Gas Station nonsense
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Life

Waking up this morning, I remembered one of the more odd moments of working the graveyard shift at a gas station in Lake Worth, Florida 17 years ago.

The first thought was how silly it was that it was illegal to sell alcohol between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.

The second was the recollection of a woman running into the store one morning around 5:30, her face and chest crimson with blood, running from her battered nose.  She asked me to hide her and said her boyfriend was high on coke and chasing her. She wore a blue tanktop and had pale blonde hair.

I called the police and they arrived shortly.  They searched the lot in the predawn light and found the boyfriend stupidly trying to hide in a pre-fab concrete drainage tube that had not yet been installed nearby.

He was swiftly restrained and placed in the cruiser, where he swiveled around and kicked out the back window with both his feet.

Having to catch this guy twice aggravated the police a tad...

The cops basically hog-tied him with plastic restraints.  One then picked him up about a foot off the ground, dropped him and then apologized, with an insincere air.  He was then picked up again, and advised to watch his head seconds before it was rammed into the side of a second cruiser prior to landing on the back seat.

I recall the police wearing plastic gloves and coming into the store afterwards and purchasing a small carton of milk.  It was to be the second most lively morning I spent at the store...

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Columbia Gorge Photographs
Current mood: jubilant
Category: Art and Photography

Alex, a gaming friend from Pittsburgh, was out to visit Portland last week.  On Friday I pried him away from Guitar Hero III long enough to visit about five of the dozen or so waterfalls to be found in the lower Columbia Gorge.  It was a gorgeous (please groan at the bad pun) day!

A few of the pictures can be seen at: http://www.xodarap.com/columbia_gorge.htm

9:00 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

California Burning
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Travel and Places

The sky darkened to the west yesterday and the smell of smoke started out faint upon the warm autumn air.  Curious, we decided to take a drive, further inland first, up to Ojai, a steady stream of cars headed toward the coast, we speculated on where the fire was, not knowing there were fires burning in seven counties.

Insulated by the car, with music rather than news as a further layer between us and the outside world, we roamed, watching the sky, scanning the passing license plates.  After a time passed, we, too, headed coastward. 

The sky shifted from an indistinct haze to an other-worldly filter, morphing the light around us to a yellowish-orange haze.  We mused on the surreal quality and remarked how this must be how William Gibson sees some of his potential futures, how perfect it was for a catastrophe film.

The sun, riding high, went a deep orange before turning ruby red.  I was captivated by its color and watched it often.  The smoke so thick I could look upon its face with no discomfort.

A deep orange in the sky over the ocean to the southwest, perhaps a reflection from the fires raging in Malibu as we neared the sea in Ventura, some 40 miles to the northwest.  Ash fell from the sky, making my eyes water and contact grate against my corneas.

Outside the car, the air now smelled like a campfire was nearby, strong enough to seem like it was less than 30 feet away, though the fires were burning miles and miles in the distance.  Santa Ana winds brought the scent of destruction and it's residue of ash from the south with such swift clarity, origin and distance became meaningless.

I learned today a person died in a one of the fires outside San Diego.  Some of the houses I had been shown the week before along the Malibu coastline were gone. The fires are burning still, devouring the sere ground and any man-made structure in their path.

Reflecting on the day, I remember the smells, the alien quality of light, and life under a blood red sun.

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Bryce Canyon Photos
Current mood: rejuvenated
Category: Art and Photography

Okay, so they are well beyond a year over due.

http://www.xodarap.com/utah.htm

Oh, and ignore that ancient photo of me with a mullet.

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New pictures posted.
Current mood: chipper

From Mount Saint Helen (Birthday trip) and camping on Orcas Island:

http://www.xodarap.com/washington.htm

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The Voice
Current mood: creative
Category: Writing and Poetry

I wrote something new today:

http://www.xodarap.com/20070924.htm

9:38 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

First flight over the Canyon.
Category: Travel and Places

The price of gas in Williams ranged from 2.67 a gallon to 3.09 depending on how close you were to the freeway.  Considering most places before this were running around 2.49, this was ridiculous.

After reading the tourist brochures and making a few phone calls, I scheduled a 3 hour plane tour of Monument Valley, Lake Powell, Marble Canyon, and the Grand Canyon for noon on Monday and a 50 minute helicopter tour of the canyon for the following day, just because I had never been in a helicopter before and it was on my list of things to do.

Williams is about 55 miles south of the Canyon, its only other distinctions are it is on Route 66, Interstate 40, and the passenger train that goes back and forth to the Canyon starts there.  I ate breakfast at a Route 66 diner that was a plastic and chrome shrine to all things 1950 and small town America.  After breakfast I discovered there is more than one Route 66 diner in town, how sad.

I then drove up to the tourist trap that surrounds the GC airport, grabbed some snacks and found the check in desk.

It turned out that a family of four had booked the trip and I got the last available seat.  Fortunately, they sat together and I got to sit up front with the pilot in a Cesna 270 Turbo painted white and lichen green. The father was sitting right behind me, so my seat was almost all the way forward for the entire flight.

After taking off, flights have to go east a bit before entering the canyon due to noise abatement ordinances.  So, your first 10 minutes of flying is over the forest but you can see the rim of to the right some distance away.  The canyon itself is utterly amazing and mind boggling.  I cant say I had any epiphanies whilst viewing its vastness, but I did keep wondering where all the dirt went.  A lot of it is a pretty bright red and should be easy to spot  Around the border of where GC becomes Marble Canyon, we then cut cross country for about 25 minutes to reach Monument Valley and Navaho Mountain.

Ill get the pics up on my site sometime this week and let them speak for themselves. I took over three hundred pictures on that flight and was surprised that less than 5% were blurry, even when using the zoom.

Cutting back west, we went along the south edge of Lake Powell and then over the Glen Canyon Dam.  Finally, we came back down Marble Canyon then passed over the North Rim of GC and along the Dragons Tail, crossed the rest of the canyon and finished up west of the airport with another 5 minutes or so of forest time before landing.

In all, it was a great flight, the pilot seemed knowledgeable and rattled off information here and there and played music from his mp3 player the rest of the time.  He even leaned forward and ran his shoulder harness over the window for me to take pics out of his window when we passed stuff on the left side of the plane.

Three hours of gawking in a cramped position while craning all around to angle the camera was enough for my powder puff self for the day.  I drove back to Williams, picked up dinner from Safeway and holed up in the hotel room watching HBO.

1:07 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

3409 miles later...
Current mood: tired

I am going to break this into a different post for each day, but the short story is veni, vidi, and then I came back home.

Sunday was rough.  I woke up later than I had wanted and with a hangover to boot.  After a quick shower, I said goodbye to friends and got back on the road.  I had driven less than 40 miles before I pulled over into a hotel parking lot for a snooze that lasted a half hour or so.  Still feeling unpleasant, I got back on the road.

My original plan had been to stop off at Zions National Monument and climb the Angels Peak trail, which I recall as having the most breath taking vista at the top.  As I drove south, there were a few kinks in my plan.  First, when I walked to the rental place to pick up the car on Thursday, I wore the wrong shoes and socks and had a nasty blister on my heel.  Second was the condition of my head.  Third was the amount of snow left on the ground.  So, down around Cedar City, I changed my mind and drove to Bryce Canyon instead.  Of course, if I had figured this out earlier, I could have saved myself 80 or so miles of driving by turning off earlier, rather than having to go back north to reach the park.

Did you know the entrance fees for national parks like Bryce and the Grand Canyon are now $20 a vehicle?

I have not been to Bryce since I was sixteen or so.  It looked very much the same, save for the snow and lack of heat shimmers that accompanied the 90 plus degree weather we had the first time.  I got there, hobbled around, took pictures and then started heading south again.

Somewhere along this stretch of the road I realized the audio book I was listening to was incomplete, ending about 85 pages short of the end.  I tried listening to the Borne Legacy, but I absolutely could not stand the presentation style of the reader.  Needful Things it was then.

Passing through some small town, I hit the brakes when I saw a sheriffs truck parked on the side of the road.  I was only doing about ten over the limit, but I need not have worried as said sheriff had his head tilted way back and his mouth was wide open.  I was tempted to go back and take his picture, but decided not to push my luck.

It got dark around Kanab so I missed out on the sights as I looped around the north end of the Canyon and drove south for Flagstaff and finally back west for Williams.  It was 11 p.m. when I reached the hotel and I had left at 9:30 that morning.

12:35 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

On the road again...
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Travel and Places

Geez, now I am going to have that song stuck in my head forever.  Well, hopefully I inflict it on one or two others as well...

I got a later start yesterday than I would have preferred.  I had the alarm set to go off at 4:00 a.m. but I must have set it wrong because the next thing I knew it was 7:20 or so.  I had packed the night before, so I just quickly showered and was out the door, sans electric toothbrush and such.

By the time I had grabbed breakfast it was almost 8:00. Traffic in Portland on a Friday morning was surprisingly light.  I tried setting up the iPod to play over the radio of the car but the signal had just enough static to really grate on my nerves so I yanked it and plugged in headphones. I started listening to Blood Hunt, one of the audio books my Dad sent me and found it quite entertaining and great for not getting bored on the drive.

The weather was grand and the Columbia River Gorge was beautiful in Spring finery.  Exiting the Gorge I started running into on again off again rain which would last the rest of day's drive.  My first stop was in Baker, Oregon, about 300 miles in for gas and lunch, my second stop was in Snowville, Utah, another 369 miles along the road.

There is still snow on the ground in the passes of Oregon and in the low hills in Idaho and Utah, it seems they are taking their time with the seasons as usual.  But what can I say, there may be blossoms on all the trees in Portland, but the rain is still here to stay for another month or two.

Overall, it was a smooth, uneventful drive, a bit over 800 miles in total in just over 11 hours.  I was trying to remember last night when the last time was I made this drive.  It had to be more than four years ago.  My mother and sister moved away from Utah quite some time ago and the last time or two I had visited, I had flown down.

It made the drive a bit nostalgic but still all too familar.  My drive south from here tomorrow will be less so, I have only driven south of Provo once and then only as far as Zion's National Park.

Anyway, safe and sound,, operating on about 3.5 hours of sleep, here I am in Stansbury, Utah, a quiet satellite community of the Toole Army Chemical Weapons Disposal Facility.

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Rabbits and Spring
Current mood: good

Ate lunch outside for the first time since Bonaire today.  It feels like spring with the sunshine, warmer temperatures and buds in the trees.  Rather pleasant really.

I also watched a very good movie today called the Rabbit Proof Fence.  Rather than try to relate the entire plot, here is a link for more information:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0252444/

I first heard of the Stolen Generation from a South African working in Sydney as we were driving past the Aboriginal protests outside the nation's capital in Canberra.  A Bill Bryson book introduced me to the brilliant farmer who released a dozen or so rabbits on his farm to hunt and the disasterous nationwide consequences.

Anyway, if you are interested in that bit of history or just a very moving drama, I recommend the film.  I enjoyed the "making of" documentary as well, which was more about getting three young girls who had never acted to be the main characters in the movie.

3:22 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Road Trip update...
Current mood: Impatient
Category: Impatient Travel and Places

I forgot I have tickets to Cirque du Soleil this weekend.  Oops.  As a result, it looks like I will take off around the 31st or so for about a week.  I am really looking forward to it and have been tempted to go early several times.  That said I do have a friend looking in on the place so that Erich cannot come over and steal all my stuff. ;-)  Oh wait, he already has my laptop...

My dad is sending me a bunch of audio books, which will be nice.  I can stay away far easier listening to a good story and to music.  Although, speaking of music, I am hooking up with DJMarko tomorrow who has two new CDs for me.  Very cool stuff, I am certain.

I did find the hotel gift certificate, so now I just need to make reservations and arrange things with friends.  I have made no firm decision on whether to rent a car, but I am leaning in that direction.

In other news, the new motherboard is installed.  Unfortunately, the game I currently play the most, City of Villains, does not take advantage of dual cards, be they ATI or nVidia.  Oh well, hopefully Oblivion does, which comes out tomorrow. (drool)  Annoyingly, the system has done the "crash so hard it has to be unplugged before it will turn back on" routine post upgrade.  This is most unfortunate as that would seem to point toward a CPU issue if it is not a graphics driver issue.  Fun!

4:42 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Road Trip
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Travel and Places

I was watching Contact tonight and as usual was moved and blown away by the renderings of portions of the galaxy.

I was also reminded of how much more of the Grand Canyon I would like to see.  To date I have only visited the North Rim briefly and have flown over it at 30K ft.

So I did a mapquest search and it appears it is only a scant 1340 miles from my door step.  That is two easy days of driving.  In fact, I could stop in California and see friends on the way down, stay the night for free if I still have my voucher for that hotel in Sacramento that locked me out one miserable night, and then continue on.  Maybe swing up through Utah on the way home and visit some of the parks there and visit friends on that leg as well.  Have a free place to stay on that leg.

Eight maybe 10 tanks of gas depending on how many side journeys I make.  Maybe two nights of lodging in Arizona.  It sounds quite doable.  I might need to make sure the car can make it but it only has 70K miles on it and runs fine.  Worst case I could get a rental for a week.

I think I am about ready to stretch my legs.  My camera is in need of use and it is a nice time of year over the next month or so.

Of course, my main reason for posting this is to make it public.  To place pressure or at least the expectation upon myself to follow through and go.

The next step will be to contact my friends with proposed dates and then to meet those obligations.  Oh, and I need to find that bloody voucher.  I hope I kept it. 

The background on that goes like this. There is a lovely bed and breakfast in downtown Sacramento.  I had a reservation to check in.  My flight was late and my colleague dropped me off there at 11:30 at night.  The door was locked and for 45 minutes I kept calling the place and finally called the booking agency.  I wound up staying at the Sheraton down the street and the hotel called me the next day, apologizing, saying the night person was making rounds or some such.  I ended up with a free voucher which I never used and never really expected to.

Just another fun day of traveling for a living.  No wonder I gave it up.

10:00 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Hardware update
Current mood: okay
Category: Games

I got a question the other day about where things were with the computer.  Well, Asus has gotten around to completing and now shipping the new A8R32-MVP (opposed to my lowly and possibly buggy A8R-MVP).  Newegg.com has it in stock as of this weekend, so I should be upgrading my system on Thursday or Friday.

Of course this will mean I will have to reinstall all the hardware and then the OS and then applications again.  It will also mean I am one step closer to having enough extra hardware to open my own bloody store.

In regards to the problems that have plagued me since I built this system, I have found that once I get the system up and running, if it does not die in the first day, it is stable and is fine.  I have had the box running now for maybe two weeks without a crash, which is nice.  I have even rebooted a few times for driver updates without issue.

I think I read somewhere about some of the AMD FX CPUs having issues with cold boots. If this is the case, it would seem this is the culprit for at least some of my minor woes.  I still cannot get get the mic to work though. The OS just does not recognize that there is one, regardless of which sound card or microphone I use. 

On a different note, I checked out a new D&D group yesterday with mixed results... I will likely give it another shot before cementing my opinion and explaining my reservations.  Beyond that, nothing terribly exciting is happening here, which is just fine with me.

8:57 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Fun Science for the day.
Current mood: amused

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

They don't know how they did it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11732814/from/RS.3/

That said, it is one very cool toy.

And in other news, the level of the world's oceans are rising!  At a rate of one inch per 62.5 years...  Geez, I am so glad I read State of Fear by Crichton.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/antarctic_ice_mass_loss.html?732006

By the way, he has a new speech posted on his website:

http://www.crichton-official.com

5:54 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Productivity and Groundhog's Day
Current mood: peaceful
Category: Life

Two topics for the day, largely unrelated save by the day and my musings.

The first is productivity.  I had a pretty productive day, I folded clothes, did the dishes, even those that had to be done by hand, and took out the trash.  I took a friend to work.  Ooh, ahh, impressive!

Of course this is not impressive at all, I am a lazy slob and this is what I consider accomplishment these days of in between.  I find it amusing that I really have nothing new to say to people about how things are going.  Things are going well.  Nothing really new is happening, I am playing the games I enjoy and watching movies.  I eat, I check the mail, I go to bed.  I do the occassional chore.

How is this really different than what I was doing two months ago?  Yeah, I took an airplane to work and answered emails, attended meetings and did presentations.  Given my philisophical outlook on life, what I was doing then was no more important, and a good deal less so simply because I was unhappy doing it.   The only other differences are I was getting paid and it was considered normal and maybe more respectable.

So, topic one boils down to Joseph is still lazy, but is happier overall.  On to topic two.

I just finished watching Groundhog's Day.  Yeah, it is sappy and Bill Murray's character is his usual self-worshipping arse.  The subtle context is what I found interesting and timely.  If you had the time, what would you change in your life?  If you were stuck in a cycle, what would you try to do to break it?

In the movie he is stuck in the same repeating day for over six months.  I have up to a couple years.  In the first three to five months the character just continues on and on in the same general pattern.  Abandon sets in.  Despair sets in.  But finally there is direction and then resolve.  Finally, given that endlessly repeating day, he figures out what he wants and sets about to get it.  In the end, being a Hollywood production, he gets it.

This past month has been full of time passing, my mind in neutral.  Same habits, same pasttimes with as little involvement and advancement in the outside world as possible.  But that is okay, I have more time.

I am starting to feel a vague itch, every once in a while.  In time, given time, we'll see.

Nothing too deep, but I think I have a new affinity for groundhogs. 

3:59 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment