Ultranormal

  • Long Walks in Tiny Glasses

    I’m not going to talk about my full day of meetings until later, when/if other folks start talking about it. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun.

    I do want to talk about the other stuff that happened today. We split up today to tackle different stuff, so some of went to the day-long meetings, and some of us went and did something else. I had fish tacos for lunch, and that made me happy. Tonight, I’m all alone. Everyone’s either in the city staying at a different hotel, or they’re going home tonight. So, I’m here tonight all alone with no car until tomorrow morning when my brother comes and picks me up.

    I walked down the street to Satsuma Sushi and had a lovely scallops and mushroom appetizer,and then a combo with teriyaki salmon and nigiri (tuna and yellowtail). I sat there by myself reading the copy of The Smithsonian Magazine I brought with me on the trip and longed for some form of conversation. After dinner, I went off looking for a movie theater. I walked about a mile down El Camino Real, aaaa-aaall the way to Sunnyvale and no luck. So I walked through an audio/video store, and then walked the mile back to the hotel. Here I am, mail checked, blogs read, sitemeter glanced at and listening to CNN in the background. I am officially bored.

    To display the depths of my boredom, I bring you a pet peeve. Why are hotel glasses so freaking small? It’s only slightly bigger than a shot glass, and is a pretty crappy way to try to rehydrate. I might as well drink from the sink or from the ice bucket (now there’s an idea…). Listen up, hotels of America, we demand bigger drinking glasses! 12 ounces or nothing!

  • A Shout Out

    A big shout out to the whole Faggots Family. I swear they’re not kidding. You could also become a Faggot Fanatic!!

  • In-N-Out of My Mind

    This switching time zones thing sucks. I woke up at 6:30 local time and was unable to get back to sleep. Thank goodness for in-room (and free) broadband. Good job, Hilton! Ok, it’s not really high-speed, but it’s faster than my modem and that’s good enough for me. It was weird staying in a hotel room all by myself. I had such a hard time getting to sleep, that I got X2 on pay-per-view and fell asleep about the time Logan/Mystique made his way down the causeway (that’s the last thing I remember anyway) about 11pm local time (2pm EST – which means I was awake for almost 20 hours… I’m too old for this). Last night, we went to dinner with a bunch of folks who worked on the Journals product at The Tied House, a local prew pub. I got to mark off one of my goals of the trip – real fresh Pacific King Salmon. If you’re used to the Atlantic stuff… you’re missing out. It was perfect.

    Yesterday also marked the loss of my In-and-Out Burger virginity. Their fries suck, but their burgers are fast-food-greasy-artery-clogging splendor. Now I know what I’m missing, and couldn’t be more upset that we don’t have one in VA. We went to Google yesterday for a meeting I can’t talk about because I signed an NDA, which is pretty cool. When you go to Google and sign in as a visitor on their groovy little setup, you sign an NDA before it prints out your visitors badge. I want one for work! I’d be a different visitor every day.

    Today is a full day of meetings that I might be able to talk about later, but I’m not sure. If I talk about them later, you’ll know.

    Since I was up so early, I couldn’t resist posting a couple Sidekick mirror shots on my mopho album.

  • In CA

    I’m in California, and after a two hour delay waiting for a new plane, we made it here, and we’ve already had two cool meetings. It’s 9pm EST and I’m all airplane-slimey. I need dinner, a shower, a massage and a nap.

    And tomorrow is another day full of meetings. I have a great job!!

  • I’m Flyin’ on a Jet Plane

    I was going to go to bed early, but I decided instead to start packing. Other than things I needed this morning, and will need tomorrow morning, I’m all packed! I have snacks and reading material for the plane, clothes for most contingencies (jeans, shorts, t-shirt, hawaiian shirt, respectable dress shirt) and all in a carry-on and my laptop backpack. Can you tell I’m a little excited about this trip?

  • Preparations

    I’m going to the Bay Area this week, leaving bright and early Wednesday morning, and coming back on the Red Eye Saturday night. I’m stoked to be able to spend some time with my brother and his pregnant wife, hopefully my old pal Daws and do some siteseeing. Oh yeah, I’ll be there for work, but that’s really only Wednesday and Thursday (maybe some of Friday). I started a list of things to make sure I pack:

    • clothes:

      • jeans

      • hawaiian shirts

      • t-shirts

      • underpants

      • socks

      • pj’s

      • shorts

    • batteries for camera and cd player

    • digital camera

    • MP3 CD Player for the plane

    • MP3 CD for the plane

    • The Orange Book

    • Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

    • Sidekick and recharging cord

    • Powerbook

    • Atom docs (if I can find some to print out)

    • Mom’s box o’ stuff for Tim impending daughter

    I think that’s it. I went out this weekend and bought a laptop backpack, because I realized that lugging my bulky old laptop case around NYC was a royal pain in my back. The backpack is light, has lots of cool pockets and should hold all my digital and analog entertainment for the plane-ride.

  • Max Goes FAST!

    Max likes to go fast! Mom took him out in her lovely loaner car, and he had a blast. I guess the love of fast cars runs in the family… oh no. There are some pics I took with the Sidekick over on my Typepad Photo Album

  • Them: Adventures With Extremists

    I finished reading Them: Adventures With Extremists last night. I was about a hundred pages from the end when I went to bed, but I had to finish it. I was too unsettled not to. I have all these unpleasant thoughts running through my head that I want to get down so I can hopefully get some comments on them before I really sit down to write them out, especially if you’ve read the book, or watched The Secret Rulers of the World.

    I was truly disturbed by the people profiled in the book. Here are the unformed thoughts rolling around in my noggin:

    • It feels like everyone’s story is true to a degree. The problem is that each on of the “extremists” projects their own personal prejudices. There’s a group of mostly white, conservative Christian radicals, and the Islamic Fundamentalists who think the world is run by the Jews. The Irish Protestant Extremists think it’s the Catholics. The people actually in the group these folks think is the New World Order really don’t give the extremists a second thought. What if they’re all right? What does that mean for me, sitting here somewhere between the different camps?

    • The extremists are called extremists because they left the mainstream of their (mostly) religions because they became entranced by a cause, or because they felt the World was against them. It feels like they’ve decided that this New World Order is the reason their lives suck and have vowed to fight it. It feels like class warfare to me, with one side (the Bilderbergs of the world) so removed from the battle they don’t even smell the blood.

    • Can these extremists be brought back into the mainstream? Is there some way to extinguish the hate without extinguishing them? Should we try? Do we try because we can’t handle people who don’t fit into a nice little box?

    • The Ruby Ridge / Waco chapter was probably the most discomforting part of the book. Both events were so badly handled by the government. But, was it part of this vast conspiracy, or was it just sheer incompetance?

    I don’t honestly know what I think about everything in the book. It’s too much to take in and try to think about in one sitting. What do you think?

  • Dating Sherman

    There’s so much to say. I’m going to California next week! I get to spend four days in the Bay Area for work doing workly things. I’ll tell you all about them either right after they happen, or when I get back.

    Recently, I’ve been thinking about the time I lived in Mississippi, in our little WW2 POW-Built house at Number 7 Trinity Circle on the Vicksburg Army Corps of Engineers Station. The more I think about it, the weirder it seems. We lived at the top of the hill, overlooking a horribly polluted pond, surrounded by labs containing all kinds of experiments. Because we lived on the station, and Security was three hicks with walkie-talkies who rarely did rounds, we pretty much had the run of the place at night and on weekends. I never got caught doing anything, but my brother did once. I’ll let him tell the story if he wants. I really want to talk about dating.

    My dad up and moved us to Mississippi in February of my Junior year of High School. Needless to say, I was not happy. I had friends, girlfriends, a social life and Northern Virginia iis just a great place to live. Mississippi? I went from on of the highest ranked school system in the country to one of the worst – one that was desegregated in 1987. Yeah, that’s not a typo. I went to a high school that refused to have a prom because the races might mix. There are lots of stories, I could tell, but I want to tell you about the Sherman and the girl.

    I loved to impress dates by taking them to weird places on the station and trying to “make magic happen” (oh, I was a pathetic creature in high school, but I was earnest). We’d dance, talk, sometimes more. One night, after dinner and a movie, I took my date for the evening to the tank course. I parked the car next to the World War 2 vintage Sherman tank and cranked up the romantic tunes. We danced for a while, and then she noticed the tank. She kind of gasped and got so into the tank that she lost all interest in me. She climbed up in it in her nice dress and look at all the little moving parts. She was so excited. I, on the other hand, was pretty put out. But, that’s how it usually happened. I found all kinds of great places. There was the tank, there was a place near the wave labs where it sounded like you were at the beach. On of my favorites was the hyproponics labs, in these quaint little greenhouses that gurgled and steamed and smelled nice next to the causeway that was filled with singing frogs in the spring.

    I hated living in Mississippi at the time, but the farther I get away from it, the funnier it all seems. The anger fades, but the quirky goofiness of being a Yankee and Mormon in the deepest, darkest cranny of the Bible belt, living in a house built by German POWs on an Army Station filled with experiments and labs filled with science and weirdness shines through. I’ve got stories to last a lifetime, like teaching high school civics, creating a winter drama at the school that I starred in – and wore a dress in, the time I drove around town with the town’s first ever black mayor and asked him tough questions about Vicksburg, and all the stupid things my brother and I did to keep ourselves sane. I don’t ever want to go back, except maybe for some blues and barbecue, but I don’t really regret living there.

  • A Cheerleader for Death

    Michelle’s at it again, blasting someone who’s lamenting us killing Uday and Qusay Hussein. Now, I’m not sad they’re dead. But, it would have been nice to capture them alive and put them on trial for their crimes. They could even be tried by the new Iraqi Governing Council, as a show that they do actually have some power. I don’t see how people can view these two psychopaths’ deaths as a victory for the President. He didn’t find them, corner them, or shoot them. The military did. The military, and most likely military intelligence, deserve the credit for this one, plain and simple. No matter what the President says, we’re still at war in Iraq. It’s a different phase of the war, but still war. Claiming military victories or losses as political capital is the height of hypocrisy, no matter which side of center your politics lie.

    Michelle says she’s a cheerleader for the deaths of those who want us dead. I hope that’s hyperbole. I’d rather be a cheerleader for justice. I would love to see Saddam and those that worked for him face the people of Iraq and be held accountable for their crimes. That’s justice. Just killing people who disagree with us is the bully’s way out, and just saying, “Well, we’re the biggest and strongest so we’re right” isn’t a justifiable reason.

    Justice is more important than death. Seeing someone dead doesn’t mean their influence has died. Killing someone in battle makes them a martyr to their supporters. Trying them in front of an impartial court (ok, for the Hussein family, that could be difficult) makes them guilty, and decreases their “Martyrability”. If everyone can see their crimes laid out in the bright lights of a court room, it becomes that much harder for reasonable people to support them. The unreasonable and zealots will support them no matter what (just look at the militia movement and Tim McVeigh), but they’re not really who we should be trying to persuade. The reasonable people in Iraq and the Middle East need to see that we’re not butchers. We’re offering them something better – the rule of law. We’re offering them self-determination and freedoms that they’ve never experienced. Once the people of Iraq can see that, and we can convince them (and ourselves) that we’re not there for our own selfish purposes, we’ll be on our way to stability and peace.

    I understand that the Brothers Hussein put up a fight, so their deaths were probably unavoidable. I’m not blaming anyone involved in the firefight for their deaths. They acted as they should have – they returned fire. It think would have been better had they been taken alive and stood trial. Am I glad they’re no longer going to kill, torture and maim their people? Yeah, I am. I wish they could have been put on trial first though.