I Cried In Public

I cried in public recently. It was somewhat embarrassing, but I didn't care. My wife noticed, but said nothing. It was one of those good cries, not loud and blubbery, just soft and satisfying. It was a cry of joy, of my heart exploding, full of pure pleasure; something welling up inside me that could not be contained by the physical. It snuck up on me as I gazed at a painting, a Monet. I was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art viewing part of the Duncan Phillips collection and the painting was The Road to Vétheuil, painted by Monet in 1879. It's not the most famous painting in the collection, but it was the one that made my heart soar. The longer I looked at it, the more glorious it seemed. The audio tour headset I wore said something about Monet trying to paint light itself. The attached photo does not come even close to capturing the glorious explosion of color and light that this canvas posesses, but it is the best I could find...

Not Really a Beatle Question

As John Lennon said, "Picture yourself in a boat on a river..." Only, you're in a war zone and people are shooting at you. Now who do you want in that boat with you? A guy who will pull your ass out of the water if you fall in? Or a guy who tried everything in his and his daddy's power to see that he never found himself "in a boat on a river?" Pretty simple choice. Now, "picture your country in a boat on a river..."

Not All Nerds are Smart

In the early 90's I was moving from one area of California to another and looking for a good computer club (we did such things in those days). I found an ad somewhere for a club nearby and took my son to the meeting with me. I wanted to see what these folks were like and if I would fit in or not.

Well we go to the meeting and each member of the club board gives a statement about the state of their area of the club. The membership guy talks and the activities guy talks and the newsletter guy talks and all is seeming OK. But then, the BBS guy talks. For all you chillin' out there who don't know anything of modems before the Internet exploded in 95, a BBS was a Bulletin Board System, a place you could dial into and read messages, download files, chat with other members: a sort of private intranet. Anyway, the big thing on club BBS's was of course file sharing and shareware (on other BBS's the big thing was porn and hooking up, but that is a different story). So the guy in charge of the BBS starts talking about how one of the members called him up and told him that one of the files on their BBS was a virus. The president asked him if he had verified the problem and he said, "yeah, I opened the file up on the BBS and before I could reboot the machine in ate 3/4 of the hard drive."

I took my son by the hand and quickly exited the building. There are enough dumb people in the world I run into accidentally, I didn't need to be seeking them out. I mean, if someone had told him a gun was loaded would he have put it to his temple and pulled the trigger to be sure? What a super smart guy.

I Question the Facts

This week the traffic to work was awful and because of it I had a pretty slow ride into Pasadena. I'm cruising down the 210 going about 5MPH past the city of AZUSA (A to Z in the USA) and I notice that they have this huge fucking sign up that says "AZUSA" across the top and has a light billboard underneath. The billboard flashes "Azusa, the most improved city in the San Gabriel Valley" Then it flashes the time 4:28 and the temp 64F. I passed the sign at exactly 10:01. The next day I once again notice the sign, once again declaring. "Azusa, the most improved city in the San Gabriel Valley" Then it flashes the time 7:11 and the temp 60F. I passed the sign at exactly 8:11. Hey, they really are improved, they went from 5 hours and 33 minutes off to only an hour off in a single day!

Tonight's the Night

Tonight we go to see Fahrenheit 9/11. Can not wait to see it.