Beth's Contradictory Brain

Feelin Monterey

We were last here about 3 years ago. It was the same sort of deal, Nerdstar had classes and I spent 3 days wandering around, watching waves. I easily found my way back to my favorite places this morning. Nice.

There is nothing like standing and seeing sky meet water meet earth - all in shades of grey. It's amazing how loud water crashing over land can be, and how soothing the sound.

My hair could not be more curly.

Sea lions lying on rocks - endless amusement.

Monterey is totally dog friendly, too bad Ramen isn't here. Although we're pretty sure he'd be totally terrified of the waves.

Travel Woes

Yesterday was a damn long day. It started with me arriving at the airport about 8:30 a.m. for a 10:10 departure that, of course didn't happen. At 10 they said they'd update us at 10:15, at 10:15 they said they'd update us at NOON. WTF? They actually told us about 10:40 the flight had been cancelled - mechanical problems. Great. So I ran back upstairs to the ticketing place and was put on a 2:15 flight through Chicago. My original arrival time is SF was going to be about 6 p.m., now I was looking at 8 p.m. That flight left a little late, but I made my connection in Chicago in plenty of time. Of course, there was no way things were about to start going smoothly. We left the gate on time, but then sat on the runway for about 40 minutes. Apparently some big storms popped up in the middle of the country we had to go up and over - meaning we had to take the long way. Fantastic. I finally made it to SF about 9 p.m. (midnight for my body clock). Then we had a two hour drive down to Monterey which I'm sure was beautiful in the daylight.

I swear airlines really just don't want people to fly anymore. I'm not at all optimistic that Saturday will go any better. Fortunately/unfortunately, Nerdstar and I are on different airlines coming home. Maybe one of us will make it home on time.

But, I'm here and it's really, really good to see my Nerdstar!! She's in class until about 4 every day, so I am going to drive around and find a nice spot on a beach to watch the waves and maybe sea lions.

It's nice and cool and foggy this morning. I love it.

Disturbing

This is long, but well worth the time. Suppression of Homosexuality-Related Speech by a principal and school board.

On Vacation!!

This evening I'm taking Ramen over to our friends' house, they have a dog a lot younger than Ramen who looks a lot like him. He'll be sufficiently worn out when we rescue him next weekend; he might even be happy to see us.

I'll be traveling all day tomorrow. 10 am flight outta here, 3 hour layover in Dallas, then the two hour drive from SF to Monterey. At least the two hour drive will be nice for catching up with my girl!!

The high temp will be 65 while I'm there. So nice! I truly intend to spend the afternoons watching the waves come and go.

One way or another we'll have internet access.

Be good. I'll check in on you all later.

One Trillion

Simply Amazing. Of course, I wonder how many are dedicated to pr0n.

Quiet Weekend

I knew it would be. I did manage to take Ramen to the park yesterday, but it must have been too hot. There was only one other dog there and Ramen didn't run around too much before lying around. I really can't tell if he misses Nerdstar, sometimes he acts weird, but he's a weird dog. He's going to spend next week with our friends with the younger dog, hopefully he enjoys it. At least he'll have more excitement than usual.

Nerdstar made it from Hawaii to Monterey today. She was supposed to fly out yesterday, but ended up having some loose ends to take care of. It was a very long two weeks for her. At least she'll be settled in before I get there Tuesday. Tuesday's a long day for me travel wise. Just over a three hour layover in Dallas, ugh. Oh well.

Nerdstar's rental car is a convertible - way cool! We fly out of SF early Saturday morning, so we might spend Friday night there instead of Monterey. Who knows.

Saw Batman today. Wow. There wasn't a bad actor in the movie, they were all amazing. I think it would take a second viewing to really get my head around all of the ideas it made me think about, but I'm not sure it's one I'm in a hurry to see again.

What He Said

Your first amendment rights don't apply to my blog. I'm not going to pull quotes from it because you should read the whole thing.

Interesting he brings up Australia and how it's constitution doesn't have free speech, since I was just wondering why they were different than us.

If that entry is too serious, this one is fantasticly, smartly, funny!!

Update

Yesterday was a decent day.

I had looked at a map of the area around here and found a road that goes along the Potomac and thought it would be a cool motorcycle ride. I don't ride as much around here as I'd like because it's generally pretty scary to drive a car around here, and I take it personally when someone tries to run me over on my motorcycle and it makes me feel all homicidal. Not fun.

Anyway. The weather was perfect and I taped my little map to the gas tank and off I went. Then, I proceeded to misread the map and kept having to make u-turns. Thankfully, the original route wasn't too terribly long, because I ended up doing it all wrong. Instead of riding about 45 miles, I rode about 70. The upside is that the gas in the tank was getting old and I needed to use it up and put new stuff in.

It is a cool road with some nice places to stop and watch the river roll by, and it goes right in front of Mount Vernon, which is kinda neat. I'll take Nerdstar once she gets back.

Then I watched a couple of dvds.

First up was Big Rig. It was ok. The coolest part of watching it was seeing all the places we'd been to on all of our road trips.

Then I watched a sad little film called The Dead Girl. I wouldn't recommend it. Not sure why I thought it would be good and Netflixed it. I try to avoid those kind of movies - dark and independent. It's like watching too much CSI, real life can suck enough, don't need to watch that sort of thing. (Shut up, I know Buffy has it's dark stuff, but in the end it's all good.)

Not much planned for the weekend so far. I'm pretty sick of my own company.

Oh, but I have gone out and played some free poker lately at a nearby restaurant. Too many of the people are missing too many of teeth for my taste, but I did meet one nice couple. Bonus, in one tourney I got 4th place out of about 65 people, in another I got 7th. Not too shabby.

Way Cool

Looks like Buffy is kicking Spiderman's scrawny ass is the finals of this long, ongoing Best Superhero Ever contest.

Reading Democracy

Howdy Folks. Not too bad a day here today. I was even more productive that I intended. Not only did I go to WalMart, I got my car's safety inspection done. It's due next month, but we're not back until the 3rd or so and I really don't trust The Man in this area to not ticket my car sitting in the airport parking lot.

My biggest accomplishment is making it to page 65 of Democracy.

Nerdstar thinks I should go back to school and seriously study history. I have no real interest in that. I'm not sure who would annoy me more, the liberal professors or the other students. I wouldn't like having a set reading list. And it's not like there's a job at the end of that course of study I'm looking for. Yes, it would be cool to be a part of a think tank like AEI or something. But I really don't think I'm that kind of smart.

I like my scattered approach, reading books about topics that interest me. And what I'm finding is, as everyone knows, the more I learn - the more I realize how little I know about just about everything. I also sort of understand why PhD papers are always on such narrow topics. It wouldn't be that hard to imagine studying colonial New England death penalty issues. As opposed to the broader topic of colonial New England in general, or even colonial New England laws altogether.

One thing I found interesting in my 65 pages today; it was the colonists who were the most zealously religious who began the precedent of the most political freedom. He also talks a lot about townships and how democracy flowed up from them to the counties, states, and then eventually the nation.

It's a very hard book to summarize. I'm more getting impressions from it than coherent ideas.

One thing it made me wonder about is why is Australia different from America. Maybe it has to do with the first settlers being convicts. I don't know. But they never (as far as I know) had the Revolution we did.

I'm getting a better understanding of American History, but it's humbling to realize I know almost nothing about the history of other nations.

And I keep wondering about the causation/correlation between Democracy and Capitalism. Does one require the other? Does one always lead to the other? There's no pure form of either, so I don't know.

Make Room For the Cupcakes

I'm sure most of you have never heard of Invader Zim, or seen any episodes. I watched all of them while Nerdstar was in Iraq, and Gir (he's the one with the teal eyes) cracked me up. There are a couple of instances where he couldn't be more like my Nerdstar. In one he gets this cool navigational "upgrade" and he and Zim go to try it out. Once they get totally lost and Zim tells him to turn it on, he says he can't, he took it out to make room for the cupcakes. In another he says in the sweetest of voices "I love you" to the pizza delivery man. That's why he's part of her tattoo.

This cartoon follows that idea.

Coolest Campaining I've Ever Seen

Running for Office.

I hope he wins.

Journey

This is one of those things on the internets that make the internets so fun. (heh) Journey At The Center of The Earth. via Throwing Things.

What makes this even more fun for me is that before Nerdstar left I was watching VH1 Classic (as usual) and they were airing some Journey concert with the NEW lead singer. At first I was just listening and thinking, wow, he does sound like Steve Perry. Then, I got a good look at the guy and OMG, he's this Philippino dude. Now, I knew about the new lead singer, but seeing it was a whole other thing.

Half Way

Well, we're at the halfway point until I see my Nerdstar again. I think this is the least depressed I've been of all the times she's been away from home. I'm doing a decent job of getting some things done on my days off, and keeping myself entertained. We've also gotten to talk a lot more this time, which also helps tremendously!

She's not having any fun at all and finds the whole thing pretty frustrating. I'm proud of her for stepping up when things need to be done, and for not going postal as I probably would.

Not much planned for the rest of the weekend. I finished up the John Adams series the other night. I didn't know he and Abigale were married for over 50 years. Wow.

I decided to try to tackle Democracy In America by Alexis DeTocqueville. I think I got a good translation of both volumes. We'll see how much of it I get read, but I think it's worth trying.

Other than that I'm still finishing up season 6 of Buffy. I'm going to start at the beginning of Doctor Who and see how far I get.

Nice

There are still times I feel guilty for only working MWF. But, they pass. Partly because work is still stressful enough that I like having days off in between. And partly because running errands is no fun when everyone else in the world is doing the same thing. I've always liked having a day off during the week to get things done.

I'm trying to get back to my main goal at work - being really nice to the patients who end up at my desk. You would think that would be easy enough. But I've found that my frustrations with other things/people at work spill over. We've got five different software programs to use related to patient registration. Two of them are actually for the lab, the rest is to get information related to billing issues. Um, I don't see billing doing anything to make MY job easier... Then a lot of times those programs don't even work. That's frustrating. There is also a lot of infighting among my coworkers. I've gotten much better at staying out of all that mess. But still. That's frustrating. The amount of bitching and moaning in the place is still high.

Then there are the actual patients. Old sick people are not nice. They are deaf. (And why in the world they all refuse to use hearing aids is beyond me! They make you yell to be heard and then get pissy you're "yelling" at them.) They are grumpy. They are rude. They are demanding. Makes it kinda hard to be nice.

But, I'm working on it.

What He Said

Hehehehe... The world is a mess... and I just need to rule it!

If you don't know what Dr. Horrible is all about, well, watch it anyway! Joss is still a GOD!!

Kayaking Pics

I finally remembered to go pick the pics up. Here they are over on the photoblog. We just used a little waterproof disposable camera.

John Adams

Two more weeks. Ugh. We have gotten to text each other a lot, and spoken on the phone most days so far. Poor girl has to get up early and do some sort of PT then sit in meetings all day. I guess that's ok though, she's not supposed to be having any fun.

Yesterday I watched the first 2 of 3 dvds in the HBO John Adams miniseries. I don't like any of the actors in it, but I'm still enjoying watching it. I'd say it's a nice overview of the times it covers. And I'll never be able to express how much I admire the people (not just men) who made this country happen. I'm a true believer that this is the best nation in the history of the world.

There are always questions of what Washington and all would think of how things are today. But I'd be curious as to what, if anything, they'd change in the Constitution if they knew how it'd be so argued over for the past 200+ years. Would they have made the 2nd amendment more specific? Would they have more clearly defined what power each branch has? I know they did the best they could just balancing the issues of those times in addition to thoughts of the future.

Then I ended the day watching more Buffy season 5 - which I'll probably finish tonight so I can move on to seasons 6 and 7 eventually (depends on how much time some of the stuff in my Netflix que takes to get here and to watch).

Stream of Consciousness

It's 9:41 p.m. Saturday night and I'm surfing around the internet, trying not to feel too lonely, or to think too much, or to let too much boredom in. It wasn't a bad day, but...

About 11 years ago, maybe closer to 12 by now, I first heard Ani Difranco. Wow. Within a month of hearing Shameless and a couple of other songs for the first time, I had every cd she had made. And while I can't agree with her politics, I still think she should be required listening for every 12 year old - boys and girls.

So, I'm listening to a webstream of some performance of hers, and feeling wistful and nostalgic.

About the time I found Ani, I found lesbian chatrooms. Sometimes I miss them. Sure, they were full of drama and bullshit, but I also made some good friends. Blogging is similar, but not really the same.

Pause...

After reading the book that had the stuff about Greta Garbo the other day, I Netflixed Ninotchka, one of her later movies. As many old movies as I've watched, I had never seen one of hers. If I hadn't read the biography of Stalin I wouldn't have enjoyed the movie nearly as much. It was also interesting watching her knowing how much she later couldn't bring herself to make any more movies and hated what we would call the celebrity side of life.

Pause...

Ok, now, don't laugh. I caught Herbie Fully Loaded on my tv late last night and I watched a lot of it because of Ms Lohan being in it and all the news of her and her g/f Sam lately. And honestly. I feel bad for Ms Lohan. Right up until I had my first g/f my senior year of high school, I had lots of boyfriends. I know how weird it is for everyone to wrap their heads around the idea of "oh, you're with a girl now." But imagine if you had to figure all that out while also being some "movie star" with a particular image to maintain to keep working and all that crap. And even with all of our *cough* lesbian role models out there - I don't think it's like she's got people around her to help her with this whole new identity thing. No, I don't see Ellen picking up the phone and saying "hey, welcome to club - here's some tips on things." Hmmm, did find this nice blurb on Gawker (through Goggle, I don't normally read Gawker.)

Anyway. Just something taking up way too much of my brain.

Pause...

The six hour time difference between here and Hawaii is a total pain in my ass.

Pause... (Mom and The Kid called)

Not sure you've noticed the Grocery Shrink Ray phenon, but The Consumerist has been all over it - and it pisses me off every time I read about. Now I guess I need to pay more attention and stop buying products manufacturers do this to.

Pause...

Thank God for limitless texting. It's the easiest way for us to keep in touch since the Army is keeping her rather busy with early morning runs (ha ha ha) and meeting after meeting after meeting.

Long Pause...

Last but not least in this way too long post. Patton Oswalt's speech he gave at his former high school's graduation. Via Michele.

It's 11:22 now, and I need a shower and to at least try to sleep soon.

Fun for the weekend

No, I'm not particularly having any, more just relaxing. But I saw these two videos over on Althouse and think they're really cool.

It's fun with water and cornstarch. Somehow I've missed out on this my whole life.

On so many levels

This is a fantastic cartoon for my Nerdstar - I'm sure she really does feel that out of sorts time wise. She's on her 3rd time zone in 4 or so days. Even better, she's on her way close to Honolulu, and Taipei is her original hometown.

More Reads

One day last week I read Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle. It was a really interesting book. It's a memoir about growing up poor and on the move with an artist mother and drunk genius father, and how children survive and escape and thrive.

The info on Amazon is much better than I could write - and watch the short video of the author.

Last week I also read Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima by Stephen Walker. It chronicles the events from the first test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima three weeks later. It's incredibly well researched and written and I learned a lot.

I'm not intentionally reading all this stuff about World War II, but it certainly seems to be a theme lately.

On one trip to the library I didn't have any books in particular to pick up, so I was just browsing through the biography isle. I picked up two diaries/memoirs by Cecil Beaton - no I had no idea who he was when I picked them up. He's a photographer and fashion artist. The first one covers the 40's, and that's the one I'm trying to finish up today or tomorrow. World War II is certainly part of the background, and it's interesting to read it's different effects on the artists in London and Paris. He was actually at a dinner party with Churchill one evening. And was outside the Palace on V-Day. He also had a long term close friendship with Greta Garbo that's fun to read about. The next book covers the 60s.

Alone Again

It sucks coming home to an empty house, especially knowing it's going to be empty for the next three weeks. Sigh.

We had to get up at 5:00 a.m. so I could get her to the metro so she could get to the airport. That came awfully early after not getting to sleep until around midnight.

In spite of all her time in the military, Nerdstar is not so great at packing, being efficient, or on time. We joke all the time that's she's always going to be a 12 year old boy at heart. I imagine trying to get a 12 year old boy ready for a three week trip is about the same as getting her ready. I had her start packing Monday night, because I remember it took her many hours last time and I didn't want our last evening to be spent with her packing. So last night we did manage to go out to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. Then she still spent almost another 2 hours getting things ready. When we were finally getting ready for bed I asked if she was ready to walk out the door, everything packed, good to go. She said yes. Uh huh - sure. At least we made it out the door on time this morning.

I almost feel bad for her. In spite of being in great locations, near Seattle, then in Hawaii, it seems her time really will be spent doing very dull stuff with people she'd rather not be with. Like after traveling all day today, tomorrow they have a "commander's run" scheduled for 5:30 a.m. Nice.

Because she didn't get her class in Monterey rescheduled, I'll be flying out there at the end of the month. Airfare is outrageous, but that's our only expense other than food and fun while there. I'll spend 3 days watching the waves roll in and out while she's in class! Can't wait!

Plus, her whole Army unit won't be in Monterey, just her, so I don't have to worry about running into anyone. And she's staying in a decent hotel, not on base.

Presto

Here's the Pixar short film Presto that's playing before Wall-E.

I can't tell you how much we laughed when we saw this!

Again, when you watch it, remember that Nerdstar loves food as much or more than this bunny loves his carrot. We've started doing the whole pointing to the mouth thing all the time!

UPDATE: Damn Walt Disney - they had the video removed. I'm sure the whole thing will be up again eventually.

Here's a preview of Presto, guess we'll see how long that stays up.

Death Wish

I swear, most of the pedestrians in our area have a serious death wish. They cross in the middle of the street, wearing all black, at night. This happens way too often. and not just in residential areas.

I would love to mount one of those police dash cams in my car so that when I actually hit one of the dumb as dirt people I can show the video and not only be found not guilty - everyone in the court will cheer for the thinning of the herd.

Rest of the Weekend

Friday we finally got things worked out with LA-Z Boy. Apparently it was a delivery mistake and not the crazy sales ladies. They had canceled out the order after Nerdstar called Thursday, so we stopped by Friday and resigned the paperwork and were guaranteed Sunday delivery.

Yep, we have a new sofa. Of course, then the delivery guys fleeced us for $25 cash to take the old one away. Not wanting to hassle with it, we paid it.

Saturday we had some fun. I've been wanting to try river kayaking for quite a while. I found a place over in Maryland that offers classes. I thought that would be a cool thing to do for this 4th weekend since we didn't go out of town or anything. Thankfully it was cloudy and about 80 and not hot and sunny! It was really nice to be out on the river. The instructor was nice and there were about ten other people in the class.

One good thing to learn is that you should start out paddling against the current, that way when you're tired and on your way back to where you started, you can mostly just float. I knew about currents and such in rivers, but man, it was still tiring. One of the frustrating things about being with a group was not being able to really rest when I needed to. If it had been just Nerdstar and I, we would have been out there for about two hours instead of over three, and at a slower pace. But, I know it's always good to take a class before trying something new, though.

I'm not as sore as I thought I'd be today, but my left arm is still pretty weak from too much use! Maybe eventually I'll find us some cheap used kayaks.

The best part of yesterday was going for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Houston's. We even had some good key lime pie!

Today the sofa was delivered and our other goal is to go wash the dog. There's a self wash place close to here that's really cool. And the shampoo and conditioner they have there is really good stuff.

Orders Update

As was expected, Nerdstar finally got her orders to go to her annual training Thursday. Ugh. But even better, someone decided to sign her up for additional training the following week out in California. So now if both sets of orders stand, she'll be gone for almost a month. To say I've been pissy about the whole thing is probably an understatement. And I've done a good job of making Nerdstar miserable about the whole thing. I think I go through the stages of grief about the whole ting - denial, anger, etc.

Her AT this year is in Hawaii, and we talked a lot about me flying out to meet her and hang out. But since the actual orders have taken so long to come through - I just don't think I want to spend a small fortune on airfare. Plus the hassle of finding somewhere for Ramen to stay and all that.

We're hoping (but not optimistic) that her second set of orders can at least be rescheduled. With any luck we'll find out Tuesday, you know, before she leaves Wednesday. That training takes place in Monterrey, CA. If she can't get that rescheduled I will meet her out there. We were in Monterrey a few years ago and I really like it there.

I'm sure most people would take Hawaii over Monterrey, but I'm not really the Hawaii type. She's not really looking forward to being there either. The whole trip is going to be a nightmare dealing with her commander. And I've told her under no circumstances can she have fun without me. One of her goals is to get an updated status on her process of being medically discharged. It's taking a long time to go that route, but she really doesn't have a better way to get out of the military.

Rant

I'm so tired of feeling nickel and dimed and ripped off in this damn city.

We went out to eat last week, parked in the nearest parking garage, took our ticket with us to the restaurant. The waiter said we didn't need validation on the ticket - just our receipt, which is kinda how I remembered it working last time we went and didn't take the receipt with us. Of course, we go to leave the garage and the attendant says we have to have the ticket stamped, NOT the receipt. Fuckers. It was $3 buck, but frustrating.

Last Wednesday night we went to LA-Z Boy a couple of blocks away and found a sofa we liked that was comfy, even if in a color we didn't like. So we went back Thursday to purchase it. It was easier to buy my new car. The ladies there just couldn't seem to get their heads out of their butts. They were very nice, just incompetent on the computers. Fine. Then the terms of the sale kept differing from the promotions advertised on the signs in the store. Fine. When we left we were under the impression the sofa would be delivered Tuesday. Nope. When Nerdstar called they said it wasn't scheduled - why not? you said it was when we left the store - so they scheduled it for today. Again, nope. They said they'd schedule it for Sunday. At that point, I'm all fuck em. If they can't get their shit together, they can't have my money. So, she called them back and canceled the whole thing. Now we just have to see if they actually refund the $350 we had to put down.

Now, what sucks is we have to start over looking for a new sofa. I tried their website hoping we could purchase it online and avoid the dumbfucks - that particular sofa isn't for sale online, of course. We could to do a different store location and start over with them. Maybe. The next closest store is at least 30 minutes away.

I wish these events were out of the ordinary, but they don't seem to be.

Waitstaff at all the different places we eat can be hit or miss. Too often it feels like we're invisible.

Ugh.

Funny Stuff

Ryan at Rambling Rhodes has been one of the most consistently funny dudes I've read over time. His IMs with Caroline are great stuff.

Ryan says: We should totally open an amusement park called "IMworld."

Go read the whole entry!

Gays in Wisconsin

Wisconsin gay couples who marry outside state could face penalty and jail time.

What bullshit.

Comments

For reasons unknown to me, comments aren't working on my site. It says they're all questionable content. I don't know how to tweak it and make it work. Bleh.

Update... ok, comments should be working now.