Too Many Topics

My apologies to those who come here looking for more stories about Okinawa ("The Rock") that I mentioned at the Okinawa Brats website. Once I thought I had nothing to write about. Now I realize I'm about 50 years behind schedule and losing more time every day.

But it's not like I haven't tried. I'd sure like to have all the money back that I've spent on diaries over the years. Most of the time a few pages got used and then, later, burned. I've come a long way from keeping secrets to publishing blabber for the whole world. As they come to me, I will keep writing stories from my past.

Tonight, after servicing the cats in my care for my neighbor, I sat down to read the paper. First, I wanted to rest. Second, I haven't read a newspaper in ages. Third (but probably First), I wanted to lure Bingo to my lap. And it worked. She passed by a few times but didn't stay. While I was lost in some story, I didn't notice her rubbing on the stereo. Suddenly, I heard the voice of woman singing. Both of us jumped nearly out of our hides. She had somehow turned on the stereo and a CD had started playing. It's not fun getting freaked out in someone else's house.

I've just been reading the results of a search for "alternative plantar fasciitis treatments" online. I found a video fromt he American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine that demonstrates how to evaluate a good, supportive athletic shoe. Of course I immediately got my recently-purchased New Balance 474 and put it to the test. Yay! It passed. But I'm sure there are better shoes than the ones I have.

There was an ant invasion in the kitchen this afternoon. I stopped it before it became a full-scale attack on all fronts. But that required me pulling the fridge out from the wall; a very difficult task. When it was delivered, the little black rubber wheels got pushed the wrong way and they ended up in more of a D shape then an O shape, making moving the monstrosity very difficult. But I did it.

The port of invasion was where the water line for the fridge comes out of the wall. I saturated it with "earth friendly" poison and then sealed it up with tape. But I couldn't get the fridge to go back against the wall. The solution was a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond (with 20% off coupon in hand) to buy some E Z Sliders. Quick solution. I got the big variety set to reduce the chances of hurting myself on future missions. Seems like I'm always moving something heavy the hard way.

I also found myself wandering around in Long's Drugs tonight and ended up staring at the vitamin and supplements. Since melatonin was on sale (buy one, get one free) I decided to go for it. I took one about a half hour ago. I'm hoping to stay awake just long enough to finish this and then head for the first of many very restful nights of sleep. I told Brad that I'm going to experiment with it. He'd never heard of it and asked me if it's something "illegal."

I decided to try it first and then talk to the doctor about it. If he blows a gasket, I'll ship it off to someone who can use it. Or not. It depends on how well it works. But I can say that I'm pretty sleepy right now and am really starting to lose focus.

Seems like a good point to quit. Hope I wake up tomorrow!

"Docent of the Summer Quarter"

Yesterday's meeting at the zoo was important. Yes, the one I missed. As the editor of the docent newsletter, The Scoop, I'm also on the Docent Council Executive Board. I don't know why since I don't hold an elected position. It's just a position I inherited with the job.

But I really should have gone to that meeting. It was a big, semi-annual meeting for all docents. Had I gone, I would have been very embarrassed by what happened there but it would have looked a lot better for me had I been there to accept the award I was given.

This evening when we got back home from an abbreviated shopping trip, there was a phone message from someone at the zoo wanting me to call her back. She wanted me to know "what happened at the meeting." Her tone of voice sort of bothered me. It sounded serious.

Even though I'm very appreciative of the recognition, I'm certain they chose the wrong person to name as "Docent of the Summer Quarter." I rarely make it to the zoo any more. I'm a lousy docent. I haven't put in any public contact hours in months. But I do work hard to produce a monthly newsletter. Still, I think they should give awards like that to docents who appear at the zoo once in a while.

As much as I enjoy volunteering at the Oakland Zoo, I've sure had problems since I went through training as a docent including pneumonia (I was in the hospital for 10 days), plantar fasciitis with all the associated leg and back pain and other complications and events that I don't really want to think about right now.

I will be getting a certificate, some kind of "gift" and an opportunity to hand-feed the giraffes. The latter is something I did when I was in docent training and it was an amazing experience. I'm totally psyched about doing it again. And I'm hoping they'll let me take Brad along to share the experience.

Below is a photo I didn't ever upload to Flickr. It shows the giraffe keeper, Amy Phelps, at the feeding deck which, as you can see, is at their eye level. It was truly one of the best experiences of my life. I look forward to doing it again.



Other than that, it was a very low-key day. The Amazing Race premiered tonight. I love how people who do crappy things to others on the show always seem to get what they dish out. Tonight the team who stole a cab from another team ended up being the first to be eliminated.

Better than that, though, was the third episode of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard on PBS. Jane Horrocks (Absolutely Fabulous, Little Voice) is a fantastic actress and the show is great. PBS continues to be the one reason to own a TV.

Oh, by the way, all the Halloween stuff is still at the bottom of the stairs. Looks like I'll be hauling it all up by myself tomorrow.

Surprises

It's 1:21AM, soon to be 1:21AM again since this is the night we turn the clocks back one hour. And I just finished working on a project about which I can say nothing because it's a surprise and the person for whom I'm surprising stops by and reads this. It's making me crazy because I'm terrible at keeping secrets. Growing up I frequently told people what their Christmas presents were before Christmas because I couldn't contain the excitement of giving them something neat.

So this is a good ending to a day that started out badly.

Last night I took a whole Trazadone tablet instead of one half because I really needed some good sleep. With chronic insomnia and being recently diagnosed with sleep apnea, sometimes I need help getting some rest. Even being physically exhausted doesn't guarantee a restful night.

But Trazadone is a harsh drug. It dries out my sinus, gives me a headache and only helps me fall asleep, not stay asleep or sleep peacefully. I try not to take it. And as soon as I swallowed the whole tablet I remembered that it was probably going to make me miserable.

And it did. My alarm went off at 7AM and I turned on my lamp. I was supposed to have gone to a meeting at the zoo but I was really miserable, still tired and my legs and feet were really aching. Bad morning. So I stayed in bed. I didn't even get up to go to Napa with friends.

I made it out of the house by 1PM to run errands. I tried to drop off the rent checks at the agency but they're located inside a building and it was locked. It frustrates me that they don't have an after-hours drop box. What a waste of gas and time to drive clear across town and couldn't even leave the envelope there. So I decided to mail it. But since I rarely buy stamps, I discovered that postage has gone up twice since I last bought any. Fortunately I had some extra 1-cent and 2-cent stamps. It took three stamps to come up with enough postage.

At OSH, I picked up three 40lb bags of wood pellets. I use it for cat litter. It's cheap and natural. One of the bags was for my "job" as a cat-sitter for a neighbor. She's using something similar that costs a lot more. I laughed out loud when I saw her litter box. It's something I saw in a SkyMall catalog on a recent flight that made me laugh out loud. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Okay, maybe this isn't too funny. But in the catalog, the "planter" was located next to a sofa in the living room. Now THAT was funny! Honestly. Can you imagine having guests over when suddenly there's a digging sound followed by the pungent odor of cat poop coming out of the corner? I don't know about your cat but when my cat finishes in the box, he must feel light as a feather and full of energy because he runs around like he's on Benny Hill.

Another high point of my day was using a Dyson vacuum cleaner for the first time. I don't know why but I kept thinking about our old Kirby and wondered if they're still around. Now that was a vacuum cleaner! Sure, dust leaked out of the bag. But it sucked up way more than it leaked so it worked out fine. These modern plastic things are all too wimpy.

It took HOURS tonight to pack away the Halloween stuff. And now all five storage containers are waiting for someone else to carry upstairs. I know I'll end up doing it but I just want to see if that particular someone else surprises me and lends a hand. It's sooooo unlikely but every once in a while I like to test him...

Thinking About Starting Again

I've been thinking about getting this thing going again (and hopefully not pissing as many people off) and I've been trying to figure out how to place videos here like a friend does on her blog.

Here's an attempt to post a little video I made several months ago:

I have so much video that needs to be edited and turned into something watchable that I doubt I'll ever get it done. Whenever I travel, I take a lot of what I call "raw" video thinking that some day I'll chop it up and make something decent out of it. I usually have at least 5 minutes of every 60 where I accidentally leave the camera rolling and end up with a sickening segment of motion sickness inducing garbage.

Anyway..

Today was the first day of a week of cat-sitting for a neighbor I just recently met. She put an ad on our community bulletin board looking for someone to take care of her "girls" while she's away on business. She's a lovely woman and her cats are warming up to me nicely. She thought that I'd never see one of them but it approached me right away when I went over to meet them all. How great is that? I must have inherited a little cat charming magic from Mom. Instead of running under the bed, they came right up to me when I went over to meet them. My neighbor was very impressed!

Here they are:

Gotta get all the Halloween stuff down and put away and the house ready for the next big event on November 10th. Another 35 people or so will be here for our annual wine and cheese party. I'm not a big fan of wine (except that muscat is mui delicioso) but the cheese selection is always totally amazing. I wonder if Patti will bring a can of Easy Cheese again.

Okay, that's enough for now. This is just a test to see if I want to get this started again.

Sadness

It's now November 2, 2007. I was working on getting this thing going again when I noticed a "draft" I created back in August but didn't ever post or finish. I still don't remember creating this post and didn't know what it was so I published it to see what was going on.

This was the day my cat, Pewter, became seriously ill and we took him to the emergency vet in San Leandro. A few days later I had to send him to heaven to wait for me. It was an awful weekend. This reminds me of so much sadness. But since I started to make a post, I decided to finish it and explain what happened.

I miss him so much. I love my surviving kitty, Cootie, but Pewter was really special. He was so sweet. He scratched the crap out of Brad's furniture but that was because he was kinda stupid. But he was beautiful and we both loved him very much.

Life is rough. Sometimes I feel totally ill-equipped to handle all it dishes out.

My Cat's Food May Be Tainted!

This morning I discovered the frightening news that the nationwide pet food recall has been expanded and the dry food I've been giving my cats has been added to the list. What a nightmare!

I'd be frantic right now if I hadn't just taken Pewter to the vet and, only yesterday, gotten a real good report from his blood and urine tests. He has chronic problems but at least there's no sign of anything else. His weight loss is probably due to his fussy G.I. tract.

It's unlikely that I got any of the tainted food. But I don't know. The company has recalled all of it even though the tainted sample was only used on specific production dates. I'll gladly return it and wait to buy more until Pewter's delicate gut is mended.

China seems to be very protective in their response to this problem. From the KTVU.com website story:

A lawmaker said Wednesday the Chinese have refused to grant visas to FDA
inspectors seeking to visit the plants where the ingredients were made. An FDA
spokesman later said the visas were not refused but that the agency had not
received the necessary invitation letter to get visas.

"It troubles me greatly the Chinese are making it more difficult to understand what led to this pet food crisis," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told The Associated Press after
meeting with the FDA commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach.

What troubles me greatly is the fact that we really don't know what's in our food any more because so much of what we eat is prepared and packaged somewhere other than in our own kitchen. I'm afraid this will become a more common issue in food manufactured for humans in the near future (if it hasn't already.)

DishTV Experience

Neither one of us likes Comcast but if we want even the most basic television reception, it's one of very few choices. In Alameda, at least there's a choice. Here, in San Leandro, there isn't unless you go with a satellite system.

I'd been comparing prices, channels and service for quite a long time when a coupon for DishTV arrived in an envelope of "local business coupons." I made the call. I didn't know I was dealing with some company that wasn't even in California. That's no big deal, I guess, but they charged their own small fee for setting up the service.

In preparation for the installation, I had to get permission from the property manager, complete forms and make sure I understood the home owners' association rules. This place is one of those nit-picky communities where snitches report you for the least little thing.

One of our neighbors found out the hard way about the association when his DishTV was installed. But as an owner, he's in a more secure position to tell them where to go..

Installation day came and went. The guy was great. He was friendly and did an awful lot of work to get that dish attached in the right place so that all the rules were met. When he left he told me that if we weren't satisfied they'd come back and take all the equipment away and there would be any charge. Great! Satisfaction guaranteed.

Very soon afterward I found a problem. My computer is also a TV and DVR (like Tivo) and works just fine with cable. Using XP Media Center, it has its own channel listings and settings. It did not work at all with the dish. I had to point a remote control toward the opposite end of the house to change channels on the bedroom's dual tuner. I put that aside thinking I could eventually figure out a way to make it work.

That night we watched some TV and didn't notice any real problems.

The next night a storm had blown in. It was overcast, raining and windy. And the reception was awful. We spent most of the time looking at a blue screen telling us the signal had been lost.

That was it. I immediately disconnected everything and re-attached the Comcast cable. I hated calling them back but a deal's a deal. We were terribly unsatisfied and with our favorite shows coming up, we didn't want to have to go through a long adjustment period. Sometimes things just need to work when you plug them in, not later.

When I was told they'd take the equipment away, I took that to mean ALL the equipment including the satellite dish on the chimney. It took an incredible amount of complaining and calling to get a supervisor to issue a work order for the installation company to come back and uninstall everything.

When the guy came to remove the dish, he said he was only there to pick up the tuners. I told him that Dish was sending boxes via UPS and I was supposed to return them that way. And he said he knew nothing about removing the dish. But I gave him the tuners. I wanted to be rid of them. But I made him give me a receipt because I anticipated trouble when I didn't send them back in the UPS boxes. (Smart move.) They eventually did call and hassled me about not returning the equipment.

Another angry call. I was getting nowhere. When I was telling my neighbor about it all, I was standing outside with a pretty clear view of our roof. That's when I noticed that the dish was pointing directly into a huge eucalyptus tree. That just made me more upset. (I really don't know what caused the picture to go out so much; wind, rain, clouds, aircraft, trees, incompetence.) I just wanted them to remove that ugly thing off the roof. It isn't our house and I know the HOA doesn't particularly like them. I only wanted the company to follow through on their representative's word.

I think their goal is to stick an dish antenna on every house in America. They just don't want to have to come back and install again when the next occupant wants service. Period.

Time has passed. I've calmed down. We haven't gotten anything from the HOA telling us we've done anything wrong which is a relief.

But DishTV has been calling us and not leaving a message. I tracked the phone number online to find out who it was. (check this site out: http://whocalled.us/) People everywhere are getting solicitation calls from them. So today, knowing what "Unknown Name 866-668-8047" actually is, I answered the call. The rep knew I didn't have service but was soliciting to try again.

I didn't like that she asked for "Mr. or Mrs. Webb" because I think that was terribly presumptious of the company to assume there was a "lady of the house," (which is another term I've heard on soliciation calls,) but she was very polite and so I was very polite. We were sickeningly polite.

And I asked, politely, that they not make any more calls. She said she'd put me on the "do not call" list.

Meanwhile, Comcast continues to grossly overcharge for the most basic service. If we weren't addicted to PBS, news, Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet and Ugly Betty, I'd just give up.

Tilton's Treasure

"UAL CEO Paid $39.7M in 2006"

Good morning fellow former/current United Airlines employees! Have you had your slap in the face yet? If not and you're not feeling like some piece of crap stuck in the tread of someone's boot yet today, take a look at the news about Glenn Tilton's compensation for last year.

Sure, a lot of it is stock and other stuff you can't exactly withdraw from an ATM. But the base salary ($687,083) seems to be sufficient to me. It should be enough for a very comfortable life.

If UA can afford to shower Tilton with an excess of stock option riches, it can afford to pay back the rest of us for what we lost in the ESOP debacle.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070326/united_executive_compensation.html?.v=1

Somebody Shut Him Up

Would someone please save this country from more needless embarrassment and shut Oklahoma Senator Inhofe the hell up? *big sigh* Once again I feel fortunate to find myself surrounded by people whose ancestors crawled out of the slime a few million years ahead of the others.

We recently saw An Inconvenient Truth for the first time. I was prepared to be absolutely floored. But it didn't happen. Why? Because it isn't news if you've been paying attention. And I've been paying attention to scientific information about everything from evaporating lakes to studies on polar ice for a long time and it all makes sense.

Since in today's world it takes a celebrity to get the public to listen to just about anything, I'm very pleased that private citizen Al Gore has been so effective in spreading the word.

I watched one of Inhofe's presentations online and I can say that he is one of the rudest and most ignorant elected representatives this country has. Is that the best that Oklahoma can do? Nobody seems to argue now that the cause of the dust bowl disaster of the 1930's was "inappropriate farming methods." Get it? *another sigh* I'm sure there are people who will argue that fact too.

My frustration with the term "global warming" is that it's become something people must choose to believe in or not. Forget about that term for a minute and tell me if it makes sense to stop polluting our atmosphere. Does it make sense to do everything we can to preserve and protect our planet? Hey, how does a LOWER ENERGY BILL sound?

It was such a pleasure watching Al Gore on TV tonight speaking to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Ah, the sound of an intelligent man speaking. That's something we've been missing enough of for what seems like a decade. What a contrast with that mottle-faced, sassy, self-righteous and misinformed Imhofe.

Two Shakes

I don't like portable carnivals. But even if someone could convince me that those traveling spin and puke rides were safe I still wouldn't go because I don't like being hollered at either.

On the other hand, it would be a fun place to take photos especially if something went wrong. Ew.

The earthquake that hit at 8:40PM last night was the second in only a week or so and I felt both of them.

Until last week I'd wondered what it was like to be in the car during an earthquake. But while stopped, waiting for a light with absolutely no traffic moving, my car did a bump and shimmy that seemed impossible even if a big truck had been passing. I found out 10 minutes later that an earthquake had hit and BART trains stopped for a diagnostic.

Last night I had the above photo displayed in my photo editor when things started jumping around. Each one feels unique in how it bumps, jumps, shakes, rocks, twists and in how it's transmittted. Waves can preceed shaking. Waving and shaking can preceed peeing your pants.

I'm dry!

The Odd Couple Coincidences

Tonight we had the pleasure of joining our friends Robin and Lynette to see "The Odd Couple" at the Douglas Morrison Theatre in Hayward. I'd never even heard of the place before just happening to walk past it a few weeks ago when I met up with the "new" Paula for a visit to the Japanese gardens next door.

At that time I remember thinking back to my experiences in community theater many years ago. Those were such fun times. One fond memory I have was when I played a sibling of Jesus in a play about the family of Jesus. We were all in period costumes and performed "in-the-round" in a very intimate setting where the audience was so close you could hear their hair growing.

Someone left a fig on a bench by mistake and I unknowingly sat on it. I sensed something was there but had no idea what was wrong until I was off stage. All I suspected was some kind of costume malfunction. But when I saw it, it was unrecognizable and I was horrified. It looked like poop but didn't stink. Someone had to tell me it was a fig. "It's a what?" (Until then I'd only heard of Fig Newtons and thought Fig was Newton's first name. ) I'd just been on stage for 10 minutes walking around with a big ol' fig stuck in the butt crack area of my costume one night. Great. The brother of Jesus poops his toga.

The reason we went to see "The Odd Couple" tonight was one of our friends, Emilie Frybarger, was playing the part of Gwendolyn Pigeon. I knew she was an eighth grade teacher but had no idea she was an actress. But I should have. She has a marvelous personality and impeccable comic timing.

She and Kelly Ball, playing Gwendolyn's sister Cecily Pigeon, were what gave this play its life force. Their performances were simply outstanding, outshining even the lead players. I could go on and on. And what a relief it was that the play (and Emilie's performance) was really good! When I found out that we were going to see the play and she was in it I was hesitant. I didn't want it to suck and then have to face her and have to come up with something polite to say. That's really hard for me to do. Much to my relief, it was a pleasure to watch.

And yes, twenty bucks is a lot to pay for a ticket to see community theater, especially for me. But tonight it felt like a good investment.

"Jim Webb; Jim Webb."

Something recently reminded me of when I used to accompany my mom into Salt Lake City on Saturday while she made the rounds between stores shopping for clothes, furniture or whatever happened to be on the list.

There was a department store, Auerbach's, that was along the lines of the fancy New York stores with an elaborate cosmetics department complete with the overdressed, hauty department head who always stood out because of her striking appearance. The place was nice and it was where I made my first announcement about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be an elevator operator.

Now I was only three or four at the time, I think, (maybe eight or nine; always the under-achiever) and I don't know if it was the actual operation of the elevator, the personality of the guy who did the job or the cool uniform. But it was endlessly fascinating to me that the door would open, we'd get on and the fellow operating the elevator would perform some mechanical manipulations and the door would open onto another floor.

But the best part about going to Auerbach's was that a very elegant and soft-spoken voice would come over the loudspeaker, after the sound of a polite chime, and repeat my name twice.

"Jim Webb," the voice would say as if it were an inquiry. And then again; "Jim Webb," as if it were the answer to a question.

That happened for years. It started when I was too young to know what was going on and my mom probably told me it meant that they were watching me. And it continued until I was in high school. I was sad when I realized that I didn't hear them paging him any more. Whoever the guy was, he worked there for a long time but we never met.

Maybe that's when I first started feeling special. I mean to have my name broadcast throughout the entire store every time I went there and usually several times was sure to make some kind of impression. Gee I may have just discovered the root of my paranoia!

It Feels a Little Funny Being Jim Webb

When I was a kid, I imagined being so famous that I would be on all the talk shows. I couldn't ever come up with a fantasy reason for being famous but that didn't stop me.

I don't want to say that I've given up on that because I really, truly still want to do something in life to make a big difference. I want to be a household name. But I want to be respected, of course. I don't want to be infamous, just famous.

So I'm a little miffed that James Webb has taken my name and made history with it. Don't get me wrong. I'm really, really proud of him. He is a well-respected man and I thrilled with his win in Virginia. But he just made it a little harder for me to achieve my goal!

I will always be known as the other, other, Jim Webb since there was already a famous songwriter named Jimmy Webb. There is only one defining difference, something my dad thought of when I was named. I am really Jim. I'm not James or Jimmy or anything else. My legal first name is Jim.

Lately I've been thinking about all the people I've ever known. Well, not literally. What I mean is that if even for just a second, it's kind of nice that there's a good chance that when they've heard about Jim Webb of Virginia, they've given a thought to me.

A Refreshing Change

Now if we could only go two more years without having to see or hear George Bush (either of them) speak. (Add Barbara to the list too.)

Waking up to today's political news was like having an extra birthday or Christmas coming early. All I hoped for was a proper balance of power in Washington but what we got was a tsunami of change that swept across the whole country. It's a good sign.

Growing up, I heard a lot about "blind faith" in church and was taught that it's each person's responsibility to study the scriptures, pray and develop their own personal relationship with the Lord. And doesn't this also apply to our government and society as well? I feel sorry for all the people who believe everything they've been told. They are ignorant.

I heard a little 12 year-old girl from Idaho on the radio the other day claim that Democrats are immoral and Republicans are blessed by God. Gee. I wonder where she heard that. Her mom got on the phone and said she came to that conclusion all by herself. Right. The poor girl will have some adjusting to do if she ever plans on leaving home or having friends from other countries, religions or backgrounds.

When I left utah in 1986, I was full of ambition and looking forward to a new life in California without dealing with snow and ice in winter and naturalizing myself among the people I'd found so interesting and stimulating in previous visits. An opportunity came and I took it.

Even though life took some very unexpected turns, I don't regret making the move.

What my friends, neighbors and associates don't understand, lately, is how people across this country can be so blind to what's really going on in America. I think parts of this year's campaign made it abundantly clear that entire groups of people have been blinded by their faith in leaders that only wanted the power of their numbers. I feel bad for those people. They were used.

Personally, I think that hearings on impeachment should begin on Monday. Crimes have been committed against this country. We are still dangerous close to a fascist regime, fueled by the passionate throngs of the blind faithful who eat what they're fed and believe what they're told.

The priority must be to take over leadership of the country, though, and try to get things under control. I can understand not wanting to cause more problems by "getting even," as I heard impeachment referred to today. The rest of the world already seems to know what's been happening here. It's vital all Americans know too.

I'm still very worried about the future of this country but yesterday was a refreshing change.

Night Photography

Some of my Flickr friends are expert night photographers. I've been looking at their stuff for a long time now trying to learn from what they do. Most of the time you can click on someone's photo and find an incredible amount of detail about their camera, what their settings were, what time the photo was taken and other details.

The other night our power went out just as Saturday Night Live was about to start. After we got some candles lit and Brad went back to work putting together some savory pastries for next Saturday's party, I went outside to see if I could see how extensive the outage was.

It was nice, for a change, not having so many street lights on. The moon was full, though, so there was plenty of light. I'd like to have the power go out on a night where there is no moon so I can shoot photos of the stars.

But there was a beautiful big ring around the moon so I was excited about capturing it.

Tonight I walked down to Marina Park thinking I could get some nice shots across the bay. But I went to the wrong place. I took a few shots but just came back after seeing a skunk run across my path. There isn't much to see around here although window-peeping came to mind. The driving range is mildly interesting, I suppose, since it's a double-decker. I like seeing the golf balls stuck in random places in the big nets.

I tried to capture a moth in a very intense light but gave up and left a little short of what I hoped for. Still, I think this is an interesting shot. Click on it for a larger size. It's less headachy when it's larger.

Tomorrow is a big day. After voting, I'm going to San Francisco to see a quilt show at the new deYoung Museum. I won't be able to take photos, though, according to what I read because it's a special exhibition. Here's the link: http://www.thinker.org/deyoung/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?exhibitionkey=549 I saw something on PBS about these quilts so I'm excited about seeing them in person.

Enough is enough!

Time doesn't fly when you have "I haven't written anything lately" in the back of your mind every single day.

Whenever I fall silent, and that usually means letter-writing, it seems to indicate some degree of trouble coping or some kind of ailment. It takes me a while to recognize it but then I seem to wake up and realize I'm not well. I don't know why I go through weeks of torture, though. That doesn't make sense. But it has something to do with grinning and bearing it only for me it's more like grimacing and enduring it.

My psychological care at Kaiser Permanente leaves quite a lot to be desired. My personal physician has taken over the prescription of medicines because I've been relatively stable for a long time. Visits to my psychiatrist always make me angry because it's blatantly obviously that I am unimportant compared to the stacks and stacks of folders of real psych cases piled all around the office. There's little interaction. Ah, I don't want to discuss this because it's a real sore subject. Everyone I've seen has either moved to a different facility or retired. The one time I tried to find someone new ended in a big fiasco.

It feels like I'm falling over a cliff, about to devulge lots of personal information. So I have to watch myself because I never save drafts of these entries to be published later. I just blurt it out and I'm done. I've never done more than fix a typo.

But lately my headaches and TMJ issues have gotten so much worse again that I'm beginning to think I may go nuts. I don't know what the cause is. I see my doctor regularly and, in fact, just saw him a couple of weeks ago. I had a headache then too. And I told him. I guess I expect by now that if I say I have a headache he should realize that I have a massive headache. Just like when I say I have trouble sleeping and my dreams are disturbing. That means I am tormented by nightmares and never, ever feel rested.

A few months ago I switched one of the ingredients of my psychological cocktail from Prozac to Celexa. It was supposed to have a positive effect on my libido but I think that boat sailed and sunk a long time ago. Anyhow, since then things have gone downhill. I think I just realized that even though my doctor has encouraged me to stick with it a while longer because "it takes a long time for the medication to re-wire your brain," I think I'm done with it. The OCD symptoms have started again. I hear a constant buzzing in my head. Phrases, tunes and words repeat in my mind until I want to scream. Maybe I should scream. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a BAD TRIP.

The headaches could be caused by something from the other medication cocktail I take. What a mess I am. I take medication to keep from getting sick but those meds make me sick so I have to take more stuff to help that but they have side-effects too and it just keeps going until I have to stop somewhere and just deal with it because there is no frigging end to it.

I thought that maybe if I wrote about how miserable I've been that maybe the curse would be lifted. That's unlikely. I have decided, though, that I'm going to contact my nurse and spill my guts. Maybe I'll just send her a link to this entry.

My 48 year-old body is a walking glossary of medical problems. One of my most hideous ailments is plantar fasciitis. Look it up. It's disabling. Hey! What a coincidence. I'm on disability. But seriously, it's the WORST. I never imagined I'd have mobility issues like this with anything short of a broken leg or a double amputation. The pain coming from the bottoms of my feet is second only to what that poor captive writer must have felt in the movie Misery (with Kathy Bates and James Caan.)

I've had cortisone injections in both heels twice now but that just masks the issue. The podiatrist says we need to find the cause. "We?" I haven't gone back because I'm afraid he'll want to cut tendons in my feet and that scares me. So I suffer. What a loser I'm sounding like to myself.

Enough for now. Go check out my photos on Flickr to see what else I've been up to. I do manage to have a life even though for the most part I'd rather be dead. No, I take that back. I'll feel much better after election day when enough people come to their senses and begin to put America back together again.

I advise all who read, though, to stock up on food, buy a gun and prepare to take back the country the old fashioned way in case this election gets stolen too. Enough is enough!

Okay, now to write that letter to my nurse.....

She Went There

Yesterday was spent running errands to help Brad get ready for his road trip with his mom. They left this morning for Primm, Nevada which I'm not sure is really a town. It's mainly a large outlet mall a few miles from Las Vegas that has two or three casino hotels. Something for each of them.

The most important errand was to get an oil and filter change in Brad's Jeep. Second to that was a trip to the car wash although now I'm wondering how different the day might have turned out if I'd done things in a different order.

To digress for a moment, I need to mention that I've had situations in the past when I've gone to pick up my car after having it serviced only to find that the presents on my radio have been erased (explained by the disconnection of the battery during service) and the unexpected jolt of having music not to my liking come blaring out of the stereo upon start-up. The latter was the case when the car was supposed to have been road tested to find the origin of a squeaky rattle. And it was then that I exploded like a microwaved egg at the service manager. I leave my radio OFF and expect it to be OFF when I pick it up. Anyway, back to the story:

And so was the case yesterday. I really didn't expect to get back to the car, start it up and hear hip-hop rap come blasting out of the stereo. The people at the new Wal-Mart at Hegenberger Road in Oakland are all pretty nice and so I was very surprised. I was also surprised that it smelled like french fries inside the car too.

I comtemplated going back inside to complain but just blew it off because I had to keep moving. Brad was leaving work early and I still had to go to the car wash, pick up clothes from the cleaners and get back to San Leandro BART to fetch him.

I adjusted the volume, scanned for a better radio station and drove off. And I guess the woman in the photo above pulled out of her parking spot at about the same time.

As we approached the same intersection, she asserted her right-of-way by laying on the horn as she passed through. At the light I leaned out of my window and asked her why she honked at me like that. (It was NOT necessary.) She accused me of not paying attention and said she "had to protect her family."

I said "Your horn isn't going to save your life but some better driving skills might come in handy," thinking back to the days when driver's education was taught in public schools. I had no idea at the time what condition her car was in, other than the oxidized paint, because we were parallel.

She shouted a couple of other ignorant things at me and added "..besides, your need to wash your car." The insults! As a matter of fact, I was on my way to South Shore Car Wash in Alameda.

So I said "As a matter of fact I'm on my way to the car wash right now - and I suppose you're on your way to get yours painted?" And that's when she told me to have a good day. At the next light I remembered that my camera was in the car and took a quick shot of them before we went our separate ways.

When I viewed this online and saw the cracked lights, cracked windshield, missing chrome, variety of wheel covers (I think only one was a "spinner") I laughed out loud. I doubt seriously this car is even registered. You really must click ont he photo to see a larger version. It's a total mess. And late last night, a fellow Flickr photographer pointed out that the impound marks are still visible on the windshield.

Since I'm writing a story I might just as well keep going.

At the car wash, another strange thing happened. I walked around taking photos when I noticed Brad's Jeep coming out of the mechanized part of the wash. A worker got in and instead of driving it to the finishing area he drove it off the lot, out to Shoreline Drive and headed East out of sight!

When I went inside to ask what was going on I was told to relax. "We haven't lost a car in 40 years," she said. But I couldn't help but wonder how many had been stolen. Still, it wasn't my car so I'd really have hated to have to come home and tell Brad his car had been stolen from the car wash.

It turns out that the alleged car thief was simply putting it through the wash a second time. When it was done, though, I didn't give him a tip. I was still unnerved by witnessing Brad's car disappear right before my eyes.

After picking up his shirts from the cleaners I headed back to San Leandro, driving on a street I don't usually take. That's when I noticed something new in the neighborhood: Speed Lumps. And here's the photo to prove it.

Was jumping out of the car and snapping photos of this worth losing a lens cap? I don't know but I think this is where I last saw it.

Now, back to the main story, it was also about this time that I realized that there was something wrong with the radio preset buttons. I know for certain Brad doesn't listen to hip-hop or rap but his first two presets had been changed to exactly that.

And he hit the roof when I told him about it. He was on the phone talking to a store manager within minutes. That's when we found out that the clerk failed to give me a detailed invoice of the service performed which included the names of the people who worked on the car. (Something else to complain about.)

It was obvious I needed to make one more trip so I drove to Alameda to search for my lens cap (no luck) and back to Wal-Mart (store #5457 8400 Edgewater Drive Oakland CA 94612 (510)430-9606 Manager David George) to get the invoice.

I also had a chat with some people in the service department about the complaint. I spoke with Daryl (1120) to make sure that:

1- Listening to the customer's radio is not part of the oil change package and 2- There was no need for a road test afterward requiring the stereo to be tested as well 3- It was against store policy to re-program the customer's radio presets during any type of service order.

I think he got the message that Steven (1179) and the rest of the crew are going to be keel-hauled for this in a letter with copies going to just about every level.

And just to show that a cranky old man can still be benevolent, I'm not going to mention the smell of french fries.

After, before and during all of this I've found myself wondering why I'm doing business with Wal-Mart anyway. Fortunately the day ended well. Nothing else happened.

Freak Magnet

Public transportation makes me nervous. Very nervous. I don't know all those people and they don't know me. We can see each other and there isn't anything I can do about it.

People cough, talk, listen to music, stink, eat and do all sorts of things other than sit or stand politely and try to remain invisible or otherwise unobtrusive.

BART is particularly heinous. The trains go through all kinds of neighborhoods. When the doors open an exchange of hostages takes place.

I've hated BART since my first ride on it back in the late '70's. It was a bad experience not because of the trip to San Francisco but the trip home.

Going to the city I was appalled by the extreme scenes of poverty, decay and filth below. I'd never seen anything like it inside the U.S. and didn't expect to see it in the bay area.

On the way home later that night, after seeing a play at the Curran Theater, we witnessed a fight in the station while waiting for our train back to Oakland. Two guys beat up a presumably queer black man, throwing him down onto the tracks. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know whether to go to his defense or stay put in case I had to defend my "date." Neither option settled well with me and I've thought about my decision ever since.

Fortunately my trips on BART are now very rare even though I go to the San Leandro station every morning and evening to deliver and retrieve Brad to and from his commute to San Francisco.

The photo above was taken on my last trip. I met up with Brad in SF to go see the new Bloomingdale's store which was about to open to the public.

I didn't want to schlep around inside a nice store like that looking like a hobo so I put on some of my better clothes, shaved, combed my hair and wore a sport coat. It was called "dressing for success" back in the late '80's at my job in the reservation center. (Which made little sense since people on the phone had no idea what you were wearing.) I, for one, never dressed for success.

Wearing three layers always makes me feel hot and being on BART makes me nervous. So I start to perspire shortly after getting dressed. It's very uncomfortable. And that day turned out to be warmer than expected making things even worse.

Before even leaving the San Leandro station, I had to pee. Bad. So I cautiously approached the station agent and politely asked her how one goes about getting access to the toilets, fearing I might get my head snapped off or be told that they weren't working and I'd have to go back to the car and pee in a cup; a particularly delicate and dangerous thing to do. She was incredibly nice and called me "sir" more than once. "It's the jacket," I thought to myself. "I look nice."

Maybe it was the camera. It's big. Or maybe a combination of both the camera and the jacket. Because what happened next really perplexed Brad when I told him about it later because, he said, people don't usually strike up conversations on BART.

Right. Maybe not during commute hours. But during off hours, the freaks ride the trains.

So I was pleased to find that the train was quite empty. There was plenty of room for everyone to have their own personal space. I fidgeted, looked out the window, read part of an abandoned newspaper and then put its pages back into sequence when I was done. I whipped out my camera and pointed it all around, looking for a good shot. And then I heard a voice coming from someone who had entered my personal space without an invitation.

"Aren't you afraid of getting into trouble for taking photos on BART?"

For a split second I thought it was BART Police. But it wasn't. It was a guy, younger than me, who looked and sounded like he might have been from Thailand.

Puh-leeze, I thought, and just shook my head.

"Are you freelance?"

"No," I said, wanting the conversation to end there.

"Oh, so you work for someone!"

"No." I thought maybe he'd think I didn't understand English when really I just didn't want to breathe his used air.

"I know," he said, "you're pa-pa-rot-zee!" (That was just plain stupid.) He was acting like he'd just met a celebrity and it was making me extra nervous.

I said "What? No." before I remembered that I didn't know English.

"That looks like the kind of camera they use. Is it?"

Of course my camera isn't the kind they use. The guy was a moron. And he kept warning me about getting into trouble for taking photos. So I got out my cell phone and pretended to listen to voice messages, just to end our weird conversation.

We were in the transbay tube where there's no signal at all. But it's the only thing I could think of. I was nervous, sweating and irritated and, for all he knew, was about to detonate a bomb using my new VirginMobile cell phone. I have to admit that I toyed with that idea (the false impression) just to mess with him a little bit. He did watch me the whole time.

So I was rather pleased with myself when he asked me which station I was going to. Mayybe he didn't like the way I was fidgeting with my cell phone and wiping the sweat off my brow. Maybe I looked nervous and it made him nervous. Maybe he wanted to ask me out for a drink. In any event, he got off the train one stop before mine, not bothering to say goodbye. And I was left to wonder what he was really thinking but very glad to be rid of him.

It seeme like most of the time I'm totally invisible when I'm in public. People walk straight into me. But for some reason that day was different. And since I always have my camera with me, I'm guessing it was the sport coat.

If it's going to turn me into a freak magnet, I'll remain unshaven with jeans and T-shirt and regular bed-hair (without gel) like every other hobo on BART.

Going Forward, Facing Backwards

Last year at this time I was in Washington D.C. attending the national Association of Zoo and Aquarium Docents (AZAD) conference. But that was just my convenient, albeit worthy, cover story.

Let me see. How do I tie two story lines together? I'll start back in 2004. Was it really that long ago? I got an email from someone I've known since 5th grade. She had always been one of my most favorite people and one of only two friends who I had my picture taken with after our high school graduation ceremony. But after that night I lost contact with almost everyone.

Charlene was an exception, but just briefly. I was driving to work at my job as a travel agent in Salt Lake City one morning, scanning the dial for a radio station, when I heard her voice. She was doing the news for a country and western station. I was thrilled for a couple of reasons. First, I missed her friendship and second, it was great knowing that she was putting her exceptional talent to such good use. Her dramatic style, comic timing and delicious personality was what attracted me to her way back in 1968! In fact I thought it was funny that she was doing the news because I knew how hard it was for her to not be funny!

I called her radio station from work and we had a nice chat. But after that came a gap of some twenty five years. That's a long time. Five minutes is a long time sometimes. But during that long, long quarter-century when I managed to lose contact with essentially everyone from my childhood, came a marvelous invention: the Internet!

During those years I was blind to what was happening in the computer revolution. I was selling tickets, loading passengers and baggage onto airplanes at the Oakland, CA airport and working myself into a disabling condition in both arms typing furious using the United Airlines computer systems. One of my friends talked about buying a "Mac" but I had no idea what she was talking about. Other friends started having conversations including words like "email address" and "PC" but it just didn't register. But I do remember wondering why in the world anyone would spend hard-earned money on a home computer just to keep in contact with friends. Ha!

But, lest I digress too far, by the time I got something from Classmates.com in my "snail mail" I must have had some idea what was going on. It made me think about all the people from school and wonder what had become of everyone. But not so much that I felt like I needed to rush out and buy a computer.

Okay, now, fast forward about 14 more years. By then I owned a computer and had learned to search. I had found Charlene's name on Classmates.com but was too cheap to pay their membership fee to get her email address. And because she hadn't contacted me, I figured that: 1-She was as cash-poor as me, or 2-She would have contacted me already if she had cared to.

Those were rough years for me. I avoided class reunions because I was supposed to have been a big movie director by then but only ended up as a travel agent and airline slave. I didn't reach out to anyone because I was ashamed for being a big failure.

That didn't stop me from trying to find out about former classmates and friends though. And Charlene was the one I searched for the most. About two years ago I thought I'd zeroed in on her. But being unable to find a current photo I couldn't be sure. And it didn't make sense that she would be working for a radio station in the Washington D.C. area. I don't know why not, though. I had moved to the west coast.

And at that same time, one day out of the blue, I got an email from her asking me if I was the Jim Webb that she knew. I was so thrilled. And when she said that I was the only person from high school that she wanted to "reunite" with, it felt like blood was percolating up into my head and bringing the rest of my half-dead body back to life. And yes, it was the same person I had found in online searches and she was still in radio, now with an "abc.com" email address!

We wrote back and forth and chatted for hours on AOL Instant Messenger, covering just about everything. Weeks went by. And then came our chance to meet for the first time since that photo was taken.

I went along with Brad on a business trip to New York City and arranged for us to take Amtrak to D.C. afterward, stay with Charlene for a couple of nights and then fly home from there.

Well, that turned out to be a really great trip. And talk about a trip! Charlene's oldest daughter was about the same age as we were when we posed for that graduation photo. I think we both felt like we were in a perpetual commercial for Classmates.com. It was just that good.

When we left, she invited us to come back. At the time I felt like it would be highly unlikely that I'd ever be back in the D.C. area so imagine my surprise when I learned only a few weeks later that the AZAD conference was being hosted by the Washington Smithsonian National Zoo in just a few months! I immediately made plans to attend.

But only a few weeks before the conference I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. It was my first hospital confinement since an emergency unilateral epididymectomy in the early 1980's. But three weeks later I was almost as good as new and flying off to enjoy the company of fellow zoo people, Charlene and her fabulous cats and human family. It was a great trip. (Except for the return flights but I'll save that for another time.)

Oh, I nearly forgot about the other story line.

At the AZAD conference, Emily, the editor of our docent newsletter, was trying to get me to attend a workshop with her relating to editing or writing or something. I felt bad for not going after I said I would but the previous workshops I'd been to were incredibly crowded and overwhelmingly boring. I actually fell while asleep during one of them and if I hadn't been sitting next to a wall I might have hurt myself. But the International Spy Museum and just about everything else in Washington D.C. seemed much more worthwhile.

Thinking back now I have the feeling that Emily has been buttering me up for quite a long time. She just recently managed to get me to agree, without any resistance, to take over as editor of The Scoop after her last edition in 2006.

I should be petrified but I'm not. Just because my most recent practical experience was in 1976 is no reason to panic. All I have to do is learn how to use a computer program and I'm sure the skills I learned as Editor-in-Chief of the Tooele High School Buffalog will be just like riding that proverbial bicycle.

Okay, now I'm petrified. I haven't put that bicycle theory to the test either.

But all of this seems related somehow. All my old friends were so incredibly talented. I thought I was incredibly talented too until after I left Utah and got out into the job market with the rest of the poor cake-eating slobs.

Old friends, new friends - old skills, new applications - dreams of being a film director, making my own movies using a PC - loving animals, working at a zoo - Is it all coming together somehow? Maybe I'm actually going somewhere, possibly in the "right" direction, but just facing backwards.

Uncrowned

Around noon today I thought I felt something stuck between my teeth. Something didn't feel right and it was on my mind as we headed to San Jose for another visit to Macy's. If there's one kind of trouble I've had enough of in my life it's dental problems.

A few months ago I needed to have a molar "extracted." That means pulled out: tugged, yanked, twisted, pried and sometimes chiseled. Fortunately for me, only the first four techniques were used. It was not pleasant. For the curious, I took photos. They're in a set by themselves on Flickr.

People find it very hard to believe that when I was a kid and needed fillings, my Neanderthalian dentist didn't give anesthetic. I don't know how many times I had to suffer through sessions that seemed to last for hours as the cycle of drilling, screaming, sweating and crying would be followed by a moment of calm only to be followed by the startup of the drill and etcetera. All of this came rushing back to me years later during the movie Marathon Man. His excuse, I found out later, was that "kids are generally more frightened by needles than a little pain."

Asshole.

So I've been there, done that and don't wanna go back there no more. And I've had great luck finding new-age dentists who are more than willing to give as much anesthetic as an elephant would need and one who was very generous with the "gas."

But that's just it. I'm done, or at least I'd like to be. Today I put my finger in my mouth to see if I could figure out what was causing the strange sensation and a crown popped off. Yup. Right next door to ground zero from a few months ago.

I don't get all fainty or grossed out when that happens unless it stinks. Today it didn't. (Last time it did!) No, I see dollar signs and images of my wallet turning inside out and that cute little guy on the Monopoly board in jail - a.k.a. the "poorhouse." And that worries me because horizontal stripes are not flattering when you have a wider than desired torso. Ha! I know. That's out of date. But I positively hate orange clothing too.

With luck I thought I could just scrape out the old cement, clean the tooth, glue it back on and be done. I bought the junk at Long's and came home to work on it only to discover that the stump is a bit decayed. So I'll be calling UCSF on Monday to join the ranks of uninsured, common folk who go to the dental school as subjects for the students to practice on. Hopefully the cement I bought today will keep the loose crown stuck to the tooth until I can get there. I don't want it to come off and choke on it in the night.

Don't get me wrong. They're all thoroughly supervised. It's very refreshing and I have immense respect for everyone there. I just don't like the other patients. They're icky. And I don't like sitting in the waiting room with them. It's a relief when my student dentist comes to the doorway and calls me in.

So here we go again. Will I have it pulled? Crowned? One thing's for sure. I can't chew with two molars missing on one side, not normally at least. Stay tuned.

In other news: The current editor of the Oakland Zoo docent newsletter, Scoop, called today to give me a deadline for an article I need to write for next month's edition. I need to find a plant or tree that is or will be blooming in October to write about and have it done by Monday. Oh, and by the way, she wants me to take over her job in January for the next couple of years. Yikes! Somehow she thinks my ability to take a photo and my experience 30 years ago as Editor-in-Chief of my high school paper are good qualifications. I think she's just desperate to pass the torch.