...and written by John Denver. How apropos.

First the answers to the riddle:

Barry Manilow

"Copacabana"

Astrud Gilberto

"The Girl from Ipanema"

a bit of Duran Duran

"Rio"

Geoff & Maria Muldaur

"Aquarela do Brasil"

Peter, Paul, & Mary

"Leaving on a Jet Plane"

(Ok, Barry was singing about the nightclub in New York, Duran Duran about a woman, and I really mean the English version, "Brazil.")

All of that was stuck in my head because, cfox74 and Kate teaching in Rio de Janeiro, while Bryan (Kate's husband) and I are just along for the ride. I've never been to South America, and I'm rather giddy.

See you in a week!

Ok, yesterday was an anniversary. And every year it's something different. Yesterday, I spent the day just a huge ball of misplaced emotion, some of which ended up in a rant in this space. Fortunately, I deleted the specifics of it.

In response, here are some good things about the baseball fans yesterday:

1. They were using public transit, really that's commendable
2. They don't generally take the train. They don't know the drill. Yes, that was part of what I was railing at, and they ignored the prompting of the conductor (a rare treat, a conductor conducting folks out of the bike car), but I shouldn't assume they understand the implications of them taking spaces in the bike car
3. They were a lot more orderly and pleasant than the drunk fucktards I used to have to deal with going home from the game (on the nights they didn't send my train early, running a special train with no bike car, stranding me until midnight)

The "sport" of baseball, however, can still suck my left one.

I should go back and count the number of times I've written this entry in one form or another. On the other hand, it would probably just depress me.

I have a whole bunch of entries rolling around in my head (and opening my blog stash file I found a few more), friends have posted things that I'd very much like to reply to, but as of yet, none of that has happened. The trouble is, I generally only write such things on the train anymore, and though I head for the train with the best of intentions ("Yeah! I'm going to write THAT entry when I get there!") by the time I get on the train, nothing could be further from my desire at that moment. The same is pretty much true now, but let's see if I can get any of them done now.

Edit: This was actually written yesterday morning, just to show that I still suck.

. . . Ok, not really

[ed.: per usual, I started writing this over a week (and a half, I think) ago. I know, avocado_tom, fire & forget. Unfortunately I write much too slowly for that.]

I have withdrawn again. It doesn't feel like my normal "going to ground." I went to the Massive Attack/DJ Shadow show (I could say "more later" but between us we know the liklihood of that, so let's leave it at wheeeeee!) on Friday.

Tuesday Matt, Dwight & I had a fantastic time at the Millenium Beer & Chiles Festival. The pairings were perfect, sublime, and everything I'd expect from Millenium. I also learned that:

1. Belgain soured ales are quite tasty. They're right up my alley, and you'd think I would have tried them before. I need to find out which one came with my entrée, because it was by far my favorite beer of the evening (and they were ALL tasty)
2. My weight-loss continues to make me a complete lightweight. I have no tolerance anymore.

Also, I did something really cool on Sunday that I will be blogging about, once I come back for more than a gasp of air before submerging again.

It's not my normal withdrawl, "going to ground." And yet . . . I haven't done more than (barely) skim LJ in weeks, I've stopped looking at Flickr, and worst of all, I've all but quit the 365 Days challenge. (I plan to pick that up again, but reset the clock)

I'd been thinking that I'd just withdrawn from my "virtual" life, and quite frankly, I wouldn't be all that upset about that. But I haven't taken a photo, I haven't really had a social engagement (except those planned in advance of this withdrawl), I haven't really done anything. It's hard enough to write this stupid little missive.

Recently I realized work may be a large contributing factor in this slump/funk. The Project From Hell™ (which was supposed to be over in July) was just extended until November. It is sucking my will to live. I may say more than that in a non-open forum. (But probably not, see above.)

I do feel a bit self-conscious whining about my work situation when so many people I know are in worse situations than I. But that doesn't change the fact that it appears to be sucking my will to live, and I need to figure out how work that out, at the current rate I will be little more than a husk by November.

Note: This was actually written last week, but there were issues posting it. I should also compose a wrap-up of this weekend (and perhaps I will on the train)

[...It would appear that this has devolved into a recap of the weekend. C'est la vie. At least it's something.]

I've gone and done it again. I've withdrawn from the outside world. I've had a few entries rolling around in my head for a while now. They fall into major and minor categories. The major ones I'll continue procrastinating for a while longer, as they'll take much longer to get out (though I may hammer on one or two of them some more after I finish here).

That leaves the minor (minutæ) entries of no import. I've collected them all into one entry to make them easier to ignore. They themselves fall into a few broad subcategories.

Not so good this morning. I missed not one, but two trains looking for my %$#@%$ing shoes. This is why I hate cleaning up. The next train didn't stop at 22nd St, so I booked it to 4th & King. I made it with plenty of time, so at least that was good.

A bunch of bikes got on with me, carried by too-cool-for-it-all hipsters (Including one who could very well be Jen Besemer's doppelgänger except that she's, you know, outside). I asked them all where they were going. Need I say? Palo Alto. So it also goes without saying that they took up 4 different racks (half of the total), in spite of going less than half the distance this train is travelling. And the doppelgänger gave me the "oh, puhleeze" look when I suggested she double up with one of the other two.

Sure enough, the crowd that arrives just before the train leaves just got here, and they're forced to move bikes around in the back because the 4 up front are for Palo Alto. GRN. Situational awareness, people! It's NOT THAT HARD! (yes, yes, kettle, meet pot. So if I'm complaining about it, it has to be bad.)

And yes, for those who were about to ask, I HAVE had breakfast already.

Update: Doppelgänger is now having a very loud cellphone conversation. The voice is wrong. But maybe it'd get closer if I shoved that phone up her ASS!

Yesterday hit me harder than it has in recent years. I ended up stepping out of the office and just bawling for while. This lead to a catharsis stronger than I have felt in a VERY long time.

It also posed a bit of a dilemma. I realized that sitting home in the dark, sipping Oban might be a perfect way to remember him, but it probably wasn't the best thing for my mental state at the moment. But at 4:50, I was going to have a hard time finding some way to avoid doing that. Especially without a vehicle in the South Bay.

Fortunately, Salim, Jim, & Dawn were going out to dinner to celebrate Jim's new job and they invited me along. Synchronicity was with me as I somehow managed to make every connection from VTA (I think the driver waited for me) to Caltrain to Muni to Muni. I wasn't sure if I'd mention my own reason for seeking social interaction, and as it turned out, it never really came up.

We went to Magnolia (Haight & Masonic) I'd been there for beer before, and always liked it. I don't know how I never looked at the menu! Everything looked fantastic!

In the end, I had a very nice evening out with good friends. I can think of few better way to remember the dearly departed.

Oh, and I got DRENCHED on my way back home.

Here's to my little brother. He's never far from my thoughts.

Update: I just got mail (sent yesterday) from Yojo (stealthymonkey) that said (among other things):

You forgot a really fucking bad date. Not a really fucking awesome person.

please remember that.

She always has had an uncanny ability to put things in perspective. Thanks, dear!

[It's official. I suck at this whole "blog" thing. The genesis for this entry is exactly one year old. It's been rolling around in my head since I was in Maui. It's a big topic, and one that's very important to me, so I wanted to be sure that I captured it. Invariably, that meant I'd put it off. -ed.]

For some time, I've been yearning to produce/get "something more" out of the pictures I take. A year ago, I started down the path toward figuring out what that really meant.

[ed. This should have been posted on Thursday, but werk eight my brane.]

@colin_clive(it's alive . . . It's Alive . . . IT'S ALIVE!)

A few months ago I procured two 3Ware hardware RAID cards. One for slackers (a nice SATA unit, with caching & acceleration), and one for myself (an older, lower-end unit, but probably adequate for my needs). My intention was to use mine to build a fileserver on which to store backups (primarily of my photos, but also of other important data to which I want semi-convenient, networked access).

As I was thinking about doing this, it occurred to me that I'd never named a machine "Sarnath." This is surprising, since as names go, it hits a trifecta: it is a city that is both mythical and destroyed (either one would be adequate for Slackers' Network inclusion) AND it exists(-ed) in the Dreamlands (my own personal subset of the Slackers' Network scheme)

For all of those reasons, it seemed the obvious choice for the new machine. And yet, I decided that I should not tempt fate that way, (the name of the story is "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," after all!) Naming my shiny new Athalon64 fileserver "sarnath" would be hubris: basically asking for it to be struck by lightning. (Technically, flooded and dragged to the deep by lizard-men, but that's not really likely in Northern California! Though I suppose swallowed up by an earthquake would be close enough...)

So, when I finally got around to ordering the other parts, I rejected "Sarnath" in favor of "Kiran[*]." Little did I know that the fate had already been sealed.

I've been writing this entry since the middle of February. It started is as a Trackback response to something Sean said, most notably, the last few sentences.

The core of my feelings on this matter have not changed, but most of the window dressing has, so this will probably require some serious editing on my part.

At the core, I know that my survival those first few months would have been nigh impossible without my friends. To all of you I owe a great debt of gratitude. No matter how much I loved my job, and the guys I work with (whom I'm lucky to count amongst my friends), I'd been careening for quite a while and I needed a foundation to land on. It took me some time, but I think I'm on my feet (though I may still be a bit wobbly)

Most of my vacillating during my first draft of this entry revolved around my near-complete ambivalence as to my living situation. I was convinced that my decision was premature (it wasn't) or that it would lead to an inevitable stagnation (the jury's still out on that). Living with Jonah (jd5p) has worked out better than either of us expected.

All in all, things are good. I still enjoy my job. I'm comfortable where I am, but I know it's not permanent. I have a routine that I need to work on, but on the whole I've been a heck of a lot worse.

February, for example. Looking back from this end of the chasm, many things are clearer now. I refused to let myself miss Chicago, Yojo or any of the rest of the Army of D[ao]rkness. I love them dearly, and I miss them still. I owe them another debt of gratitude for getting me through yet another hard time in my life, as they did so openly and selflessly the last time we shared a mutual tragedy.

Refusing to acknowledge those feelings doesn't make them go away. Nor does rekindling relationships here . . . dishonor or negate those far away.

As with everything, it's a work in progress. Nothing is ever finished.

I've been meaning to post something here for a while, I've even composed a few in my head. At first I marveled at how my world was about to be turned inside out, and yet I didn't feel that anything had changed. I just blithely went about my remaining days in Chicago barely registering anything.

And now I'm here. The job (for all of three days) has been fantastic. Matt & Sean are great, I know I'll have fun working with them, everyone's really energetic, and the problems I'm going to work on look like a lot of fun.

...and yet, I'm still "just visiting." I'm sure this is exacerbated by my lack of a place of "my own," but I can't escape the feeling that this is a very short-term trip. Any day now I'm going home. "Home" being a loaded term in it's own right. (For many months in Chicago this was "back home")

I feel caught between the two worlds. I love being back in the fray, I love being back in the Bay, and yet, I look around and everything seem so superficial. It's all so ...sanitized is the only word I find. Hospital clean. I miss the grittiness of my old neighborhood.

And, of course, this nostalgia is itself a delusion (but that's the nature of nostalgia) I spent most of my time in Chicago wishing (consciously or otherwise) that I was here. Granted, my coping skills were seriously hampered, but I still have to wonder.

The short of it is I miss my friends. I miss Yoj. I miss my psycho-stupid cat. I just need to embark on my master plan to move all of those things here. Or not here. Oakland maybe. They'd get along fine in Oakland.

I had a job interview last Friday, in my old stomping ground (Mountain View). It's a position I'm really excited about. But I was more than a little concerned about this impromptu homecoming, however brief.

Recently I've found myself idealizing the time that I spent there. I re-read Tales of the City, I've spent a lot of time talking to friends in the area (that I called home). I've been thinking about what would happen if I got this job.

I was worried that I'd have so much fun with this visit, that I'd feel so good being back that I'd have a crisis of self/identity/whatever and decide that I had to get back there any way I could.

I had a very visceral reaction to being back, but not the one I expected. I hated being there. It felt like a huge step backward into the rut that I climbed out of when I left. I had a great time seeing people, and I miss them again now that I'm gone, but I realized that have no stomach left for the suburban sprawl of the Peninsula. I couldn't afford to go back where I'd been.

It is still home. And I still very much want this job to work out, but I need to live in an urban environment. I need to have people around. I need to be able to WALK to see people/go out. I need culture. I need to be more than the drone I'd become living in Suburban Hell. So once again I find myself planning to live in San Francisco.

There were a few very surprising side-effects to this trip. I realized that I'm more at home in Chicago than I believed. I'd been in denial for some time. I kept telling myself that the Bay Area was home, and my only home. I now realize how silly that uncharacteristically singular view was. Adopting a more familiar continuum view, I can accept that Chicago is home right now without betraying my feeling that I will go back to the Bay Area.

The other side-effect was that once I realized that Chicago is also home, I realized that I'm not as miserable here as I'd been leading myself to believe (if that makes any sense at all). Life here is not without it's issues (drama-queen tendencies aside) but the time has come to take an active role in living it.

Or should that be "Lame-Blog Powers?" Or is that too pleonastic?

I created this blog to test a MovableType instance I was installing for some Slackers' Network users. And I re-created it when I was testing the Slackers' Network automatic "make me a blog" script. At both of those times I toyed with the idea of actually trying to keep a blog, but came to the conclusion that I don't have enough to say on a consistent basis to warrant spewing it into a blog.

Fundamentally, I don't think anything has changed. But recently I grabbed my "Personal" page as a random guinea pig in revamping my website (tooling it into XHTML/CSS), and I realized that it's already slightly out of date. And that version was the first major edit in over 5 years.

It occurred to me that such a page full of ephemeral information would be better presented in a date-stamped, episodic format. Namely, a blog. And so here we are. I don't really expect anyone to read it, but it will hopefully it will assuage my desire for random personal commentary on the web.