Life As I See It

    Today was the first day in two weeks that I felt
well enough to exercise. My cough is mostly gone now, it only shows up
after a prolonged bout of talking. Not a lot going on…. I’m going to
the Cubs/Nationals game this sunday assuming that it doesn’t get rained
out. Richard (an Englishman who works with me) will be coming along. He
went with me the last time I took in a game in Baltimore. It’s fun to
try to explain baseball to someone, it’s really quite a bit more
complicated than you think. The concepts of foul balls, force plays,
balks, etc involve quite a bit of minutiae. Anyway, I hope it doesn’t
rain this sunday, the initial forcast says there’s a chance for some
thunderstorms. Hmmm, it rained when Richard and I went to the Orioles
game last year…. It’s probably his fault!

Isaac

    It was pretty good. Brian and Carolee came over with
the brood of kids and we had a big dinner. I was in a pretty good mood
and wasn’t as “on edge” as I usualy am around kids. Evan was a stich…
First of all, he really is in love with his little sister, it’s really
cute. I have also rarely seen a kid so happy as he was when he was
handed an ear of corn. He was distresed that several of the kernals had
fallen on the floor and we had to comfort him by telling him the dog
would eat them later… Liam explained his reasoning behind me being 58
years old. My mother is 57 and I’m taller than she is, so I must be 58!
I tried to explain to him that since she’s my mother, she had to be
older than me. At that point Evan put down his corn long enough to
exclaim that I was poppa Rick’s mother! It was pretty funy…
    Oh, and my brother made me really jealous. He saw a
little ad in the paper that mentioned that Mudhoney would be performing
at the Chrysler Museum of FIne Art in Norfolk. For thos of you not in
the know, Mudhoney was the original “grunge” band in Seattle. This was
the group whose gigs Curt Cobain would hang around afterwards to see if
he could carry theur amps or something. I can’t remember who said it,
but someone once called Mudhoney the greatest of all Seattle bands
because they “Rock longer, harder, and sweeter than anyone else.” I
agree completely. Anyway, the Chrysler musuem was about the last place
he expected them to show up. It turns out that there was a photo show
based around the early 90’s Seattle scene, so they were brought in to
add color. Neither of us even realized that they were still around as a
group. He says it was fun, and I really wish I could have seen them….

Isaac

    I had to go to a meeting today up in Bethesda. As
usual, I was running late and forgot to check which floor of the garage
I parked on. When I realized that I had to feed the meter I remembered
that there was sky above me when I got out of the car, so I must have
been on the top floor… Well I went to the top floor and there weren’t
any cars there at all! Hmmm, maybe I went into the wrong garage? There
was one right across the street, maybe I got turned around… Nope,
there weren’t any cars on the top of that one either. Now I started to
panic a little. Maybe it was stolen? A Taurus? C’mon Isaac. Do
you think they’d tow the car if I was 10 minutes late on the meter? Not
likely… Maybe I’m going insane. Unfortunately, that seemed like the
most likely cause of my confusion. Well, after wandering around
different floors pushing my “panic” button on my remote, I stumbled on
the answer. The garage was a split level thing. Part of the building
went up to 7 floors and the other part only went up to the 4th. My car
was on top of the 4th floor part. It took me 25 minutes or so to figure
this out, the people in the meeting must have thought I had gotten
lost. The good news is that I didn’t get a ticket even though I was 20
minutes over on the meter…

Isaac

    I have now given my cold/flu thing to Rick. It’s
just what he needs…. This’ll most likely screw up the timing for him
at the hospital and mean that he’ll have to endure what he’s going
through longer. In addition, he came home so early that I didn’t have a
chance to clean up around here. Oh well, what can you do…

Isaac

    So I was sitting home sick and not feeling like
doing anything. What to do? I downloaded a game called Geneforge 3 and
I have been playing it nonstop. It’s a fantasy/role playing game where
you go around and kill things and finish quests and whatnot. Talk about
a throwback, it looks and plays a lot like the old Ultima series which
I loved and played nonstop as a kid. The best thing is that this is a
shareware game. I’ve spent the better part of three days on the demo! I
hate to see wht’ll happen when I get the full version…

Isaac

    I’ve had a rather annoying cold this week. I missed
two days of work because of it. No, I wasn’t bed ridden or anything but
I have been feverish with a persistant hacking cough. I went to work in
the middle of it and felt like hell and didn’t get anything
accomplished.

    “This camera’s great!” (COUGH COUGH HACK SNIFFLE)
    “Umm thanks, I’ll let you know if I want to get it some other time.”

Friday night ended up with me all flushed and sweating with fever. I’m
mostly over it now, but the cough won’t go away… The worst thing is
that it has completly screwed up my sleep schedule. With any luck I can
get back to normal for work this coming week.

Isaac

    I’ve got a $100 gift card coming from a camera bag
manufacturer, think I’ll apply it to a tv purchase. It’ll be a smallish
one, prob 20″ or smaller. It’s mostly for baseball, there’s already
been to many times that I’d like to watch a game but Rick wants to
watch a show too… Of course that means I’ll have to figure out where
to put the thing. The obvious choice would be the table with my
computer on it, there is a space I could make for it I suppose, but
that would mean giving up the last bit of space on there…. Another
option is to put my FrankenMac on the floor, I’ll have to look into
that….
    I’ve all but decided against buying a new computer
and LCD screen this year. I’m going to make a concerted effort to not
buy any technology stuff until after I get back from Egypt. I figure
that if I take my (then) 4 year old lap top with me and something
happens to it, I won’t fret too much. Besides, the systems will be
amazing by then…:-) I probably will get the newest version of Apple’s
OS. Unlike Microsoft’s stuff, the newer OS usually runs faster on the
older machines. Plus there’s a bunch of cool features that have been
added too. It’ll be sort of like getting a new computer, right?

Isaac

    I was just reading some articles that a friend of
mine from college wrote for a little paper in Colorado. He writes under
the name “Kenneth Cleaver” and he is hilarious. If you enjoy self
deprecating, intelligent humor you have to check him out here:

http://www.csindy.com/csindy/authors/kennethhcleaver.html

Sometimes the replies he gets are as funny (or funnier) than the
original letters. As always, some letters are better than others, but
it warms my heart to know that one of my friends is now a professional
smart ass.

Isaac

    Had to take Rick downtown for a CT scan. He’s really
been in a lot of pain, hopefully they’ll be able to take care of this
silliness one way or another. We got great directions, “It’s in
Georgetown”, yeah, if you consider American University Georgetown then
I guess it is. Anyway, hopefully he’ll be coming back from the hospital
tonight and he can get back to normal soon…

Isaac

    It’s pretty good, it’s got some great live footage
that I wasn’t expecting. The only real complaint I have is that it’s a
bit of a mishmash of materials. Every time I see the live clips, I wish
I could see the entire concert or appearence. Some of the more amazing
performances were on BBC, and there is inevitably some sort of voice
over half way through the performance. The version of Curfew/Burnin and
Looting is amazing, I only wish they didn’t have an interview over part
of it. I am now going to have to track down as much live Bob Marley
stuff as I can…
    One thing that jumps out at me is what a great soul
singer he is. No, he’s not from Memphis, but all the qualities that
made Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, and even Arethea great are there.
Marley’s ability to dig way down and bring out notes and noises that
perfectly communicate his message is uncanny. He can also sweat with
the best of them:-) While American soul singers almost always spring
from gospel roots, Bob also had a religious background. Despite his
appearently mistaken belief that Hallie Salasie was the second coming
of Christ, you can hear the faith, dedication, and inspiration he got
from his faith. I think he’s at least as good as Nusfarat Ali Khan or
Mahalia Jackson in that regard. Bob Marley is one of those performers
that I am more and more impressed with the more I listen to him.
Watching the live footage of him in 1980, you realize what a terrible
loss it was that he died later that year (may I think). Think I’ll try
to listen to Exodus before I go to bed…

Isaac