Long Day
Stupid. That’s me. I spend all day being stupid at work, and then go to have dinner with dear friends where I really crank up the stupidity on topics ranging from perfect pitch to commodities markets. Display ignorance, too. The good thing about friends is that they forgive you, at least the first few dozen times.The upside is that when I left work this evening the light was reasonably nice and I decided to shoot a couple cars that are often parked nearby, such as this stylish hearse. Once I get settled a bit more and start making some progress at work, I’ll be ready to start exploring the neighborhood with camera.
And just for the heck of it, I’m going to create this post from within flickr’s share tool. I used to use it and didn’t like it that much, but it looks like maybe it has changed over the last couple years–which is like 14 in web years. So, maybe it will display properly.
And then, i’m going to review some regex concepts. And then I’m going to install Tiki Wiki on my laptop to see if it will work well at work as an in-house wiki, and then… I’m going to… get… my few hours… sleep… … before …. zzzzzzz
Tax Time
At tax time, the stacks of papers explode and go everywhere.
For me, doing taxes is like one of those little puzzles where you have to slide the numbered tiles around. It’s pretty much a 15-hour task every time. I start at one little corner and something sets me off looking for a statement or receipt. And then I discover some other items that need doing, filing, entering, shredding or ignoring into a special pile for later. And so on. Until the room looks like a puzzle of piles of paper. That’s when I start staring off into space, dreaming about having a goat farm in northern Sonoma, making cheese, maybe some olive trees, and some quince…
So it’s no wonder I haven’t been posting much, or getting much of anything else done. As previously reported, the highly sophisticated procrastination involved in all this takes huge amounts of mental energy. The good news is that I actually managed to complete and file the goddamn taxes tonight. Not only that, we’re getting money back. The bad news is that I still have my mom’s taxes to do. And that won’t be easy without the the SSA 1099. I wonder if I’ll be able to get anyone on the phone at the Social Security office tomorrow… or what the price of land around Guerneville is these days…
Stop for a Reason
Derelict Storefront, Berkeley CA, April 2011
I had every intention of riding my bike to work today. Instead I drove again; there was talk of rain. I just missed the light in the left turn lane at Sacramento on account of the slow ped in the Acura in front of me. Slightly miffed, I glanced to my left as he drove off down the street. I glanced back to the camera on the seat next to me. I managed three shots with adjustments before the light turned green.
When I got this evening, someone emailed me about photos of colorful old buildings in the east bay. Note to self: remember to always try to make lemonade.
Ace Lincoln, El Cerrito, CA. © Neo Serafimidis
Procrastination. Mine knows no bounds. Sometimes it kicks in at the metalevel wherein I put off doing a task that I only began in order to avoid what I really ought to be doing in the first place. This could be a virtuous chain if I could bend it back around to the thing that started it off.
Tonight, I seem to avoiding finishing my taxes and doing the work I brought home on Friday, among numerous other things. And why would one bring work home unnecessarily unless there was something else waiting that one was avoiding at all costs. To be honest, I did manage to send off a couple emails, shuffle some papers, and by golly these photos are not going to process themselves, you know. So, I’m getting something accomplished. Maybe after this I’ll go bury the dead pet mouse stored in the freezer. Dang, why didn’t I think of that while it was still light out?
Bike Party!
Ever since starting this new job, I have been meaning to start biking to work. But, not having been on my bike for months, I was wary of just jumping on, riding the six miles or so to work, and then being in any condition to start working upon arrival. Some kind of warm seemed to be in order.
As it happened, I heard for the first time yesterday about the East Bay Bike Party, their ride through my end of the East Bay. But since I couldn’t find start details, I wasn’t sure whether I could even participate. I had sort of written it off. By the time Theo and returned from his Cub Scout pack meeting, it was after 8 pm. In fact it was just as we arrived home that we heard loud music and a gawd-awful racket outside. We went outside to look, and there it was: the bike party.
One of the organizers stopped to chat me up and give me flyer with the route on it. Hmmm… I decided to go for it. I went in and quickly through camera in bag, put on a hoodie, pumped up the tires and rode off into the night to catch up.
I caught up with the party at Cedar Rose Park and stayed with it until the final destination at Albany Bowl. I hate to be such a johnny-come-lately evangelist, but damn that was fun! Riding through the night, taking back the street, or at least the right lane, whooping and hollering is a great return to simple pleasures.
The Beautiful Gate
The Beautiful Gate Church, Oakland CA. (Click the photo to see it bigger.)
I rushed into work this morning, my second day on the job, hoping not to be late. And yet, just as I turned to go through the gate, I looked over my shoulder at the blinding morning light coming off the church across the street. I had no choice, but I took care of business as quickly as possible and hurried in. A study of changing light over time could be an interesting distraction.
Continental Divide
Lincoln Continental
One might suppose that on the day before I start a new job I would be focused on preparing myself. Such leisure would have been most welcome. Instead, it was a crazy day of non-stop errands too numerous to list here, but ending at midnight with the completion of the dessert item for the international potluck in Theo’s second grade class tomorrow. Somehow, I managed to get this shot of the Continental in between taking my mom back home and getting parts at the hardware store. So, all that running around was good for something after all.
Childhood Relived, part 2
Still from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Having purchased the DVD in a bargain bin a few months ago, I managed to pass on to Theo another small part of my own childhood experience just last night: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I first saw it on TV when I was about 8yo. Unfortunately I never saw it in the theater, since this is shot in some crazy-wide Ultra Panavision.
I had not seen it since I was a child, which is to say, a long, long, long, long time. Consequently, this film held an exalted place in my idealized memory of childhood and of comedic film. In that sense, seeing it again after 40 years was ever-so-slightly disappointing, though I still enjoyed it a lot. (I would have enjoyed it more if we had a decent size flat screen. What we have is a small 30″ diagonal, and every once in a while, the size matters.) But more importantly, Theo enjoyed and managed to get through it despite it’s 2-and-half-hour-plus length. He even awoke this morning talking about it.
I’m still not sure who among this ridiculously huge and incredible cast steals the movie: Phil Silvers or Dick Shawn. Ok, or maybe Jonathan Winters. Or maybe it’s the automobiles! I was in awe of the array of vintage vehicles, from modest Dodge Darts to Chrysler Imperials, and most of them destroyed during the course of the film!
Still from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Still from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Childhood Relived
I think most parents have a tendency to want their children to have the same kind of childhood they themselves had, believing, from the perspective of idealized memory and nostalgia, that it was great. Perhaps, in some sense, they even try to relive their own childhood through their child. So, for example, they return like salmon to the suburbs to breed and raise their young.
But some of us fail. I myself have felt a little sad thinking about how different my son’s life has been from what mine was like. He didn’t have a big back yard to play in, or long hot summer days to run through the sprinkler or play on the slip’n’slide, or ice-covered puddles to stomp on all the way to school in the morning.
While the weather is beyond my control–well, so far, I have not insisted we all move back to Fresno–there have been some other things I have tried to give him. But, he hasn’t been much interested in them. For example, he simply doesn’t like potatoes. I confess can’t understand this. At all. To the point that it makes me a little frustrated and angry when he won’t eat french fries. I mean, what kind of kid doesn’t like french fries? I loved potatoes cooked any which way from as early as I can remember. He doesn’t much like buttered toast and jam. This was a staple for me from the moment I got my first tooth, I’m sure. And yet, Theo won’t go there.
And it doesn’t stop with food. Try as I might, I couldn’t get Theo obsessed with the Second World War and spending all day playing with army men. Instead, he’ll spend all day with his Lego Clone Wars figures battling droids. How he can prefer this, this General Grievous to General Patton is a mystery to me. Or a Clone Turbo Tank, which will never, ever exist, to a Panzer V “Panther”, probably the awesomest fighting vehicle of the entire Second World War. Kids these days…
I will admit, there have been some small victories in the area of cartoons. While not obsessed, he does quite like Pink Panther and Warner Bros. cartoons. Of course he doesn’t have the regular Saturday morning cartoon routine that I had. But it’s a start. Maybe some Saturday morning I’ll get out the vintage TV trays, put on the Looney Tunes, and see if I can trick him into hashbrowns and toast for breakfast, if I can just sell it as a Gungan delicacy.
Good-bye Faithful Cubicle
My former cubicle. Two screens for my company laptop, and one for my CG workstation.
Today was my last day with current employer, Truestone, which contracts with the Feds, primarily the Coast Guard. They provide many different kinds of IT and electronics services, as well as document preparation and process development. I spent the last year and a few months working for the C4ITSC FSD (that’s “Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Information Technology Service Center, Field Services Division.” Whew! No wonder they like acronyms over there.) doing technical writing and editing of IT business process guides. Each guide was also published online on our intranet site which I helped design, build and maintain. All in all, I have to say, it was an interesting gig and I learned a bunch. I also met some great people.
But the uncertainty of contract work, particularly when the client is undergoing substantial reorganization, was hard to shake off. It seemed to me that there was a reasonable chance this project would not continue in the same way, if at all, after the task order expires this summer. So, when another opportunity suddenly appeared, with new challenges and new things to learn, and new interesting people to learn from, it just seemed like I had to go for it.
Writing can be solitary work. While there was interaction with the subject matter experts on the Coast Guard side, and some collaboration within our company team, there was plenty of time spent alone at the computer. And for most of this 15 months, we had a very quiet, mostly empty office near Jack London Square. It has only been in the last three and a half months that we moved in with the Coast Guard in the Federal Building in Oakland.
So, the weird part is how it already feels kind of sad to be leaving. People were pretty darn nice up there on the 7th floor. It really kind of feels like I’m leaving people I have known for much longer. I’ll just have to try and stay in touch and head down there for lunch every once in a while.
It was also really nice being a regular BART commuter, too. I hardly drove the ol’ Subaru at all for the last few months, and never to work. I almost felt grown up, wearing a button up shirt, carrying bag, and riding the commuter train. That’s pretty much over now. I plan on biking to the new job as religiously as I rode the BART to the last one.
So that’s that, the end of a chapter. Coming up is the beginning of the next.
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