Where the Heck is Christopher?

Picked up a new toy with a $100 coupon, and am trying to figure out how to touch type on a ten-inch touchscreen. It is a little difficult and the onscreen editing leaves a whole lot to be desired.

Perhaps with some TLC and a touch of practice, it might eventually be a bit easier.

I wonder if it would even be possible to accomplish useful programming on the stereotypical Android tablet.

After a few hours of semi-use, I discovered that when it was time to check GMail, I was annoyed at the effort required to do so on the desktop.  Stupid American consumerism.

Chapter 1: Get tagged from the parking lot for a last-minute urgent fix at half-past-quitting-time, spend the next 30 minutes determining that the issue will take even longer and should be done tomorrow.

Chapter 2: Ride like a maniac on a knobby-tired mountain bike 4 miles to shelter.  Discover you have no keys, get mad.

Chapter 3: Get driven back to the office, get your keys, get driven back to shelter.  Ride goes away, discover you left the seat clamp in the car, making the bike effectively unrideable.

Chapter 4: Sleep.

Chapter 5: Run the 4 miles back with office gear in backpack, barefoot because you have no running shoes.  Stop at CVS half way for duct tape because the sidewalks compare favorably with 10-grit sandpaper in texture.

Chapter 6: Endorphins are great.  Feel no pain.

I know it’s bad when I open the refrigerator and say to myself, “Hmm, this might tax even my extraordinary cooking skills.”

2 potatoes.

I don’t even have any olive oil, since I haven’t exchanged the last bottle I bought.  (Non-expeller-pressed olive oil, tastes and smells like solvent.)

Oh wait, I have wild rice.  I also have some purple potatoes on the counter that I forgot about, and some garlic.  This might turn out well after all!  I even crumbled up some leftover uncooked rice pasta shells.

It’s still plain, even with spices.  At this point, after coming home from a 6-9:30 class, heavenly.  Manna indeed.

Memorial Day sunset, from the Mount Hope Bridge.  The beautiful hazy light is probably caused by atmospheric smoke from forest fires in Quebec.

No training, no stretching, just show up in flip flops and cargo shorts. That was my first half-marathon, yesterday morning.

The plan was to stop every mile and stretch and walk to break up the steady wear-down. Once I started running, I ended up moving past each mile marker until 12.x when I walked a couple hundred feet. The first 6 miles were easy, as I routinely run 5-6 miles in my lunch break at work. I forced myself to keep a slow, steady pace, even as hundreds of runners passed me.

By mile 3, I developed a nice runners’ high.

Mile 7 was a new record, as I have never run more than 6.1 miles in a single day.

By mile 8, my slow pace was paying off. I kept a steady pace on uphills, and I started to pass people regularly.

Mile 9 stretch out a little longer than I expected. Mile 10 was noticeably longer, and by 11, I was pretty sure the distances were increasing on an exponential curve. I kept a steady pace, passing other runners constantly.

Towards the end of mile 12, I developed a pain in my right hip, possibly due to excessive heel-strike. I ran until the pain hit redline, then slowed to a walk. It felt like my feet were wheels rolling downhill and I was helpless to stop them. Once my feet had regained some range-of-motion (less than a quarter mile) I picked up the race again, and ran to the finish.

For the last minute, I was running parallel with another man and his trainer, who was encouraging him to sprint to finish. I took his words for my own, and sprinted the last couple hundred feet through the finish line. I had no conscious control of my feet at that point; the sensation was elated, powerful, predatory, hungry, joyful, laughing. I remember laughing as I crossed the finish line. I couldn’t feel my feet, but it was all good. Everything was good.

Until I found stairs. Stairs were a problem.

I sat and saved the run into Google Tracks, then went and found a banana and free beer. The beer started to kill the runners’ high, so I left it on a random table and went wandering around the city barefoot but not naked.

Equipment list:

• Flip flops
• Cargo shorts and techwick shirt
• Music player and headphones
• Cash, ID, insurance and keys
• 20 oz water
• 2 aspirin, 1 energy gum, and a pinch of raw tobacco
• Phone, GPS recording the track

Yes, I ran in flip flops. I received a lot of commentary; mostly favorable, some sarcastic. “Are you sure you’re ready for this race?” It was all good. I had no blisters, no injuries, and my feet were barely sore. The flip flops, sadly, are mostly gone by after a few years of constant use. It’s too bad; they cost $1.83.

Around mile 12, when I had to slow to a walk, I took out an aspirin and put it in my mouth to swallow it with some of the water. The moment I got the taste of it, I reflexively spit it out. Bad stuff, not the chemical for helping a race.

I then tried a small pinch of tobacco. It was dried, organic smoking tobacco that I picked up from a small smoke shop in Burlington, VT, some months ago. I chewed it up to let the salivary enzymes break down and release the chemicals, and held it in my mouth through the end of the race. The thought was to test the theory that tobacco would help sports performance in this context and method of usage. It does.

I would have rather used fresh leaves, but I don’t know where to source them locally. I’ve never tried tobacco in any form before, other than tasting a tiny pinch last week to make sure I wasn’t deathly allergic to the stuff. Before anyone gets their pants in a knot over tobacco usage; I read up on the health effects of tobacco, positive and negative, and made my own educated decision. I’ll probably post a lengthy post on this topic later.

My time was 2:28. My goal was to finish under 3 hours.

The streets are quiet as I slide slowly through the decaying, cold blocks in my rumbling white beast of flame and fury.  The cold penetrates through the glass of my windows like the feathery touches of a fading ghost.  An occasional hood, so huge it appears empty, shuffles down the sidewalk on a pair of trousers flapping lazily in the chilly breeze.

Spring is not here yet.  Oh, but you already knew that.  I’m spending the evening enjoying the warm smells of multi-bean soup, the gentle riffs of Isaac Shepard’s Deep Joy, and the happy fuzzies of studying a few too many numbers after a long day of accomplishment.

Tonight’s recipe-of-the-moment consists of bean medley soaked for 20+ hours (oopsie), onion, garlic, carrot, cayenne, garam masala, with more spices to-be-announced.

Yesterday, I was riding in the car and a squirrel ran across the road in front of us.  I don’t know how he managed to swiftly avoid the tires.  I heard him scamper through the leaves, even through the road noise and closed glass windows.

The kindly (yet grumpy) fellow who works in the cube behind me walked to his chair a few minutes ago.  I clearly saw his reflection in the backs of my glasses as he walked by.

Sometimes there is a song that touches the feeling of the world.  What an interesting song, to play now, as the cards are falling, and the earth takes back her own.

What does it mean, for this song to be on the hearts and tongues of our children now?

“…will I ever see another sunrise?”

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click post.)

1. My brothers are nuts (and awesome, but nuts)
2. My parents are awesome
3. I was homeschooled.
4. I got my first salaried job before I finished high school.
5. I bought my first car with a loan from my boss.  My monthly payment was more than most people’s mortgages at that time.
6. Orson Scott Card is simply fantastic.
7. I have no nephews or nieces, but many cousins.
8. My family turned the TV on to view broadcast programming a total of 3 times when I was growing up; the ’89 California earthquake, to see some some friends on the Dr. Phil show, and 9/11.
9. I’m a Pisces.  Strongly.
10. My job was and is my dream job.  I wanted to play with computers since I was about 5.
11. I think tattoos are the most conservative form of art and expression imaginable.
12. Money is entertaining, even when I lose it.
13. Social networking makes me feel old.
14. I can sleep anywhere, any time, if I’m tired.
15. I can eat almost anything (no allergies or taste/texture avoidances), but…
16. I was a vegan for about 14 years, and still keep some of the restrictions.
17. My first paid job was a database conversion for a doctor’s office when I was 13.  I enjoyed pointing out to the sales and technical people how much their product sucked.
18. I think most Christianity is really stupid.
19. Prayer works, if you ask the right question.  God has a significant sense of humor about these things.
20. I used to work as a ballroom dance instructor.
21. I started playing music simply to prove that I could start something and stick with it.
22. Beethoven’s Fifth makes me cry.  And my skin tingle.  A lot.
23. REM sleep is very noisy.
24. My grandmother drove me to my first three contra dances. (and then I got my driver’s license)
25. I’ve never done a list like this before, and I think it’s interesting but also takes too much time.

As time goes on, it seems as though I’m slowly rewinding my emotional life.  I feel as if I’m going back to a time when I was happier, and hadn’t made all those mistakes.  Nothing brings back innocence, but some things can bring back happiness.  I’m reliving emotional states I haven’t found since I was about 20.

It’s weird to open your eyes in the morning and see the world as you used to see it.

Frou Frou’s Let Go brought back some interesting emotions.  Thanks, you know.  The world turns, and day turns to night, and then day again.  Never the same day again, but the same warmth and happiness.

This is just a test post to figure out how the new Facebook RSS importer works.  If it works well, maybe I’ll finally upgrade to the latest-and-greatest WordPress.

I breath life into this creation of mine.   Little breaths, tiny nurturing touchings as the months and years go by.  You’d never know I did such a thing, surrounded as I am by the rest of humanity just like me.  Even if you did, you’d never really see it change.  Only over time would you notice anything.

And then, after six long years of cautious care, and one night of thoughtful reflection, I set it out to the wolves.  These dogs of war that rip so many to shreds without the slightest thought or care or briefest of hesitations.  And yet, my little hope rides on their backs now, watching them shred the world.

I thought it had died this morning.

But it didn’t.

I don’t really remember last night.  I remember my eyes burning with sleep, as I changed shirts.  I remember the people forming lines outside on the rough concrete.  I remember some of the faces, old faces, young faces, familiar faces, happy faces.  I remember the flash of a camera as sweat dripped off my chin.  I remember my glasses flying away across the floor.  I remember my hair, soaked in sweat, plastered to my head.  I remember the band.

Oh I remember the band alright, and the drums, and the violin, and the piercing bombast making the blood race in my ears.

First contra dance of the season, and I must say, it was a roaring success.

On the way up to Boston to stay the night.  No online or phone availability until the 27th.

Although I did sign up for a week of GPRS.  Yahoo!  Slow, but it’s nice to be online rolling up the highway.

If I listened to Beethoven’s Fifth every day, then the blinding, rushing, gasping, teary-eyed, spine-tingling joy would fade to merely a happy smile and the occasional shiver.

But the nice thing about playing Catharsis, or Julia Delaney, or some other interestingly-chorded song, is that I play it better as time goes on.  Therefore, the spine-tingling rush becomes stronger and more pronounced.

And then, as my ears become more tuned to the wonderful variances of tone and harmony, well, then Beethoven’s Fifth is, ummmm, quite spectacular.  My back prickles just thinking about it.

Some day, I want to attend a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth, live, performed by a good orchestra.

It’s summertime, and the heavy, hazy air in bonny New England gives warm testament to that fact.  This picture was taken early yesterday morning (approximately 7:30) by the Old Grist Mill.

My car, known as Jenny, will also be known somewhat affectionately as, “The Rumblebuggy.”  Soon I shall post pictures as to exactly why my car’s nickname is now “rumblebuggy,” but only after I receive my part from this dude on VWVortex.

Dude, you took 2 extra days to ship the part, and didn’t send me a tracking number.  I don’t know if you shipped it yet, but if you shipped it Monday and it’s still not here, I have my doubts.   If you’re gonna rip me off 100$, fine, just let me know so I can buy it from someone else.  And blow you a new bunghole on the vwvortex forums and resellerratings, but we won’t go into that.

Jenny Rumblebuggy needs her new catback.  Yesterday.

It’s stink hot right now.  I just wanted to share that little fact with the world.

OK back to work.

REM sleep is an hot, warm, rush. Your body is hugely noisy, with patchy waves of sharp, hot tingles racing through your body like sunspots. At first notice, it is painful, but then you realize it’s wonderful. Your whole body is completely paralyzed. You could no more lift your eyelids than push over a grown redwood, even as the static roars through your body like a thousand freight trains.

Your body is flushed, and hot, like a tremendous fever, or the edge before the peak. You can hear with perfect clarity, but the sound weave into the tapestry of imagination with artful ingenuity.

The light, if any, beats through your closed eyelids with tremendous force, bright and heavy. Your eyes move strongly, sharply, as if having a will of their own.

And then it fades, into the warmer darkness of dreams, inspired by memory and later, imagination.

The Novatel U727 is a dual-mode device. You plug it in, and Ubuntu sees it as a read-only mass storage device (containing Win32 drivers for the device). While cute, this behavior becomes obnoxious when one realizes that once the mass storage device driver claims the device, the serial device driver doesn’t care.

The key, of course, is to tell the mass storage device driver to GTFA. Ergo, ‘eject /dev/sr0′. However, this is not acceptable behavior for a ‘plug-n-play’ solution that will be used by possible techno-phobes.

Enter /etc/udev/rules.d! Create a file called 99-novatel.rules, with the following line:

ATTRS{manufacturer}=="Novatel Wireless Inc.", RUN+="/usr/bin/eject /dev/%k"

Unplug, plug, unplug, plug. Watch dmesg, and bask in the glory of your newfound sense of peace and relaxation. EVDO is indeed all it is cracked up to be.

(Use udevinfo -a -p /dev/sr0 to tweak the udev rule if needed…)

(There are other udev rules for this device on the Internet.  Those did not work with my client’s machine.  This one did, but it may not work on yours.  Also, Ubuntu 8.04 uses airprime to talk to the device.  Sublime!)

Change an element’s parent

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Clear the document selection

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Spring is here!  Late at night when I come home, the peepers are singing their chirping trills in the swamps.  In the morning, the bright daffodils by the door show off their sparkling petals.  The sun shines, but only sometimes.  This is, after all, March in New England.  Too much sun would make everybody depressed and grumpy for losing their winter tans.

The photograph was taken just after dusk at Shad Factory Pond.  There was ice on the water, but it had melted heavily.

Sometimes, I’m sitting at my computer and I can’t stand to sit still.  My violin is perched invitingly between my monitor and the television, and with a quick reach I’m holding it.  Ohhhhh that lovely sound, those shifting chords.  It vibrates in my hands as I pull the bow across aging strings.   I catch the notes, and they resonate, chasing sweet tones through my head as I bend note after note, following the melody.  Following up, down, louder, louder, and suddenly slow as the chills excite my fingers.  I love this.

OK, so the financial system is collapsing. The Federal Reserve is playing god, and dumping billions of dollars into both banks and securities firms now. Big Finance is being sold for practically pennies on the dollar. The dollar is starting to free-fall, and we don’t know how or when it will stop.

1-oz 0.999 silver rounds are going for $0.39 over spot.

Josh Silvermann renewed his FFL. Check for yourself. (Use 1-54-xxx-xx-xx-00725.)

And the news of our lives, perhaps the most important SCOTUS decision this century, is being argued today. DC vs. Heller. I get the chills just thinking about it.

And my life? Let’s just say my life is exciting.

I’m away through next Friday (the 14th). Phone will probably not work, although my family knows how to get in touch. E-mail may work. Maybe. If I feel like going online (assuming I even can go online).

Organic Valley doesn’t feed animals to their cows and poultry.

“Our animals are fed certified organic feed, never any animal by-products, and graze on certified organic pastures.”

So sayeth Nancy from their Consumer Relations department.

OK I’m going away for a little tiny short bit.  Should be back Sunday afternoon.  Should be one heck of a par-taaaaaaay!  Should have pictures.

The Paris Academy of Ballroom Dancing holds an annual Snowflake Ball, and I (of course) brought my camera!

Out of more than 380 pictures, 18 are suitable for public viewing, so if you’re not in this gallery, you’ll have to trust me that the picture just didn’t come out right. Full-size versions are available.

Snowflake Ball Photos.

No pictures, but the dance at the Scout House in Concord was absolutely awesome.  Carpooling arrangements were … volatile … and ferrying people around afterwards was interesting to say the least.  Hello 4:30AM, it’s been a while since I saw you.

Yes, I am absolutely crazy.  I’d do it again in an instant.

OK, I have a ton of pictures, and some really good ones to post, but I’ve been embarrassingly otherwise occupied.  Coming soon…as they say…

It’s hard to play with tears,
Streaming down your face.
Two rivers of salt, soaking,
Dripping, shining on soft wood.
The song, the song, echoing,
Echoing in my ears, in my heart
In my hands, and head, and soul.
Playing, playing blind with tears,
Hot, wet tears, my heart bursting,
With love, with pain, with song,
For the departing…
                  …a last song.

The woman instructing the class down the hall is one of the most obnoxious, emotionally disturbed people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.

I cannot describe in written words the nuances of tone that grate my ears. Think schoolteacher, so sickly sweet you want to punch her in the face for being an offense to all humanity.

You haven’t lived until you’ve met someone like that. Seriously.

“And the password is, 1, u, 3, 5, e, and oh my! It’s an uppercase U! You have to watch out for those!”

Someone sneezed. “Bless you!” …….. “A THANK YOU WOULD BE APPROPRIATE!”

… “for twenty dollars more, you can stay in my hotel!” Did she seriously say that? oh god please make it stop.

“…if I do it this way [blah blah] …but, but!  Look at me! [blah]“  Mocking cruelty all day.  She talks as if they’re stupid children.

I cannot stand this woman.

Also, her perfume stinks, and it’s not even a nice smell.

That was absolutely the best, most stupendous, amazing, wonderful dance in the history of mankind. Fortunately, there will be even better ones in the future.

I want to hear Nils Fredland call for Nightingale. That’s a dance that would bring God down to play.

I’m going into the woods for three days in the area of Mt. Lafayette in New Hampshire.  Should be back Monday afternoon.

This is my mini McMansion-in-a-pocket.

You can probably tell from the use of kayak paddles where I’m going with this scheme next…

(Kayak paddles make great tarp pitch supports!)

Over at zenhabits.net, there is an article titled, “What would you do if you had nothing to do?” I was like, hell yeah! I know what I’d do!

I’d travel the world, dance, take pictures, live simply, and drift. Stay for week, or two, or three, and move on. New Zealand isn’t very far if you’re already in Australia.

I’d play music. I’d never use a computer except for photographic-related work and money. I’d do random things for the fun of it.

I’d teach people, and guide them, and help them.

The last point of the article asks the reader to print out the perfect day.

1. Rise as the dawn begins, stretch, and run down the beach as the sun rises and burns away the night mist. Alternatively, play music to the sound of the waves.
2. Simple breakfast, either oatmeal over fire or at the open-air cafe just in town.
3. Surf or hike.
4. Simple lunch, and siesta.
5. Study and work a few hours on a sunlight-readable laptop.
6. Dinner, and then dance. Take a music lesson or twenty from local talent, laugh, make new friends.
7. Sleep in fresh air where I can hear water.

That’s my (very achievable!) goal.

I greatly enjoyed this song, “Noche de sexo Instrumental.” The beat is great, and the dance is hot.

The funniest part of it was the comment I found at the bottom of the page…

“i fucken love diz beat kid itz bangin niga”

That just cracked me up! I don’t know why, but it was hella funny! It still cracks me up!

This is the first real post on WordPress here. We’ll see how far it goes. First things first, I want to pull over all the MySpace and LiveJournal posts and archive them here.

Update 22Sep07: My old photo blog has all the older photography that I’ve posted on the Internet. When I figure out how to make an automated transfer from BlogSpot to here, those will all get copied over.