Southpaw Blog

Every once in a while I feel like I need a real desktop. Fluxbox has been nothing but good to me over the years; there was some debacle when taskbar icons were added in 0.9, but we figured out how to uncheck that option.

Still, every once in a while I feel like I need to give Gnome and KDE a try again, because surely a highly integrated desktop and a real file manage will give me some fantastic leap in productivity.

It seems that’s never really the case, but I keep trying. This is posted as a test from gnome-blog, a great little tool that lives in the menubar, and could possibly be a great way to keep notes throughout the day.

Back to Gnome, day 1.

So I finally got sick. This is normally something that happens during the uber-wet Willamette Valley winters, but I delayed for a couple of months this year. In fact I missed out on all the great local infections and had Dad bring over something special from the wastelands of Eastern Oregon, no doubt mutated beyond all recognition by the chemical weapons of the Umatilla Depot and twisted further by passing downwind of the Hanford facility.

I have written much utter crap about a being sick the last couple of days. An uninspired little ditty about being scoped out by the spandex biker crowd at the coffee shop, then 20 minutes later losing my balance and falling off the bike. A couple of posts about mucous (one focusing on color; one borrowing a page from “Fight Club” and being told by some semi-sentient snot as it left my body and made its own way in the world; something last night that I don’t even really remember, about having my army brother come in and scare the snot out of me).

I am dipping today into my 272 hour pool of sick time, which is good I suppose. But dude is getting dang tired of reading ten pages of a book at a time and then needing a light nap. I made myself check the mail 3 times yesterday (yeah, it was Sunday) and that’s the most action I’ve seen.

The weather was extremely nice this weekend. Woo.

Here is one of the photos I took. It’s a handicapped parking space turned into a basketball court with a 1MW Nuclear Fission reactor in the background.

I actually took some decent stuff, but it’s too late to clean it up and post it now. Later gator.

This is a rough transcript of a phone conversation I had today. 10:04 am, Saturday, April 22nd:

“Good afternoon, sir. We are taking a survey of health care professionals and statistics in this state.”

“Uh, hi. Are you sure you want to be talking to me? I don’t work in the health care industry.”

“Well sir, let me ask you a few questions about health care.”

“Okay. . .”

“May I begin, sir?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Are you currently employed full-time, part-time, temporarily, or unemployed sir?”

“Full-time.”

“And are you currently represented by a union?”

“Heck yeah, Local 083.”

“Uh-huh, and would you describe your field as Primary Care, Living Assistance, Diagnosis, or other?”

“I work in Information Technology; are you sure this survey is for me?”

“Let me just follow my outline, sir, and you’ll get all the appropriate questions. What did you say? Living Assistance?”

“Information Technology.”

“. . . Would you say that falls under ‘other’ ?”

“Not really, it has nothing to do with health care.”

“Is that in a nursing home?”

“No.”

“Hmmm, let’s just see what happens if I enter that. Could you spell technology for me please?”

“t-e-c-h-n-o-l-o-g-y,” I said as fast as I could manage.

“. . . Could you say that again slower?”

“t–e–c–h–n–o–l–g–y”

“o–n–l?”

“No.”

“n–o–l?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Okay sir, one last question, would you say you spend more time in nursing homes, or private residences?”

“I just told you I have nothing to do with the health care industry.”

“I’m just following the prompts, sir.”

“And it tells you to ask that question of people working in Information Technology?”

“Yes sir. Did you say nursing homes?”

“How did you get this number? I don’t think I’m the right person to talk to.”

“Thank you for your time, sir.” Click.

This is actually two posts.

Part Eunx (what’s French for ‘one’ ?)

The new bike is still great. There hasn’t been enough good weather to take it for a real ride yet, but just the commute is more pleasant. I haul ass!

The problem, though, is that I’m hooked. I bought some weather-resistant chain lube last week for $8 in a thimble-sized bottle. I asked for the most water-resistant stuff they had, and as the dude was bagging it, he said, "Yeah, that stuff is great. Should last 4 or 5 rides in the rain." After some swift mental arithmetic, I arrived at 2 days. Gah.

I wore out a toe clip on the way back from Eugene. The bolts actually rattled loose and the clip flung itself into traffic. Replacement bolts and lock washers: $0.20. Extra bolts and lock washers: $0.40. No problem.

The clip itself actually wore through, I noticed. So that will have to be replaced – I suppose I could just remove them both, but I already get no respect from The Community for not wearing lycra. Can you imagine if I didn’t have toe clips? Madness.

There’s also the topic of fenders. Now, I don’t want to weigh my new fast bike down, and I don’t want to ride my crappy old bike when it rains (which is all the time), so I’m assuming that fenders that meet my criteria are going to be expensive.

So yeah, being a two bike guy is already getting spendy. Start your spandex countdowns, it’s only a matter of time.

Part Deux (what’s French for ‘part’ ?)

Way back in the year 1995, I went to a camp for Talented and Gifted (and me, apparently) kids in Eugene, Oregon. The camp itself was fun, but somewhat unremarkable. For two weeks, we attended “classes” for six or so hours a day, then pretty much spent the rest of the time exploiting the YoCream machine in the cafeteria and sneaking out to the nickel arcade on 5th street.

When you get a bunch of "smart" kids together, they will split into two groups: the ones who have to prove they’re the smartest of the smart, and the ones who try too hard to be cool. I won’t say which group I was in.

Anyway, camp, dorms, bleah bleah bleah. I only mention it at all because there were two instructors at this camp that had a profound impact on me, although I didn’t so much realize it at the time.

One of the "classes" I signed up for was Advanced Chemistry (and no, there was no Basic Chemistry at TAG Camp). The "class" was taught by a woman named Amanda (last name omitted to protect the innocent). Now apart from being quite fetching AND brilliant, she was also brilliant, and quite fetching. She had previously done research at Los Alamos and was doing some graduate work at Linfield, growing buckyballs.

I used to think about stuff as a kid, and one afternoon while digging a hole in the garden, I ended up on the topic of a priori knowledge. I didn’t know there was a term for it then, but I thought about it for a long time and got myself all worked up. I learned early on to stay shut the hell up when things like that popped into my head, or people would think I was weird(er). Anyway, back at Tag camp, one day in Chemistry, we were sitting in a circle outside, which means the normal kids were screwing around and not paying any attention at all. Amanda started talking about a priori knowledge and our perception of time as a linear progression of events. And I can only assume that my face lit way up, because suddenly she and I were the only people in the world, and we talked for what seemed like a long time (but I’m sure I was just sitting there with my jaw hanging wide open nodding my head like an idiot while she did all the talking).

So anyway, I have never felt that kind of instantaneous bond with anyone else. Much later, after the camp, I was looking through the evaluation letters instructors had written (smart kids need validation), and she skipped the boring “great potential and a pleasure to have in class” crap and wrote about that same incident on the lawn. The exact words escape me, but she basically enjoyed that moment as much as I did. Nothing has ever made me feel so proud or significant as that one handwritten letter.

I would give anything to get to know her better.

Instructor number two had much less of an initial impact on me, but maybe a more significant effect. The "class" was putting on a stupid Talk Show, I can’t say that I remember anything about it. But in those days, I had learned to Keep My Trap Shut, so I followed, and agreed, and didn’t speak up when Dumb Shit happened. I didn’t particularly enjoy the class (it was pretty large, so everyone had extremely tiny roles overall), but I was a good kid back then and didn’t skip. The last day of camp, the instructor (I want to say his name was Sully, but that was Dr. Quinn’s special fella; it was something like that) pulled me, the twitchy little withdrawn 15-year-old, aside and said, "If you don’t learn to assert yourself you won’t amount to anything." Teen-age-ness pretty much deflected the words at the time, and I didn’t give it much thought.

But it stayed in the back of my head. And every time I open my big mouth (or not), I hear this guy’s voice. To this day, I don’t know if I’m really doing things to suit myself, or because I’m afraid of disappointing him. But it worked dude, sorry I don’t remember your name.

Get a blog!

I did the unthinkable this weekend, and I spent some money. Ordered myself a nice, new, road, bike that I’m really looking forward to. Never ridden a road bike (well, sorta, but not for a long time, and not for real), don’t own a helmet, like to ride as fast as I can. This is going to end well.

The last bike I bought from REI was stolen after 5 months. And it was a very expensive bike that I got for almost nothing (gift from my boss combined with REI refund and a coupon). So I suppose I got my money’s worth, but I of course felt awful about losing what was essentially the bike my boss bought. Which made me all chincy when I bought the current beast, which I hate for irrational reasons. But I’ll keep it, because it’s got shocks and will look good cleaned up and hung on a hook. Heyyy, baby.

Can’t make things too simple, so I had the bike shipped to Eugene, Oregon. Now I could have sent it to the office, and I could have sent it to my house, and I could drive to Eugene and pick it up, but I’m not going to do any of those things. The current plan is hop a bus to Eugene, retrieve the bike, hit the Saturday Market and the Sights, and ride the thing back to Corvallis. This is to ensure that I ride the thing at least once – if I drove, and got in a car accident on the way home with my brand-new bike boxed or racked, that would be a shame.

Here, then, is a picture of the apple I ate today:

Now I’ve gotten on this organic-apple kick, because most of the store bought fruit tastes like what I imagine ass would taste like were I ever to taste an ass but I haven’t so quit giggling. Normally you have to pull that stupid sticker off your fruit, because when you forget it might come off in your spitty mouth and get stuck to your uvula. I don’t have any pictures, but trust me on this: Not a good time.

So a "normal" apple has a fine waxy coat, and the sticker comes off like butter. But this organic fruit, they are tricky, and they remove all the (I assume) naturally occurring waxy buildup before applying a sticker. Long story short, the sticker sticks. And, in a tragic happenstance of metaphor, it’s like pulling off a bandaid, all the glue stays stuck to the skin.

I wonder two things (about this particular incident): Is the glue any better for me than the wax would have been? And, do you think the farmers would be willing to apply a little dollop of wax just to the little area where the sticker goes?

When you feel like you ought to write something, but lack inspiration, I highly suggest making a list. Lists are a great way to seem succinct, deep, thorough, and clever all at the same time. A good list saves you from having to make a lot of complete sentences, provide any kind of real structure, flow, or coherency, or justify opinions.

It’s #7, man. Don’t argue with #7.

So here’s my list, of some music, and some stuff that either I associate it with, or that the music conjures up in the ol’ Bobnoggin.

1. Song to kill yourself to Killing yourself is a pretty rotten thing to do, but if you’re going to do it, you probably have a good reason, or you’re dumb. Either way, turn the lights way down. Hopefully it’s a clear night (don’t even think about doing it during the day, you queen) and you can get a good view of the moon. The moon is sad, remember that. You can be inside, that’s fine. Just need a window or a skylight. A flat TV might work too, but I don’t have one so I can’t say for sure. They are doing amazing things with HiDef these days. But I digress.So it’s dark, except for a big moon. You’ve sharpened your knife/cleaned your gun/oiled your rope/whatever, and you think, man, it’s tragic that I’m about to off myself. I need some tragic tunage. First song that pops into your head: The Memory Remains, by Metallica, from the Reload album. Hedfield is angry (at you, you human paraquat), and when that old woman starts singing/chanting, you’ll know you’ve sunk as low as possible.
2. Song to wish you hadn’t killed yourself to This only applies to slow deaths, by poison or hanging or something like that. You’re swinging back and forth, kicking your legs a lot (because you didn’t think it was going to hurt (again, not too bright if you’re killing yourself)). The old woman (personally, I think it’s scarier if this is an old man’s voice) trails off at the end of “The Memory Remains,” and in between gasps for breath and frantic twitches, you think to yourself, oh shit, the stereo is on shuffle. This could really ruin things.And you’re right, because U2′s Rattle and Hum disc spins up, and the player jumps right to the live, choral recording of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Bono is straining, the choir is, um, singing, and that bass line jumps keeps rolling on. A tear forms in the corner of your eye (the one that hasn’t popped out of its socket), and you think, man, I should have kept looking. Shit.
3. Song to make it through the midafternoon slump It’s been a long fricking day, the phone won’t stop ringing, the email keeps coming, everybody in the office is having emergencies (both professional and personal), and there isn’t a snickers bar or cup of Taster’s Choice to be had. The hour hand has just groaned its way to 3. Who do you turn to? Why, the Gourds of course, with their catchy countrified rendition of Snoop Dogg’s (of Doggyfizzle Televizzle fame, also Girls Gone Wild: Doggystyle) Gin and Juice.This song was meant to be country. Snoop, thanks for penning dem lyrics, but you totally got 0wn3d on the tunage. If this song doesn’t give you a second wind, you should probably go find a copy of Reload.
4. If you’re like me, then you’re 5’10″, have brown hair that alternates between an unkempt 4″ and an unkempt 1″, eyes that are usually grayish, glasses, and some other stuff. Also, a dude. Also, you tend to get the rage something fierce. Have I ever written about The Rage? Note to self: write about the rage sometime when feeling expository. The rage is so prevalent that it is going to get two songs. One for water-on-a-grease-fire-I-don’t-care-I-just-want-to-be-pissed-ness, and one for calming the eff down and getting on with your life. I’ll leave which is which as an exercise for the reader (this blog stuff is being saved in the Library of Congress, right?).Song numero uno is Bad Blood, by Ministry, probably off of the Matrix Original Motion Picture Soundtrack But I’m Not Certain. There is massive guitar, massive bass drum, massive screamy dude, and probably massive hair. If it turns out this song is about Bugs Bunny, I will fucking kill that bunny, that’s how effectively rage-y this tune is. To me, and people like me.Song numero dos is “Don’t Know Why” by the sleepy sounding siren of something also alliterative, Norah Jones. Sometimes when I want a case of whiplash, I’ll listen to this right after Bad Blood. No matter how hard I try, I can’t not smile when I hear this tune. It might be about vivisection, or running over baby colts with a semi truck, I don’t care. You win, Norah. Where do I send the check?
5. This next ditty is something I’m not sure I have a real purpose for. I envision it as the song you make your grandparents listen to, where the first 30 seconds or so are quite pleasant, and then it gets trashy and they cover their ears in consternation and you laugh and laugh and then ask Grandma for another piece of pie. Well scratch that, I have a purpose. For some reason this has become my “start the day” song, and if I’m going to take the time to actually pick a song to play on my morning commute, it’s often this one. Oh yeah, the song is “Cherry Lips” by Garbage. It’s officially in the oldy-soundin’-but-spunky genre. Look for it at your local .
6. Next up is the “weird mooded” genre. Maybe you didn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed, maybe you woke up on the wrong piece of furniture or with a mouthful of half-chewed pizza. Maybe you found a penny in your ear in the shower, or maybe your keys somehow ended up in the freezer. Anyhow, this song is by Nick Cave and his band, The Bad Seeds. Now a lot of their songs are about 1) Jesus stuff, 2) Hot girls they’ve met and killed, 3) The devil going into a bar, or 4) all of the above. They’ve got a tune called “Deanna” which is good, but the accoustic version is what I’m really getting at. Clapping and accoustic guitar. Singing, humming. It might be about killing a hot girl, maybe teaching a hot girl to kill people, I don’t really know. But it does have a feel-good tune, and the chorus “I ain’t down here for your love or money, I’m down here for your soul.” If I ever feel like creeping a woman out (consciously, that is, not doing my usual inadvertent hopson-y stuff) I’ll make her listen to this and force her to clap along and pretend like it’s a mushy love song. “This should be our song, honey.” Thanks, Nick.
7. I probably need another upbeat song in here. I’m going to go with one that really gets my blood pumping. When I hear this song, I wish I had a set of drums and big muscles so I could pound the living shit out of them. And people would flock to my drums, not because of hippy stuff, but because of the mesmerizing beat. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Intertia Creeps” by Massive Attack. A great tune to reinforce any mood you might already be in. I like to fix broken stuff at work to this song.

By my earlier declaration of list misjudgement, you can assume that any “good” songs I left off of this list are pure shit. I know better than you, because I’m some random dude on the internet and I leave no room for doubt in my fact manufacturing.

A question for myself in a later blog entry:

Do I want to deal with the implications of being the owner of 2 bicycles? My thought of the last couple weeks is Road Bike. Would I really rather have a mountain-ish bike that I don’t hate (kiss my ass, Trek, I hate everything you’ve ever made that I bought).

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p>Edit: My god, wordpress, you don’t number an <ol> (ordered list) ? That so doesn’t work for me.

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Edit #2: Making this edit from the freaking database. WordPressRage++

When you’re a bleeder (like I’ve been most of my life), you start to recognize patterns and situations. Not so much, “Oh, not again” stuff, more methodical than that. Oh, this is a dripper, going to need a rag and a place to sit. Or, oh shit, this ain’t gonna stop. I better get somewhere quick.

I’m no stranger to bleeding when it’s less than convenient; today it was while biking home on 3rd St. About 2.5 miles from home I felt a deep sinus click that meant a torrent of my life’s blood was already streaming down my chin, around the back of my neck, and quite possibly streaming out behind me as a rode (Why do you ride so fast, Hopson? That’s a post for later).

Now 3rd St. is the South Town Strip; convenience stores, the Gym, an elementary school, dojos, a bar, boat sales – people were out and about. And I’m bleeding all over their ‘hood. Bad. I’ve done this enough that I’m not at all worried about stains, or dying, or lame shit like that. I’m mortified that Andrew W.K. is cruising around town on my bike.

I happened to have a handkerchief in my coat pocket, so I did a bit of cursory mopup. This is not the ideal solution, because once blood has been exposed to air, it doesn’t wipe off skin. It’s not supposed to. I’m just creating a huge smear of gore all over the only exposed part of my anatomy and I know it, but maybe it’ll be thin enough to not be noticeable from a moving car. So I told myself.

That click sound I mentioned really happens, and it’s really bad. It didn’t take long to saturate the hanky (recall I’ve got 2.5 miles of biking to do, and I’m not moving at top speed while fetching and using my snot rag with one hand) to the point of utter uselessness. Dripping, squeeze-me-out-over-the-sink-with-the-water-running-while-no-one-is-looking useless. How to deal with this: Wad the damn thing up, and hold it in the fist of the glove that you just washed. Not so tightly; yes, that’s blood oozing out between your knuckles.

Nothing like a micro-emergency to vault a guy to peak awareness. I’m thinking of options, there are back roads, public restrooms, maybe a notebook in my backpack with paper I could fashion a MacGuyver-like nose cork from. Nope dipshit, you have the laptop from work in your pack, you ain’t touching it until you’ve been hosed down.

Like the pioneers of old, I kept going.

Blood is very, very good a clotting, and because I was snorting it and air through the leaky nostril like a madman, I soon had a pretty good clot deposit around the breach. And this is where this tale gets a little bit nasty.

By keeping my head back just a bit, I found I could still see the road and, because of my new friend Clot, Jr., all the blood would rush down my throat instead of out into a world it wasn’t yet ready to meet. Now according to Fight Club you can swallow a pint of blood before vomitting, and as someone who has swallowed quite a bit of (my own) blood, I’m inclined to agree, but I can tell you this: Nothing makes a person choke like the warm, tangy taste of their own blood hitting the back of their throat and taste buds. Millions of years of falling-from-the-tree instinct screams out instantly “What did you fucking do to yourself?! Something ain’t right here!”

That initial bit of panic passed quickly though (age? practice?), and I found myself with an oddly comfortable trickle of warmth moving down my throat and into my stomach. I soon developed a sort of rhythm, ride ride ride, deep honking snort, quick Darth Vader Mouth Breath, big agonizing gulpy swallow (of more you-know-what), ride ride ride.

That was not the most disgusting part. That part is still to come.

I ended up taking the “long way,” which means riding a few extra blocks on the highway before turning. It’s not actually more distance, and in reality it’s probably faster since it’s more straight-line distance, but holy shit did it feel like the “long way” today. Why go the long way? It has to do with traffic and weather patterns and other things I don’t fully understand and probably never will.

So anyway, I’m biking along, still in bad shape but not getting any worse, when I start to feel IT. And by it, I mean a massive clot of blood forming along the long route from my right nostril, through my sinuses, down the back of my throat and into my stomach (I guess my stomach, I think if it were a lung I’d've choked more). Suddenly I’m quite worried because this has moved beyond standard bleeder and into creepy-ass-medical-frickin’-holy-shit-I’m-a-goner-territory.

I don’t recall much of the rest of the ride, all I could think about was getting this damn slimy parasitical varmint out of my throat as soon as possible. If I rode my bike through or over you, I apologize. That’s not cool, but I was in a bit of a bad spot, so I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me one day. If not, then I hope you catch fire and your last thoughts are “So that’s what a buffalo wing feels like.”

Made it home, still took the time to carry my bike upstairs (“Can’t lose my bike, it’s grrreat!”), pretty much fell into the bathroom (feigned weakness, but still weakness). Got a glimpse of myself in the mirror that will probably haunt me for months, and started choking into the sink.

This is the sick part.

I couldn’t dislodge the new blood golem forming in my throat. Tried hacking, coughing, horking, heaving, everything. I had to reach in there and pull it out with two fingers. And for a one of the most wide-eyed moments of my life, I didn’t think it was going to let go. Good God just let me die please. But I put my shoulder into it, and eventually one end (nose-end or chest-cavity-end, I won’t say which) and then the other literally ripped free (I felt it, sure as I felt the pop of the bleeder starting). You know those magicians that have a sleeve full of handkerchiefs? Yeah, it was like that. For a time I was sure there was a bucket tied to one end of this damned unholy thing. Pull pull pull. Something-something sink not a good disposal resource, yadda yadda, I’m going to gloss over some bits here, thank me later.

And at the end of my trouble I got a renewed burst of energy from my old friend Mr. Ruptured Vessel, and sat there panting and bleeding over the sink for many minutes. I ran the water for a while but started to feel guilty about the waste, so something something got bathroom cleaning to do. It may be too late for a disclaimer, but I was planning to write about my trip last weekend. This was just a little more vivid.

Be sure to check back tomorrow, when I’ll pick a fight I can’t win, get my face kicked in, and compare the experiences. Good night World, and don’t forget to replenish those fluids.