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.

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?

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!

–

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.

Each punishment for DUI is its own unique torment; the interlock is wiping your with ass with tender hemorrhoid. A several-times daily pinprick of impassioned annoyance, which mostly faded after 2 months, followed by a long numbness and resignation. On busy days with many errands, it was a stomach bug clenching then erupting over the tender hemorrhoid. After spending a year in the car with it, you’d think i’d have nicknamed it or bonded with it in some Helsinki way. Nope. Fuck no. An object. Refused to take a picture. Used the same mouthpiece for 12 months, covered it for a year with the same shirt in the floor of the car, which I will give to Goodwill or burn. I wouldn’t waste a single extra calorie on it – my silent protest. Around the 4th month, they upgraded the unit’s firmware and shaved 20 seconds off the startup time. I could not confirm this other than by noting the version on the splash-screen. There are no internet forums for Intoxalock. This was the closest i allowed myself to get to it; the rest was strictly business.

Every month I visit the Interlock SuperStore for recalibration. Calibration = status reporting to the DMV. The employees service you quickly, quietly, doing their jobs as invisibly and sans chit-chat, not wanting to deal with your frustrations or sob stories. I heard plenty of them in the lobby. A lot of people don’t take the thing seriously enough, or their situation seriously enough, or the thing sneaks up on you with its extremely imperfect accuracy.   I took the interlock very seriously, but i still had a few agonizing brushes with the rules and bullshit fines due to its imperfections.

The interlock’s boundary is .03 – blow over and you can’t start the car, blow over while driving and you get hit with an $85 fine.   Blow over 5 times in a 1-2 month calibration period and you get hit with another year at $80/month. I had 8 overblows the whole year.   The first was the day after Memorial Day when i woke up and blew .06, then went back to bed and went to work 4 hrs later. Nothing wrong with a good drunken bbq, i didn’t drive, and i learned what buzzed the next morning feels like.   The next 3 overblows came in one 5 minute period when I blew .032 15 minutes after starting the car at .029 and having finished my 3rd beer in 3 hrs 30 minutes prior to driving. $85 in fines.   2 came when the thing was so heated up in June it registered .15 on half a beer and immediately went into its own reboot cycle.   3 minutes later it registered .037, 3 minutes later it registered .018 and let me start the car.   That made me late for daycare and cost $25.

1 overblow came after the Squealer – I had a shot and a beer after the race, rode 10 miles and with .012 bac (half a beer, given my body weight) drove the car to the awards ceremony where i nursed a 20 oz beer for 1.5 hrs and then blew .035.   Probably a legitimate reading, but it pissed me off. I was following all the rules – out with my friends after a great day, drinking responsibly with a plan for getting home, after dealing with the interlock for 8 months. i was over .03 by about 2 sips and my bac was coming down. FFS I’VE LEARNED MY LESSON, LET ME GO HOME ALREADY! I stood around for 15 minutes til i got under the line – picking my butt in the parking lot, organizing my trunk, cleaning garbage and cheerios out of the backseat, too embarrassed to go back inside. I wanted to to yank the thing out of the car, but that anger lasted about 10 seconds til i forced the numbness back over me. Much better than looking at the calendar and chafing.

The final overblow came driving home from the 12 Hrs at Night in Prescott, 10 days before my sentence ended.   I had blown 0.0 for an hour and a half when suddenly it registered .037 on a rolling retest.   I pulled over and restarted it in 5 minutes and it read 0.0 again. This was a physiological impossibility that would cost me another $85. Stupid, and defiant. There was a splash of leftover beer in a waterbottle that i drained before refilling it with water, and the thing’s accuracy goes to shit in the heat.   Maybe it was the grapes I’d been eating, the garbage in the trunk, my disgusting teeth having ridden bikes all night, mine and Kila’s b.o… Nah, I got lazy, and had a sip of delicious warm chocolate beer that tasted like coffee at 9am before the water. Even though 1 oz of beer could not possibly affect me, the policy of the Interlock company is that a violation is your fault.   You have no grounds to appeal.   A rolling retest failure over .03 but not over .08 does not impact you with the DMV.   I just paid the fine and gave up arguing.   A final smackdown, just 1 week before I got the thing removed.   Dont forget that you are a fuck-up and a criminal, and your relationship with the car and the law is all uphill for the next 7 years.

An interlock is not really there to keep you under .03, its there to punish you for having anything at all.   If I wasn’t so self-destructive about it, I wouldn’t have even tried cause it only got me in trouble. The employees at the Interlock Superstore acknowledge that the thing is frightfully inaccurate and that any alcohol can register a .03 reading, that your reading can swing wildly over 2 immediately consecutive samples, that food and sports drinks and mouthwash can set it off.   I saw all of this randomness, its unhidden indignity made me angrier and more afraid.   A .03 limit, when tested accurately, I had very little trouble obeying.   Amidst the self-loathing and self-doubt I’ve been struggling with since getting arrested, going a whole year with no question of impaired driving has been very empowering.   They all tell you you can’t you won’t give up loser. The undeniable benefit of the interlock is teaching me to plan ahead and know how much i’ve had. Its been an excellent experience and proof of penance, sorta.

The hardest part, the most depressing part, is facing the daily reminder of the might of the State and seeing the system stacked against you. Over by .002 – guilty! Interlock misreads your sample – guilty!   Thousands of them in use every year, and yet this wantonness continues.   No one in the legislature gives a shit. Interlocks are good for the economy.   Once labeled a criminal, you simply don’t have the same rights as others. Or the same voice. This is something most blacks or hispanics have learned at an early age, and it certainly changed my outlook on the patterns of power in our society.   Get into an accident – the cop is gonna be looking at me. Run into AZ’s “Zero Tolerance Per Se” DUID law, i’m going to jail for a month. The corresponding teaching moment is i have become a much calmer driver, more conservative, less confrontational, less obvious, wanting to go 72 and just blend in, like a mexican-american in AZ under the cloud of SB1070.   The car is a big fat probable cause, and alcohol aside, the smartest thing to do is realize you are the cat’s caught mouse when driving it.

This much-improved citizen of the road just wants to rejoin society, drive my F150 on a road trip finally. I had it a month before my foolishness made it off-limits to me everywhere but Mexico. I want to park the Prius in the hybrid spot at Fresh & Easy. I want to take the Acura for an oil change and a car wash; I’ve avoided both due to the risk of the mechanic missing the rolling retest. Then I will change the registration to Beckie’s name, so cops scanning plates won’t profile me.

The last few weeks with the thing are coming when its over 100 degrees outside, but I am placid and numb enough to look past 30 seconds of roasting in the car til it lets me turn on the AC. At least the Acura could roll its windows down via the remote control, or the kids would have cooked. The responsible parent alternative — ironic, given how i got into this situation — would be to leave the doors open while I blew my sample. This would have given the world an even better view of my shame: at work, in front of daycare, in my driveway, Hello Friends! I don’t think anyone who mattered saw me all year long. Hunching down like doing a one-hit on a ski lift looks almost normal. You could be checking your messages, finding something for the kids, getting a drink of coffee. By the end of the sentence I just didn’t care anymore. You see me, you don’t, i made a mistake, I learned. fuck it, whatever, I’m moving on.

If nothing positive comes out of this, I am the loser all those miserable motherfuckers in Shame Training say I am.   But I’m not.   So here’s my wisdom.

• An Evening of Hospitality with Sheriff Joe
• Consequences
• Shame Training

Fuck it, whatever, I’m moving on.

The McDowell Mountain Aquatic Center has given me much to think about, especially since I have a mild chubber pretty much the whole time I’m there.

*ahem*

• If you look good, and your boobs are fake, you look really good.
• If you don’t look good, and they are fake, you went to the plastic surgeon instead of the gym. You do not look good – perfect boobs look freakish with cottage cheese thighs.
• If you look good, irregardless of boobage, you look good.

This is expressed symbolically as follows:

OO + | = :)!!!

OO + () = :(!!!

oo + | = :)!!

Can you believe this shit!?!?!?!

graphic I made in 1999 after our trip to Greece

May 10, 2010 edition of The Economist

I’m not all that big on reposting, but this is amazing.   So now think about all that clean air, and all that legal weed.   Coincidence?

http://www.flixxy.com/netherlands-rush-hour.htm