Counting Coyotes

Last Tuesday night was the Counting Crows concert. It was a good show, though not the best I've seen them put on. The way it was done was most interesting, however.



The current tour is billed as the The Saturday Night Rebel Rockers Travelling Circus & Medicine Show. The venue was the Greek Theater in Griffith Park. I'd been there once before for a Phil Lesh and Friends show, and I really like the venue, but don't care much for the parking situation. They'll park cars down the middle of the street heading out, and on the grassy areas on either side, front to back with no way out until the cars ahead of you are gone. The theater is nice, though, small enough that most every seat is pretty close. The tickets I got were in the second row of the side terrace, up a bit but pretty much even with around the 12th row. Mine was the seat on the very edge, and I had a great view of both the stage and the concessions stand, just below the terrace.

Along with Counting Crows was Augustana, who opened for them last time I saw 'em, and Spearhead featuring Michael Franti. I'd never heard of the latter, but I overheard a girl walking into the concession area telling her friend that "They are the shit!!!" Now, the Counting Crows website they have a notice about how they're doing this show, when the curtain goes up, EVERYONE will be on stage, doing a few songs together, then one or the other will open, and the other will close out the show. Sure enough, they have the circus logo curtain up in front, and Adam steps out from the side and pulls the rope that raises the curtain. I don't know a lot of the songs by the other two groups, but I'll attempt to compile a list here of what they played. Most of the first half had at least most of the members of Spearhead and Augustana on stage, and Counting Crows for most of that half, too. Here's what I was able to get:

1. (everyone) Caravan (Van Morrison cover tune)
2. (Spearhead) Hello Bonjour
3. (Counting Crows) A Long December
4. (Counting Crows) Hanging Tree
5. (Counting Crows) Omaha
6. (Augustana) (Didn't quite make this one out, but it was good...)
7. (Augustana) Fire
8. (Augustana) Sweet and Low
9. (Augustana) (Didn't quite make this one out either, but I think Adam joined 'em again on it, and I know they segued into the Dead's "Casey Jones")
10. (Spearhead) (Dunno)
11. (Spearhead) Rude Boys Back in Town
12. (Spearhead) Stay Human
13. (Spearhead) (Don't know what this one was either, but it was very sexy... segued into "Tainted Love"
14. (Augustana) Sound of Sunshine Going Down?
15. (Augustana) Got Love For You?
16. (Augustana) ???

Intermission

17. (Counting Crows) Another Horse Dreamer's Blues (with an awesome wailing sax!!!)
18. (Counting Crows) Mr. Jones
19. (Counting Crows) Washington Square
20. (Counting Crows) Miami
21. (Counting Crows) Goodnight L.A.
22. (Augustana) ???
23. (Augustana) ???
24. (Augustana) Boston Segued into Raining in Baltimore
25. (Counting Crows) Why Should You Come When I Call
26. (Counting Crows) Hangingaround
27. (All) Cecilia
28. (Spearhead) Hey World Remote Control Version
29. (Augustana) Raise A Ruckus
30. (Counting Crows) Rain King Segued into A Little Help From My Friends
31. (All) This Land Is Your Land

So, as you can see, I didn't know all the songs, but you get A LOT of music for your money at this show!!! The energy was great, and all the groups worked well together. Many of the songs different singers would sing different verses. Next to the last song they pulled some young kid up on stage, around 12-14, and had him shaking maracas. They put him on the microphone between songs, and he said this was the first concert he'd ever been to, he wasn't expecting this. I notice that they played as many songs off August and Everything After as they did from Hard Candy. This bolsters my contention that Hard Candy, while not as widely played, is one of their best discs.

Oh, and the coyotes... Left from the venue, actually found the car without much difficulty, sat down and opened up the windows and sunroof and sat in her for a while, then as our row starts moving I go to fire her up and she doesn't even crank, so I finally reach AAA (cell phone reception is quite poor) and they're sending a tow truck, and it takes almost an hour before it shows up, and almost all the other cars are gone and coyotes are coming down out of the hills (I actually only saw four, and only two of them at the same time so it might have just been the same two several times and I have to call AAA back several times to before the truck even gets into my area, I'm flashing my lights and honking my horn but he doesn't see me or acts like he doesn't and I finally tell the dispatcher to have him stop there, and put her in neutral and coast down the hill to right behind his truck and he asks me what the trouble is I tell him its the starter he asks how I know and I tell him trust me, I know this car and he checks it out a bit and finally agrees and then asks if I tried beating on the starter, and I say no, he pulls out an 18" breaker bar whacks it a few times and she fires right up and I took the starter out last night and put a replacement in today and its all OK now but that made for a long night!!!

Flaunt It

Today was the car show and company picnic at my work.



First time for the car show, not a huge turnout, but a lot of neat, unique rides on display. I'll probably post some of my favorites later. One of my fellow bin fillers came up with the idea and organized it. Still don't know who won in the categories.

I'm going to use this post to highlight my Falcon, I finally got a few more pictures of her, looking good.



I did a bit of work on her, put a thread repair insert on the starter bolt that was stripped out (made me think I had a bad starter with the grindy noise). The other thing I did was finally installed the rectangle headlights I'd bought years back. I'm going to eventually install a pair of generation one 300Z driving lights inside of them, then fabricate an aluminum bar grille. I can picture it.

I also picked up a set of Mooneyes Moon Discs for the wheels. Ended up being up until almost midnight last night getting 'em set up. I'm very pleased with the results, and I got many comments on 'em!!!



My dad has been a tremendous help, he repainted a spot that'd been polished through, and took care of getting it to a shop to sort out a couple of brake issues, where it'd get air bubbles if I parked it downhill on the street, and the back right wheel would lock up under hard braking. Now I've actually spent more just to have someone dial in the brakes than the car cost me to begin with!!! Of course, if you've got brake issues, your whole purchase is at risk, isn't it??? More than that my dad did, but I can't remember it all right now. Mostly wanted to show some fresh pictures of her!!!

"No Swimming"

That's what the signs all said.



Looking at the actual falls, Rainbow Falls in Hilo, that seems like very good advice!!!



However, walking just a little ways up the slope (I swear, the path was part of the path the Bradys took to return that unlucky idol) and there are many tempting areas to swim, with calm water and excellent rocks to jump in off!!!



The mountain water is somewhat cooler than the ocean water, but very refreshing.



We spent the better part of the afternoon of our last day doing just that. Stayed a bit longer that I had intended (I was on vacation, I had no timepiece with me!!!) and we missed out on touring the Manua Loa macadamia nut factory. Oh well...



One of these shots is the older boy and I climbing the roots of the immense Banyan tree with the rope swing tied to it.



The last shot of the previous post has the boy jumping in with his feet just hitting the water from this part. It also has the towers we jumped into the ocean repeatedly from. That wasn't us in that shot (it was taken from our hotel balcony), we didn't get any of us actually jumping in.

Honolulu

On the way home from our second island stay, we had to fly through the airport on Oahu. We never saw any of it except the airport and from the window of the plane. Here's a little video I shot on my netbook of the younger doing his version of the Hallelujah chorus. He'd been doing it for a while, and at the end you can hear the older's exasperation!!!

Hawai'i

Finally, I'm going to post about our vacation trip!!!



Three nights in Maui, three on the Big Island. Great trip!!!



I've asked everyone what their favorite part was. The younger and my wife both chose the snorkel trip where we went out to Molokini crater. That was pretty cool, alright. No great pictures of underwater, though.



The older boy liked the sand castle we made on the beach at Hana, and the tower across from our Big Island room, that we jumped off many times. He also liked the Luau.



I agree with everyone, but one of my favorite things was swimming above Rainbow Falls. Several great places to jump off into, and there was a grotto shaded by a huge banyan tree, with a rope swing tied to it.



The volcano park was good, too. Actually drove down to where the magma is running into the ocean, sending up huge plumes of steam.



We had nice rooms on both islands. One of my co-workers told me I should slip a twenty to the desk clerk upon checking in, just for their help, and they almost always will upgrade your room, if there's any better available. Worked like a charm, best $40 I spent all week!!!



Went by the volcano park again at night, and you can see the bottom of the plume lit up red. I could have put a lot more pictures here!!! Perhaps at a later time.

Bin Twins

Here's an amusing one. A year or so after I started at this job, they hired a stock keeper. One of the other stock keepers (I'll call him G) started telling people he was my older brother. Hooked several people with that tale. He's built similarly to me, but a bit taller. His nose isn't as lumpy as mine, but more rounded. Similar mannerisms. I made a point to point him out to my wife at the Christmas party that year. She said, "He doesn't look anything like you!!!"




Yesterday we got a new supervisor. I can't even tell you how many they've gone through since I've been there, but suffice it to say they don't seem to have a very long shelf life. One of the original supervisors was walking her around introducing her. At lunch yesterday, the new stock keeper (who in the last few months has been made a filler) tells me that the new supervisor came up to him and asked him how he got that nickname, calling him by my nickname!!! His response: "Have you been talking to stock keeper G???"

Random Tienanmen CupDate

First time in a while I've actually gotten to do any cup artwork!!! For most of the day, I had just the text at the top, which reads, "It was 20 years ago today". One girl asked me what that was for, and I told her it was, in addition to being a lyrical reference, the day of the Tienanmen Square incident. She was unfamiliar with the story!!! I told her she should answer, "It was before my time".



Later in the day, I added the lower text, "Is fashion the reason they were there". Another lyrical allusion. Most of the tank I added in on my afternoon break.

Last Friday I went by Frys because they had laptop cooling pads for only $10, and notebook locks for $12. The cool pads were sold out, though. I did, however, pick up a patch cord for headphone jack to headphone jack. Been wanting one of those for a while, now I can play my MP3 player through Janice's radio!!!

School is doing their Spirit week this week. The older boy used one of my shirts that I got from Shirt.Woot. It has a bird made of newspaper origami. It's pretty cool, looks like the heading says "Freedom", then in other areas it appears to say "Press" and "Religion", only all the places it seems to say these things are two different pages.



Four days this week I've worked middle shift. I've had enough.

I've been driving Janice this week. I'm trying to determine what kind of mileage she gets. Not too easy, because the odometer is broken!!! I've been taking my GPS along and using it to track the distance traveled.

I wore my Mario shirt today, and two different people picked up on exactly what it was of, without it needed to be pointed out. I think this was the first time that's happened!!!

One of my co workers was sitting on the couch next to the end a few months back. He was the only one there, and I sat down on the very end next to him. I said something to the effect of, "This doesn't seem too chummy, does it???" It was all in jest, but he hasn't let me live it down. Now whenever we see each other, we'll say things like "heya, chummy!!!"

The bird shirt (which I thought was appropriate, because it is, after all, black and white and read all over) was a mystery shirt that they had for the devilish price of $6.66. It had a picture of a shirt with a blurry question mark on the site. When I first got it, I thought that I would have preferred one with a blurry question mark, but it has since grown on me.

Did anyone see the beginning of Craig Ferguson's show last night??? He did a lip sync of They Might Be Giants' version of "Istanbul", it was pretty amusing.



I've been trying to come up with some sort of algorithm for what kind of mileage I'd have to get with Janice to be better financially. At a rate of 25 cents a gallon less for diesel fuel, I figure I'd have to get around 26.8 MPG or better. What I really need is a chart with varied mileage and varied price curves delineated so I could easily see.

That spiral galaxy image is from another shirt from Woot. They were doing a pointillism design contest, where all the images were of small dots of primary colors. I got this shirt, along with a maroon one for my wife that depicts Pandora and her friends. They both tied for winning, so they offered both for one $10 price. I couldn't pass it up!!!

I took the picture of my wife over the weekend. I thought her hair looked rather 80's.

My chum was telling the guy I was working with today to be careful, I might get chummy with him. I replied, "Hey, thats just with you!!! See how you make me sound like a chum slut!!!"

I'm realizing that by the time I post this, it'll be twenty years and a day!!!

Belizean Birthday

Over the weekend we observed my dad's birthday. We went to their house, where my sister's boyfriend made a nice dinner from his native Belize. Tasty chicken that falls off the bone, seasoned potatoes, interesting veggie stew and fresh fruit. The only thing we'd been asked to bring was for me to decorate up a cake. This was my mom's idea, and once again, I think the cake came out quite nicely!!!

Gettin' Lei'ed

I thought I'd clarify something I tweeted about earlier. Right as I started my shift today, one of the girls I work with greets me, and says, "We gotta put this on you!!!" I was thinking, "Huh???" when she produces a lei and places it around my neck. "It goes with your shirt!!!" she exclaimed. It rather does.



She had a half day today, and was going to be departing on her vacation at 5 this afternoon for ten days in Hawaii. She had been wearing the lei, but it was scratchy on her neck, so she took it off. I didn't get to see it, but she apparently had a cup with an umbrella in it, and a flower in her hair.

I wore it all day, and had to explain it several times. Of course, there was much innuendo about getting lei'ed. 25 days and my own Hawaiian adventure begins!!!

Salt Winder

Here's an interesting thing from a few weeks back. A guy my dad knows is building a land speed racer.



We went out to visit him with a few guys from my dad's car club.



To start with, he had to build a custom garage to accommodate it's length. Basically it's two car lengths long by two wide. Great garage, he's got pretty much a full machine shop set up around the perimeter!!!



The car is a classic streamliner, with two small block chevy engines. No transmissions, because they were the weak link in the system. Instead he's got a slipper clutch pack that grabs more as the RPM and speed increase.



The engines are World products with raised decks, and he's got them out to 427" producing around 700 horsepower each. He was spending so much money at the dyno shop that he ended up just buying the place. Cheaper and easier that way!!!



The engines are mounted crosswise to the body. A problem with mounting them conventionally is when you nail the throttle, the rotational torque has a tendency to flip the thing over on it's side, as well as when you let off the throttle.



I learned quite a bit on this jaunt. He'll be going out to the Bonneville salt flats this fall for it's next run.

T & A Energy

I enjoy having an occasional energy drink. Lost used to be my very favorite, but I happened on these 24-ounce cans, and I'd drink the whole one of those down (seemed like a waste to not finish it) and I'd be sick of it by the time I finished. Classic case of too much of a good thing!!!



Rock Star is one of my top favorites. They actually have it in one of the machines at work. One of my favorite things to do is go to Big Lots or or 99 Cents Only stores and see what kinds of strange things they have in that category. One flavor I originally found at 99 Cents Only was this Ace energy drink. They had only a lo-cal one when I first found it, but I later found the regular. I really like the art on the cans, the whole can is painted to look like a WWII bomber, complete with random bullet holes, and the nose art as the logo. It tastes pretty decent, too.



Last week I stopped into Big Lots on the way home (if they have it in stock, the usually have the original Ace for 60 cents a can, versus 99 cents at the 99 Cents Only, and I buy at least a dozen every time I go) and they had a new brand there. Hooters energy drink. I had to buy a few, just to try it out. I took one to work on Friday. The guys at work liked the artwork on the can. Unfortunately, the flavor wasn't near as good as the can art. Of the two, I think I'll stick with Ace.

I also found it interesting that my favorite flavor, the original, has the artwork with the redhead on it!!! You know, I really love the red haired girls!!!

New Toys

I should have made this post yesterday. Not only was that the day that I got this delivered in the mail. Additionally, yesterday was 5-12 and this is my 512th blog post!!! It's a pretty good one, I think.



My wife thought this was pretty cute, so she pulled out the camera and took this picture. The big boy laptop I bought at the very end of last year, just before the sales tax increased. It's a Toshiba with an AMD dual core processor, with 3 gig RAM and a 250 gig hard drive. It also has some advanced video hardware, not real common in laptops. It is running the Vista operating system. It is neither as bad as you may have heard, nor that much improved over XP that it seems to have been necessary. I got it for $499, I haven't seen too many priced and equipped as well since I bought it. I've been quite pleased with it, but it is a little bulky. My original thought, before buying a laptop, was get as much screen as you can, probably a 17". Ended up with a 15.6", and it seems larger than I really needed.



Prior to buying this, I'd been kind of looking at netbooks. They didn't seem to be quite enough, but the prices were better. Last week I got an E-mail for this little beauty. Less than half what I spent on my Toshiba for an Acer 8.9" netbook!!! Intel Atom processor, 1 gig RAM and 160 gig hard drive. It also has a few things I would like to have had on my laptop, a built in webcam and microphone, as well as a card reader that works with the media from my camera. The webcam does amazingly well in low light conditions, but the audio doesn't seem to sync quite properly with the video. I've only had it one day, but so far, I'm rather liking it better than my laptop!!!

Metaphor for Life

Here's a piece of cup artwork I did last week. I have enhanced it a bit in Paint Shop Pro, as the yellow highlighter I used on it didn't photograph very well.



For a bit of back story to it, I'll explain a bit about my work. Each of the printers has a green-yellow-red light mounted near it, visible to the others on the floor. It used to be more obvious, green if everything was going good, yellow if you get a cycle behind, and red if you fall two or more cycles behind. During some of the changes of the last year, the green and red lights meant different things, and no lights lit meant what green used to mean, all is well. Yellow is now the only light that gets used, and it just means you're behind.

I made this cup up, with the thought that the yellow light was quite a bit like life. You turn it on, and usually nothing happens. If you've fallen behind, it's usually because of a heavy work load, and that gets spread to all printers, so usually everyone else is struggling to keep up. You turn the yellow light on, and you're on your own. No one's coming to help, you better just hope for a few light batches. Of course, just like in life, there's a few people that, if you are fortunate enough to have them around you, will almost always be able to lend a hand, at least in some small way.

The interesting thing, though, is some of the responses I got from some of my co-workers. One guy noted that, no matter how bad things got, it always ends the same. Profound without even trying!!!

Another guy, when he saw it, said, "That's good, just slow it down!!!" I like that!!!

In My Rearview

I was driving into work one morning last week when this incident took place. It was pretty entertaining to me, and put me in a good mood.

I'll preface this tale a little by saying that I've been trying to keep my speed at 65 or less for the last couple of weeks. It's not always easy to do, but I stay to the right so as not to obstruct traffic. I'm endeavoring to bump up my mileage by doing this, coefficient of drag increasing inversely with increased speeds and all that. Of course, with the warmer weather these days, I've been driving with the sunroof and/or the windows open, likely giving Baby the aerodynamics of a whiffle ball.

This particular morning, I was coming up to the interchange to the last freeway I take. I usually keep a good eye on traffic around me, and am usually aware of who is where, and often know what other drivers are going to do before they do it. I had been driving along with no one behind me for quite a distance, but the next time I looked up, probably around 1/8 mile before the ramp, there's what is billed as a German luxury performance car right on my rear bumper!!! Literally, mere feet from me, a distance better situated to parallel parking than cruising at 65. I maintain my speed, up until the long road of the transition leading to the curve. This section curves ever so slightly to the right, then leads into a 270 degree right turning clover leaf ramp. I let her coast down to around just under 50 coming into that stretch coming into the corner, and my shadow sticks right on my tail.

This has gotten on my nerves a bit, so as I'm starting into the clover leaf, I say, "Follow this, killer", and ever so gently start easing on the throttle. A German luxury performance car should be able to do some cornering, right??? I keep easing on the juice all the way through the corner, never coming close to the limits of adhesion, or even eliciting a squeal from the tires. I come out onto the freeway already exceeding my self imposed limit by ten MPH, and my new found friend is nowhere to be seen!!! I lay off and get the speed back down, and it must have been a quarter mile later before I saw him coming out of the curve!!! Ha!!!

That alone would have been good enough for me, but in the remaining quarter mile before my exit, he gets right back on my ass!!! Dude, I'd be embarrassed. He exits behind me. The street I exit onto has three lanes each way, and I end up taking a left, so if it's clear, I will move over to the left lane. It was, so I did, after checking my area and signaling. This guy does the same, except he never signals. Guys like him almost never do. Half a block later, he cuts back into the middle lane. Come on, you sit higher up than I do, and I can see from down here you ain't getting anywhere any quicker over there!!! Sure enough, a block later he gets back behind me!!! After that, he gets in a left turn lane. It has a signal for the turn, and he starts laying on his horn the second the light changes. Whenever someone around me starts honking, I almost always do so myself. I did. I think he should have left fifteen minutes earlier!!!

By the way, the picture on this post is a modification from a much earlier post, "Headlights in the Mirror", in case you thought it looked familiar!!!

Lost Pictures

Okay, so maybe they wern't really ever lost... but here they are anyway!!!



Since I've gotten my laptop, I rarely get on my desktop unless I need to print a document or retrieve a file. Yesterday my mom had a page that wouldn't print on their computer for some reason, so I did it for her. While I had it on, I took the opportunity to scan some old school pictures I've accumulated!!!



They are in order from newest to oldest. My dad, inspired by my wild whisker growth, grew his out for a photo op in his old Navy dress blues. Looks like the old salt, no???

The next two are from Christmas events, when I'd shaved my chin and head, yet left my sideburns. Not for long, it was too strange, and I always felt like I missed a spot.



The final one is from one of the gatherings at Geezers, when one of my co-workers had been axed.



He's to my left, the only co-worker I knew from my previous life. Just past him is the girl who I traumatized with my piercing. She has transitioned into the office. The guy on my other side, he's still in the bins with me, an excellent filler and good guy. Good times!!!

Lucky 13

Today (well, technically yesterday) was the first born's 13th birthday observed. Came out good.



To start off, I've included a Halo 3 logo for reference. Since he's into this series of games, I thought an interpretation of this logo, slightly modified, would do as a cake design.



The weathermen had been predicting rain for today, but it had all blown through by this morning. One of the things he'd wanted to do is have a water fight, not quite as much fun if it's already raining!!! Nice weather today.



He had invited several friends, but only three made it. That was okay, they spent most of the day playing Xbox games in their room. The beginning part of the festivities took place in the living room, playing Halo 1 multi player on a few of the computers. Too noisy out here, much more pleasant when they were all in their room. Here he is, opening the Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution game from my parents. It elicited a "WHOO HOOO!!!" from him, that Halo Wars from me hadn't. I called him on that, and he ammended it for that, too.



All three of the younger cousins came, as well as my parents, middle sister and her boyfriend. More family than friends, but they still had a good time. In case you were wondering, the number 6 candle was the only candle we had. Always short on candles, it seems. Also, if you were wondering, the chip in his hand is what he extinguished said candle with, which was likely a good thing, being as he was chewing on the pizza slice in his hand at the time!!!



And here they are, playing Xbox in their room!!! As you can see, they spent all morning cleaning it up!!! I've not made mention, but note the television. In the basement, I have had since I moved in an old RCA console TV, from back in the day when TV's were actually stylish furniture. Of course, the electronics on it weren't working, but I was able to meld it with my old Toshiba Blackstripe and come up with old world styling with space age technology!!! It's not a real smooth transition around the bezel, but I may be able to do something about that, eventually.



Oh, and water fight??? Not as epic as last year's, but there weren't so many participants. My parents also got him a couple of packs of water balloons, which they used several of. In my opinion, some of the best parts were when I got a pot of water and dumped it unexpectedly from the head of the stairs to where they were filling the balloons!!!