Talk Talk

A while back I was editing a music video for a new director. He wanted me to edit at his studio, so I'd go there at night after my day job. On a nightly basis I'd meet some random new person I hadn't met before, all of them young fashionable kids who seemed fresh out of art school. 25 years old, maybe 27 tops, but nobody appeared to be anywhere close to my age.

Then one night I went in and saw one guy sitting at a computer who looked like he could have been 60 years old. More telling than his age, he seemed out of place with his level of cleanliness. He was disheveled in a way that looked like he might not have showered in a week, and his clothes probably hadn't seen a washer in a while either. Luckily he didn't stink.

Being the polite and friendly guy I am, I went over and introduced myself. Mainly to find out what his role at the studio was, because my noodle was having a hard time making sense of his presence in the studio. He turned around and shook my hand (which I kept away from everything until I could get to some sanitizing gel) and he told me his deal.

He launched into stories about how he used to be into computers and how he had a real estate business, and that's when I noticed at least 3 of his front teeth were missing. I couldn't get a word in edgewise as he told me about his furniture making companies and how his wife left him and finally we got to the place I knew we were heading: He was homeless.

Apparently the director had just met him on the street that night, and the director hired him to make silkscreens and tatoo logos all over Venice. I figured I had enough info to make sense of the situation and to get back on track with trying to get work done. But the guy never took a pause long enough to escape politely. It's then that I put two and two together and figured the guy was probably a lot younger than he looked because he was a meth burnout.

Finally I was rescued by the director, who had been giving instructions to one of the art school graduates. He turned around and said "Hey could you guys keep the conversation down? I can't even hear what I'm saying here." Yeah. You guys. Plural. I don't think I'd voiced a single word since "Hi, I'm Lee". It was all meth beast from that point on.

I said "Excuse me, I think I better get to work" and I went upstairs. While I was editing, all I could hear was the homeless guy rattling on about this and that, and when somebody played a new wave tune from the 80s he said "Right on man, is that Pink Floyd or somethin?" The director shouted downstairs to the guy that he was going to have to stop talking or he'd be kicked out of the studio. He was booted shortly thereafter. Surprise surprise.

Gish

A few weeks ago at my last gig, I noticed that something was amiss in my little edit room. Generally I like to keep a tidy workspace. No extra clutter cluttering the room. No empty coffee mugs lying around. Pens and papers in their proper places. But on this day something didn't feel quite right.

I took a step back from the console and I finally saw the problem. There were two extra chairs in the room. Two extra chairs making my little edit room littler. So I did what any borderline obsessive compulsive editor would do: I walked out of the room and began searching for a place to put these extra chairs.

The answer lay right next door in the adjacent little edit room, which had only the editor's chair inside. Plenty of room to house the two extra chairs. So I rolled each chair into the other room. As I went to close the door, my attention was diverted from the closure of closing the door. My hand slipped off the door handle and into the area where the door latches into the doorframe. Bang. Ouch. My middle finger was smashed and gashed and immediately started bleeding profusely.

As I went searching for the medical cabinet, I couldn't help but think "Why did I do that? My room was fine with the extra chairs. I could have kept on working without this smashed bleeding finger which impedes using the tools I use for working. Why?" I found the healing gel and some bandages and kept the bleeding to a minimum.

In the following days, I made the extra effort to heal the wound as quickly as possible. I made sure to keep a fresh bandage and ointment on the finger at all times. And in a week, the finger was almost completely healed.

Did I learn to accept the fact that sometimes people leave their chairs and junk in my little edit room? Did I learn to accept clutter? Hell no. I learned that, with just the right amount of obsessiveness, I can do anything.

Rooster

It was inevitable. Simply by having a goddamn e-mail address it was inevitable. I received some nude pictures via e-mail today. Nude pictures of some random person, inadvertently sent to my e-mail address. And it couldn't possibly be pictures of a nude hot woman. No. Women probably don't send nude pics nearly as often as men. It had to be pictures of a dude. And not just nude pictures of him. But up close and HELLO yes very very personal pictures of his junk. Rightfully so these pictures landed in the "Junk" mailbox.

I don't know why, but for some stupid reason I always need to know what the unread junk mailbox count is all about. Usually it's about choosing the right contractor to upgrade my house. Or it's spam for flowers this Valentine's Day. But today it was two innocent looking mails from what looked like a personal e-mail address.

I clicked on the first one and was exposed to two shirtless upper torso pics of a guy, photographed in a mirror, who looks like he's frequenting the clubs. I clicked on the second link and within less than a second it was HOLY CRAP RIP MY EYES OUT NOW!!!! This while I was at work, with no NSFW warning from this pornographer. Before that second deadly click, I vaguely remember having some thought shoot across my mind about "don't click on that second one". And then the ick bomb landed. I've heard of people sending nude pics, but for everyone's sake please verify the address first before hitting the send button. Can't we just get rid of e-mail altogether? Ick.

Word Up

Lily sent me an e-mail the other day with the subject line: Note to self - Don't enter this film fest.

She found the following posting on a parents online forum in LA. Posted by the founder and producer of the film fest which shall remain unnamed, because... well, just because. And the film fest is here in LA, the capital of like all the movies in the entire universe!


The Microsoft Word program driving me crazy. It shows me a kind of q
looking character with an extra line every time I hit return.

I cannot figure out what to turn off to make it stop.

Please help.


What year is it? 1993? Yeah, Word has been making the "q looking thing" every time you hit return for decades now. And to make it go away you hit the very same "q looking" button on the toolbar to do what Microsoft calls "hide". No more wacky q thing everywhere. Or any of the other formatting that you may or may not want to see.

Thankfully most films don't have words on the screen. Or q-looking characters. Otherwise she might have a real problem getting films into her fest. Note to self: Don't enter that film fest.

I've Been Tired

Every day we drag our asses out of bed for one reason or another. I do it because I need drag the boy Judah's ass out of bed for one reason only: to get his ass to preschool.

Part of getting him ready involves making him breakfast. In my half-awake stupor, the best thing is always pre-prepared food. I'm not talking microwaveable McMuffins or unhealthy junk like that. It's more like food that I can pull out of the fridge or cupboard, tear it open, and put it in front of the little tyke. Mainly it's yogurt squeezers and oatmeal. Those are pretty easy to make when your brain is only saturated with half a cup of coffee.

Grab tube o' yogurt from fridge. Tear open. Hand to child.

It's that simple. And the boy is cool with that for now. But just one yogurt squeezer isn't going to fuel his four-year-old activities until snack time at preschool. So I generally try to give him something else like a bowl of oatmeal to round out the half-asleep breakfast prep. And the oatmeal prep is just about as easy as the yogurt.

Grab packet 'o oatmeal from cupboard. Tear open. Pour into bowl. Add hot water. Stir and let cool. Hand bowl to child.

It's a few steps more complicated than the yogurt squeezer routine, but not much more complicated. Or so I thought. Last week during the oatmeal prep, I did the steps: Grab packet 'o oatmeal from cupboard. Tear open. Pour into trash can.

Wait, pour into trash can? Yep. Opened the packet of oatmeal and just poured it right into the trash can. Judah witnessed this and shouted "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!?!?!?!!" Apparently he's a lot more awake than I am first thing in the morning. And a lot more hungry. I could only chuckle as I grabbed another packet of oatmeal to try again. Maybe I need a more simple breakfast routine.

Grind

As has been well documented, I have a fairly decent coffee addiction. Luckily my current workplace has a coffee making system that requires no more than grabbing a filter, opening a packet of grounds, pouring grounds into filter, and pushing the "brew" button. Monkey push button.

I've made more than my fair share of coffee at the office. For some strange reason, almost every time I go to grab the steel pot of coffee, there's none left. I have no idea how an empty pot of coffee happens, because nobody in their right mind would ever walk away from the coffee machine empty handed.

The office coffee setup has two types of Starbucks packets:
1. Sumatra - a dark roast
2. House Blend - a medium roast
The steel pots even have velcro affixed little tags with the Starbucks logo that say "Sumatra" or "House Blend", so you know what kind of java to pour.

When I first started working at this office, I just grabbed whichever was available. But now that I'm off the cream and sugar, my taste buds are much more in tune with the differences between the two. I never realized how burnt and bitter the Sumatra tasted until I tried it black. The House Blend actually has a pleasant flavor, so I only drink that, and I avoid Sumatra like the plague. Even in the deepest darkest throes of the morning coffee jones, if only Sumatra is ready, I'll wait until I've had a chance to brew some House Blend.

This morning when I went to the office kitchen, I saw that the Sumatra pot was in the brewing station, not the warming station. Not a good sign for the likelihood of the House Blend availability. I picked up the pot and did a little swirling motion to feel if there was anything left, and I was in luck. As I was pouring the coffee of choice into my favorite black mug, a lady who was apparently in full coffee fix mode walked over toward the machine.

"Thank God for Sumatra." she proclaimed while staring blankly at the coffee machine.
I set down the House Blend pot and started walking back toward the edit room.
"Thank God for coffee" I replied as I brought the mug up to my lips to take a sip.
As I walked away, I heard her say "It's better than that weak House Blend shit that some people drink."

I didn't know what to make of that comment, but I chuckled as I took a sip and kept on walkin. I guess some people's brains don't turn on until they get their first cup o joe too. Just like mine.

Help!

Guest writer Mrs. Linkey-Loo relayed a story this week too good to pass up:

Standing in line to buy Spring Training Tix:
Behind me was an old grouchy guy followed by a SF Police Captain and a Highway Patrol. A minute after 10am (tix went on sale at 10), a guy comes running up, panting,
"There's a guy down the block. I think he's hurt. He's laying face down on the sidewalk, not moving."
The officials just stand there.
Cop: "Is he homeless?"
Guy: "No, no - his definitely not homeless. His bike is on the ground, he looks hurt!"
CHP: Sure he's not homeless, huh?
Guy: "NO! NO! He needs help."
Then a woman runs up, sharing the same info. Finally the cop calls in for help. Neither of these guys was going to lose their place in line.

High Fidelity

Ever since we got our HDTV for the living room about a year ago, I'd been jonesing for an HDTV in the bedroom. And to give myself a kick in the rear to get the TV purchase moving, I swapped out our SD bedroom cable box for an HD one. Months went by and I was still watching the HD to SD downconvert in the bedroom.

On a routine Costco mission, I spent more time in the TV section than usual, and I finally settled on a nice 26" Vizio box. I showed the missuz, and she didn't like it. What did I expect? She didn't think we needed another HDTV in the house. This coming from the person who gets to watch her Bravo network addiction in full SD glory on an HDTV, while my viewings of SportsCenter have dwindled to maybe an hour total a week.

But Lily eventually came around while we were still in the Costco, and she thought that the new, thinner Vizio LED 23" TV would be a welcome addition. Being the research freak I am, I couldn't bear to bite the $299 bullet without finding out every last detail of what this LED TV was made of.

Days later I still couldn't decide. Suddenly I remembered the HD LCD computer monitor that I had purchased a few months back for editing. It was HD. It had 1080p capability. And I'd only paid 150 bucks for it. I pulled it out of its hiding spot in the closet and hooked it up HDMI style, and bingo! Glorious High Definition Television in the bedroom! Needless to say that sucker stays fixed on pictures coming from ESPN.

But the sound. Oh the sound. That little computer monitor was never meant to pipe out decent audio, now was it. Besides that, I had no way of controlling the volume through the remote. That would be so pre-1980 to have to walk over three steps to the monitor to turn the sound up or down. Besides, I'd have to get off my lazy horizontal ass in the bed to do it as well. Time to research some speakers...

Happy Holidays!

See you in 2010!

Break In Case of Anything

Like every good citizen these days, I'm trying to be more earth friendly. And like every citizen who wants to stay healthy, I'm trying to get more vitamin C. These two worlds collided recently at work. The workplace where I was, uh, working had some little mini-cartons of orange juice. Funny thing about mini-cartons: There's no need to use anything but the carton to drink it. No straw is necessary. Sure, big cartons like milk cartons are for pouring into a glass unless you want to get the stink-eye from your wife as you put the milk carton up to your lips.

So I was dumbfounded when I found that these OJ mini-cartons at work had a mini-straw in a mini-plastic sheath glued to the side. Not too earth friendly if you ask me. The mini-carton was labeled "poke straw through side" or some shite like that. No way. I was out to prove that mini-carton mini-wrong by opening up the carton the way good citizens did before the advent of the mini-straw. Forget the fact that the straw had already done its earth damage by existing in the first place, I wasn't gonna use it. I figure I'd save it for somebody who might want to use it to snort drugs or something. Something the mini-straw was probably needed for more than drinking out of a mini-carton.

I started to rip open the front of the mini-carton just like you do any other carton, and here's how successful I was:



Yep. Not gonna pour OJ down the front of my shirt. Vitamin C: 1, Earth: 0.

LAX

A few weeks back I took my first solo flight in quite some time. It's amazing how quickly you can get through check-in and security without having to wrangle kids. My flight was departing at 7:30 am, which meant I had to be ready to board by 7, which meant I should probably be arriving at the airport at 6. Which meant I'd be getting up before the crack of dawn.

So I prepped everything as best I could the night before and set everything by the door so I wouldn't be making a bunch of noise and waking up the baby Blaise. Being the obsessive traveler I am, it was a foolproof plan.

But I am a fool. After getting up and somehow ready to head out earlier than scheduled, I went to grab my keys. They weren't near the door. Not anywhere near the door. Soon I was tiptoeing around the bedroom with a mini Maglite searching through jackets and pants pockets hunting for keys. Clock ticking loudly. I must have gone back and forth through every room twice before noticing the keys hanging off the edge of a canvas Trader Joe's shopping bag that was hanging off the edge of a dining room chair.

Next I'm pulling my car into short-term parking at LAX near the US Airways terminal. I'm making note of what level the car is parked on, and I'm briskly walking across the skybridge over the LA airport traffic jam below. Security is fairly easy, seeing's how I have no kids to manage and I only have a carry-on bag and my backpack.

I wanted to get coffee, but I thought I'd better get some rest on the first leg of the flight. I estimated I'd get some shuteye, land, get up in the air again just in time for beverage service right before the caffeine withdrawal headache hit. Turns out the flight was so quick that I didn't have a chance to get any sleep.

And now I was in Las Vegas for 30 minutes before my next flight started boarding. So I did what any red-blooded American stuck in an airport in Las Vegas would do: gamble. Not that there's much action in the airport except slots, so I pulled out my wallet and found some singles.

I fed one into a slot machine. The machine spit the dollar out. I fed it back in. It spit it out. I grabbed a different dollar and fed it in. It spit the new dollar out. Since I wasn't getting any gambling done, I did my own mental gamble and thought "if this other machine doesn't take the dollar, then I'm done." I reached over to the next machine and fed it a dollar. It spit it out. Obviously somebody didn't want me gambling, so I took the hint and opted for some food instead. I grabbed some type of pocket pita thing and headed to the gate.

We got into the air and the caffeine withdrawal headache started to introduce itself. By the time beverage service made it to my seat, I had to ask for two cups of coffee. Who the hell could predict when they'd be back around? Knowing US Airways, probably never. The coffee was so bad that I had to break my streak of drinking coffee without cream and sugar. I downed both cups at just below scalding temperature strictly to kill the oncoming headache. Disaster averted.

I had planned to use some of the plane ride to work on a music video, so I pulled out my laptop and portable drive, inserted the earbuds and got down to business. 20 minutes into it, one of the male flight attendants came by and asked if I wanted another cup of coffee. I pulled out one of the earbuds and said "no thanks". As he turned to walk away, I thought I heard him say "Do you have enough stuff?" It's just a laptop and a mini-drive. Jeez.

We landed, I did the meet and greet, and before you know it I'm back on a plane to Los Angeles. This time the flight was completely full, as in zero seats available and I get seated next to a guy in the middle seat who doesn't fit in a middle seat. I bailed on the idea of doing anymore in-flight editing. A few cramped hours later I'm back on the ground in LA.

As I walked past security, I could see a skybridge to the parking garage, and a sign with an arrow pointing in that direction which said PARKING GARAGE. Sweet, I don't have to go all the way down and back up again, I can just go across. I was so sure it had to be a trick that I asked the security people "Can I really go straight across to the parking garage?" The security guards looked at each other, then both looked at the PARKING GARAGE sign, then back to me and nodded. Must be my lucky day.

Halfway across the parking garage, I noticed that I was walking toward a parking structure that wasn't the same one I drove into the day before. I turned around and walked back into the terminal, only now I had to go downstairs to get past security. And to be able to walk on the ground level to get to the right garage.

I got outside and saw the right garage and started walking towards it. And then I noticed that wasn't the right parking garage either. Suddenly I realized why I wasn't where I thought I should be. Because the outbound flight was on US Airways, and the return was Northwest. Completely different sides of the airport. Not just any airport. LAX.

And because it's LAX, getting from one side to the other ain't easy. I decided to take my chances and use a skybridge to the nearest parking structure and hope to be able cross the middle to my parking structure. One broken elevator and a flight of stairs later, I was able to cross a skybridge and I found out that no, you can't cross. You must go down from the skybridge to the ground and walk around no man's land, the section in the middle of LAX.

I felt like some sort of refugee with my rolling carry-on as limo after limo passed me. Remarkably I walked by two or three other people who appeared to be in the same boat as I was in, rolling their bag around searching this way and that to find out how to get back to their cars.

Things started looking familiar and I found the right parking garage. Because I was parked on a higher level, I pressed the up button on the elevator. Waited. Apparently it was broken. I took the stairs. Took them up a flight too far. Came back down and finally reached my car. I estimated that the whole excursion probably cost me an extra 10 parking bucks in foot travel time. I drove to the cashier. 60 dollars. Next time I'm taking the bus.

Skinny Puppy

The hours to write this week's post have been whittled away by work. In the post's place, I offer up this very strange inadvertent e-mail I received during the past week. It involves ferrets, Shasta, and the name Lebowski.

Mr. Moustache

I've sported a goatee for about eight years straight. Early stages included the moustache part that most men grow when they decide to grow a goatee. I liked the facial hair aspect, but the moustache was way too itchy, so I shaved the moustache off and kept the goatee. It's been that way for about eight years straight now.

Last year a co-worker of mine tipped me off to an event called "Movember". The idea behind Movember is that during the month of November, men grow a moustache to raise awareness for men's health issues. I thought it would be fun and for a good cause, so I let the moustache begin.

A few days later I saw a dad at Judah's school sporting a Fu Manchu. I asked if he was doing the Movember thing, and he said "Naw, it was for my Halloween costume, but I thought about doing the Movember thing." Even though he wears a suit and tie for work every day, I told him the 'stache looked awesome and he should keep it going. Later that week he still had the Fu Manchu. Movember, I realized, was more fun when when somebody you know was doing it too.

The dark side of Movember creeped up when I was reminded of the itchy aspect of having a moustache. I decided to shave of the vertical connectors between the moustache and the goatee in hopes that the itchyness would go away. It didn't. But it was suddenly looking a lot more like a full moustache, and I felt like Johnny Depp playing Captain Jack Sparrow channeling Keith Richards, minus the acting talent Johnny Depp has. And the good looks.

One night while reading a bedtime story to Judah about a shark with a false moustache, he looked over and started studying my face and said "are you growing a moustache?" I told him that it was only for a little while. He thought you could take off the moustache like the shark from his book. He pulled on it a little bit, then we went back to reading about the shark with the false moustache.

Lily came back from a weeklong business trip, and she asked if I was growing a moustache. Here I was thinking that I had already grown the moustache, but apparently not quite there yet according to the wifey. Or the kid. So I told her the deal about Movember and how it's for a good cause, yada yada yada. She said "I don't like it. Can you shave it off?" But Movember wasn't over yet. November wasn't over yet. But, but...

But here was my out. My perfect excuse to end the itchyness. Can't really have the wife's face gettin all scratched up every time I try to smooch on her, can I? If the missuz says it's gotta go, then it's gotta go. And now it's gone, and so is the itch. I shaved it while Lily and Judah were out to soccer practice, so they'd be surprised when they came back. That night while reading bedtime stories, Judah asked why I shaved my moustache. I told him that it was too itchy. Funny thing is, after Lily asked me to shave it, she hasn't said anything about it. I wonder if she noticed. Still waiting...

No Time This Time

I've noticed a surge in the amount of inadvertent e-mails lately. So many that instead of just trashing them, I'm taking the time to write back to these folks and telling them "unintended recipient" or something along those lines, so the mailbox won't fill up so fast.

But yesterday the e-mailbox really got inundated with some seriously inadvertent e-mails. Within a span of 20 minutes, somebody named Leroy signed up for Cybererotica, RealNude GFs (whatever nudie thing GF means), Total DVD pass (family-oriented DVDs I'm guessing, based on the company these registration e-mails kept), and Raunchy GF (there's that GF thing again). The funny thing was that these registration e-mails were arriving at around 9 am. Bad case of Morning Wood? Maybe?

On the other end of the spectrum, somebody named Laura was supposed to receive this e-mail:

Hey Laura,
I haven't been on my other email, xocuppiecake21, in so long that I can't remember the password to log in! haha
So I just created this account, can you send the slides to this one? And I will be sending you my slides soon, I am just finishing up!
For the vocab. slides if you don't think some of the words are neccessary you can just delete them, but let me know cuz I'll take them out of the crossword puzzle.
And should I just print out like 30 copies of the puzzle or something cuz I think we were supposed to have her copy them in advance, but I just remembered that now
Thanks!!

xocuppiecake 21 is really jazzed about crossword puzzles I guess. Perhaps I'll hook Leroy and Laura up and see what kinds of crosswords they can come up with.

Date With Ikea

With Judah's school closed and my freelance work flow screeching to an sudden halt, I decided to make use of our downtime by shopping for some furniture. And maybe chow down on some Swedish meatballs.

Geographically we live equal distances from two Ikeas, one in Burbank and one in Carson, so I let the traffic map be our guide. Yep, 405 North is a parking lot. Carson it is. A short while later we found ourselves in the Ikea cafeteria scarfing down a breakfast of scrambled eggs, potato wedges and the most thinly sliced bacon ever. Or maybe it was just me doing the scarfing. Judah was busy playing at some kid germ-catcher kiosk. Then it was off to the showroom.

I tried to restrain myself from buying a bunch of useless particle-board crap, but I quickly realized that was the whole reason I was inside an Ikea in the first place. We picked up a sturdy bed for Judah to replace that ridiculously expensive bed with ridiculously shabby construction that we had returned a while back.

And Lily wanted a small-ish cabinet thingy that could house some of the boxes of jewelry and trinkets that were amassing in our bedroom. I grabbed a bunch of other stuff along the way like a few lamps and a new nightstand for myself.

I always seem to forget about one major component of any trip to Ikea - the interactive part when you get home. The part where you, the consumer, get to assemble your furniture. The part where you spend a lot longer than you imagine it would take. Add to the mix a 3-year-old boy trying to hammer any piece he can get his hands on, plus a 1-year-old girl trying to eat those Ikea wooden plug connectors, and it takes that much longer to fend them off while trying to assemble your furniture. The kiddies won the battle, and I left the construction for another day. Or two. Or three.

Naturally, Lily's semi-constructed cabinet was scattered in pieces around our bedroom until I could gather some time without munchkins around to put the rest of it together. A few nights later I entered the room in the dark only to stub my toe on the cabinet skeleton. That was when I found the motivation needed to complete the job.

It was going rather quickly once I enlisted the help of my drill to drive in the screws. I even let Judah hammer in some of the connecting pieces. The only thing left to do was the bottom of one of the drawers. In my haste, I picked up the thin piece of wood/particle-board junk and wound up scraping my forehead with the corner. Ouch. Now I had a reminder (a huge band-aid across my forehead) to think twice about rushing off to Ikea. Except there's that EFFEKTIV storage combination I wanted to buy. And the Swedish meatballs I never got last time.

99 Problems

Lately I've been using the iPhone instead of the old iPod to play music. It has a playlist that comes with iTunes that's called "Recently Added". It automatically includes whatever new music you've recently added (duh) to your music library.

And I have some new music that I want to listen to. So I go to that playlist on my phone and try to find the new music I want to listen to, and it's all jumbled! Not jumbled like gibberish that you can't read, but jumbled like the artists and songs appear to be in no discernable order. Not alphabetical by artist or song, not by date added, nuthin. Just a track here or there that has no rhyme or reason for being there, and no way to find the desired track other than scrolling through the entire list until that one comes up. It's annoying, but a minor annoyance at best.

My workaround had been to just go back and find the artist and the song I want and play it that way. That worked just fine. But being the dork that I am, I needed to find the answer to make the playlist sort correctly. And I found that answer on some random online forum. I also found that we iPhone/iPod users need a reality check for what's minor and what's devastating. The playlist thing? Probably wouldn't ever qualify as devastating. But reading some of these posts, you'd think the world was coming to an end, solely based on an incorrectly sorted song playlist. What the hell will happen to them if their hair got messed up by these gusty winds? Or god forbid a piece of debris flies into their eye. OMFG.

Moving Pictures

As reported previously in this space, on our drive to preschool every morning I try to play new music for Judah. I believe I've uncovered the prog rocker in him, because from the moment I first played "Tom Sawyer" by Rush, that's all he wants to listen to. Like for weeks now, that's all he wants to listen to. I get in the car and pull out the iPod and say "What do you want to hear today?" and the answer from the back is "Rush". And by saying "Rush" he means "Tom Sawyer".

At the end of the song, I usually try to let it carry over into Red Barchetta. But we've never made it very far into the song before he tells me he wants to hear that last song again. I love hearing that very first sound in Tom Sawyer, but after a while of repeated listens it begins to lose its luster. So one day I decided to skip over Red Barchetta into YYZ. Now the boy rocks out in the back, literally rocking back and forth, fists pumping, copying his dad trying to air drum copy Neil Peart playing YYZ. Believe me, the translation ain't pretty, but it's cute to see the kid go off like that.

And because the repeated plays of Tom Sawyer followed by YYZ never ends in a way that coincides with our arrival at preschool, there's bound to be problems. The boy wants to hear Rush and he wants to hear an entire song. Stopping in the middle of YYZ would never do. It must resolve completely. But I've been fortunate enough to be able to reason with Judah and tell him that we'll pick it up where we left off. And he says it back to me in a very serious manner, telling me that tomorrow morning after brushing teeth and putting on sunscreen and putting on shoes and getting in the car, we'll listen to the rest of it.

So he trusts that I'll stand by my word. That is, trusted until yesterday when I got into the car and the iPod was out of juice. Lucky for me, Lily bought me one of those dock extra battery thingies where you plug it into the bottom of the iPod and it gives it new life. I plugged it into the iPod and a few seconds later the screen reappeared. I navigated to YYZ and pressed play. Judah immediately objected and stammered that it wasn't where we were supposed to be in the song. When the iPod runs out of juice, it also loses its bookmark, losing our place in the Rush tune. Judah let out a full on "noooooooooooooooooo" and started crying. That's the power of Rush.

Tight N' Shiny

I let the dirt pile up on our cars for about a month. It was time for their bath. The last few trips to the local hand wash places weren't really doing the trick, so I took matters into my own hands. Problem was that Lee's car wash was always external only. So the insides of the cars were in serious need of a vacuum and a decent wipedown. In other words, time to get down to business.

The last few times I washed the cars, I let Judah in on the fun. He loved spraying the cars with the hose. But the last time he used more water spraying the driveway than the cars. So this time I waited until his nap to get started. I pulled both cars into the driveway and started spraying and sudsing up the vehicles. About mid-way through, I thought "I wonder if I'm gonna hear the obligatory crack where somebody asks if they should pull their car up next in line." And bingo, about 2 minutes later some passerby says "Should I pull my car up behind these? Heh heh!" I put on my best fake smile so's not to seem like a grump.

I brought out the dustbuster for some sand removal in the Passat. Judah likes to take his shoes off in the back seat every day after school, and the sand from the swing area gets deposited in the carpet. I have no idea how that swing area can have any sand left after every kid probably deposits the same amount of sand in the back seat of their car at the end of the day. There was so much sand cemented into the carpet that the dustbuster wasn't cuttin it, and I had to bring out the vacuum cleaner. I even Windexed the windows. I got so medieval on the cleaning detail that I used leather cleaner to try to remove some of the food smudges in the back seat.

At the end of it all, the clock showed four hours later. And Judah was up from his nap watching "The Tale of Despereaux". I did the math in my head of how much time the car wash took times the rate I normally get paid for work. Multiplied by the precious weekend time lost with my family, and it was definitely a losing venture for me to wash the cars. Three days later it rained for the first time in eight months. Point well taken.

Get Off My Cloud

We've all heard the stereotype about LA people and their cars: They get in their cars just to drive to the house next door. I always thought that was bullshit, but I've discovered that it's true.

The street parking area directly in front of my house is somehow the most popular parking space on an otherwise vacant block. For instance, my old next-door-neighbor's daughter would always park in front of my house to go to their house. Which made no sense to me, until I noticed that her path was a tiny bit easier because she could make a beeline to their door instead of having to walk through grass and around a tree. One time Lily told me she overheard this neighbor loudly complain "Dammit! Somebody parked in my spot" when there was a car parked in front of his house. Funny, it seemed like his spot was actually the area in front of my house.

And when one of the guys directly across the street got a new girlfriend, her favorite parking spot was in front of my house too. The space in front of their house was always open. But it was probably easier to walk directly from the car door than to walk around the front or the back of the car.

She'd often spend the night at his house, because her car was in the spot on my side of the street at all times. One time she must have gone on vacation with the dude, because her car was parked in the same place for about a week. One more day would make a full week and I was about to call the city to have it towed, but that day the car disappeared. Soon thereafter the guy moved out, I assume to move in with her. At least the spot in front of my house was open again.

And then recently the remaining guy across the street decided that it was too much trouble to park in his driveway, or park in front of his house, or even bother to park in a way that doesn't block my driveway, and he did this with his SUV:



Makes perfect sense. No having to pull into his driveway, it's a direct route to his front door, and no having to walk around the tree. I sent him a little friendly e-mail with this photo attached and the subject line "What's wrong with this picture?" It also asked him to be thoughtful and mindful of the fact that Lily needs to use the driveway to unload the kids, groceries, etc. He replied and apologized and said it wouldn't happen again. Now his new roommate has discovered the convenience of parking in the spot in front of my house. I think I'm just gonna start setting out orange cones in the spot when I leave for work. Or maybe just park on my lawn.

Rotten Apple

I've logged plenty of time waiting at the Genius Bar in The Apple Store. If you're a regular reader of this column, you already know about the hours logged. I wonder if, through osmosis, I've attained Genius level status myself. Well this trip to the Genius Bar (abbreviated as "GB" from here forward) is directly related to a trip I made a few months ago to the GB. That initial trip was made because our "Early 2005" model Power Mac G5 - you know, the temperature-flawed model with more fans than anything else - leaked its coolant and caused the fans to blare even louder than usual.

After doing a little online research, I found that this G5 coolant leak was more than just an isolated occurrence. It was widespread enough among G5 owners to warrant some peeved Apple devotees to start posting threats for a class action lawsuit. Needless to say, someone at Apple must have read the grumblings, because when the Genius at the GB first popped open the hood on the G5, they said they'd replace the innards at no charge to me. Even after being out of warranty. 2005 is a long time ago in computer years. My G5 was back and good as new in a few days. Or so I thought.

Lily informed me that last week the computer was starting to crash regularly and the fans on the G5 were on full blast before it would crash. It sounded strangely like the problem that was fixed months ago. And upon further review, fixed just out of the 90-day guarantee on those repairs. Blast. The thing I dreaded the most was lugging around the heavy and rather unwieldy CPU to the GB.

The only appointment I could get for the next day was at The Apple Store in Manhattan Beach (instead of my usual closest Santa Monica location), but I like Manhattan Beach so I clicked "Yes I'd like to wait around in the Apple Store for an hour at least so I can get some service on my broken Apple computer". To make things more convenient, the only time available was 10:30 am. That gave me just enough time to go in to work for about 45 minutes before I'd have to leave again to get on the 405.

The next morning I unplugged all the wires from the G5, hoisted it out of its resting spot and into my much more reliable car. On the drive to school, Judah ceaselessly asked questions about why the computer was in the car. Google Maps told me it would take around 20 minutes to get to Manhattan Beach. Figure in the suggested arrival time (10 minutes early for the appointment), and I was out the door of the edit suite at 10 am sharp. Because I'd had several cups of coffee, like I always do, I thought it would probably be a good idea to take a leak before heading out on my journey. But the bathroom at work was occupied, and I wasn't about to mess with the schedule-making gods at The Apple Store.

I arrived at the Manhattan Beach Village/Mall thing with a couple minutes to spare. As I lugged the CPU out of the car, I spotted three mentally-challenged men moseying toward the same mall door as I was. I turned on the jets as best I could to pass them, and I reached the door just ahead of them in time to press the wheelchair door button with my foot. One of them appeared to be amazed with my superpowers, and he smiled and elbowed one of his cohorts.

Some sort of field trip at The Apple Store was going on. One where the teenage students all had to wear yellow t-shirts while they watched somebody in a bright orange t-shirt setting type in iWeb. I was wearing a bright orange t-shirt that day. I hadn't been briefed on the color-coordination scheme, and I just hoped nobody in a yellow t-shirt would start asking me questions. Maybe the scowl on my face would do the trick. Another person in an orange t-shirt welcomed me to the GB waiting line and asked my name, if I had an appointment, my most hated thing about PCs and people who buy them, and multiple choice questions on why I thought Bill Gates is the antichrist.

As I waited in line, I looked up on the screens above the GB for my place in the queue. My name appeared second. Oh goodie. I wouldn't be waiting long this time. 20 minutes later I found myself on the verge of joining in on the rant of a guy whose iPhone wasn't turning on, and who didn't want to wait in line four hours for non-appointment customers. I briefly considered bolting to the nearest restroom. Finally Michael called my name.

I told him this has happened before, blah blah blah, and he did the required turning on of the computer, checking the crash report, and checking the repair history. Apparently he'd heard the online grumblings about the G5 coolant thingy too, because he was very apologetic and not all high-and-mighty as some Geniuses can be. He told me straight out that there'd be no charge for the repair, and he started filling out paperwork. Nature was calling rather loudly by this point. I asked Michael where the nearest bathroom was. He told me it was between Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel, wherever that was. I told him I'd be right back, but he said he was finished with the paperwork.

He handed me a sheet of paper to sign. I did the "gotta pee now" dance while he explained the terms of the agreement, like how my computer could be erased, I shoulda backed up, yada yada gotta go pee now dude SHUT THE HELL UP! I said thanks for the help and I practically sprinted out the door with my head on a swivel looking for Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel and the space between them that held the key to an empty bladder. It was on my right, just past the group of women and their toddler kids who were about to be run over by a man ready to use the temporary insanity plea. I wove my way past them, hating all people who were stupid enough to have kids. The hallway did that Vertigo effect thing, but the men's restroom was in sight. I speed walked down to the end, briefly detoured by the hugest security guard I've ever seen. He took up at least 85% of the hallway.

I busted open the restroom door, greeted by a small room with four stalls: One was out of order with plastic draped over the urinal, the other three were in use by the three mentally-challenged men I went past on my way into the mall. Another man was already waiting, obviously in about the same pee-state I was, because he hopped around for a moment muttering something incoherent before bolting out the door. Not a good sign.

At least that meant my turn was next. And that turn was not coming quickly enough. One of the stalls kept flushing, and the sound of rushing water only made it that much worse. I tapdanced around and seriously considered using the sink as a urinal. Finally one of the guys started backing away from the urinal, and I was in there faster than he was probably comfortable with. I didn't care. I didn't have a care in the world.