put this in your pot and cook it

its halloween. dangerous day for big fat sprinters.

creepy tacos. not scary. creepy.

hot tip from medina:

When you go trick-or-treating tonight, make sure you stop by Pyatt's place. He gives out the big candybars!

good to know. good to know. made some split pea soup last night. ah yeah! good stuff. low maintenance food right there. put it into a pot and cook it.

drank lots of coffee this weekend. went to a coffee shop on sunday that was cash only? huh? yeah, so we had $8.50 and our coffee was $9.10. stupid barista didn't offer any help at all. another customer spotted us $.60, aparently feeling bad for me counting pennies on the counter. jeez.

75th St Ale house was lunch on saturday. good stuff. good beer too. dinner was at bizzaro. say a little score sheet for a certain seth and anna who'd had dinner there. hmm....bizzaro had belly dancing. well, a waitress was doing some belly dancing. good music.

tombomb seems to think that a ban on cross races "going through" beer gardens will equate to a ban on cross races "going around" beer gardens, as is the case at star crossed. plus, starr crossed wasnt a UCI race this year,.

all about uncles

so, my uncle keeps looking and feeling better. he's even making urine, which would indicated that his kidneys are working. interesting. so, we don't really know. he could be truly coming back from the brink or he could be rallying before the end. the doctors certainly don't know. his primary diagnosis remains lymphoma, which they cannot really treat aggressively. i guess we'll see.

one of my cousins has put a different uncle's work on the web. phenomenally talented. i'll post a few pictures here. check it out at michaelcorr.com. more are posted periodically. michael has a phd in japanese art history. or a phd in japanese history and art. i don't know. he lives in japan now and writes the familiy periodically. his corespondence previously consisted of haikus on note pads. they've become more lengthy letters. he was (is?) a prolific artist. block prints, mostly. asian themes abound. many also include the work of poets. for example, in my kitchen i have one that is just a poem:

i love
making
brown rice
in the big
old pot

it will
nourish
every
body

after all
it costs
next to
nothing
to serve

-m castro

as a kid, "lusty deer at the zoo" was my favorite. it consisted of those words and the outlines of a few animals scattered. i don't know if any of us understand it.

Untitled, wood-block print with black ink, 14"x20", 1968.


"St. Elmo's fire," wood-block print on paper, 14"x19", 1967.

pictures

my pictures at snapfish

rosa parks (1903-2005)

rosa parks has died. "while the bus boycott succeeded, Parks in 1957 was forced to leave Montgomery because of persistent death threats." indeed. nothing pretty about racism.

an editiorial at the nation from 1955,:

In Montgomery, Alabama, recently an impressive demonstration of this latest strength occurred when the Negro community--some 40,000 strong--declared a boycott against the city bus lines. The incident provoking the ban was the arrest of a seamstress who refused to give up her seat at the order of a driver. The driver testified that he had twenty-two Negro passengers and fourteen whites in his thirty-six-seat bus, and he ordered the woman and others to move back to "equalize" the seating.

Such incidents have been all too frequent in "the Cradle of the Confederacy": last summer a fourteen-year-old Negro girl was dragged off a bus by three policemen and taken in handcuffs to jail because of a refusal to relinquish her place to a white man. A bus driver left his vehicle to beat up a mentally deficient Negro who had "bothered" him from the sidewalk. Drivers have been said to carry guns in their cash boxes to "settle" disputes about transfers and change-making. Because of the stored-up resentment these caused, no organization or leader can be said to have inspired the boycott. ''The leaders were led," said one Negro minister. "It was a vertical thing, sweeping through all our people. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and the most heartening." more...

ah yeah! the nation (and many on the left) have been fighting the good fight for a long time. in times of great injustice, inaction is complicity. we should be thankful that some people stood up. where would be be without them? i wonder where trent lott and george bush were? hmm... wasn't it the republicans voting against the voting rights and civil rights legislation. huh.

miers withdraws.

from wonkette.com:

Trent Lott: "I think the President should look across the country and find the most qualified man, woman, or minority."

Should we be happy that he thinks those colored folks are acceptable for positions of powered or apalled that he aparently doesn't think they're men or women. begging the question, "does that mean that they're human in his eyes?)

for your benefit

check out the archives for posts from my old blog. ah yeah!

one good thing about music...

...when it hits, you feel no pain.

so, my uncle's organs are shutting down. things were the worst on saturday and sunday. his body has since been rallying and he is now awake and responsive, although a bit groggy and very fatigued. this is a great thing for all of us. his slip into unconsciousness was totally unexpected and all of us were caught totally unprepared. now, we all have the opportunity to say good bye.

the outlook is for him to make it for a few days to a week. in reality, it is a waiting game. how difficult must this be for him? a brave man. when he woke up, he did not know what was happening. he asked, and my aunt, choking her sobs back, explained that his organs were shutting down. he asked "am i dying" and she had to respond "yes". i cannot imagine anything more difficult than this. these are brave people. doctors have told him many times that he was going to die, but he has always pulled through. he's phenomenally resiliant. i think that now, he is making his peace.

a story:

when peter was home and situated in his bed, my cousin and family friend jawara brought in a stereo. will asked peter if he wanted some music on. peter asked for marley. will brought in a bob marley live cd and put it on. the first song was "trenchtown rock". you know, "one good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain." could it have been a more appropriate song? anyway, everybody was very excited that peter was conversant and home. the music really hit the spot, and everybody was in high spirits. debbie threw up her hands and danced a bit. peter responded by puting his arms up as well and shaking his hips as best he could. it was beautiful.

cousin will has long made it his habit to appropriate peter's music collection to himself. even i have a nina simone cd of peter's. well, this morning, will had a cd of peter's playing, one which he'd had for some time. will asked peter if he knew what was playing, and peter responded "yes, you never gave it back". ha ha!

music is an important part of peter's life. jazz, classical, latin, blues. its all there. he'd likely subscribe to the view that "there are only two kinds of music: good and bad."

thank you to all who have offered their condolences and support. i really appreciate it.

eulogy

my uncle, peter, is passing away. he is an amazing person, which i will relate in a story.

born in the late 40's, he grew up in ranier valley (seattle). he briefly attended college in the northeast. i don't think he remembers a whole lot of it. like all members of my family, he was an activist. he was a man of passion, integrity and conviction. but he was also a caring, kind and compassionate man. he believe that above all, all people's lives must be treated with dignity and respect. justice was his ultimate guiding principle. he staunchly opposed the vietnam war for what it was: needless death and destruction to no end which would ultimately benefit the people on either side who were fighting and and being fought for. the civil rights movement also inspired him. it is a story about serving justice for the oppressed that i will relate.

it must have been the sixties. i'm not sure if it was before or after the voting rights act. MLK and JFK were dead. scores of activists had already been murdered, tortured and jailed. yeah, murdered and jailed. it was clear that the federal government was little interested in making real change and that the southern power structure, now threatened, was reacting in an incredibly violent and vicious manner. even the priests were mudurers. knowing that he was going into harms way, peter travelled to mississippi to help with a project there. he knew that the north cared little for the plight of blacks. but if young white kids were killed or hurt by southern whites, there would be a reaction. they were right. he went, with the goal of puting himself into harms way. you see, poor blacks were now being swept into a sort of economic slavery. freed slaves and their decendants were given little education or other resources to sustain themselves and their communities on, so they were poor. very poor. taking advantage of this, plantations now kept blacks tied to their land with contractural arangements that caused families to only grow furhter and further into debt. that debt was passed onto the next generation. to leave was punishable by law. it was slavery. peter joined a group that was helping to kidnap willing blacks from the plantations. they would be housed in a large barn and given a chance somewhere else to start anew. a whole transitional community was built and the families and volunteers like my uncle helped with some farming and maintenance chores. this was an underground operation. across the way was a legion post. a place where white guys with guns got whipped up into a drunken racist frenzy and went out looking for folks to murder, maim or torture. if nothing else, they'd burn a cross or two. (not that they benefitted in anyway from the oppression of blacks) well, my uncle and this group had to protect themselves. the barn was littlered with bullet holes from attacks. one night my uncle was on guard duty. he was up in their lookout, where they could see the road and legion post. he had a shotgun. he'd never shot one before and certainly hadn't shot at a person. well, a car comes down the road on his side, driving slowly. he gets the feeling that something isn't quite right and is watching, holding the shotgun close. he's trying to get the attention of the other person he's doing lookout with but he isn't able to. well, the car slows to a stop in front of them, and my uncle readies his shotgut and aims it at the car. he doesn't really know what to do. well, the driver and passenger get out, switch and drive away. it was nothing. the next day peter tells the group that he can't do guard duty. he'll contribute in any other way: washing dishes, helping with the kids, farming; but he won't shoot a gun. see, my uncle knew right and wrong. he knew what he believed in. but he couldn't resort to violence. he knew only compassion. he does not hate the people who hate. not a man of faith, he never the less worked with and respected any faith that respected life and worked for justice.

he was not a democrat. he was a believer in justice. and justice was in everything he did.

mumble in the jungle

so, RC2000 wants to be a reference. the problem with RC2000 having plenty to say is that nobody can hear him 'cause he's mumbling all the time. i'd hate to have his glowing comments misunderstood.

electric pumpkin carving knife huh? yeah, you better have some fucking good designs if you're going to pull that shit out. i carved two pumpkins last night. i carve quick and with purpose. it'd be tough to get that time cut in half. pictures will come later, when i get my camera, which i left upstairs. and when i get a solid draft of this cover letter done. here's a quote:

as a member of the board of directors of LWV, i am well practiced in appearing attentive while actually being asleep. i can work well in teams, even when the others (as they typically are) are totally unreasonable and just plain jerks. and mumble a lot.

yeah. valuable skills for any job, really.

i'm supposed to interview some kid from oregon about being on the team. i'm so past membership. what a hassle!

SNDK nearly doubled profit. google is way up. today is a good day to be a big fat retiree. ah yeah!

from big fat sprinter to big fat executive

busy busy busy. i might not work 35 hrs a week like RC2000, but i'm a busy guy. i'm working hard on a cover letter for a job at bike works. executive director. fancy title. maybe its a long shot, but who knows. "bones" pyatt is only a president, so if i get this job i'll be higher ranked than him. "rollin' pyatt style".

cover letters are hard to write. every word has to count. get it down to one page but somehow impress them.

references. my old supervisor is being rather difficult. he's hell bent on research. i wasn't. so i can't get a super glowing reference. what can you do? maybe RC2000 will be a reference.

pumpkin carving tonight. ah yeah!

the market is killin' me.

payback

applied for a job yesterday. through volt--a contract agency that works with MS a lot. i just looked on craigslist. one job needs somebody familiar with payback periods. hmm...like james brown? 'cause i can do payback.

made some biscotti yesterday. not so impressed. for one, i had to use whole wheat pastry flour. it's great for most applications (oatmeal cookies, pancakes, etc) but occaisionally it isn't quite right. i think it wasn't quite right for biscotti. i also don't know of my mixer is up to it. i need to learn more about that.

walked around greenlake too. then took the little doggies to the dog park. ah yeah, the dog park. smells like shit. but there are loooots of nice cute little doggies to play with.

tacos were on the menu for dinner at gwen's (the previous residence). ok, listen up you gringos. this is how you make meat for tacos: in the crock pot. put your meat in with onions and spices and slow cook it. it'll shred nicely afterward. for beef, mix in some chili powder. for chicken use adobo seasoning (which has plenty of salt). let it cook and then pull it out and shred it with a pair of forks. it'll kick the crap out of any ground beef in the pan with ortega taco seasoning. same can be done for pork, use cumin as the seasoning. carnitas. ah yeah! i love carnitas!

hot tip from pleasure tipper medina:

hammer trick.

good times in the dark continent

chaos grows in darfur.

i have an idea. let's take as many able bodied men and women from africa as we can. that way, when the rest of the world's population explodes, theirs will stagnate. after that we can build colonies. we'll take everything of value while keeping all but a few of the local inhabitants poor. when we're done we can throw a bunch of countries together and wish them luck. then, when there's an epidemic of catastrophic proportions, lets ignore it until it is too far along and it will again claim an entired generation of able bodied men and women, stagnating population and economic growth for a second time. all the while, let's indescriminately pump millions of inexpensive guns, landmines, grenades and missiles into the continent so that anybody who wants an army or militia can have a well armed one. any aid to the country should come as economic aid that really benefits our own corporations and banks rather than building a sound middle class in that continent. oh yeah, and when a country in the south codifies a system of racial brutality and official racism, lets support them with even more guns and technology to support that system. hell, i'll bet IBM has a killer application that will be critical to that government's ability to track terrorists like nelson mandella. sounds like a killer experiemnt, huh?

its a crappy name, really

calvino, over there at prolix is gettin' me in trouble with all this sweet talk about his girlfriend. damn you, calvin.

and then tombomb beat me to a rant about how the seahawks appear to be rolling, but really they will continue to suck. there's always that one game that sends them spiralling out of control into ignobility. no, they aren't "going to be good this year". they suck. seattle sports.

so, what is up with the names of sports teams. tennessee titans? houston texans. god that's a bad name. i liked the tradition of naming the team for something in the area. especially the industries. seemed like a nod to the working stiffs who make the true fan base of a team. packers. oilers. steelers. those are some names. colts? yeah, really fucking scary. mariners is cutting it close. dodgers, bulls, bears? clever. texans? fuck those guys. what exactly is a seahawk anyway?

i'm feeling irie! are you?

went for a longish ride yesterday. three hours. that's long, these days. just about killed me too. rode south over i-90 and into bellevue with RC2000. wandered around bridal trails and then back on the bgt. it was a windy day. god i hate rolling in on the burke with a head wind. it was hot too. i was over dressed. of course!

haven't heard from medina in a while. guess he's backing down from the dueling hammers challenge.

learn from the mistakes of vietnam. written by nixon's defense secretary. the irony is that both wars are essentially hold overs from world war two and the (supposed) end of colonialism. in fact, the vast majority of civil wars in the world can be traced to the legacy of colonialism. colonial powers, on their way out, drew lines where no logical borders existed and cobbled countries together. ethnic, tribal and religious groups who had no history of social, economic and political cooperation were suddenly thrust together and told to share and play nice. yeah, that worked out really fucking well, didn't it. iraq is no exception. fucking mess. and of course, you keep nasty allies, you end up with nasty problems. saddam hussein and ossama bin laden illustrate that point nicely, eh? for defense contractors, its a brilliant strategy. they get the business when hussein uses the aid money to buy their weapons. and then they get the business when hussein is toppled. chickenhawks gettin' rich. there was a time when war profiteering was illegal. immoral. that time is gone.

big men chasing a pointy ball

big weekend.

missed the team ride on saturday. it looked like it was going to rain, so i bailed. made a nice breakfast and went out shopping and what not. we had company coming for dinner. still haven't put the apartment together. we started putting up decorations and what not. bought a tv too. costco. good stuff.

went to the seahawks game last night. never been to a pro football game before. pretty awesome. we were about 18 rows up, at the 35 yard line. ah yeah. brother andre hooked me up with the tickets. right on andre. went with cousin will. right on will.

i think my favorite part was when the houston kicker had the chance to be the hero. see, the kicker, he isn't a football player. he just happens to be good at something the rest of those guys aren't good at. so they kick and hope to all hell that the returning guy doen't make it through all the rest of the big guys. cause if he does, then the kicker has to be a football player. and when you're there to kick, that really sucks. so anyway, the kicker kicks and the whole bunch of guys charges down field at all the big guys from the other team who are charging at them. the kicker kinda half ass jogs down the field dancing from side to side according to where the returning dude is headed. all the while, you know he's just hoping that one of his big dudes takes him out. but this seahawks returner guy is stuborn and keeps coming at him. yeah, well the returning guy fumbled and that goofy pointy ball starts bouncing right to the kicker. i've been watching him this whole time, so i see what's going to happen and i start yelling "go kicker guy, go kicker guy" (people look at me funny). well, he runs up to pick it up but he blows it and it bounces off him goes bouncing all funny like footballs do toward some other hapless guy. i love watching those guys try to pin down a football. who knows where it's going to go. ha ha! terry buchanan played football. it was a football injury that brought him to cycling.

pro sports kinda bother me. market forces gone so wrong. athletes, stadiums, networks. so much money going into the sport while teachers and schools go without. homeless folks sleeping in parks. to think of it in marxist terms, what professional athletes produce cannot possibly be on par with that of teachers, homemakers, scientists, etc. but who's gonna pay to watch them do that? the money we spend on entertaining ourselves is phenomenal. so, sports sell. the consumer is willing to spend money and time to watch professional athletic events, so the sponsors spend the money. it all spirals out of control and we have the current situation. it seems so wrong, but what are you going to do about? everytime you buy a coke, pepsi or nike product, you are supporting the system. is it even possible to opt out? not really. in a lot of ways, it really comes down to greed. as a civil society, we count on the haves to kick a little something down to the have nots. its only moral, right? some folks don't think so. what's theirs is theirs. they're happy to be interconnected when it serves them. did they go to public schools? who paid for those stadiums? do they drive the roads that we all pay for? the police? so many (way out there) conservatives want to return everything to the markets. security, roads, utilities. there are places like that. its called the third world. don't work too well, really. the rich have private security and the poor are fucked. how's the middle class gonna build up if there isn't proper security and all that? hell, india had a public power company that enron and mr clinton shut down in favor of the promise of more efficient private providers. yeah, well prices went up many hundreds of percent and the people had no control. how well does that work for development? not so well. so anyway, pro sports bug me.





still reading? you must not have anything to do. two cups of coffee down. one to go. and then i'll make breakfast.

michelle and i are planning a nice weekend away. port townsend, i think. we need a quality bed and breakfast.

more research on the affects of video games on folks. the whole thing is annoying. i like some of the comments. for example, that is a very poorly controlled study. to properly control that study, you need a group that watches tv, a group that doesn't do anything, a group that plays a violent game and then a group that plays a presumed nonviolent game. now compare those folks long term as well as short term. the long term study is a difficult one to do. but without those controls, we don't really know what we're looking at. the issue is pretty overblown anyway. for one thing, TV remains the prefered opiate. but more important than that: there's nothing in those games that we don't accept in movies. stores are happy to sell violent movies. video games? oh, well that's a different story. part of the problem is that there's a perception that video games are for kids. the reality is that (1) kids under 18 aren't allowed to buy the violent games, (2) the majority of gamers are between ages 25 and 35 (3) old folks are always scared of something. remember what they said about rock and roll? yeah, that didn't really pan out so much, did it? and i'm sure that my generation (although i will remain a voice of reason in all issues) will freak out about something. yeah, kids do play the games at their friends houses or have friends older brothers buy them. but wait, doesn't the same thing happen with movies? oh right, but this is different. of course. shrill hyperbole is what it all is. throw some aimless democrats looking for voters from the right and you have a lot of bullshit being thrown around.

there must be order

got to ride the burke gilman trail today. god i love that thing. especially all the bumps and what not. i had some guy who aparently didn't understand the social order of cycling. he tried to grab my wheel. i slowly picked up the pace to a nice 21mph and then drilling him over the bumps at mathews beach. he couldn't hang over the bumps. they're pretty harsh. probably lost my draft and gave up. bugger.

now i'm sitting around doing jack shit. maybe i should read something rather than fiddling on my computer. maybe. i could read about how to bullshit in marketing. yeah.

hindu squats. i call them pleasure squats. they work. maybe jim can save some money on a squat bench and just do these.

RC2000 claims to be busy. sounds like a sham to me. he doesn't work.

blah blah blah.

dueling hammers!

a comment from our dear friend, medina:

Dude, I can't read your blog anymore...that damn picture of you is freaking me out.

- Medina

p.s. here's a free lesson: http://www.diydata.com/tool/hammer/hammers.htm

learn it, live it, there will be a test...

sounds like a challenge. medina thinks he can take my 24oz vaughan. good luck. bring it on, medina.

but his mom still reads.

mistress brown, your son is dead

how incompetent can the military be? it defies all expectations.

i have a dog sleeping with its head on my right arm. it makes typing a bit difficult. sorry doggy, you might have to move. nothing gets between me and my blog! just ask michelle...now he's snoring. and he farts too. its bad.

so, i pulled out all my decorations yesterday. looks like michelle and i will be doing some compromising. she can have her crusifixes and marys if i can have my buddhas and shivas. sounds reasonable, huh? incense too. i have a lot of decorations. the artwork alone is astounding. lots of crazy posters from the 60's and 70's. good stuff. i'll post some pictures sometime. they're difficult to transport too. the glass breaks easily. they aren't framed--just clips and glass.

aparently today is friday. i got confused yesterday. i thought it was wednesday. what's a guy to do?

career change coming my way. see, i worked two years in a lab at the UW, using my zoology degree. well, research isn't for me. i love science. i like talking about it. i like the future of science. but i don't want to do the bench work. different animals entirely. so what is next? well, i think i'll become a capitalist pig and go to business school. but first, i should get a job. i've looked into jobs at pharma or biotech. technology also interests me. so i'm looking into marketing at companies like adobe and MS. got some books to read. the first is "bluff your way in marketing." sweet. no experience necessary! i don't want to sell anything. i want to manage products. exciting products.

fighting the good fight, one bean at a time. donate your bike for the oppressed. things are rough in the chiapas. the government cares little for the people as they are heavily native (take the US attitudes from 150 years ago, that's modern mexico). the land is rich with natural resources, which are exploited freely, but little is done to give them even electicity and safe water to drink. schools? forget it.

i'd love it if my obituary ended with this line: "please send acerbic letters to Republicans". anti-war obits.

kill your tv

got up and made michelle breakfast and washed dishes from last night's steak and arugula salad. now i'm tired. must rest.

breakfast was rewarmed left over polenta with two fried eggs and marinara. it's a tasty breakfast. unless the "marinara" is ragu that you happen to have. goddamn, that shit tastes like ketchup. ugh.

age of the internet giants. i think that we'll be seeing a lot of consolidation of internet companies soon. microsoft recently reorganized to become more of an internet company. with google moving so far beyond its searching service, i think the threat of hosted software is finally being realized at microsoft. already, i'm using hosted software for this blog. blogger (a google acquisition) provides all the computing, i just provide the input. could all applications be served this way? the end of the home PC? i sure hope so. its a better value, really. no need to invest in hardware at home. all of your data (pictures, movies, emails, documents, etc) are stored remotely. this means that they are backed up with no effort on the consumer's side. (if your hard drive failed, how much would you lose?) there would be real competition between providers. travel the country and access your documents easily. no need to invest in software titles that need to be upgraded. simply subscribe. if office currently costs a couple hundred dollars, would you pay $10 a month to use the suite? all those patches and updates can happen once on the server side rather than getting every consumer to adopt. that's good news for software companies. computers would essentially become consoles. purely a way to access the internet. your A/V set up? stream music and video from your storage or online providers. the hardware is totally integrated with the TV and stereo. forget CD's. who needs 'em? not me. the best? control music from anywhere in the house over the network. but you know what all this means? windows is irrelevant. any high school student could write the code for an OS that ran on linux because the OS wouldn't need to be nearly as capable or complex. its a brave new world.

TV programming is evil. is it still evil on an ipod?

went TV shopping last night. jesus, they're expensive. and big. but not in the direction i'm interested. they're about as deep as they are wide. so big and clunky. but i (michelle) aint payin' $500 for a flat 24" screen. guess i'll just buy on craigslist.

the blues are rockin' me this mornin'. elmore james. i know i'm shaking my moneymaker. are you? mississippi fred mcdowell. "you want to rock fred, you set me down in a rockin' chair". hearin' mcdowell talk on those tracks is awesome. a bit tough to understand at points. when i want to get some real good blues, i got to fat possum (not tom crawford, but a record label). RL Burnside. Robert Belfour. Junior Kimbrough. this aint no bb king "i got diabetes and sing for burger king" bullshit blues with huge horn sections and a gazillion producers. these are guys with a guitar and the blues. and probably a bottle or two of bourbon. here's a bit from junior kimbrough's bio:

If Junior's sister had been any kind of baby-sitter he might not have picked up the guitar. When Junior was too small to help his father work the fields his eldest sister stayed home with him. She was supposedly watching him the day he took his father's guitar "off the high shelf," where his father kept everything he didn't want his children fooling with. It became routine: when his father left for the fields, Junior carefully took down the guitar. He learned fast andwell, well enough to teach a local white boy, Charlie Feathers, how to play.

yeah, that guy knows the blues. you think he grew up with some shit? only one of his family to work off the farm? black kid in the deep south in the 50's and 60's? yeah, that's tough.

michelle got an email from a college recruit that addressed her as Mrs.. she's feeling kinda funny about it.

another reason to get firefox: the search bar. integrated google search bar (like the one that you can download for IE. except this one can be configured to include any number of other search engines as well as amazon.com, wikipedia, dictionary.com, ebay, google desktop, its good stuff. check it out.

technical difficulties resolved

crash course in css and i got things sorted out for you IE folks, which is the bulk of you. saw an article about firefox and it's marketshare. seems that they hit the wall. the "anything but microsoft" crowd was tapped out somewhere below 20%. so 80% either like MS or don't care. going back to IE to test the site was a little rough for me. after using firefox for so long, IE seems pretty clumsy and cumbersome. the tabbed browsing thing is key. safari has tabs too, but you have to activate it in the preferences.

technical difficulties

it appears that there's a problem with the template. all stuff that should be on the right side is waaaay down below. for all you explorer users, you're screwed. it works fine in firefox and safari.

what about bob?

woke up to my portfolio in free fall. SNDK. i'd expected that as the holder of the patent in flash and a maker of flash memory, SNDK would be bolstered by the strong iPOD sales. not so. although apple's news was 75% good, the market is beating them down. probably the couple of tech stocks that have seriously rallied are a bit over extended anyway. i was just thinking yesterday that it might be about time to sell. i had the good look of watching the real time chart on SNDK drop straight down one and a half points in about 15 seconds. good god.

went to see bob mould last night. old time rocker. been rockin' longer than i've been breathing. there was a band before them, shiny toy guns (from la they kept assuring the crowd), that wasn't so hot. they had a rad key boardist though. pink hair that fell into his face. he was rockin' out. the drummer was cool too. he drummed as i imagine a gorilla would, flailing about (and had the hair to match). they had a cool style going on, they just didn't have much good music.

bob mould (on the right) looks like jeff pyatt



bob has a blog too. rock and roll life style sounds tough. i like his template. gotta learn more html/css

didn't bring my cellphone last night. kinda wishing i did so that i could get a picture of bob. god, now i'm THAT guy. i HATE that guy.

michelle and i realized that we are aging. we didn't want to stand up for the show and it was far too loud. and we were ready to go home at 1130 even though bob mould had only been on for twenty or thirty minutes.

anybody see the "date sexy mexican singles" ad? oh god, i want to get that one back. it should be a permanent fixture on my blog. maybe having the keywords mexican and singles will help with that.

let me learn it from my guru

went sailing out at the duck dodge. buncha goofy sailing types gettin' drunk and playing chicken. good stuff. they all tie up afterward and have a big party. good times! see some pictures.

for years people have been asking me "anton, how do i make a killer margarita". i invariably responded "let me learn it from my guru and then i will teach you." well, that guru turned out to be esteban, michelle's uncle in New Mexico. you can buy mixes, but as it turns out, the ingredients for a standard margarita are so simple, there's no reason. besides, they taste like crap. and they're more expensive. here it is. first off, get some good tequila. a good margarita needs good tequila. the flavor of the tequila should be on display, not the lime juice. you'll also need triple sec, or cointreau. cointreau is better. so, in a shaker, put 1/4 cup water, 1 shot tequila and 1/2 shot cointreau or triple sec. add 1 tablespoon of limeade concentrate. shake. pour into glass with ice. if you want to put salt on your glass, rub the rim with a lime and then roll it in course salt. mmmm....salt. for a frozen margarita, replace 1/4 cup water with 4 ice cubes (typically about 1/4 cup in volume) and blend. this makes a pretty strong margarita, so watch out.

want some fajitas to go with that? well, i have a good recipe. got it from the metropolitan market. marinade: 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup lime juice, 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, 1 tablespoon cumin, minced garlic. mix all this and add 1 pound chicken breast, cut into thin strips. marinate for at least 15 minutes. stir fry (on med-high heat to drive off the liquid). add 1 cup sliced onion and 2 cups sliced sweet peppers after chicken is partly done. cook until peppers are soft and sweet but not limp and soggy. salt to taste. eat, drink and be merry.

actually, nobody has ever asked me how to make a margarita.

news and commentary

really, i accomplished very little yesterday. i drank a couple pots of coffee and then topped off with wine. slept well enough. looks to be a bright and sunshiny day. maybe i'll go outside.

it wouldn't be nearly as funny if it weren't true. cronyjobs.com i heard about the site at a skull and bones circle jerk.

freefall george.

officious white house gift shop.

indiana isn't the place for (premarital) pleasure.

more on cronyism.

"This choice is exactly what it appears to be -- it's the ultimate vote of confidence by the president in a lawyer who has served as his lawyer in one capacity or another for a very long time," said Bradford A. Berenson, an associate White House counsel in Bush's first term. "The president is very, very confident in his judgments about people, and he likes to reward loyalty."

the strategy of nominating roberts was obvious and shrewed. this nomination? i have no idea. but fanatic dobson does.

everybody is weighing in on ms meier's letters to mr bush. comical. one blog likened it to "the ugly girl fawning over the popular highschool quarterback." ouch.

supply-side economics. i'm no economist, but the whole supply-side thing kinda bugs. "a poor man never hired me". true. but is it only the wealthy who own companies? is the only economic development we want one of the wealthy supplying jobs? what of middle class entrepaneurship? what of the spending power of the middle class? cut taxes on the poor and middle class and watch them spend spend spend! the storm unmasked poverty, so let's cut social programs. the conservatives contend that those programs weren't working. but then to not even pay prevailing wage on the reconstruction? while awarding no bid contracts? it's absurd! the attitude is that the poor will do nothing to stimulate the economy (never mind that they ARE the economy) so don't bother giving them a wage. just use them to rebuild the infastructure. economics is complicated; but you wouldn't know it from the republicans. just cut taxes. on the rich. only tax cuts for the rich will do the job. never mind the poor.

its a long one

this is why we spend millions of dollars on basic research. research that has no apparent value aside from being cool. cause some day, it pays off. seriously.

science is cool stuff. i wish the general public had a stronger understanding of it.

evolution in action. have you evolved?

i wanted to write a thing on evolution and intelligent design, but i found something better about evolution. check it out at newscientist.com. that basically sums up the theories of evolution about as well as i can. it's really an amazing theory. it explains so much. ecology. disease. cancer. so much. yes, it is a "theory". but a theory isn't just some hairbrained idea. it's the basis of all science. all of science is theoretical. because the scientific method cannot "prove" anything, it can only falsify. that link is a rather long wikipedia article. let me explain. no, that is too long, let me sum up. the scientific method is a process of finding things out utilizing evidence or observation. first, a hypothesis is made. a proper hypothesis has consequences or predictions. observations of those consequences or predictions are made. those observations either support or falsify that hypothesis. many difficult to test hypothesis have been put forth, such as einstein's theory of relativity. it took a number of years for scientists to devise an experiment that could observe the consequences of the hypothesis. after much testing, it became a theory. an example of making and testing a hypothesis is the blackness of crows, how do you prove the hypothesis that "all crows are black". well, a scientist looks at a large number of crows. they're all black. his hypothesis is supported. is it proved? no, because he hasn't seen all crows and is therefore, still falsifiable. now, is it safe to consider this theory so sound that it could be regarded as fact? probably. (incidentally, i've seen crows in tanzania that were partially white).

should creation be taught in science class? typically, it is argued that creation isn't science and therefore shouldn't be taught in school. i (and many experts) take another tack. creation can be tested scientifically and therefore could be considered science. it doesn't hold up. take this creation science hypothesis: all life was created at one time. on prediction that this hypothesis makes is that fossils of complex life forms will be equally distributed among the sedimentary layers." what is our observation, to suport or discredity this hypothesis. well, life forms are distributed as fossils through the sedimentary layers from simple to complex, with complex life forms only appearing much later. incidentally, this employs an "auxillary hypothesis" that sedimentary layers reflect the passage of time with older layers below younger layers and things found in those layers existed at those different time points." scientific theories are complex and interdependent. it would be impossible to simply throw out the theory of evolution and pop in the theory of creation. so many other theories would have to be modified and discarded. a theory that fits existing theories is a stronger theory. theories of creation just don't do that. the portions of life that evolution does not explain that creation would explain (if any) are far less than those that evolution explains than creation does. so, on the whole, we accept evolutionary theory and reject creation science.

so, creation is bad science. do you teach bad english, history or math in schools? no. why teach bad science? seen this way, the issue is fairly clear. or so it would seem.

but then a new challenger came: iintelligent design. little changed from straight up creation, intelligent design attempts to appear as a scientific theory. and of course, politicians are calling for a compromise, "teach the controversy". what controversy? there is no controversy. evolution is not remotely controversial among scientific thinkers. ID is a crafty opponent because it poses as science. it is not truly science, however, as it is untestable. it cannot be falsified, which is the key to the scientific method. read the wi

i am not amused

rainy day. isn't really raining all that hard. it was a nice weekend. team ride on saturday morning. i went out thinking it would be cold (it looked cold). i took off my jacket and hat before i even got to zoka's! damn. so its that time of year. time to bring five pounds of extra clothing on every ride. it could rain. who knows. time for fenders too. i'm getting everything together for my rain bike. should have it together this week. gotta shark a few parts from my tt bike...

went to michelle's parents' on saturday. one of her aunts was in town so most of the local family was there. three nephews aged 1 yr, 6 yrs and 12 yrs. always an adventure to hang out with kids of that age. things laying about like fake dog shit. good times. played touch football--barefoot in the wet grass. i was lacking in traction. two days later, i'm quite sore.

dinner was awesome. sopapillas. posole. enchiladas. and green chiles to top it off. RC2000 and ricky ricardo ought to appreciate that line up. especially when it's prepared by some native nuevo mexicaneras.

on our way back from michelle's parents' house, we stopped at ikea real quick like. yeah, real quick like at ikea, i hear you say. well, i was ducking. i was dodging. i was taking the short cuts. michelle wasn't quite as focused. nearly lost her once. it was touch and go for a bit.

turns out ikea is a tourist activity. yeah, on HWY 169 there's a sign for "tourist activities" and it lists the "IKEA shopping district" as one. weird. need to get a shot of that!

here's a shot from NYC. i think pinche tomas will appreciate it.

anybody out there with html experience want to tell me what "span" and "div" mean?

haven't figured out what exactly to do about pictures. put a bunch up on snapfish.

i need some commentary. i somehow ended up watching the local news the other night. good god. so worthless. they had a bit where a firefighter from seattle won the national firefighters chilli contest. but all they had was a clip from the today show where they happened to talk to him in the crowd outside the studio. so worthless. maybe my definition is a little restrictive, but news should be information that informs me in such a way that i am able to participate in society and government. world news counts. firefighter's cookoff? not really. murders? barely. i'd say that 90% of what is shown on local news wouldn't count. there's a great book on the subject: amusing ourselves to death. the general thesis is that TV news has come to be more entertainment than informing. print media, by nature is rational. it relies on intellect. the consumer to can go back to previous sections, reread and procede at their own pace. essentially, the reader analyzes the content much more. the typical print article might take several minutes to consume. the content includes pictures, occaisionally, which can be viewed and analyzed at the reader's pace. TV by contrast, its primarily irrantional. sounds and images play to an emotional side without adding any content. take the intro to newscasts. the music. it makes you feel a certain way, doesn't it? and the images. what do they mean? zooming, panning, turning, flashing. why? reporters often talk in a certain way. why? what does this really contribute? the exagerated styles on the daily show wouldn't be so funny if they weren't so accurate. the average bit of news gets lets than a minute of attention. its TV, so we're accustomed to it. but step back and notice how little time is actually spent on a story. notice the quick cuts and quick edits. fascinating. news as a market product. they show what the people want. the people want entertainment. does it sound familiar? rather like brave new world. i need to read both those books again.

los lobos. not just another band from east l.a. saw la bamba the other night. los lobos has a cameo. the singer also sang the song for the actor to lip sync. they go pretty easily from anglo rock to latin. amazing, really. good music too.

there are only two kinds of music...

...good and bad.

it rained yesterday. i kinda wanted to ride, but not in the rain. looked cold too.

made some pumkin bread. it wasn't that great. i'll try again, but with some buttermilk. yum.

anybody check out "get your war on"? funny stuff.

doing business in Iraq FAQ's. funny. sad. necessary, in a sense. my favorite is "who are the governing authorities in Iraq?" excellent question, really. does anybody know? perhaps rumsfeld and crew need to consult this manual. i'll forward it to them.

flunk. good music from iceland.

so two network companies are having a spat and so huge swaths of the internet are unavailable to folks on those networks. when market forces fail, they fail spectacularly. of course, market forces will push them to an agreement. if i were a big customer i'd be putting some heavy pressure. i also can't tell if the issues are my flakey internet connection. when i restart my computer, i can get to the sites. hmm...

racing robots. i like the pictures where they drive into walls. oops!

i'm going to go ride now. maybe i'll put up some pictures later.

get your war on

it's a link. click it.

don't put your cap where you can't reach it

junior murvin has some good advice for you all. these reggae fellows have some good ones. desmond decker is in the house now. i'm linking amazon, but cellophane square carries a decent reggae selection. there's a shop on capitol hill, on pike or pine, that is all reggae. don't be no square.

speaking of squares, i rode with RC2000 yesterday. among other things, we discussed the future of humanity and our impending doom. how to use a french press.

continued. get a good grinder. seriously. "dust and boulders" won't cut it. getting it ground works, but then you lose the freshness. just buck up. are you serious about coffee or not? i wouldn't worry too much about the bloom. i just scoop it off. i also stir more. i dunno. i steep from 3:30 to 4:30. more stirring, less steeping. plunge slow. and now, the key point: let the coffee rest. seriously. it's been working hard. give it a little break. a minute or so. pour slowly. drink often.

i stopped in at RC2000's den of cohabitation. nice place. stayed long enough to get a ride home with michelle. that's fall riding for 'ya! but before getting that ride home, i stopped in at la taqueria guadelajara. $3.25 for a decent burrito al pastor (pork). lots of espanol being spoken by the patrons. it couldn't be sooo bad. i think my favorite part is that the cheese isn't standard, it's extra. that's how mexican should be. it's a taco truck at NE 24th and 148th NE in bellevue, in the parking lot of the 76 station on the northwest corner. worth the ride. my other favorite part was the red sauce. it had a real chilli flavor to it. that's good stuff.

i rode my bike while michelle ran. yeah, i rode next to her. it's funny.

dinner was at a mexican place in ballard, la carta de oaxaca. good food. tapas style. the chips are fresh. i mean, the lady behind the counter makes the tortillas, fries them and serves them. where you gonna get chips that fresh? there's a difference, gringo. the salsas are great too. kick the shit out of agua verde. i get the black mole with pork. so rich and so black. i make a good mole. i wasn't to impressed by the empanadas. the lamb was good. almost cold when we got to it. three dishes with chips and guacamole were sufficient. i recommend getting the flan. flan is good. the posole got good marks too.

i'm a soul rebel.

The last mosquito that bit me...

...had to book into the Betty Ford clinic. well, not quite. but last night marked the fifth night in a row that i've had too much to drink. sunday was a birthday celebration for our landlord/upstairs neighbor. pizza, cake, champagne and wine. ah yeah! last night was HALO2 night. antizee conquered all challengers. and drank lots of beer.

had cake for breakfast yesterday. it was good. today i'm going to try and rustle up some of the left over waffles from the weekend. more sushi for lunch yesterday. musashi's of course. tuna, salmon, albacore and mackerel. they also have a good veggie roll. for good tea, check out the selection at ten ren. they have a location in the international district. they're happy to let you tast lots of teas too. zoka's has tea too. i'm sure it's quite good. i'll try it next.

alan schmitz is now known as "medina". try it. he responds. incidentally, per his own insistence, he's can handle a hammer quite well. he "hammers stuff all the time." all the time.

tombomb got a good post up today. finally something beyond the dribble that is his daily existence. very good.

RC2000 tells me that he's up at zoka's and i should come up there. looks cold out there and i don't have the car. plus i can't lock my bike up. that clinches it. i'm staying home and drinking my own coffee. broke my french press last week. damn. damn damn damn. i got a replacement glass. but then i promptly broke that one. just the lip though, so it's ok. it'll work. which is good.

ravi shankar is back in the hood. ragas and talas. norah jones is his daugher! ok, so i already knew that. i'll have to check out some of those other artists. got some new bob dylan. cousin will brought it over. he says the martin scorcese documentary is quite good. he'd know.

peter jackson directing a HALO movie? oh god, the gamer/geek crowd is going to freak!

later today i shall ruminate on evolution, science and religion. in the meantime, study up at www.venganza.org

anthony dickson is the great white salami

eating a doughnut for breakfast. and some smacking coffee. damn, that's good coffee. colonel fitztroy's blend. you can buy direct from zoka's.....but don't! buying from me is almost a 10% savings! can't put an email up on this cause then it'll get spammed with all sorts of crap. not like at my old blog where it wasn't indexed by google and was essentially by invite only.

big weekend. star crossed was saturday night. but first, i went to the doctor. i had a gigantic blister growing over some old (about a month) road rash that had some folks worried. i called the consulting nurse on friday and she said that i should get into urgent care cause it could be inftected. it wasn't. in fact, it obviously wasn't. no redness around the blister. (i had no idea how to tell). so, essentially, the consulting nurse didn't ask a critical question and i wasted three hours and a lot of money (i have only catastrophic insurance). damn. breakfast was at the costal kitchen. i like the hazelnut pancakes.

star crossed. we didn't arrive until 615 or so. in time to see part of the masters a race. before the pro race. we didn't venture much past the beer garden. next year i'll do some watching from up on the top of the burm. you can see most of the race from there. the view in the beer garden is good, but there's a lot that happens in the rest of the course. the deckerator won. again. he didn't start in the front group. but he rode across a smart gap to get there. and then pulled back barry wicks (see his race face bio)who looked to be riding away from the rest. and then he smacked wicks down who barely edged out a charging kabush. that was an awesome shoulder to shoulder sprint. ah yeah! get terry's write up and a picture of carl's big check here.

to bring ourselves down, we drank ravenswood zinfandel and watched absolutely fabulous. i went to bed drunk.

sunday was shopping for the apartment day. went to target. yuk.

meeting last night to decide on the team for next year. the few, the proud, the guys with no life outside of racing.

rant rant rant

gotta love the media. first they reported on rumors. now they report that the rumors were false. of course, the mayor of nahlans and the police superintendent were perpetrating the rumors. but still, you think the media might take some responsibility? nope. check it at nytimes.com. there are some real gems in there.

"Not one piece of educational material was taken - the best-selling books are all sitting right where they were left," Captain Canatella said. "But every $9 watch in the store is gone."

or

Faced with reports that 400 to 500 armed looters were advancing on the town of Westwego, two police officers quit on the spot. The looters never appeared, said the Westwego police chief, Dwayne Munch.

or

In an interview last week with The New York Times, Superintendent Compass said that some of his most shocking statements turned out to be untrue. Asked about reports of rapes and murders, he said: 'We have no official reports to document any murder. Not one official report of rape or sexual assault.'

400-500 armed looters? are you kidding me? let's see if we could even imagine 50 folks with guns getting together to cooperate and loot an entire town. 400? so obviously untrue. i can just see those two cops trying to get their jobs back.

here's a good one. michael crichton as an expert witness at a senate hearing. wtf? who really cares what his opinion on global warming is? what credentials does he have? what credibility?

Still, he retains enough of his scientific background to thrust himself into the debate, insisting that the environmental movement "did a fabulous job in the first 10 years, a pretty good job in the second 10 years and a lousy job in the last 10 years."

As a result, he said, its influence on policy needs to be reined in, at least until alternative views are given equal airing and fair consideration by independent reviewers. Only then, he said, can policy makers make informed decisions.

i gotta say that i think that the "alternative views" to environmentalism have gotten plenty of airing. i mean, oil, mining and timber companies are not lacking in access to the government, especially this administration. and lets not confuse the scientists doing the research and the folks taking the conclusions of that research and asking it to be used to direct policy. entirely different animals. independent reviewers? isn't that what the scientific community and journals are? the public confusion about science baffles me. tomorrow, evolution. kansas is getting on my nerves.

working isn't soooo bad.

worked friday out at marymoor to set up starcrossed. ah yeah! its gonna be a good race. i'm rooting and looting for dan neyens and rich mcclung. i worked for about 5 hours. it wasn't so bad. oh man, that race is going to be cool. so cool. there'a ride over bridge that the peds walk under. beer garden. good times.

after helping to put the course together i jetted out to seattle to pick up the deckerator for a photoshoot with him and zoka's barista, phuong tran. that was a lot of fun. and then she made us lattes. jesus. that's a latte. she owns a shop, lava java, in ridgefield, wa.

after dropping the deckerator off, i ran back home and off to ikea. good times at ikea. we had dinner there. not so great. sweedish meatballs. i had to try it.