Time Flies like an Arrow

I thought I would be updating this a lot more than I actually did. I didn’t really enjoy the whole process and for the past year or so, I’ve been so reserved about putting my personal information on the internet, I didn’t know if I could break the habit. I couldn’t. The way I used to pour my guts out onto my Deadjournal might have been a therapeutic time-waster back when I blogged at work, but now it cuts into “me” time, and it seems I don’t have much of that anyway. Also, I’m always worried about a potential employer reading my blog months or years down the line, so I’d better not be emo, or curse, or say something horribly mean or controversial. Thus, I have not really anything to say.

Plus, who actually reads my journal anymore? I have to tell people – even my husband – to go check it, and at that point, heck, I could just update you folks with my life on MSN or AIM. By the way, just message me if you see me online. If I am here, I will message back. If I am not set away and I don’t message you back, I am not there – I have just given up on trying to remember to set my status all the time. Also, half the time I am “away”, I might be there. Yes yes, I know, I’m an idiot.

People used to worry seriously when they didn’t hear from me for a week. Now that I am all settled down with my husband and cats, it’s not exactly a huge worry among, well, anyone. I take that as a good thing. We’re homebodies and computer geeks. We enjoy the simple things in life. Our lives may seem dull and “country” to some folks, I reckon, but we are content.

Truth be told, it would take me a shorter amount of time to update you through an instant message than to type up an entry here. Maybe someday I’ll do a blog related to work which will would hopefully be less tiresome, boring and repetitive than most of the tech blogs out there. Though I wouldn’t bet on it. Hopefully I’d spend that extra time hunting wild boar, or skydiving, or scuba-diving in the Caribbean.

Good night. I’ll see you around.

I have a sore throat so I’m taking it easy so I don’t get full-blown sick. Hope you are too. Taking it easy that is, not getting ill.

The Cal-Miami game was interesting. That’s about it.

Alright, now for your Lolcat pic. Have a good night.

“Roses are reddish
Violets are bluish
If it weren’t for Christmas
We’d all be Jewish.”
~Benny Hill

“The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.”
~Jay Leno

May your holiday season be safe, warm and wonderful. Merry Christmas to one and all.

We decided to take a quick nap at 5 p.m. which lasted until 2 a.m., at least for me. The Hub is still in bed, dreaming of his half-day at work today, I am sure. Time off is one of the best gifts one can get, I think. The cats were thrilled when I emerged from the bedroom. Yet another reason why I’m glad we do not have children. You can’t just have a snack, skip dinner and sleep for seven hours whenever you feel like it.

I think I’ve forgotten to mention that I’m going back to school for a Computer Science degree. Two years at TMCC, then two years at UNR. It’s the best major for me, considering how it will complement my old Masters degree. I think it will also be challenging, and frankly, my psych undergrad was about as challenging as opening up a paper bag. Yeah, things are easier because you remember them to be so, and also majors that you’re good at are easier anyway, BUT…this time around I’ll be going all the way up to Calc 3 in math. Finally having a good relationship with mathematics will be a real joy. It’s like filling a forever blank spot on a color-by-numbers canvas. I’ll be able to see how well I can concentrate on school, sans extracurricular activities like my old sorority. It’s not that my grades were terrible in my undergrad years. They weren’t. My grad school grades were excellent, for that matter. It’ll be satisfying to see how I progress through this journey.

As my father used to say, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

I do try to mention important life events on this website. I usually forgo small, piddling activities because I can’t be arsed to blog about them, and do you really care or not what level my Lore-master is in Lord of the Rings Online? (She’s 22.) Thought not. Anyway, I bring this up because I recently caught up with an online friend who I hadn’t spoken with in a couple of months. I told him what I’d been up to. I’ve gotten very good at being pretty succinct about it since I have to give The Life Update to my friend, Heather, every few weeks and she’s only got about ten minutes to spare when she’s on the phone. He told me what he had been up to, which is what I thought he’d been doing. Work and gaming. Nothing wrong with that. Most people are not off wrestling alligators or test-driving Ferrari Testarossas every day. Or even every other day. Looking back at the post, I had spoken with him on and off for four hours. Everything that I had been up to had been covered in this discussion. Everything that I did not discuss had been posted in this blog.

Right as I was saying good-bye online to the fellow, he says this to me, “Ok, next time I catch you I want to hear how you’ve been.” What? Do people think this housewife gig I do is a ruse and a cover for my alternative Secret Agent spy lifestyle? “Oh yes, well I’ve not been around much because I’ve been trying to overthrow the government in Zimbabwe. Charming local people, though. They make this absolutely delish dish with snake.”

“Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That’s how rich I want to be.”
~Rita Rudner

It snowed last night. I have the truck today and I have to run errands. Not fun. Poor planning on my part. I should have done most of this yesterday when the ground was clear.

I grew up in Central California. This means I can drive to the moon and back in fog so thick you can barely see your hand in front of your face. What it does not mean is that I’ve had experience driving in snow. I got a little when we first moved here, which was nerve-wracking. I asked my husband for driving-in-snow advice back then. Mind you, this is a man who spent his entire life in Mississippi, so he could drive to the moon and back in a terrible thunderstorm, but he had no experience driving in snow prior to our moving. His response? “Don’t crash.”

Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. It’s like the advice people give when they tell you to “fly safely”. NOT HELPFUL.

In my years on the internet, I have known a few people from the New England area. Every year, they never failed to give me horror stories to firmly cement my fear of driving in the snow. Massachusetts sounds like a place where bad drivers go to congregate and crash into each other. At least back in Corinth, Mississippi, people drove slowly through town. Even if it was sunny, one wrong turn and you could end up in a three foot-wide drainage ditch. That said, my New England friends did impart a little bit of advice, most of which I remember as “slow down” and “don’t be an idiot”. The “don’t be an idiot” thing falls under the “don’t crash” category.

Yes, I’ve encountered black ice. No, I haven’t had to do any hilly winter driving – thank God we live on the valley floor which is as flat as a drunk girl’s singing at a karaoke bar. The black ice was enough to give me the heebie jeebies. While I still appreciate and adore the fact that it snows here, I am very nervous about venturing out in it. Even if everything goes fine on my part, what about the moron who doesn’t slow down and take precautions? Living in LA for 13 years, I can tell you that it only takes one douchebag to screw up an entire freeway.

I looked on the internet for advice. Slow the HELL down, they said. Put space between your car and the one in front of you. Turn into your skid, they said. Brake, go through your corner, then accelerate. A lot of it was very technical and I had hoped for a video to see an example of how this was done. Seems like it’s more of an “experience it for yourself” kind of thing. Fun.

I did find a video on a British website, strangely enough. Even though it wasn’t what I was looking for, I still found it interesting. Perhaps you will too. I think once a person’s driven in snow a few times, he can really get a strong appreciation for what winter rally car drivers do. Check out the speed on these guys. I was told once that sometimes they don’t even brake in snow rallies – they just skid their way ’round the corners. Yikes.

“His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.”
~J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit”

We keep a happy, cozy house here, especially during wintertime. I like to use the phrase, “the luxuries of a hotel, the comforts of home” to describe it, though it may come off being a little arrogant. If you ever have the opportunity to taste my husband’s cooking, you will not think me too unjustly proud.

Jesse cooks almost every night for us. I am the prep cook and clean-up crew. Sometimes I make simple side dishes. For the most part, every night there is cooking to be done, it is done together. It is a pleasure to observe a skilled cook during the creation process. It also makes you gain about five pounds (currently 125 lbs) from eating the result of such artistry. That’s a small price to pay for a home-cooked meal every night, especially when you’ve grown up barely cooking yourself.

It is little known that I love Indian food. Very often, I enjoy it more than sushi, my fare of choice. Maestro turned me on to it years ago when he would constantly rave about he ate: chicken tikka, vindaloo, curry, kebab, etc. (Side note: the best Indian food, outside of India, is in England. You would kill toddlers for this food. I am not kidding.)

Jesse has recently discovered a new Indian recipe website. The best part about this is that it’s designed for two-person servings, as the lady is cooking for herself and her husband. Technically, some of them serve two people twice, but usually when we have a dinner, he takes some the next day for lunch. It is so refreshing to see a food website that doesn’t assume just because you’re married, you’ve got children, or two spare wives, for that matter. He made this for us tonight and it was excellent. Very authentic-tasting, and I highly recommend you try it if you’re in the mood to do so.

“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”
~Julia Child

…an angel gets his wings.

Around this time of year, we get the smattering of holiday movies that are as much a part of Christmastime as any holiday ritual. My favorite is “A Christmas Story”, but I ain’t talkin’ about that one today. Today I came across two reviews of “It’s a Wonderful Life” which I felt were rather insightful. The whole premise to the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, if you haven’t seen it before, is the banker protagonist, George Bailey, has had a run of bad fortune and is contemplating suicide. He gets a brief chance to see what life would be like if he had never been born. Blah blah blah, he realizes he actually did have a wonderful life and doesn’t off himself. Oh don’t act like I spoiled it for you. As if a black-and-white Christmas film would end with a man’s suicide. Pfft.

Wendell Jamieson from the New York Times gives a fantastic discussion of the film and brings up the major point that Pottersville is fabulous. Pottersville is the town shown in the alternative “what life would be like without George Bailey” scene that would have spawned instead of Bedford Falls (the town that George Bailey lives in currently.) Pottersville is like a mini-Las Vegas. Back then, the movie is trying to state it’s the worst possible outcome – hedonism (which is sinful and dangerous) everywhere. What a tiresome Puritanical way to look at something. You’ve either got small-town boredom or extreme Sin City.

However, knowing our current economy, and what is and isn’t working in the mid-to-upstate New York area (which Jamieson touches on), what would you rather have NOW? A manufacturing or a resort town? Those of you who answered “manufacturing” can move to Detroit.

Gary Kamiya of Salon.com elaborated on this topic several years ago in his “All hail Pottersville!” article.

“The gauzy Currier-and-Ives veil Capra drapes over Bedford Falls has prevented viewers from grasping what a tiresome and, frankly, toxic environment it is. When Marx penned his immortal words about “the idiocy of rural life,” he probably had Bedford Falls in mind. B.F. is the kind of claustrophobic, undersized burg where everybody knows where you’re going and what you’re doing at all times. If you’re a Norman Rockwell collector, this might not bother you, but it should — and it certainly bothered George Bailey. It is all too easily forgotten that George himself wanted nothing more than to shake the dust of that two-bit town off his feet — and he would have, too, if he hadn’t gotten waylaid by a massive load of family-business guilt and a happy ending engineered by God himself.”

Oh yes, George Bailey wanted to leave Bedford Falls. He wanted to go to college. His brother got sent instead, and ended up meeting a rich girl, marrying her and working for her father, thereby keeping himself from being tied to the Bailey family business. His brother got the wonderful life. Watch the film and see how many times George gets angry and frustrated because of his surroundings and the yokels around him. (His poor wife, Mary, I exclude from this because, frankly, she was a glutton for punishment.)

No, George, it wasn’t a wonderful life you had. You had a really mediocre, tired life and you bore it as best you could. You accepted the cards you were dealt and didn’t ask for anything in return because you were trying so hard to take care of your responsibilities to everyone else. There were times you couldn’t handle the pressure because a person shouldn’t have to live in a town where the only entertainment is a movie theater that only shows “The Bells of St. Mary’s”.

It’s a hard, boring, shitty life sometimes.

We’ll be waiting for you here in Pottersville. I’ll save you a seat at the bar. Cheers.

Wireless connection isn’t working right, so we’ve got an uber-fast, uber-expensive wired connection from it now. Jesse will be dealing with the Linksys people again hopefully tomorrow.

I’d give detail as to why it’s not working right but I am a poor describer of all things computer hardware-related, and I have a splitting headache, which I acquired around 11 a.m. today.

Still, I feel proud of myself that I managed to continue my daily flossing streak today. Small victories, one day at a time.

With a minimum of bloodshed, property destruction and general chaos, our household has changed over to a wireless internet connection. This is wonderful as our router has been repeatedly trying to commit seppuku the past few months, though the problems were minimal and only noticeable on my computer. Then the router started to affect Jesse’s computer’s internet connection in a BIG WAY this week, so something had to be done. We did consider smashing things with hammers as a possible solution but decided against it in the end.

I am so tired. Jesse did all the computer work so it’s not from that. It’s just late.

Side note: I finally tried cactus and lengua today at the taqueria. Lengua is cow tongue and yes I know it sounds gross but it’s actually pressure-cooked for a very long time so the meat is rather tender and very tasty. The cactus was very good too. I had them both on tacos. No, not together. I had four other corn-tortilla-wrapped tasties but those were the only two worth mentioning.

I almost didn’t get the tongue. One part of me was saying, “Dude, it’s going to be all grisly and tough, like the tongue inside your own mouth.” And of course, it wasn’t. So often when we hear that little voice in our head, it’s our way of convincing ourselves through bad logic. Then again, if you actually hear a voice in your head too much, you need to get off the computer and seek medical assistance.

The experience reminded me of something Andrew Zimmern said about the way western people, especially Americans, either get freaked out or disdain other cultures’ foods. Food is such a social paradigm. What seems normal in one culture may seem disgusting in another, so you can’t just take for granted that your way is right. Think eating bugs in Africa is gross? Zimmern’s talked to Africans there who were absolutely grossed out by the concept of cheese. Now just think about what cheese is…cheese is pretty hideous by description no matter how you slice it (no pun intended). But Americans get past that concept every day and eat cheese to their chubby little hearts’ contents. Heck, I’m not a huge fan of cheese but I still enjoy a nice slice of Gouda on a tasty water cracker.

It’s strange. People get scared of food. Not because it’ll make them sick, like from food poisoning, but just because it will taste bad or gross them out in some fashion. Both states are extremely temporary. You try it; you move on. I admit I used to be the world’s pickiest eater. I learned that trying new foods is just like getting into a swimming pool. Just dive in. Sometimes it’s hard to get on the diving board, but if you just go for it, you’ll feel a lot better afterward that you did.

Next time we go, I’m trying the cow head. Cheers.

“Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.”
~Groucho Marx

The past couple of days have been busy. Jesse’s been putting together his new Warhammer collection, and thankfully, the cats have not discovered his goblin horde yet. He also discovered the new Asian grocery store in Reno that he says is excellent. They have everything he needs for his new foray into curry-making and Thai cuisine, and the proprietor is amiable and knowledgeable. (I did not visit the store as I was home waiting for a package from UPS to arrive.) He came home with some sake, some plum wine, and a sake bottle and glasses set.

We had some of the plum wine tonight. The grocery store proprietor said that if we were ever tired, we should eat one of the plums inside the wine.

A reasonable facsimile of our booze

Now then, it is no secret I dislike white wine. I find it too sour. However, the plum wine was decidedly fruity, both sour and sweet at the same time, with a sweet, light aftertaste. It was the most bizarre, incomprehensible alcohol I’d ever had. Jesse couldn’t figure out if he liked it or not initially, but the complexity grew on him. He concurred that it was “good”, and I would have to agree. If you’re ready for an adventure into something different, an Asian plum wine might be for you.

On my end, I’m making swift progress through my Algebra “review book” and I made a spice cake today. Yes it was from a box but Alton Brown says it’s okay to do so. So nyah.

Every so often, I like to check out urban exploration sites. I love seeing the pictorials, reading the history of the towns and locations, and seeing how the decay of time changes the world around us. It’s interesting to see how nature is so resilient and always makes its way back to recover what it had lost. Today, I’d like to present to you a little town which suffers a fate that seems stranger than fiction:

Centralia, Pennsylvania – zip code 17927
also known as “The Real Silent Hill”

As recently as 1981, there were over 1,000 residents living in Centralia, although the population has now dwindled to 11 (we’ll say that again: 11 people) as a result of a 40-year mine fire burning beneath the borough (we’ll say that again: it’s been burning for 40 years… underneath the town). This is certainly not unlike Silent Hill, which was left deserted since devastating coal fires ravaged the town and its people.

The inferno started when a trash fire was lit in an abandoned mine pit in Centralia in 1962. The fire ignited an exposed vein of coal and spread throughout the mines beneath the borough. Several attempts have been made and millions of dollars have been spent unsuccessfully to extinguish this fire that still burns today.

The “problem” wasn’t really acknowledged until a series of accidents in the ’70s and ’80s, including the appearances of sinkholes hundreds of feet deep. In 1984, Congress allocated more than $40 million for relocation efforts, and most residents moved to nearby Mount Carmel and Ashland.

However, a very few families opted to stay, and they’re still there, despite the fact that the state of Pennsylvania has condemned all the buildings in the borough and the US Postal Service has revoked its zip code of 17927. The 11 holdouts include the town’s 89-year-old mayor, Lamar Mervine, who refuses to leave because “I like it here.”
http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/Silent-Hill.htm

The town was the basis for the “cinematic version” of Silent Hill, according to the both the Offroaders.com site and the Centralia Wikipedia entry. Here is more about the town, the history of the mine fire, and photo gallery. I highly recommend looking at the photo gallery:

Reading the Wikipedia entry, it looks like the population of Centralia is now down to nine.