Yesterday.

You're about to see the word "yesterday" a great number of times. Why? Because I'm going to type the word "yesterday" a great number of times. This is due to the fact that everything interesting this week happened yesterday, and I'll be refering to yesterday many times. So ...

Yesterday, I did laundry. Pretty boring so far, eh? In fact, it was. But, yesterday, I observed a glimspe of a rare occurance at the laundromat: a white person! The white girl I saw starting her laundry just before I left was probably the 3rd or 4th white person I've ever seen doing laundry there. And I've been washing my clothes there for about two years. I estimate that I see 40-50 people there per visit, mostly latino, some black, but almost never white. So rarely, in fact, that I'm mildly surprised when I see one. A white person, at the laundromat? How strange. Then I remember, oh yeah, I'm white too. Sometimes while I'm doing my laundry I stop and wonder, where the hell do all the white people wash their clothes? Is there some secret underground white person laundromat? Can it really be that nearly every single white guy in our area lives in laundry-included housing? I guess it seems surprising to me that the demographic differences in housing situation could be so extreme. Or, maybe there are just a lot of white people out there in dirty clothes.

Also yesterday, I received a package for a friend, Krishna, who is arriving tomorrow. This is not ususual, I've been receiving packages all week long for him. Boxes of various shapes, sizes and weight have been arriving via FedEx, UPS, and USPS. All addressed to Krishna. All are parts for a project he and I will work on. Yesterday, the UPS guy greeted me with another delivery, but I noticed a tinge of nervousness in his voice. He was holding a long cylindrical package that resembled a rolled up poster. Before handing it to me, he mumbled something like "it feels kind of .... heavy, like it's made of ...." "Metal?" I asked. He nodded and held out the package trying not to look worried. I smiled and told him it was probably just a pipe, but I don't think that made feel any better about it. I should have asked him if he would like to watch me open it.

So, yesterday was the slashdot meet-up. I noticed that the meeting place was 3 blocks from my house, so I wandered down to Zeli's coffee bar in search of fellow slashdotters. As I was entering, someone called out to me and I found myself staring at Mike Axeen. Mike works for the same company as Jenny and apparently reads slashdot as well. A couple other people showed up as well, but I didn't stick around very long. I had to run because yesterday was a busy day.

Yesterday evening I went out with Shane and Matt to the Bigfoot Lodge in search of action. Instead we found a weird band with painted faces and a bunch of guys dressed like they were in the Ramones. But, I did find out that I really like the smell of Acqua Di Gio by Giorgio Armani, whose website is really annoying to navigate. Anyway, we ditched the place in favor of In-n-Out and savored our animal style burgers until closing time. On the way out Shane inquired about the fate of a large tub of fries. Upon learning that they were to be thrown out Shane suggetsed that they be given to us instead. Immediately we found ourselves bestowed with the largest box of fries I have ever seen. We stepped outside to find three cop cars descending on a small rusty parked car and it's nervous occupants. The three of us stood for a minute in the parking lot watching the cops, eating from a huge box of fries. And, thus ended yesterday.

OK, I told Jenny, I would answer the Friday Five, so here they are:

1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?

Probably poetry. But, it's easier to find good novels than good poets so I'm more likely to pick up a novel.

2. What is your favorite novel?

Hmmmm.... this is difficult. Probably Dune by Frank Herbert. I also like One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, The Fall and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)

I certainly couldn't pick one. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is perhaps one of the best books of poetry ever. I love Stolen Waters by Lewis Carroll and The Day Is Done. My favorite poet is probably is probably Edgar Allan Poe. I like The City in the Sea, A Dream Within a Dream and Dreamland.

4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?

I really enjoy reading about WWII and I have this cool book called Hitler's War by Heinz Magenheimer that I started but never finished and I wish I had time for it.

5. What are you currently reading?

God In The Dock by CS Lewis.

Rumble, rummage, and rant.

I, like many others in SoCal, was rudely awakened early Saturday morning by quake in Big Bear. I think earthquakes are fun, but we should really schedule them at better times. Today I was searching for news articles on quakes and noticed an article in a British publication with the headline "US RATTLED BY EARTHQUAKE". Wait, I thought, the whole US wasn't rattled by the quake. It was just in California, in fact just in part of southern California. The other 49 states didn't feel a thing. Does this author not realize that for most Americans the quake happened "somewhere else"? Then I began looking for other quake headlines and found ones like "Earthquake rocks China" and "Quake felt in France". Even worse, the first few articles about the quake in China which killed over 250 people didn't even mention where the quake happened within China. My first reaction is, whatever, what difference do the specifics make? But, if it bothers me that California gets lumped in with the rest of the US then perhaps I ought to care more about the geography of other countries. Or, maybe I shouldn't mind if people in other countries don't care about the difference between California and Louisiana.

This realy cool homeless guy comes by our street a couple times a week. He knows the trash schedule perfectly, and he's there every dumpster-day rummaging through the junk. He collects the bottles and crushes the cans, sorts them and carts it all away. He is without a doubt the most organized homeless guy I've even seen. And punctual. Nate started collecting recyclable stuff in a separate bag so we can just give it too him and save him some effort. The way I see it he's pretty much doing a service for the community that most of us are too lazy to do. I know where the nearest recycling center is, but I've never taken anything there. In contrast, this homeless dude is like a professional recycler. It's a full time job, though it's a bit short on benefits and perks. And there may not be a plaque, but he's always Employee of the Month.

Last Thursday President Bush quoted a non-existant report from the Blue-Chip economists that predicted a 3.3% growth if his tax proposal is enacted. Several major American newspapers even printed the statement as fact. The editor of Blue Chip Economic Forecast, Randell Moore, complained to the White House and said he had no idea what the President was talking about. I kind of miss the old days when politicians tried to distort and twist the facts in their favor rather than spouting obvious fabrications. The sad thing is that the media are so careless and gullible.

Vegas, baby, Vegas!

Nate and I spent last weekend in Vegas. The new stretch of the 210 is a godsend. We visited Kat and Brittan. No wild stories to tell. I didn't even play poker. I learned cribbage. We did have a good hike in Red Rock canyon. Climbed up a huge rock ridge that overlooked the loop. Found a geocache by Skull Rock. I bought black M&Ms. Where else can you buy black M&Ms?

Remember when it rained last week? On one of the rainy days I was walking west down Colorado in my boots and jacket and a guy with no shirt on was running the opposite direction. Actually, he did have a shirt, but he was holding it not wearing it. When he got to me he stopped and asked me (in between gasping breaths) how much further till Fair Oaks? Now, I was near Lake and Colorado, which is about a mile east of Fair Oaks, so I informed him that Fair Oaks was in the other direction. He didn't look surprised, but merely thanked me and continued to run east. I almost followed him merely for the novelty of chasing a strange shirtless guy in the rain.

My brother Alex is playing Orsino in his school's production of Twelfth Night. If you happen to be in Ohio next weekend you could go and see him. Or perhaps you'll be in New Orleans next weekend. I plan on being in San Luis Obispo to check out the Mardi Gras celebration there.

Tomorrow The Randies are playing at the Bigfoot. All who want to see them should show up at 10:00pm. It was at the Bigfoot that we first met Megan and Laura so it will be interesting to see them play there. Bigfoot Lodge, 10pm, $3.

Rain, rain, rain.

It rained all day yesterday and today. I really enjoy rain in LA, as long as I don't have to drive. It's refreshing, sort of a rare treat. But, I'm also glad that this is LA and soon it will be dry and clear again. I can't stand constant dreary weather, but rain here is a novelty every time. So, I donned my boots and jacket and went out splashing through puddles and wading through the streams at the edge of the road. I hope I never grow tired of puddle stomping.

The Oscar nominations came out yesterday. For the most part I thought that movies released in 2002 were a parade of crap. On the bright side this makes the Oscars much less painful for me. I don't have to watch in agony as a rare quality movie is passed up in favor of some Hollywood brown-noser. Surprisingly Spider-Man remained my favorite film throughout the year, despite the poorly written script. Ah, I miss the good old days, like last year, when qualtity movies were still made.

Last week Colin Powell released a report detailing the "evidence" which the US has against Iraq. In it he claims "Iraqis literally removed the crust of the earth in order to conceal chemical weapons evidence." This is impressive since the earth's crust is about 45km thick under Iraq. They must have an impressive bulldozer. Powell also ranted about a bio warfare program using tetanus, massive chemical labs on wheels, warheads hidden under palm trees and other fanciful creatures that only the Bush administration can see. Finally, today a panel of real experts announced the first confirmed violation of resulution 1441. One type of Iraqi missile can go about 30km further than the 150km allowed. That's enough justification for an invasion, don't you think? By the way, a congressional committee estimates that the war will cost $100 billion, which is enough to provide health care to every single uninsured child in the US for the next 5 years.

collision

On Sunday Kurt, Nate, and I decided to go hunting for a geocache in the San Gabriel mountains. We took Kurt's car and I drove. We were pretty far along the Angeles Crest before deciding between two potential caches and we picked the one near Charlton Flats. As we were driving, I noticed another car slowly gaining on me and debated moving over to let it by. I considered waiting until a there was a passing lane, but decided instead to pull over. Before I could pull back onto the road a guy ran up and asked if we had jumper cables. So, we stopped and jumpstarted a stranded SUV before driving the last few miles. As we rounded the last bend and I saw the sign for Charlton Flats I prematurely pulled off the road into a large turnout, then turned around and got back on the road to drive the last 100 feet. I slowed down, spotted a parking space and was turning left into the parking lot when a motorcycle slammed into the side of the car.

The following few minutes I perceived only through a cloud of bewilderment. I remember getting out of the car to find a badly hurt man on the roof. I remember a kindly older couple going off to call 911 while I stared stupidly at my out-of-service-area phone. I remember Kurt asking for my driver's license and writing down information. I think I snapped out of it when the Forest Service guy arrived. Throughout the next hour and a half close to a dozen emergency vehicles of various shapes and sizes showed up. We helped the first two paramedics get the guy onto a stretcher and he was eventually taken away in the helicopter. I think his only serious injury was a surface fracture in his right leg. Based on the damage to Kurt's car an officer estimated the motorcycle's impact speed at 45mph. He had apparently decided to pass me on the left and was coming at me too quickly to notice the turn signal.

It's odd how things work out. If I hadn't pulled over to let a car by we couldn't have helped the people with a dead battery. If we hadn't stopped to jumpstart their car we wouldn't have been in an accident. If we had picked the other cache we wouldn't have been in the accident. If I hadn't pulled off early. If we had taken the slower car. If someone else had driven. If we had left on time. If I had stayed home to get work done. It was the culmination of a multitude of little decisions that placed us at that particular place at that particular time. If anything had gone differently that day we would have hiked happily for a few hours and returned home, never suspecting that we nearly had an accident. How many times, I wonder, have I made a seemingly trivial decision that chanced to bring me out of harm's way? How many times have I lived that day where the accident didn't happen only because I lingered at a light or talked just a little longer or forgot to buy milk? How often is the course of someone's life decided by whether or not they stop to pick up a coin, whether or not they miss their bus, whether or not they said goodbye?

We can never know. No one can predict how a little decision might affect the future. We don't say "let's go to this cache instead because we might get in to an accident." The various reasons by which we weigh decisions seem insignificant when compared to the effects of fate. We make our own decisions, but in many ways we have little control over our lives. Life takes strange turns. Had we stopped 20 feet sooner to watch the fireworks I would never have met Brittan. I wonder what else might have happened and who else I might have met that day. But, we can never know what might have been. And I'll never know what that Sunday hike might have unfolded into had we not been in an accident. The past is unchangeable and the future is unknown. C'est la vie.

The moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
--Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

PS today I walked around in the rain.

Finally.

I have comments. And they are 100% homegrown and handwritten. I owe thanks to my old boss Terry for letting me host my scripts and database on his machine. I hope my code meets all your feedback needs. The layout is largely stolen from other comment generators and the code is entirely new. If you have any suggestions or requests for the comments let me know. Also, tell me if it's not working properly. Happy commenting.

I was reminded today that life is full of surprises and disappointments. An example of a surprise would be getting a check in the mail for nearly $3000 with your name on it. An example of a disappointment would be realizing that the check was a mistake and must be returned. Such is the culmination of a rather frustrating saga for me. Over three weeks ago I faxed a rather overdue set of timesheets to the financial guy of our company. For a couple weeks I waited thinking the check was in the mail. Late last week I started to get worried because rent was due so I tried unsuccessfully to contact our finance guy. On Sunday he got back to me and I was alarmed to learn that my check was not in the mail. In fact, not only had the paycheck not yet been written, but the accountant hadn't even been instructed to write one. On Monday morning I contacted the accountant to confirm that the finance guy had emailed them the previous evening as he said. I was told that he had given them incomplete information and they were waiting to hear back from him. I was promised a return call in a couple hours. Two days later I get a call from the accountant telling me that they finally did hear back from the finance guy but couldn't write the check right away. However, they promised me it would be in the mail by the end of that day (Wednesday). Sure enough they didn't mail it until yesterday and today it arrived in my mailbox. They arrived, to be specific. Two checks were sent, one for less than the amount they owe me and the other for nearly $3000. The first is not enough and the second is clearly a mistake. I suppose I'll have to settle for the small check for now until I can get refunded. Though, it was extremely tempting to cash the large check since I'll be in Vegas next weekend.

Last night was poker. Again, a rather delinquent announcement was sent out mere hours before the game. Amusingly all of the beer showed up early and most of the people showed up late. For a while we thought that 3 of us would be stuck with over 10 beers a piece. As people showed up the games became heated and many a mighty hand was taken down. I, sadly, was not among the big winners of the night.

Today's quote:
George W. Bush to Iraq: The game is over.
French PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin to Bush: It's not a game, it's not over.

Today both my brothers are on a 700 mile road trip down to Memphis. While I'm not envious of going to Tennessee I do miss hanging out with my brothers and road trips are always adventurous. Alex will be auditioning tomorrow for various theaters and handing out pictures of himself. No, not naked pictures. They arrive back Sunday and the following day is Alex's birthday. If any of you wish to send him birthday greetings his email address is acox [at] acs.wooster.edu.

In case you haven't been informed, I am the Universal Point of Contact. Shane declared this long ago and it seems to have stuck. Should you need to leave a message for someone you don't know the location of, call me and hopefully they will also call me and pick up the message. Sometimes this has resulted in strangers calling me unexpectedly. Thus is the burden of being the UPC. Usually the message gets through. For instance, today I got a call from a guy stranded in Orlando who gave me a message which was later picked up by a guy calling me from Puerto Rico. Crazy, no?

This week held an interesting piece of news for me. The country in which I was born no longer exists in any form. Yugoslavia is no more. Since 1991 my birthplace has been located in a different country after Croatia declared independence. The ensuing war left four of the original republics of Yugoslavia independent. This week the remnants of the Yugoslavia abolished the old country and declared the new union of Serbia and Montenegro. When mapmakers next update their maps, the country listed on my birth certificate will be found only in history books.

Long time no post.

Nearly two weeks in fact. I admire bloggers like Jenny who blog with such dedication and consistency. I'm just a fair weather blogger. Perhaps I need discipline. Maybe positive reinforcement will help. Every week I'll put seven quarters in a jar and for every day that I don't post a blog entry I'll take one of the quarters out. At the end of the week I'll take the remaining quarters and go out and buy something nice with them, like a stick of gum or a new suit.

Speaking of suits, two mormons paid me a visit today. I'm not a big fan of the LDS church, but I thought it would only be fair to listen to them a little since I criticize them quite a bit. And they caught me by surprise, had I know they were coming I might have answered the door butt naked or claimed I was a satanist or demanded to see their magic underwear. Instead I let them in and had them sit on my floor while they gave their "5 minute talk" which takes approximately 30 minutes. My overall impression was that they are less creepy than the mormon missionaries I ran into in Bulgaria, but creepy nonetheless. And it still cracks me up that they are younger than me but refer to each other as Elder So-and-so. Elder Little was the taller one and did most of the talking. He had a calm, friendly voice and spoke in a smooth, relaxing manner. He probed at my religious beliefs a little then made a set of rather vague statements which it was obvious I would agree with. He then evaded or gave vague answers to questions like who is Jesus, what happened to the tablets Joseph Smith found, what does the book of mormon add to the bible. But, they were so calm and friendly I didn't even feel like arguing with them, which is rare for me. I even forgot to ask about the magic undies. They summed up by portraying mormonism as Christianity with a few clarifications. Somehow they left out the parts about having babies in heaven, baptism for the dead and Joseph Smith being a low-down, womanizing con artist. Though I did get to hear about the early Israelites getting on ships and sailing to America thousands of years before Columbus did. I think it would be really funny to dress up, go around door-to-door, and tell people that Cthulhu wants to devour their soul. Anyway, in case the two mormons from today will come back again to check up on me, anyone have ideas as to how I could make them go away or mess with their heads?

So, what have I been up to recently? Last Friday I went to three bars with Shane. First, we visited the Short Stop which was pretty quiet at 9:30. Next we went to an OC bar called Bananas. Never go there. I don't remember the name of the last bar but it was way too expensive. Saturday Shane, Nate and I went to Laura and Megan's birthday party (two of the girls from the band we know. The party was at a bar called Barbara's at the Brewery. If you know what the Brewery is you know the kind of crowd you'll find at Barbara's. The place is awesome, but sadly it may be forced to shut down soon. At the party we met cool new people of all types. Artsy types, musicians, suave geeks, young drunk girls, "old" wise folks who felt the need to give us advice. We even met a fellow Techer who makes movies now. The following day I received an email from Laura informing me that Shane's credit card was in her possession. I proceeded to arrange with Laura to pick up the card from Megan's place. Shane and I tried to navigate our way there based on directions like "well, I think it's the only apartment building on the street. it's the door on the left. well, left when you're facing the street." After knocking on a wrong door and peering in a couple of windows we finally retrieved the precious piece of plastic. Monday night was men's group. But, there were only three of us so we went out to a bar instead. The Short Stop was literally empty except for us and the bartender during the entire hour we were there. The bartender told us he was an actor and sure enough he's on the imdb and has been in a few big movies.

I was quite sad to hear about the shuttle disaster. I had a hard time reading the live update, the moment of realization is devastating. The resources, talent and effort put into the shuttle program are tremendous. The bravery and ambition of the astronauts are inspiring. The achievement of travelling into space to conduct research and build a space station is immense. To see parts of the shuttle scattered accross Texas is disheartening to say the least. Now only three remain of the five shuttles built for NASA. As many are saying, it's probably time to move beyond the shuttle program. But, I still hope they don't hold up the shuttle activity for very long right now. Alternatives will serve the future but in the present we still need the shuttle. One thing I'm really tired of is these "experts" who warned about safety concerns but were ignored and or got fired. People seem to treat it like these guys informed NASA of the problem and NASA flew the shuttle anyway. No, the five fired commitee members only gave vague warnings about NASA's slack attitude toward safety (which maybe true, but it's not specific), and their solution was only to throw more money at the problem. Money isn't the problem. It's not lack of funding that caused a sloppy attitude toward safety. More money wouldn't have magically endowed the NASA engineers and managers with more insight. The Russians have a much better safety record and work on a much smaller budget. I believe that part of the problem is that NASA has grown large and bulky, has become difficult to manage. Details are lost. Perhaps NASA needs to be downsized. In the short term that would mean fewer missions and more concentration on the important ones. But, politics will inevitably get in the way because someone's pet project will be scrapped or someone's contract won't be renewed.

Another thing that has bothered me is the news coverage of Columbia's crew. They are refered to as heros because they died. People are heros because of the way they live, not the fact that they are dead. Weren't the Columbia crew heros before they died? Aren't other astronauts equally heroic? Why do we automatically call people heros when they die tragically? A man who died in the world trade center is a hero. His colleague who lived in LA or his friend who died of natural causes are commoners, even though they may have lived just as he did. We purify the memory of the fallen when we should be sharpening the lives of those who remain. We make heros of the dead when we should be forging heros out of the living.