments. I wrote about a lot of things (especially Proust). I had fun. I wrote about a high-school leadership camp. I met Dr. Comic Book Guy. I dreamed I met an old friend (while naked). I fell in love with the iTunes Music Store. Mac, Joel, and I played with a videophone. I meditated on the simplicity movement. I wrote about Dad. Twice. (That last entry is one of my favorites.) I had knee surgery. I went clam-digging. I entered the photo competition at the county fair. I went camping with Mac. I took a writing class from Rick Piet. I started reading the Patrick O’Brian books. (And managed to get me, Joel, and Dave kicked out of a Patrick O’Brian movie.) We endured an ice storm. We spent time in Yakima with Jeremy and Jennifer. I wrote about the malleability of time.

The fourth year began with a bang. I changed the layout to the form you see here today. This layout has served me well. I’ve tried to change it a couple of times, but always you folks have risen in revolt. This year was marked by a sudden change: we bought a new home. Some favorite entries include:

During this site’s fifth year, I discovered The Decemberists. I learned that Tuesday is Sno-Ball day. The cats shared a weekend at Rosings Park and were fascinated by a squirrel. I actually shared too much cat. I also shared the golden rules of weblogging. I struggled to get better sleep. My heart was melted by the gin fizz.

And, of course, I wrote the most important entry ever: Get Rich Slowly! Little did I know at the time that this one article would launch my career as a professional blogger. But it did. And it has.

In the fall of 2005, midway through the site’s fifth year, Movable Type died. It suddenly decided that I wasn’t allowed to access my blogs. Nobody could comment. This sucked. Hard. I was forced to start from scratch. Since that day, I’ve been moving old entries over to the new version of the site gradually, but there are still many that cannot accept comments.

The past eighteen months have been up-and-down for me here. I suffered some mild depression, which affected my writing. I started some new blogs, which affected my posting frequency. I tried to move this site to WordPress, but again you folks opposed the change.

Finally, last fall, I found and equilibrium, and since then I’ve tried to return to the same posting schedule and content I had before. I know I haven’t succeeded completely, but I’m trying. For the past few months — and for the forseeable future — my life is Get Rich Slowly, the blog. This is my future. Because I spend so much time at it, I don’t have as much time to live, which means I have less to write about here. But it won’t always be this way.

Check back in another six years. With any luck, foldedspace will be in an other golden age!

Max and Toto Sitting in a Tree

Toto is sleeping on the chair in my office. Max is sitting on the desk, watching the mouse pointer flit across the screen. He gets bored. He walks to the edge of the desk and looks at the chair where his sister lays. He pauses.

Then gingerly he steps down next to her. Toto lifts her head and hisses. She growls. But she does not move. Max ignores her. He curls up beside her. Toto growls some more, but then she goes back to sleep. Max sits there, touching his sister, not quite snuggling, but most definitely touching.

THIS IS A MIRACLE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.

You cannot even begin to understand how awestruck I am by this scene. (Well, those of you who know Toto may understand.)

Just now she picked up her head and licked herself. She glanced at Max, but she did not growl, and she did not pull away. They’re still touching, crowded together on the chair.