Bien, No

oh s'il vous plaît, my pronunciations are terrible. I can not even roll my r in très bien. How will I ever communicate in french? I know, I know, practice practice practice. Just like baseball. At least I can still play cards. Bought Harrington's two new books on cash games. Now all I need is time from the bike riding, the dining, the theater, and work. No, there is no more time, just squeeze it all together in one big moment. Life was so much simpler a month ago.

Going to be Sore Tomorrow

So after that great fun Friday night, a few of us do it again Saturday night, then Sunday afternoon three of us decided to go for a bike ride. I'll let you guess who is who. After the bike ride from Venice up to the Santa Monica Pier and back, we ended up in skyloft above their home drinking espresso and warm lemon/ginger concoction. After an impromptu yoga lesson where they were either flattering me or just amazed at my rookie flexability, I started to get a cramp in my right calf. I had to beg off before dinner and head to a birthday party at my mom's for my closest cousin. Come Monday morning, I am going to be one sore puppy.

Doggie Flashlight

Poor charlie, looks like a doggie flashlight. Thank you for the crating tips Jenn, he stays there until I get back and un-cone-head him and let him outside now.

Dog Days of February

On the first of the month, My Aunt Yanni passed away. Not being able to say her name, my brothers and I at an early age started calling her Aunt Yanni. I turned on my phone after improv class that afternoon to see two voice mails and two text messages from my sister. After reading and listening to them, she called again. When I answered, she put my mom on the phone who gave me the news. I drove right over there. After cleaning up the place and sorting through her paperwork, the question of her dog arose. Neither mom nor my sister have a hard for him. I have a small one, and could watch him until it's time to take him to a 'no-kill' shelter. Monday I left him in the yard with food, water, and apparently a new hole he dug under the back gate. He came home about two in the morning, or that's when I heard his bark to let him back in. Tuesday, after putting a brick under the back gate, he dug under the front gate, played in the gated front yard, then down the other side of the house to the other back gate and dug out again. He did not return that night. I went walking the neighborhood as before, no sight nor sound of him. Wednesday night after work, periodaclly opened the front door, and the garage door in the alley out back calling his name. Finally about 1:30 AM Thursday morning, I open the front door and yell his name. He slow comes around the from the side of the house to the front door. Tail not wagging, head down, eyes up. Bathed, fed, and watered him before he fell asleep on a pillow on the kitchen floor. After work Thursday, took him to a pet clinic where the nice doctor x-rayed, ultrasound'd, and blood tested the dog. Finding bite marks, he got shaved, cleaned, and a head cone. I got anti-biotics and doggie downers to give him twice a day for ten days. I did not plan to have him for ten days. If things went on schedule, I would have had him at the shelter yesterday. Two co-workers had family members who thought they might want to adopt this nine year old mix breed. One has now said no. The other is still pending. Not sure what the next move will be during the dog days of February.

Three Weeks of Boxes

Three weeks and two truck rental days later, I finally finished moving all of my stuff to the house. I haven't worked myself this sore in years. Now I have a house full of crates that I need to sort through. Also it is amazing what twelve years of squirming away boxes of stuff can collect. I now have nine computer monitors for six computers. Fortunately there is a county e-recycle event going on just a few minutes from the house this Saturday and I can take seven monitors and four computers in for e-waste disposal. Always need two of each, right? Now I have to patch up the holes in the walls [made before I went wireless] and paint and mop the place clean. Then find a tennant to rent the place out, or sell the whole complex. Want to buy a four unit complex?

Moving Up

Been a very busy week loading six crates at a time in the mini and moving all the small stuff to the new place. Tomorrow I rent a truck for the big stuff. In the mean time, a cute little celebration dance by a toy my aunt gave me:

Ready to Move

I went to the new place and signed the lease.
This is going to be a great move for me.
Packing and moving is always the hard part.
Can't wait to be living there though.
Off I go collecting empty boxes...

Home is where

I was at my aunts the day after thanksgiving helping her with some computer issues in exchange for lunch. Also noticed she was packing for her move to New Mexico. She can not find a buyer for the place, and I could lease it out from her for almost double what I am paying now, but it would be two miles from the beach instead of twenty five miles like I am now. Two miles! for about the same square footage as I have now, but with an attached garage, nice little yard, and did I mention two miles down a bike path from the beach? Though it is also a little farther from work, and through infamous west side traffic. The rent would jump from fourteen percent of my take home to twenty four percent of my take home pay a month. That would be very reasonable if I didn't have a mini cooper payment and dodger season tickets. Argh. It's available in thirty days. Do I give the current landlady thirty days notice and move? Or just move? Or just decline the offer and stay put. A lot of things to think about this weekend.

Train for Trains

So, I'm sitting in traffic at a red light and see this huge three car track-testing tunnel-drilling monstronsity right outside my car window. I grab the camera out of my glovebox, roll down the window and snap this quick video of a train that hardly anyone ever sees. It is on the track on first street that is going to part of the new extension to the gold line from downtown LA to East LA. Once they finish, I may start taking this railway line.
Okay, back to work...

I'll answer that

Phone? What phone? Last Saturday afternoon I heard a pop outside my window, but did not think much of it. Noticed the WAN light was out on my wireless router/modem and thought, it will be back later. Sunday morning, still no WAN light, reseated cables, powered router off and back on, waited. Blinky blinky, no steady on. Damn. Went to call my provider. No dial tone. Hmmm. Maybe it's a neighborhood thing and will be back on later. Went out on the balcony and looked out. No neighbors out and about to ask. Must be all watching football or something. So back in I go and keep an ear on a couple of games while working around the apartment. Monday morning. No dial tone and no internet service. Argh. Go to work, report the issue. They can not tell what is wrong over the phone and have to send someone out. Tuesday afternoon between noon and four PM. Fine. Call my landlady for access. She says okay, but she has to go to the store that afternoon. I thank her and go back to work. Tuesday afternoon the phone company repair tech calls and says he'll be there in a few minutes after three PM. I say fine, my landlady has access if you need it. I called landlady and advised her. She says great, I've been waiting all afternoon and I'm gonna kick his butt! I broke out laughing, thanked her again, and went back to work. Haven't heard a thing since. After dinner with a co-worker I stroll in around eight thirty or so. Place is dark, no tenants out and I pull in and go upstairs. Dial tone! Turn on the router/modem. Blinky for a minute, then steady on WAN light! Cool, I'm a happy puppy. Check messages, one on Saturday, mom on Sunday, and a hangup today. Why could I not get these from voicemail yesterday from work? Oh well, have to go and call mom now, just thought I'd tell you first, I'm back....

Every Little Thing...

Sometimes it's years between, sometimes months, but lately it has been merely hours between dreams. I know I stayed up too late last night recording and editing a chapter for librivox.org and when I came home from work this afternoon, went straight to bed for a nap. Had some weird situation dreams last Saturday night after the Dodger's swept the cubbies, and every night there after they have been milder and milder. I can not remember what exactly the dreams were about, but I know I have been having them. Even during this latest nap. Some are wearing me out. Some are floating through the universe. Maybe it's all this Buddha stuff I've been reading lately, or the audio book series I bought recently featuring the works of Orson Scott Card. Can't believe they all came in except Ender's Shadow. Off I go, into the land of audio...

Police Help

I've become the old man next door yelling 'you kids get off my lawn'. Saturday morning, at seven twenty in the morning, new neighbor outside my open bedroom window decides to use an air powered nail gun in fixing up his new home. Which was nice an quiet when the 103 year old lady use to live there. Thing was built in the forties and does need a lot of work, but come on. A nail gun this early? So since he did not response to my gentle taunts, but kept on working, I phoned the non-emergency number and asked a question, at what hour of the morning may one use an air powered nail gun? She mentioned eight or nine AM but it was different on the weekends and would be glad to send someone out to talk to him. Twenty minutes later I hear a car pull up, a knock on their door, and it stops. For hours. Now for days. Guess he was done, or they talked him out of using it ever again. I would have been happy with just after nine AM that Saturday. Construction still goes on. Today he's mixing cement in a wheelbarrow for a new walkway. That's nice.

Acting

The last couple of days have gone better than planned. Even the Dodgers are increasing their lead in the National League's Western Division. The one drawback now is the 'every two minute' cooling fan coming on as I record for librivox.org It's getting very distracting. Maybe I need a portable voice recorder and then just copy it to the laptop later. Maybe. I also took a plunge and signed up for a voice over acting workshop. This will finally test my skills, or lack thereof, of using my voice as an instrument as so many phone contacts tell me I should think of doing. So fine, now to get a professional opinion from real voice over actors and put me in my place. It will be fun to learn another method, none the less. Off I go...

Closer to Normal Week

Had fun attending three Dodger home games this week. [All wins] They are off tonight, so I am home typing this up. I'll be attending three more this weekend. Wouldn't you?

Shreding

Back from holiday, paid three weeks worth of bills and mailed them off today. Now to my shreading pile. I really like my shreader. I feed it everything with my name and address on it. Even catalog page covers and netflix envelope covers. Filled up a kitchen trashbag with my shreadings today. Now, is it puzzle time, or do I throw it all away?

DTV Blues

Last weekend my aunt asks me to take her to a department store and use her coupon for one of those HDTV converter boxes before her DTV coupon from the government expires on Sunday. So on Saturday afternoon, I gather her and her coupon up and head over to the big stores next to the industrial complex. I needed some ink cartridges for my printer too. Might even pick me up one of these converters for the old bedroom TV. I pick out a couple of fifty dollar models, find a package of both my color and black and white printer ink cartridges and head for the cashier. The cashier had not used one of these coupon cards before. We stuck it through the machine like a credit card after ringing up the boxes and it put the forty dollar discount on it right away. Hazzah! Pop in my CC for the rest of the charges and away we go. I go in and set hers up right away. It came with the cable I needed, went through the menus and auto-selected all the channels, gave her the manual and the remote and wished her good night. If only it was so. Went home and set mine up in the bedroom, did mostly the same except I made the change to use channel three instead of four and allowed it to squeeze widescreen 16x9 broadcasts into my little 4x3 format picture tube. I have a good component DTV box on the big screen in the living room, so I knew the channels pretty well, and settled in for a late baseball game. Ring, ring, ha! Aunt lets me know that some channels are not looking right. I head over and play with the antenna. Her poor little rabbit ears are kaput. We pull another set off of her back room TV and get all the channels in. Plus I make the same squeeze and channel three adjustments on hers that I did on mine. She likes it and I head out again. Next day, Ring Ring! Everything is black, no channels coming in. Oops, I head back over there and see that she has the TV on channel four like I told her the first time. Guess I didn't mention that I changed it. Showed her how to get channel three on the old remote control first, then change them with the new remote. She's happy until I ask if she has an outdoor antenna we could use. Well the cable is in the back room, so now I have to get some cable long enough to run to the front room, maybe with a few wall outlets too if I can't stick it behind the molding. Work is never done for the willing nephew...

Beware of Grandfather's Telling Stories

Yesterday, I was buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for Athena (my wonder dog) at Wal-Mart and was in the check out line.
A woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think I had, an elephant? So since I'm retired, with little to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again. I probably shouldn't, I continued, because I'd ended up in the hospital last time. I awoke in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms. However, I did lose 40 pounds on the diet, so I was giving it another go.
I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is you load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete and I needed to lose a few more pounds. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was, by now, enthralled with my story.)
Horrified, this woman asked if I ended up in intensive care because I'd been poisoned by the dog food. I told her no, it happened because I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's ass and a car hit both of us.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard!
WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore

Fire Behind Me

I started smelling smoke through my home office window, then saw flashlights in the yard below me, closed all my windows and ran out to open the gates for the police, told them it was the neighbors place behind me. The police went back to investigate while I stayed in the fresh air. They told the firetrucks where to go, who then had at it. Sounds of saws cutting into the garage roof. Well, it use to be a garage. My landlady just told me that a family was living in it. Not tonight. Finally came back upstairs and found my camera in time to see them mopping up. Sorry folk, no flame pictures for you. I'm going to need to air out my apartment once the smoke from next door settles down, yuck.

Wandering Week

Listening to the Dodgers lose five straight is never fun. Though there were moments of fun. Streak finally broken in Wisconsin this evening. One more game there on Thursday afternoon before moving on. Enough of baseball for today. Took mom out to a nice restaurant last Sunday afternoon and got current on family history. We are flung all over California, with some in Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and soon New Mexico. Arizona was so forty/fifty years ago for any of us. Southern California Electric is now billing a tiered system. If you use a nominal amount, which I do even with all these computers because no air conditioning, one stays in tier one. Use a lot of electricity in a month, and you could get a bill that includes tier five rates. Here in the LA basin it is not so bad. In the San Fernando Valley, it gets very hot, very quickly, and longer to get to tier two to make it 'fair'. Fair is a concept that eludes me. Whenever a large organization, like a utility, tries to be 'fair' someone is going to feel put upon. I haven't heard a major outcry yet, but this next month should be a good test as we start having triple digit days and very cool and breezy evenings. If I ever get my air conditioner rolled out of the closet and hooked up, I may jump straight to tier three rates and have a lot of fun figuring out my bill. It might even be over thirty bucks a month! Sure was lucky to find a place upstairs with windows on all four sides. If only it was closer to the beach, like fifteen miles closer. Or to the mountains. No, it would only add to my commute four point five days a week. And paying fifty bucks for twelve gallons of ninety one octane is about half-way to my point of consideration of an alternate method of transportation. In the mean time, the cooper is still my favorite toy.

Months of Laundry

Why do I do this? I waited almost three months before doing it this time. It is a good thing that February is a short month. Eighty of these, eighty pairs of those, hours and hours between the washer and the dryer and the video games and the music and the internet tv. It almost got to the point where I had to go out and buy new stuff. I have way too much stuff, especially clothes. Still have shirts I wore in high school, thirty years ago! Maybe I should start a donation hamper together. But I like all of this stuff. Maybe someone else will too....