Mountain Views of Madness

flying saucers/daughter

2008-06-24T21:19:34Z

I happened across the page for the Universo-O-System (http://www.chester.zdrowemiasto.pl/universe/). One really can't make up such crackpots, they have to be naturals. Even more interesting, though, was the suggestion in a news report that this guy's test flights in Chicago in the 40s and 50s may have helped start the flying saucer craze - see http://www.leechvideo.com/video/view719365.html.

And, for those who don't read sichling's journal - we had a daughter on the 11th. Her name is Razielle Phoebe Y., and she is doing just fine.

co-sleeping: the negative side

2008-04-15T18:33:38Z

A vomiting toddler just does not make a good bed companion. Admittedly, after the second time he threw up, we put down towels. But by the fourth or fifth batch, changing the towels was getting old too. Poor lad.

latest

2008-03-27T02:54:22Z

Pluses:
- My mother is doing somewhat better, gaining confidence in being able to live by herself on one hand, while also facing the realities of living with a ruptured disc in her back. We might not have to go back to CT for a bit.
- I'm feeling reasonably healthy myself, as opposed to the bad cold I had a few weeks ago (while trying to take care of my mother) or the intestinal bug I had over the weekend.
- I'm doing some reading again, and I think that is helping my general mood. Even if it is only Judge Dee and Miss Seeton, that is better than playing lots of Civilization. And William has been showing interest in books again, since he sees me reading them.

Minuses:
- Well, the house is still a bit of a wreck.
- akatlas is in London, til Friday.
- We still need some names for the coming addition to the family...
- Anthology project needs either attention or abandonment.

On the whole, could be worse.

That was creatively stupid...

2008-01-30T19:21:57Z

...putting a 9-volt battery in the same pocket as my keys. Suddenly there was this funny smell, and I reached into the pocket and burned myself on the arcing battery, while it was busy burning a hole in my pocket. Gack!

Coincidence?

2008-01-24T06:15:56Z

Barbarians are large guys with heavy metal weapons who demand large bags of gold and leave your city in ruins. Contractors are large guys with heavy power tools who demand large sums of money and leave your home in ruins. Historians claim that barbarian invasions actually meant useful cultural exchange and renewal. We hope that our contractors will improve our home.

ah, the business hotel!

2007-11-06T15:06:41Z

We are staying in Madrid at a brand-new business hotel (the "High Tech Nueva Castellana") in a brand-new office park, with possibly the ugliest hotel lobby I've ever seen. It is pretty small; the center is occupied by two 5-foot ceramic vases, one black and one white (except they are actually plastic, of course.) Over the vases is a complex and vaguely neat wooden chandelier-like thing. To the right is a large dog silhouette, and 3 life-sized plastic dog statues, which stick out from the wall 90 degrees. Near the elevators in the back are two tall white fabric-sculptures-cum-lamps (which never seem to be lit, so they are really just thingies.) It is almost indescribable.

the Stewarts of Transylvania?

2007-10-10T07:03:19Z

There is a special holiday issue of some Martha Stewart publication on the magazine racks at the moment, with a photo of Martha Stewart on the cover dressed as a vampire. It's just so wrong... and yet it's just so right!

breakfast can be exciting

2007-08-14T12:55:46Z

A few days ago I was particularly groggy around breakfast time, so I decided to have some tea. I got a tea bag and a mug and put them in the microwave. A minute or so later, things started smelling funny, and I realized the crucial element that was missing: water. Tea bags burn very nicely, but they leave kind of a funny smell behind.

The Mackerel Pudding Plan

2007-08-14T12:52:03Z

The funniest book I have picked up in a while: "The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s". Each card has a picture of the menu item; they usually look completely unappetizing, and the author contributed some snide comments on the side. But you don't even need much snide to go with something like "Crown Roast of Frankfurters" (and why was that considered appropriate for a diet?)
I got it for $4 on the bargain table at Borders.

William does a review

2007-07-13T15:57:35Z

Limp Bizkit: Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water
This CD amused me for a good 10 minutes. First, there were two interesting sides - red and black, and shiny. Second, the shape was interesting - round, with that hole in the middle I could poke a finger through. Thirdly, when I threw it down, it made interesting clinking noises, depending on where I dropped it, and (a big bonus) sometimes it rolled! Fascinating! On the not-so-good side, it isn't very interesting to chew on, and it doesn't flex as nicely as a good laminated card (my personal favorite). On the whole, William says, "Check it out!" - Will, age 10 months

update

2007-06-20T17:12:57Z

We are slowly getting things organized here in Massachusetts. There are fewer boxes and more household goods piled around the place. Our cars are in Massachusetts, and with luck I might pick one up this afternoon. Tomorrow our new mattress will arrive (since the old one didn't make it up the steps ("You Won't Get it up the Steps!") The helpful relatives have departed (although they will be replaced with less helpful ones next week. Moving... don't do it unless you have to.

Are we sheep?

2007-04-17T21:36:30Z

The catastrophe at Virginia Tech is awful. One of my thoughts afterwards, perhaps not a very charitable one: why didn't people stop this guy? I mean, throw a chair at him, rush him, tackle him... According to one account I heard, he basically just walked into this classroom, shot the teacher, and then went around shooting people for upwards of a minute. And Virginia Tech has a military cadet corps! Are Americans all sheep? If this guy is walking around the classroom killing people, and you are lying on the floor, and he's getting close, I don't see much downside to yelling, "Let's get 'em!"

Not another one...

2007-03-27T20:49:56Z

Yes, I know - it's hard keeping track of all the Bush administration scandals. Abramoff, Tillman, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Patriot Act misuse, the district attorney firings... Well, here's another one, which only the San Francisco Chronicle seems to have picked up so far. Imagine a bunch of high-level government employees in a videoconference in which a White House political operative talks about the upcoming election and they are asked by their boss, the head of the GSA, to think about how they can best help elect Republicans. If you are having trouble imagining that, read http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/26/MNGIVORLOF1.DTL the SFGate article.
Edit: Actually, it looks like the story started in the Washington Post. Their most recent coverage is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032501048.html And the GSA chief, Doan, is scheduled to testify tomorrow...

a meme for a change

2007-02-05T22:47:49Z

1. Grab the nearest book. (Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.)
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.

"She had finished wiping the blade (far more thoroughly than it required, and on the hem of her own peplos) and had knelt to blow on the embers, pretending to pay very little attention to what I was saying. 'I asked her. I told her I couldn't shoot a bow, but I can ride as good as anybody, and you'd need everybody to protect you if you were going to steal King Kotys. ...' "

This is from p. 123 of Gene Wolfe's "Soldier of Arete"; it isn't a great favorite of mine, but I reread it recently because I am working on a review of Wolfe's recent addition to the series, "Soldier of Sidon" (which I liked rather better).

This meme is courtesy of chaiya.

translation

2007-02-04T08:20:46Z

Being a parent, I now understand how the whole Lassie thing worked. The baby is crying. "You're tired? Hmm.... No, you're wet. Hmm... no... hungry? Oh, I get it! The smugglers have Lassie and are holding her hostage in the old mine in the hills!" (Well, I don't have it quite down yet, but I'm working on it.)

hometown art project

2006-10-28T18:06:02Z

You know those municipal art projects where artists decorate statues of cows or elephants or something, and they put them all over town? Well, my home town of Granby, CT, population around 11,000, did one using horses. Here is a link to some pictures of the horses taken by a friend of my mother's - they are kind of cool - http://picasaweb.google.com/bgrass2/GiddyUpGranby02.

fatherhood

2006-09-11T03:32:48Z

Sorry to leave folks hanging for a few days - we didn't have much in the way of internet access at the hospital. Anyways... William Irving Youmans (8 lbs 1 oz) was born by c-section (darn it!) Friday Sept. 8th at 7:03 PM. Alia and Will are doing well; we will all be home from the hospital tomorrow, barring any unforeseen developments.
So far, fatherhood consists of changing the baby, holding the baby, and fetching water for the thirsty breastfeeding mother; not so bad, really.
Pictures will be posted in a day or two, probably to somewhere on www.suddenlypress.com.

impending fatherhood

2006-09-08T05:11:24Z

Alia has been having contractions, but they don't seem to be very serious, so far. So, tomorrow morning we will be going into the hospital and (for good reasons) the doc will break Alia's water and otherwise induce things, such that sometime tomorrow, we will be parents. I will try to post things as soon as I have access to computers and good news to give out.
(Eeep!!)

Our government strikes again

2006-08-27T01:36:51Z

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle today is about how our government is protecting us. Specifically, they are protecting us from two American citizens, Muhammad and Jaber Ismail, a naturalized Pakistani and his American-born son, who have been living in Pakistan for the last several years. In Hong Kong, on their way back to California, they were told that they would not be permitted to enter the US until they have talked to the FBI in Pakistan.
Their lawyer says that the son had talked to the FBI at the US embassy in Islamabad, but had refused to be interviewed again without a lawyer.
[These people are close relatives (brother and cousin) of another Lodi, California father and son pair recently prosecuted, with mixed success, by federal authorities; the son was convicted, mostly by his own statements during a very lengthy interrogation, of attending a terrorist training camp; his father was prosecuted for having knowledge of this and having visited the camp - also as a result of statements during a lengthy interrogation - even though his description of the camp failed to match his son's and was pretty obviously made up on the spot (it was in a cavern underground, people were running around with ninja swords - that sort of thing.) The father's prosecution failed.]
So... Even if these people ARE terrorists or sympathizers - wouldn't it be easier to talk to them in the US? Assuming they have passed security checks... what are they going to do? Hijack the airplane with their mysterious Al Qaida powers? Or, gee, maybe the US government would rather deal with them abroad, where they have less access to those pesky rights of American citizens? (By the way, neither of them have Pakistani citizenship - they both hold only US citizenship.)

been a while

2006-08-24T18:10:07Z

It has been too long since I posted anything here. Here is a quick update.
- Still waiting for the baby. Our lives will change sometime around Sept. 8th.
- New car: Prius Hybrid, red. Nice. Not that I've gotten to drive it yet... :-)
- I have been volunteering at a place called "History San Jose". For a historical society, it is a pretty big operation - they have a place called "History Park" with a bunch of historical buildings open to the public (sporadically) and an archive with lots of old county and city records. It was kind of cool to send someone who had made a genealogical inquiry the records of the coroner's inquest on their great-grandfather. (He dropped dead of a heart attack while chasing a runaway steer, in front of his wife and daughter, so the inquest was in large part their account of his death.)
- It's been cooler. That's nice. We had about a week or so of real hot weather, but since then... not so much.
- The anthology. Sigh. Haven't been pushing it. Looks nice, but not much for sales.

stupidity and pandering

2006-07-27T05:23:00Z

I think the Democrats have hit new lows in their calls for the Iraqi PM to denounce Hezbollah. Has this become a competition to see which party can pander to the pro-Israeli lobby with the greatest eagerness? Let's see, why might al-Maliki not want to toe the U.S. line on this issue? Maybe because Iraq is a MUSLIM country? Or because it is a SHIITE Muslim country, and Hezbollah is Shiite? Because the Iraqi legislature - which elects him - adopted a resolution denouncing Israel's actions unanimously? Because if he denounced Hezbollah, he would look like a complete U.S. puppet, and therefore would be of even less use to the US as an ally than he is now? Frankly, I can't see how it would be in the US interest, or even in the Israeli interest, for al-Maliki to commit political suicide, and the only reason for the Democrats to ask him to do something like that is a stupid desire to pander maximally to the pro-Israeli lobby, while taking a jab at the administration's pet PM. I don't think this is their brightest foreign-policy moment.

Maybe I need a retread...

2006-07-19T20:26:02Z

You scored as X - Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune represents the cyclical nature of all reality. Life is change. Stability is stagnation. All things pass. Yet for all that things change, the essentials remain the same. The wheel turns - day becomes night becomes day, rain becomes sun becomes rain, joy becomes pain becomes joy. If well aspected in a Tarot reading, this card can indicate good fortune through change, the wheel turning for now to a better position. If badly aspected this card can indicate what appears to be misfortune. It can also represent resistance to the inevitability of change.

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XI: Justice

81%

I - Magician

81%

X - Wheel of Fortune

81%

0 - The Fool

63%

VI: The Lovers

63%

XIX: The Sun

56%

III - The Empress

56%

II - The High Priestess

38%

XV: The Devil

38%

IV - The Emperor

38%

XVI: The Tower

38%

VIII - Strength

31%

XIII: Death

19%

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

book review

2006-07-14T18:59:37Z

"The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl", Tim Pratt. I've liked some of Tim Pratt's short fiction, so I decided to try his first novel. One sentence reaction: clumsier than I would have expected in parts, but on the whole pretty good; not quite as good as I had hoped, but worth reading. Basic concept: Marzi is a comic-book artist (a sort of Western, named "Rangergirl") and coffee-shop night manager in Santa Cruz, California; suddenly very odd things start happening, centered on the coffee shop, and she might have to confront her reasons for dropping out of art school two years ago, and the mysterious locked room in the coffee-shop.
As Joe Bob would say, "Guns, art fu, primal earth magic fu, spirit fu, corpse fu, and the attempted destruction of Santa Cruz - check it out!"

groggy thought

2006-06-27T16:10:21Z

Standing in the shower, the phrase "rocketship to Mars" popped into my head (from the Technical Difficulties album we had listened to recently.) This was followed by the vision of an astronaut floating in space, saying something like "Rocket-ship? Come with my rocket... ship?" Surrounding him are a number of sheep with bubble helmets and big rockets strapped to them.

Plutocracy

2006-06-26T19:48:07Z

If anyone thinks that Americans are content with their plutocracy... I was listening to a bit of NPR's "Talk of the Nation" this morning, talking about Warren Buffett's huge gift to the Gates Foundation. And caller after caller after caller was hostile and negative. "Isn't it just a tax dodge?" (He's giving away 3/4 of his fortune, how could that be a tax dodge?) "Sure, he's giving it away, but wouldn't it have been better if he didn't make it in the first place?" Etc.