Yesterday was the first day in a year and a half I didn’t spend time pretending to catch fish, cleaning, gutting and cooking them with shrimp, clams, vegetables and whatever happened to be in our refrigerator that would taste good in our pseudo-bouillabaisse soup. In the past I could almost taste the fish, shrimp and clams as we sipped the soup and dunked French bread. Occasionally my assistant cook (I forgot what they’re called on cooking shows) would toss in a handful of hot pepper and he’d laugh his head off when I burnt my tongue and had difficulty speaking for a few minutes. The assistant cook would then hand me a giant glass of water to cool my taste buds off.
The little guy moved to Palm Springs earlier this week with his Mom, Dad and big sister Sunny. Almost every morning Elijah would come to my room and take me to the walk-in closet, turn off the light because how could we pretend to be deep sea fishing if we were looking at shirts and shoes instead of clouds and waves. One of the first things he’d do is hand out fishing poles; a macho big one for him and what he would call a Barbie-girl pole for me…the little guy has a sense of humor.
We’d bait our lines and cast our poles out, and naturally he casted the farthest…he’d get a nibble or two then reel in what he called ‘a big sucker’.
We’re going to Palm Springs in a few weeks and I already know that he has a walk-in closet in his bedroom…I’m packing my gear and we’ll have a blast… I’m bringing candy bars and Popsicles so we don’t have to eat dumb-ass fish again.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Cool and wet and good...
I've been burned in the past by hot temperatures in Palm Desert and Palm Springs when we were supervising construction of projects back in 2004 up to 2007...but I have never, ever been in temperatures in the 120's; unless the thermometer in my car is off and it ain't, I saw 128 in the car around 3 in the afternoon...so, what did I do to keep the car cooler? I drove around the apartment project to a dark and shady corner of the site where we had helped move Sarah and her family...I ran back at a blistering hot speed to the apartment knowing it would be worth it when we got back in the car in a few hours.
When we first drove into Palm Desert on Hi-way 111 yesterday morning everything looked hot and dusty...and it was hot and dusty, hot? like it was hot in the car with the AC turned on to max...when we drove thru the center of town it was noticeably semi-vacant...only a few old-folks with umbrellas going to Starbucks for iced lattes...young people were nowhere to be seen...I wondered where they could be...working? maybe, but maybe none of them lived around here...yeah, that was probably it...
We spent several hours emptying the U-Haul truck of a household full of stuff...we got hungry as might be expected and thirsty...we drank water all day and I was elected to go on a food run...I literally ran to my car...well, not at full speed trying to get out of the sun as soon as I could, and finally made as I clicked it unlocked...
Surprise, surprise...I turned the motor on and looked down at a 113 degree reading on the dial...113 in the shade...Holy Hell is what it was...
Looking back and from now on when we visit Sarah (it will be winter) no...we won't even look at the temp gauge...it will be cooler not knowing how hot it is...you know what I mean?
But in the end helping Sarah get into a new home was quite satisfying and the apartment happens to be only one block from her Native Foods store she'll be managing...life will be good...oh yeah, did I mention her apartment has 4 pool and jacuzzi areas and her unit has one at the foot of the stairs to her front door...life might be hot but it will be cool and wet and good too...
When we first drove into Palm Desert on Hi-way 111 yesterday morning everything looked hot and dusty...and it was hot and dusty, hot? like it was hot in the car with the AC turned on to max...when we drove thru the center of town it was noticeably semi-vacant...only a few old-folks with umbrellas going to Starbucks for iced lattes...young people were nowhere to be seen...I wondered where they could be...working? maybe, but maybe none of them lived around here...yeah, that was probably it...
We spent several hours emptying the U-Haul truck of a household full of stuff...we got hungry as might be expected and thirsty...we drank water all day and I was elected to go on a food run...I literally ran to my car...well, not at full speed trying to get out of the sun as soon as I could, and finally made as I clicked it unlocked...
Surprise, surprise...I turned the motor on and looked down at a 113 degree reading on the dial...113 in the shade...Holy Hell is what it was...
Looking back and from now on when we visit Sarah (it will be winter) no...we won't even look at the temp gauge...it will be cooler not knowing how hot it is...you know what I mean?
But in the end helping Sarah get into a new home was quite satisfying and the apartment happens to be only one block from her Native Foods store she'll be managing...life will be good...oh yeah, did I mention her apartment has 4 pool and jacuzzi areas and her unit has one at the foot of the stairs to her front door...life might be hot but it will be cool and wet and good too...
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Follow the reader…
A few days after she bought an i-Pad (with her own money) our grand daughter Sunny down loaded, for free, the Kindle app for it…and then for $7.00 she bought the second book of The Hunger Games trilogy and began reading it on her new electro gadget… she had just finished reading the first book her cousin Allison Hibbard had loaned her: a real book with paper pages and she couldn’t hardly wait to start reading Catching Fire, the next installment on Kindle like she’d seen me doing for weeks. The 11 year old has hardly stopped reading.
The school year ends today and it's sad she hasn’t read too much at home for the past few days because she’s been busy after school and on the phone saying goodbye to her friends…and even sadder, Aliso School is closing down permanently and Sunny’s classmates will be going to one of three schools next semester; the saddest is that Sunny’s family is moving to the Desert next week where she’ll be attending 6th grade Middle school in September. We’ve spent a lot of time together and I will totally miss my reading companion. We've promised each other to do a lot of e-mailing.
The school year ends today and it's sad she hasn’t read too much at home for the past few days because she’s been busy after school and on the phone saying goodbye to her friends…and even sadder, Aliso School is closing down permanently and Sunny’s classmates will be going to one of three schools next semester; the saddest is that Sunny’s family is moving to the Desert next week where she’ll be attending 6th grade Middle school in September. We’ve spent a lot of time together and I will totally miss my reading companion. We've promised each other to do a lot of e-mailing.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
walking to work…
A few months ago I opened up a branch office in Lake Fores intending to stay home a day or two per week to save a few bucks on gas, and have a home office like millions of people in America. And I loved it.
Even though all my employees are now outside consultants who draw our company plans on AutoCAD I still design by hand with ink pens, magic markers on trace paper and vellum…many of the newer and younger project manager clients I have have hardly seen plans drawn by hand…they’re used to seeing computer-drawn exhibits that don’t have a very good conceptual or preliminary design appearance…most of these new people love to hold, roll up and feel the plans…it’s good to be an old timer sometimes… after my clients approve the designs I meet my ‘employees’ at Starbucks so they can begin transferring the plans to computer.
We’ve had two storage places ever since we sold our five bedroom home.The kids moved away and came back and moved away again and came back again…some came back then went away to college or got married…one traveled to Europe and came back…we sold the house when the last one left…I thought about not telling them where we were going to be living but I was out-voted by the mother…
we moved into a two bedroom mobile home in a great location, with lakes and ponds and a tennis court right across the street near a community club house with a swimming pool where I take the grand kids to swim on weekends…I Jacuzzi on weekdays… some of our daughters had a hard time with us living in this senior community…they think of us as trailer-trash. After all I've done for them.
I’ve been going to the storage place once or twice a week to pick up things that I need but often bring them back the next day because my office space is our master bedroom with a bed and dresser, and a drawing board with a computer and printer on it… there’s a TV in there too so I can draw plans, watch golf and baseball games and write proposals, send and receive e-mails, and Google a lot of stuff…it’s a good place to do a lot of reading (have I mentioned I have a Kindle now?) while most of the family watches the 56 inch TV in the living room…Mine’s a 21 inch TV that works quite well from three feet away.
I love my new work space, but I don’t like sitting in the room all day, so as the new office janitor I do a little vacuuming, and then yard work or washing the car…
hopefully the economy will pick up soon but I am not going back to Riverside…working here for the past few months has been encouraging… there’s plenty of office space available now within a mile or two…I’ll be able to come home for lunch to keep making my wife nuts like I’m doing now. I’ll find a place close enough to bicycle to work or, wouldn’t it be nice, to really walk to work?
Even though all my employees are now outside consultants who draw our company plans on AutoCAD I still design by hand with ink pens, magic markers on trace paper and vellum…many of the newer and younger project manager clients I have have hardly seen plans drawn by hand…they’re used to seeing computer-drawn exhibits that don’t have a very good conceptual or preliminary design appearance…most of these new people love to hold, roll up and feel the plans…it’s good to be an old timer sometimes… after my clients approve the designs I meet my ‘employees’ at Starbucks so they can begin transferring the plans to computer.
We’ve had two storage places ever since we sold our five bedroom home.The kids moved away and came back and moved away again and came back again…some came back then went away to college or got married…one traveled to Europe and came back…we sold the house when the last one left…I thought about not telling them where we were going to be living but I was out-voted by the mother…
we moved into a two bedroom mobile home in a great location, with lakes and ponds and a tennis court right across the street near a community club house with a swimming pool where I take the grand kids to swim on weekends…I Jacuzzi on weekdays… some of our daughters had a hard time with us living in this senior community…they think of us as trailer-trash. After all I've done for them.
I’ve been going to the storage place once or twice a week to pick up things that I need but often bring them back the next day because my office space is our master bedroom with a bed and dresser, and a drawing board with a computer and printer on it… there’s a TV in there too so I can draw plans, watch golf and baseball games and write proposals, send and receive e-mails, and Google a lot of stuff…it’s a good place to do a lot of reading (have I mentioned I have a Kindle now?) while most of the family watches the 56 inch TV in the living room…Mine’s a 21 inch TV that works quite well from three feet away.
I love my new work space, but I don’t like sitting in the room all day, so as the new office janitor I do a little vacuuming, and then yard work or washing the car…
hopefully the economy will pick up soon but I am not going back to Riverside…working here for the past few months has been encouraging… there’s plenty of office space available now within a mile or two…I’ll be able to come home for lunch to keep making my wife nuts like I’m doing now. I’ll find a place close enough to bicycle to work or, wouldn’t it be nice, to really walk to work?
Friday, June 3, 2011
King and Kindle---Kool
I have to wrap up what I started yesterday...that Kindle Post about Stephen King's novel, UR...this morning I woke up very early, made some coffee and sat down to begin reading the book I downloaded from the sky yesterday...It wasn't my first Kindle read; that was John Grisham's The Confession; but it was one of the best in a long time...well, not that my other reads were not fun, but Stephen King is an author that makes it difficult to stop reading...
This story is totally vintage Stephen King even tho he spent a good part of the story explaining how the Kindle works, what it can and can't do; I learned a few things about my Kindle like having the thing read aloud to me, which I didn't try to do because I've always hated anyone reading to me...and I don't mean I hated the reader, and I will never, ever turn the feature on, unless I develop blindness in which case I will call Dr. Kevorkian, oh wait, he died yesterday, so I'll have to shoot myself...
The story is about how a college professor orders a Kindle and how he learns to use it... he discovers some unusual features in his that King has a way of doing in his stories...but that's another story...by the way, this one's way too short...I read for about two hours before the family got up, three cups of coffee later I had to stop reading and, er, go to a job site...we'll be starting a new project next week and I needed to take a few photos of the site before we begin designing...I thought about bringing my Kindle along and stopping for lunch at Denny's to read, but I thought it best to get back home to eat and save a few bucks...
It was late this afternoon when I got back to finishing the book and it only took me a few more hours to do it...I wasn't the most fatherly or grandfatherly guy today because I was too impressed with my Kindle and the story...I think King must have adored his Kindle and wrote the story as a love letter...
It's one of the best $2.99's I've spent lately...
This story is totally vintage Stephen King even tho he spent a good part of the story explaining how the Kindle works, what it can and can't do; I learned a few things about my Kindle like having the thing read aloud to me, which I didn't try to do because I've always hated anyone reading to me...and I don't mean I hated the reader, and I will never, ever turn the feature on, unless I develop blindness in which case I will call Dr. Kevorkian, oh wait, he died yesterday, so I'll have to shoot myself...
The story is about how a college professor orders a Kindle and how he learns to use it... he discovers some unusual features in his that King has a way of doing in his stories...but that's another story...by the way, this one's way too short...I read for about two hours before the family got up, three cups of coffee later I had to stop reading and, er, go to a job site...we'll be starting a new project next week and I needed to take a few photos of the site before we begin designing...I thought about bringing my Kindle along and stopping for lunch at Denny's to read, but I thought it best to get back home to eat and save a few bucks...
It was late this afternoon when I got back to finishing the book and it only took me a few more hours to do it...I wasn't the most fatherly or grandfatherly guy today because I was too impressed with my Kindle and the story...I think King must have adored his Kindle and wrote the story as a love letter...
It's one of the best $2.99's I've spent lately...
Thursday, June 2, 2011
"THE KING STILL RULES."
Ever since I received a Kindle for my birthday I’ve been buying book after book on Amazon.com, with literally hundreds of books available for free or very little.
Stephen King has graced us kindle owners with a bit of surprise.
He writes: “You invested/wasted $2.99 on about 4 hours of reading time. You did NOT invest/waste $5 on a movie at the theater. You did NOT get in your car. And therefore you were NOT killed in a fiery crash with a drunk. You are now in a different Ur and have 20 or 50 more years to invest/waste.”
This is the message from this first E-book on a fictional E-book.
Following is a compilation of reviews for his novel UR:
After a mild mannered college professor orders a Kindle, he is met with a pink Kindle that downloads books not only from Amazon.com, but from Urs. Each of the more than 10 million Urs seem to represent a different reality where authors have written different books. "UR" -- is slightly odd shorthand for "universe" -- a delightful little gem that is King's welcome to E-books, with his own patented way of turning an object into a source of fantasy or terror. It's also his take on the parallel worlds idea that advances that there is an infinite number of universes. One version is that every action splits off THIS universe into the next one. Ever wanted to read the unpublished Hemingway book, or six Poe novels?
Reviews, continued:
I read in bed at night, and I thought, hmm...I'm reading a book about a man who bought a Kindle on my Kindle! How strange is that? I'd call it a long short story and not the best one King has written; however, the enjoyment came from the novelty and King's always magical plots involving human beings in all their diversity. I loved it.
It's not very long, and it's a tightly written tale that will have you looking very carefully at your Kindle's "Experimental" menu.
I downloaded this book today and it arrived wirelessly in less than 30 seconds. Every day or two I get free or almost free books on Amazon.com. In a little over a month I’ve acquired 22 books…The Kindle will hold thousands, or at least hundreds; I have to find out one of these days…I like being able to carry several books with me …I never know when I might get tired of reading a certain book and want to switch to a Sherlock Holmes or a Mark Twain short story…I haven’t read this one yet but I thought for kindle readers and Stephen King lovers you should know about it.
Stephen King has graced us kindle owners with a bit of surprise.
He writes: “You invested/wasted $2.99 on about 4 hours of reading time. You did NOT invest/waste $5 on a movie at the theater. You did NOT get in your car. And therefore you were NOT killed in a fiery crash with a drunk. You are now in a different Ur and have 20 or 50 more years to invest/waste.”
This is the message from this first E-book on a fictional E-book.
Following is a compilation of reviews for his novel UR:
After a mild mannered college professor orders a Kindle, he is met with a pink Kindle that downloads books not only from Amazon.com, but from Urs. Each of the more than 10 million Urs seem to represent a different reality where authors have written different books. "UR" -- is slightly odd shorthand for "universe" -- a delightful little gem that is King's welcome to E-books, with his own patented way of turning an object into a source of fantasy or terror. It's also his take on the parallel worlds idea that advances that there is an infinite number of universes. One version is that every action splits off THIS universe into the next one. Ever wanted to read the unpublished Hemingway book, or six Poe novels?
Reviews, continued:
I read in bed at night, and I thought, hmm...I'm reading a book about a man who bought a Kindle on my Kindle! How strange is that? I'd call it a long short story and not the best one King has written; however, the enjoyment came from the novelty and King's always magical plots involving human beings in all their diversity. I loved it.
It's not very long, and it's a tightly written tale that will have you looking very carefully at your Kindle's "Experimental" menu.
I downloaded this book today and it arrived wirelessly in less than 30 seconds. Every day or two I get free or almost free books on Amazon.com. In a little over a month I’ve acquired 22 books…The Kindle will hold thousands, or at least hundreds; I have to find out one of these days…I like being able to carry several books with me …I never know when I might get tired of reading a certain book and want to switch to a Sherlock Holmes or a Mark Twain short story…I haven’t read this one yet but I thought for kindle readers and Stephen King lovers you should know about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)