Hey blogerati (or is it "blogeroos"?).

Long time no hear.

From me, I mean.

Yeah, I've been busy.

Swamped, to be more precise.

Spent a week in California with my pops & caught a whiff of some old friends, drove 2300 miles, discovered that there is far more to Northern California than the Bay Area (which is actually in the middle). Had some adventures, which I'd hoped to reveal here.

Started my teaching certification master's program. Am already swamped with work after only 3 days. Am trying to ingest 50 years of human development theory in only 3 weeks. Must read much jargon and write papers, etc.

Yuk.

Have a "methods" class with a hip, young professor which is very interesting but there are only 2 students total in the class. That means no in-class ZZZ's for me. Not that I ever slack in school -- I'm always prepared to cough up some bool-sheeit upon a moment's notice -- but sometimes I get sick of my own voice (hard to imagine, I know).

Somehow in the midst of this new/old "going to school" thing I have to find time to say hi to my wife, play with my dog, hum a few bars, and maybe scribble a line or two in this blog.

All of those things are going to be scant this summer, I'm afraid. Especially blogging since I am no longer cube-bound. Yay for that. Boo for the fact that I have a long drive to school and no radio. And no heater. And no air conditioner.

I do have a bag of popcorn in my car. White cheddar popcorn from last month to be precise.

I found it Monday when I was digging under the seat for coins: I'd forgotten my wallet and lunch in my mad rush to be prepared (academically) for my first day of school. I had my pocket protector, my protractor, and my #2 pencil.

That bag of popcorn almost became my lunch. But then I found a bag of half-eaten peanut-butter pretzels under there, too. Carbon dating of the accumulated bellybutton lint and spit fingernails in the bag indicated that the contents might be less than 5 years old. The pretzels were chewy and the peanut butter inside was rock hard. Not optimal, but I was desperate.

Fortunately, a more concerted search revealed several pennies and a quarter, bringing my total pocket-change to 52 cents.

This vast sum of money was going to net me a raw potato from the supermarket. I stood there at Safeway trying to remember if raw potatos (being a member of the nightshade family) contained deadly toxins. I suspected that they might. Deciding that having convulsions on the first day of class might have a negative impact on my image among my new peers, I opted to buy a can of pinto beans for lunch instead. (In terms of peer-image, farting is preferable to frothing at the mouth.) But I didn't have access to a can opener and the prospect of using one in the kitchen utensil aisle seem'd a bit gauche. Ditto my plan to suck down a 43 cent can of tomato paste.

That left me with only one option for my 53 cent lunch:

Lil' Debbie snack cakes

I drove up the highway, found a gas station, and purchased not one but TWO highly delectable high-calorie treats: a Nutty Bar and a Fudge Brownie (TM). The Nutty Bar was expectedly scrumptuous, but the brownie tasted like congealed bat dung. In retrospect, I should have gone for a honey bun instead of the brownie, but you know what they say...*
And at 25 cents a pop without tax, I still had three pennies to my name.

After devouring this highly nutritous meal, I went out in search of a three cent dose of caffeine but failed.

Anyway, don't look to this blog for regular updates but I'll stick my head in once in awhile just to keep the roaches fed and the urine-pots empty.

Ciao for now.







*hindsight is 50/50.

I've been busy of late. Filmed a wierd wedding this weekend where the bride and groom barely acknowledged one another during the reception. Camped alone overnight in tidewater Virginia after the wedding because driving home four hours in the middle of the night was not an option.

Spent the next day -- my 31st birthday -- in a car. Started by driving to my father-in-laws place up in West Virginia. Got there midafternoon. Drove 90 minutes from there up to a riverside "campground" he rents for $500 a year (its an RV in a trailer park downstream from a chicken rendering plant...). It was too hot up there and the twin nephews were present, so we bailed quickly. Drove back to the cabin. Ate a birthday barbecue. Drove 2 hours home. Not a bad birthday -- just a long one.

We have relatives over from Australia -- my wife's aunt and uncle. They're good people with funny expressions. Very down to earth.

I quit my job two days ago. Left after a silly, unforseen fight with my boss. She wanted me to come in the day after my last day so I could go to an 8:30 a.m. meeting (i.e. wake up at 5, commute 90 minutes, and go to a meeting). I explained clearly and without equivocation that it wasn't going to happen. This upset her. She and I then went off with my other co-workers to a farewell lunch during which she said very little to me. After lunch, I ducked out without saying goodbye to her. I tried to exit the job with a semblance of dignity, but grace is not always an option.

Yesterday I packed the houseguests off to the mall and spent the day working on music. I need a few more weeks of that kind of thing.

Today, going through a secondary email account, I learned from Sex McGinty that one of our beloved high school math teachers got busted for child pornography last year. Not a huge surprise, really. He was a grizzly, agro viking-looking motherfucker with flaming red hair who brooked no b.s. from anybody. There were flower-child hippies and crazy/scary hippies: Helwig fell into the latter camp. He was a damn great teacher, though. Didn't have time for lazy students, but if you showed even a modicum of interest in geometry, he would bend over backwards working with you until you got it. Once me and Wiley and Unbreakable and a few other students went over to his house for a class meeting of some sort. He had a HUGE wall of VHS pornography. We didn't watch any -- I don't think he was an actual child-abuser -- but he vigorously and unabashedly defended his first amendment right to see naked people on screen. I guess his tastes ranged a bit too far for Uncle Sam... (For the record, I gather from the brief article I read on his arrest that he simply purchased some kind of illegal porn from a site in Belarus. He didn't make the stuff himself.) Anyway. Life's wierd sometimes.

Tomorrow I'm off to Northern California. I have a lunch date with my attorney and will be hanging out with some friends before heading off into the Salmon River wilderness area with my dad. I'm looking forward to it.

When I get back, I get to don my pocket protector and start school right away. Wee.

Coldplay Shmoldplay.

Their new album comes out tomorrow.

I'll not be in line to get it.

Its not that I dislike Coldplay: they have an AWESOME good song.

One awesome good song.

One shiny, beatifully vocalized, highly produced, simple song...

...repeated over and over and over again.

One album sounds the same as another.

They are the "Groundhog Day" of pop music.

Problem is: I'm not interested in hearing that song anymore.

Not that its your problem. Or theirs, for that matter. They'll make a mint no matter what I think.

On other fronts:

The Supreme Court just outlawed medical marijuana. Time for some respectful civil disobedience, y'all.

Christ, its hot.

The dog is deflated on the floor.

I have a frozen head of lettuce bolted to my neck.

...too hot for blogging...