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Blog - May 2005 |
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This page stores my blog entries from May 2005. The entries are dated May 10, May 19, May 26, and May 31.
Whole Earth Festival / First Helmet Case almost done / Lake Tahoe thoughts Tuesday, May 10, 2005 Nearly ten years later, I attend yet another Whole Earth Festival (WEF). From bounding off with a high school friend to solo trips and my first trips with Pam, the WEF never shines the same light on my life. Despite the light changing from year to year, I always gain a great amount of positive energy from attending it. This year proved to be no different. Pam and I went for our secnd time together. On this occasion, I figured I'd try to do something I have never done before: go to see a particular musical guest. In years past, I attended for the drum circle, the candle and incense booths, and for the overall good vibes. I'm beginning to gain more interest in seeing and experiencing the music and speeches put on by the various guests brought in by the planning crew. After browsing the Whole Earth Festival web site, the appearance of Babá Ken Okulolo and the Nigerian Brothers looked the most interesting of all the prospects. The WEF site described the group as:
Despite catching the last 20 minutes of their hour-long set, the band did not disappoint. They had captured the crowd, sending them into a jubilant dancing trance that would have had Jerry Garcia jealous. Over a hundred or so people collected together in their dancing region in front of the stage, clapping and cheering with each song's finale. I liked what they played, with my interest cemented when they played, "Kajo." That song exhibited the sunny energy and danceable soundscape that expresses the overall vibe of the Festival and how I feel when there. A song before the end of their set, I bought their sole album, "Songs From the Village", and am not disappointed. Pam and I went in search for a couple of things. Pam wanted a spoon rest, similar to one she bought last year, to get for her sister, and she wanted a container to serve as a utensil holder near her stovetop. I wanted to find a nice planting pot in which to re-pot my jade plant. We found the same pottery vendor from which she bought her spoon rest and found exactly what she wanted in each. On the other hand, I did not find anything at all in a planting pot that would serve well for my jade plant. Of the four or five places that had pottery, nearly all of them focused on kitchenware. One had a couple of pieces of pottery for planting, but they didn't fit my desires for what I wanted. As usual for the WEF, we saw a few odd and unusual things. One attendant danced around in brightly colored clothes that all had 2-3" long fringes. He had these fringes everywhere. One woman brought her pet chinchilla. I think others must have had similar thoughts, with one of her friends carring around a black and white rat and an unrelated other person carring around a white rat. Yet another person had a huge conch shell that he'd blow at various times. I'm sure he had a purpose, since each sounding of the conch had the same sequence of sounds he'd make with it. With Pam's quesadilla and my pupusa and garlic fries, we enjoyed our lunch in the shade of the meditation dome. The lack of meat really didn't annoy me this year, despite the last few years of threats to openly cook and sell steak at a future Festival. The prices, as usual, were rather high for what one got. Pam had some plastic plates and cups, so we brought those along to avoid having to play musical money with the vendors and dish washers. The WEF crew has things set up such that the vendors use clean plastic cups and plates to give to the consumers for 50 cents a cup and $1 a plate as a deposit. Upon returning these items to the collection and cleaning booths, one would get that deposit back. This allows the Festival to work towards their "zero waste" goals. Over the years, I've seen the incense booths disappear and the candle booths diminish to boring selections that feel out of place. The clothing and other wares vendors seem better than before with a slightly better selection. The drum circle appeared unusually bleak compared to the huge rompings of years past. Despite of and because of it all, Pam and I enjoyed yet another great Whole Earth Festival. ***** Two steps. That's how far away I am from being done with my first helmet case. It has been glued together and needs only the priming/painting and plastic sheets before being done. ***** Pam and I should select our dinner destination for Lake Tahoe tomorrow. We have four selections, but we need to narrow it done to, at most, two. We're independently evaluating the choices and will share our rankings to each other via e-mail. Meanwhile, the latest storms made me rather nervous about the plausibility of getting to Lake Tahoe. The storm over the weekend dumped more snow up there, but it should stay sunny and warm through the rest of the week.
2005 FSPL Book Sale / Pam and I - 2 years Together: Our Trip to Lake Tahoe / Jakers Thursday, May 19, 2005
Initially, I think we both felt a bit disappointed. The web site warned that the book selection was smaller than in previous years, and it certainly showed. The Science Fiction section from last year got stuffed into the general Fiction section. All of that took up less space than it did last year. The Special Selection room had nearly the same amount of books, missing the legal bookcase full of rare books and lacking a full table covered in books like they had last year. In both sections, I swear I saw the same books that were there a year ago. Nevertheless, Pam and I both found books to our liking. In my haul, I bought (all in hardback):
I don't feel quite as excited about this sale as I did with last year's, when I found all sorts of books that looked great, but I found some good ones that I'll enjoy. I've been wanting a good copy of "The Prince" for some time now, regretting my selling of the copy I had at UC Davis (ditto for that little red book of "The Rules of St. Benedict"). The "Ben Hur" purchase was a splurge, since I rather liked the movie and hope they didn't deviate from the book too much. (Everyone can stop laughing now. <grins>) Pam did rather well for herself as well, buying a few books I never heard of before. She did buy a first edition Betty Crocker cookbook of "Easy and Quick Meals" or something like that. I managed to find a copy of a cookbook that I have that contains numerous recipes from the labels of cans, bottles, and jars of commercial food products (e.g. it contains the Toll House Cookies recipe and says a little about its origin). From what I recall, the Friends may not hold this sale again next year. They have a warehouse that they hope to keep open more often and, hopefully, be more convenient for them with regards to sorting and selling books. ***** Pam and I marked our two-year dating anniversary with a trip to Lake Tahoe. I haven't been to Lake Tahoe for anything since Tim and Cristi's wedding a handful of years ago, and I haven't spend "vacation time" up there in over fifteen years. Pam had never spent any quality time there at all, so all of it was a new and refreshing experience for her. Our celebration started last Friday night with our gifts. Pam bought me the Game of the Year Edition of "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind", a game I've been wanting to get for some time since a former co-worker told me about it. I was rather excited about this, since I rarely buy much for myself these days. Add to that the fact that I'm nearly done with the games I have at the moment (I am in the middle of the expansion segment of "Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna", though). Then, it was Pam's turn. I had carefully wrapped a box in yellow tissue paper. As she unwrapped that, she revealed some plain white paper covering the box. In removing that white paper, she revealed a box from some non-dairy creamers my company buys for the coffee-lovers. With explicit instructions on how to open it, she turns the box upside-down and flips the dome-shaped door up. After removing some newspaper, she uncovered a box from De Von's Jewelers. Said box contained something she had expressed wanting a year or so ago: an emerald on a gold necklace. She vowed to never take it off again. <grins> A simple dinner of sausage-and-sauerkraut and baklava led us to sleep and our anticipated departure for Tahoe. After a small breakfast of orange/cranberry bread and scrambled eggs, we packed our stuff and shoved off. The rains of the past week dissipated, leaving us with a nice, sunny day. Pam and I drove non-stop until somewhere near Donner Summit, where we stopped to take some pictures (pictures coming soon). Snow still sat on the ground, which did not surprise us with the snowfall that had to have taken place from the previous storm. As Pam and I drove through Truckee and the various lengths of road around it, we eventually found ourselves in Tahoe City. We quickly looked for and located our hotel and passed, but did not immediately see, the location of that night's dinner. Our initial goal for the day was lunch or, given the time reaching 2pm, a decent snack. Pam's parents, over a year ago, went to some burger place called, "Jake's Burgers" in Kings Beach. Sadly, upon reaching Kings Beach, we could not find any food place by that name (nothing came up in any web search, either). We did stop at a place called The Char Pit and had some good french fries. Doubling back, we found our dinner site in Tahoe City, a lovely place called Sierra Vista, and checked into our room. We had a nice room with a TV, mini-fridge, microwave, and a decent-sized bed. Everything looked clean, and the coffeemaker with built-in bean grinder added a nice touch to the usual coffee fare. We toyed with the TV to see what we could get on it and headed off to browse the local shops. We didn't find much, but we found a much-needed bottle-opener and some yarn at an interesting (to Pam, very cool) yarn shop. We hustled back to our room in the middle of shopping to get changed for our dinner. Dinner at the Sierra Vista was wonderful! We started out with glasses of Robert Strong pinot noir and some bread. This set us up for our main dishes: Pam had New York steak with blue cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables; I had the filet mignon (bacon-wrapped) with mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, and a slice of toast. (Yes, the piece of toast struck me as a bit odd, but it tasted good). We followed it up with Pam's tiramisu and my flourless chocolate cake (a cake that was more fudge-like and dense than cake-like). Our table at the Sierra Vista gave us a wonderful view of the lake right at lake level. We wandered outside after dinner to take in the view and snap a few pictures. In one direction, we could see the shoreline and a small series of lights on at, assumably, houses. Before sleeping off our meal, we dipped into some black muscat wine. I don't think either of us really cared much for it, so we may have to find creative ways to use it in marinades. A restless night led us to our breakfast in bed with a walnut streusel bread. We had some hard-boiled eggs, but I think I had the temperature setting for the refrigerator set too low. I started to peel an egg, only to find that the egg itself froze. We flipped through channels and found something on PBS called "Jakers" (see below) and watched a bit of that. Once we got cleaned up and got our stuff in the car, we checked out and headed down the west coast of the lake. We stopped at a few places, including Emerald Bay, to take some pictures. This led to our first lengthy stop at Sugar Pine Point State Park in Tahoma. I showed Pam where Tahoe Cedars Lodge was (a half mile or so down the road from the park), and all the buildings looked exactly like they did when I last stayed there. The only differences I saw included the fences keeping people out and the boards over the doors and windows. Saddened at the sight of such a great place to stay in Tahoe being kept in worse-than-moth-balls condition, I suggested we go check out the aforementioned park. Covered in thick snow, the park held no camping inhabitants and had the general amenities of baths and showers closed for the season. The snowscape looked wonderful, and the ultra-quiet surroundings felt wonderful to hear. One rarely ever hears wind blowing through the trees without hearing the hum of cars on nearby freeways anymore. Continuing south, we ventured into South Lake Tahoe in search of two things: my grandparents' former cabin and a place called Sprouts for lunch. We think we found the former, even though the area has changed dramatically in the 50 years since my grandfather built it. Many more streets and houses occupy the area where he built it, but I'm pretty certain the one Pam and I saw was the one he built. Before leaving for this trip, I forgot to make sure I knew where Sprouts was. We ran across it in our travels around South Lake Tahoe, so we were saved. The food at Sprouts stays close to a vegetarian lifestyle with a lot of things carrying that Whole Earth Festival feel (new age-ish, or something). The only meat I remember seeing was turkey and tuna. Pam had a turkey melt sandwich, and I had the Tahoe Turkey Sandwich. I enjoyed a strawberry, banana, and apple juice smoothie, while Pam enjoyed some limeade with her sandwich. With clouds starting to collect and weep its moisture down onto us, Pam and I headed home. We didn't see too much of any rain on the way back. The trip home via 50 felt a bit different, but it gave us a nice scenic route through the Tahoe basin and out to the foothills. Who knows what we'll do next year to mark the occasion. We've kicked around thoughts, but I doubt we'll really think of anything until we get closer to that date. In any case, we certainly hope to return to Tahoe and have at least as much fun as we did this time. ***** When in Lake Tahoe, Pam and I found a show called, "Jakers", on PBS. It's a cartoon featuring farm animals with Irish or Scottish accents. Pam and I were both hooked and really enjoyed it, but it doesn't appear to be showing here in the Sacramento region.
A Possible Ban on Shopping Carts / Brainstorming Better Ways to Evaluate the Education System / American Idol thoughts / "Thieves' World" Recommendation / Twenty Questions Thursday, May 26, 2005 Recently, I received a phone call from someone from some entity wanting to conduct a survey. I have had
a few of them: they present a particular topic; for each point they present, they ask if I strongly agree, somewhat
agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree; they present viewpoints from a slightly different angle, again
asking how I view it from the same grades. Sometimes they present several viewpoints against my initial viewpoint
and then ask what I think. I find these interesting for the positions and the challenge to what I think I
believe. Sometimes I enjoy giving off-kilter viewpoints to throw off the results. ***** I spent a little over a year in a teacher credential program. At the time, I figured I'd have it made if I became a high school mathematics teacher. Job stability seemed certain with the high demand, and standardized tests focused on math (along with English). Once I discovered my unhappiness in the path toward teaching, I dropped out and worked at a place I had worked before: scoring standardized tests. By the end of my tenure there, I grew to not like standardized tests. Frankly, I didn't have any opinion about them before at all. Then, the more I saw of them and the more I thought about it, standardized testing looked horribly flawed. The classes I observed all had their focus on the state standards for the particular math level. Underlying it was the unwritten requirement to cover everything that would appear on whatever standardized test was important to the school and/or district. Although standardized tests get the blame for the kind of education going on in the classroom, state requirements get in the way as well. State standards help a lot for teachers to know what they probably should cover, but the standardized tests need to go. They will neither give an accurate sense of how students do nor will they show how well a teacher teaches. Something else needs to be in place to help figure out which teachers really do a good job. Unfortunately, that presents a more complex challenge than it seems. Initially, I had thought about brainstorming ideas that the Department of Education could use to overhaul the system towards a better educational atmosphere. Unfortunately, such a pursuit feels a bit out of my league. I can't help but see all the details and problems any one path might create. The main point for any testing should be to ensure that the students get the best education. In my spare time, I will have to think about the numerous possibilities and dissect them until I find something that might work. ***** I am not an American Idol fan. If I were to ever watch the show, you'd find me watching the first couple of episodes that show the truly horrible singers. After that, it's just a tool of the entertainment industry. I couldn't help but get annoyed when I found out that this Carrie Underwood -- a person I've heard people say cannot sing well and hits the wrong notes -- won their competition. Sure, maybe the viewers looked for potential or purely for looks (or maybe George W. Bush supporters all pooled their calls together to get the conservative individual in the winner's circle). If the person can't sing, she should not have won. A note in CNN's article about the results irritated me as well. It noted that Bo "faltered early with an original [song] called 'The Long Long Road'". It continued in the same paragraph to say that Simon called it a "very dreary song." Granted, I did not hear the song, but why should a "very dreary song" be a bad thing? There are numerous "dreary" songs (many country, blues, rock, and other genres) that were great songs ("Candle in the Wind" and "American Pie" are a couple of examples). Maybe if I had seen and heard the performances, I would have a more informed opinion. ***** Recently, I finished reading Thieves' World, edited by Robert Lynn Asprin. The book consists of several stories, each written by one of eight different authors who got together to create the world in which the stories reside. The fantasy realms include such characters as a bartender named One Thumb (for the appropriate reason), a wizard who lost a battle with another wizard and currently shape-changes involuntarily, and many others similar to them. If you like collections of stories that revolve around the same setting but present independent storylines, you'll like this book. Maybe, at some point after reading Sanctuary, I'll write a more comprehensive review. ***** I stole this from Jordan, who has no clue who I am.
- Assuming my first house were here in town, I would probably build it either
in Lake Tahoe, away from the hub-bub and tourism, or up in the redwoods in the northwest coast of California. - My blue tie-dyed t-shirt from Santa Cruz. I bought that during my free
time down there when I went down there to attend the wedding Pam attended. - "Songs from the Village" by Babá Ken Okulolo and The Nigerian
Brothers. They played at the Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis, and I rather liked what they played. So,
on a whim, I bought their CD. - 6am weekdays. On the weekends, it's whenever I wake up. <grins> - An eggbeater. I mean those old, hand-cranked ones. For some reason,
I love seeing how fast I can get one of those rustic things to spin and watch the eggs poof up in the bowl. - The drums. I have a snare drum (since third grade), a bass drum (that
needs new heads and a mounting ring), and the frame for a hi-hat (needs cymbals, though). I would love to
eventually piece together a full set and truly learn to play it well. - I flip-flop between red and blue, but red appears to be my color of choice lately.
Either one could be. I tend to prefer darkish reds and a medium "electric-ish" blue color. - Sports car all the way. (Mmmmm. Corvette Stingray. Mustang.) - I do. I have my own sense of the afterlife, though. - A toss-up between the Garfield books and Encyclopedia Brown. - Autumn. I love the cooling temperatures, the changing of the leaves, and
the whole Halloween atmosphere. - I would want to be able to glow in the dark. - I don't have one. Drawing blood for testing is bad enough, and I probably
nick and cut myself enough as it is to not warrant alternative methods of bloodletting. - Somewhat. My hands are big enough that I can usually manage to juggle
two items in one hand with not too much trouble. - Becky from my grade school days. - A holiday. - A squeegee, a car cover that I can't use for the next five months, and a cargo
net. - Hamburger. If you find a great independent hamburger joint (R.I.P. Tiny's)
that also makes some great french fries, I'm set. - The rose (the Lincoln red rose was my favorite for a long time.) - a chocolate sundae (especially one of the Leatherby's creations)
Morrowind: a History of My Computer Gaming leading to this Great Game / Visiting a B-52 at Castle Air Museum / Red Pyrex Bowl Tuesday, May 31, 2005 Now Playing: The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind The path of computer "role-playing" games that I have followed has taken a big leap. I started with the old Gold Box AD&D games ("Pool of Radiance" and "Curse of the Azure Bonds" for the most part) and ran around those worlds to encounter their adventure bits and ultra-cheesy battles. With those games on my Apple IIe, I also played "Demon's Winter", which is a similar game to the AD&D bits but with more of a sense of free-range adventure and less linear than some games. With the frustrating experiences with Might & Magic and the Bard's Tale games (mainly with the unusual ease of dying; especially with Bard's Tale erasing your character from the disc), my taste for such games gradually waned. After many failed attempts to get more than half way through either Warcraft or Warcraft II, Blizzard Entertainment came out with a game I couldn't resist: Diablo. That game and its successor, Diablo II, re-energized my love for computer games and kept me afloat in the CRPG world. Despite their being hack-and-slash treasure hunts, I loved the character progression and molding each character to my particular whim. When I got my system rebuilt, my video card came with "Tomb Raider - Angel of Darkness." Up until you have to get the blue glowing thing from the room, I loved that game. I loved it for the problem-solving and the stunts one had to do to get to particular areas. It involved very little killing (I bet one could complete the game without killing much of anyone). I believe this heightened my desire for something more adventurous and less hack-and-slash-ish. One of my former co-workers once bought Morrowind and started playing it. He told me about the game, including how characters were created and how one progressed. I rather liked the way this seemed to work, so I poked around online and decided that his had to be one of my eventually-must-get games. Lo and behold, Pam buys it for me for our anniversary, and I've been glued to it since. The character generation allows you one of three methods to determine your career: "20-questions", select your own, or create your own. In the '20 questions" (the path I chose), a person in the game asks you a series of questions (it may not be 20 questions) and gives you three possible responses. The responses are then translated into whatever career it aligns with those responses (I ended up a witchhunter). The storyline is pretty free-flowing. It allows you to follow whatever leads you want, and that means you'll be accepting whatever bits of action in which you want to involve yourself. I have yet to detect a lack of things to do. I don't know how this'll last when I get closer to the ultimate goal (something I do not know what it should be just yet). Skills increase as you use them. So, the more you use a skill, the faster you'll advance in it. When you reach a new level, you're given the option of what characteristics to increase. Depending on the skills you've used, you may get a bonus added to a particular characteristic. For example, if the skills you used involve the Strength characteristic, you may get a certain number of points added on in addition to the 10 points you get if you choose it to increase. I've played for several hours, and I have yet to accomplish much. Hopefully, at some point in the near-ish future, I'll have more to write about concering this cool game. ***** On this last Sunday, Pam and I drove down to the Castle Air Museum (located on the former Castle Air Force Base) for their annual Memorial Day Weekend open-cockpit day. We met her family there last year and had a great time looking at all the planes. This year, however, we had a different goal: to get into the B-52. A few years ago or so, people waited in line all day long to get in and hear the stories about the specifics of the craft from people who actually flew them. Unfortunately, some of those people would wait all day and wouldn't get to see anything, including the B-52, and that led to the organizers implementing a reservation system to see it. Pam and I, with Starbuck's and home-baked blueberry muffins in tow, hauled butt down to Atwater to meet with her family there. Once we got in, we waited at the B-52 to get in, and we got in after only a few minutes. One gets to see the navigation area and the cockpit. The attendants allow you to sit in the seats and get a feel for how one would fit in them. I think I felt more comfortable in the pilot's seat than I did in navigation, but I doubt that would have had any bearing on what I would have wanted to do if I joined the military. After the first go-around, Pam's father made reservations to see it again at 2pm. That time around, we were the ones asking for more stories and points of interest that we didn't remember hearing before. Apparently the museum will have some new displays soon, so it should be worth going down there again next year. Maybe we'll be able to see more of the indoor craft that cannot be displayed outside, even though they did have the MASH helicopter on display outside this year. ***** Pam surprised me yesterday. During a garage sale scrounge a year or so ago, I found a set of Pyrex mixing bowls from the '50s or '60s (or possibly earlier). This set, however, had only three of the four: the small blue, the medium green, and the large yellow. My set was missing the medium-small red bowl. While Pam browsed an antique shop nearby, she found a set of three bowls. This set had the smaller three ones, including the red one I needed. She ended up buying the set and giving me the red bowl to complete my set. I have been so happy to have a full set. I had been intent on completing my set with a red bowl that is from the same vintage as my other bowls, but I haven't really bothered to look. Since I have a really nice red bowl that's very similar in vintage, I may not bother. Hooray! |
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