tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62080139663947367762024-03-13T12:38:33.118-07:00The BavardAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05846695631989053695noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-11964050740276390102014-07-09T10:54:00.001-07:002014-07-09T10:54:37.849-07:00The Sci-Fi Bike Commute: Part VII<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25px;"><strong><span style="color: red; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-i_23.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Click here to read Part I</a></span></strong></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"When I bought my bike last August [2012] and committed myself to riding to work, I added the following spontaneous and bizarre stipulation: I would listen exclusively to science fiction audiobooks." [</span><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">edit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">: and some fantasy]</span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>The Book:</b></u> </span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Kim Stanley Robinson's </span><i style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Red Mars</i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> is the finest piece of science fiction I have ever read. It really is. It's so good that I actually began to hate it (and its sequels). Let me try to explain...</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Most of the science fiction I've read is either space-fantasy, space-opera stuff, or gritty techno-future stuff. </span><i style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Red Mars</i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> is neither. It's far more rooted in reality than what I'm used to. It presents a research-based look at a near-future event. It is tightly tethered to our own scientific reality. When we do colonize Mars, this is </span><i style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">exactly</i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> how it will happen.</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Exactly?</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yes! <i>Exactly</i>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">And that's the problem. <i>Red Mars</i> is so comprehensive, so ridiculously </span><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">plausible, that I can't imagine the colonization process happening any other way. It's like it already happened. And when it did happen it was kind of shitty and depressing. It was all greed, nationalism, politics, religion, environmental destruction, and war.</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So here's to you Mr. Robinson, for the Tharsis Bulge in my underpants. And damn you all the same for the Midas-in-Reverse reality check.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>The Ride:</b></u></span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">I’ve
had to cut back on the number of days I can ride to work. This has a lot to do
with having a baby that doesn’t sleep very well. I find I often need every last
second in the morning, and it’s too convenient to steal those seconds from my
bike commute. Driving gets me to work fifteen minutes faster (and is no faster
coming home in traffic). But on many of the days I don’t ride, I’m just using
the morning chaos as an excuse. Which is completely baffling. </span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is why commuting by bicycle is great:</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. I don't use any gas (it costs me about $100 to drive 400 miles in my truck)</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">2. I don't have to deal with any Los Angeles traffic</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">3. I get a good workout twice a day</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">4. My ride takes me along the ocean, beach, and the costal wetlands</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">5. In the winter there are stars and meteors and moonsets</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">6. There is fresh ocean air, which is a big deal in polluted Los Angeles</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">7. There is a nice </span><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">camaraderie with other bike commuters (<i>not</i> with the "cyclists", those sneering </span><span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">self-important dickwads in their goofy Lycra bodysuits)</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">8. Wildflowers</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">9. Seabirds</span><br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">10. Marine mammals </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Despite the daily reality of these life-affirming benefits, my own laziness reigns supreme. Laziness is tricky. It's a deceptively benign concept. You wouldn’t name a battleship the USS Lazy. But if you wanted to invoke
true power, and threaten your enemies with the destruction of everything good
they believe in, the name would certainly fit.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>The Confluence:</u></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Riding
to work in the wintertime is nice from a sci-fi perspective. I can see the moon
and stars, then the sunrise. Occasionally, while listening to <i>Red Mars</i>, I was able to
look up at the planet itself while I pedaled. This, it seems, is one of the
scenarios that makes me so enthusiastic about audiobooks. They allow you to
transport the narrative experience into a particular setting, ideally a
relevant one. Sure you can do this with books – read John Muir on the banks of
the Merced River or something – but you still have to tear your eyes from the
pages to fully experience your setting. I was literally staring at the red
planet, listening to <i>Red Mars</i>, and this gave the story tremendous force and
power. Size, scope, distance, as described in the novel, were there for me to
visualize in a completely literal sense. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elsewhere
on my ride, passing the refineries, the power plants, the sewage processing
plant, the airport, the towns, colleges, roads, house, etc. I started thinking
about how much crap we need. <i>Red Mars</i> is largely about setting up camp. Throw
in the additional complications of the Martian environment and it gets overwhelming. Ultimately the book is about <i>baggage</i>. We are such a messy, dirty lot - physically, socially, and personally. It
takes so much for our societies to flourish, and at such a great cost, to the
land and ourselves. We carry this burden wherever we go. Looking up at all the stars, </span></span><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">imagining the exoplanets we will one day inhabit, doesn't exactly fill me with a sense of boundless hope. Ultimately, when we get there, it'll still be us. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>The Book:</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Green Mars </i>deals with life on Mars after the initial colonization phase and a disastrous attempt to establish Martian independence. The story is often lumbering and tedious, as it checks in with all the little factions and camps. At times the approach feels journalistic. The story continues to be outrageously plausible and fascinating, but I had trouble mustering <i>Red Mars</i> levels of enthusiasm. For me, the honeymoon was over. <i>Green Mars</i> isn't packed full of fascinating factoids about the geology and geography of the planet. And, again, I find the basic premise that humans can't escape their nature, to be ultimately depressing. I'm sure Robinson is right that evil, multi-national corporations will exploit Mars and its resources. I'm sure he's right that there will be insurrections, revolutions, and then inept leaders to fill the power vacuums. I'm sure he's right that idealism will always lose out to pragmatism. But I'm not sure if it's fun to read a book hell-bent on reenforcing such a bummer of a notion. I still love reading about the characters, the technologies, the brazen tactics of the revolutionaries (crashing moons?!?!), and the rise of the true Martians. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">And the final scene, though I did see it coming, is stunningly dramatic, and would look great on a movie screen.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>The Ride:</b></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of my favorite things about riding to work is observing certain natural cycles. The time and place of the sunrise, the moon phase, the smell and color of the ocean, the bird populations and the variations of species, the ebb and flow of beachgoers. One section of my ride takes me along a jetty that is flanked on both sides by dense growths of Brittlebush.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Z6YKOYhetFBHDCHN1KbxYP9cKGSD_87QDje2lrgRTRpMAByvv78qLoFTGE93bYZzsfAHapIFFvdCilUgjmJ-EEUohSVdUfG-oca4vORiPxLT7mR6D5RF-QiSa9fZdhxkNCYTNFlknL0/s1600/encelia-farinosa1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Z6YKOYhetFBHDCHN1KbxYP9cKGSD_87QDje2lrgRTRpMAByvv78qLoFTGE93bYZzsfAHapIFFvdCilUgjmJ-EEUohSVdUfG-oca4vORiPxLT7mR6D5RF-QiSa9fZdhxkNCYTNFlknL0/s1600/encelia-farinosa1.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I've watched this stuff for two years now, usually while zoning out listening to my audiobooks. For most of the year it's just a tiny, nondescript bush. It's colorless, featureless, and ordorless. Then in the spring it comes to life, growing and blooming. The flowers are brilliantly yellow and the plants smell pungent and earthy. For an entire month I ride through a gauntlet of the stuff. It's staggeringly beautiful and entirely surreal. Due to the drought in California, the Brittlebush only grew half as high as it did last year. I'm not sure why I find that observation so interesting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>The Confluence:</b></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Plants on Mars. <i>Green Mars</i> is full of plants (and animals), though the title is a bit misleading. The Mars in the novel is not a planet covered in forests. It's still very much a red planet. The humans involved have figured out how to construct enormous greenhouses where they grow crops and trees and generate artificial atmospheres. The abundance of life in the novel is often juxtaposed brilliantly against the harshness of the true Martian outdoors. How do they slaughter pigs on Mars? They just let them run outside (while placing bets on which one will get the farthest). One of the core ethical debates in the novels has to do with humans and their environment. How much do we have the right to alter? What are the consequences of these alterations? Was there anything good and unexpected? Like Brittlebush forests on paved rocky jetties?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicPtiX83CN4BNc63lDcSb1q3hFbkSYQ6Sxg8cx-WzQ-AdM02fb1s8q6MU7naUhepFRCayit-TjrI-cd8FlA_ofE0j7paOY2yozF6RFKYzPa7YB0EhezzTRPRHVI6HrB13lbiYHcNu6G7s/s1600/Dreamsnake(1stEd).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicPtiX83CN4BNc63lDcSb1q3hFbkSYQ6Sxg8cx-WzQ-AdM02fb1s8q6MU7naUhepFRCayit-TjrI-cd8FlA_ofE0j7paOY2yozF6RFKYzPa7YB0EhezzTRPRHVI6HrB13lbiYHcNu6G7s/s1600/Dreamsnake(1stEd).jpg" height="640" width="414" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>The Book:</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Where's<i> Blue Mars? </i>Well<i>, </i>I just couldn't do it. Not now at any rate. I needed a change of pace. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And boy did I get one.<i> </i>This book<i>, this Dreamsnake,</i> is one of the strangest books I have ever read. I wouldn't recommend it. I can't believe it won the Hugo award. And apparently <a href="http://io9.com/5670359/dreamsnake-the-quietly-controversial-hugo-winner-thats-no-longer-in-print" target="_blank">a lot of people can't believe it either.</a> It's one of the most controversial award-winners and it's certainly the only award-winner to go out of print. It's not exactly a bad book so much as a pointless one. The best part of the book was the narrator. Her name is Kate Fleming (aka Anna Fields). I was so impressed with the sweetness of her voice that I looked her up to see what other books she narrated. That's when I discovered something horrible. She drowned in her basement in Seattle when flood waters broke through her house's foundation. Descriptions of the event can be read </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Fleming" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">here</a> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">and </span><a href="http://www.komonews.com/news/local/5887271.html" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">here</a>. <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The tragedy had interesting implications in the same-sex marriage debate, as her partner was initially denied permission to see her in the hospital. The whole thing is just awful. I should have read <i>Blue Mars</i> instead.</span></div>
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<u style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Ride:</b></u></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Lets talk about WD-40.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8hC3j3RM-V_ktCSowlxawxMrmaM4X5XhMI8mwge_KKBKTwQz5y28w1tQ11f8UU7MqAyNwYiNDvxo1AowzAxFc4TFC-Wv-hi9FxdUMktAEzv2ZzszmvBQHfrWVWCeyghKqmhzFMCr6hw/s1600/You+only+need+two+tools+in+life+--+WD-40+and+duct+tape.xaxor.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8hC3j3RM-V_ktCSowlxawxMrmaM4X5XhMI8mwge_KKBKTwQz5y28w1tQ11f8UU7MqAyNwYiNDvxo1AowzAxFc4TFC-Wv-hi9FxdUMktAEzv2ZzszmvBQHfrWVWCeyghKqmhzFMCr6hw/s1600/You+only+need+two+tools+in+life+--+WD-40+and+duct+tape.xaxor.com.jpg" height="223" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I spray my chain and gearing components with WD-40 at least once a month. The results are astounding. Nothing squeaks or rubs, and I swear my pedal pushing becomes more efficient. This is a cheap and essential product for anyone riding a bike near the ocean. Yet many people don't use it, or anything like it. I'm no gear-head, and I take no part in the cycling community. And I'm not big on giving or getting advice. But I feel like the world needs to know. For five bucks and thirty seconds of your time, your bike will run like it's brand new. Plus you can catch a buzz on the fumes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>The Confluence:</b></u></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">What do </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dreamsnake</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> and commuting to work on a bike have in common? It would be too easy to say the book could use a good dousing of WD-40, to get the rust off and rejuvenate a clunky narrative. But the metaphor doesn't fit. It's not a bad, or clunky book at all. A better comparison would be to say reading </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dreamsnake</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> is like getting up, showering, riding all the way to work, only to realize when you got there that it was Saturday and you could be home in bed, or drinking Mimosas, or playing with your kid, or doing all three at the same time. </span><span id="goog_1290142097"></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Coming up next next time on the Sci-fi Bike Commute : zombies, hermaphrodites, and soulcasting bridgemen!</span></i></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-25032190308736944522014-06-25T12:04:00.002-07:002014-06-25T12:04:14.276-07:00Camping in Yosemite with a Baby<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBxoCvTEpz6z-g4AKRQ1W-pQNxnD1BViw4FYXkKA6_g906KwmaLgOBJQDxVP4eAGkjL5o0ADiY12JSUw_6VknmMg-MIbp4xjpwd3WkyKD85FdXA8IclQvbO40dvwSy0_SmT8R095UKuq8/s1600/IMG_3421.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBxoCvTEpz6z-g4AKRQ1W-pQNxnD1BViw4FYXkKA6_g906KwmaLgOBJQDxVP4eAGkjL5o0ADiY12JSUw_6VknmMg-MIbp4xjpwd3WkyKD85FdXA8IclQvbO40dvwSy0_SmT8R095UKuq8/s1600/IMG_3421.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We recently spent two nights tent camping in Yosemite with
our eleven-month-old daughter. This trip was largely about managing logistics
and I hope this description is useful to anyone planning a similar trip. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Going into the experience we had three main concerns: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1) Is our daughter going to be eaten by a cougar or a bear? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2) Is anyone (mom, dad, kid, other campers) going to get any
sleep? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">3) Is our daughter going to be able to crawl around
anywhere?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Day One: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We woke up in a hotel room in Bishop and drove over Tioga
Pass. We parked at the Gaylor Lake trailhead just past the entrance station.
The plan was to take this short hike while we were at the road’s summit so we
could access the Yosemite High Country without having to take a long hike. Lila
has been on hikes before, but never at this altitude. We packed our lunch,
layered on the sunscreen, put Lila in the hiking backpack and set off. I used
to be in good shape. In fact, four years earlier my wife and I hiked the Muir
trail from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney. Things change with a kid though,
obviously. The hike was steep and beautiful, with incredible views to the
southern peaks and passes leading out of the park. The trail flattens out after
a mile or so. We spent a few moments on the saddle taking pictures. We found a
sandy area and put Lila down so she could crawl around. She likes to pile
things up and then unpile them and then repile them and then unpile them, so
the small rocks scattered about kept her busy. But the ground was uncomfortable
for her to crawl around on. Then we continued down a short steep slope to the
lake. We found a patch of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>grass to sit
and eat lunch. Lila was able to crawl around a bit, but she kept putting her
hands and feet in ground squirrel holes which made her topple over, which was
cute and funny. The view was spectacular and the weather was perfect. I highly
recommend this hike. It’s short and intense. On the way back we saw a marmot,
which made Lila very happy. She slept in the backpack for the last bit of the
hike. When we got to the car we were worried about just strapping her into the
car seat without giving her a chance to move around. With the car seat, the
stroller, the backpack, and the highchair, it seemed like we might end up
moving Lila from one restricted environment to the next. Eventually she would
get annoyed by this and unleash her wrath. There was some grass at the
trailhead so we let her crawl around. Then we loaded her back into the car and
drove for an hour to our campsite at Crane Flat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I stopped at the Crane Flat market to get a box of firewood
and a bag of ice ($21.00. Yikes!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I had reserved the campsite online. I spent a good deal of
time studying pictures of the sites trying to make sure I picked a good one. I
failed. Our site was on a steep slope (Crane <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flat</i>?) with a small level area for the tent cut into the ground. Having
seen the other sites now, I would recommend sites 302, 304, 306, 308, and 310,
as they are flat and back up on a pretty meadow. Fortunately, Lila was asleep in
the car so we were able to unload, unpack, setup (and drink ice cold beer)
without having to find a place to put her. The ground at the campsite was
mostly dusty dirt and pine needles. It quickly became obvious that the only
place she could crawl around freely would be in the tent. Fortunately, we just
bought a big new tent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At dinner time we put her in her high chair and all ate
together. Bringing the high chair was a great decision. Then we pushed her
around the campground in her stroller. At some point my wife started a
campfire, but Lila was too restless to sit and enjoy it—though she was
fascinated by the flames. We then all went into the tent and spent far too long
trying to get Lila to sleep. There would be no campfire time for Mom and Dad, apparently,
while Lila slept peacefully in the tent. As far as sleeping arrangements for
Lila, we had a snug little sleep sack for her – an attachment for the stroller
– but she wasn’t interested. In the end we just piled on blankets and
sandwiched her between us. She tossed and turned all night, but didn’t cry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the morning I put her back in her high chair and she ate
breakfast while I made coffee. At this point it had been about 24 hours since
she’d had a chance to really move around freely like she is used to doing at
home. Our priority for the day was to find a place where she could stretch her
legs and tire herself out. We drove down to Yosemite Valley and parked next to
the river across a meadow from Yosemite Falls. I’ve been to Yosemite a million
times and it never fails to amaze me. The beauty is astounding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We kicked around two ideas for the day, either hike the Mist
Trail to the top of Vernal Falls (the greatest short hike in the world,
especially on a really hot day) or push Lila around the valley in the stroller,
following the looping bike path. We decided to push her around because there
would be no place for her to crawl around on the Mist Trail. We went to the
base of Lower Yosemite Falls, then to Yosemite Village. The scenery was
amazing, but Lila was getting very restless. There was no place to put her
down! Eventually, we made our way to a riverbank across from Curry Housekeeping
where a portion of the beach was in the shade. Perfect! Lila was finally able
to move around freely. She watched ducks, dug in the sand, and even waded in
the cold water (with my help). There was a steady stream of people floating
down the river, some in tubes, some in rafts. I can’t imagine a better way to
spend a hot day in Yosemite. Next year!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUXWtsxomw3iARuC29-CdStZGWdL_QShiDWbCRZtBGZNhNLuJ1ph3kCf4Luw7paOSdSj5L1H9z-5TpTyqRb9xW1td0IXFwTTnfbnn6NGxUDp4eXUplh5Dgql6qrYsogZgUzAFibYvbLw/s1600/IMG_3429.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUXWtsxomw3iARuC29-CdStZGWdL_QShiDWbCRZtBGZNhNLuJ1ph3kCf4Luw7paOSdSj5L1H9z-5TpTyqRb9xW1td0IXFwTTnfbnn6NGxUDp4eXUplh5Dgql6qrYsogZgUzAFibYvbLw/s1600/IMG_3429.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We then continued on to Curry Village to have lunch. We sat
out on the porch and ate hamburgers. It was great for us, but not so great for
the baby. Again, there was no place to let her move around. We then went into
the cafeteria, which was closed for lunch (but physically open), and let her
crawl around on the carpet in a corner. Not exactly the best environment
Yosemite has to offer, but it served a purpose, and was shady and cool. Then we
pushed her around the valley and she fell asleep. We loaded her up and drove
back to the campsite.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Again, we let her stay asleep in the car while we had a few
moments of baby-free camping. When she woke up we spread our tablecloth on the
ground to give her an outdoor place to move around. But, predictably, she
crawled right to the edge and wanted to play in the dirt. At this point we
figured what the hell, let her get dirty. It’s all part of the experience. She
immediately filled her mouth with dirt and started crying. We fed her and all
got back in the tent and endured another long night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the morning we left the park and drove to the Bay Area to
visit family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, should you take a baby camping in Yosemite? Should we
have done some things differently? What did we get right? Would I do it again? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well, I’m glad we went. But I realize now that Lila is the
worst age possible for camping. Tons of energy and curiosity, but she can’t
walk. If you want to take a crawler camping in a park and campground with no
grass, you have to be okay with the kid getting very dirty. Very dirty. With no
immediate opportunity to clean her up properly. And if it’s dry and hot and
dusty and your kid slobbers or puts her hands in her mouth a lot, well, it gets
nasty in a hurry. Yosemite is a beautiful place, but Lila couldn’t appreciate
that aspect. To her, the trip was a bummer – getting strapped into one thing
after another, rarely getting a chance to explore when there was so much new
stuff around worth exploring. Next time (in two weeks) I’ll bring a little
inflatable bed with bumpers, but I doubt that will change anything in the
sleeping department (Lila isn’t a great sleeper under the best circumstances,
and it’s hard to say what role the altitude played in this situation.). Good
decisions included bring the high chair, buying a big tent, bringing both a
stroller and hiking backpack. The campfire was a bad decision, especially when
the wind blew the smoke into our tent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I also kept thinking how nice it would have been to have a
dog in the campsite. I’m a bit paranoid about bears and cougars (based on past
experiences I’ve had in Yosemite). I know you can’t take pets on the trails, so
I don’t know what I would have done about that. But if your camping in bear
country outside a national park, a dog is a great security system, especially
if it’s the middle of the night and you hear a lot of funny noises outside the
tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If anyone has any suggestions or insight into camping with a
baby please let me know.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-2130265617448191472014-01-16T10:51:00.000-08:002014-01-16T10:51:19.148-08:00Book Review: Echoes from the Lost Ones by Nicola J. McDonagh<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrXEBPdCkyHy-_9CBDjX3OgkwnBq07PdEBorDW_fKuwDthpWUdVhCaIkVFEnoKuXa8G57aormJMo7b2DCK5zfZYO1HJO7gTfU-nJLR6cXcuDD0XuaNuLDSYtZ_-a8H7SvmGrf2jKgIu3M/s1600/lost+ones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrXEBPdCkyHy-_9CBDjX3OgkwnBq07PdEBorDW_fKuwDthpWUdVhCaIkVFEnoKuXa8G57aormJMo7b2DCK5zfZYO1HJO7gTfU-nJLR6cXcuDD0XuaNuLDSYtZ_-a8H7SvmGrf2jKgIu3M/s1600/lost+ones.jpg" height="640" width="424" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Echoes from the Lost Ones</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> by Nicola J. McDonagh – Published by Fable Press</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What sets this excellent book apart from the crowded field of dystopian novels is the strong voice of the lead character, a plucky young woman named Adara. However, while Adara is unique in the novel’s bleak futuristic landscape, she is by no means unique in the world of books – a young hero with a special gift, out in the world, on a quest to rescue her brother. It is the strength of the author’s writing, specifically the fascinating speech patterns Adara uses, that keeps this novel from being a mundane adventure in which our hero moves episodically from one peril to the next. As readers, we are transported to this harsh future not so much through descriptions of landscapes, references to technologies, or apocalyptic exposition, but through the intimate nuances of language.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Adara’s voice keeps the story small and personal, despite frequent mentioning of larger events – events one suspects will take on a bigger role as the <i>Song of Forgetfulness</i> moves along. Often times the unique vocabulary, the inverted phrasing, and the swapping of adjectives for adverbish thingies, helps our hero describe her own body and its processes. This isn’t Tolkien, inventing words to teach us about the history of the world; this is instead a skilled author inventing words to describe defecation and menstruation, among other things. And that brings a good deal of light and humor to what is too often a humorless genre. It also makes Adara feel very real. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Along the way, not surprisingly, Adara meets a cast of characters. Some are friends, some are enemies, and more than a few are shrouded in mystery. As these things go, we know some untrustworthy characters will behave honorably, while some close friends will commit acts of betrayal. While reading this novel I sometimes proceeded along with a sense of dread, that it might succumb to the banalities of its formulaic nature. But always my fears were unfounded as new characters and imaginative details kept the story fresh and fascinating. I was particularly interested in the character of Wirt, a sidekick with a unique manner, and a compelling and horrifying backstory. In fact, it is the nature of Wirt’s troubled past that makes Adara and him such interesting companions, as the potential for a romantic connection is complicated in ways you won't find in Shakespeare.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Another unique aspect of the book, that sets it apart, and above, other books of this genre, is its upbeat and positive tone. While the future setting is certainly grim, and tragedy is close and personal, our hero seems unflappable. Again, much of this comes through in the nature of her voice, and her humor (intentional on the part of the author, but maybe not always intentional on the part of Adara). She’s an easy girl to root for, and she earns the readers sympathy without playing the standard chords of loss and abuse and loneliness. She gets our support from this great narrative voice, that is so human and honest. The idea that she is special and gifted with unique abilities is entirely believable, not because the author simply tells us she’s destined for greatness, but because she’s genuinely drawn by the author as someone of singular quality. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If I had to offer any criticism of <i>Echoes from the Lost Ones </i>I would say it is an uneven book. The characters and language are at times richly presented, thoroughly developed, and as well done as anything in the genre. However, there are times when these strengths create a harsh contrast with flatter, less successful elements of the story. Many characters are simply drawn cutouts from too many other stories, and they miss the quirky and imaginative details the author gives her main characters. Certain plot elements suffer from this same contrast. A climactic scene near the end is presented through quick exposition, without giving the reader a chance to see how events fully affect the characters. I realize this is an attempt to move the story along quickly as important event unfold in a chaotic situation. And I did tear through the last bit of the book, riveted by the sequence of events. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Generally speaking, I was extremely impressed by this novel, which I chose completely at random to be the first (of many) books I review on this blog. Ultimately the greatest indicator of how much I enjoyed this (or any other) book is whether or not I pick up the next book in the series. I suspect the next book, which I hope to read soon, will explore the larger story, and bring more depth of characterization to some of this book’s minor players.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-58169387479397030832014-01-07T10:09:00.000-08:002014-01-07T10:10:36.735-08:00Recording My Own Audiobook: A Beginner's Journal Part 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDtBmQB8gFwm_wUZzZlIBYS_L5vrO5-exKaK3qVegAeQnSzx-r3nyijPDqu7KhijWn5Eb1LbNW-MZM-9vf4I167Z8hxnivdzzuccvHp2nRuQdpXsuLJ211Re3E0mLp3-Cf6PtnyZZ0dU/s1600/photo+1+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDtBmQB8gFwm_wUZzZlIBYS_L5vrO5-exKaK3qVegAeQnSzx-r3nyijPDqu7KhijWn5Eb1LbNW-MZM-9vf4I167Z8hxnivdzzuccvHp2nRuQdpXsuLJ211Re3E0mLp3-Cf6PtnyZZ0dU/s1600/photo+1+(2).JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b><br /></b></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2014/01/recording-my-own-audiobook-beginners_6.html" target="_blank">Click here to read Part 1</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b><br /></b></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Day 4</b></u>: Relocated my “recording studio” for the third time in
three days. Now I’m in the closet of my daughter’s room. It’s the only closet
that’s empty enough to squeeze my body into. I did this because yesterday’s
decision to basically ignore outside noise was a ridiculous decision. This new
space is as quiet a place as I have access to. Other than my car in my garage.
It seems kind of inevitable that that’s where I’ll end up, but for now we’ll
try the closet and see how things go. I mount (okay, <i>tape</i>) the voice screen (now I’m just making terms up) to a box of
Pampers and set the mic behind it. But before I start the day’s recording I
find I’m still not ready to give up on the iPad. I don’t feel good about using
the Mac laptop since it’s a work computer. There’s sex and cursing and
gratuitous descriptions of defecation in my book. I don’t want to get caught up
in some weird public school scandal. I also have heard that anything created on
these work computers becomes the property of my employer. I’d hate to lose out
on the big bucks this project is sure to generate. I do some test reads on the
iPad and then some on the Mac and I confirm yesterday’s decision. The iPad
records a very loud background hum that’s not there when I plug in to the Mac.
This is surprising since so many people online recommended using the iPad for
voice recording. Again I have this feeling of dread and frustration that my
lack of knowledge is the source of the problem, not the hardware. But googling “why
does the voice recorder on the iPad version of Garageband have a background hum
while the voice recorder on the Mac version of Garageband doesn’t?” yields
exactly zero relevant hits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And I discover yet another problem with recording on the
iPad. The voice recorder doesn’t seem to be reading gain properly. The mic has
a gain dial, but when I fiddle with it I don’t see the “needle” on the voice
recorder display moving any differently. Why? Why why why! On the Mac version
the gain dial visibly adjusts the gain. One more reason to commit to using the
Mac.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My plan for the day, now that I’ve relocated and settled the
hardware and software issues is to lay down at least an hour of content without
stopping to edit. I want to get a good chunk of material that’s not a test, but
the real thing. I suspect it’s important to read a lot per sitting so there’s
some continuity in the nuances of sound quality. I’m not going to be able to
reproduce the exact same levels every time I sit down, so I need to make the
most of each session. I don’t want this thing to sound all cobbled together. I
plow through the first four chapters of the book, pausing and lip smacking when
I make mistakes. I don’t go back and listen to everything I record. I know I
have to move forward and not stress every detail if I’m going to get this done.
I also don’t stress the different voices I have to read. I just do my best to
give each character a unique sound. This is the most interesting part of the
process so far, realizing how physically altering your mouth and face when you
talk gives your vocal delivery a slight variation. So what I end up doing is
screwing up my face in a variety of ways when I talk. I become the characters. It
feels like real acting, now that there’s this physical component in addition to
the vocals. I imagine there would be a lot of gesticulating as well, if I had
an inch to move in this cramped closet, or didn’t worry about knocking down the
winter coats hanging above me (winter coats, incidentally, that will stay in
the closet as long as Los Angeles continues to be in the 80s this winter).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My plan for tomorrow is to edit the hour of content as well
as I can, trying out different effects until I find a sound that I’m happy
with. And assuming I can get something I consider to be useable, what then?
Thinking about the next step gives me the Howling Fantods. I don’t know what to
do when it comes to turning my 40 or 50 one-hour segments into a finished
product. I still don’t know if I want to put this up as a free podcast, or if I
want to try and sell it as an audiobook on my website. I don’t know. And
whichever option I choose, I don’t know how to do it. I’m confident I can
learn, but there is a lingering fear that I’m going to record this whole book
only to find that it’s not the right file type, or it’s too loud or too quiet,
or that I’ll run into some insurmountable compatibility issues. The last thing
I want to do is visit cnet.com to download some kind of conversion software
that doesn’t work, or I can’t figure out how to make work. I’d like to think I
can save worrying about all these issues until I’m done recording, but that’s
not a smart approach. What I should do is try to take my one-hour of good solid
content (assuming that’s what I get tomorrow) the whole way through the
process. All the way to an uploaded podcast? How do I do that? Can I do that? On
iTunes? On my website? Or do I mean take it all the way to an uploadable
audiobook file, which it goes without saying I’m a far cry from knowing how
that all works. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wait, why am I doing this again?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Because you got a microphone for Christmas. And you always ask for
shit you never use. Like the Xbox 360 you got two years ago. And Skyrim. You
had to spend two fucking years playing that infernal game just to justify your
request. Asshole! Or maybe it’s some high-level hardcore procrastination. If
you weren’t recording an audiobook you’d have to sit down on this vacation and
actually, gulp, try to write another novel.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-14224254865936734642014-01-06T23:04:00.000-08:002014-01-07T10:33:27.225-08:00Recording My Own Audiobook: A Beginner's Journal Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicyMxyFit48ymrpsOApb7IBpsBH2yuXul8e9GwNfDWqoTsirpweSG7gPKqMlE_HeI8t6sGY-nVa_zwzZvoz1qUWyxMU2I2lx5xvU95ypNCDS-f3F8_Ee7H7W1axQFzbxru3Q52Ui1dNos/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicyMxyFit48ymrpsOApb7IBpsBH2yuXul8e9GwNfDWqoTsirpweSG7gPKqMlE_HeI8t6sGY-nVa_zwzZvoz1qUWyxMU2I2lx5xvU95ypNCDS-f3F8_Ee7H7W1axQFzbxru3Q52Ui1dNos/s1600/photo+4.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Day 3</u></b>: Yesterday was my first real attempt to record a
decent quality audiobook. As expected, numerous problems revealed themselves.
My goal for today is to tackle these problems one by one in a logical and systematic
way. There’s no hurry here. If it takes a while to sort things out, that’s
fine. Humanity has done just fine for the past 100,000 years without a <i>Smoke Monkey International</i> audiobook. A
few more weeks isn’t going to spoil the party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Issue #1</u></b>: The couch cushion tent fort recording studio.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I need to ask myself if this is a realistic thing to set up
and dismantle on a daily basis. Is this really the ideal recording space, or do
I just like building cushion forts? I need to try and be mature here, and
professional. I need to face the fact that I’m being ridiculous. But beyond
that, I need to really think about what I know about sound recording and sound
proofing. Which raises this fundamental question: Is the purpose of a good
recording space mainly to keep sound in, or to keep sound out? I don’t actually
know the answer to this question. The reason I went with the cushion fort
studio idea was because I figured all the padding would protect and massage the
sound waves, give them a nice place to land. This in turn would lend a warmth
and fullness to the sound of my voice. But now I’m suspecting that the real
purpose of a recording studio is to block extraneous noises from fouling up the
recording. I’m sure on some level a good recording space is supposed to do both
of these things. But my cushion fort sure as hell isn’t keeping any sounds out.
Cars and busses and even airplanes make a lot of noise in my apartment. I
accept the fact that if I am going to record in my apartment, I might as well
do it in a more comfortable and spacious location, because there’s no blocking the
sounds of the city. Earlier in the day I listened to three episodes of the
podcast called “Podcasting for Dummies.”
The narrator made a good suggestion. He said you can record in a loud apartment
and just pause whenever you hear a bus go by. Then make lip smacking noises so
the sound waves on the recording program show you where you need to splice when
you edit. Then resume. Podcasting for Dummies indeed. I set up my recording
gear at the desk in my office (which is also my bedroom). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Issue #2</u></b>: The mic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I need to do something about the popping sounds I make when I
read words that start with certain letters. I’ve read I can make a screen out
of pantyhose. I call my wife to get pantyhose location info, as well as
permission to destroy a pair. My wife is great, but between cushion forts and
pantyhose vocal screens, I know I’m pushing some kind of unspoken limit. Years
ago we bought sauté pan splatter screens in a set of three. I find that
slipping the pantyhose over the smallest of these creates a nice air blocking screen
with a convenient handle. I’m proud of my resourcefulness. I do some sound
tests and, wow, the thing works like a charm. Except for the fact that the
pantyhose are black (sexy!) and I can’t see through them to verify that the mic
is positioned properly, which you might not think is a big deal, but it turns
out I blow a few long recordings because the mic has swiveled without my
noticing. Podcasting for Imbeciles!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Issue #3</u></b>: Hardware and software.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I learn today that the version of Garageband for iPads is
very different from the version on an actual computer. The computer version
allows you to fool around with the recording and fix some big
problems, like background humming. It’s possible to do raw recording on the
iPad and then transfer the file to the computer to deal with cleaning it up,
but that process doesn't work for me for a couple of ridiculous reasons. First
of all, I literally can’t figure out how to do this basic operation. I’m not an
ignoramus when it comes to using technology, but I do have a young child. My
brain sometimes just stops working. I look online, I watch tutorials, and I
just can’t do it. It’s incredibly frustrating and time consuming. Additionally
(and these two issues might be related) my Mac computer is a work issued
computer and I am not an administrator. The iTunes version on the computer is too old to work
with Garageband, so when I try to move files from the iPad I’m told I need to
update the version, which I don’t have the authority to do. Alternatively, I do have a Windows PC
and a Windows laptop, but they can’t run Garageband. But why am I married to
this idea of using Garageband anyway? Jesus. Through some trial and error I
accept the fact that my best option is to record directly onto the Mac computer
using the full version of Garageband. This is the right move I’m certain, but I’m
disappointed to learn that I can’t make my iPad do this one cool thing I
want it to do. At least I can still use it to read from while I record.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I’ve sorted a lot of things out at this point, and the
day is nearly shot. I’ve moved the recording studio to my desk and accepted the
fact that I will have to accommodate ambient noises. I’ve settled on a hardware
and software situation. And I’ve got a pantyhose screen guard. So I’ve fixed
some of the fixable issues. But there are still more problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Issue #4</u></b>: My voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I finally start recording and find that while I can control
the gain level coming off the mic, I cannot control the saliva level in my
mouth. And so, what the fuck, Mouth? You can talk all day without Noah’s flood
pooling against your tonsils, but when I need a nice clear delivery for my audiobook it’s like you've set up shop on the Olympic Peninsula. The same thing happens to me at the
dentist. So I’m recording and pausing to swallow and smacking my lips three
times like the guy told me to whenever there’s a problem or an outside
distraction, and I finally get through a chapter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Issue #5</u></b>: Editing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Editing on the Mac computer goes great, except for the fact
that when I take out a problem section and splice the file back together, the
voice sounds slightly different from one side to the next. The final product sounds
like it’s been cut and pasted together, which it has. I’m hoping there’s a way
to smooth all of this over. But I don’t know what that way is. And I’m still not
happy with the tone of my voice. If I leave off effects it sounds too realistic,
like a guy reading. If I put some effects on my voice I can get a nice filtered
sound the resembles the audiobook quality I’m familiar with. But there’s a
slight electronic edge to the vocals and you can tell they've been digitally manipulated.
Maybe that’s what you get when you do it yourself, or maybe I just don’t know
what I’m doing yet. We’ll see.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2014/01/recording-my-own-audiobook-beginners_7.html" target="_blank">Click here to read part 3</a></i></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-24171339576224269642014-01-06T09:59:00.000-08:002014-01-07T10:52:11.021-08:00Recording My Own Audiobook: A Beginner's Journal Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">The intention of this blog series is to document my experiences recording and distributing the audiobook version of my </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">novel <i>Smoke Monkey International</i>, which I released as both an ebook and a paperback last year. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">I also want to stress right here at the beginning that I have no idea what I'm doing. That's kind of the point. I don't know how to engineer, mix, edit, or upload an audio file. I don't know if I'm recording an audiobook, a podcast, or a podiobook. I don't have a recording studio or any real recording equipment. But what I do have is a new baby, no free time, and a <strike>can-do attitude</strike> Christmas gut.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u style="font-weight: bold;">Deep Background Information</u> - </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Readers of this blog (chuckle, chuckle) know that <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-i_23.html" target="_blank">I love audiobooks</a>. I listen to them compulsively on my bike commute to and from work. I do this mainly because</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> it's the only form of reading I can do anymore. Actual books put me to sleep, literally. So my familiarity with the audiobook format is one thing I do have going for me. The other thing I have going for me is my novel, which I think is good. People seem to enjoy it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The very first step I took was to contact a music producer friend of mine (okay, we were friends in high school and haven't really talked since) and ask for advice. I was hoping he'd be so impressed that I'd written and published a novel that he would offer to produce the audiobook for me, add his name to the credits, write some killer bumper music, and use his contacts to help market it far and wide. He did indeed offer to let me use his studio and his sound engineer, but only during off-hours since he needed the studio during the day. Work and family life prevented me from taking advantage of this opportunity, which would have required me to drive to the other side of Los Angeles at night and on weekends many, many times. To which I say, I'd rather just stay home and get drooled on. What this offer did do was force me to put a number on just how many hours I expected this whole process to take. Once I thought seriously about it, I realized it was going to take over 50 hours, just to record. Probably longer. I can't set aside a chunk of time like that. The only way this is going to happen is if I do it myself, with my own stuff, in bits and pieces, whenever I can get a minute free. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u style="font-weight: bold;">Day One</u> - </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">The project starts in earnest on Christmas morning when I get an Apogee MiC. My recording buddy had told me I could do this whole thing myself, with a computer, as long as I had a good microphone. So now I have my passably good microphone. I decided on the Apogee MiC after doing a lot of research in the internet. I had it in my head that I wanted to record the whole audiobook on my iPad, using Garageband, because</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> of the portability and simplicity. The MiC was almost universally recommended for iPad users. The price seemed right too. $199 was reasonable - not too expensive and not too cheap. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Because I'm on vacation at this point, and have no time to myself, I can't really start recording the book. But I do have a chance to fool around with the mic and Garageband, just to understand the basics of the program. Garageband is a very simple and intuitive</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> program, as I heard it was. I watch a few tutorials about voice recording on YouTube. Educating yourself on technical matters by reading and watching stuff on the internet is a tricky matter. I've found a lot of conflicting information, or information that applies to certain versions of software or hardware that are slightly different that what I have. I learn from one article that in order to record a long track you need to set Garageband's tempo down to 40. Another post said all I had to do to record a long track is to set the "song section" length to "automatic". That seemed to make the most sense and it also seems to work so far. If you don't change this setting your recording will loop back to the start once the end of the track is reached, and you will then start recording over your own track. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Day Two</u></b> - I'm back in town and still have another week of vacation, so it's the ideal time to start the recording process. Other than the massive time commitment required for this project, the other major problem I have is the lack of a quiet space to record. Everything I've read about recording stresses the importance of finding the right space. I live on a noisy street and a noisy alley. People have suggested closets and cars in garages as the best options for home recording. But I have a better, stranger, and far more satisfying option in mind. I build an old-school couch cushion fort and layer the whole thing in blankets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's hot, stuffy, cramped...and very quiet inside. It'll work for now. The next step is to set up the hardware and software. I put the mic in its stand and place it on a coffee table that's at head level when I sit on the floor. I plug the mic into the iPad and start up Garageband. I select the Audio Recorder option. I set the song length to automatic. There are two different screens you can set up to monitor your recording. The default screen, which shows a nice graphic of the mic level. The other screen shows you a vertical display of the tracks. For some reason, in order to see the recording effect options, or the vertical track display, you first have to record something. Then these options appear. I mess around a bit with the effects and quickly realize "dry" is the way to go. So I'm ready to start reading...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One great thing about Garageband is that you can set it to run in the background while you use other apps. I'm able to bring up the ebook version of my novel on the Kindle app and read directly from my iPad. This is ideal since reading from the iPad doesn't make any noise and you can set the font size nice and big, so you're less apt to make mistakes while reading. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Actually reading the book, of course, is the most important aspect of this project. I've been a teacher for years and because kids these days are mostly incapable of reading assigned texts, I spend a lot of time reading out loud to my students. I'm not going to get into whether or not this is "good teaching." Okay, yes I am. Conventional thinking says it's bad for a teacher to read <i>Catcher in the Rye</i> to his students during class. I do it because otherwise half the class would not experience the text and would not be able to complete related assignments. Besides, I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to yell at my students, "Sleep tight ya morons!" or, simply, "Fuck you!" My point is that experience has made me a good reader. But I do not have a good reading voice. My voice sounds gravely when recorded, almost like there are lingering puberty issues. I know that I will not be able to alter my voice throughout the reading process in a convincing and consistent way. And I don't want to sound like a phony either. So my voice is what it is and it'll have to do. But there are further complications. My book has an internal dialogue that I need to read in different ways so the listener knows there are two voices in the conversation, not just one. Additionally, there are many scenes with multiple characters. So I will need to read these character voices. I don't know how to do this, or at least not in a professional sense. I'm not an actor. There are three options for dealing with this. First, I can ignore the issue, save time and energy, and just read everything in my own voice and let the listener sort it out. Second, I can do my best to read different voices and try not to be a perfectionist about the outcome. Third, I can get help from friends and have them read other parts. While the third option would certainly complicate the process logistically, it sounds like a good solution. However, in listening to audiobooks I find I dislike it whenever there's a change in the narrator. For example, I'd rather have a male narrator fake a female voice than have an actual female take those parts. So, I'm going to attempt the second option and read voices. This will be a lot more fun (which is the main point of doing all this anyway, right? It's not like my audiobook is going to make me any real money). I locate a chapter in the book with multiple characters and press record. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">After many attempts, I mange to work out the seven different voices I will need. There's the narrator, the main character, the main character's subconscious voice (part of the inner-dialogue), an angry Vietnamese guy, a serious college kid, a stoner college kid, and an angry and frustrated college kid. I'm sure I sound like a huge racist when I read the Vietnamese guy's voice, but it's certainly clear who he's supposed to be. The other voices require more subtlety. I spend several hours stopping and starting and rehearsing and cursing. My cushion fort seems to be working out well. When I'm done with the chapter I take down my fort and move to a desk to listen to the results and see what I can do about improving the sound quality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I pop my earbuds in and have a listen. Yikes. Major problems. First of all there's a lot of popping certain letters. I knew this was going to happen. In my mind I assumed it would be easy to edit this stuff out. Given Garageband's limited and simplistic editing capabilities I realize I can't just edit them out. I need to get a screen of some sort. I look online and learn I can make my own screen with pantyhose. Beyond that problem, and the problem that I still don't like the way my voice sounds, is the problem of overall sound quality. My voice sounds too realistic, too clear, too much like it was recording by a guy sitting on his floor inside a cushion fort. I need some kind of mask or filter to make my voice sound "right." It's the same kind of difference between camcorder footage and film. The iPad version of Garageband gives you very few options when it comes to adjusting the sound quality. Certainly nothing I do solves this problem. I read some more stuff online and realize that fixing this problem is no simple task. It's the reason people pay a lot of money for professional equipment, or why people hire professional audio engineers to record audiobooks. There is no cheap easy fix for this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But I'm done for the day. </span></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2014/01/recording-my-own-audiobook-beginners_4949.html" target="_blank">Click here to read part 2!</a></span></i></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-32475313893196747932013-12-18T10:48:00.004-08:002014-07-09T11:53:05.270-07:00The Sci-Fi Bike Commute:Part VI<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s1600/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s640/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em><strong><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-i_23.html" target="_blank">Click here to read Part I</a></strong></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">"When I bought my bike last August [2012] and committed myself to riding to work, I added the following spontaneous and bizarre stipulation: I would listen exclusively to science fiction audiobooks." [</span><span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">edit</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">: and some fantasy]</span><br />
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<strong style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: xx-large;">Phase 14: Really, wind? In my face both directions? And on a Monday!</strong><br />
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<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/The_curse_of_chalion_cover.jpg" height="640" width="420" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The Curse of Chalion </i>by Lois McMaster Bujold<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book</u>: This was my first real detour into the lesser
known (to me) depths of the fantasy genre. Mostly I've stuck to the well-known
stuff, Tolkien and Martin. I've always had it in my head that everything in the genre is ultimately derivative of Tolkien anyway, so what would be the point of
reading inferior versions of the same basic tale? This opinion was at first
refuted by the fantastic <i>Game of Thrones</i> books, but then more recently
confirmed when I read (okay, <i>listened to</i>) the first half of <i>The Eye of the World</i>, which was ridiculously
(offensively! preposterously!) similar to <i>The Fellowship of the Ring</i>. But once
again, the limits of the library’s Overdrive catalog left me with no choice but to
try Lois McMaster Bujold’s <i>The Curse of Chalion</i>. Which was fine. My experience with
<a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/10/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-v-extended.html" target="_blank">Gormenghast</a> – which I don’t consider to be a fantasy series at all - has encouraged
me to branch out a bit from my initial “sci-fi or die” constraints for this
audiobook blog project. So, it turns out I love <i>The Curse of Chalion</i>, particularly the main character
Caz and his steadfast humility, his dependability, and his unflappable
goodness. I thought of this story as nice counterpoint to the <i>Game of Thrones</i> epic,
which now seems like a post-modern take on the fantasy genre, the way it plays
against every convention, with its lack of heroes, ambiguous morality, its
justicelessness, its absence of Chivalry, and total disregard for such things
as romance and happy endings. In light of this, <i>The Curse of Chalion</i> felt
delightfully old-school. It’s small, simple,
occasionally brutal, often sweet, and you read it with a genuine sense that things
will resolve themselves tidily. It focuses on wholesome things like gratitude
and service. And it’s also very clean and chaste, which is surprisingly
refreshing after experiencing Martin’s crude treatment of sex, or the way
sci-fi writers like Peter F. Hamilton so often cram in unnecessarily graphic
and painfully awkward depictions of futuristic humans getting it on. I liked
the fact that the dirtiest thing there is in The Curse of Chalion is a passing
reference to a concealed erection. This isn’t a book to change your life, or cause
you to petition HBO to turn it into a mini-series, but it’s well-written,
well-plotted, addictive and weird. And it raises the fundamental question we
all ponder in our lives: what if the soul of your defeated mortal enemy took
refuge in your gut, where it festered and raged like a depraved sentient
cancer? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride</u>: I pass through many different municipal districts and
jurisdictions on my bike commute. Each one is responsible for maintaining their
own section of the bike path or road. Since I started riding to work much of my
route has been rebuilt, repaved, repainted, or repaired. Frequent winds along
the path bring sand and debris, which sits there until someone decides to send
a crew out to move it. You can learn a lot about a town or a country by
studying the quality of the bike path, and how it’s maintained after a big
wind. I move from freshly applied black asphalt into a sea of dunes, then out
again onto swept concrete, into fields of palm trunk husks, then onto more
dunes, a gauntlet of broken glass and razor sharp mussel shells, over sections
made bumpy by subterranean tree roots, onto slick new city streets. You learn the
ups and downs, the grooves and bumps and little minefields. Most interesting of
these obstacles are the sand dunes. Because the sand on the path is dry, most
passing bikers fail to carve out a trench to the asphalt. Sand gets pushed back
and forth, without a clear thoroughfare ever developing. So I’m pedaling along and
there’s a mini-dune of indeterminate length on the path ahead, and I have to
decide; do I take it slow and steady and risk losing momentum and steering, and
end up dismounting or wiping out at an embarrassingly low speed, or do I pedal as
hard as I can and hit the obstruction with the goal of forcing my will upon the
sand, and risk losing steering and wiping out for real, with all the attendant
consequences? Making the correct decision requires the evocation of a paradox
that has confounded me since I was two years-old and put on my first pair of
skis: the faster you go, the more control you have. It’s certainly counterintuitive, not to mention dangerous. But it’s interesting to expand this
basic tenant of physics to the larger world, which is somehow more manageable,
and you yourself become more functional and effective, if you accelerate into
danger. If you slow down and try to micromanage a situation, you often
flounder. It’s the old “pitch it, don’t aim it” scenario. Certain physical
realities in our world seem to intentionally push us out of our comfort zones,
into danger, where moments take on greater significance. Kids who are bored in
school think inaction is the solution; they don’t want to be there so they do
nothing. In reality, the cure for boredom is action. The kid who truly hates
school should work at it, so time passes more quickly. The way out, is in. A
nice side effect is all the learning that takes place while that student is
just trying to beat the clock. It’s sort of all the same thing, isn't it? So I
hit the dunes full speed and barrel through upright and unharmed, for now…<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<strong style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: xx-large;">Phase 15: End of Daylight Savings = sunrise and sunset, five commutes a week </strong><br />
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<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/PaladinOfSouls%281stEd%29.jpg" height="640" width="423" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Paladin of Souls</i> by Lois McMaster Bujold<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The book</u>: This is the sequel to <i>The Curse of Chalion</i>. But it
doesn’t continue the events from the first book; rather, it tells a new story
with a new protagonist. I was at first disappointed, because really loved Caz,
the hero of the first book. Now, instead of a continuation of his story, I
found myself forced to hear about Ista, some crazy lady who had a very minor
role in the first book. I didn't enjoy this book as much, even though I
eventually came to appreciate Ista every bit as much as I did Caz. What I didn't like was how much the story relied on its own universe’s somewhat abstract and
arbitrary natural (and unnatural) laws. As a reader, you don’t know what is
possible and what isn't. Therefore, when a problem arises, or a mystery
develops, you can’t make assumptions or predictions because you don’t know what
the rules of the game are. If a bunch of people get trapped in a castle and are
slowly dying of starvation, you don’t know if someone might just summon up some
food out of nowhere, or if a god will magically make everyone’s belly full, or
if the enemy will be smitten down by some character’s discovery of a secret
ability. Anything can happen, so there’s nothing clever about how problems are
solved. Every time you think you understand the protagonists gifts, she
suddenly has a conversation with a god and realizes she can do even more cool
stuff than she thought she could. That
said, I still liked the book for many of the same reasons I liked its
predecessor. The story telling is direct and economical. Everything that
happens relates to the ultimate conclusion. There are no wasted moments or
characters. Everything is neat and tidy. All the messes get cleaned up,
everyone finds their intended mate, the bad guys are either vanquished or
forgiven, and the gods can relax and go back to whatever it is they do when
they’re not preoccupied with human fallibility. I don’t read very many books
like this, with nary an ironic twist, a random act of depravity, or a character
who doesn't get exactly what he or she deserves in the end. There’s a third
book in the series, but I think I've had enough of this good clean fun. I need
more nerded-out space sex and less magic.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride</u>: Whether it’s the start of a tough day at work, or
the end of a long one, I often daydream about a less complicated and less
stressful existence. I’ll do things like watch seagull standing on the beach as
I ride my bike to work, and think, those guys don’t have to do anything today.
They have no responsibilities, no deadlines, no performance reviews. No inane
conversations. They just sit there or fly around. They eat from the bounty of
the ocean (and the beach trash cans). And that’s it. A beautiful simple life.
Of course any seagull would be happy to tell me it’s not all wine and roses. I
get that. I also do the same thing with people, or specifically, with their
occupations. During my ride to and from work I pass numerous people who are “on
the job”, spending their work-hours engaged in far more satisfying, less
stressful, activities than what I do. There are the physical trainers and yoga
instructors, the lifeguards, the surf coaches, the garbage men, the delivery
drivers, the road construction crews, etc. But there are two jobs in particular
I observe with a genuine, somewhat absurd longing. First is the power washer.
This is the guy with the wand that shoots pressurized water at the ground to
remove dirt and grime and gum. I've used a power washer before on a job years
ago, and I've used a similar device at a do-it-yourself car wash. I find the whole experience to be aesthetically
satisfying on some core level. In this case I really couldn't say if it’s just
me, or if everyone gets a kick out of feeling the jolt of pressure shoot out at
the ground, washing away the sins of the weekend, leaving glimmering virginal
concrete. I could do it eight hours a day. Ten hours. Twelve. It could be some
kind of Freudian hyper-ejaculatory fantasy. Or not. I don’t know. But it’s deep
in there. When I see these guys I try to really look at them, to see if there’s
evidence of a primal fulfillment. Usually there isn't. And not only do these
guys get to man the pressure hose all
day long, they also get to wear these crazy big rubber boots. The other job I
see during my ride, is the sand cleaner. This is the guy who drive a tractor
across the beach, pulling some device that rakes and cleans the sand, leaving a
smooth uniform surface that reminds me of fresh powder snow. The appeal of this
job is similar to that of the power washer, with a lawn-mowing component I relate to as
well, having worked as a landscaper for years. I love the way the tractor lays
down a smooth clean line, and then lays down another on his next pass, right next to the previous one. And
then another and another. I love the uniformity, the systematic approach. When
he’s done the beach is all neat and tidy (I must be going through my neat and tidy phase). It’s litter-free, seaweed-free, even
seagull poop –free. It’s all so damn satisfying. And the guy driving this
tractor gets to spend his whole day at the beach, every day. It probably pays
little more than minimum wage, but in
many ways it’s my dream job. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Phase 16: Cops punishing homeless guys by impounding their unlicensed dogs </span></strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<img alt="File:Evolutionary void cover uk.jpg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2d/Evolutionary_void_cover_uk.jpg" height="400" width="295" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The Evolutionary Void</i> by Peter F Hamilton<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book</u>: Back into space. Back home, actually, in many ways.
Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga is the heart and soul of this sci-fi bike
commute project. It’s where I began. And John Lee’s narration of this series
has warmth and familiarity that lets me settle down into my ride and just enjoy everything. This, unfortunately, is the last book available in
the series. I understand Hamilton is writing two more, but it will no-doubt be
a few years until they are available as audio books, and even then, there’s no guarantee
they’ll be available on Overdrive. I might be going back to Audible soon. In
any event, <i>The Evolutionary Void</i> wraps up the Void Trilogy, a richly imagined
space opera, full of clever ideas, fascinating technology, and just enough plausibility
to keep the whole thing grounded. It’s hard to separate this book from the
others. In fact, the whole Commonwealth Saga is really just one long book. I
would echo the complaints of many of Hamilton’s readers and say the ending isn't quite as satisfying as I would have liked it to be. I think this is a function
of the massive world building the author does, rather than a shortage of ideas.
There’s simply too much going on for it all to just come neatly together at the
end. Things get pretty abstract down the stretch and I’m not sure if you asked
me to explain what happened, if I even could. A couple times in the series
Hamilton has broken out of his normal narrative mode and experimented with
different ways of delivering his story. The brief history of
MorningLightMountain in <i>Pandora’s Star</i>, the Prime’s interrogation of Dudley
Bose, and the battle scene in <i>The Evolutionary Void</i> where Aaron reverts to his default
cybernetic survival mode, are all examples of non-traditional story telling that
give the reader a more immediate understanding of character and point-of-view. I
wish he did this sort of thing more. Something else I really liked about this
whole Commonwealth Saga is the fact that it really doesn't ever present itself
as a cautionary tale. I don’t know all that much about science-fiction writing,
but it seems that older, “golden age” writers had a point. Like you get in Star
Trek. This is what will happen if we do not evolve as a species. Hamilton’s
works, like many contemporary sci-fi books I've read, are more interested in speculating
about how technologies (immortality treatments and wormholes and that sort of thing) will drive the
human narrative. It’s kind of a Darwinist approach. This is what humans do. We
will always do it. We will evolve as a species only to the extent that it
serves out own individual interests. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride</u>: Speaking of
technology, there is one truly amazing gift from the future, that allows me to
fine tune the experience of riding to and from work, and allows me to alter
reality based on my mood, my interests, and my responsibilities. I’m talking
about Siri. I know Siri is useful in a number of different situations, but I
think she’s most helpful to a bicyclist. I use her to send text messages and
make calls, to change the music, to start and stop audio books, and take down
notes. The fact that I can do all of this hands-free, while pedaling along
is by far the most sci-fi thing I do all day. I mean, what’s more futuristic
than talking to a computer and having it do what you want it to? Smartphone and
microphone technology in general is pretty fantastic. I’m cruising along. “Call
my wife,” I say. Suddenly my audio book stops, my wife is talking through my
headphones. I talk without having to break stride or even adjust my head to
direct sound into a microphone. We talk. I pedal along. We hang up. The
audio book resumes. It’s crazy. I can ride my bike and speak into the air and
communicate in real time with someone on the other side of the planet if I
wanted to. My wife can put the phone up to my baby daughter’s mouth and I can
hear her weird noise-making just like I’m in the room with her. We take some of
these things for granted. The telephone itself is an incredible technology. But
something about using Siri and a headphone mic to communicate, all while riding a bike
on the beach is surreal. We live in incredible times. </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2014/07/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-vii.html" target="_blank">Click here to read part VII</a>: The Sci-fi Bike Commute goes to Mars! </i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-62747340199359779872013-12-08T21:47:00.000-08:002013-12-09T20:39:16.141-08:00Five Month Old Baby<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr511OBRTYCkQ67nOsFpJY3AoTz-1gVoAaaWUdZuB5kIafkuTLY8MlIsLGGQXYse1Vfacv6OSLAihYVvftmBYwkJZLOyk1I-ctUBDS66WIM_gFl4Ywt71jlxrZs35FxL2O-lVEy5_vxSA/s1600/goodnight+nobody.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr511OBRTYCkQ67nOsFpJY3AoTz-1gVoAaaWUdZuB5kIafkuTLY8MlIsLGGQXYse1Vfacv6OSLAihYVvftmBYwkJZLOyk1I-ctUBDS66WIM_gFl4Ywt71jlxrZs35FxL2O-lVEy5_vxSA/s320/goodnight+nobody.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I fed my daughter actual food last night. It was a rice cereal and breast milk combination that my wife and I dared each other to try. Neither of us tried it. But that didn't stop me from shoveling spoonful after spoonful of the stuff into the baby’s face. In any event, this first food seemed like a real milestone in her life, and therefore a good opportunity to reflect back on just what the hell has happened to me, my wife, and my daughter these past five months. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I’ll work backwards, starting with last night, where I had the singular and delightful experience of waking up to my daughter chewing on my nose - gumming it actually, with quick little milk breath bites. The experience basically made the rest of the day unruinable. And I don’t know if it was the food or the nose, but when she woke up in the morning she was bigger. She was thicker and heavier and taller. Growth spurts are a crazy thing. She cried out in the middle of the night in a way she never does. She was growing. I wonder if you had put one of those high speed cameras on her at that moment if you could see it happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last week, the little girl had her first real fever, and we took our first real trip to the ER. Three days of a 103 degree temperature and it was a full-blown panic. “How have you been taking her temperature?” they wanted to know. “Up the butt,” I told them, unable to come up with the word I was looking for. After tests and prodding they said she was sick. It was viral. There was nothing to be done about it. But if she’s not better tomorrow, they said, bring her back. Back for what? I wanted to scream. BACK FOR WHAT, DAMNIT! Are you people just fucking with me? BACK FOR WHAT! Let’s pretend today is tomorrow and the symptoms are the same. How about you do for her now what you will supposedly do for her tomorrow, and save me the time and money and the nightmare of standing in line for coffee in this dark dark expensive place. My relationship with baby-related doctors started great. Labor and delivery was great, doctor and nurse-wise. But since then, it’s been rough. Doctors have done little more than charge me a bunch of money for my piece of mind. And what’s that worth? I’m mostly insane these days anyways, so why am I taking my sniffling daughter to doctors who tell me to wait and see wait and see wait and see? At the ER they said they’d suction my daughter’s nose, which is interminably clogged. “We have really good suction here,” they told me. I was picturing some fancy machine, or at least some specialized tool. I figured, well if they can’t do anything for her fever, they can at least help her breathe. But then the nurse took out the same old bulb syringe we've been using all along, and sucked a little snot. “Ooh, that one sounded juicy,” she exclaimed, enjoying her job a little too much. The little girl was clogged up again before we even left the building.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The first night she was sick we were staying in a hotel room, on the way to visit family for the holidays. She cried through the night with her fever. She wailed through the night. Our poor neighbors. At one point I caught myself being more worried about the neighbors than I was about my daughter. This is what I mean about being mostly insane. I felt bad about not ordering my concerns appropriately. Daughter should be first, always. Burning up like she was. But she was third, behind the angry neighbors and my own concerns about not being concerned about things in the right way. And it’s hard to ruminate properly on a way-too-soft hotel mattress. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But it’s not all panic and desperation. Certainly not. These five months have been full of weird unforeseen delights. Like <i>Goodnight Moon</i>. Or specifically, the “Goodnight nobody” page in <i>Goodnight Moon</i>. If you've only read the book eight-hundred times, you might not remember what I’m talking about, that ridiculous, amazing blank white page in the middle of the otherwise richly illustrated book that just says, “Goodnight nobody.” I didn't know this prior to observing the miracle of birth, but <i>Goodnight Moon</i> plops out just after the placenta, which is why all parents have a copy. And all those parents know exactly what I’m talking about. The phenomenon is even Googleable. Every time I get to that page my heart swells. I don’t know why. I’d like to think it’s the author’s attempt to be subversive, a kind of in-joke about the absurdity of “children’s literature” in general. And maybe “literature” is too strong a word for what I have stacked on my coffee table. I’d like to think the author wanted to see if she could get away with <i>nothing</i>. It’s a perfect example of literary post-modernism, “written” at a time when post-modernism was just getting started. Posts on online message boards have suggested that the comment “Goodnight nobody” is part of a stall tactic used by the little bunny to stay awake longer. And that makes sense. But it doesn't explain why the fricking page is blank! There are no drawings and no colors. Taken as an isolated event, the page has nothing to offer a small illiterate child. Nothing! In fact, if can put myself in my daughter's head for just a second, the page is downright traumatizing. She's invested herself in the visual vocabulary of the story. It's all she can do. And then it's gone. It's a betrayal - a betrayal that seems to set the stage for a lifetime of betrayals. Which is what makes the whole thing so delightfully ballsy. Dr. Seuss thought of a lot of things, but he never thought of <i>nothing</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And then there’s the internet, as experienced by clueless new parents. There’s a whole big universe of bad advice, hysteria, and paranoia. It’s all the same kind of stuff I ran into when I got married. But this time it’s all jacked up on steroids. Every conceivable baby-related issue has the complete spectrum of perspective. There’s so much information, that really, there’s no information. Your kid has a cold? Do nothing. Do everything. There. Have fun. You have to take your kid on an eight-hour car ride? Well, Sally’s four month old slept the whole time, while Kelly’s four month old had perpetual diarrhea and needed to be changed at every other mile marker. Hope that helps. Daycare is a great starting point for the proper socializing of children, where kids meet diverse populations while building immunity. Daycare is a sad dumping ground for unwanted children, a seething cesspool of viral pathogens and sadistic old maids. Please help yourself to the most convenient point of view. Fortunately, Dr. Benjamin Spock’s famous advice turns out to be true; you really do know more than you think you do. Parenting is pretty straight-forward. You trust your instincts, experiences, and common sense, and find you almost always know what to do. Doing what you need to do isn't always easy, but it’s not surprising that our parents and our grandparents all made it to adulthood without the benefit of the internet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Onward. I have solved the mystery of faster than light speed travel. He’s how we voyage beyond our solar system with superluminal velocity. We make a huge baby. Then we put a spaceship loaded with people in that baby’s hand. Then the baby drops the spaceship and the people are inexplicable whisked away to impossible destinations at inconceivable speeds. I’m not kidding. My daughter can drop her pacifier in our living room and it will immediately end up on the floor of the back seat of the car that’s parked in the garage. It can’t be explained.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Oh, and now that I'm a father, I've become a ninja master at picking stuff up with my toes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And here’s something that really changes when you have a kid. You’re on that long road trip with the wife and baby, and you smell something digestive and foul. You stare lovingly into wife’s eyes and say, “Please, honey, please tell me that was you. Please tell me that fetid rotten odor I smell is coming from you and not the baby. Nothing would bring me more joy right now than to know it was you who farted all disgusting like that.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Babies and TV. There are certain declarations I think all new parents make, about all the things their own baby will never do. It’s commonly know that these idealistic pre-baby notions don’t stand a chance of holding up in the real world. I don’t even bother to mention my daughter will never have an iPad out in a restaurant, or wear headphones while I’m driving her to school. I know all these things will happen. The laws of entropy cannot be circumvented. Every time one of my friends has a kid watching TV when I come over, they feel the need to explain themselves, to justify, to point out why today is special and different, and that generally, TV is forbidden. I guess I don’t want my five month old watching TV either. I don’t know why, if it’s a social taboo, or some powerful parenting intuition. But it does seem wrong. But she loves football. My nephew loved baseball when he was tiny. And I’m not about to stop watching football just because there’s a baby in the house. How else am I going get enough scratch together to send her to college if not through wagering on professional sports? She loves the lights and the cheering and the voices (not Joe Buck’s voice, of course). She also seems to like it when teams go for it on 4th down. Don’t we all. But is this wrong? Who decides what is right or wrong for a baby? Don’t leave that stuff up to me and my wife to decide. We’ll end up taking her wine tasting (again) or something. What if we let her watch football only on her stomach? She hates tummy time, but supposedly needs to do more of it. Can we use football as the carrot on the stick? Is that wrong? To literally treat my daughter like a stubborn ass? What does feel wrong is believing I’m above bribing and manipulating my daughter, or using potentially bogus concepts like the importance of tummy time in order to justify my own selfish behavior. I find this word selfish comes up a lot more now that I have a kid. I’m suddenly selfish a lot. I'm probably adapting to the changes in my life a little slower than I ought to. Oh well. On the other hand, ignoring yourself and your life and your own interests seems wrong too. I know people with kids who haven’t taken a picture of their spouse in five years. That’s not so great either.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At the five month mark I feel like I finally have enough perspective to look back at the question my wife and I asked ourselves for ten years. Should we have a kid? Having children, or even getting married to your partner are obviously no long givens in our world. For years I assumed I would never have kids. The problem with finding out if you should have a kid (or kids) is that you have to make the decision for yourself. It’s one of the few areas of life where other people really can’t help you at all. They can’t help you because, first of all, they’ll never be honest with you, especially if they hate their kids and their life. This is not something anyone will cop to. And a different kind of person might encourage you to have kids so they can watch you suffer, because misery loves company. Yet another type of person will tell you kids are great because they love all kids. But what if you hate kids? How do know if you will come around and love your own kid? What if you hate your own kid? What if you resent your hated kid for ruining your life? That can be a problem. <i>Soooooo</i>, the question: should I have a kid? My answer is yes. For me. And I now believe people when they say they love being a parent. I used to think they were bullshitting me. Now I know that’s impossible. But I’m almost 40, and I don’t miss much that’s changed. If I was 25 I’m sure I would feel differently. And my kid’s really cute. I don’t know what I’d do with an ugly baby. Give it away probably. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Click <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/search/label/Parenting" target="_blank">here </a>to read other parenting posts on this blog</i></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-58105179853988453772013-11-13T14:08:00.000-08:002013-11-13T14:11:54.075-08:00Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi via Red Mars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvaGTJtUslWOTHmgqTOUSYiknABZwSWqG2MHM2p9gHeb6r2BD_HORNd5lqOsqyyBjGr6SMv2OegNx86_9NDWb2bed6VjrGHdrdFo9xNicZgCbXeClaYQsACfVkC4KmqFd5fNG6FwnPdZM/s1600/Maulana_Jalaluddin_Rumi_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvaGTJtUslWOTHmgqTOUSYiknABZwSWqG2MHM2p9gHeb6r2BD_HORNd5lqOsqyyBjGr6SMv2OegNx86_9NDWb2bed6VjrGHdrdFo9xNicZgCbXeClaYQsACfVkC4KmqFd5fNG6FwnPdZM/s640/Maulana_Jalaluddin_Rumi_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; line-height: 115%;">"We say a bedtime
prayer from the Persian poet Rumi Jalaluddin,” the old woman told him, and
recited it:</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I died
as mineral and became a plant,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I died
as plant and rose to animal.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I died
as animal and I was human.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Why
should I fear? When was I less by dying?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Yet
once more I shall die human,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">To
soar with angels blessed above.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">And
when I sacrifice my angel soul,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I
shall become what no mind ever conceived.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Sleep
well,” she said into his drowsing mind. “This is all our path.”</span></span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"> - Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars)</span></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-11445898750984710992013-11-09T14:19:00.000-08:002013-11-09T20:26:47.268-08:00A Shrimp on the Town<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">With The Shrimp now four months old, my wife and I figured
it was time to revisit a pre-baby Saturday ritual, especially given how
successful we were <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/09/the-return-of-nfl-sunday-ritual-newborn.html" target="_blank">revisiting a pre-baby Sunday ritual</a>. For us, a
perfect Saturday used to involve a nice long walk along the water into town,
where we would eat some lunch, do a little shopping, stop in at a nice bar, and
stroll home (or take a cab, or the bus, depending on how things went). We had
taken The Shrimp out with us on many occasions, but never had we made a full
day of it, where there would be feedings and changings to manage. Plus, we
would be on foot, without a car, and therefore without a convenient way to
abort the mission should things go wrong. We suited her up, plopped her in the
stroller and set off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Traveling around with a young kid can be fun. Fun in the way
going to Mexico can be fun; you know something is going to go horribly wrong,
but it will probably be so inconceivably ridiculous you have to laugh before
you start crying. <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/mexico-part-iv-valladolid.html" target="_blank">Like that time we rode a bus in Mexico</a> and it rained <i>inside</i> the bus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There’s a new pizza place in town we've had our eye on since
the first days of my wife’s pregnancy. It seemed like just the right kind of
place to take a little kid for lunch. It’s big and spacious, loud, full of
children, reasonably priced. And there's a nice beer selection. I've been
trying to nail down exactly why I've gained fifteen pounds since my daughter
was born. This has to be reason #254: I only feel comfortable drinking in public
with my daughter if there is food on the table in front of me. Without the food
on the table, I’m just a guy who brought his four-month old kid to a bar. With
the food on the table, I’m a responsible father spending time with his darling
daughter, socializing her, including her in all aspects of his life. So given
that the impetus for the excursion was to reclaim that pre-baby Saturday
euphoria, I wanted a beer, maybe two, maybe four. Which meant ordering an
appetizer. Then a beer. Then a salad. Then a beer. Then a pizza. And sure, why
not another beer? Who’s going to judge a man drinking beer with his pizza, even
if he does have baby on his lap? Maybe people care about this sort of thing,
maybe they don’t. And maybe I shouldn't care what other people think about my
parenting. But I do. Sue me. And I know myself too well. If I get even the
slightest little cross-eyed look, it’ll set me off into an indignant internal rage.
Like the time the woman in IKEA pointed out that my daughter wasn't wearing her seat belt while I pushed her around in a stroller. My at-the-time eight-week old
daughter, who could barely move, much less crawl out of her stroller. But I
ruminate on these things, these observations made by complete strangers, these
intrusions into my ways and means and methods. I don’t forget them. Maybe
inwardly I’m being defensive because I know I’m in the wrong (I can think of
ten good reasons to buckle an eight-week old into her stroller). I don’t know.
But the emotion is pure anger. I try to keep a “go fuck yourself” chambered, to
fire it off unconsciously at moments like these. But I always forget to keep a
“go fuck yourself” chambered. In other words, I don't take criticism very well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Of course, nobody’s really even paying attention to my
little family sitting in the corner, eating and drinking, and enjoying a sunny
Saturday excursion. We eat as the little girl naps, wakes up, looks around,
naps some more. The waitress, as she's required to do if she expects a tip,
tells us how adorable and well-behaved our son is. I make a face and ready a
protest, but my wife reminds me that babies are supposed to be color-coded so
these gender mistakes don't get made. That's what the pink socks are for, I
tell her. It's an honest mistake, so I spare the waitress my recently-chambered
"go fuck yourself." We eat pizza. The baby bounces on my wife's leg.
My wife dips a slice of pepperoni into a puddle of ranch dressing and takes a
bite. The baby coughs. We talk. Drink some more. The baby goes back to sleep.
You've got ranch on your leg, I tell her. She dips her finger, puts it in her
mouth. She freezes. What? I ask. That's not ranch, that's puke, she tells me.
We laugh. Three months ago my wife would not have found that funny at
all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Meal completed. Check paid. We should take The Shrimp into
the bathroom and get her changed. But for some reason we don't. We're out on
the street. The baby's getting fussy. And I'm suddenly unhappy too, because I’m
full now, but I want more beer, and that unexpectedly ridiculous moment I've been expecting hasn't happened yet, so that’s out there too, waiting for me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We decide to go next to Starbucks. It hadn't occurred to me
to consume anything non-alcoholic on a weekend, but okay. I can get behind this
decision. It’s a good safe place for a guy to bottle-feed his daughter, which I
know I will have to do, and which I dread doing. Why? Why do I have to do it
and why do I dread it? It’s complicated. My wife has convinced me that she
cannot bottle-feed The Shrimp because The Shrimp (hey, at least we don’t call
her The Little Terrorist anymore) gets angry if mom feeds her anything other
than a boob. This hasn't actually been verified to my satisfaction, but okay,
fine. I need to make my wife happy and not bottle feeding the baby makes her
happy, so that’s that. One does not push one’s luck when one is having a nice
Saturday such as this. Things can go south all too quickly and we must protect
the happiness. But I hate bottle-feeding in public and here’s why: generally, I
don’t get weird about gender roles and child rearing. But this is an exception.
I live in a place – slash - come from a community – slash - have been indoctrinated
by my associates to believe that men and women should share all baby-related
responsibilities evenly. Because men cannot breastfeed, they do the diapers.
Even Steve. Fine. However, in some circles this sharing of duties is a point of
pride, or is seen as evidence of progressive enlightenment. The pendulum can
swing too far the other way, where you get the overcompensating daddy, who
equates his level of involvement with his level of personal awesomeness. This
guy cries himself to sleep every night because in his heart of hearts he knows
he will never lactate. The point is, whenever I bottle-feed The Shrimp in
public I become that guy just a little bit. Again, this comes down to public
perceptions I shouldn't even care about (and probably don’t even exist), but I
do care at least a little bit, as most people do. And are we really going to
let the women monopolize <i>all</i> the
irrational insanity? Can’t we save some for the guys too? Basically, when I
feed my daughter in public it feels like I’m doing in on purpose, to make a
point. Which I’m not. And I can’t abide being misunderstood. She’s fucking
hungry! Stop looking at me like I'm some kind of Prairie Home Companion
Naderite. But honestly, that not even really it. I don't like bottle-feeding in
public because I used to sneer at people when they did it. Which makes me a
huge hypocrite. I was indignant the way I'm still indignant about people who
bring their dogs everywhere. If your baby's hungry, go home! I used to think.
Don't crash our party with your mature adult behavior. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, yes, there I am
bottle-feeding a baby in a Starbucks, drinking a skinny vanilla latte. All
I needed was a good fecal blowout so I could take the little girl into the
restroom for a change and thereby complete the trifecta of emasculation. We
take pictures, we…are having fun. Yes. It’s wonderful. But I want to leave and
get another beer. But we already ate and we can’t have beer without food,
right? So…so…so let’s eat again! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We crossed the road and headed into our second restaurant.
We hadn't scoped this place out, like we did the first place. This one was
cramped and crowded, with no children about, and very little room for our
stroller. Plus, the only available seats were at a high-top table in the bar
area. But the waitress complimented our baby so all was good and right with the
world. I'm not really hungry, my wife said. I'm not really either, I said. So
nachos then? Obviously. With chicken? Why not? Guacamole? Sure. Sour cream?
Sure. We ordered a couple drinks as well. I picked up The Shrimp and realized
her diaper was wet. My wife offered to take her to the lady's room, but I was
already on my feet with the freezer bag of supplies in hand. I got this. I
wanted my wife to enjoy herself. I wanted everything to go smoothly so future
excursions would be possible. Walking to the bathroom, all the college football
girls make smiley faces at my daughter. This is it, I'm thinking. Here come the
absurdity. Should I just drop her in the toilet and get it over with? I'm
expecting a gross bathroom, and am pleasantly surprised. The stall is empty,
spacious, and clean. Cradling my daughter in one arm, I somehow manage to get
her wet diaper off, clean her up, and get a clean one back on in a flawlessly
executed series of careful quick maneuvers. I check our supplies and see we
still have two diapers remaining. Then we're back at the table. My beer has arrived, my wife is
impressed, and we're all good. The nachos arrive. We both reiterate how not
hungry we are and then devour the entire massive plate in ten minutes flat.
Then there's a blowout in the stroller. I can sense it the way dogs sense
earthquakes. I've had pizza and beer and nachos on this day, and shared it all
with my two favorite people on earth. I'm thrilled. I would be happy to change
our daughter in the bathroom, I tell my wife. You sit here, get another glass
of wine. Relax. I have forgotten that nothing has gone wrong yet. Back in the
bathroom I quickly realize the logistics of changing a dirty diaper are far
more complex. I put the changing pad down on top of the toilet tank, and am immediately aware that I am violating several tenets of sound parenting. One good
twitch and she might really end up in the toilet. I picture myself returning to
our table with a soaking wet baby. Focus, I tell myself. You can do this. The supply
bag is between my legs. I get the dirty diaper off, put the diaper bag in my
mouth, hold the kid with one hand and fish out a baby wipe with the other. I
get her cleaned up and then grab a clean diaper, which is stuck to another (the
last) clean diaper. There’s a mix up. The baby moves. I lose my focus and drop
both clean diapers into the toilet. My first thought is the Five Second Rule. I
quickly realize it doesn't apply to diapers dropped in toilets at bars. What do
I do? Do I build a diaper out of toilet pap… There is no toilet paper. And,
wait, asshole, <i>build a diaper</i>? I get
the little girl dressed, fish the diapers out of the toilet and toss them in
the trash, and then we go back to our table. I am grimacing when my wife
catches sight of me. Something has gone wrong. But what? She is wondering. Oh,
to be able to read her mind at that moment. How he could have fucked this up,
let me count the ways… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we pay the check and hightail it home, The Shrimp going
commando, which is no big deal, but it feels like a big deal. It feels like we’re
dancing on the rim of an active volcano. But she’s got us covered. We make it
home and her pants are dry as a bone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We could have just gone to a market and bought some diapers,
my wife says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That had not occurred to me, dude.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But all in all it was a big success. Though I do feel weird.
I made a scene at that bar, even if nobody noticed it. The top of a toilet tank
is no place for my precious little girl. I won’t repeat that.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-52722418461140462532013-11-01T08:40:00.000-07:002013-11-01T11:28:11.609-07:00Smoke Monkey International is Available in Paperback<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><strong><em>SMOKE MONKEY INTERNATIONAL</em></strong> </span><span style="color: black;">is now available in a paperback edition as well as a Kindle edition!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"></span><br />
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><em><strong><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/10/the-bavards-guide-to-unsavory-persons.html" target="_blank">Click here to read Volume 1: Dickheads and Assholes</a></strong></em></span><br />
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Douchebags and Scrotes:<o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Certainly, much has been said about Douchebags. But like the
terms “hero” and “genius,” the Douchebag title is bestowed all to readily - and
irresponsibly - these days. Which is not to say the world isn’t full of
Douchebags. Popularity of the word is partly due to its unprecedented
applicability. Ironically, the misuse of the word is a prime example of
Douchebag behavior, as the defining characteristic of a Douchebag is a pathological
ignorance, be it linguistic or otherwise. True Douchebags possess a certain
tone-deafness to the world at large, which accounts for everything from their misguided
fashion sense to their appreciation of extra-large vehicles and wearable
technology. Much of the misuse and mislabeling
associated with the term Douchebag can be explained thusly: First, the word has
tremendous aesthetic appeal. It rolls poetically off the tongue, and lends
itself to vocal fluctuations and emphatic variations. Secondly, there is inherent
ironic humor in the use of the term when one considers its literal definition.
Much of the labeling of unsavory persons draws humor from this juxtapositioning
(see <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/10/the-bavards-guide-to-unsavory-persons.html" target="_blank">Dickheads and Assholes</a>). And finally, misuse of the word Douchebag, and its
less potent offspring “Douche” and “DBag”, comes from its PG-13 nature.
Douchebag is not a curse word, nor does it make <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">direct</i> reference to genitalia or a sex act, though it dances
perilously close.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So, then, what exactly is a Douchebag? Well, primarily, a
Douchebag is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> an Asshole or a
Dickhead (or a Fuckface, Jerkoff, or Jackass, but that’s getting way ahead of
myself). Douchebags do not know they are Douchebags, or at the very least,
their Douchbagginess is unintentional. Douchebags famously unplug things accidentally.
Things like powerstrips connecting an array of office or classroom computers.
Douchebags make things worse in an effort to make them better. Things like
software glitches, copy machine jams, soup, and bad hair dye jobs. Douchebags
get caught copying your homework and the teacher rips only yours up to send a
message. (that teacher, by the way, is an Asshole). Douchebags, thinking they
have some special connection to all living things, get bit by dogs and make
babies cry. Unlike certain other unsavory persons, Douchebags are not without
friends. In fact, it is common for a person to feel surrounded by Douchebags,
at parties or bars or family reunions. One’s Douchebag nature can be transitory
(unless it is connected to the permanence of a bad or misspelled tattoo). You
can grow into or out of your Douchebagginess. Treatments and interventions are
effective. Often times a Douchebag can be cured with a simple item, like a
mirror or a credit card statement. Generally speaking, a
Douchebag’s antics are harmless. A Douchebag will absolutely make you late for
an important meeting – by insisting on driving you, and then running out of gas
– but they will rarely hurt you. Women do not make very good Douchebags, as an
essential ingredient in Douchebag behavior is an imbalance of testosterone.
Birds are nature’s Douchebags, for their reliance on elaborate posturing and
vanity, as well as their unique ability to fly into things while trying to move
gracefully. Women continue to befuddle the world with their attraction to
Douchebags. And certainly, using a pseudointellectual highbrow tone when
writing about things like Assholes, Dickheads, and Douchebags in an attempt to
entertain people on your blog so they will <a href="http://ow.ly/nEQSZ" target="_blank">buy your novel</a>, is Douchebag
behavior at its finest (or is it? See below). </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Scrotes (or Scroats) and Douchebags are mortal enemies, at least from the Douchebag
point of view. The two distinct groups are frequently mistaken for one another.
Douchebags think Scrotes are pussies. Scrotes think they themselves are Douchebags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A true Douchebag would never possess the
self-awareness required to self-identify. Anyone who refers to themselves as a
Douchebag is probably a Scrote or a Dickhead, depending on their nature. A Scrote
is like a benevolent Dickhead, generally fun-loving and utterly harmless.
Scrotes lack ambition, either through laziness, or an over-intellectualized,
college-based understanding that ambition can get you assassinated. A Scrote
will absolutely use Shakespeare as an excuse to sit on a couch and take
bonghits and watch Judge Judy. Woman make terrific Scrotes. Male and female
Scrotes are exceptionally compatible. In fact, Scotes get along exceedingly
well with other Scrotes. Entire Scrote armies can be found on tour with Phish,
in churches, and at GameStop. A Scrote’s unsavory nature stems from the fact
that they are generally forgetful, irresponsible, and sensitive to a fault.
Scrotes cannot handle criticism, which, coupled with drug use, can result in a
toxic atmosphere of self-doubt and depression. “I’m such a fucking Douchebag!”
is the classic mantra of a certifiable Scrote. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Example # 1 of Scrote behavior: A pack of Scrotes move into
a furnished apartment. The dryer venting tube is disconnected from the wall
outet. Rather than simply connecting the tube to the outlet, the pack of
Scrotes determine the dryer venting mechanism is defective. For one year the
dryer simply vents into the small room where the appliances are kept. The paint
peels off the walls. Lint on the floor is four inches deep. There is a toilet
in this room, and when the pack of Scrotes girlfriends (not Girlfriends) comes
over and use the toilet they don’t tell the Scrotes to fix the room (because these
girls themselves are Scrotes). The Scrotes are sued by the landlord. They
ignore the lawsuit and it “goes away.” For years afterwards, none of the Scotes
can understand why they have such a hard time getting approved to rent
apartments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<o:p><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Example #2 of Scrote behavior: This same pack of Scrotes
purchase a newspaper subscription. The newspaper is stolen off their porch
three or four days a week. Rather than notify the newspaper company or the police, the
Scrotes decide instead to wake up early, on a rotating schedule, and collect
the paper before the thief has arrived. A Scrote then defecates into the paper,
refolds it, and returns it to the porch. The shit-filled paper is then stolen,
not by a thief, but instead by an autistic neighbor who is trying to save
himself fifty cents and a walk to the corner market. He gives the paper to his
bedridden grandmother, who then finds herself covered in Scrote feces. The
police are notified. Nervous and repentant Scrotes are questioned. Police are
granted access into the Scote lair, where they discover an extensive marijuana
growing operation.</span> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<o:p><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Coming up in Volume 3: Fuckfaces, Jerkoffs, and Jackasses</span></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-49098430927422357772013-10-19T11:54:00.000-07:002013-10-26T12:57:43.863-07:00The Bavard's Guide to Unsavory Persons: Volume 1 - Dickheads and Assholes<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SKawRNL8fzkbLfviBYhUHZmowgwjxrlc9oEngnLLgyj9Leuz87krVR03LfyG4_AleF4CGbA5-vrc8C1Rlnv-Vr9rAPAV7WFVNRduGGcyS-TACndoHgc5hyZMPgC-VjALQ0igsbKjMgQ/s1600/unsavory.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SKawRNL8fzkbLfviBYhUHZmowgwjxrlc9oEngnLLgyj9Leuz87krVR03LfyG4_AleF4CGbA5-vrc8C1Rlnv-Vr9rAPAV7WFVNRduGGcyS-TACndoHgc5hyZMPgC-VjALQ0igsbKjMgQ/s640/unsavory.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><strong>Dickheads and Assholes:</strong></span><br />
</div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The defining characteristics of Dickheads are mean-spiritedness,
stupidity, and a lack of self-awareness. Dickheads are further characterized by
their ineptitude, brutality, and inability to read people. Dickheads are
Dickheads by choice. Dickheads think they are being funny when they are not.
This often involves the telling of racist jokes. Dickheads' antics <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hurt</i>. They always laugh at their victims
and assume they are endearing to their “friend group”. None of a Dickhead’s
friends actually like the Dickhead, but they are too scared of retaliatory
pranking to ever say or do anything about it. Dickheads are impossible to kick
out of bands. Dickheads can be seen handing out Dixie cups of vodka to marathon
runners, who are expecting water. If you start a war, you are probably a Dickhead.
All Dickheads are bullies (but not all bullies are Dickheads – see below). You
cannot be a female Dickhead. One never accuses a Dickhead of being a Dickhead
to his face. Dickheads honk at you to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">GO!</i>
when you are waiting for a pedestrian at a crosswalk. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dickheads are often cuckolds. Your older
brother is probably a Dickhead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dickheads
wear offensive or inappropriate Halloween costumes. Dickheads give mean or
insulting gifts. Dickheads give bad stock advice. At a sports bar, a Dickhead
will gloat ostentatiously and laugh at your team’s misfortune even if his team isn't even playing. Dickheads are bad tippers because they don’t know any
better. Dickheads are buffoons. There are no Dickheads in the animal kingdom. Dickheads
drink beer. Dickheads borrow money and don’t pay it back. Women hate Dickheads.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Assholes are similar to Dickheads, with two fundamental
differences. Assholes are intelligent and direct. Like Dickheads, Assholes are
mean-spirited and brutal. But their general competency makes them far more
dangerous. Being an Asshole is not a choice, it’s a birthright. Assholes do not
tell jokes or attempt to win people over with humor or affability. Racist
comments made by Assholes represent fundamental beliefs. The
animosity an Asshole incurs is intentional. While a Dickhead might be part of a
friend group that includes mostly non-Dickheads, Assholes only hang out with
other Assholes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An Asshole would never
be a marathon spectator, even to prank the runners. In fact, many Assholes run
marathons. <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-i_23.html" target="_blank">They also cycle</a> and rock climb. Assholes are the ones who
convince the Dickheads to start wars. Like Dickheads, Assholes are bullies;
however, unlike Dickheads, Assholes’ bullying lacks any creativity and shuns
tradition. An Asshole does not bully with schoolyard wedgies. An Asshole just sets
your car on fire. Women can absolutely be Assholes. Assholes do not need to be
told they are Assholes. Assholes do not honk at you, you honk at Assholes.
Assholes are remorseless cheaters, at games and in relationships. While your
older brother is a Dickhead, it’s your <i>friend’s</i> older brother that’s the
Asshole. Assholes don’t participate in Halloween, unless it involves throwing eggs,
which is not done out of respect for a tradition, but simply because it hurts
and stains. Assholes don’t give gifts and they return all gifts they receive. Assholes
don’t give stock advice, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">especially</i>
when they should. Assholes are bad tippers because they lack empathy. The
animal kingdom is made up almost exclusively of Assholes (dogs are the
exception). From the perspective of the animal kingdom, the human race is a
race of Assholes. Assholes drink wine. Assholes don’t borrow money, they
manipulate the system and steal it. Women love Assholes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alternate Definitions: While the term Dickhead has only two
meanings, the one described above, and its literal meaning, the term Asshole
has an interesting third application, beyond the one mentioned above, and its
own literal meaning. Some Assholes are victims or gullible morons, as in, “I
can’t believe he cheated on me again. I’m such an Asshole!” Or, “Jesus, <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/09/the-return-of-nfl-sunday-ritual-newborn.html" target="_blank">what kind of an Asshole</a> would take the Cardinals +11 on the road in San
Francisco?” Or, “Yeah, Mac, some Asshole just okayed us to bill 450 dollars for
an alignment, an oil change, and two new tires.” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/10/the-bavards-guide-to-unsavory-persons_26.html" target="_blank">Click here to read Volume 2: Douchebags and Scrotes</a></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-28153263826496597392013-10-14T07:55:00.002-07:002013-12-18T10:50:48.154-08:00The Sci-Fi Bike Commute: Part V – Extended, Format-Breaking All-Gormenghast Edition <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s1600/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s640/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em><strong><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-i_23.html" target="_blank">Click here to read Part I</a></strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">"When I bought my bike last August [2012] and committed myself to riding to work, I added the following spontaneous and bizarre stipulation: I would listen exclusively to science fiction audiobooks." [and some fantasy]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><strong>Phase 13: Year 2 of TSFBC: New Job, New Bike, New Baby</strong></span><br />
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<img height="680" src="http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll268/Pennyworth59/TitusGroan2.jpg" width="510" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><u>The Book:</u> I don’t remember exactly how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titus Groan</i> ended up in my ear buds. I
think it was the only unheard sci-fi/fantasy book left in my Library’s
Overdrive catalogue that didn’t look like a pulpy mess - no gleaming abs or
lightning bolts shooting out of finger tips. I just got lucky. And that’s the
way it goes sometimes. The fates hand you the exact book you were looking for,
even if you didn’t know you were looking for it. There I was, knee deep in genre-conforming
space opera, loving my whizz-bang plots, paper-thin characters, and dubious
technobabble. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And suddenly, I couldn’t
get my hands on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Evolutionary Void</i>,
the last book in Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently, the library didn’t see the logic
of acquiring the fifth book in a five-book series, when they do carry the first
four books. I have a government job, so this makes perfect sense to me. But there
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titus Groan</i> thing, this brilliantly bizarre cover art. I clicked to
learn more and found out Gormenghast is a three book series (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone</i>).
Why not give it try? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Cut to me on my bike, riding to work, laughing,
giggling, rewinding the trill laughter of Dr. Prunesquallar. Smiling like there’s
something deeply wrong with me. What the hell is this? Where did it come from?
How had I never heard of Gormenghast before? And how am I supposed to take it
all? Is it a comedy? A satire? A commentary on the drudgery of daily ritual in
some pre-postmodern kind of way, or just weird high fantasy, to be taken on its
own terms? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And more questions: Where the hell is
this place, this Gormenghast Castle? And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">when</i>?
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I knew immediately that I didn’t want to
read a word about these books. I didn’t want to know the author, his (her?) country
of origin, critical responses to the text, or even the publication date. It seemed
essential, and consistent with the text, that I experience Gormenghast in a
total vacuum. So I won’t spoil the contents for anyone else who’s weird like that.
Which puts me in the difficult position of trying to convince would-be readers to get their
Gormenghast on, without really telling them anything more about it. (That's the plan, at least.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So I’ll just talk about myself instead.
I’m possessive about these books now. They feel personal to me, not because I relate
to the story or the characters in any meaningful way, but because I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">get it</i>. Everyone knows the feeling. I understand
and experience exactly what the author wants me to understand and experience.
Of course, that’s a narcissistic and delusional way to think about art, but that
hasn’t stopped any person I know from doing the same damn thing. And it's especially gratifying to <em>get it</em>, when <em>it</em> is something so preposterous and complex and precise. Every decision
the author makes to take the story further, to make it weirder, less
commercial, less genre-specific, is exactly the right decision, like it’s not
even a decision at all. It’s just what is. Never do I question the pacing, the
authenticity of the dialogue, or the plausibility of the events. This kind of
writing, where a place and time and population are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">evoked</i>, rather than created, is always the most impressive, where
the author plays the role of a chronicler or journalist, that really, he may not
have a creative bone in his body. It’s the world he’s reporting that’s doing
all the work.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Really, this audiobook, bike-commute
project is about how the stories playing in my head affect my perception of the
world zooming past me, how what I am listening to separates my experience from
that of the other bike-commuters, who physically access the same environmental
factors I do. What are the innumerable grains of sand to the guy listening
to the Euro-trance techno pulse, compared to the guy listening to NPR? The guy
listening to Simon Vance bellow, “I shall go to the Tower of Flints. I am the
Death Owl!”? So what does Gormenghast do to the ocean and the airplanes and the
RV park? Well, it obfuscates them, blurs them, and in some cases, removes them altogether.
Which is not to say I am transported to Gormenghast. This isn’t that type of
story. For a richly detailed fantasy story, Gormenghast is not particularly illuminating.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s really just a big huge fucking castle
and then some other stuff – characters like you’ve never met before. Archetypes
taken to such absurd extremes they cease to be archetypes at all. The nanny,
the butler, various dowager aunts, the villain, the cook, the doctor, the
teachers, the heir, the precocious princess, the Lord and his lady, each one
unique to an extreme. What I get from these books is the unending delight you
get from being surprised by people. People you think you know, who turn out to
be far more interesting and original that you expected. The whole book
aggressively working against every expectation you could possibly have. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Irony</i> with a capital ”I”. It’s the
audacity of the whole thing that gets me. That someone would sit in a room for
years and write this stuff. That they would commit themselves to such an absurd
project, see it through, make it beautiful and haunting and transcendent.
Sometimes I tell myself that - to pick an example at random - the guy I pass on the bike path who pulls a painted
red gypsy wagon behind his bike is strange. But the existence of Gormenghast
establishes a higher level of strangeness, a more evolved and refined state of
lunacy. If nothing else, Gormenghast has reminded me just how powerful good writing can be.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’m certain I will find more
science-fiction books to rival the Commonwealth Saga. For all its entertainment
value, it is not unique. But this Gormenghast experience has left me a little
anxious. Is there anything this good still out there? Something I’ve never
heard of before? Something I can experience with total objectivity? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The answer: Of course there is.
(suggestions welcome)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Random addendum: Other chance discoveries that (gulp) Changed My Life!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I remember <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Crossing</i> calling to me from a
display table in a resort town in Idaho. I can’t say what attracted me to the
bleakness of those cow skulls, but I had to read that book. I’d never heard of Cormac
McCarthy before. It was a similar situation a few years later with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infinite Jest</i>, only this time I was in Phoenix, stranded at my ex-girlfriend’s parents’ house with unfixable car trouble and the need to punish myself with something dense and dry. Next thing I knew I was scraping bits of skull and brain matter off the ceiling fan in their guest room.<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">And the rest, quickly: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arctic Dreams</i> in a hotel’s lending library…in Thailand. <em>Cannery Row</em> in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s gift shop when I was 14 on a school field trip, trying to impress a girl by being the only kid who didn’t buy a stuffed otter. <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jude the Obscure</i> in a box of inherited classroom library books. <em>Master and Commander</em>, in a used book store in Boston (again, I think I was just trying to impress a girl with my interest in all things Napoleonic).</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p>Click <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/12/the-sci-fi-bike-commutepart-vi.html" target="_blank">here</a> for Part VI of the Sci-Fi Bike Commute: More format breaking fantasy! <i>The </i><em>Curse of Chalion</em> and <em>Paladin of Souls</em>! Plus the end of the Commonwealth Saga!</o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-36140344105354272172013-09-05T14:47:00.000-07:002013-09-06T12:14:20.640-07:00The NFL Sunday Ritual - A Newborn Meets Her REAL Parents<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2VmhOfBqgzkti_pqdcTBNsu5M1TSYFPgFEvhFRR2wzO4sGAGHac2G6pkoBbDec3mjB5Yf1UpaTpzg-Ylv_-9m2mRXeytzsdqaz2L8Il66u22Obzt1q5blwk7bKFzMll0H2touvNLLkk/s1600/IMG_0561.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2VmhOfBqgzkti_pqdcTBNsu5M1TSYFPgFEvhFRR2wzO4sGAGHac2G6pkoBbDec3mjB5Yf1UpaTpzg-Ylv_-9m2mRXeytzsdqaz2L8Il66u22Obzt1q5blwk7bKFzMll0H2touvNLLkk/s640/IMG_0561.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A couple of years ago I was talking to a colleague at lunch
about her fiancé, who she’d known for six months. She told me she was having
second thoughts about the wedding. She looked me in the eye and said, “What is
it with this football stuff? He’s not the same person anymore.” It turns out
they met in March and dated for six months in an NFL-free world of romance and
bliss. Just like in the movies. She had no idea he was concealing an inner
maniac. This kind of obsessive fandom isn’t uncommon, but I thought it was
funny (sorry, but that was my honest reaction to her very real pain), that the
timing of their relationship would mask this man’s true nature for so long. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This is about to happen to my daughter.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">She has been under the impression, these nine weeks she’s
been alive, that she lives with two rational, competent people. She is fed,
clothed, and not dropped on a daily basis. They play with her, sing to her, and
invite people over to admire her. This week she gets her first real reality
check. It turns out, Little One, that Mom and Dad are raving anti-social lunatics.
They drink, they gamble, and they gorge themselves on homemade bacon cheddar
biscuits. They root for the godforsaken Arizona Cardinals. Your mother, the one
who serenades you at bath time, will now be seen pacing with a clipboard,
making tally marks, and saying things like, “I forget, do sacks count as negative
rushing yards?” And your father, the one who steadfastly changes your diapers
any time, day or night, will no longer be able to perform this essential task as
his hands have been replaced with cold blue metallic cylinders. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The ritual has been refined these past six years, as we’ve
built additions onto this degenerate’s house of cards. It started with Cardinals
season tickets. We shared an eight-game package with another couple and drove from
Los Angeles to Phoenix four times a year. Here’s what that looks like. Get up
early on Saturday morning and escape the city before the traffic can establish
itself. Drive through the brutal monotony of the Mohave Desert to a date with bloated
digestive destiny—the Taco Bell in Blythe. Continue east into Arizona,
listening, of course, to an endless stream of NFL-related podcasts while the
wife squirts fire sauce onto my Crunchwrap Supreme. Arrive in Phoenix and hang
out with friends and family (eat and drink and eat and drink). Go to bed. Wake
up in the middle of the night with gurgling intestines. Curse the fact that the
wife’s parents insist on sleeping with their bedroom door open. Suffer. Wake up
dehydrated and cramped. Drive to the stadium and hang out with friends (eat and
drink and eat and drink and throw a football and stand in line for a
Phoenix-heat affected Port-o-Potty. Watch a game. Curse the fact that they play
Miley Cyrus tunes in the stadium during TV time outs. Stop drinking at
half-time. Lose the game. Drive home to Los Angeles listening to the Sunday
Night Football broadcast. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Got to sleep. Wake
up. Go to work. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Tell no one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The non-travel weekends ritual started sanely enough, with
my wife and I strolling down to a local sports bar and fighting to get the
Cardinals’ game on TV. Drinking and eating and eating and drinking, and walking
home to watch the second-half of the second game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This got real expensive. So we added the
DirecTV Sunday Ticket package, locked the doors and windows, turned off the
lights, and spiraled down into a web of madness, gluttony, and ribald fandom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then came the online fantasy contests, the survivor pools
and Pro Pick ‘ems. Contests with friends. Contests at work. Contests with
neighbors. My obsession was stoked by a huge dose of beginners luck when I won
$1200 the first time I played. So now there’s a full schedule of weekly pick
deadlines and payments to submit. Occasional winnings to harass out of various
sore losers in my life. A whole universe of unnecessary stress and obligation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But somehow this all just didn’t seem sufficiently deviant.
Something was missing. One day, in between the afternoon game and the night
game, in between remarks about Bob Costas’ anti-aging regiment, my wife turned to
me and slurred, “Ya know what’s missing from our lives? Gambling losses.” I put
down my butter knife and kissed her. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So we added a couple trips to Vegas to the ritual. As much
fun as it was hanging out in smoky sports books with all the backwards baseball
caps, basketball shorts, and cigarettes-behind-the-ear, we had to admit that
there really are not as many good places to watch a full day’s worth of NFL
games in Las Vegas as one would expect. Not that we could find. Nothing so nice
as our local sports bar, and we still has to fight to get Cardinals games on
with volume. If only there was a way to gamble on football without having to go
to Vegas…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Which brings us back to Mommy pacing the living room with
her clipboard while Daddy slams Miller Lites to replenish moisture lost from the
nervous gambling sweats. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Or, maybe it will be different this year. Maybe the Little
One’s presence in our lives will cause us to rethink our priorities and
consider the impact our behavior will have on her future. The fact that she
owns zero Arizona Cardinals onesies indicates there may still be shreds of
rationality lurking beneath our sagging couch cushions. Gone as well this year
are our Cardinals tickets, though this has more to do with our tailgating
buddies leaving town than it does with responsible parenting. On the other
hand, it’s looking like full steam ahead with the bacon cheddar lite beer triple
teaser parlay bonanza. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">At least there’s no fantasy football league in my life. I
may be an irresponsible hedonistic degenerate, with a complete lack of will
power and a busted moral compass. But I’m not a loser.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And don’t fret, Little One. Your dad exaggerates for effect.
Your dad writes a satirical, self-deprecating blog post. He would never
actually gamble online, or drink a lot, or root for the Arizona Cardinals. Or
follow their punter on Twitter. Or watch San Diego Chargers pre-season games to
see what Ken Whisenhunt looks like in pale blue and yellow. Or completely stop
watching baseball even though his home team is on a historic run and could very
well win the World’s Series. That’s just not your father.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-23171361083727426372013-08-29T13:07:00.000-07:002013-09-03T10:50:32.339-07:0010 Strategies to Survive the Most Tedious and Soul-Crushing Corporate Meetings and District Trainings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6KkHwilabI7k5YEeHfscFGWqyiZWjvGpZHxQP_ghbRUxeII3C2WuCzEOahTnKwu63och8rFtP4r36xzJ_HHkGfyxm_-4aUuiaDEbDoHtpVplFvk89FXZdDxcOL5MY6A6phyhJFNvCAy4/s1600/Business-Meeting1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6KkHwilabI7k5YEeHfscFGWqyiZWjvGpZHxQP_ghbRUxeII3C2WuCzEOahTnKwu63och8rFtP4r36xzJ_HHkGfyxm_-4aUuiaDEbDoHtpVplFvk89FXZdDxcOL5MY6A6phyhJFNvCAy4/s640/Business-Meeting1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The situation is tragically familiar. You are mandated by some unseen force be spend hours (or days) in a strange room. There is a presenter, a PowerPoint projector, and an audience of colleagues, known or unknown. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The information being presented is (choose any three): redundant, unnecessary, irrelevant, incorrect, outdated, humorless, disorganized, depressing, stressful, useless, contradictory, confounding, insulting, or...just tedious and soul-crushing. You may or may not have been given a binder that burns your brain like the eye of Mordor whenever you open it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">But this is part of your job. You are being paid. You cannot project any attitude of negativity or defiance. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">You cannot use your phone or laptop. Doodling is too philologically revealing. Forget about crosswords, word searches, and Sudoku. You must create the <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">illusion of attentiveness and engagement. You must keep yourself busy, somehow. If you start watching the clock you will die. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">You wonder how you ended up in this Orwellian nightmare. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">But all is not lost. Here are ten strategies guaranteed to help you survive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">1. Lie about everything</span></strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">If you know the other people in the room you have to be careful here. Choose something specific and unknowable, like vacation plans. If asked, this summer you will be traveling to the Gobi desert to study goat birthing with your step-mother. If it's an anonymous situation, well then begin by mentioning you were born in a country where everyone has a different skin color than your own. If you're black, then you were born in Denmark. If you're Latino, then you're Cambodian. If you're white, you're from Batswana. Also remember, you are a pescatarian amateur triple-jumper, you raise alpacas, and your father was at Iwo Jima. Oh, and this is your second career. You used to race chariots in Ely, Nevada.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong>2. Interrupt people </strong></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">to asked them to speak louder or repeat themselves</span></strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">This can be incredibly annoying and sadistic if done properly. It's best to break in just as the person is about to make his or her point. While you may come across as rude, it's all done in the interest of clarification. Because you really care about what is being said. Because you are focused and attentive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">3. Aggressively dissect your presenter</span></strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Develop a case study of this individual like you are profiling a serial killer. Psychoanalyze every facet of his or her appearance, wardrobe, mannerisms, mood, tone, fitness-level, handedness, eye-blink frequency, make-up, hairstyle, and proportionality. Ask yourself, does her husband hate her? Are her nostrils even the right size for her face? Does he use Rogaine? Does he drink too much? Has he ever kicked a dog?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">4. Play the Virginity Loss game</span></strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Go around the room and study your colleagues. Imagine in your mind the scenario in which each person lost his or her virginity. The overweight woman in the back, with the six grandkids, well that was on a stack of rice sacks in the storage room of a taqueria in Guatemala City. The young guy across the table? Well, that was with his mom's best friend, when he was 14, after a swim meet in her minivan outside a Round Table Pizza. The cute woman at the end of the table? Well, it's kind of sad. It was with her boyfriend in college, but someone pulled the fire alarm right when they got started and she's never known if it "counted". And if it <em>didn't</em> count, then it was with her boyfriend's roommate, the next night, at the Fluff 'N Fold.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong>5. Break time is NOT EVER the time to take a break</strong></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Always get up to use the bathroom <em>during</em> the presentation. Actual break time is for checking email or calling your wife. The need to heat up your coffee or use the bathroom is sacred. These will be the most interesting moments of your day. Do not squander them! Similarly, do not EVER eat your lunch during the lunch break. Pick up your lunch, take care of personal business, and then eat your lunch during the after-lunch presentation session.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong>6. Quietly ask the person sitting next to you if they smell smoke</strong></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Then wait five or ten minutes and ask the person on the other side of you. Make occasional sniffling noises and look around conspicuously. Then get up and look in the trash can. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong>7. Actively obsess about the room temperature and air quality</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">If the room is too hot, ask if they can turn the air down. If it's too cold, ask why the heater is on. If the door is closed, ask if anyone minds if you open it, and vice verse. You will irritate everyone, which will generate protests. These protests will derail the presentation, which will lead to an extended digression about focus and timing. Be sure you are the first one to remind the presenter what he or she was talking about before the interruptions. Once the presentation has continued, fan yourself with papers, adjust the layers of your clothing, or just rub your arms aggressively like you're lost in the Alaskan wilderness with no hope of building a fire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong>8. Figure out the real reason you are there</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Most likely you will have to make a lot of this up. But that's okay. You're just killing time, remember? So ask yourself, what is the true corporate money-grubbing or lawsuit-avoiding motivation for this meeting or training? Who's paying you to be there? Who does your presenter represent? What consulting firm stands to cash in from the upcoming change in policy or shift in tactics and strategy? How does it all fit into your personal political assumptions about corruption, conspiracy, and "the man"?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><strong>9. Spill something</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Hot coffee is best, because there's an element of danger, which will cause everyone in the room to react quickly and instinctively. But then you're out of coffee. Use your judgment. Water works great as well. This is especially true if you are sharing a large table with everyone, ideally a glass table with lots of plugs and power strips and technology. You can really maximize the damage and time of distraction (TOD) if there are propriety sample materials in front of you, such as proposal drafts, final proof texts, or graphic art samples. Best of all, you can justify an additional trip out of the room to either clean yourself up, or fetch supplies to clean the soiled desk or table. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><strong>10. Create a rescue hierarchy</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">This is really a variation on the Virginity Loss game. Imagine there has been a gas leak. You have been away at the bathroom to get napkins to clean up your coffee spill. When you return, you discover everyone in the room has passed out. Then a voice comes over the intercom informing you that the building will self-destruct in two minutes. You have time to save two, maybe three people. So who do you save? Really think this through. Do some soul searching. What are your core values? Do you save the hot chick or the rich guy? The mother of four, or the guy with the ski cabin in Telluride? Maybe you save nobody.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">And that's it. You're done! Congratulations! You have successfully survived your tedious and soul-crushing corporate meeting or district training! You're welcome.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-85241253562445089232013-08-11T10:13:00.000-07:002013-11-01T12:35:02.631-07:00Smoke Monkey International<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJnZiOVQCYi1iPY3IVIXmboG89_2ael8lyNSzM1VUE-Pd_CNKkwSeMWiO054zQ5yjAqiJ3xPsW_Qv_Md-Hr9CqdquWpyZWuJLlDVV6fqR3Oe8kdsy7UZa76XWq1H833JuDfMv6vMJek8/s1600/kdpupdate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJnZiOVQCYi1iPY3IVIXmboG89_2ael8lyNSzM1VUE-Pd_CNKkwSeMWiO054zQ5yjAqiJ3xPsW_Qv_Md-Hr9CqdquWpyZWuJLlDVV6fqR3Oe8kdsy7UZa76XWq1H833JuDfMv6vMJek8/s400/kdpupdate.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Monkey-International-ebook/dp/B00EB10ODM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375654556&sr=8-1&keywords=smoke+monkey+international" target="_blank">NOW AVAILABLE! CLICK HERE!</a></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><em><strong>Smoke Monkey International</strong></em></span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ted has made some poor decisions in life. And now he’s gone
and done something terrible. Something truly shameful. And it’s time for him to
leave. But a new life and a new town only bring new absurdities. Like Cammie, the
suspiciously beautiful Mormon prep cook. And Salton Steve, the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>beanpole crackpot ex-con. And why can’t Ted
seem to stop killing old ladies accidentally?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And then there’s Marona Dilenta, who’s also made her share
of mistakes. And as a mother, she ought to know better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when attempts to catch her cheating
husband backfire, a mortified Marona packs her bags and slinks away. And now
she’s somewhere in Central America, sitting atop an ancient ruin. It’s the
middle of the night, and Professor Eugene Lattistrom may or may not have just
shit his pants.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But it’s all under control. Oliver Easton’s got a plan. And
Earl Bish has a better plan. And Smoke Monkey International will make
everything alright. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It's just going to take a little faith.</span></span></span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-12442168765902791092013-08-11T10:10:00.000-07:002013-09-05T15:00:52.798-07:0010 Bogus Statistics We Should All Ignore<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWPT5idyEQnZlmE8JSP0f2Fye9OU-d3kdiWZ1zFHsQyVqqmeEirI2y14I2_3wYXX1KjJpLhaFcD1_Syjx-7KiSrkh14KP40ZctVz767fAkblmivH_CWoWxAyvuxS6brwNGKbZ9BDcYmHI/s1600/mark_twain_pic_440_1__thumb.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWPT5idyEQnZlmE8JSP0f2Fye9OU-d3kdiWZ1zFHsQyVqqmeEirI2y14I2_3wYXX1KjJpLhaFcD1_Syjx-7KiSrkh14KP40ZctVz767fAkblmivH_CWoWxAyvuxS6brwNGKbZ9BDcYmHI/s320/mark_twain_pic_440_1__thumb.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Numbers are thrown at us all the time. You hear some things so often you just accept them as the truth. It's easier that way. It's easier, for example, to just accept that there are 7 billion people on earth. What are you going to do, count them? Are you going to go back and verify that Babe Ruth actually hit 714 home runs? Probably not. Because you are an irresponsible citizen. But I've got you covered. I took some time and reran the numbers, and it turns out the old numbers don't add up. So relax, unburden yourself from the crushing weight of a false reality. Let the truth shine through. Here are ten of the most egregiously bogus statistics you probably believe without question:</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">1. 1 out of every 10 people is gay</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIeebC-I0Bs31a5aGvMwqWS2cQnJkI5AzqTu6dtU8Dyz00NwDObjrUJxLJySS90k3beLF1MJPjfOc0cf9Euk8THBLuwv97oBiqK9m64sO8rLqKbJTa3skYsrmXFckiPTLHtQBwBKt52o4/s1600/anti_gay_groups_virginia_to_introduce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIeebC-I0Bs31a5aGvMwqWS2cQnJkI5AzqTu6dtU8Dyz00NwDObjrUJxLJySS90k3beLF1MJPjfOc0cf9Euk8THBLuwv97oBiqK9m64sO8rLqKbJTa3skYsrmXFckiPTLHtQBwBKt52o4/s320/anti_gay_groups_virginia_to_introduce.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is preposterous. Everyone is gay. 10 out of 10. Gayness is a state of mind, and we've all been there. You can't be <i>sort of</i> gay any more than you can be <i>sort of</i> dead. I like Fashion Police. Does that make me actually, officially gay? Hell yes it does! You can't watch Bravo and not be gay. And Top Chef counts. And everyone is straight, too, because everyone watches the Olympics. See, you don't have to pick a side. You can't pick a side. Sides don't even exist. Now if you said 1 out of every 10 guys likes receiving anal sex, well then the numbers are wrong there too. I did some random polling (okay, poor word choice) in the Target parking lot, and it turns out nobody likes it. Zero out of 10. So it's either 100% or 0%. But it's not 10%.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">2. 70.8% of the earth's surface is water.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP5oyw2XqJ4iFjX8r6LNy2AqrEeOB6QkK8mJcqgUTQ4Yex7gAIFqjLrtVdbOFz12_iVU0qD8yNR-FMCjyDcXTfhi_8tUnsbRxSXqOeXOqLsekwuz1S8Y4CyEmkYemhWhE4twcc_0xnLsE/s1600/earth-pacific.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP5oyw2XqJ4iFjX8r6LNy2AqrEeOB6QkK8mJcqgUTQ4Yex7gAIFqjLrtVdbOFz12_iVU0qD8yNR-FMCjyDcXTfhi_8tUnsbRxSXqOeXOqLsekwuz1S8Y4CyEmkYemhWhE4twcc_0xnLsE/s640/earth-pacific.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bullshit. This is a clever obfuscation manufactured by the powerful drought-lobby. There real number is closer to 98%. I flew to Hawaii from San Francisco once and there is a TON of water down there. Okay? Congress, the President, they're all in on it. It's about money. Money and politics. As long as humans keep believing our planet is only 70% water, we'll keep buying those low-flow multi-flush toilets. And who do you think owns the patent on those bad boys? You guessed it, Barack Hussein Obama.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">3. 70% of the human body is water</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWt6FTJYtrmFtrd0Bs9RqDTQAQ2XfaZgotbkjt2XBFIHcr6iIJ3lGsXVC3KH2PwT9cITlUU7VtQIKRnLweoxJ1Lvb5nM1kMNAdX8kfDGacXbk3upDOGM9aPfPoRGr79yyU_RW6xaPvuk4/s1600/image4821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWt6FTJYtrmFtrd0Bs9RqDTQAQ2XfaZgotbkjt2XBFIHcr6iIJ3lGsXVC3KH2PwT9cITlUU7VtQIKRnLweoxJ1Lvb5nM1kMNAdX8kfDGacXbk3upDOGM9aPfPoRGr79yyU_RW6xaPvuk4/s1600/image4821.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Lies. If this was true you would shrink when you peed. And by the way, I NEVER drink water, okay? And somehow I'm still 100% me. I live on light beer and coffee. I don't think I've had a single glass of water all week. It's like saying my body is 40% steak, even though I'm vegetarian. It's all tied together. If we think the surface of the world is only 70% water and we think our bodies are 70% water, we're all going to feel safer at the beach, which results in more swimming accidents, WHICH puts more money in the hands of...you guessed it...the powerful lifeguard lobby.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">4. 51% of the world's population is women.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8y7aDNFk9SFT05xmjEMpEceErCO1BsYmNt7rUs7VCf0mPxLzviTrLZuw6cgLlrbsZ3RQm43tMiFfo1kcOT0Fe7T7IL-63pvUgfqSNZEk2bU0Rwc3IJ29njYty9QfgGtUnqD-HsPVekg/s1600/women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8y7aDNFk9SFT05xmjEMpEceErCO1BsYmNt7rUs7VCf0mPxLzviTrLZuw6cgLlrbsZ3RQm43tMiFfo1kcOT0Fe7T7IL-63pvUgfqSNZEk2bU0Rwc3IJ29njYty9QfgGtUnqD-HsPVekg/s400/women.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Please. I've watched hours of travel and food shows. Plus CNN. The entire Middle East is men. They don't even have any women there, and that's like 25% of the world's non-water surface. And it's not just the Middle East. We all know the Chinese have been aborting girls for decades. It's all a ploy by the Yogurt manufactures to gain shelf space in supermarkets. Go to France sometime if you don't believe me. They have entire supermarkets that sell nothing but yogurt. Don't let it happen here! Don't believe the hype!</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">5. It's statistically safer to fly than it is to drive.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMdkCFpSq3IkgeU-MirxKCHWbcbOWbu-YDBZBvAIut8NXxpOj8E3fEALfvLu3wNTzhMRSM1cAbInAGIe22V8HfEV0IcgRXBUmGTaSQomxzFHBezw5Z2fe8XIOCz1mDvpcV6GuN_JY7NP0/s1600/flying.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMdkCFpSq3IkgeU-MirxKCHWbcbOWbu-YDBZBvAIut8NXxpOj8E3fEALfvLu3wNTzhMRSM1cAbInAGIe22V8HfEV0IcgRXBUmGTaSQomxzFHBezw5Z2fe8XIOCz1mDvpcV6GuN_JY7NP0/s400/flying.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There's a reason this doesn't ever sit right when you hear it. It's not true. Flying is far more dangerous. This is a lie made up by friends and family to soothe children and hysterical women. Flying is far more dangerous because unless you have a plane parked at your house, or your house is a plane, you need to drive to the airport and then fly to your destination. If you just drove without flying, you would eliminate this second dangerous variable. Also, they never include SARS or the Pigflu in their numbers. They don't mention that the x-ray machine will cause organ damage, and that the stress of paying extra for your airport Starbucks will lead to heart disease and hypertension.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">6. You eat 8 spiders every night.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN__kthHH7A-NiipKRqPOLmOY8dudWtdV6uqhgfz7dICEzHYHWOrwuiLtcuu2NGNqjv9TyJyXQ0Li6Vz-Fp0BGPV7LnHqQwLgGC0FTKqsnCz4xdvEGiB704aN7IW06ug6QkabNNHPt8U/s1600/red_knee_tarantula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN__kthHH7A-NiipKRqPOLmOY8dudWtdV6uqhgfz7dICEzHYHWOrwuiLtcuu2NGNqjv9TyJyXQ0Li6Vz-Fp0BGPV7LnHqQwLgGC0FTKqsnCz4xdvEGiB704aN7IW06ug6QkabNNHPt8U/s400/red_knee_tarantula.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ridiculous. When you hear this, you're most likely thinking about 8 large hairy tarantulas climbing down your throat every night, committing ritual suicide. That's what they want you to think. In reality , this statistic is referring to is the microscopic arachnids that live everywhere on our bodies. They're technically dust motes. And you probably eat millions of them. You'd probably die if you didn't eat millions of them. And when you think about it, eating 8 spiders a night doesn't sound much worse eating the fleshy wing skin of 12 dead chickens every time you watch a football game.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">7. There are as many stars in the sky as there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLISiQrs24ggqwJ6g7Ca0n1_ClVx946dqFkcEtUOjJTH2u2QEXTK-ZJHz0jidPhd3fAnaZQCrqaUncrN5_z_A-KNi85DgbXeIw2EcIPb8mv8SFyFq9IePWjTpwjY8Or6vCVi7MdS4bnKE/s1600/Defrain-stars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLISiQrs24ggqwJ6g7Ca0n1_ClVx946dqFkcEtUOjJTH2u2QEXTK-ZJHz0jidPhd3fAnaZQCrqaUncrN5_z_A-KNi85DgbXeIw2EcIPb8mv8SFyFq9IePWjTpwjY8Or6vCVi7MdS4bnKE/s400/Defrain-stars.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">First of all, what are the odds those two numbers would even be the same? Plus, most of the stars you see aren't even there anymore. And there are a bunch of stars out there whose light hasn't reached us yet. Also, we're turning sand to glass at a crazy rate these days. And what about tides changing the size of the world's beaches every second of every day? You're talking about a set of factors in a state of permanent flux. It's like saying you pass a guy in a green shirt every three minutes. Well, what if his green shirt was dirty that day? Huh?</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">8. Latex condoms are 98% effective in preventing unintended pregnancy. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIb1opJNaVb1ywZ9UoXv1KPEul40vVsgEHK-XWUDju5AEayJmol-beJriXjlRSZhAfiUFsF9K1Fvc6i1njCWaSwrF7fZIM0nINpuexF2OUP-7aHdy3UQHguPYF3XL3JsYmedqS_TXjoDk/s1600/condom.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIb1opJNaVb1ywZ9UoXv1KPEul40vVsgEHK-XWUDju5AEayJmol-beJriXjlRSZhAfiUFsF9K1Fvc6i1njCWaSwrF7fZIM0nINpuexF2OUP-7aHdy3UQHguPYF3XL3JsYmedqS_TXjoDk/s1600/condom.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Impossible. This statistic would suggest that 1 out of every 50 instances of intercourse with a condom results in a pregnancy. That means if condom using couples have sex one a week, they would get pregnant annually. That's like 25 babies, at least, per couple. AT LEAST. Clearly, people are not having babies at that rate. So obviously people are not using condoms (in this country), which would suggest they are 0% effective in preventing pregnancy according to the same logic that suggests...</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">9. Abstinence is a 100% effective form of birth control. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wrong! That's like saying you can't win gambling if you don't go gambling. Where does the truth lie? Every day throughout the world, people are having babies and explaining it away with abstinence: "Wasn't me! Some bird brought that thing here!" So, what, you didn't have sex, but you have a baby? Bingo. Enough with the lies and politically motivated distractions. Can we stop confusing our high school children and just tell them the truth: abortion is the only 100% effective method of birth control.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">10. High School graduates make 84% less than college graduates.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hello? Have you ever heard of the NBA? I went to college for 7 years. I have two degrees and a shiny certificate. I only make about 80% of Lebron James' annual salary AND HE DIDN'T EVEN GO TO COLLEGE. Jesus, what kind of message are we sending our kids? That the NBA isn't a viable option? Great, so what, kids grow up to reject lucrative sports contracts in the hope that if they finish college they can tack on another 84%? Maybe you're okay with preaching the gospel of greed in our public schools, but I AM NOT!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So there you have it. Feel better? Doesn't the light of truth just brighten up your day?</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-31339975212429736082013-08-11T09:45:00.000-07:002013-10-14T07:57:17.641-07:00The Sci-Fi Bike Commute: Part IV<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s1600/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s640/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-i_23.html" target="_blank">Click here to read Part I</a></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">"When I bought my bike last August and committed myself to riding to work, I added the following spontaneous and bizarre stipulation: I would listen exclusively to science fiction audiobooks."</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-large;">Phase 11: Of Ducklings and Pelican Shit</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book</u>: A great combination of sci-fi elements, classic literary themes, and Three's Company shenanigans. I love Miles' accidental competence and how the narrative seems to develop as a series of digressions. Bujold has quickly climbed up my list of favorite writers (based on this and more recently read non-Vorkosigan titles). She writes smooth and direct prose, great dialogue that always advances the plot, and revealing inner monologues that perfectly outline moral dilemmas and internal conflicts. And you can't talk about Miles Vorkosigan these days without mentioning Tyrion Lannister. I'm a huge fan of Martin's series, but this appropriation of character is highway robbery. Certainly both characters are archetypal and Shakespearean, but the parallels run too deep - the sense of humor, the physical deformities, and, of course, the acquisition of your own mercenary army to be hand delivered to your perpetually disappointed father.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride</u>: Ducklings and pelican shit. The extremes of nature, as far as what I've found on my ride. Seeing a mother and father duck, or goose, or whatever, swimming along with the little babies in a neat row between them, always seems a too perfect and fragile thing for this world. It's the kind of scene that arrests all other activity. Like even the wind stops blowing to watch these precious little families pass by. I watch it with a force-ten sense of dread because deep in my meconium heart I'm certain every one of those little ducklings will grow up a huge art school-attending disappointment. And then there's pelican shit, on the other end of the spectrum, very large puddles of it. Half-digested fish. Blood. White goop. I've never been the victim of a direct hit, as evidenced by the existence of this blog. Should that day ever come, I will pedal my bike into the crashing surf and never reemerge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Confluence</u>: Of all the Big Themes found in this book, I was most interested in the way the journey kept getting in the way of the destination. It's not much of a stretch to see my own sci-fi bike commute as developing in a similar way. Initially conceived as a means to get from home to work and back again, while saving on gas and getting some exercise, the daily experience has replaced "My Job" as the most direct link I have to the outside world. I see nature and humanity, the sky and space, tides moons and very fat wet people. I see familiar faces, some who wave, and some who look at me, every single day, like I am a raving lunatic. I see the planes take off and land, the little faces behind the windows, journeying in and out of control. It's so much more than mere transportation, this bike ride. And the audiobooks, the narrative soundtracks, filter it all through some crazy impossible world of tomorrow.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Phase 12: Dogs Who Carry Their Own Leashes</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book</u>: First of all, why would anyone write a book without the Shrike in it? Sometimes subtlety and nuance in writing is overrated. Why not just create the scariest fucking creature you can think of and put him on the cover of your book? Make him all powerful, all seeing, all knowing. Make him cruel. Make him a god. Make him want nothing less than the sacrifice of your only child. Why not? I was initially hesitant when the structure of the novel became clear - pilgrims each telling their own story. I generally don't like books with narrative gimmickry. But in finding each story as fascinating as the one that came before it, I started to appreciate how the storytelling structure allowed for some complex world-building. So much of what happens in this story seems absurd, even by sci-fi standards, that you have to admire Simmons for seeing it all through. I mean, a top secret project to recreate cybrid human personalities based on 19th century poets? It does seem a <em>tad</em> self-indulgent, but okay. And, of course, it all works perfectly. The literary and artistic foundations of the story allow for metaphysical romping and the ultimate inclusion of some great poetry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride</u>: The most interesting thing I've seen on my bike commute so far has to be this young family I pass almost every morning. There are seven of them, mom and dad, and five children all under the age of twelve. They each ride a bike that pulls a long, wheeled sled. Sometimes the sleds are piled high with collected cans and bottles. Sometimes they are piled with surfboards. All the little girls are dressed in adorable pink. The boys in blue. The family rides in silence and the children offer perfect obedience. I don't know anything about them, but I've thought about this family plenty. Is it possible they are completely off The Grid? A family of seven? Is it possible the cans they collect are enough to pay the rent on an RV parked someplace nearby? Is that all they do, ride around and surf and collect cans? There's probably some intense home schooling going on as well. I want that to be the whole story. I'm rooting so hard for this family. You just don't see parents blazing their own trail like this anymore. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Confluence</u>: You remember the foul-smelling sewage treatment plant I mentioned back in Part 1 of the Sci-Fi Bike Commute, the one whose stench I blamed on people staying in the campground? Well, it's called the HYPERION Treatment Plant! Wow. How do you name a sewage treatment plant after a mythological Titan? What's the connection? It certainly smells like the toilet of the gods, but I doubt that was mentioned at the pitch meeting.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Phase 13: Wipeout!</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book</u>: I've been surprised throughout this sci-fi bike commute project to see what a large role religion plays in almost every story I've "read". I would have expected these techno-futures to have dismissed spirituality as an archaic vestige of a primitive humanity. And while religious characters are often presented as single-minded fringe kooks standing in the way of real progress, their presence is acknowledgment of the idea that humans will always seek God, even in a universe with skip drives, farcasters, and DR devices. In this excellent sequel, Simmons takes the future of religion and spirituality and puts it on center stage and smushes it right in your face and rubs it all around. He doesn't simply borrow ideas from our current religious model (martyrdom, extremism, poly vs. mono-theism), he imagines a wild (and deeply confounding) new theology. He digs deep, surrounds himself with some seriously absurd and ambitious notions, and does not let go. It's a bit of a bait-and-switch from the first novel, which is a much more straight-forward sci-fi tale. In this story, plausibility takes a back seat to speculation about what God looks like on a universal scale. I love it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride</u>: Dread is the fear of the inevitable. It's been there since I bought this new bike. There is simply no way you can ride 100 or so miles a week and not eventually have a big wipeout. So I knew it was coming. But when? How hard? What pain and where? Naturally, it did not come when I expected it would - traversing a pile of sand with too much speed, or getting clipped by a garbage truck. Which is not to say the story is surprising...I stopped at a friend's house during my return trip home, drank just three little shots of Jamison, sampled a few strong Belgian ales, and ate a handful of peanuts for dinner. Then I switched on my headlamp and started pedaling...presumably. Cut to me on the floor of my bathroom doing the double-step concussion/booze puke thing. Fade out. Cut to me waking up with shooting pains in my ribs and thanking God I didn't...lose my phone! Shame and dread is the ham sandwich of the underworld. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Confluence</u>: Like Hyperion, I fell. Can I leave it at that?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/10/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-v-extended.html" target="_blank">Click here for Part V of The Sci-Fi Bike Commute...</a></em></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/10/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-v-extended.html" target="_blank">I break my own rules! The Sci-Fi Bike Commute becomes the Gothic Fantasy-of-Manners Bike Commute for an all-Gormenghast edition!</a> </em></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-5612568990784858132013-07-29T16:21:00.000-07:002013-12-08T21:52:33.345-08:00Belabor and Delivery - Three Weeks Old<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">So my wife and I just had a baby. And she’s great and wonderful and all, sure. But I’m trying to write a blog here and, well, she’s not great and wonderful for that. Babies are not good for writing, not good for the creative process. In fact, as symbols of the ultimate creative process, they make any kind of artistic expression seem embarrassingly trite and unnecessary. First of all, in order to create good art you have to actually care about something other than yourself, your wife, and your three-week old daughter. Which I currently do not. I am now a narcissistic asshole, and it feels great. I have played for the other side, the <em>losing</em> side, for far too long. So now it’s, call my parents on their forty-third wedding anniversary? Yeah, right. I am currently devoid of empathy. And without empathy, how can I reach an audience. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">But wait, I write a blog, so, what audience? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">And if it isn't just a phase, this feeling that my life, my new little family, is of singular ultimate universal importance, if it lasts forever, I’m okay with that. I’m tired of thinking about the NSA and methane in the permafrost and the specter of asteroid diversion warfare and Al Sharpton’s weight loss. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">But wait. Shit. I really do need to write this blog. I need to pretend that I can maintain certain vestiges of my former life. I need to confirm that fatherhood won’t kill my dreams of worldly significance (see the irony?). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">If only there was a way to…hmm…yes. Yes! I’ve got something! What if I wrote a blog series about being a new parent? Oh my God! That’s brilliant! I can’t believe nobody thought of that before. I can feel the flood gates opening…yes…I can feel the muse return! What if I made it funny and sarcastic and talked about things like getting babyshit on the back of my neck? How does <em>that</em> happen? I’ll call it…hmm…yes! Yes! Belabor and Delivery! So clever! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I’ll start with a quick list!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>Ten Things about Babies I Didn’t Know Because I Did Zero Research</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u> </u>1. Babies shit black tar.<br />
<br />2. Babies shin bones are shaped like boomerangs.<br />
<br />3. Babies really don’t mind puking or the hiccups.<br />
<br />4. Babies hate their faces and try to scratch them off<br />
<br />5. Babies can be fart burped<br />
<br />6. Babies do not care how much diapers cost<br />
<br />7. Babies cannot fly or swim<br />
<br />8. Babies think everything is a nipple<br />
<br />9. Babies do not know who the hell you are<br />
<br />10. Babies don’t look like you or your wife. They look like other babies.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Okay, good. Onward! Time for some unsolicited advice. When you step out of your post-partum recovery room to get some food down at the hospital cafeteria remember to WIPE THAT STUPID GRIN OFF YOUR FACE! Everyone else is at that hospital because of disease death and dying. Hospitals are awful places, despite the totality of your joy. Keep your head down, don’t pass out cigars, and don’t show anyone pictures of your cute little slimeball.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />More on hospitals. If you’re a jaded misanthrope like myself, who finds evidence of humanity’s ultimate pettiness and stupidity in even the most altruistic of gestures, then get ye to a hospital. Don’t admit yourself, that’s not what I mean. Just go hang out there and bask in the competence. Rekindle your faith in the goodness of man. Look at all the really smart people who are really good at their jobs. Watch as professionals demonstrate compassion and skill. Look at all the state-of-the-art technologies built and designed by brilliant minds. See people rescued from death and pain by capable folks who know what they’re doing. Yes, it’s sad that such a sight is so rare these days, that incompetence is the new gold standard, but know that there are places left on earth where shit works properly. Allow me to be specific. We dealt with at least 20 different nurses and doctors during our stay at the hospital. They all knew how to turn their machines on, and how to log into the computer system on the first try. They also all knew how to adjust the lighting in the room, how to work the TV remote, and how to turn the couch into a bed. Not once did someone say they would get something for my wife without showing up soon afterwards with the very thing they said they would get her. Amazing! I can’t tell you how my heart swelled with pride for our species. Did I get bum directions to the vending machines? No! Did they give me the wrong wifi password? No! Nor was I overcharged for parking or given a wristband with the wrong identification code. All I can say is thank God for hospitals and the miracles they perform on a daily basis.<br />
<br />So three weeks in and we lovingly refer to our daughter as The Little Terrorist. And the fact that she keeps us up all night (this really does happen exactly like everyone said it would) is not her fault. I mean it’s not willful or intentional. The real villain in the scenario is her immature little digestive system. Objectively speaking, it’s kind of funny how two professional thirtysomething college-educated adults and one sweet little girl can be collectively held hostage by a simple tangle of baby intestines. Today, for example. The sun is out. We’ve got this nice new stroller. I’m off work for the week. Can we head to a restaurant, sit outside, eat cheeseburgers and drink beer while our dear daughter sleeps soundly? Yes, we could, if only she’d shit first. That’s it! Just shit your pants little girl, come on! You can do it! But, alas, there is no shit. Not since yesterday. Just a bowling ball of air in her gut, and the potential to go ballistic at any moment. So we sit indoors and do nothing. We wait for the sound, like swimmers at their marks on the blocks. We wait for the sound of sweet release, of propulsive defecation. <br />
<br />Time for a second list! This one’s called:<br />
<br /><u>Five Things Related to Childcare That Prove God Has A Sense of Humor</u><br />
<br />1. The anti-gas, calming medication from CVS causes gas, bloating, and fussiness. They should keep the stuff on the same aisle as non-drowsy Claritin (“May cause drowsiness”)<br />
<br />2. The only gripe I have with Gripe Water is that it costs a fortune and doesn’t work. I should have known my baby wouldn’t like ginger and fennel. Who is she anyway, Padma Lakshmi?<br />
<br />3. Thanks to generous friends and family, we have a bedtop co-sleeper, a stand-alone co-sleeper, a Pack-and-Play, a Rock-and Play, a vibrating chair, a mechanical swing, a stroller bassinet, a full-size crib, a plastic blue baby bathtub, several sleeper pillows, a Slingling, and a padded changing matteress. Where does The Little Terrorist sleep best? On the floor. On a boob. In a person’s arms. <br />
<br />4. Me (unshowered, unshaved, dark bags under my eyes) to the CVS clerk: “Quick! I need soothing nipple cream and an emery board! And some Red Vines!”<br />
<br />5. My daughter was born with a comb-over.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">And there you have it folks, the world's first blog posting about babies and hospitals and childcare. Please feel free to leave comments and remarks below. </span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Click <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/search/label/Parenting" target="_blank">here</a> to read other parenting posts on this blog</i></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-49737192992987045112013-07-20T21:16:00.001-07:002013-07-31T13:33:17.565-07:00Camping in the Southwest Desert: Part II <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/07/camping-in-southwest-desert-part-i.html" target="_blank">Click here to read Part I</a> </em></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Moving on from the Calf Creek Campground we continued east towards Boulder, Utah, reportedly the last town in the Lower 48 to receive postal service. Here, you can cut south along the Burr Trail Road and descend into the canyon country that ultimately becomes Capitol Reef National Park, or you can head straight and go up and over Boulder Mountain. Ideally, you go out one way and come back the other. We decided to drive up the mountain. There's a fascinating scenic contrast along this route. You wind through high alpine forests of aspen and pine, but at the summit view points you stare <em>way</em> down, and <em>way</em> out at the barren rocklands of the massive Colorado Plateau. What appears on the road atlas as a little square of non-descript brown reveals itself to be this glorious jumble of sunset colored canyons, walled-in to the southeast by the snow-capped Henry Mountains. When Powell and Freemont first explored this area there were literal blank spaces on their maps. In terms of American population density, what you are looking at is the statistical Middle of Nowhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">We continued on to Capitol Reef National Park with the intention of camping two more nights before returning home. Capitol Reef is a unique park in the sense that many of the trails, interpretive walks, as well as the visitor center and campground, can be accessed without paying an entrance fee. This fact, coupled with the relative remoteness of the area, creates a very different human dynamic within the park, and especially within the campground. This isn't a stop on a typical parkland itinerary. Here, I became as much an amateur anthropologist as an observer of nature. The unique cultural experience that is life at the Fruita campground is as interesting and entertaining as anything I might have seen in Las Vegas. If I had stopped there. Which I didn't. And that's fine. Really. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">We turned into the campground, relieved to find numerous available spots. If you can't find camping here, you have very limited options in the immediate vicinity. As we drove around I had the impression that we were crashing some enormous family reunion. Occupied campsites were packed with people of all ages. Utah locals rather than tourists. Huge buffets were set atop folding tables with American flag tablecloths. Large daytime campfires raged in firepits, fueled by free firewood (more on that later). We selected a campsite as far away from the festivities as possible, making the mistake of assuming that the unoccupied sites nearby would remain unoccupied. The lesson is this: better to choose the enemy you can see, and not the one who will come rolling in at one in the morning and spend the next two hours hammering tent spikes and ferrying children and dogs through your campsite to the bathroom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Anyway, we set up camp and got back in the car. We drove out the park's scenic road and continued all the way to the Grand Wash turn-off. Here, you can continue down a nicely graded dirt road that follows the floor of the canyon and offers perspectives you usually have to get out of your car to enjoy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">We stopped at the parking lot and strolled around, resolving to return the next day to take a proper hike further into the canyon. Grand Wash connects with the highway so it is possible to through-hike the canyon if you have two cars. We then drove back out of the wash. And saw this bird. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">We visited a few more scenic corners of the park and then returned to our campsite. That's when the fun really began...</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">The campground was now full, and a chorus of wailing generators filled the air. The irony, of course, is that the people using these generators were shut up in their RVs, and insulated from the noise. The rest of us were free to make dinner, drink a beer, and take in the glory of nature with a lawnmower leafblower soundtrack. I walked around to investigate, to try and learn what I could about the situation. What surprised me most of all was the lack of indignation on the part of the other campers. Nobody seemed the least bit concerned about the noise, even tent campers like myself. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em>It bothers me that this doesn't</em> <em>bother you. In fact, it bothers me more than the buzzing bothers me. How are you all okay with this?</em> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">* inaudible crickets* </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em>What's wrong with me that I'm </em>not <em>okay with this?</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em>Why is</em> this <em>what I'm thinking about right now?</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">So my relaxing southwestern road trip, my pilgrimage to those natural wonders most sacred to my heart, had devolved into this kind of auto-analytic ruminative bonanza on the nature of narcissism, empathy, and effective groundsleeping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">I went to my wife for solace, for commiseration, and what did she tell me? </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">"You gotta get this shit sorted out, dude. You're about to have a baby."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">In the morning I watched the park service unload free firewood. There is a storage area where it's supposed to go, but the line of people standing at the truck's tailgate intercepted all the wood before it could hit the ground. Large families brought any kid of load-baring age to the party. There was fussing and crying and that indignation I so missed the night before: "Sir, excuse me, sir, we have been waiting here for forty-five minutes. There's a line." You can't take it all sir. How is my family going to take it all if your family takes it all first? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">One thing is clear to me about life: If you are frequently bothered by the behavior of other people, if you find them to be petty and insensitive and oblivious to anyone's needs but their own, if you think people can do better but choose not to, if you think you can travel to some place where people are decent, and more perfect, and more <em>like you</em>, well then you're just screwed. The only defense is to raise your own little army of rationality. Shoot out your own kids and pump them full of appropriate dogmatic principles. And that will work out great, because kids always do what their parents want. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Fortunately, nature provides extra strength relief from misanthropic digressions. We returned to the Grand Wash trailhead the next day and hiked down the canyon. Everyone we passed along the way was sunny and delightful. We took a detour to a couple of water holes, and continued off trail, well back along the slopes of a side canyon. We had lunch. Fantastic scenery in all directions.<br />
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Back at the campground we built a fire (using our own paid-for wood) and had dinner. The generators continued to buzz, but I did my best to think about other things. Like the scene in the campsite next to ours. Seven unoccupied folding chairs arranged in a perfect circle around a fire pit. A dog chained to a stake sleeping under a picnic table. The whole family inside their RV, watching satellite TV. The campfire smoking, packed with free wood. <br />
</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em>Try...not...to...judge...<br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">We woke up the next morning and began the return trip home by completing the loop back to Boulder, along the Burr Trail Road. The start of this route takes you along the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Waterpocket_Fold_-_Looking_south_from_the_Strike_Valley_Overlook.jpg" target="_blank">Waterpocket Fold</a>, a unique geological wonder set in a neighborhood already packed with geological wonders.<br />
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Waterpocket_Fold_-_Looking_south_from_the_Strike_Valley_Overlook.jpg"><img alt="File:Waterpocket Fold - Looking south from the Strike Valley Overlook.jpg" height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Waterpocket_Fold_-_Looking_south_from_the_Strike_Valley_Overlook.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">from Wikipedia</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">At first, we reveled in the beauty and isolation found along the road. There was nobody around. No need to pull the car over to stop and take a picture. Perfect. For ten miles. Twenty miles. Forty miles. Okay... Small ruts in the road caused the car to rattle constantly. We started getting uncomfortable. We stared thinking about the baby. Was this okay? Can you hurt an unborn baby by driving on a rutty road? The second the idea was verbalized, all fun ceased. All talking ceased. The drive became an interminable series of jostling motions, each one causing who-knows what kind of damage to our little baby. This was some new kind of anguish for me, wretched and dreadful. Why didn't I think this through better? How did I allow myself to get into this position? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">That's when I began brainstorming ways things could get even worse. I chalked it all up to bad karma, punishment for my intolerance of the folks at the campground. Surely, the tires would blow out soon. Or we'd overheat. Run out of water. Starve. Lose iPod battery charge. I couldn't even appreciate a series of famous switchbacks along the way, that carry you out of the Waterpocket Fold, back up onto a high plateau that links the road with the town of Boulder. So much beauty unappreciated, unphotographed. And, shit, those rocks and canyons will only be there for another sixty or seventy million years. Hope I get a chance to return before then.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">We had lunch in Boulder. And a slice of pie. We both googled our way through the meal, trying to learn if we'd possibly harmed the baby. Bad as I felt, I learned there are prospective parents worse than myself asking google for answers: "Is it okay to...smoke crack while I'm pregnant?" (I'd provide the link to that one, but then you'd have both the NSA and Child Protective Services banging down your door.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">Reasonably sure we had not done the little one any harm, we hopping back on the road and retraced our steps through Escalante, Red Canyon, and Zion. We'd hoped to spend our last night in Zion, but the campground was full. So...where could we possibly get a hotel room for the night...that would be on the way back to Los Angeles...any towns or cities with nice inexpensive hotel rooms...attached to casinos maybe...No. Can't do it. We spent the night in St. George, where the hotel owner almost didn't give us a room because my driver's license was expired. The next day we rolled through Vegas without stopping. Another great trip.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">And the little girl...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">She's wonderful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-37269242287412741842013-07-19T17:31:00.000-07:002013-07-26T13:43:36.425-07:00The Book of Woe<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ride to battle</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-VByrbpp8XKXy1hfp4w9svGKqemuxCeUqPVuMEUPfXClncYMsQrMIg9ilT34dUgCysDWGVfzax3MLXba9pYnwXB1zs5rC3VeD6a9jF-Q98OTG0Grw5NrvxQyM6J8cKO-xU1LZbofLl8/s1600/pages_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-VByrbpp8XKXy1hfp4w9svGKqemuxCeUqPVuMEUPfXClncYMsQrMIg9ilT34dUgCysDWGVfzax3MLXba9pYnwXB1zs5rC3VeD6a9jF-Q98OTG0Grw5NrvxQyM6J8cKO-xU1LZbofLl8/s640/pages_0002.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Be spared</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">Identify with "point of view"</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdJPbhJZGOAMmk17pZeF1odCUhiyo6C_IBMBZx05UJj8cWF95pxwdb5WaIJ403IZ4LAbO8zyIvi0pqiGzRc8d9gA37_Ylm-mU8CawKyLzU8o0s_HixzIPQEM1XZT_HVrPshVQ5FdZqq7g/s1600/pages+2_0006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdJPbhJZGOAMmk17pZeF1odCUhiyo6C_IBMBZx05UJj8cWF95pxwdb5WaIJ403IZ4LAbO8zyIvi0pqiGzRc8d9gA37_Ylm-mU8CawKyLzU8o0s_HixzIPQEM1XZT_HVrPshVQ5FdZqq7g/s620/pages+2_0006.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Be Confucian</span> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3htAQHNlwC4__SExIFQoc-gUcIIDR2XKmw7V3wbinMKRtnAG6K10qUIbEcQY_CyInJ7qcXquOC7JWxFoyqezrbxdlbBhS7Gdnv6cQieQ-H7hfUhG0MW6I44PoDHVoyiJzBlgHU1VvVA/s1600/pages+2_0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3htAQHNlwC4__SExIFQoc-gUcIIDR2XKmw7V3wbinMKRtnAG6K10qUIbEcQY_CyInJ7qcXquOC7JWxFoyqezrbxdlbBhS7Gdnv6cQieQ-H7hfUhG0MW6I44PoDHVoyiJzBlgHU1VvVA/s620/pages+2_0003.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Be French</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo5UoygfPh50Oe4kCxZUWgzr_Q8E9J3kTQVZpc4dEf_DTM9trwI4lbZBOo68vbe06mstssItx2U8D6UttSb5jg3sJra4ukb2CYr1EZv3rX99c340RuCf13nLRNI-6iQW5p4WXTu1OKPw/s1600/pages+2_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo5UoygfPh50Oe4kCxZUWgzr_Q8E9J3kTQVZpc4dEf_DTM9trwI4lbZBOo68vbe06mstssItx2U8D6UttSb5jg3sJra4ukb2CYr1EZv3rX99c340RuCf13nLRNI-6iQW5p4WXTu1OKPw/s620/pages+2_0002.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Do <u>any</u> underwater welding</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6L8j5WJ0pcV7zS351zLbUMXwb2299CQK2gmjZejG_nmxYJdy4d25n_OeUG3aQj4P_mxl4l-4HHBSzdJsbK3npOcz5Bfh6T8Vxdrflobhu9GvhDutFLk4Gs-adNkXi__BlHr837clKBW4/s1600/pages+2_0004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6L8j5WJ0pcV7zS351zLbUMXwb2299CQK2gmjZejG_nmxYJdy4d25n_OeUG3aQj4P_mxl4l-4HHBSzdJsbK3npOcz5Bfh6T8Vxdrflobhu9GvhDutFLk4Gs-adNkXi__BlHr837clKBW4/s620/pages+2_0004.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Know it when you meet God and the Devil</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW_Xzh4NS8ShsAEQHQzESJS9e1vTxe4MBcb_8hpXSoAFOZeIfj-VZ-bmvJbh5SnDBBnWLe_Qk5wEdM3IbTPljwz0sHmgIjwWDoAzvMDHMsnEDfyBfKiZVhc4RcEO-rk1eeV9uHjJECEm0/s1600/pages+3_0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW_Xzh4NS8ShsAEQHQzESJS9e1vTxe4MBcb_8hpXSoAFOZeIfj-VZ-bmvJbh5SnDBBnWLe_Qk5wEdM3IbTPljwz0sHmgIjwWDoAzvMDHMsnEDfyBfKiZVhc4RcEO-rk1eeV9uHjJECEm0/s620/pages+3_0003.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Make a real contribution</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDCqdxTil4pvzJh7cowsxHFfICdlcojJ39i5WX91jQ0X0m-vR19kyq_amvf5UTJSCJeOze5xhIhDhX2QD1AcFJC63S_sNawM-iaZgN6rtmAW6r6wpfKoQKv2P_lb17cvJPdMDFTWdwQE/s1600/pages+2_0014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDCqdxTil4pvzJh7cowsxHFfICdlcojJ39i5WX91jQ0X0m-vR19kyq_amvf5UTJSCJeOze5xhIhDhX2QD1AcFJC63S_sNawM-iaZgN6rtmAW6r6wpfKoQKv2P_lb17cvJPdMDFTWdwQE/s620/pages+2_0014.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Be able to get your asshole to stop smelling like an asshole</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Be impressed</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCebQkpl9gsIm1DMJgxvxSa8-B5Qo9MWJk0aYNTDlqPmD4A-mxfqCYhaJ7azkn7nq4T3dR0JtkWSdgT82eqkTpKMtFDmFP9wnPP0M836VjQ6Gl7vn2vnXMrklW7SCh7T1iZKDwtpxrAOs/s1600/pages+2_0005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCebQkpl9gsIm1DMJgxvxSa8-B5Qo9MWJk0aYNTDlqPmD4A-mxfqCYhaJ7azkn7nq4T3dR0JtkWSdgT82eqkTpKMtFDmFP9wnPP0M836VjQ6Gl7vn2vnXMrklW7SCh7T1iZKDwtpxrAOs/s620/pages+2_0005.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Be a centaur's bitch</span></div>
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</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVjjEyUSjWNIEd0LU6xOLxJO3PSQ2Ms5VBaJZchaCzTk_KXqS4rUszXN6JRdrBZ4zZh6hadJxhD66RRoOuaohdovtvkmLkIbIYGyaL9fj3nUJTzmC0Knng2aUPl9Fo_4cV7N6RGzlZh0/s1600/pages+2_0007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVjjEyUSjWNIEd0LU6xOLxJO3PSQ2Ms5VBaJZchaCzTk_KXqS4rUszXN6JRdrBZ4zZh6hadJxhD66RRoOuaohdovtvkmLkIbIYGyaL9fj3nUJTzmC0Knng2aUPl9Fo_4cV7N6RGzlZh0/s620/pages+2_0007.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Believe divorce statistics</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrNhuVA79WIhL2RlA_1uodS37X5U4bF6OoGmN55yGSs8JE-okuJc3XnkD6DSa778Taz1oG27Sns7ahfdLGu8Gl1t0k8cIk8f6X70mV4Iqtqgg5o8JzzOrnbrmZeWyS7E0lHxyLaT_Ktw/s1600/pages+2_0008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrNhuVA79WIhL2RlA_1uodS37X5U4bF6OoGmN55yGSs8JE-okuJc3XnkD6DSa778Taz1oG27Sns7ahfdLGu8Gl1t0k8cIk8f6X70mV4Iqtqgg5o8JzzOrnbrmZeWyS7E0lHxyLaT_Ktw/s620/pages+2_0008.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Communicate affection properly</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjA-yevzZwRmwLINv6VWZjAaRnTxxAfu91q_1RQEqUYTZq5foGQJUnbu1NVjGZGEqPhSMeVrnQjf9IM1Hs2eTKCEKtGZDjMlslFghORTJcpOY3TrYEywy7d4N5et31z5AG3wyGJCnFLB8/s1600/pages+2_0009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjA-yevzZwRmwLINv6VWZjAaRnTxxAfu91q_1RQEqUYTZq5foGQJUnbu1NVjGZGEqPhSMeVrnQjf9IM1Hs2eTKCEKtGZDjMlslFghORTJcpOY3TrYEywy7d4N5et31z5AG3wyGJCnFLB8/s620/pages+2_0009.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Be an Eskimo</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjVoTXHs0BUZyJedHirlQtYYhkX5c7QvIeiM4tPAKTND62OZm-fBck38mPN7mugZDesreEdukcqwMmJE2k6g7Ems-r7q52ntWwHl6xmlpt19t8w2CiB2jNO8PzFzj_iv4Xav57-Hk3x4/s1600/pages+2_0010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjVoTXHs0BUZyJedHirlQtYYhkX5c7QvIeiM4tPAKTND62OZm-fBck38mPN7mugZDesreEdukcqwMmJE2k6g7Ems-r7q52ntWwHl6xmlpt19t8w2CiB2jNO8PzFzj_iv4Xav57-Hk3x4/s620/pages+2_0010.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Get an MBA</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUgX6FPpwOTUQopMImZL6rj_hJzl33Ph-aUlGQzQj2QGrVh2nLgp3USAqZ8tNu-JHPuGnlUqTP3RVIRYcEcLQ4LORMFeTJQfy0gEymIQFnSUVqk2gj6CzjpSDPPvvB4BZfDl6-gZFE58/s1600/pages+2_0011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUgX6FPpwOTUQopMImZL6rj_hJzl33Ph-aUlGQzQj2QGrVh2nLgp3USAqZ8tNu-JHPuGnlUqTP3RVIRYcEcLQ4LORMFeTJQfy0gEymIQFnSUVqk2gj6CzjpSDPPvvB4BZfDl6-gZFE58/s620/pages+2_0011.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Breed dogs</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySkrksGDPW6dRdSaUf28jA0Kkqfbbjb2R3Kryu1zJRb_1PttgkcWejTAt8t2vouqLUh0CdGLMCoC_DPd4xq4sh9S-LxWq9cezaWp-0nVCB-46Ph1a_R0BVGSHfyuHuI008MsmuC-KtiY/s1600/pages+2_0012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySkrksGDPW6dRdSaUf28jA0Kkqfbbjb2R3Kryu1zJRb_1PttgkcWejTAt8t2vouqLUh0CdGLMCoC_DPd4xq4sh9S-LxWq9cezaWp-0nVCB-46Ph1a_R0BVGSHfyuHuI008MsmuC-KtiY/s620/pages+2_0012.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Farm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Get caught in the act</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Floss</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Embalm something</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The End</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-7549172703681970532013-07-13T19:38:00.000-07:002013-07-20T21:18:18.409-07:00Camping in the Southwest Desert: Part I<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">My wife and I have done variations of this trip many times. This one was different because of the pregnancy. No overnight backcountry camping, nothing too strenuous, and a few more nights in hotels than what we're used to. As usual, we started early in the morning in Los Angeles and drove north on I-15, heading to Zion National Park. We passed through Las Vegas without stopping. I eyed the casinos longingly, and then looked at my wife's belly. Can't take a pregnant woman to Vegas. Just can't do it. Can't lose money gambling when you've got a child on the way. It felt good to do the mature thing. Sort of. It was also sort of depressing. I <em>like</em> losing money in Vegas. Anyway, we got to Zion and planted ourselves at the site we reserved in the Watchman campground. I first camped there 22 years earlier, and it's one of the few remaining campgrounds with tent-only loops, where you won't hear any RV generators.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Frozen dishwater with sunrise</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">FYI: From spring break through the end of the summer you will probably not have much luck camping without a reservation. The South campground is first come first served, so if you get to the park early you might get a site. However, being a site vulture can be stressful, time consuming, and annoying. If you can't find a spot, camp in one of the private campgrounds in Springdale. They're not very nice, but do serve their purpose. Outside Springdale there are some free at- large camping areas as well. Just look for tent clusters on the side of the road and get ready to pee in public, and don't count on your tent site not being someone else's bathroom from the night before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Zion, as usual, was glorious. It's my favorite of all the National Parks and the one I've been to the most. We took a short walk along the river and then drove into Springdale for dinner at the <a href="http://www.bitandspur.com/" target="_blank">Bit and Spur</a>, a Mexican restaurant with a large bar area and decent food. The cheese stuffed jalapeno appetizer was outstanding. Even though the place was packed, a nice couple gave up their seats when they saw my wife was pregnant. Totally unnecessary, but very cool.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">The next day we enjoyed a leisurely morning (and early afternoon) at the campsite. We drank coffee, read, ate, drank coffee, and looked at hiking maps. At a certain point we were the only ones left lounging in the camp, which was fine. You don't need to do anything in Zion to appreciate the colors, the air, and the mule deer. Eventually we took the shuttle to Weeping Rock and started up the Observation Point Trail. We've been on every trail in the park, and picked this one because it gets you up and out of the main canyon quickly (after a tough uphill slog), so you can see other aspects of the geology and ecosystem. The crowds on the switch-backing trail made it tough for my wife to sneak in pee-breaks, but she managed alright and only got caught with her pants down once. We ate two killer sandwiches about two miles up the trail, and turned around. We took the shuttle to the Lodge, to get some ice cream and beer. But crowds and logistical incompetence won the day and we returned to our campsite sweaty and sober. We built a fire, cooked dinner, read a book, and went to sleep.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">IMHO:</span> <span style="font-size: large;">The best three hikes in the park: 1. Observation Point. A long and strenuous full-day adventure. The scenery and geology constantly change and you get amazing views at the end. 2. Angel's Landing. Shorter than the OP hike, but much more intense. Go all the way to the top. It's a long way down. 3. The Narrows. This offers a very unique hiking experience. You can walk in the river, and the further back you go, the more impressive the slot canyon walls become. Great hike for a hot day. If their are thunderstorms forecast, bring your surfboard.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">In the morning we packed up and drove east out of the park, through the Mt. Carmel tunnel. We stopped for a short hike to the canyon overlook, and sat at the view point for a long time watching people and their young kids. Some parents were paranoid fanatics about their kids not getting too close to the edge, while others simply ignored their kids and took pictures of themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">We continued on, through the small towns along the main park route between Zion and Bryce Canyon. Was there some government program in the 70's where everyone just got an RV, whether they needed it or not? And maybe an extra car too, with no wheels? Every house, ranch, shack, and barn along this route has a rusted out RV somewhere in close proximity. It sounds like an awfully obvious remark to make about road tripping through rural America, the RVs and cars on blocks, but that doesn't make the enigma any less fascinating. I want answers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">There's a lot of anticipation as you get close to Bryce Canyon. If you've never been there, then the unfathomably cool pictures you've seen of the place need immediate authentication. And if you have been there, a sort of anxiety builds ups, like it does when you get close to the Grand Canyon. You just suddenly need to see a damn hoodoo, and nothing else will do. So you might be temped to speed through Red Canyon, about 10 miles before the Bryce turnoff, without giving it its proper attention. So STOP! Especially if you don't have a campsite reserved in Bryce. We pulled off at the Thunder Mountain trailhead in the Red Canyon area. The scenery here is clearly the inspiration for the Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at Disneyland. We hiked a mile along the easy graded trail, which seemed ideal for mountain biking. Then we turned up a random side canyon and did a little off-trail exploring. We found a shinbone next to a mound that looked suspiciously like a shallow grave. This is why you have to get off the trail when you can, to see stuff like that. Plus, we saw nobody (alive) the entire hike. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">We skipped Bryce Canyon this time around and continued to the town of Escalante. Something about the scenery and the remoteness of this part of Utah inspires a fascination with the human history and mythology of the region, from the pre-Anasazi to the Mormons, to the prospectors, outlaws, and outcasts. It's an area where human activity has always been dwarfed by the land. So much of what happens here is simply unobserved and unrecorded. We spent the night at the Prospector Inn, which was fine for the money. I have no memory of eating dinner that night. It's freaking me out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">The next morning we got up early and went to <a href="http://www.escalanteoutfitters.com/" target="_blank">Escalante Outfitters</a>, one of my favorite shops/restaurants in the world. The food is great (so why didn't I eat there the night before? Or did I? Crap.) They also have a fascinating bookstore. You can camp there too. We got coffee and some pastries and hit the road. About 6 miles past Escalante, you come around a bend in the road and get one of those Big Western Views. There's a nice view point turnoff here to pull over and finish your coffee and put your eyeballs back in your head. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">f you want to camp in the immediate area, there is a dirt road just past this turn-off, that leads south. There is free camping all along this road, and some of the sites sit atop a cliff overlooking the canyons of the Escalante River. Maybe some of the best free camping on earth. We opted instead to drive a few miles further along to see if we could get a campsite at the Calf Creek Campground, which is located at the trailhead for our next hike. We lucked out and got a spot along the creek. We made camp and took a hike. The Calf Creek Falls hike is about as perfect a day hike as you can imagine. It's a good distance (about 6 miles roundtrip, mostly flat). The scenery is beautiful (obviously). Plus you see a lot of random things, like ancient pictographs and beavers and desert swampland. And there's a big beautiful waterfall at the end of the hike, plus a small beach and a pool to swim in. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">On the return hike, we were lucky enough to see a bulbous of snakes just on the side of the trail. I think they were rattlesnakes. At least that's what I'm telling everyone. There were at least fifty of them all wrapped up in a big knot. Some were tiny, others over two feet long. When we stopped to take a video they slithered apart and disappeared into the grass. Scary and awesome. At the beginning of the video below you can hear my wife warn me to be careful because "you don't have life insurance."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="font-size: large;">When I got home I did an internet search for snakes along the Calf Creek Falls hike and discovered <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g56980-i6105-k4358152-Lower_Calf_Creek_Falls_Snakes-Escalante_Utah.html" target="_blank">this amusing Tripadvisor post</a>. The original post and comments are worth reading, but I especially love the guy who wrote, <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"I've been hiking and racing in the desert for 30+ years and I can count on one hand the number of snakes I have seen. Yes be careful, but no need to be overly paranoid about it."</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/07/camping-in-southwest-desert-part-ii.html" target="_blank">Click here for Part II</a></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"></span><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-25786260780638082162013-07-05T10:08:00.000-07:002013-07-13T20:24:33.096-07:00Fine Art and Tacos: Day Tripping in East LA<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img height="413" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3206/2725229084_1a42350a7c_z.jpg?zz=1" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">This city is huge. It can take a lifetime of living in Los Angeles to even figure out which communities are where. And then you'd need another lifetime to visit each of these communities to find out what goes on there. Though I would argue that would be a terrible use of a second life. Basically, if you live here you get to know a handful of places really well: where you live, where you work, where your drug dealer lives. No, really, that's a joke. And everyone who lives in LA knows the unique experience of just ending up somewhere random, some place you've only heard about on the news. Maybe you took a wrong turn. Maybe you're buying something from </span><span id="goog_245122756"></span><a href="http://losangeles.craigslist.org/search/?areaID=7&subAreaID=&query=used+diapers&catAbb=sss" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Craigslist</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="goog_245122757"></span>. Maybe your pregnant wife drags you to an art opening because she's run the fuck out of things to do. Maybe you're blindly following your car's thermometer looking for the hottest place on earth. Maybe you're hunting down the Best Taco in LA, because again, your pregnant wife has run the fuck out of things to do. Maybe, if your lucky, you can combine several of these activities and make a day of it. Kill a day. (Just look at the place!) Away we go...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">But, wait. I first need to point out that the idea of there being such a thing as the Best Taco in LA is ridiculous. You could go and make a great taco in your kitchen right now. You could be whiter than an actor playing a superhero in a movie and still figure out how to marinade some cheap steak in lime and chili and grill it and put it in a tortilla with some avocado and hot sauce. Will it be the Best Taco in LA? I don't know. Did it taste good? Did you eat another one? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yet, the Best <em>does</em> matter. People care about this stuff, passionately. Even people who are not pregnant. They care more than ever. The Best dim-sum. The Best bagels. The Best pint of Guinness. The Best </span><a href="http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/790784" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">ketchup</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">. Yes. Think about the dumbest thing you've ever done. Now, realize it was only half as dumb as blogging about ketchup. Or reading a blog about ketchup. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That's why the roads are so packed, why you can never get anywhere. It's not people driving to Vegas, or looking for our NFL team, it's people trying to hunt down the Best orange chicken because none of the sixteen places that serve orange chicken in their own neighborhood is the </span><a href="http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=best+orange+chicken&find_loc=Los+Angeles%2C+CA" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Best in LA</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">As far as tacos go, Guisados is an internet sensation and one of the front-runners for Best Taco in LA. There are over a thousand reviews of this taco shop's two locations on </span><a href="http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=the+best+taco+in+los+angeles&find_loc=Los+Angeles%2C+CA&ns=1" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Yelp!</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> Granted, there's a silent majority, eight-million strong, who would probably disagree with any of these reviews and rankings. And the fact that Guisados tacos are tourist-priced keeps them from being <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-chato-taco-truck-los-angeles-2#query:best%20tacos" target="_blank">the People's favorite</a>. But a <em>thousand</em> reviews! That's a lot of words written about tacos, and the taco experience. And let's be honest, h</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">ow good can a taco really get? I would argue that tacos plateau at a certain point. You've got good meat, a good tortilla, and some good sauce, and that's as far as it goes. You cannot achieve culinary greatness with a taco. And if you're going to argue this point with me you better be pregnant, or on house arrest. Otherwise go do something else. Go write a blog about how stupid people are for caring about the thing you're writing your <a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/07/fine-art-and-tacos-day-tripping-in-east.html" target="_blank">blog</a> about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">You might be expecting the ironic twist at this point, right? That I had one bite of the conchinita pibil at Guisados, and guisado-ed in my pants right there, saw fireworks, declared myself for Mexico in the 2014 World Cup. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. We're not there yet. We're still sitting in traffic on the 105 and my pregnant wife has to pee. Again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Eventually, we make it downtown. We drive around a bit and determine from the car's thermometer that it's hottest and muggiest and least comfortable out to the east of the city. So we drive east. We cross the LA River. Even in the mythical Land of Giants, there do not exist quotation marks big enough to put around that word <em>river</em>. The LA River is what the Amazon River sees on TV commercials. The sad little trickle, with its graffiti-stained concrete banks, digging around in the landfills of Guatemala City. "For the price of a cup of coffee..." The Amazon River changes the channel, but its day is already ruined. And even though you could jump over the river without a running start, there's a massive spillway on both sides, to divert Noah's Flood into Long Beach. But that's unnecessary now, because anyone living here will tell you it has stopped raining in LA. That's all done. It stopped about four years ago. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Our first planned stop is at </span><a href="http://www.356mission.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">356 S. Mission</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">, a studio/art gallery featuring a bunch of large painting by local art star Laura Owens. The work is excellent, and if I forced myself to say something ironic, sarcastic, or snarky about the show I'd probably point out that the front door made kind of a jarring metal-on-metal noise when it opened and closed and I didn't really appreciate that. Otherwise, it was very nice. (This marks the end of the Fine Art segment of this blog post).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Back to tacos! Onward, to Guisados for lunch. The restaurant was busy, but not packed. The dining crowd was as diverse as the city of Los Angeles, ethnically speaking. Economically speaking, however, this was the land of the high rollers, the $2.50 taco crowd. We ordered six tacos: two steak, one chorizo, one fish, one conchinita pibil, and a ceviche tostada. We also got some drinks, a melon water and an Arnoldo Palmero. The tacos arrived quickly. It was all delicious. The chorizo did kind of smell like dog food and feet, but in a good way. And that was it. Tasty tacos. Shocking. I stood up and bussed my plate. I waited for some portal to open up and carry me to another dimension. It didn't happen. Nothing happened. We walked to the car drove away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The whole experience was as anticlimactic as I set it up in my mind to be. Stewed meat on a tortilla is never going to change the world. If the best thing you can say about a Mexican meal is that it was good, and you made it home in time to use the bathroom, than I don't know what we're all getting so crazy about. I liked Guisados and will go back in my second life, when I'm poking around Boyle Heights trying to figure out why that guy has an upside-down car in his driveway, and why it's on blocks. Yes Guisados is good. But you know what else is good? Taco Bell. And El Torito. And the fish tacos at the dirty Irish pub near my house. The genius isn't in making a fantastic taco, it's in getting people to drive across town and overpay for it. Or write about it.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02155906247939174465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6208013966394736776.post-65865785727308346792013-07-02T14:09:00.000-07:002013-08-11T10:16:05.897-07:00The Sci-Fi Bike Commute: Part III<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s1600/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZpO7t3zwEz15B_uMdqnalrjqyfVJYXzv3RzAYJWnw9LCjlhtwPGoi6ovc2n5x5ngdiUp6hXwZjWoVYGESWHWGL1r8MCRlDMb7XYcCk93w529stwRuthYtgLZgNTkbaN-qyj-bWnkY34/s640/Scifi+Bike+Commute.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><em><span id="goog_2016707365"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click here to read Part<span id="goog_2016707366"></span> I</span></a></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">"When I bought my bike last August and committed myself to riding to work, I added the following spontaneous and bizarre stipulation: I would listen exclusively to science fiction audiobooks."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book:</u> I can't decide if this would be the world's hardest book to market, or easiest. Or maybe its success just dumps all over the concept of genre marketing. Because its popularity suggests people who like short stories also like novels, and people who like literary fiction also like science fiction, and people who like Raymond Chandler also like Raymond Carver, and Patrick O'Brien, and Lewis Carroll. Shit, my <em>mom</em> likes this, and she's still trying to get me to read <em>Tuesdays with Morrie</em>. There's a lot to say about <em>Cloud Atlas</em>, and I'm sure it's all been said. I haven't read a thing about this book, and I don't want to. I love how it works as a piece of meta-fiction, how it keeps denying the connections my mind is so desperate to make. I want there to be webs of overlapping consciousness, but they really only exist superficially. The story makes for a fantastic audiobook (John Lee, are you stalking me?). Richard Matthews as Frobisher is perfect. I'm something like 387th in line at the library to get a copy of the DVD.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride:</u> For much of the ride I'm smothered in an oil sandwich. To the west, a mile out to sea, the ever-present oil tankers unload their cargo into a pipeline that travels along the sea floor to the massive Chevron refinery directly to the east of the bike path. I'm not going to call it ironic, that I ride my man-powered vehicle through this toxic hoagie, because I still do plenty of driving. And I can still fill up a 60-gallon recycling bin every week with plastic junk and Chinese restaurant menus. So this isn't even remotely about sanctimony, yet it still seems bizarre. Boats and oil and trains and tanker trucks. You could reset humanity a thousand times and I bet we'd end up right here every time. I wonder what happens when that pipeline fails, when the local beaches get covered in brown crude. I think I know what happens.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Confluence:</u> Okay, four months into this thing and my brain is on fire with this sci-fi shit. I love it. And I love the breadth of the genre, how each unique story helps me cobble together a reasonable vision of the future. The problem though is that riding my bike to work is making me fat. This makes less sense to me than Sloosha's Crossin'. Or maybe it makes perfect sense. Riding a bike burns calories, sure, but you're still just sitting on your ass. And now that I ride to work, I've forsaken all other forms of exercise. I used to jog after work, so I wasn't done with my chores (commute, work and work-out) until 5:00 (calm down, I start very early), which was close enough to dinner time to keep my from squeezing in an extra meal. Now that I combine my commute with my work-out, I'm home by 3:30. Generally, I walk in the door and take off my helmet. Then I pull out my earphones and put my bag on the floor. Then my eyes turn red and burn like pits of frothing lava, razor-sharp claws extrude from my finger tips, and I buck and snort like a rutting water buffalo. And then...I attack! I range through the kitchen in a fevered hypnotic trance. It's the kind of mindless face-stuffing that leaves you with a bloody lip and something I like to call cracker-neck. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book:</u> Back to the Commonweath Saga. These books are the core of this project, and will be for as long as Peter F. Hamilton keeps writing the story (which he currently is, I understand). They are straight-forward narratives about humans living in the future. There's nothing funky or experimental about the writing or the structure, no great philosophical points being made. It's the ultimate diversionary escapist stuff, perfect for blocking out all thoughts of the actual world you live in. The concept of the Void is dangerously similar to the Dyson shields from the first two books, and I'm at first a bit disappointed he didn't take the whole thing in a completely different direction. But ultimately it's clear that the mysterious gigantic round energy shield surrounding an earth-like planet containing a population of beings who pose a threat to the galaxy from the first two books <em>is nothing like</em> the mysterious gigantic round energy shield surrounding an earth-like planet containing a population of beings who pose a threat to the galaxy from <em>this</em> book. <em>Whew!</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride:</u> Some people don't get it. You walk, bike, jog, skate, rollerblade, on the right side of the bike path. Okay? ON THE RIGHT FUCKING SIDE! God damnit! Oh, this makes me mad. It makes me boil over in a rage, because I'm powerless against them. I can't crash into these wrong-way assholes on a bike like I could as a jogger. There's too much potential for injury and litigation. If there's one cause in this world that calls to my social conscience, it is this. These shitheads must be stopped. All of them! The misdemeanor offenders are simple ignorant assholes, people from other countries who don't know better (which is no excuse). They generally learn their lesson when I whizz past them barely clipping the fabric of their shirt sleeves as I shout indignantly (I've become one of <em>them</em>). But then there are the felons. Oh boy. They do their thing on the wrong side of the path...<em>intentionally</em>. Oh God, why? Why! Help me understand these monsters. Is it self-righteousness. Is it arrogance? Defiance? What? What is it? And if you try to tell me it's a safety thing I will flay you and salt you and put you in a hot car.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Confluence:</u> If there's one thing Peter F. Hamilton likes to point out about humans in the future, it's that we haven't evolved beyond our base appetites. People still love to eat and drink and have sex. And boy do they have good sex in the future. There are sensory implants and drugs and multiple multiple(!) partners, all leading to very non-futuristic, non-scientific screaming orgasms. Which makes for some interesting listening, especially if you've been out at Happy Hour after work and have a good beer buzz kicking around while you pedal extra fast and somehow don't get tired. Maybe the sun is shining, the bonfires are burning in their beach pits, the pelicans fly in graceful swooping lines, and you've got a smile on your face as wide as the High Angel's buttcrack, all while vivid descriptions of erections and vaginal wetness are narrated in stereo sound by some (now creepy sounding) old British guy, who you can almost hear blushing through his microphone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>The Book:</u> Hi, Mr. Hamilton, it's a huge honor to talk...what?...oh, speak into the microphone?...like this?...is this better?...okay, sorry...so, hi, um, I'm a little nervous, sorry...I was wondering how my beloved science-fiction space opera alien invasion quantum singularity wormhole techno-saga turned into a pastoral medieval superhero Police Academy VII love-triangle telenovela? Thank you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Ride:</u> I've got to lose weight. My wife is pregnant and I promised I'd drop as many pounds as she gained. I'm doing it for my health, for solidarity, and because I have to take a life insurance physical. So now I'm looking at riding to work, then riding home, and then, what, working out some more? Are you kidding? I've got to somehow burn more calories <em>during</em> my commute, which means pedaling faster or in a tougher gear, which just gets me home even earlier and starts the Tasmanian eating frenzy that much sooner. Gads! How dumb are our lives allowed to get? My solution is to extend the ride home, by traveling in the opposite direction of my house when I leave work. Try this sometime. Leave work and move in the opposite direction of your house. You will feel a tug, like gravity has pivoted 90 degrees. You will feel like a dying spawning salmon. And the pounds will melt away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><u>The Confluence:</u> Hamilton's greatest strength is his imagination. His books are full of fascinating and weird details about life in the future. Things like "going multiple," which is cloning yourself many times over. When you go multiple you live in a big house with all yourselfs, keeping your poor worn-out girlfriend up all night, every night. There's also the gaiafield, a network of human thoughts and emotions, like an organic internet you log into with neural implants. I'd love to have that gaiafield working during my bike commute. I need to know what people are up to. There's far too many of them out there doing shit I don't understand. Like the guy I see every day who sits on his bike seat and pushes himself along with his feet, instead of pedaling. But the seat is really high, and his feet barely touch the ground, and it looks like he's just squashing the hell out of his nuts the whole time. There's another guy I see whose dressed in full plastic plated body armor, including a Iron Man-type helmet. I assume he's been hit by a bus in the past and isn't taking any more chances, but I don't know. I need the gaiafield. I need the gaiafield to tell me what people do for a living, how much they make, what song they're listening to. I need it to tell me why you'd run a hang-gliding school on a bluff over the beach, and stand there day after day steadying your hang-glider in the wind, and apparently never ever ever actually go fucking hang-gliding.</span><br />
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<em><span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.thebavard.com/2013/06/the-sci-fi-bike-commute-part-i_23.html">Click here to read Part I</a></span></em></div>
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