Life of Wry

It was a slow news day around here.  So.. what you get is troll zombie.

Found this grubby little thing lying in the middle of the street one day last week. Looked like he’d suffered extensive vehicular abuse. Not sure why, but once I’d picked him up, didn’t feel like I could just put him right back down again, so stashed him in my phone pouch and forgot all about it.

Rediscovered him last night at our baseball tournament.  I’d bought some M&Ms as nervous candy when Peter was pitching in the final game.  I’d emptied the whole pack into my phone pouch, which seemed like a handy and convenient dispensing vessel.  I was nom-nom-noming away mindlessly–as you do when you’re scorekeeping a game your son is playing in–when I came upon something startlingly out of place among the M&Ms.  It was this grungy thing.  No telling what germs I picked up as my M&Ms co-mingled with Mr. Disgusting at the bottom of the pouch. Ew.

Anyway, I didn’t manage to throw him away last night either, so this morning, I gave him a bath and shampooed his matted blue hair (with Jim’s Prell, of course). Think I have too much time on my hands? Yeah, well..   You can’t imagine the dirt that ran off this guy and the crud that was caked in his micro dreadlocks.  The sink water turned the color of filth, disease and abandonment.

For now, that’s the end of the story.  Somebody last night suggested perhaps my creepy little blue-haired troll had brought the Crush a bit of luck (they did win the championship) and that I ought to bring him to future tournaments to keep our streak alive. Hmm.. I’m not so sure about that.

But it couldn’t hurt.

I’d love it if it were a loss in an 8:00am consolation round game, on a lumpy field in a piece of crap park in an uninteresting town far, far away, freezing our asses off  in a wet and windy hail storm.

But it wasn’t.

It was the loveliest of warm weekends, on a gorgeously groomed field in beautiful fall light, just 2 miles from home, at the end of a long but incredibly enjoyable and exciting day when our sons played extraordinarily well, had fun and, zounds, were the last team standing and…won the championship.

The folks who are occupying Central Park have moved their camp from the spot beneath the oak tree to the large open area on the park’s north end.   I think this is a good move.  It’s a lot more visible, especially to cars and people passing through one of Davis’ busiest downtown intersections.  It’s also closer to bathrooms, more spacious (and thus will accommodate far more people as the movement grows), and is not quite so underfoot during Farmer’s Market.  Plus, it’s on grass, rather than a redwood deck.   Gotta be a lot more comfortable.

So I’m glad they moved.

Nice setting, huh?  Their Facebook page says they’ve just passed the twenty tent mark and invite more. They also said today they plan to be there through the winter.

Here is some of their current signage.

Baseball season ended tonight.  The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Texas Rangers in game 7 to become the World Series champs.

I supported the Cardinals in the World Series largely because they were Peter’s favorite team about five years ago. I got to know them at that time and grew to sort of like them, mostly because of this guy, Albert Pujols:

The Cardinals, as it turned out, were the right dogs to pick in this fight. The Rangers had a lot of talented players who were super fun to watch, and I was really impressed by their coach. But I certainly wasn’t going to root for any team from Texas. Too Tea Party-y. Happily, they came up short. Hahahahahahaha, take that, Texas. I’m shallow that way.

So, it was a great series; I watched all seven games, which brought my game watching total for the season to… seven.   Before this series, I hadn’t seen a single major league baseball game all year. Missed the entire television season for technical reasons: could never quite figure out how to watch something (anything) with our TV set up. I wrote about that in this post of a few days ago.  Pathetic, given how much I love baseball.

More unusual still, we didn’t manage to get to a single Giants, Oakland, or even River Cats game.  So, I really knew nothing about the season.

[Oh wait, I did go with Peter to a Dodgers-Tigers game at Dodger stadium in June for his birthday… so I take it back, there was one game.]

Being completely out of touch didn’t stop me from becoming a ten-day Cardinal fanatic, however. Whatever the hell that is about humans–we’re so quick to take sides, and suddenly we’re pulling for a team as though our very lives depend on it.

How odd that is. It gets unattractive pretty quickly, too.  Remembering an obnoxious fan at the above-mentioned Dodger game who was hoarse from yelling non-stop for two hours and slurry from drinking, and turned belligerent when forcefully escorted out of the park after about 7 innings. And really, I can hardly think of anything uglier than a rowdy horde of rabid, war-painted sports fans. Always so hilarious to see them pumping their fists in the air after a win like they had anything at all to do with any part of the victory.

But that’s not me.  I’m more amused by my fanism. I fall into it easily but it fades as soon as the game’s over.  My fanism is thin, but it does the trick: keeps me interested, gives me a cause to rally behind, invests me in the outcome, makes me care about the players and their dramas.. but then it’s gone.  I guarantee you, by the time the season starts again next spring, I’ll have forgotten everything about the series–who played, who won, those drama prone players..

Anyway, I’m already looking forward to next year.  I expect by then we’ll have the TV set up figured out and I’ll be able to find a team to root for and settle in for a long season.

Happiness is sitting in the backseat, cruising quietly in an electric vehicle looking at the gorgeous sunset over the San Francisco bay.  Some shots:

There were more, but they’re blurry and have bug spots on them.  They make better paintings than photos. Check them out on my Flickr site. 

What’s not to love about the American Himalayan Foundation’s mission statement:

The Himalaya is a magic place where the magnificence of the world’s highest mountains is mirrored in the rugged beauty and unique culture of the people who live in their shadow. But these people often live without basic health care and education. Economic pressures have forced environmental degradation. And traditional ways of life are disappearing.

AHF was founded to respond to these pressing problems. What we do is basic: we make change – positive, tangible change – happen. We build and support schools and students; train doctors and fund hospitals; care for children and elders; plant trees and restore sacred sites. We help Tibetans rebuild and sustain their culture both in exile and in Tibet.

AHF supports projects that are on a human scale and directly benefit people. We deeply respect our local partners. Our work responds to their priorities and concerns, and AHF projects always involve local commitment and community participation. 

I admit to becoming consumed with all things Himalayan, Nepalese since returning from my trek last April.  Why I love travel. Passion, curiosity and interest for the places you go and the people you meet is the only response to being in different places.  Of course.

AHF’s annual dinner was tonight and it was thrilling to be there–to hear about the organization, and to be among other people who had experienced the Himalaya in some way and care about its people, the culture, and environment.  Plus it was cool because the program included a heavy dose of Everest mountaineering history, traditions and superstars.  Both aspects of the night gave me a huge rush.

The dinner was good, the wine was surprisingly good and flowed freely, I was with two amazing, inspiring friends..

..and we got neato and useful-in-a-backpacking-way thank you gifts.

Most of the program was about the good work of AHF–highlighted this year was its work with the Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children in Kathmandu.  And another too-short part of the program was a conversation with eight guys who’d climbed Everest at one time or another… or multiple times.  Or first, or the most, or with the least, or whatever.  A pretty impressive bunch.

It was moderated by Jon Krakauer, who wrote Into Thin Air, Into the Wild (and others), and recently Three Cups of Deceit..

and featured these guys:

From left to right, top to bottom: Apa Sherpa, Ed Viesters, Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, Pete Athans, Tom Hornbein and Jim Whittaker.

There is just too, too much to say about each one of these guys; they’re amazingly accomplished, each and every one of them, with harrowing and fascinating stories to tell of a life time of experiences at ridiculous altitudes.  Go here to get short bios and links to longer bios, or just Google them.

The pictures are all pretty horrible because I’m taking them from the back of a huge, cavernous room in low light on full zoom with no tripod.  The one of Krakauer that looks like he’s a wax figure is actually a shot of the screen on which his image was projected.  So.. don’t give me a hard time about these. ‘k thanks.

Top of the thrill list was meeting Apa Sherpa:

He is a Nepalese man, a sherpa, who’s climbed Mt. Everest 21 times, to date, the world record.  He was actually in Nepal, on the trail at the same time we were last April.  In fact, we passed him on the trail and our guide Homnath introduced him to Karen.  I, and I think the others, were scattered about the trail at that particular moment, and missed the meeting… unfortunately.  He went on to base camp, acclimated and summited a month later.  I think he goes pretty much annually.  Kind of amazing.  The wiki page on him says he’s around 40 years old and ascended Everest the first time in 1990 with Peter Hillary (son of Edmond, who was the world’s first successful summiter).  I read somewhere else that he is related to Tenzing Norgay, who was with Hillary on the first ascent back in 1953. Apa lives now in Utah.

Anyway, ’twas a fun and worthwhile way to spend an evening, a good organization to support, and I’m sure I’ll go again.

… I’m so very happy to see you.

Right? Typical response of a thirteen year old boy in the company of thirteen year old girls?

This is actually a birthday party to which he is not an invitee.  Rather, he is on hand, hired by the birthday girl’s parents, to look after two younger siblings… his first ever babysitting gig.  For several hours, ten teenage girls partied and ate and watched movies and opened presents and shrieked a lot, while Peter and his charges had their own fun outside. A handful of parents were in yet another room hanging out doing grownup things (that involved wine and Balderdash…).

When the cake came out, so too did Peter and the little ones, and they lingered long enough to get their pictures taken with the official party goers.

I believe that even though his eyes are rolling away, he’s having a fine time. Hard to know for sure, but it may have crossed his mind that he was in a pretty good situation here. I do detect the slightest of smiles on those lips.

[Photo credit: Bill]

Ya know, this is why I don’t watch much TV.  We’ve never been a big TV household, but, I have to say, a lot of that is because the TV watching experience is fraught with challenge, frustration and, as you can see, poor line of sight.

Here’s what’s going on in this picture:

This is my office.  The only TV we own (20-something inch, old fashioned) is here in my office, recently relocated to the top of the file cabinet (there are actually three 4-drawer file cabinets, and a 2-drawer, in this corner).

When I decided to move the TV to this corner, it freed up a lot of space on the other side of the room, especially since we eliminated the large 1970s-vintage cabinet on which the TV previously sat.  Now my office is a lot more spacious and attractive.  Really, it is; above, poorly-lit picture notwithstanding.

But the problem with the move is that now the broadcast antenna doesn’t pick up a clean signal. Turns out, the only place the antenna works–and we’ve tried every possible configuration–is in that very spot right in front of the TV and about five feet in the air.  Not an inch away from this spot in any direction.  The antenna works right exactly there and nowhere else. Thus, the ladder.

Which is mighty inconvenient and makes seeing the screen somewhat difficult.

Also… antenna, you wonder.  Yeah, we’re receiving local channels over-the-air, since we discontinued 1) cable about five years ago (with great satisfaction) and 2) Dish satellite service about six months ago (with frustration).  Now, we’re using a combination of over-the-air and ROKU.  And we still have a DVD player for Netflix.

And at the present time, none of this works for shit.

The corner is a tangle of cables and power supplies, extension cords, receivers, a switcher, a basket full of remotes and some other stuff I’m a little unclear about. Everything’s inaccessible and unlabeled, and just a big, dysfunctional mess.

I’ve made a spread sheet that, once we finish figuring out how it’s all supposed to work, I’ll laminate and place in a convenient place for easy access.  The spreadsheet will detail which power unit to turn on, which remote to use, where to dial the switcher unit, what input to select, and so forth for each of the three TV-watching options. Because each option has a whole different thing going on, and none of it is intuitive. And we’ll label stuff and tidy everything up, and maybe then I won’t break into a sweat at the mere thought of watching something on TV.

Gone–long gone–are the days when I could just say, think I’m gonna chill and watch a little TV. It’s just way too hard.  TV is such a flippin hassle.  Like talking on the phone or listening to music.  It’s all just so, so complicated these days, unstandardized, ever changing, unstable, un-straightforward.  I mean, it’s great, there are so many more things we can do, but it’s all just so goddamn inelegant.

[Where’s Steve Jobs when you really need him?  This is what he was so masterful at.. creating simple and elegant user interfaces for the most clunky of technical operations. In other words, exactly this mess. And in an interview just prior to his death, he indicated TV was on his short list of upcoming projects.  RIP, Mr. Jobs; wish you were still with us.]

But we did manage to get a clear picture for tonight’s World Series, which was nice, despite my now tweaked neck.

I know, who takes a picture of their food on the conveyor belt at the grocery store?  Me, I guess. You never know when you’re going to need a desperation picture for picture of the day.

This was tonight’s contribution to a potluck birthday party in its raw stage.  Most of this would become a zucchini casserole-y thing.

The chips were my concession to Peter’s request that I bring home some junk food.

Happy Saturday wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.