Friday, May 30, 2008

Going to eat mudbugs

Going to skadattle to Louisiana this weekend. On Saturday we are having a birthday party (v.1) for Maggie. She is starting to get the concept of a birthday although she still sings Happy Birthday every time she eats cake or ice cream. The birthday party is also a crawfish boil. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten my favorite bottom-dwelling, caraspaced, arthropod. I finished packing today and feel embarrassed on how “electronic” I have become. Packed was: portable DVD player, ipods, laptop, digital video camera, digital camera, cellphones, and a rat nest of chargers (which I’m sure I am still missing 1 or 2).

My “squaring away” continues, cutting into my posting. I’ve managed to get every scrap of music I own onto my computer and loosely organized. I noticed a slight rub today as Itunes automatically coded recent imports into mp4s. While I understand mp4 is better than mp3, it doesn’t work in my car. Hopefully I can figure out an easy way to convert.

I need to start keeping my camera handy. On the interstate the other day I zoomed by a wonderful scrap of American culture. Here is the image: Toyota pick-up, lowered, early 90s model with only the “YO” part of the logo left on the back; one-tail light; expensive wheel rims on one side; FEAR GOD bumper sticker; fake bullet-hole stickers on the back windshield; 17” Blue LCD screen…on the dash…with some action movie playing; and then my favorite…blue florescent lights shining from the undercarriage. The latter was my favorite because as I whizzed by the 55mph driver, there was only one headlight working. We all have our own criteria for the word “priority,” I suppose. Encounters like this make me think about the ongoing evolution/intelligent design/creationism debate. The debate is a waste of time. Evolution is over. And I’ll close on that optimistic note.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Headed West (for now)

Because the bureaucratic speed of the federal government hasn’t seemed to change since I was last employed by it, we have made plans to move back to Louisiana, likely Shreveport. We hope to be there by August 1st. It looks as though the fedjob process will take longer than expected, so I will need to find a filler. So it makes sense to take a filler job in an area where the cost of living is much lower. Biggest upshot is that Maggie is around the rest of the family for a while. Downside is that I actually hate to move, despite my track record. If the fedjobs pull through in the summer, those plans will be nulled. With my luck, they will call right after I get settled in Shreveport.

My office is cleaned out. All student work I’m not legally bound to hold onto has been trashed. All the grad work and thesis drafts are in a tub that weighs the same as rhinoceros. If nothing ever comes of my work, I think I can claim responsibility of at least some sort of environmental damage.

I received copies of my thesis via Lulu last week. Half the price of the university stuff and without that awful blue binding. Plus you can customize the cover through MS publisher, or Photoshop as I did:

Maggie was able to feed the ducklings at the pond yesterday. She almost caught a nip from the voracious warthead duck that flanked her during the feeding. These ducks remind of the seagulls in Finding Nemo, only dumber and more aggressive.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Inaugural Post

Our life is frittered away by detail, says Thoreau. With the MFA and its accompanied disillusionments in the bag, I have been working on some simplification of my own as I look for a new job which is a full-time job itself. I’ve written so many CVs/resumes that I’m almost tempted to log in “writing resumes” under “key skills.” The simplifying process started with Jean’s anticipated honey-do list—all the things we’ve been letting slide while I bivouacked in my office experimenting in the dark arts. After remodeling Maggie’s room via IKEA, we worked through all the other bourgeois hoardings in the house. I turned the attack to my computer. I think I have about 4 blogs, a LJ or two, a Good-Reads, maybe a facebook (I’m not sure). In sum, I dumped everything I could still remember the password on. The others will join the insane amount of net sterility out there. Does the internet have a John/Jane Doe system for web pages, blogs, etc? So from scratch, here comes my sole new blog (the Stygian, of course, is still there…needing much attention). Another reason for cleaning up my digital clutter is because I’m inevitably shutting down shop again to set up again…somewhere. So this time I’m trying to keep better contact with both past and present.

In other news, I’ve finally went Ipod. I grabbed the Shuffle. I couldn’t convince myself of anything larger. My life is quite music orientated, but I can’t forsee the ipod upstarting my existing fixes: 20gig MP3 in car, music library on PC. If I’m not in my car or at my PC, then I’m not listing to music. The Shuffle is for—*cough*—because I’m working out and running again. The longest I could ever foresee me running would be a marathon (a new goal), and that is 26miles, roughly four hours at an average pace. I think the running amount of time for the Shuffle I grabbed is right over a day. The iTunes interface/program rocks. My library is quite eclectic, so the random playlists are fun. As I’ve typed this post, I’ve heard Social Distortion (enjoying less as I get older), Slipknot (a band I’m still giving a chance), a string quartet covering Tool's Aenima, Mephaskapheles, something from Alexandro Bartos (didgeridoo), and a 7-Seconds’ cover of 99 Balloons. I had checked in to iTunes a few years back and was turned off. The body of music was shallow for the stuff I am most interested in. Different river now. I have scoured the net for Funeral Oration—the sickly underrated band from Amsterdam—and iTunes has the whole caboodle. 30$ up in smoke.

On the homefront, Maggie and I are spending another summer together at the moment. Pool, beach, parks, zoos, the Bee Movie, Jungle Book, Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Robots, imaginary cooking, endless hide-and-seek, Old McDonald, chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese, watermelon, strawberries, feeding ducks, feeding fish, Butterfly World, jumping on the bed, Jamba Juice, Wocket in My Pocket, Fox-in-Socks and checking on the moon every thirty minutes it seems. Game on. Soon the Flickr will be up. Tomorrow she starts her first full day in her new “room” (2-3yr olds). They are potty training. She doesn’t do it, but makes Duckie, her half-blanket, half-stuffed animal, use the potty.