Getting My Ducks in a Row

How'm I doing? Just ducky:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/11/16/i-likes-u-ducky-1-i-eat-u-last/

My classes at Miramar are going very well. I carried out my first "lesson plan" last week. I went over to their child care center, and for five or ten minutes I led them through "Heads shoulders knees and toes," some stretching, and some jumping.

I tried to invent a game for the stretching... "look, it's a bird in a tree! can you reach it?" but I think the "guy in the bunny suit off to the side who wanted to high five us" was too much for the tallest boy, who said very politely, "excuse me, I don't want to do this stuff anymore" and I told him "Okay, that's fine, you can go" and he fled to the playdoh. I bet he wished he was jumping with us, though.

The kids' teacher praised me for my presentation, and was glad it was so active.

It was fun. I go back tomorrow, and we will mix up plain yogurt, bananas, strawberries, squeezed oranges and limes, cherry juice, and honey. I'll pretend to teach them some stuff about vitamins and we'll eat :)

For each ten minutes with the kids, I take a few hours of vacation time from work. Totally worth it :)

Jihad Joe

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5339-2002Mar22

whimper

Jim's out of town. Normally I can't get myself to go out by myself, but one of my favorite bands was playing. I didn't think I could do two bands, so I skipped the opener and went late.

I was "just in time" except... the wrong band came out. And the lady in front of me said "this band is older than the other band". I had a bad feeling so I asked... I MISSED IT!

It was way crowded and the music didn't grab me much right then (through my bitter disappointment of course) ... so I left.

Whimper.

The band names are in equal type, the other band first, and the band I wanted to see, second... but now I see the tiny tiny picture in the ad is of the other band.

Well, I tried. And if I had not tried, I wouldn't know this would have happened, and would have felt bad for not going. Argh.

Use Your Ipod, Go to Jail

http://changingway.org/2007/10/03/sony-seems-set-to-sue-us-all/

Motivating what?

At work, to celebrate the new world order, they took down, in the mailroom, all the pics of people who have worked here over the last 30 years, and their kids, at picnics and stuff... and put up "motivational" stuff, for example, a pic of a DOG POOPING. Yay.

(It says "are you straining for your next (whatever, I forget)?")

Summer Vacation: the Main Event

We took our now annual pilgrimage up north, for a weekend of hot and cold running hippies, kids, bluegrass, rock and roll, and good food.

On the way up, we stopped at Gilroy Gardens. It has a lot of rides for kids and a lot of cool plant stuff. It's a bit pricey at $40 but worth it at least once. More often if you were local and had kids.
This tree was created with grafting techniques that supposedly have never been duplicated.

Imagine spending decades to create something like this. There are several dozen of these in different shapes around the gardens.

Thursday morning we drove up to Campbell to spend an afternoon with my brother Robert. "Tall Barbara", who also lives in San Diego, joined us. On Friday we went to SF to a music store called Lark in the Morning.

Here is Barbara in her new Matrix, at Fisherman's Wharf:

They had lots of strange and cool instruments at Lark in the Morning. Jim bought a dulcimer stand and Barbara bought some percussive fruit.

Then we escaped from the city around 3pm and missed the worst traffic.
From there we went to Hank's to commiserate on his not joining us this year (he'll be back though!) and spend the night. In the morning we picked up "Movie Barbara". When we walked in to her place there was much gasping and exclaiming at the view.




We drove on up to the music festival and got our favorite camping spot...

...right next to our friend Juice, who we've been seeing here since 2005. His is the ginormous tent behind ours. Here is Juice, settling in with some Sox and Violins.



To me, this is heaven, right here:





As if the beautiful location, fantastic music, and great food were not enough, there were fun activities. I'm told they originally thought Tie Dye would be for the kids. Hah! :)

Here's my effort:




The music was Totally Fantastic as Usual. (Even if Joe's dad was not there this year. I did put his CD on top of the pile for sale, though :) One of these days I have to learn to jig. These bluegrass Dead cover bands go back and forth between "hippie dancing music" and "jig music"... at which point my blood says "you should KNOW THIS" and my body starts jumping up and down like a demented monkey.

My favorite band of the weekend and in the whole world at this moment, is Hot Buttered Rum. I finally learned their name. When they came out, Jim said "this is the skinny bass band" and I said "oh THESE guys, I LIKE THESE guys!!"

(As Country Dick Montana once drawled to me in the Belly Up Tavern, I have a shaky grip on reality. Too bad I didn't know it was him, till ten years later when someone filled me in!)

Within a few songs I was up front, having so much fun that tears were coming out of my eyes... That band is trying to kill me with dancing. But it will be totally worth it.

I managed to stammer out some kind of adoration to Nat Keefe later and he was extremely nice. I couldn't believe I spoke at all. If it had been Bryan Horne I would have probably fainted :) I love the Bass instruments, did you notice? :)

It's so cool though, these guys just hung out and ate with us'ns.

Nina, bless her heart, managed to keep up her "second set person" reputation and still go home before sundown. Here are Jim and Nina, in their "natural environment" to quote Jim:


We were glad to see her, and got a group shot:

From the left: Movie Barbara, Karen, Jim, Tall Barbara, Nina.

On Monday, Jim gave a little mini-concert on the dulcimer for those of us packing up.
In the background, you see Mike, getting out of his car with a look of wonderment on his face, thinking "what does Jim have there?" Jim got quite a lot of attention. The kids were entranced and the parents were right there with them.

Mike is from Northern California, but we first met him and his friend Harriet, who is from Orange County, in Tennessee, at Bonnaroo, in 2004. Jim walked up to this lady in the food line, and said "You are a Fat Head!" and Harriet said "why yes, I am!" We have been seeing them all over, ever since. (I guess it was the t-shirt :)

Some things are universal, I suppose. Music, and perhaps, Tractor Fluid.


After the festival was over, we went to Mendocino Coastal Gardens:



and another branch of Lark in the Morning. Then we went back to Movie Barbara's.

The next day, Tall Barbara left. Jim and I took over the living room and played music.

We also watched An American Werewolf in London, and went to her favorite local haunt for Pizza, beer, shots, and finally....

Grand Marnier Souffle.

Mmm...

Be Here Now

Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm in the right place, at the right time.
This morning I woke up feeling bad, and decided to come to work late.
On my way in, while driving in scenic, traffic-free Sorrento Valley at 11am, I heard "Burning For You" by Blue Oyster Cult. That's where "time to play B sides" comes from. It's one of my favorite songs.

I try to enjoy moments like that and take heart that I might be on some "right path". One that involves coming to work at 11 am. :)

I don't know how to explain all these other moments though...

How I spent my summer vacation, part 2

My brother Robert came down from Northern California, for a track meet at Cal State San Marcos. He fit right into our household, and took over most of the web surfing duties while he was here.

Here he poses in his track uniform, in our living room, and at the field, with some of his teammates:



Here's a bit of levitation. I saw a lot of this; they were all doing it!


The next day, we went on a VIP tour of the Wild Animal Park, for Aaron's birthday. This was WAY COOL, the absolute best and fun time.

Here are some of us visiting with a Frogmouth, which is not an owl. Aaron knew what this was, and our guide was *extremely* impressed.



Do not look at Lazr Kitteh with remaining eye:


These are California Mule Deer, which moved themselves in with the Rhinos. They are squatters:

Oh yeah and I dyed my hair burgundy.

She's no fun, she fell right over

I was moving some dirt around in the back, so that I would not fall over when hanging some laundry. So my back spasmed. It was weird, it didn't actually hurt but it was a definite spasm.

I hit the dirt... well actually I gently sat down in the dirt. The dirt was hot and soft and nice, and I tried to calm down the muscle. I eventually hung up the laundry and went about my day.

But now... I gotta say... ouch. It's quite sore.

I guess now I don't have to worry about moving any dirt around for a while. Drive or bus, that will be my hardest question for a few days.

Ouch.

How I spent my summer vacation, part 1

People were yelling FREEBIRD.......

No wait I mean, yesterday we went to a museum.
A few weeks ago we went to a similar museum.

A week or so ago we had visitors.

Somewhere in between we had other visitors but
somehow all we took pictures of was socks.

More and funnier later.

Welcome to Summer

And just to prove it, after today I'm not coming back to work for 5 days.

Over the weekend we're going to this:
http://www.ctmsfolkmusic.org/festival/Solstice/default.asp
where Jim will get his third lesson from his East Coast Hammered Dulcimer teacher. I'm bringing my acoustic electric bass in case they have a workshop for me or something. Probably it will just get a nice car ride and I'll get some tunes.

On Monday, we're picking up my mom, bringing her back, and ditching her while we go to House of Blues to see Hot Tuna. She says she wants to hang out alone since her house is too crowded. I'm not sure she Really understands we don't have TV. I don't think she'll be willing to run the computer to watch DVDs or Daily Show episodes on the net but we will see.

Tuesday I'm staying home and hopefully some folks will bring some babies over and distract my mom.

I think we're ditching her on Wednesday night for a Humphrey's show, as well.

She'll be staying until she gets bored and gets on the train home. If anyone else wants to come by and distract her, please let me know. I'll be in the back yard digging to China.

By the light of day

everything looks just as messy, only brighter.

new photos here

I Has a Shovel

This is progress?


Badger Badger Badger


Badger Badger


Badger

Badger

Badger Badger


Badger Badger Badger!


Meanwhile, in the Front Yard, I started re-excavating the sprinkler system so Jim can fix it. This is where the pine tree roots grew around the pipe and snapped it:

This break is what started this project.


Jim planted a little garden in the front yard. Awwwwwwww:



This is the view of it from the sidewalk. This is after I cleaned up the yard a bit, and added the little rock border:


I dug this section out, with some help from Cousin Steven, yesterday and today:

I used my NEW SHOVEL that Jim got me. He's so nice. It fits me and does not give me splinters.

I HAS A SHOVEL okthxbye

Me, too

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/06/14/this-is-mah-job/

Changes

My department is getting reorganized. All around me, people are anticipating changes, having meetings, making plans.

As far as I can tell, none of it has anything to do with me. Some things never change... Although sometimes they seem noisier and/or more boring by comparison.

If anyone wants to share any work gossip with me, feel free.

Manual Labor is fun

We recently had all our trees removed, including this poplar tree.

We waited until it was really ugly to have it taken out:

It was nice for shade and privacy, but the roots were getting into the garden:


And under the house:


Meanwhile, the ex-living-xmas-tree in the front yard:


was eating the sprinkler system:



It took months and finally it took friends of friends since grade school to get someone to give a decent quote and then return our phone calls for scheduling.

We paid them an extra couple hundred bucks to dig some trenches for irrigation.


We have been excavating large poplar roots from the remaining cement-like dirt and boulder combo, using a 20 pound digging bar, a shovel, and my fingernails.

In the picture above, the top shows the width of the trenches they dug. For the bottom part, we widened their trench until we got to the cement patio.

We were already digging out the root system below, when we gave up on the garden because of the need to have the trees out. We were really tired of pulling happy poplar roots out of the garden every year, after initially digging out all the rocks, and putting in real dirt.



Triumphant!



Serverhenge waits patiently:



We used to have a third poplar tree. I took it out with shovels and hand saws, and made a bench out of it, that no one will sit on but me:


Which way should we go next?

You can see even more photos here:

Before tree removal:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeemshome/sets/72157600005508789/

After tree removal:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeemshome/sets/72157600056539276/

"You can't just cut down a poplar tree":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeemshome/sets/72157600332736332/