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Cap'n John's Blog
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
This is Traralgon
It's probably supposed to be pronounced Trar-Al-Gon, but the locals all pronounce it Tr-Al-Gn. The GN is pronounced like you would say GUN but without the U. It's a local Aboriginal word which allegedly means River of Little Fishes. But there's no longer any little fish left in it as they all died when the Traralgon Creek became a mudhole after it was rerouted around the town many years ago. I don't know why they bothered, the town grew and now the creek still runs straight through the middle of it.
This is the town where I grew up and lived for 28 years before moving to Los Angeles. In case you didn't realize it, it's in rural Victoria (that's Australia) and is approximately 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of Melbourne. Oh, and this is actually just the east side of town, so using that handy-dandy ruler the map cleverly provided (which I copied all the way across the top), we can see that Traralgon is approximately 5 kilometres (3 1/8 miles) from one side to the other.
It has a population of approximately 15,000 people and the next closest town of its size is 10 kilometres away. There are a couple of closer towns, but I think they'd be classified more as villages than towns. Yes, Traralgon is just a small country town and I'm just a good ol' country boy ;)
See that yellow square with the red Highland Highway running through the middle of it. The yellow above the Highway is the Primary School (Prep thru G6) that I went to; the yellow below it is my High School (G7 thru G12). I used to live 4 blocks east and 1 block north of the Primary School. My parents still live there. My sister and her husband bought the house next door to my parents. Sound corny? For a while I was waiting for the old lady across the road to sell her house and I was going to buy it from her. Our family would then have owned 3 of the 5 houses in the cul de sac.
My older sister and her husband bought my mum's sister's house, which was just around the corner from our house. They lived there for a while before moving to Melbourne.
I was living in a trailer at the bottom of my parents' driveway until I finally moved here to Los Angeles.
Those were the good old days.
Yes, of course I miss my family, but I have a family here now too. That doesn't mean they've replaced my biological family; I love my bio' family and my married family. It's hard spending so much time away from my parents, my sisters, and my nephew & niece, especially now that I've found out my Dad has a serious problem with his liver.
I don't think I'm old, in fact I'm only 35, but I've recently had to come to terms with the fact that my father is going to die. Of course he was going to die sooner or later, and we know this, but it's never something we like to think about. It's something we'd rather not think about until the absolute last second. I believe Xinh had this wake-up call on her trip back home this Christmas. As we grow old, so do our parents. They're not going to be around forever. If you have a good relationship with your parents, that's great. I realize that not everyone does; that some people can't stand the sight of their parents and leave home as soon as they can, never to return. But if you can, spend more time with your parents, and cherish it, for none of us knows how much time we really have.
I was lucky that in the few years before I came to America the relationship between my father and I improved dramatically, compared to the relationship we'd had when I was younger. During my college years we started playing golf together on the weekends...which now that I think about it, given the condition of my father's arthritic knees, it must have hurt like hell walking the four or so kilometres that make up the average golf course. Later we joined the local Archery club and competed in a couple of tournaments together. We set up a target in the paddock behind our house (before they built more houses there) and we'd shoot there to practice for the tournaments. Good times.
Now my father may be dying. I mean he's going to die some day, and so is my mum of course, but my father has a problem with his liver. He needs to see a specialist as his regular doctor hasn't been able to help him. We're hopeful it's nothing serious, that the copious amounts of medication he's on are what's causing the problem, and that the liver specialist can take one look at what my dad is taking and switch his medicines around and everything will be good...but it's also possible that when I visit my parents next year, that it could be the last time I see my father alive.
That makes me sad, too.
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This makes me sad
But I find I am happy with my own life. I no longer need to escape via comics and the perfect lives within. Not that comic characters necessarily have perfect lives, as we can quite plainly see in the above strips from 9 Chickweed Lane.
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Inappropriate Ads Or just starting early?
I'm watching the Discovery Kids channel with JE when one commercial break featured what I consider two rather inappropriate commercials. I figure Discovery Kids to be aimed at kids of ages maybe 8 to 14, I could be wrong, but that's just what I think.
So, what were the two inappropriate ads, or at least what I considered inappropriate?
#1 - The U.S. Army's Ad, with the Recon crew on Day 12 of their Day 5 mission.
and
#2 - Bosley's ad for hair restoration.
WTF?!?!
An Army ad, and a Hair Restoration ad, on a station aimed at kids???
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I felt The Quake I don't know what time it was, but late Saturday afternoon, while sitting on the sofa with Liz & John Edward, I felt my legs vibrating ever so slightly. It was a rhythmic vibration and I told Liz we were having an earthquake.
She said she couldn't feel a thing. I sat still for a moment and could still feel this slight vibration. We're definitely having an earthquake, I said.
It was the next day when we learned about the devastation in Sumatra, Indonesia and the surrounding islands. Checking the time difference showed that the 9.0 Quake struck at approx. 4pm PST, which was around the time I felt the tremors. I'm not sure of the exact time but it was around then because it was after JE got up from his nap.
Today at work a couple of my coworkers mentioned hearing on the news of an asteroid or meteorite which is supposed to hit the Earth and splash down somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Has anyone else heard anything about this? Can we find a confirmation online somewhere?
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And so this is Christmas Loot scored today (and in the days leading up to Christmas):
Extended Edition of both Two Towers & Return of the King; TT for me from me, ROTK for Liz
Also for me, from me: Highlander - The Immortal Edition; Scarface (with Pacino); and Spiderman 2.
Backyard Football for the Gamecube.
Get Fuzzy books: Blueprint for Disaster; and The Get Fuzzy Experience.
$20 Gift Certificate to Souplantation.
Black t-shirt with "I didn't do it" on the front.
Exotic Car Calendar. Just cars, no semi-naked women.
Small Pool Table for JE. Actually it's a multi-game table with Hockey, Foozball, and several other games, but half an hour into Christmas Day (i.e. 12:30am) with just the Pool Table section complete, Santa called it a night and went to bed ;)
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Titillation vs Education Liz's recent blog entry reminded me of a discussion we had regarding the law which allows her to breastfeed in public. If you're interested it's 1997:Personal Rights:Breastfeeding, under Section 43.3 of the California Civil Code. It allows a mother to breastfeed her child in any location in California, public or private, with one exception. Oddly enough you may not breastfeed in the private home or residence of another person, despite being authorized to be present there, if that person does not give you permission to breastfeed. Of course all you have to do is leave their house and once you are on public property you may then breastfeed under Section 43.3.
Anyway, the conversation Liz and I had stemmed from an episode of Charmed where Piper was breastfeeding in a restaurant and the manager asked her to either stop breastfeeding or leave the restaurant. Rather than doing their homework and empowering nursing Californian mothers, the writers of Charmed decided to have Phoebe ride naked through the streets, a la Lady Godiva, in protest.
Now I'm all for Alyssa Milano being naked, you can never have too much naked Alyssa :P but...BUT...I still think it would have been a damn sight better for the writers to have had Phoebe discover Section 43.3 of the California Civil Code and printed it out for Piper. Piper could then have gone back to the Restaurant with a couple of other breastfeeding moms, all of them whipped their boobies out (oh yeah, now we're talking ;) and started feeding their little 'uns. Then when the Restaurant manager came and asked them to stop, they could have shoved Section 43.3 down his throat.
Ok, ok, so Charmed is merely entertainment and can hardly be relied upon to perform public service announcements, but I like to look at it another way. Sure, the Halliwell sisters are usually running around in various degrees of undressedness (is that even a word?) but I see the show as one which empowers women, and what could be more empowering than showing breastfeeding mothers that they are allowed, by law, to breastfeed in public?
If you're in California and you're nursing, or you have a gal pal who's nursing, get them a copy of Section 43.3 of the Civil Code. If you're in any other state, head on over HERE to see what the laws are in your state.
Either way, it pays to know the law.
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Proud Catholic Mothers Four Catholic mothers were having tea together and discussing how wonderful their sons are.
The first mother says proudly, "My son is a priest. When he walks into a room, everyone calls him 'Father.'"
The second Catholic woman chirps, "Well, my son is a Bishop. Whenever he walks into a room, people say, 'Your Grace.'"
The third Catholic woman says smugly, "Well, not to put you down, but my son is a Cardinal. Whenever he walks into a room, people say, 'Your Eminence.'"
The fourth Catholic woman sips her tea in silence.
The first three women give her a subtle "Well...?"
The fourth woman opens her purse and removes a photograph. "This is a picture of my son at work," she says. "He's a dancer with the Chippendales." And she tosses the photograph on the table.
The other three mothers lean in to look and together they all say, "Oh, my God!"
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The Time Traveler's Wife Xinh has a review up of The Time Traveler's Wife which reminded me of a short story I read many years ago, based on a concept somewhat akin to The Time Traveler's Wife. Although it sounds like Clare & Henry experience the occasional bout of Chrono-displacement, the husband in the short story I read lived permanently 5-minutes in the future. He existed in the present as well but could not communicate with anyone unless there were five minute pauses between sentences.
This was a long time ago that I read this story, so my memory is somewhat fuzzy (no comments from the peanut gallery, please) but I recollect the story beginning with wife wanting a divorce due to irreconcilable differences. Living five minutes in the future was tough enough, but the final straw was the wife seeing her husband bleeding from a cut on his face or his throat. This was actually a future image she saw, it hadn't yet occured. In an attempt to either prevent her husband from being cut, or to assist him when he got cut, she went looking for him and found him in the bathroom. He was having a shave of course, and when the wife burst in she startled him so much that he cut his face with his razor.
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Things to do in Walmart Get two dozen boxes of condoms. Drop a box in other shoppers' carts when they're not looking.
Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
Walk up to an employee and tell him/her in an official tone "Code 3 in housewares", then walk away.
Go the Service Desk and ask to put a jumbo bag of M&M's on lay-away.
Find a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign and move it to a carpeted area.
Set up a tent in the camping department. Invite other shoppers to join you, but tell them they'll have to bring their own sleeping bag and pillow.
When a clerk asks if they can help you, begin to cry and ask 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?'
Dart around the store while loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.
In the auto department, practice your "Madonna look" using different size funnels.
When an announcement comes over the loud speaker, assume the fetal position and scream "NO! NO! It's those voices again!!!!"
Go into a fitting room and shut the door. Wait five minutes then yell, very loudly, "There's no toilet paper in here!"
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I'm not jinxed Really, I'm not. Ok, just because in the 10 years of going to watch my beloved Richmond Tigers play at the M.C.G., I only ever saw them win one game, that does not mean I am jinxed.
And just because after I "adopted" the Cincinnati Bengals their QB did his knee, and they've now won just 1 of 3 games, and their Playoff chances are pretty much nixed, that does NOT mean I am jinxed either.
It doesn't!
I'm not jinxed, OK!
Ok, fine, I'm jinxed :P
Let's not tell Xinh's old High School Algebra teacher, shall we ;)
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Today is the first day of the rest of my life This morning at the Los Angeles Convention Center I lined up with over 4,000 people to change our status from resident-alien to citizen of the United States of America.
Today is the first day of my life as an American Citizen.
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Daddy, how was I born? The son asks, "Daddy, how was I born?"
And Daddy replies, "Ah, my son, I knew this day would come eventually. Well, you see your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on MSN.
Then I set up a date via e-mail with your mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive.
But as soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall.
It was too late to hit the delete button and so nine months later a blessed little Pop-Up appeared and said:
You've Got Male!"
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Chicken Vindaloo, oh yeah! Liz & I just had dinner at a little Indian Restaurant in Arcadia. I had a Chicken Vindaloo washed down with a 750ml bottle of Taj Mahal Lager.
I ate (& drink) way too much good food. Thank heavens that the lager is helping me burp and relieve some of the pressure ;)
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Knit one, pearl two... What kind of knitting needles are you?
You are "turbo" charged.
Fast moving and classy, you get things done with power and grace.
Your expensive tastes can be deceiving, since what you really value is quality and efficiency.
As you're careening around those corners in life,
finishing a dozen knitted objects each month,
stop and smell the roses.
Don't miss the beauty of process!
This quiz brought to you by Quizilla
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FUCKING GARDENERS!!! For about a year, with no grass and a large dog having the run of our entire yard, the complex's gardeners stayed out of our backyard. A few months ago I put the back gate & fence up and bisected the yard; I also sowed some grass seed in the area along side the house. For a couple of months I allowed the seed to take and the new grass to grow. During this time the side gate was locked and the gardeners never set foot in the yard.
It amused Liz and I that during the last year, without any assistance from us, no water, etc, a couple of saplings had grown in our yard along the fence line. I thought they added a touch of character to the yard, and as they were set almost the same distance apart from each other as they were from the two corners of the adjacent fence, it looked like I had actually planned their addition to our yard.
A month ago I finally unlocked the gate and allowed the gardeners in to mow the lawn. As a former gardener let me tell you, I was not impressed with the job they did. Admittedly, the lawn was a little long and the grass was new, but still, this is what these guys do for a living. They're supposed to be professionals! After they'd finished mowing my new lawn there were footprints where they'd turned their feet without lifting them and crushed the blades of the new grass together. Even now, a month later, their footprints are still plainly evident. The lawn I'm talking about is about 20 feet long but only a few feet wide. Had I been mowing it, I would never have put a single foot on the lawn. I would have stood on the path and pushed the mower out onto the lawn to the fence. Of course that's me. Sure, these guys have a ton of houses to visit and countless lawns to mow, so they have to be quick, but they're still supposed to be professionals. They should know what they're doing.
I was NOT impressed.
I told Liz I'd give them one more chance and if I didn't like their second cut of the lawn we were buying a mower and I was doing everything myself.
Last week I got home from work to find the gardeners busy doing whatever the hell they figure needs doing in the yards in our complex. That day, for whatever reason, they decided they would prune the bushes. When I approached our back yard to check on the job they'd done on the lawn, I was blown away when my yard, from over the fence, appeared bare. The large bush which had grown just inside the gate to almost 12 feet tall had been hacked off just below the fence line. Now I was planning to cut it back myself, but in my opinion, I would have done a damn sight better job. I complained to the gardener who was in the next yard, who of course denied being the one that cut the tree back. I pointed out that he was the one with the trimmers (I know, I know, don't piss off the guy with the nasty looking power tools) but he insisted in his broken Spanglish that it wasn't him. Pissed off with the hatchet job done on the bush I went inside to vent to Liz, who couldn't see what I was complaining about as I'd been planning a similar attack on that bush myself.
This afternoon I ventured out to pick up the leaves dropped from the taller of the two saplings, which might be dying but could just be dropping its leaves for the winter. It was only then that I realized there was a gap where the second sapling should have been.
I looked closer, not quite believing my eyes.
THE FUCKING GARDENERS HAD CHOPPED THE OTHER SAPLING OFF AT GROUND LEVEL!!!
Being pissed off with the hack job on the much larger bush I hadn't noticed the missing sapling at that point in time, but now it was broad daylight the sapling was blatantly obviously missing.
Now we're not talking about a small-weedy looking plant here. This was a 5-foot tall sapling which was quite obviously thriving and was obviously meant to be there. If it wasn't, I would have cut it off myself. And yet the stupid-ass, mother-fucking gardeners, in all their infinite (lack of) wisdom, hacked it off at ground level!!!
Someone is going to lose their job over this, because as soon as our HOA President gets me the number of the company that hires our gardners, I'm getting a new tree out of them. When a company has to shell out money because one of their employees fucked up and pissed off a client, if that person doesn't get fired then they're bloody lucky.
Vindictive? Perhaps. But a man's home is his castle. If you're being paid to take care of the grounds of a man's home then you better do a fucking good job, because if you don't, you better look for a new job.
Fucking dumb shits are supposed to be gardeners and they cut a 5-foot sapling off at ground level!!!
Man, am I pissed off.
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Like father, like daughter Amber woke up this morning and, just like her father, let loose with a resounding fart that echoed off the vaulted ceiling of our bedroom and shook the house to its foundations. She's just like her old man ;)
She then punctuated her morning flatulence with a little bit too much substance...that's not like her old man :P
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To my Guardian Angel, demonstrations were not really necessary... I was driving to LAX this morning and I decided to take surface streets from Downtown because I figured it would be more direct and faster than the freeways, especially between 7am & 8am. It probably would have been but for one thing. It was raining, which meant lots more traffic, and I kept missing my turns and getting detoured...which actually sounds like three things, not one.
I'd just missed another one of my left turns and was looking at all of the brake-lights ahead of me, when I noticed the concrete divider between our two lanes and the two lanes of oncoming traffic had now disappeared and been replaced by double yellow lines, which means no crossing, at all, unless you're stupid and have a Death Wish.
I don't have a Death Wish (at least I don't think I do) but I was obviously thinking of being stupid, because for a second I contemplated pulling an illegal U-turn, heading back the other way and making the right turn onto the street I would have turned onto if I'd made my previous left. I thought about it, and looked at the stretch of open (albeit wet) road because oncoming traffic was extremely light, and thought about it some more, but common sense prevailed and I decided to just continue the way I was going.
As the traffic moved forward a few car lengths I glanced in my side mirror and saw an Urban Assault Vehicle (loved by Soccer Mom's the country over) being driven by someone who was both stupid AND had a Death Wish. I know this, because they were attempting the very same illegal U-turn that I'd just decided against.
Now I was driving a little Ford Contour, which would have zipped itself around within two lanes without much of a problem. The Stupid Driver with the Death Wish was not driving a Ford Contour, or any other small car, or any reasonable-sized car for that matter. I watched in fascinated horror as their UAV made it halfway around before stopping and blocking both lanes of oncoming traffic. The Stupid Driver with a Death Wish then engaged reverse in order to complete the maneuver, but of course he (or she) never did.
A blast of a horn right next to me signalled the approach of another large UAV, the driver of which seemed to feel that tooting their horn at the UAV blocking their path might somehow avert disaster. Needless to say, disaster was not averted. The squeal of brakes and tires frustrated by 5 tons of steel traveling at 50 miles per hour on a wet road preceeded the crunch of the irresistable force meeting the immovable object.
Observing the aftermath I thought to myself, "I was just thinking of attempting that U-turn."
If there's one thing to take away from all of this, it's do not attempt illegal U-turns in UAVs in the wet, or the dry for that matter, or in UAVs, or in any vehicle, period.
Is that still one thing?
I finally made it to LAX and was driving down Pershing Drive behind LAX. To get from Pershing Drive to World Way West (my final destination ;) one takes an exit ramp which loops around a delightful 180 degrees. With the wet roads I was thinking how neat it would be were I in a rear-wheel drive vehicle and not a front-wheel drive Contour. In a rear-wheel drive I could have deliberately given the vehicle just a little too much gas. That would have slid the back end out and I could have drifted around this 180 degree turn in a rather cool, albeit scary power slide. But I was in a front-wheel drive. If you give a front-wheel drive vehicle too much gas when in a 180 degree turn you go into a front end drift. Although your front wheels may be turned the vehicle continues in a straight line; it does not turn with the wheels. As I was thinking about power sliding around this 180 degree turn, but realizing it would be impossible, I came across traffic cones blocking my lane and forcing me into the other lane around the emergency vehicle with flashing lights, which was parked next to a white Celica-like sportscar, which was pointing the wrong way (i.e. towards me, on a one way off-ramp) with its back end up on the curb. Standing next the white car was a young asian lady, who looked a little shaken that somehow her car had spun itself around and stopped on the sidewalk.
Twice that morning, within the space of half an hour, I'd debated doing two rather silly, potentially dangerous things. Twice that morning I was given a demonstration of what could have happened had I followed through with my foolish thoughts.
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Well it's past last call for alcohol And it's time to get your inebriated carcass home, in one piece of course, and without passing out on the sidewalk.
Think you can do it?
Everybody, repeat after me:
~ Here we go, here we go, here we go ~
~ Here we go, here we go, here we goooooo-oh ~
~ Here we go, here we go...um...er...Damn! I forgot the resht of the wordsh.
Oh well, enough with the shinging! It'sh time to play the game :)
Click on thish link and it should take you to a page in Shwish, that'sh the language, not the cheesh. Then click on the picture of the funny man to shtart playing. Now ushe your moush to help the drunk (oopsh, I mean shobriety-challenged individual...them's shum looong words, heh heh) get home without falling over. If he goes left, move your mouse to the right BUT NOT TOO MUCH! Thump! ZzZzZz!
Now you need to shtart again ;)
Apparently shum shmart-arsh got the little guy 82 meters before he got carpal tunnel and shuccumbed to the pain. How far can you get the little guy?
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This is awesome!!! Ok, call me a geek, I don't care, this is still a pretty amazing website.
It's an Online Planetarium!
Want to know what those bright stars are that you can see in the sky?
Visit this site and you can find out.
I emailed a couple of guys from JPL's Astronomy Club with my observations, which I admit were a little sketchy. Having no compass or sextant or calendar with which to take accurate notes, I was unable to say exactly when and where I had seen this particular asterism. Still, I got a very prompt reply from one of the guys in the club who said that the cross-shaped asterism was not the "Southern Cross" (I didn't think it was) but given my imprecise data he guessed I was looking at three of the bottom stars from Canis Majora and one of Puppis' stars.
I then tracked down this site, entered the coordinates for El Monte, rolled the calendar back to the end of October (because I recollected seeing the cross around Halloween) and bingo! There was my cross! And the top three stars were indeed part of the Canis Majora constellation. Awesome!
Added to answer Dusty's question: To find the Latitude & Longitude of your city, head on over to this site. Rather cool, when I entered Melbourne at that site I scored with Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, which was the Melbourne I was looking for, not Florida's Melbourne. Alternatively, google the name of your city along with the word "latitude" and that should provide the data you need. Just remember that to enter south & west latitudes and longitudes you use a negative number; positive lats and longs are for north and east.
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A Shooting Star & a Northern Cross This morning I saw another Shooting Star. It's not like I see them all the time, in fact it's been many years since I last saw one. I wouldn't have seen this one either if I hadn't been looking for a constellation that's very similar to "The Southern Cross". A quick google has shown me that the group of stars I have been observing for the last couple of months cannot possibly be the real Southern Cross as I'm just too far north.
The Southern Cross apparently can be viewed in the northern hemisphere (contrary to popular belief) but only by those people south of approx. latitude 30 degrees north. As El Monte, CA is at 34 degrees north the Southern Cross is probably just below the horizon. The constellation I'd been looking at was approx. 30 degrees above the horizon so there's no way it was the real Southern Cross.
Initially I said I've been looking for it, that's because ever since we switched back to Pacific Standard time I have been unable to find this "Northern Cross". At 5:45am PDST it was a little above the horizon and almost due south, and it was there almost every morning for quite some time. I grew very used to seeing it and was kind of thinking it could possibly be the Southern Cross (until the Google). This morning it was nowhere to be seen, nor could I find it yesterday or the day before. The Northern Cross has disappeared.
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Blogs: SimplyRed Bitka Calima Drucifer DustBuffalo Lavagrrrl Loki Luminati Morgan Prism Xinher Links: Richmond Tigers! Cincinnati Bengals! Puzzle Pirates! Archives: November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 Dream Blog Credits: Thanks have to go to me wife for redesigning me new Blog page, and to Greymatter, the web site where she got the idea for this design. You are visitor #...
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