Thursday, January 31, 2008

slower than granny

Hey guys the roads around Klamath are downright scary today, and last night as well. There was a big, bad accident on the 97 near the downtown northbound onramp last night that had it blocked off for five hours from Mollie's to the Green Springs exit.

parts of the 140 are closed due to big drifts on the road.

it's ok to drive slow! Your 4wd won't do you much good unless you have good rubber on the wheels, ok? We got more coming. Don't be in a hurry. Tell you boss to pound sand if you're late because of weather and he/she bitches. I know it took me an hour just to get OUT of town yesterday morning because of plows.

continuing to not eat High Fructose Corn Syrup

I know this stuff slips by me here and there sometimes. But in general, I've been reading my labels and avoiding it. Franz bakeries makes some fantastic bread, and now they are making it without HFCS. It also looks like they've stopped using enriched and bleached flours. Yay!

But, since I stopped eating this stuff in the large quantities that I was before (blissfully unaware it was in almost everything I ate...) I don't crave sweets anymore. I also don't feel hungry all the time.

I'm a member of a certain bulletin board full of women, and there are always questions about losing weight. There are always people going on and on about this diet or that diet, or things like Nutrisystem. Frankly I can't believe how much money we throw at trying to lose weight, when from my own experience, removing this one ingredient and its derivatives from my diet has produced some pretty drastic changes, both in my weight and how I feel from day-to-day.

Pounds lost since the end of September to the last time I weighed myself on 1/18- 16. Remember, I've done nothing but get some exercise and remove HFCS.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Today's most often heard phrase ...

... was "holy crap". At every one of my stops, at least one person would look out a window and exclaim "holy crap!" or "Holy shit!". Why? Because it's been snowing really hard all freakin day long. It's finally stopped, and on coming home it was my turn to exclaim "Holy Shit!" because our fence is almost buried, now.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

My #1 hit song

In 2005 i had an adventure in Ontario, OR. Then I wrote a song about it. A pretty damn stupid song, actually. I recorded it, threw it on a CD, and sent it to the person who had the adventure with me. Also sent it to another friend on the coast.

Both of these folks loved it, and learned it, and play it. They play it all the time for other people. Other people ask them to play it. It is even being sung at one of the middle schools on the coast (kind of alarming, but what the hell...). Both of them tell me that whenever they play it for people, the people love it. One of them recorded his own version of it ( he sent me a text message, "I covered your song!")

I really can't believe people love this song as much as these two tell me they do.

So then, tonight, I played it for one of the blues society guys. He works for a major music distributor. Even he liked it. He said I have a good grip on how I space my words out.

I just think, "man, you guys have GOT to be kidding. It's the dumbest song in the whole world". But there you have it.

A song about getting wasted and getting arrested is popular on the southwest coast, and in the northeast corner of the state. Now gaining popularity down here in 'Bama. And I wrote it. Too strange.

I suppose this means I will have to soon create a new myspace thing in the music section with it, and throw a couple of my other songs up there, too. I don't have it uploaded anywhere anymore.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Short lines and a caboose

There is a short-line rail company here, the Modoc Northern, that started up right around when we moved to KF. I think it runs the potato route- Klamath and Tulelake, Altamont and a couple of other towns, although I have never seen one of their trains in Klamath. So maybe they don't come this far north. Last week one of their trains was at the siding in Tulelake and I really wish I'd had a good camera with me. The thing had a caboose. A caboose! When's the last time anyone's seen a freakin caboose on a working train? The locomotive looked like it was probably about 30 or 40 years old. It's hard to tell with them, all i can do is go off "the lines", and this one looked very 50s. It didn't have the electric/diesel hybrid though. Straight diesel.

I'll see it again. Next time, I'll have a camera.

numbers and letters

yay we got our tax forms so we can start dealing with that now. Once again, H&R Block can shove it. Never using them again. One of the store owners I see every week has a daughter that got her taxes done this year through them and got the nice little card, with all kinds of nice little charges on it every time she uses it. $3 a pop. Just so you know....

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Girl with film

Long before my digital camera started acting up and taking weird, fuzzy pictures, i got bored with digital. My problem was that each of my film cameras had something wrong with them. One only takes pictures at 1/3200. One jams when you try to advance it. One scrapes a big line across the film, all the way through it. So my issue was usually, "Which one is going to piss me off the least?"

None.. as it happens. Smart Half's mom sent me an older Minolta 7000 Maxxus AF. for a b-day present. It has a bayonet style body, and all my lenses are screw-type, but adapters are available. Hells yeah. i totally have to learn to use this, it's all automatic. My film cameras are all strictly manual. That was great for learning how to manipulate light and grain for black and white. I am wondering if it has a switch for killing all the automatic features...

I also have to go prowling around for film for my two ancient (early '20s) box cameras and a second or third gen Brownie. I must have 15 other cameras besides my three main bodies, all with hard to find film sizes. The only one I don't have, I think, is a disk camera. Had one, though :P

beyond and back

friday i worked and then went to leave town. Ran the car into a snow drift and killed an hour digging it out. That kind of thing only happens, of course, when you are in a hurry to go somewhere. Got down the mountain and arrived safely up in Junction Shitty (all towns in Oregon have nicknames. Get over it). Djeef had his fabalus spaghetti waiting, and then we sat up in his drum room until the wee hours, talking, drinking, looking at some photo albums and listening to music. Up and out in the morning, we arrived in Booze Bay and had to convince Tam to come because she didn't want to arrive late, and it was now the Start Time. We all got to jam a couple of songs. It was interesting to see that most of the people who were playing are still playing, and playing the same tired, boring crap. Is it so fucking hard to learn a new song every year? Jeez. Some were still obsequious, some were still condescending assholes, some still the finest people on earth. Good to be home. Around dark, the cold hit me. Just slammed me. So much for having a few drinks or whatever. Knocked me right out. Sunday I spent being a miserable companion, but we watched "Metalocalypse" season one probably six times and that's always funny. Monday, the cold was kicking my ass, and still I had to get Djeef back to JC and make a stop in Methford before shuffling through the doorway at home.

Spent all weekend driving. It's ok. It was a good time. Goodbye Jim!

Friday, January 18, 2008

Another huge step on the six-string

I have been mostly working with fingerpicking on my acoustic guitars. I use a pick for strumming but never have been able to pick out single notes quickly with a pick.

On Wednesday I was jamming with those five other guitar players and the mandolin, and I was strumming away, and then.. I started playing single notes with a pick. Arpeggios. This is a big step for me. I can actually do single note picking ok if i'm moving laterally along the neck, but moving from the low E to the high E has just stumped me. But there I was, doing it. I about squealed. It wasn't particularly precise, but the arpeggios were recognizable. So I'm pretty thrilled about that.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

it sucks, but...

sometimes i really roll on the bitching about living in Klamabama.. and you who read here don't even see the half of it. I was livid today by the time i got the damn tires on the car around 4 pm.

But on cold mornings, when the farms are buried in snow, and the ice coats the trees, and you see a bald eagle or two or three on Stateline road in the trees, or out on the frozen water, it ain't so bad. The sky is an impossible blue and everything else is black or white or a combination of the two, with some added color of a red or green barn, or the "Wong Potatoes" sign on Highway 39 (I always wonder if there might be a "Wight Potatoes" somewhere nearby). And the Scootypuff barrels through feet of snow with no effort, redeeming itself, and I get to giggle at monster, lifted, lugged out Ford F1billions high centered on a berm i just barreled over, and the neighbors little yapper dogs run crazily through the snowy yard, yapping.. yeah, it isn't so bad. When I get to come home on Wednesdays and go to a friends house, and there are five guitars playing and a mandolin, with a roaring fire in the woodstove and the Anubis dog wacking all of us with her tail, it ain't so bad at all.

2008 we celebrate a root- a noble root. The root that fed people through generations, in the New World and the Old. The root that died and forced a huge population to pull up stakes and come to this country. The root that once had 200,000 acres dedicated to it in the State of Oregon.. the lowly potato. 2008 is the year of the potato.

Did you know that? How cool. Celebrate the tater this year! Dress one up and take it out, extoll it's centuries of feeding us, it's virtue of being storable for long periods with out refrigeration.
See ya when i get back from the Bay.

novena

its the kind of morning where, if i were still Catholic, I'd be on my knees begging St Jude.

Something like,

Blessed St Jude, please ask God to smite the shit out of policies and procedures and parts desks and everything that stands in the way of having a set of goddamn tires installed in a timely matter.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Come a little bit closer

Maila Numi is dead at 85. You may or may not remember her. Vampira


While I'm waaay to young to have ever seen the 1954 KABC stuff she did, my teenage years were dominated by a band who wrote a song about her, and I have only seen archival footage of her introducing some of the movies. I have watched "Plan 9 From Outer Space" more often than is probably healthy, as well.

Sing along...

"Two inch nails
Micro waist
With a pale white feline face
Inclination eyebrows to there"

Monday, January 14, 2008

conehead cat

Oafus Maximus, aka Spot, had an expensive trip to the vet today. She had some gunk deep down in her ears and had created a hematoma on one of them from scratching at it. I thought it was ear mites so i went to put ear mite medicine in her ears and got it into one and then noticed the other one was swollen. That was Saturday afternoon, so i had to wait until this morning to take her in.

Good news is, for a cat born in '93, she's in really excellent health except for some arthritis in her hips, and the vet gave us some medicine to help relieve the pain from that so she can get around a little better.

This didn't put us back in the hole, but it made a big dent in what we have, but we still have some left over and can still get the tires we had to order... o i never mentioned that... we had to ORDER tires for the Fo because no one in town had any in stock. I couldn't believe it. Two different sizes came stock on the Fo for '92, and NEITHER were available around town. Lots of partial sets, but not 4. And people wonder why there are times that i just want to choke the crap out of any local-born I come across. Rural Oregonians, I love you guys, but the way you run some of your businesses often has much to be desired. I need to shut up- I've been here since '96. I know this stuff, I just forget.

But anyway, Spot has a cone on her head now. She has stitches in her ear. She doesn't look as pathetic as Py did with his little orange casts on his feet, but she just came over, sat next to me and gave me the look. She's pissed off at me. Well. *smirk*

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Ramona's floats

aw! My favorite bakery in the world is closing one of its locations and the main one is teetering. San Pedro folks- don't let yourselves lose this place!! And if you have never been to Ramona's, GO! And if you happen to be in that area, GO! And don't miss Slavko's while your there.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Back from Bend

Man, what a couple of days we chose to head north for a show.

Back Door Slam is a GREAT band! I would totally pay money to see them again. Nice guys, too. If you see them playing in your town, GO SEE THEM! They are in Portland tonight somewhere. Go to their website to see where. They're very organic sounding. I don't know how else to put it. There were effects on the singer's voice, but they didn't change how his voice sounded, really. Good sound guy... Anyway, all three of them are very, very good musicians and the oldest one is 20, I guess. They've chosen a great selection of songs to cover and they have some fine originals, too.

The opening band started with "Roadhouse Blues". If I was opening for these guys, I would have chosen a less shitty song to start with. I would have gone with a recognizable song that isn't so overplayed. Overplayed badly.

Got to Bend last night about 6:30 and headed to Grover's to have pizza and visit with a friend who was setting up the jam there. While waiting for the food, some of us headed over to the "Westward Ho" hotel to get a room. They actually had a room that all seven of us were able to sleep in... two bathrooms, three queen sized beds, 2 cots and a bunk bed. Awesome. It was starting to snow about then.

Headed to the Domino Room by about 7:15 to meet the band and all that. The show ended at 11, and we went back to Grover's to jam with the Bend contingent. It was blizzardy. Got back to the hotel, played some tunes on the acoustics and then we all crashed around 3:30 am or so.

On the road this morning at around 10. Heard from a trucker in LaPine that there were nine trucks off the road between LaPine and Klamath. Haw. I figured he was exaggerating. But no, we counted, and really, there were ten trucks off the road and we got to see someone in a little car slide into a snowbank just south of Modoc Point.

There were spots of the 97 where we were lucky to see 50 feet ahead of us.

So I had a pretty cool little birthday dealie.

Monday, January 07, 2008

0 the birthday

we went and saw "I Am Legend" last night. It was pretty cool. I will have to go rent "Omega Man" now, too.

One thing left me unsatisfied, and looking to see if this was all a book to begin with so I can maybe get some satisfaction.

The darkseeker that came after Smith's character when he trapped a female was seen again a couple more times. That left me wondering things. Like, did Neville trap his mate? Is that a concept the darkseekers had left of their humanity? Did that male darkseeker go after Neville because he took his mate? Was it even his mate? Am I reading too much into this?

Just some things that I was wondering about.

I have to say the movie was one that kept me looking at the screen, waiting for something to happen. Not waiting in a bad way, but you just knew something was about to happen, even when it really wasn't.

It was a pretty bleak movie. Even with the little kernel of hope thrown in at the end.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Observe the snow! It fornicates!

I get to giggle all winter here. Back in high school, I read (and re-read and re-read and plum wore out) "The Straight Dope" by Cecil Adams. The two things in that book that I count as my favorites were the one about bilirubin and the one about all the Eskimo words for snow.

So, it snows, and I like to say "Observe the snow! It fornicates!" sometimes. And that's what makes me giggle.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

two road trips woot@!

Monday to Bend for me birfday and then the weekend of the 19th out to Booze Bay for Jim. I think I'm looking forward to the Booze Bay trip more, because I'll be surrounded by old friends, best friends, great friends, teachers, mentors and my fellows in general. The group of people who welcomed me no matter that I was a Californian and a little on the odd side. I talked to Djeef today and we're both excited to hang out again. Talked to The Man So Nice They Named Him Twice yesterday. Haven't really gotten to talk to him much since long before we moved here. I'll be callin Tam tomorrow and yakkin her ear off, too. Can't wait to see her and the offspring, and the Hoov and Charlie, and all the riverfolk who will be there- Bihner and Pam and Al and LL and maybe the tiny redhead will be in town, too... and Mary and Francois and Nubbs and Spike and it'll be good to see Lindstrom if he's going to be there too.

Eh, the leather pants don't fit yet, but on my summer trip out there, they will. THEY WILL!!!!

Friday, January 04, 2008

dressin funny

super

There are a lot of pictures of me as a kid dressed in weird stuff. With Tupperware on my head, pantyhose on my head, tutus, cowboy outfits, one i specifically remember putting together and telling my mom it was a virgin mary costume.

Fabulous weather

A lot of people in McCloud were up in arms, squealing with glee or loudly grumbling when I was there on Wednesday. The rumor was that the NWS was predicting 8-10 feet of snow over the weekend. O Rly? Sounds fun!

I keep my eye on the weather down there because i DO have to drive in it. At least this is supposed to blow over by next Weds. As of last night, the prediction was blizzard conditions for that area, with heavy snow such that 89 might not be passable. Further to the southeast, Truckee was looking at, I guess, up to 10 inches per hour.

I bet the DWPs of points further south are drooling at the snowpack predictions.

Right now, in the lovely basin- and it really is gorgeous here in the winter- I'm looking at about 2 or three inches in the backyard that started coming down as slush around 8 am. all of the branches that blew off the trees last night are nearly covered over. I looked at the lake yesterday and it's frozen over. That just looks cool as a York.

Thrilling!

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

that secret life of neighbors thing

Is something that intrigues me. How you know certain people as certain things, because you deal with them regularly in that capacity only and that's how you know them. And then you come across them somewhere doing something else you never expected.

Found

I was digging around in the pocket of the down ski coat my dad gave me about a week ago and pulled out a pink ticket stub for the Pasadena Rose Parade in 1983. It was $15.

I don't remember going to this. I would have been 13. He must have gone with the third ex-wife. That was before they adopted my brother and sister.

Anyway, I'll scan this later.

Happy New Year!

Best photos from 2007

Well, from the Daily Breeze.

Ring it in with Woolly Bully

Just arrived safely back at the house. Not only was I part of the Partier Support Crew (as a member of a band providing entertainment) but I was the designated dumbass for the Smart Half, Phyllis and her husband. Yeah, I stayed sober on NYE. Holee shit. Nah, I hab a code, and drinkin sucks when you're sick. I just didn't want the double misery of a hangover AND aqualung-ness.

We jammed your standard 9-2 gig. I have to say, for having never practiced together, and for at various times only 3/5 of us knowing any particular song, we kicked righteous ass. At some point, I was thinking we had been playing an awful long time. Turns out we played two hours straight through.

I did a little dance all night. I was directly in the path to the bathroom. There was really nowhere else to go. There was a blast of arctic air that occasionally froze me on the spot.

I spotted the manager of one of the stores I deal with. Waved at him, but I figured since I was incognito that he wouldn't recognize me. He came up later on, "I know you from somewhere!". I said he sure did, and reminded him where from. It was one of those kind of cool conversations that's like, "the secret life of neighbors". He was stunned to see me doing this. How funny.