This year sounds like is should be special!

I don’t feel older, but I do. tireder, fatter, brokendowner, greyer, grumpier, drunker and duller. I’m not sure I can make 42 more at this rate of decline.

Genevieve asks if I wish i was a kid. Sweetheart…you can’t imagine how badly. When she asks what I wanted i can’t even remember. Now i just want a day off.

Looking back is revisionist history written by my current state of mind. Bad days it is makes me depressed, melancholic, regretful of every choice that landed me right here where I am. Good days I celebrate every moment leading up to this one of perfection, but focus more on the accomplished feeling rather than the feeling. At what age did it become so hard to be happy? Sometime around 2 kids, 2 mortgages and 2 jobs ago…

Genevieve was psyched to give me a present, Beckie bought cake, and goddamit it was time for ThNR, even if it would be table for 1.

It was the worst 1 hr ride ever. Sidewall slice, pedal smack riding the wrong lines to protect the soggy rear wheel sent me tumbling over bars banging both knees in exactly the same spot, and I couldnt even find my own damn tequila tree.

but I did. and all was well again, at least for awhile.

Dr. Dre – The Day The Niggaz Took Over

Read this article: An Investment Manager’s View on the Top 1%

Very eye opening. A lot of people I know – neighbors, colleagues, school friends – are likely considered the top 1%.  Or likely to be there if they continue on their current pattern of working and saving. My wife and I have years of college, Beckie 5+ years working on a post-grad degree, continuous post-college high-pressure employment, and consistent savings. For the past 15 years we’ve maxed our 401k’s, saved probably 1/3 our incomes, driven our cars til they were 10 yrs old, paid off our monthly credit card balances, and avoided any debt other than mortgages which we set up so that they could be paid by either one of our incomes. The author is right that is not a bad place to be, and I’m thankful every day for my brains, stable family growing up, good health, education and the country that allowed me to do well when given those opportunities. But I got fucked in the recession too – huge loss to the savings I’d contributed to for 20 yrs, house value fell to what I paid for it in 2000. Not as bad as someone who lost their house and job, but like 30% of my net worth *poof*. 6-7yrs of working every day *poof*. So, yeah, I’m mad as all get-out.

What I don’t think people who are so anti-OWS get is that its a very fine line between the guy who took out student loans, bought a house at the peak, and didn’t save vs. the bottom of the top 1%, those 53% paying taxes but still struggling. We still got jacked by an unfair system. The people poo-poo’ing the movement as ‘lazy people who want handouts‘ are so busy being repubnicant to see that, well, 99.5% of us have a lot more in common than different. Yes, living within your means and saving has softened the blow to you, and thankfully there are a lot of you and I still solvent and keeping the train on the rails.  In return we still have a house and a job while others have lost almost everything…but we are still swimming upstream. That is not America. America is about a level playing field. Rupert Murdoch’s zombie army need to open their eyes and read their damn bank statements. It really is time for a class war.

MoveOn, or whomever is going to harness the awareness OWS is raising to these systematic inequalities, needs to keep this in a centrist framework. I don’t think they are at all capable of doing so, too beholden to their liberal audience and too fundamentally liberal themselves to see the broad themes instead of getting their pinko panties in a bunch over pimples. Typical idiot democrats. Instead of sending around a centrist message, MoveOn sends me requests to email the Mayor of Oakland chapping him for his over-aggressive police. Why don’t they send me the address of my Congressman and the Buffet Chain Letter? People living in a park and banging drums can not be the lasting image of opposition to the inequalities in our system! EVERYONE should get behind leveling the playing field, Congressmen being compensated like the rest of us, consistent tax rates for all entities, and intelligent bank regulation. Fracturing into extreme positions like social justice or universal health care will continue to highlight our differences. These issues are symptoms of our economy failing and moving towards plutocracy. Even libertarians espouse the need for corrective action towards flaws in the system. A healthy stable economy and fair opportunities will go a lot further to correcting these other symptomatic problems than some masterplan like Obamacare or other non-centrist proposals.

I am not optimistic. We’ve let the argument be co-opted for too long already, another symptom of a deteriorating system,I don’t think the average person is capable of opening their 3rd eye and taking our economy back.

For $13 i rolled the dice with an internet p2p streaming provider, telecasting Slingbox and iPhone ports of NFL games. From out of the country.  Black market.

I would gladly buy a service from the nfl, but not for the ass-raping of DirectTV and Sunday ticket. The  horse  has left the barn and if the NFL won’t take the money a market’s dynamic pricing will give them, they willl lose $13 to the black market.  I must admit when at 9:46 the link for the Ealges stream was still not published i was about to spin over to The Temple. Then i had to figure out the right buffering, and if it was the stream or the pipe when i got so many timeouts on my laptop upstairs.

I’m willing to concede some inconvenience, like moving the trainer downstairs. 

But the office has a much better monitor and sound system, typing is awful, reinforcing tersity in my stream of blather. What the picture lacks in clarity, or even not tiling, it makes up for in sound.  Id rather watch a shitty picture with sound and burn calories and sorta hang out with the family, then spend $35 and stare across a room in silence, interrupted only by the yammering from Bears and Cardinals fans.

I’m pretty sure with some hookups we could actually put this on our big screen, but combining the workout makes it a masterpieces of multitasking and ocd fandom.

I would be rich. I would break pvc just so i could go fix it, for only $4 a pop. i will have to be satisfied with an easy sprinkler valve replacement.

I spent about 30 hours this week turning the Mesa house over for new renters. It hurt, seriously anal-rape hurt, lower-back missing workouts hurt, sawdust and diatomaceous earth in my pores and gravel and drywall turdlings from the ceiling under my fingernails hurt. We pocketed a nice chunk and didn’t miss a month of income.

This same week a little QA contract I have been nudging into place finally kicked off.  Plying my skeelz for myowndamnself.  I’m psyched about the tax write-off potential, and a new challenge, drawing inspiration from a weekend snowboarding with a college bud who’s been banging away in Silicon Valley for 15 years.  I made in the morning almost enough to cover the new dishwasher the old house needed, more-than-enough if you include the sick day i took from work. The cell phone was ringing from 4 different masters once you add in Beckie. The dishwasher repairman asked me when i walked in: how much do you like this dishwasher?

I wonder at the cost of my free time, my investments, my income stream, and any sweet spot along the calculus curve of comfort and value and happiness and sunsets and beautiful children. Planning and endowments, risk aversion and fidelity, adult responsibilities.

I am tentatively calling my contract job ‘Snowboard Telluride.’  Or, ‘Firebird‘.  I haven’t decided.  Its a fun decision to make. Beckie just did a little contract job last weekend, a brain-for-hire, pecking away on her laptop while I drove us to Rocky Point. I was calling that ‘PT Bike‘, hoping she wouldn’t figure it out til she saw the credit card bill. She was a step ahead of me, and thought the Malice would be a nice birthday gift for me and the girls, while treating herself to patio furniture.

Are we conditioned to work hard, harder than needed?  Or are we still on the curve, maximizing our utility while our skills are most relevant?  I can not tell the difference, i’m so programmed, so settled into pushing the rock. I hope its the later, i’m not sure.

Last week Alana crashed the entire checkout system at the Library, in 15 seconds.  None of my apology, my professional qualifications, nor my assertion that their supplier should not leave a master switch exposed at perfect toddler arm-level shook the librarian’s mousy posture. I was actually quite amused, relishing the power in the opening for my expertise, after G’s delays gave Alana an opening. If your barcode reader is good enough to identify the book and author and serial number, why does it report a bad swipe? If your system can be brought to its knees by a 2-yr old, you have a serious bug.

Earlier, a kindly old snarky Library volunteer informed us how the girls’ squeals were carrying.  Why do you build a magical children’s discovery room, with puppets and blocks and magnets and puzzles, encourage kids to develop a love of reading, and separate it from the main reading room by only partition walls?

i am living by the sword.

2 weeks ago was the 2nd anniversary of my DUI. Everything is continuing to go swell, haven’t since and don’t see a problem not doing so again.

Why do I do this to myself?

someone’s got to, Beckie has grown weary of the sport.  So, as a refresher…ahem…about $8k pissed away.  That would be a Firebird, a PT bike, and probably a 1×9 hardtail.  Or, 2.3 family ski trips. I’ve felt almost no impact on my having a good time, maybe i drink more, but i do it in a non-driving situation.  The lost time with my kids is unquantifiable.

hangon, here comes the hairshirt…

• An Evening of Hospitality with Sheriff Joe
• Consequences
• Shame Training
• The Thing in the Car

how many hits will this title generate? i don’t care, but i’m curious to see the butterfly effect!

Recent events have got me thinking. AZ passing laws that pretty much legalize any gun anywhere by anyone, the Giffords shooting, and reports that local gun stores sold about 150 AK47s in a month to the same  guy completely legally.

Note the above sentence has no predicate.  If diagrammed, it would fall over. and as the world’s most ambivalent person on the subject of gun control, i think it has.

I was raised on the east coast, in suburbia, where there were no guns.  When you never see a gun you never need one. I’ve shot rifles at camp, and an AR15 with a friend in the desert, and its fun! I studied philosophy for longer than healthy people ought to, and every ethic and metaethic i know wants to hug their guns to their breast, for freedom, and because freedom is not free. I’ve lived almost half my life in Arizona, and go places a gun might just be the jic that could save my life, though i’ve yet to have needed that jic after living nearly half my life in Arizona, even though damn near everyone else is packing. The place I’m most likely to need a gun is Mexico, where guns are illegal, and the phones are unreliable, and the police are slow. What are the odds that standing up with the gun will lead to a better outcome versus letting them have my stuff and hoping?  How many people are hurt by their own guns, by people they know, cause there is never enough training and acculturation to cure drunk or stupid? How many criminals are just killing other criminals?

Its all spun round in my head for so long as pattern and background and the din of shouting and the lack of agreed-upon data. The substratum of every philosophy includes a leap of faith.  The two things i know are this: if guns are illegal, criminals will still have them. and, the Founding Fathers never imagined that one person could easily, affordably, reliably pack the firepower of a regiment.

Why do so few people get this?

We have regulations surrounding cars, and mostly they work, as you can’t drive if you can’t pay, and responsibility is enforced. Except that if you are using your gun you don’t care about the regulation, and won’t. Its not a car, its not obvious, its not mostly not-deadly. Guns are small, and hideable, and used beyond the law. The law does not apply.

I know there must be compromises that have better or worse outcomes. My wife wrote a dissertation on the effects of regional rules on productivity over time during the turn of the century, with boxes full of musty old books that might have given our dog cancer.  Its not possible that a multi-level study on guns vs. crime vs. regions vs. other factors can’t be regressed. There needs to be a common baseline, because the current sentence is unbalanced.

Why do so few people get this?

dear blog, its been a fun coupla years, but you are cramping my style. kisses, Alana.

My posting frequency has dropped in inverse proportion to Alana’s development. I am too busy, and if not too busy, too tired to write. All those months of blogging about my radness and 15 posts about G are long gone.   I’m sad, cause Alana does so many mind-blowing things.  I have to leave myself notes:

TODO: WRITE ABOUT PODORD!!!

She learned the chorus, sort of, for the Bob the Builder theme song, but I’ve been too transfixd to record her screaming it.   It goes like this “blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab the blablab!”.  Its got hit written all over it.  Ideas i once had that i would build into something interesting, polish like a standup bit, i’ve no bandwidth for.   ironic that she disempowers her own image broker. she could rule the ‘tubez, if i wasn’t so busy chasing her. She is that stinkin’ cute.

she get into and out of the car and into and out of school, with minimal risk to life and limb.  I didn’t notice it til it was happening, when I could open everyone’s car doors and collect the handful of  blankies and packpacks and diapers and turn to see everyone punching the key code into the front door.  My amazement is only in reflection, there was never really any doubt. If G is going, Alana is going too. today G cleaned\taught\drowned Alana in the shower, while i went downstairs and got a beer, not worried. I deserve a refreshment for my architecting. And Alana is indeed that smart, with a constant example just far enough ahead of her to make her stretch to find the way.

The dynamic the kids have developed is not what i would have expected. G is always the loudest, but instead of shrinking, Alana got herself sum street cred. She never backs down, carries her cool like a real-ass gansta. she’ll knock the black off yo ass. And that is why G keeps her around.

I have to carve out time. Not writing about my kids, logging pictures, storing memories seems like i am forgetting them.   Ironic that i spend more time with them when not on the computer, but the everpresentness of it vanishes in a blur of daily responsibility and emotions and grind. Your memory is what is burned in by repetition, but your personality is what you live every day.  I wonder about those divorced fathers, a weekend is not enough, its not every time every day. As my self has become about them only, so has my internet. Its not quantifiable like a stat counter, but its worth more.

Resigning myself to declining stats, i’ve unexpectedly opened myself up to artistic freedom, as it were. Why do you write? This blog is about…its about me doin’ me.  i can draw hits with posts about biking and titles that generate cross traffic, i can squeeze out some tall tales from a ride, but i’m so thankful just to find time to ride i don’t care anymore.  i have become an artiste. 4 yrs have led me through the intertubez Gomorrah and back.

The new-and-improved chollaball.net.  The No Bullshit chollaball.net. all killer no filler chollaball.net.  i’m so thankful to find time.

note G holding a stuffed pteranodon

For the first time ever, I’ve been popping pain killers.  i’ve dabbled with lortab or vics for a couple days after surgeries.  But never popped. My back so inflamed every muscle up and down my left leg has been spasming and firing. I think its muscular more than sciatica, getting some relief walking around with my stim unit strapped to my leg, groin, back or ass.  Its been a pleasure for the coworkers to see. Having a pad slide down your crotch during the drive and then fishing for it and ripping out the short hairs en route is another awesome carnival game.

The severity is totally my fault – hiking Petrified Forest, unpacking all day, riding the trainer a couple hrs, chopping down a tree all after the onset of pain.  Its been so long, fortunately, that i’ve had a good injury i sorta forgot how bad i am about rest.  Two trips to my chiro and i was still a wretching ball of nerves and tension and could not sit still for 30 seconds.  Driving there was more dangerous than dui. I had to goto the PCP for the scrip, even though he basically rubber stamped me when i gave him my chiro’s number and asked him to call.  That was weird. Too easy. I got all pumped up to lobby him: “um…doc? remember 2 months ago you checked on my golf-ball-sized hyperextended finger, and i didn’t even want a tylenol? so could you set aside any guilt about  meth destroying families in Apache Junction and pharm parties in Las Sendas aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand score me some shit?“  Then the PCP offered me the whole candy store.  So this is regulation?  For the record, my single 30 pill bottle of vicodin that I got in early ’04 after getting a pin in my thumb still had 11 left when this started. And since getting the meds was so easy, i sorta got kinda peeved about the $25 copay and another hour of sizzling rippling inside-out electrocution while waiting for my dope.  Why cant i buy pharm-quality stuff whenever i want? The hoops i had to go through are token, and I don’t misuse when easily available. I am not a problem.

I do get that its an addictive substance, i’ve got friends who love to party on vics, i foresee people using it like aspirin and coffee and getting hooked. I totally get that it needs some safe instructions, after playing Uomma Donna in ’00 8 weeks post-knee surgery. I played really well on Saturday, with the help of a lortab, then another that night and another before Sunday’s game.  On Day 2 the first time i planted coming down from a catch, a bolt of white lightning shot up my leg and blinded me, and i dropped the disc, and cursed out the other team in a horrendously inexcusable spirit foul. then i didn’t walk for 2 weeks.

Maybe some restrictions are good, treating something as a little dangerous.  Getting it when i legitimately needed it was not a big deal, and lack of access contributes to lack of exposure.

*smack*

*smack**smack*

That’s a hard one for a libertarian to take, and as much as i ponder it i am simply not sure how availability, legality and exposure all ultimately translate into problems or lack thereof, vs satisfaction and freedom of choice and holistic integration into society.  Would meds eventually be treated like ibu, but stronger, with the occasional OD the price of convenience for so many other people? Calling John Stuart Mill? spill in the Pharmacy aisle, bring your utility mop. i’m not into meds and i dont have a problem with them, and am just not so deeply troubled by the nominal effort to get them. my perspective however is only one of many.

As I was narrowly avoiding car accidents on the way home, and further ruining the clutch, I got a message that the drug test i might have to take will not happen (without several weeks notice) as the position has been filled internally.  How ironic! Time to test out the Green Doctor while i waited for CVS to get me my prescription smack!!!

-

pot sucks for pain!

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it did nothing but make me hyper conscious of the cage match going on inside my leg.  Those scenes of maggots eating stuff? they were not eating, they were all dressed like Nacho Libre and going superfly off the top rope, nonstop, down my whole left side.  For me, meds work like meds and pot works like pot.

I am quite certain it works if you have glaucoma, steady chronic pain, no appetite or energy, if you need to feel floaty and fresh to forget your terminal suffering – a low-level pain reducer.  maybe i need the indica instead of the sativa, or the other way around. It works for many ailments, just not the kind i get myself into.  some people cant handle pain pills, or use them differently; pot does not relieve my acute 10-on-a-scale-of-1-to-10 pain.  7 yr old vicodin FTW!

This experiment certainly highlights my bandwagoning on the medical marijuana bandwagon.  I’m all for it, cause it will be easy to get and not worry about  being a criminal just to enjoy a “drink”.  Getting it will be about as much effort as getting meds, which is about what’s involved in getting it now, except you don’t call it pot in email.

Riding up the gondola in Telluride there were 2 older couples from Texas pondering CO’s medical mj law.  They had no experience with pot, and were cracking jokes about how advocates acted like it heals a broken leg. But not all smarmy and FOX-Newsy, but like simple people of the land intaking the rare air.  It was hysterical listening but trying to act like i wasn’t listening. like that could happen in a gondola.  Maybe they figured I was gettin’ dirty I was cool wit it. which is kinda true. but beside the point! It was so genuine, and totally poked some reality into the holy grail of medical mj  – does anyone at all believe that its *only* about medicine? You don’t see people so passionately lined up for more liberal dispensing of vicodin in the name of freedom. I’m still totally cool withthe compromise, its worth it for de facto decriminalization.

So how is it that something i don’t abuse,  i dont have a problem with mild restrictions on it? But something that, by many definitions, I do abuse and personally don’t find medicinal i think should be totally legal, while willingly ceding some control just so we can get it decriminalized?  My libertarianism again donkey-punched!  When i thought a smoke might fuck up a job interview, and didn’t want to be the punchline in a dumbass stoner joke, i stopped for months snap snap np. The only thing i can’t stay off of is a bike, which is why my back pain is hanging around. we’re all largely happy with the meds model and the more-liberal alcohol model.  The current restrictions are not all that burdensome, for some things we all agree do some things. I surrender my philosophy for a good buzz.