Distant memories...

This day many years ago... I remember it was dark out and I was in the passenger's seat of the Travellall. Was I strapped into a child's seat? I don't think so, perhaps we left in a hurry or I was so used to it I didn't even think about it. I remember peaking over the seat while my baby sister was being born in the back because she wouldn't wait the hour and a half to be born in the hospital... I couldn't see much because I was too small and Dad told me to stay put. There was a lot of breathing and then a couple of baby cries but not much noise really. I also remember waiting in some building at the side of the road that wasn't the hospital... and then the hospital where it was brightly lit and they wouldn't let me see the new baby because I was too little (at least that was my understanding of it). That I am afraid is all I remember from my sister's day of birth... its a little self centered but I was four and a half, what do you expect?

Happy Birthday Kelly Bug! I'm glad you were born! I have more clear memories of your first birthday when you got your first black eye... and of corse most of your birthdays thereafter. Have a great day this year! Don't run into the hearth.

Love you!!!

The Closing Hand

"...we need to appreciate three important facts about money:

1. It is symbolic, not real

2. Its function is to homogenize.

3. It is a means, not an end."

--Philip Slater, Wealth Addiction

If I had a fleet of meter maids who could site everyone I met for crossing the line or waiting around just a little too long, I might be tempted to do it. As a person, it would make me a jerk, but a city is not a person, this is their way to maintain services without raising taxes (for now).

We dug this great hole and now slowly understand its depth... it's familiar, it's like taking on student loans with no true knowledge of the value of money; not understanding how hard it might be to pay those loans off. However the state of California is not an 18 year old with shoddy math skills... the state of California has been run into this hole by many adults with great math skills. It has people running it with accounting degrees, and CEO's who have successful businesses, lawyers who went through years of hard study... you can blame whoever you like but there were a lot of hands (including voters) who got us all here today... perhaps the problem is that we need more training in science.

What we've been running on here is an assumption that our economy can work like a perpetual motion machine...

For such a device to work implies that this machine will generate more energy than it consumes and go on indefinitely. We have been working on the assumption that we can continue to consume and grow and expand indefinitely despite the fact that resources are finite.

Housing value cannot continue to grow forever, consumption of goods cannot be sustained, disposal of goods must be accommodated, eventually all the oil in the world will run out (I don't know when but it's a resource that is not renewing itself so eventually if we keep consuming it we will have used the very last drop). In the machine, friction and gravity (or say, crooked businessmen, droughts and earthquakes...) will wear it to a stop and energy must be spent for the device to continue.

We're living in a broken machine; the laws of thermodynamics tell us the machine needs energy (work) to keep going. Right now the big mistake is to think that money = work. Resources are "work". Resources of human labor and ingenuity, and natural resources are what we need to keep going. In order to make our resources work for us we need to stop burdening the system. Our culture of over-consumption cannot be supported.

All of the money grabbing and finger pointing in the world is not going to help us out of this bind.

It's the Year of the Tiger

Do I love a parade?

The militarism, the crowd, the screaming children, the vendors selling "COT-N Candy! and Glow Sticks!", all of the people in ugly uniforms marching... enough Chinese poppers to make the place sound like a firing range from morning until after sundown... what's not to love?

Some mysterious sense of obligation coaxed me to go see the Chinese New Year parade this year. I've been living in the San Francisco area for nine years and have never been. It's supposed to be a big deal. After waiting around for a good 40 minutes next to delightful children who spent the whole time screaming, playing with firecrackers and spewing silly string on everyone around them we finally saw signs of life...
Just look at these Dragon dancers... not dancing. Ooh exciting.
There was a guy dressed in a green unitard who was really into it. He was there dancing and making everybody cheer and making me feel like even more of a sour-puss in comparison.
The Dragon was cool, although a bit fast to take photos of. The guys holding the dragon were hot, so that was nice...

At this point in the parade a chubby 9 year old in designer jeans next to me was crying that she hadn't had enough cotton candy and that she wanted the Blue silly string "not the Red!"... oh yea we're having fun now...

Ok, yea the dragons were really neat. If only there were a way to see them in a non-parade format.
I watched the parade for about 30 minutes before heading back towards BART and found the tail of the parade by the time the sun had set.

Year of the Tiger here;
Glowing Dragon;
MCDonalds loves you... buy our Happy Meals... Visa loves you too but the photo didn't show up very well... it was totally covered in glitzy money and credit cards. Corporate sponsors pandering for ethnic customers? Wow parades are awesome.
Look another glowing tiger (one of possibly ten)

Well now I can say I've been. Gay pride is more fun.

False advertising...

Forgive me this boring post... I've got Chinese New Year in the works... but meanwhile we discuss dental hygiene;
Don't get me wrong, I love my mouthwash, I've got happy cavity-free teeth... but um, I noticed a wee little mistake on the bottle today whilst I swished this about my mouth...

By "Alcohol Free"...

...they mean "made with alcohol".

Awesome.

Really?

There is a time and a place for interpretive portraiture... but I don't think this is one of them.

Sorry to be all judgmental about you or your wife or your special third grade artist but there is a reason that magazines and beauty salons show happy beautiful people in their advertising. Even if you tricked the MOMA into purchasing this original piece of art and even if you convinced someone that Chagall himself painted it for you, it's still not going to make people want to get their hair cut here. Use your head!!!