You see the result. It’s another friggin’ novel. I’m not well-known for my sparing use of words. The thing’s not even finished. The most important sentence of all is missing – the one that gives the whole thing the proper mood. Put on your x-ray gogs, kids, because the font is getting smaller! Wahoo!!!
Unless I decide to write something else.
Hey, you know what would be cool? I’d be cool if I was driving along somewhere, or more likely sitting in a bar with my laptop, and someone said, “Hey, are you that Homeless Tour guy?”
That would be cool. It’d be like being a rock star, except without all the money and chicks.
The real reason I’m posting right now is to warn both of you out there that I’m going to be messing with the site for a bit tonight and probably into the morning as well, so at times it may just fly apart. I’ve decided I need a better header. It’ll still have the name of the blog up there, but in some yet-to-be-dertermined artsy style. More important, it will have a short explanation for new visitors about just what it is they’re getting into.
As long as I’m sitting here bleary-eyed and weary-fingered, I just want to say thanks to all y’all for posting so many comments. It’s funny, some things I write I expect to get lots of comments, and nothing. Then, out of the blue, wham! Comment-o-rama. If you haven’t been pulling your weight in the comment department, it’s not to late to start. You know who you are.
But hey, if you just like lurking, that’s fine, too. Just don’t let it turn into stalking.
Addendum: Anyone know where I can find a font that looks like a typewriter that hasn’t been cleaned in 30 years, so there are blotches of ink everywhere?
Additional Addendum: This additional addendum is to call your attention to the additional addendum (labeled Additional Addendum) in the post “Great Googly-Moogly”. I wouldn’t want all that typing to go to waste.
You can see the progress I’m making on the header – the idea in my head far exceeds my ability to execute. The image is a PNG with an alpha channel, and I haven’t tried looking at it with any Windows browsers yet. If you could take a moment and let me know how it looks on yours, I’d be grateful. That Flowery font was just a placeholder, but now it’s kind of growing on me. You can see that the typewriter part is far too clean. I had the & cradling the H really nicely in a previous version, but the I made the & bigger so it could drop out of the dark blue area and break up that line. We’ll see how it goes.
Most software you get comes with a carefully worded non-warranty. For instance, every time I launch my debugger, it comes up with the message “There is no warranty. Type ‘warranty’ for details.”
I’m not as keen on this one, as I intend to stand behind my work, but I can’t afford to be held responsible if someone does something stupid and loses their life’s work. Also note that I tweaked the EULA a bit (see previous post).
Furthermore, if I say something like, “Hm, I think Jer’s Novel Writer is just what you need!” don’t go getting cheesed if you later discover that JNW was in fact not just what you needed. (I’ll bet you won’t be cheesed, though.)
I’d like to, but I just can’t promise that you’ll never lose work. No one can make a promise like that. Stuff happens. If through some bizarre set of circumstances your computer is damaged, you will have my sympathy but that’s all. This software was created for writing novels, not running space shuttles or guiding smart bombs or anything else where someone could get hurt. It says something about our society that I even have to point that out, but there you go.
I know it’s going to happen. I’m going to get a call from someone who’s been working on a project for months or years, and lightning will strike while he’s saving and his file will be lost. He’ll contact me and I’ll ask him “When was the last time you backed up your work?” and he’ll say “Never” and I’ll say “Oh. Well, you’re screwed.”
You are your own best warranty. Back up your work often. I’ll put some tips on how to do that at JersSoftwareHut.com.
Enough of all this technical jargon and legal jibber-jabber! Click “Accept” and let’s get started!
———
Again, not the final wording. I like the “sorry, Chumley” part the best. As I have now also indicated in the EULA entry, I am appealing for reasonableness rather than air-tight legal protection. I also think that by making it fun and relatively short that I greatly increase the chances that people will read it, and accept the software in the spirit in which it is offered.
I’d take a picture, but I’d have to get out of bed. Use your imagination.
Addendum:
OK, now it’s snowing pretty hard, and I’m out of bed. Your imagination is no longer required. 
Additional Addendum:
The snow let up pretty quickly yesterday. the sun came out and the light dusting on everything quickly vanished. Still, it was pretty nice. This morning I slept a little later than usual, and when I opened my eyes to say good morning to lake and mountains, what did I see but several inches of snow covering everything. Well, that got me up in a hurry.
I grew up in the mountains, so I’ve seen snow in May before. Part of me is saying, “Jerry, what the heck’s the big deal?” But it is a big deal. The way the sun is shining off the snow-laden branches, the way the Internet is down so I can’t work, all these things make life special.
I think the best part about it is the surprise. Having lived in San Diego for so long, I pay no attention whatsoever to weather reports. So when I woke up this morning to discover I had been transported to a winter wonderland in my sleep, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I’m so stupid giddy over the snow I went out in my bare feet for some of the pictures (photos). The picture I’m featuring here doesn’t have the bright sunshine, but I like the composition.
My Internet connection here is relayed over the lake by a satellite dish (although I suppose it’s not a satellite dish if no satellite is involved), and apparently the connection is quite vulnerable to poor weather conditions. Unfortunately, now that you’re reading this, I’m back connected to the outside world and that means I’m currently struggling to concentrate on work when what I really want to do is go out and play.
Ironically, with the Internet down, I would be able to concentrate on work much better, but the tools I’m using have been specifically designed to not work when they can’t connect to the mother ship, for no reason other than corporate paranoia. Ironically, anyone with actual malicious intent could hack the tools pretty easily, but that’s not how I plan to spend my day.
I’m going on a walk.
I had a friend named Venus once. Her father thought that was a feminine name. He went into the hospital to have surgery done to try to save the sight in one of his eyes. They operated on the wrong eye; now he’s blind.
Venus told me that in college she had been engaged to a guy named Jerry Mars. If they had married she would have been Venus Mars.
Red lights, green lights, strawberry wine,
A good friend of mine, follow the stars,
Venus and Mars are alright tonight.
-Paul McCartney
Location: Sam’s Place, Lake Tahoe, NV(map)
Miles: 1891.3
My usual table was taken when I came in, so I’m sitting with my back to most of the action at the bar. The bartender when I came in may be the boss, but I haven’t dealt with her before. As far as she’s concerned, my name’s “Buddy”. She did make a point of remembering where I sat last time.
The person sitting at “my” table was Norm. I’m reasonably sure I met him at a bachelor party once. I didn’t want to go through the false camaraderie we would both have to adopt if I introduced myself, though. I was pretty much a wallflower at that bachelor party anyway, except when we were playing poker. The groom, also my host currently, while not rolling in filthy lucre is doing all right for himself, as are most of his friends. Craig and I were there because our wives were friends of the bride. I think they reduced the money at the poker table dramatically to accommodate us. So while they were playing for what felt to them like monopoly money, to Craig and me it felt like bigtime gambling.
Norm has now left, and I just moved back to my usual table, the faint sizzle of the outward-facing neon in my right ear. It’s important when regularizing to establish patterns that bartenders and wait staff can recognize. Becky just started her shift, and she didn’t use my name, which I told her yesterday. Big setback. I’m going to try to sneak a picture of her now… crap. I jiggled it. 
This isn’t a bad bar at all. Most everyone knows everyone else, so there’s plenty of stories to tell. It’s a safe assumption that some mutual friend did something stupid or outrageous lately.
Normally when I come to a bar I fire up Jer’s Novel Writer, not iBlog. I can concentrate very well on my fiction in a bar, much better than I can at home. At home there’s too many other things I could do, like check one more time to see if anyone’s hit my blog, or work, or (when I had a yard) yardwork. Then there’s the laundry that needs doing, the email, the bills, blah, blah, blah. You might have people shouting and laughing in a bar, but external distractions are much easier to shut out than internal ones.
Yes, sometimes someone will come up to me and say without a trace of irony, “Hey! Hey! How do you concentrate in here?”
The peak of my bar-writing career came two novembers ago for NaNoWriMo , when I took the motto “30 days, 30 bars, 1 novel.” I’ll tell you more about that another time, when I rescue the photographic evidence from my computer that is packed away. It was not a sustainable lifestyle.
Oddly, I am finding the bar to be a big distraction when it is the bar I’m writing about. The theme from Shaft is playing on the jukebox. Normally that would just be background noise, but now I find myself wondering, “Should I write about that? Would that be interesting?” It probably won’t be until I get home that I will be able to write about the bar.
I’ll give you a few facts about the place before I give up. The bar itself is of a rich-grained wood and has a nice curvaceousness to it. There are a couple of separate seating areas. One has a fireplace which I’m sure is very popular when the snow is several feet deep outside. Another has bookshelves. The bookshelves have actual books on them. The floors are rough wood, the cieling in the main bar area is wood with large wood beams, and there is wood paneling behind the bar. The wood is light enough that the bar does not feel too dark. I like wood.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to fire up JNW.
Addendum: This is a photo of Becky pouring a beer for me after she said, “Jerry, do you want another?” I would have said no, but she said my name. ARS is right on track.
It was a very good decision. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the squirrels were behaving normally. I headed north from Zephyr Cove and around the lade counterclockwise, a trip of about 80 miles all told. Not really that much of note happened, I passed the Ponderosa (Home of TV’s Bonanza! Yee-haw!) I passed a ski resort that with a sign that said “Open From Top To Bottom” – I know there’s still snow up here but I have to be a little skeptical.
On the California side the views aren’t as spectacular, but there are more houses right on the water – some of them pretty damn amazing. Emerald Bay was indeed beautiful. I stopped to look around and take some pics. Soon after I pulled out of the vista point, I found myself on one of the most spectacular 200 meters of road I’ve ever seen. The road went along a ridge surrounded by water on every side (map). There was no way to stop – the edge of the pavement was the edge of the world. Sky above, water below, some forest in between, and a ribbon of asphalt seemingly suspended in space. At the end the road dove into some nice switchbacks.
I passed a bar with a homemade giant beer mug for its sign, but I didn’t get a picture. Sorry about that. I bet they had a blast making it.
It is also remarkable how patient the drivers are on those roads. People may be going slowly, but the person behind will hang back a polite distance and putt along with the rest of the crowd.
At the end I pulled into Sam’s Place, but that’s another entry.
Alas, the bulk if my music collection is in a box in someone else’s garage, waiting for me to ship it overseas. I have 564 tunes on my laptop, which seems like a lot at first blush, but it’s just over 31 hours. Given that a few of the tunes aren’t very good (Enuff Z’Nuff will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes – what the hell was I thinking?) and I listen to my tunes quite a lot, the selection is wearing thin.
I really like emusic.com, where I have found several bands I never would have heard otherwise, but it’s a monthly subscription and you only get so many downloads per month. The 22nd of each month is download day, the day my account refreshes, and I have come to look forward to that day with great anticipation. By now I have several months worth of tunes queued up for download.
My hosts have a bunch of CD’s but I’ve now become too lazy to get up and choose another CD when the one finishes playing. I’m ambivalent about copying music these days; it’s kind of an extension of my philosophy that as someone who is trying to make my living selling software and eventually novels that I shouldn’t be stealing other people’s software and artistic output.
So, any of you have favorite bands with downloadable demo tracks? I can’t order CD’s because I have no place for them to be shipped.
We all like to be recognized. When we walk into a room, we want people to turn and say ‘hello’. It’s not vanity, it’s the need to belong somewhere, to have a place to go where no matter how full of crap your friends are, (it’s never you), they will welcome you and be honestly happy to see you. That’s what being a regular is all about.
Even on my travels, I want to be a regular. While someday I may market the Accelerated Regularization System(tm), for now I share my observations with all ten of my readers for free.
Tonight’s discussion is how to recognize when you have reached regularity. Normally this is not a big deal, it’s just a side effect of finding a place you like to be. There was a bar in Pacific Beach, the Second Wind, where I was a regluar, but not frequent, patron. Eventually Suzanne, my favorite bartender there, came to recognize me, as did other regulars. There was no magic moment when I became a regular.
However, in the Accelerated Regularization System(tm), you have to watch for the signs. Once you know the signs, you can make sure you cross the thresholds more quickly. Here are the measurements:
The greeting from the bartender:
The bartender asking your order:
The regular sitting next to you says:
To the unknown sitting next to you, you say:
At last call bartender says:
When you decide to go in:
It is possible to be a regular without sitting at the bar. While it is possible, it is not easy to become a fixture without sitting at the bar. I managed to pull this off through many years of sitting at a table writing. It is not part of the Accelerated Regularization System(tm). You cannot be a fly from a table.
When in San Diego, I have a favorite bar I started going to the week they opened, fifteen years ago. Triska and I had our wedding shower there. During my ‘married’ phase I didn’t get in so often, but I was still regular. When I began writing in earnest I started going in very often, and became, more or less, the laptop guy. One day, I went in with some friends. I waited at the “Please wait to be seated” sign, and Hope just pointed me to my usual table, then stopped short when she realized that there were other people with me. “Oh! You have friends!” she said. In retrospect, I think that was confirmation of my fixturehood. (Melinda, you might be interested to know that Hope is largely responsible for how much sex there is in Rio Blanco.)
As far as accelerating your regularization, there are two really, really, important things. Learn your bartenders’ names, and make sure they learn yours. Of secondary importance is learning the names of the other regulars. Those who know me will not be surprised to hear that there are people I have sat next to on a barstool for years and I have no idea what their names are. But I know which ones will give me a good argument when I say “Raiders suck” or “George Bush is an idiot”.
There comes a time in every successful software project that one must establish one’s rights. It seems that what lots of people do is find some other company’s agreement and copy it and put their own company name in. They are pirating the anti-piracy language. That can’t help their case in the long term. Also there are templates you can buy with all the necessary legalese, but even they do not hold up in court, apparently. (As an aside, some companies sneak some pretty nasty stuff into those agreements, allowing them to install spyware and giving themselves rights to your work product). The fact that no one reads them and everyone knows no one reads them undermines their validity. Or something like that. I’m no lawyer.
Therefore I have decided to write my own End Users License Agreement, and being a fundamentally lazy person, I have decided to also make that agreement my blog entry for the evening as well:
Heck, let’s just be reasonable here. Jer’s Software Hut (the Hut) is depending on people like you who know the right thing to do. You know the difference between sharing and stealing (sharing good, stealing bad). If you need to ask a lawyer if it’s OK to do what you want to do, it probably isn’t. Why bother? The lawyer will cost you more than dealing directly with the Hut anyway.
Just to make it clear, while you can buy a license to use this software till the cows come home, Jer’s Software Hut owns the code. It would be silly to do anyway, but you’re promising now that you won’t try to reverse-engineer Jer’s Novel Writer or incorporate any subset of it into some other product without express written permission from the Hut.
I will give you the right, however, to make as many copies of this agreement as you want, and modify it and use or sell it to your heart’s content. If you publish it somewhere, I would appreciate credit. (I can see my EULA-writing career blossoming now.)
Heck, you’re not reading this anyway. I don’t know why I bother. I could put in that I have the rights to anything you create with this software, and you wouldn’t notice. You’ve already clicked “accept” like a good little robot. I’m glad I went with the cheap lawyer.
—–
It’s not the final wording, but it’s close. I would be happy to consider any contributions you might have to offer. I think after I have a couple of beers I’ll be improving some parts.
There is actually a reason I use the tone I do (besides just for fun) – I know that no matter what the EULA says, it’s only as powerful as the lawyers I hire to defend it. I’m trying for a moral protection of my work, rather than a legal one. And if I ever did have to defend my rights in court, I think a reminder to the jury that stealing is stealing no matter what legal mumbo-jumbo they hear can only help me.
“All rightey!” I hear you say. “Jerry’s posted something at last!” [Right. just who do I think I’m fooling?] It’s as if the doorbell rang and you’re expecting your favorite mother-in-law. But when you open the door, what do you see? A burning paper bag. You weren’t born yesterday; you know what’s inside.
That’s how I feel about the last thing I posted. You came for Suicide Squirrel II, and got a serious, if muddled, discussion about the role of government. I stand by whatever I said (I’m sure it will make sense in the morning), and I really hope I get lots of comments that force me to develop my thesis more fully. For the occasional random visitor to this blog, though, it’s pretty heavy.
Hey! Occasional Random Guest! Yeah, you! Don’t you care about our country? Or yours? Don’t step on that bag!
In other news, we got a hit on “car passed over” today. Who the heck would search on that? Got another squirrel guts hit, but it was from an insider. Also got “elevator squirrel ocelot guts rutabaga death cult” a couple of days ago from someone in the Albuquerque public schools. Now who could that have been?
First off, let me tell you that the ‘political spectrum’ is a load of crap. No thinking person can be fit under a pat label of ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’. The whole left vs. right conflict is a false dichotomy created by interests who stand to gain from the oversimplification of the issues facing our nation and our world. The whole ‘right vs. left’ debate ignored the possibility that there may be points of view that are neither right nor left.
If you will allow me, I will try to create a diagram of current accepted political wisdom:
<–wacko<—-democrat—-republican—>wacko—>
The biggest flaw in this model is that ‘democrat’ somehow implies Liberal, while Republican is synonymous with conservative. I don’t know how many tax-and-spend republicans we need before we wake up to that lie.
However, the Republican Lie and the Democratic Lie are not the subject of today’s muddled rambling. Instead I would like to discuss why we have governments in the first place. Governments are important, and they are actually good. Tonight is just the first step in developing my political theory. It is inconceivable that I am the first to think of government this way, so if any of you can point me to other references I would be grateful.
So here goes.
There are three major forces in our economy and out way of life. There is Business, Labor, and Government.
Business
Another name for business is ownership. Business has one goal: to make money. Everyone who participates in ownership, which includes everyone in a 401k plan, benefits from the mandate of business to create wealth through the efficient use of resources. Business at its best is a ruthless profit machine.
Contributes: efficiency, growth
Detriments: greed, corruption
Labor
Labor is the representation of the people whose sweat makes business work. The primary goal of labor is to ensure that the profits reaped by business are distributed equitably. Labor stands for fair treatment of workers and proper recognition of their efforts. (I will post later about just how badly labor is doing in the US, and what they can do to improve their lot.)
Contributes: equity
Detriments: inefficiency, corruption
Government
Government represents the needs and goals of society that are not supported by business or labor. For instance, neither business or labor are motivated to protect the environment. Both of them would sacrifice the planet for better return or higher wages. You can’t fault them, but you have to balance them.
Government ideally lies outside the traditional political spectrum. Ensuring the education of our children is not a liberal ideal, it is a pragmatic need of our society. Protecting borders and looking after collective security is another important role for any government.
Contributes: efficiency, education, sustainability, security
Detriments: inefficiency, corruption
Government appears to be a contradiction. How does it simultaneously provide efficiency and inefficiency? I’m glad you asked. There are certain unsung boons, like the bureau of weights and measures, that make business work better, There is antitrust law, which ultimately (when well applied) increases the efficiency of the marketplace and promotes competition. At the same time government is an impediment to efficiency, and well it should be. By recognizing a long-term value on a resource government ultimately makes that resource more expensive.
<added after posting>
Wow. I managed to talk about the inefficiencies of government like they were all good. I left out a bit. Bureaucracy. Red tape. You know the drill. I guess that’s the risk you take with stream-of-conscious political journalism.
I don’t always mark my updates so obviously, but that was a big omission.
</added after posting>
The idea of short-term hardship for greater long-term gain are lost on both business and labor. That is why we ask people from amongst us, people we trust to be wise and far-seeing, to represent our less tangible goals. It is also why we are disappointed with our representatives so often. It is why I am running for president.
All three vertices of my social triangle contribute corruption. Man, I’m a cynical bastard, but I really think I’m right. Another contradiction of government is the pursuit and reduction of corruption. You look at successful economies around the world, and the one thing they have in common is that everyone is held to the rule of law.*
I have a really neat diagram that shows the tension between the vertices of the triangle, but I’m just too damn tired to get it in here.
Before you get too carried away, my description of the idea role of government is not meant to be an endorsement or a criticism of current governments. I’ll leave that for another day. Trust me, I have plenty of beefs with the way things are going now. I feel it is important, however, to have an open discussion of just what the heck the role of government is. Only when we come to some kind of understanding why we have a government in the first place can we criticize the way our current government is being run. Any criticism or praise of current policy should ultimately be founded on such ideals.
———–
* Aaaaaaaaagh! I have to say it. I wanted to stay away from discussion of any specific policy, instead examining the higher ideals. But I have to say it. I can’t stop myself. Do you remember why you’re reading this footnote? If not go back and review real quick. Ready? OK, here we go, then. We’re doomed. Starting with Reagan, the US government has shown increasing disdain for the law. There’s a reason Dub has delayed the release of his dad’s records. Being above the law is also not a partisan issue. When our leaders stop answering to the law, we lose everything.
I was sitting in a bar one day when Bad Bobby said to me, “You know why people go to bars? It’s not to drink. They could drink a lot cheaper at home.” It was a rhetorical question, of course, so I sipped my beer and nodded. You go to bars for the company.
I like bars. I like being a regular. I like being recognized when I go into a place, even if it’s just as “the laptop guy”. You can become a regular very quickly in at least two different ways: you can do something unusual more than once, like open a laptop and work on a novel, or you can talk to the bartender and the other regulars. Generally I go for plan A – I’m not a conversation-striker-upper as a rule. But when the battery is finished and my beer isn’t I’ll sometime come out of my shell.
Whether I join the rest of the ebb and flow of humanity at the bar generally depends on the bartender. Theirs is not a job to envy, on their feet for hours on end, serving the same old drunks and hearing the same old conversations, just trying to make ends meet, when the only thing worse than getting slammed is getting no business at all. A rainy day might mean you don’t make rent.
Yet bartenders are, by and large, a cheery and friendly bunch. I expect that the ones who aren’t don’t last long in the business. I have watched them give every appearance of being interested when some moron tells them the same story for the third time that night. I have watched them end fights with grace and diplomacy.
This may come as shock to you, but I especially like it when bartenders are attractive women. Let’s face it, that’s the only time a woman is going to bring me a beer whenever I ask for one, and it’s the only time a woman will laugh at my jokes (I tip well). Even better is when the bartender has stories to tell, opinions, and no compunction about sharing them.
Now I’m on the road, and being a regular when you’re not in the same place very long is difficult. I was definitely a regular at Charlie O’s in Scotts Valley, having visited four times in two weeks, and lingering the last two times to chat with other patrons (and, of course, Kristen, the bartender). Since then, I’ve been in a couple of nice bars, a chain bar, and up here in Tahoe a couple of “locals bars.” Not dives, but not fancy either. (Sam’s Place, my first non-California bar on the trip, made me remember that it was after the nonsmoking laws got passed in CA that I started going to bars.) I may be here long enough to regularize myself, but I have to find the right bartender first.
Specific stories about specific bartenders will have to wait, except for this one: Almost exactly a year ago I was with Mikie, Mike, and Art in Louisville KY for the Kentucky Derby. We were staying at the Sheraton Blah Blah Blah and the usual bartender in the little hotel bar was Heather. What a sweetheart. We had some great conversations, and I watched her pretend to have conversations with all the losers that were in there with me. On the last day, when everyone was pissed off that Empire maker had lost (except, notably, Mikie, who bet on Fungicide to win, Yours truly, who hit the exacta, and Art, who hit the trifecta), the bar was decidedly ugly. Everyone was drunk on mint juleps from the track, and there was a long-running feud between two groups that never got quite bad enough to throw them out, but the atmosphere was poisoned. She brought Art and me are drinks and said to me quietly in her charming KY accent, “I may be smilin’ but it’s fake.” She told me later after things had settled down that she had also just broken up with her boyfriend, but had nowhere else to sleep.
As a side note, I had been having beers with a guy in that same bar the night before the race, and he showed up again after, only to be mobbed by people. Apparently he was one of the owners of Empire Maker, who was the heavy favorite and considered to be triple-crown material. We managed to have one quiet beer before the hordes drove him from the bar. He was a nice guy, the kind of guy you want to have perched on the bar stool next to yours.
I haven’t seen Heather since that day, but she will always rank among my favorite bartenders. Wherever you are, Heather, I know you’ll hold it together.
Location: Leza and Mark’s place (map) (photos)
Miles: 1726.5
I was moving, traveling through the hot California air, tunes playing, momentum taking me up and out of Silicon Valley and into the mountains. Stopping was out of the question. Still, there’s that big, poorly shielded (and getting less well-shielded as time passes) fusion reactor up there in the sky, bathing us all in dangerous radiation. Having managed to retain a tiny bit of wisdom from my radiation damage two days previous, I knew that sunscreen was in order.
No problem. I have a convertible, and I know that the sun is not my friend. I have sunscreen out the wazoo. I open the little console between the seats to grab a tube and an important reciept I had in there starts to fly out. I catch it before it takes wing, shove it under my leg for safety and fish out the lotion tube. Alas, it’s a poorly designed tube (can’t put it down with the top off – who thinks of things like that?) so I decide to choose skin cancer for a few more minutes rather than risk crashing. I set the tube in my lap.
Not long after that I crossed a bridge to discover when I got to the far side that it was a toll bridge. It was a good thing I had stopped at an ATM this morning. I grabbed a couple of bucks from my wallet but while shifting around I came to be sitting on the end of the sunscreen tube. I was unaware of this unhappy little fact for many happy miles. Now I have sunscreen on the wazoo. And on the upholstery. And on the important receipt.
On a happier note, I am now in a very nice place. As you can tell from the photos the scenery is spectacular here, and it is very peaceful. In my room is a microwave and a little fridge already stocked with a few beers. La Dolce Vida indeed. I will be adding to the photos over the next few days. Sunset should be good, looking west over Lake Tahoe.
I finally hoisted up the printout of Jesse’s criticisms of The Monster Within. Got through part one tonight – the easy part, the part Jesse had gone over before. Part two is still undergoing a major rewrite. Man, it’s great to have friends who can tell you when you suck. That just makes the compliments mean something. John, I know you’re looking forward to the chance to tell me I suck, too. Just remember that it’ll mean all that much more later.
A pause for a joke before I get on to business:
A friend is the person who will come out in the middle of the night to get you out of jail. A REAL friend is the guy sitting next to you in the cell saying, “That was fucking awesome.”
Speaking of fucking awesome, Mom asked me for the URL for the blog yesterday. I don’t want to hold out, but to be honest I’ve already been censoring myself, and I’m not too happy about that. I’m no Hunter S. Thompson, but there have been times I’ve kind of pulled the punches. For the most part it has been as a recognition of the fact that most of my exploits are simply not that interesting. Any thoughts I have at those times that are perhaps even remotely interesting I am sure to share.
A few things I have done that don’t deserve their own entries:
Went to the DC United vs. San Jose Earthquakes MLS game. It was the first game in which Freddy Adu started. Kid could play. I was there. Got too much sun. (Why. oh why have I not learned? This time I put sunscreen on parts of my body, but I decided that my arms didn’t need anything. ???!!?. That’s like saying, “Oh, my stomach already has cancer, so I’ll go ahead and eat some plutonium.” What possible rational reason is there to not put SFP 1,000,006 upon your entire body?) I like hockey better than football from any continent.
The night before, I went to a dance club with a couple of Buggy’s hungarian friends. Buggy was there, too. The music was horrible. I know I’m just being an old man complaining about the so-called music the kids are listening to these days, but there was a point when I thought things were improving when the bass played a second note. Sorry, kids, Some guy shouting – givin’ it to ya – telin’ ya’ll uh huh hu huh – Givin’ ya’ tha’ sto-ry – tellin’ of the glo-ry – Step back kick stand frappuccino blow dry! is not my kind of tunes. Watching well-dressed Palo-Altites shamble aimlessly to the angry Hip-Hop was almost worth it.
But not quite.
I have of late compared paying Microsoft for anything to paying a tax. Only I get more value from my other taxes. Yesterday I paid Microsoft again. I got a virus. Yes, I admit I was a little careless; I thought I was behind a firewall and I wasn’t. Today I had the firewall on and I was infected AGAIN. It’s a new virus that exploits no less than six Windows vulnerabilities. OK, maybe five. Still, what are we paying these guys for?
Nothing personal to Buggy, who challenges me intellectually more than anyone else I know, but I have to get the hell out of here. He has been a great host and a most valuable technical support guru, and all he has to show for it is a broken microwave and a depleted wine cellar. There is a pool here and I could get comfortable.
Tomorrow morning I’m gone, gone, gone.
