The Daily Diversion Archive For May, 2001

5/31/01

5/30/01

I wanted beer after work tonight. I went and picked some up. I had some other errands to do, but I had to do them double-time as the dog was needing to go out. I can tell. He sends me psychic signals. Not really, but I always feel bad for the fella when I get in after 5 PM or so.

I was hoping for a piece of EBAY booty to show up today, but alas, the holiday must have the freight carriers flummoxed. Nuts. Now I have to do other stuff. Sniff.

5/29/01

Well, what do you think about the new design. I think it needs a bit of brushing up, but it seems to be functional. It's so bloggy. Just about every blog seems to have the two or three column layout, and it seems to make sense. I've read a bunch about usability and layout and this is the design that all that stuff has influenced. Tell me what you think.

I'm still getting used to this format and since it's late and I gotta get to bed, I'll not have proofed it on all the browsers I can, so if something blows up, I'll try to have it fixed as soon as I can.

I had a nice, relaxing weekend. I did a ton of stuff around the house yesterday and then went out for a bike ride. Boy, I hate exercise. It's just like pulling teeth for me. I went out for a 20 minute bicycle ride and when I came back, I thought for sure I was going to puke for a good 20 minutes. I did finally get my air back and my stomach stopped doing flip-flops, but now I have this clammy feeling in my legs. I was also feasted upon by mosquitoes. I hate those little creeps with a passion that borders on sickness. There I was, nearly heaving, stopped at the top of a long hill, trying to catch my breath. I had been there for at most 30 seconds. I look down and there were at least 8 of those little monsters sitting on me. I slapped wildly at them and even though my legs felt like pudding, I kicked and pedaled off. Nasty.

Well I think this will do for now. Let me know what you think.

5/25/01

I had a great idea about what to write about this morning on the way into work. Naturally, I forgot it.

I did do some cool stuff today. Would you believe it, but after all these years of it being available, I've only just tried one of the instant messaging services? I'm rather impressed. It's like what I remember IRC being like, only there's far less clutter. There's only one conversation going on. I'd have to say that I like it quite a bit.

I think that I'm going to be playing with my computers more in the next coming months. I really don't play much. I tell myself that I don't have the time. I really don't, but do I have so little time that I can't stay in contact with some other folks that I care about? The answer is no, I'm not THAT important. This website aside...

I also did something else really cool today. I went to the Strictly Business seminar at the Convention Center. I had a good time. I scored some good schwag, saw some cool stuff, had my best hopes confirmed about a piece of hardware I'm running here, and generally walked around in a buzz. A buzz of technology. No, that was just my cell phone ringing. Hold on...

I'm back. I talked to the good people at visi.com at the show and they were impressive in their dedication and knowledge. It's nice to know that the folks who are handling my ISP stuff are so shit-together. Thanks, guys.

I also saw some really keen CD duplication hardware. Wow, has that stuff progressed in the last couple of years. Almost all of them have printers and robotics, and even the ones that don't will dupe 6 CDs in 7 minutes. That's cool. Way friggin' cool. I can remember not too long ago, I was staying late at work, doin' overtime on a way-far-out Sci-Fi piece of equipment, Sony CD cutter that worked at a whole one speed (1X), and burned a coaster about half the time. Listening to the Twins on the radio, playin' solitaire on the other machine, and waiting and hoping that the little yellow light on the Sony box would stay lit for 60 minutes. We'd compile the images on one computer, transfer the image across our network (10megabit Ethernet, no less...) to the computer with the cutting gear, and pretty much keep that one cutting 18 hours a day. We were pretty desperate, then.

The coolest thing I saw all day was either the Bluetooth displays at the IBM booth, the numerous heart-stoppingly expensive but awfully damn good color laser printers, or all the new presentation gear. Impressive among these was a 4' by 5' touch screen display. That's way huge. There were a lot of backlit glass screens, all of which looked really sharp. Missing at the show were the numerous handheld devices I saw last year. The only new thing I saw that wasn't custom product was IBM's Palm V clone. What can I say? It's a clone. There were lots of booths selling web-enabled cell phones, but for the most part, not much color, and not much interest on my part.

5/24/01

Well, I finally got some sleep last night. I feel a bit sunnier today, but not much. So watch it. No, I'm just a bit peaked and grouchy tonight. I'll be better tomorrow.

Speaking of grouchy, yesterday's rant sure did go a long way towards establishing myself as an Internet Crank. A cranky Internet Crank. I really do believe what I said yesterday and a year ago, and I'm glad I had a chance to say it yet again. It also gave me a chance to dust off a classic piece of rantage from the time the daily was called the Daily Rant.

I've come to find out that TV coverage of the Twins hadn't been scheduled for yesterday for quite a while. I'm not buying it, but OK. It was probably a chance for them to push people to go out to the game. I've also found out that Wednesday's day game was picked up by ESPN for national broadcast. Too bad it was a day game. Anyway, I'll not be watching them again tonight. I notice that there's quite a bit of coverage in the coming weeks, so maybe this rant was a bit premature. Or not.

I did catch a flash of inspiration last night after my refreshing rant. I went and did some configuring on my router and some more on my new Linux box. I'm now officially on-line with it and it's working nicely.

5/22/01

The past couple of days, I've taken up a lot of my spare time thinking about hitting. Hitting, as in playing softball. I really like to play softball and I can't wait to get out and play again. I started the season without a team, but now, thanks to the intervention of my pal Louie, I'm on a team. I dig softball.

No, I'm not going Joe Sporto on everyone. I've just needed for a long time to get out and get some exercise. I don't go to the gym as it is hugely boring. I do go for bike rides, but it's been raining here since I've gotten the urge to get out. I also golf from time to time, but it just didn't work out last weekend. So softball it is. Because of this commitment, I may not have fresh crap for you to read on Fridays, but I'll try.

I've taken care of a couple of loose ends this week and if all goes well, I'll have a few more worked through by the end of the week. Today's loose ends were sewed up on EBAY (where else?). I ordered up a printer thingy that makes my printer here at home into a printer that my wife can use with her Mac. This has been a long standing need and by gosh, I took care of it.

I don't mean to be paranoid, but I'm just wondering out loud why it is that the Twins aren't on TV anymore. We've seen quite a few home games on TV lately. Certainly the ad revenue should have been quite large for a series of games with the the two best teams in the American League. Why no Twins on channel 9 or on Fox Sports Net?

Here's what I think is happening. The Twins were on TV every night for the past three weeks because there was yet another stadium bill working its way through our State Congress. The bill was ultimately defeated for this session, and now suddenly the Twins are getting their usual amount of media attention--which is to say about a game a week. I don't mean to be cynical--OK, you got me. I do mean to be cynical. I think we're being spanked for the bill not giving a freebie stadium to Pohlad and Co.

I realize Baseball is a business. I realize that players wages are very high. I realize that this is just a venue in which the Twins, Inc. are located. I realize that the Dome is a pretty god-awful place to watch baseball (except in April and October and in the rain). I also realize that Pohlad and Co. have NOTHING IN THE WORLD TO LOSE in asking for a new stadium every god damn year. Hey, they might just get it, right? It's good business to try to save a few million bucks in business expenses, right? Why not just ask for the moon and have some saps bend over backward chanting in unison how great pro ball is for the Metro Area. It doesn't cost much. Heck, I bet most of these "initiatives" are sparked by Ball money, but most of the real work is done by fans for little or pro bono rates. The initiative is kicked off by the usual veiled threat from wherever that if things don't improve for the Twins, they're going to move to Chattanooga, TN., or Fayetteville, AR., or freakin' Nome, AK. This year even ol' Bud (the rat) Selig did some sabre rattling on behalf of the Twins. The Twins could be the team that just disappears when the league cuts the number of teams. Yep, the Expos and Twins, gone because Baseball is too big.

I'm just sick of it. Buy your own damn stadium if you want one so much. I could see opening the public coffers if having a piece of the Twins was a winning proposition, but with ol' Smilin' Bud at the helm of MLB, owning a part of MLB would be a sucker's bet. Salaries will keep going up, costs will keep rising and soon MLB will be one gigantic waste of time.

And now, for your reading amusement, an old Classic Rant that's been proudly displayed for over a year. Enjoy!

Special Sports Rant

I love the Twins. One of the most special times I had with my dad was when we went to see game 7 of the '91 World Series. This game remains, to me, the best game of ball ever played in the history of the World Series and the best game I've ever seen. It's the best, not only because my Dad and I were there to see it, but because of the pitchers' duel, the sneaky play, the close calls and the way it was won. Gene Larkin will always have a special place in my heart for knocking that last ball over the drawn-in outfielder's heads.

That said, and 9 or so years later, my Dad has passed away, and MLB has really lost sight of what they are and what they do. To me, the financial aspect of baseball is repugnant. I really don't want to know how much a player makes, nor do I want to know how contract negotiations are going. I'm all for the players getting what the market will bear, but I just don't want to be any part of it. I just don't want to know. Agents seem to think that publicizing negotiations will put fan pressure on Management to come to the table and settle. I really want not to be part of this equation.

Ball player salaries are as out of control as executive salaries are here in the U.S.. I can't fathom a corporate executive getting millions a year when the company he works for is going down the hole. The CEO of the recently bankrupted Fruit Of The Loom company got a several million dollar bonus as well as special personal loans given to him even as he was running the company to ruin. Who loses? Just the same people who are paying the salaries of the rich executives, and ball players. You and me. Prices go up, I can't afford stuff, and the money goes up the ladder and somehow doesn't come back down.

I think it was Ralph Nader who summed up the presently "booming" economy as "A rising tide floats all yachts." What does this mean? It means the disparity between the rich and poor is growing with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. This is reflected in brilliant decisions such as companies providing employees every benefit under the sun but money. Give your workers a laptop computer, give them a spa at work, daycare on-site etc... just as long as you don't give them what they really need. MONEY. Yes, put every little hook into them so it becomes a complete pain in the ass to switch jobs. Make it so they can't afford to quit. Yes, that'll keep those peons in their place. That'll keep them coming back for more abuse.

But, I digress...

So, Mr. Holtan, what does this have to do with sports? Well, I'm positing here that the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area would be better served not by the Twins, but by a couple of AAA squads like they were before the Twins came to town. Yes, the Saints are doing nicely in their Northern League digs over across the river, but I for one would like to see them as a farm club for a MLB team. I think the quality of play would go up. I also think that a newly recreated Minneapolis Millers would do a fair bit of business in a smallish outdoor park somewhere downtown or in the inner city. Don't put them on the river banks. Put them where they could do a little bit for the community. Lake and Nicollet (where their park used to be) would be a great place for a stadium. The teams could play each other, and other regional teams around the area. There would not be penniless millionaires squawking about paying a gifted player what the free market (which made that executive a millionaire in the first place) will bear. There would not be penniless millionaires pitching tantrums for a new publicly funded stadium. We would be free of this money-pit that is MLB, AND we would still get to see good baseball. Is this so bad?

Endus Rantus. I've donned my flame-retardant underwear for the likely response to this post, so fire away.

5/22/01

I mentioned yesterday that I was tired. I was. Still, I'm up at 11:00 PM updating my silly web page and thinking about my reasons for doing so. I've thought about it today quite a bit as I had a lot of free time. I was doing Service Pack updates at work, so there was quite a bit of waiting. I didn't have any major revelations, except that I'm tired of installing Service Packs.

I figure I'll just keep on keeping on. I guess I end up right where I start when I start ruminating about life when I'm overtired. This soul searching seemed particularly poignant when I found out over lunch that dack.com, one of my favorite blogs, is hanging up his blogging spikes. I can't say I blame him. He had some things to say, he said them, and people flamed him. I really enjoyed The New Economy Bullshit Generator, golf with the Atari 2600 Golf Guy, and the Suck List. It looks as if the Suck List will be a viable concern for a while, but only for others' input. Such as it is. Actually, I thought it brilliant that he was able to get so much mileage out of others' input. I've tried it, and other than owing a couple of people posts about the Pontiac Aztek, it hasn't amounted to much. I figure I could do some more INANETERVIEWS, but I just don't have a lot of free time. I've been blessed with a life and I need to not do computer stuff every once in a while. This isn't saying I don't like to do this stuff. What I am saying is that it's become my hobby--more so than bikes. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this.

Anyway, I'm now really babbling and it truly is time to go to bed.

5/21/01

We had a busy weekend. We did a little yard work, hung out with my mom, and pretty much didn't pin the couch down until tonight. I managed to pry myself off said couch. I've sat down at my computer, but I'll be dipped if I can think of anything to write about. I got a big dose of dust from mowing the lawn today and I haven't felt right since. Not only are the lilacs in bloom, but lawn dust and grass clippings abounded. I probably don't have to say I'm allergic to all of this stuff. I think next time I'll be wearing a dust mask and looking like a freak when I mow the lawn. I guess it beats feeling like my nose will begin to melt any time now.

I have this urge to go lay down, and I may just go do that. I'm tired and this will have to do. I wish I could write more, but it's just a bit too much like pulling teeth at the present moment.

5/18/01

Happy Birthday, Katie!

I played softball last night with a couple of old friends on their team. It was fun. I did very well, and the team won. It was nice. What wasn't so nice was having to drive home without turn signals. The truck has decided that it didn't need them any more. I'll have to have a little chat with the truck this weekend.

And now, as advertised, here's Nick.

There are some days when a little techno-trance is just the ticket.  It's sufficiently musical to dampen that part of my brain that gets severely dried out during work.  This is true both of physical and mental labor. There seems to be a department in my psyche that must have a beat going, and if it doesn't, it gets bored and then all hell breaks loose.  My productivity drops, attention span zeroes out, and I actually start to go to sleep in extreme situations.  This is never worse than during meetings, and especially that particularly virulent strain of work get-together that involves sitting around listening to what other (boring) people have to say about what they do (even more boring) ad nauseum.  

It doesn't particularly matter what sort of music it really is.  Anything with the minor exception of Christian-anything will get me going - country (the older the better), jazz (ditto), punk, ska, classic and modern rock, bad commercial music (love the '80's) and some classical all are open fare for my insatiable need to dip the tune stick into someone else's twelve bar blues, rock steady or walz.  To quote Cole Porter, "Do I care?  Oh, no, I do not."

So here I am, large headphones dripping some relatively livable quasi-real electronic dub junk into that special sweet spot in the center of my skull, and I'm a happy camper.  As I work in a heavily steel encrusted building in the middle of the suburbs, my radio reception borders on the very definition of the word null.  If you're a DBA and need a good visual on this, imagine me sitting next to an old, tube driven radio, ear pressed to the wood panelled speaker, straining to hear the sounds of anything, oh anything. That's a null.  

With the joy of internet access at work (no really, it is really, really work related), I have the unbelievable fortune to have access to the majority of the internet radio stations and broadcasters.  With the unfortunate fallout of the advertising royalties contract http://radio.about.com/tvradio/radio/library/weekly/aa050601a.htm killing the vast majority of commercial stations online, I'm restricted to college radio stations for the most part.  This isn't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination - I'm now a faithful Minnesota follower of http://kzsu.stanford.edu/, a Stanford radio station. With these types of stations, variety is not only the spice of life, but the bread, butter and pasta too...

5/17/01

Air Conditioned!

I saw something really dumb last night. Some idiot on the next street over had started a grille in his/her porch. My wife saw it from one of our upstairs windows and it looked for all the world that the house was on fire. We called the Fire Department. I went over to get a closer look and realized when I reached their front steps that these brainiacs had lit a charcoal grille INSIDE their 3 season porch. I left with fists clenched in rage. Not only did I feel like an idiot for calling the Fire Department, I was furious at these dopes for endangering their lives and dragging me into it. I'd expect someone to call the Fire Department if they saw fire inside my house, what were these people thinking? I guess they weren't. Their brains had all expired from CO poisoning the last few times they'd pulled this stunt.

Time for a cleansing breath.

I'm sitting here, doing the Daily and listening to a new CD. I went out and spent a few bucks on The Best Of Blur. For those of you who've never heard of this band, they're very poppy, and I'm just a sucker for a good pop song. I'm currently listening to Coffee and TV from a couple of years ago. It's just a fabulous little ditty that makes me want to run out and buy a convertible so I can drive around the lakes with the top down, wind on my scalp, and listening to this sunny little song. Sweet.

I got my review yesterday. It was a rave. It was even better than last year's, which was awfully positive. My raise wasn't all I was hoping for, but one can hope, no? Oh well, there's still overtime.

Tomorrow, Nick's going to talk about tunes!

5/14/01

Happy Birthday to my lovely wife, Sarah!

Yes, we were born one day apart, in the same year, but halfway across the country from each other. I'd like to wish you the best day, and I hope your birthday wishes all come true, my love.

As for me, I had a smashingly good birthday. I didn't do much, really, and that really made it a wonderful day. I woke up, did the usual errands and enjoyed press-pot coffee and chocolate biscuits in the back yard. My wife's toils in the garden have not gone unnoticed. The place looks great. In the morning, before the cacophony of boom cars, flyovers and screeching kids starts, the air is pierced with the cries of a zillion birds. OK, well, pierced is a pretty hard word for it, but there certainly are a lot of vocal birds in our back yard.

We have a family of Grackles in one of our cedars, and they're very protective of their nest. They shoo the other birds away from the makeshift bird bath we've created, they dive-bomb Brutus, and they make about a flight a minute feeding their very noisy young. Grackles aren't the prettiest birds around, but we do enjoy their antics. Anyway, we watched this show and pretty much blissed out on the lovely morning it was.

I got a CD-RW drive for my birthday. It's a no-name brand, but it's very fast and was very cheap. I cut a couple of CDs today and got rid of about a gigabyte of files that had been laying around, waiting for the day they could be archived. I'm really going to like having this capability. My next big project is to rip every last CD in my collection to MP3s, then cut them to CD for storage. Let's hear it for better compression! Nuts, now I gotta go buy an MP3 player for the car.

I also got rid of a motorcycle this weekend. The GS1000 is gone. It's been sold to a man from far away, who's friends picked it up from me on Saturday night. Nice fellows, these two. Good luck with the bike!

Does anyone out there have any experience road tripping with a laptop? I'm going to be going on a trip and I was wondering if anyone out there could recommend a DC power converter for the car and/or airplane. I have an old Compaq piece of crap, but it works and I want to be able to use it for writing in the car without running out of juice. If you have anything to say, hit the link at the bottom of the page. Thanks!

I updated a few things around the site, and the list is posted in the NEW page off the front of the site. I does look as if the temporary server switch and the long-needed update to the Minneapolis site will have to wait until June. I just have too many irons on the fire right now. I have just a couple of things to do in a couple of weeks, and I need to get crackin'.

5/13/01

Without sounding like a jerk, happy birthday to me!

Happy Mother's Day to both my moms, Sharon and Jane and to Sarah's mom Verena. We love you all.

Due to an excess of celebratory spirits, I'm not feeling up to writing much today. I'll probably post some more stuff later today, but for now, I'm going to sign off.

Happy birthday to all the Mayborns I know: Sandy, Karen, Morgen, Julius, Sarah, and Katie.

5/10/01

The saga of the laptop has come full circle. I started with a busted one, I bought one that worked but was busted, and I made one that wasn't busted. It broke. I tried to fix it. It was really broke. I traded some stuff for yet another laptop of the same sort that wasn't broke. It wasn't broke. Here I am typing on it. I'm on the couch, watching South Park and updating my site, all at the same time.

Now before you think I suck, remember that it's an old 486/100MHz laptop that anyone could pick up on EBAY for less than 200 bones. The thing is more trouble than its worth, but when it works, it makes life a bit more tolerable.

Speaking of suck, dack.com has the 2001 version of the Suck List up. I dutifully voted the Pontiac Aztek in, and was subsequently quoted on his front page. Cool. I've been linking this site for quite some time because it's cool.

I also ran into a link to my site on an Australian classic motorcycle page. It's weird to do a search for something and find a site that has your site linked.

I was also nosing around my site today and found that for some reason, the pictures of the Popular Mechanics Magazine article on the Suzuki GT750J motorcycle can hardly be read. That's a drag, but not as much as it used to be. I'll have to find that magazine, but when I do, I'll rescan it and maybe even OCR it or turn it into a .pdf file.

5/9/01

Since I'm going to be taking some days off soon, I'm going to have some guest writers in to do some ranting. I'd like to introduce my old pal Nick Ryberg. He was game enough to do the INANETERVIEW a couple of weeks back, and we go way back, so I'm going to hand him the keys occasionally this month.

When Joan Rivers tottered onto the NBC Burbank sound stage in her high heels, I imagine that she felt a little of the same feelings that I'm now entertaining, so to speak.

So with that thought in mind, I'm venturing into the world of web publishing on a the tails of the ever productive Tim Holtan.  With his gracious consent, I'll be playing the temporary host to your written reality for these short paragraphs.  I can only hope that I go on to the Jay Leno class of show host - complete with a warehouse of vintage motorcycles and cars.  

A little background is in order -- Tim and I have an on-and-off again history that dates back to high school in 1983.  In those days, we were playing with technology as it applied to sound and recording.  Together with the budding engineer Barry Watson, we learned the value of Nakamichi microphones, Teac tape recorders (reel to reel!), and carefully coiled mic cables as we played mobile sound studio to some truly awful garage bands.  There was something awe inspiring about holding a $150 microphone in your hands - sort of the "geez, what can I do with this now" which was always followed by an embarrassed "ahem, a testing, one, two, three..." with eyes downcast.  

Now we're on an entirely different though parallel plane of communication. Our music is limited to abundant collections of MP3's, but we're now in the business of spreading the joy in a text format.  I love the circular nature of technology.  Think of all of cables, routers, switches, satellites and firewalls that this humble text had to make it through to grace your eyes, and yet the information isn't a heck of a lot different from scribbles written on a badly beaten yet beloved notebook (complete with coffee stains on the cover).

Hopefully, my rants will come up to the high standard that Mr. Holtan has set, so till the next time...

Thanks, Nick.

5/7/01

I went shopping for groceries Sunday morning, and as I was leaving the grocery store, I spied a truly, terribly ugly car. The Pontiac Aztech. My goodness, it looks like a minivan bonked a toaster. I'm wondering just what would have to happen in order for me to say, "Man, that's a damn good looking set of wheels..." So here it is, your chance to tell me what would get you in the state of mind that would make this tragically homely vehicle the object of your desire. Email me at aztech@tholt.com with your reply. I'll post them in about a week.

My wife and I had a nice and productive weekend. We built garden fences in the back yard, went to a family get-together, did some shopping, and cleaned the house. We've both been hugely busy lately and some of our projects had been shoved to the back burner. This weekend saw us take care of one of the bigger projects, and it would be nice if this has set the tone for the rest of the summer.

In the computer front, you all can assume from the missing Dailies last week that I haven't been getting much done. I just have too much stuff going on. I do seem to have buyers lined up for the Suzuki GS1000 and the Suzuki Titan and that's a good thing. Money has yet to change hands and logistics have to be figured out, but these things are very easily accomplished. Other than this, not much else has been accomplished.

I'm still tweaking on my web server. I'll see if I can get up some time this week. I still have some major league tweaking to do, so if I'm not done this week, perhaps by the end of the month. I've so much to learn.

Lastly today, Dailies may be a bit sporadic this coming week. I'm going to try to get the site up and running, and I'm also going to try to get couple of other things done. I'm also having a birthday on Sunday, so I wouldn't count on a Daily next Monday, either.

5/2/01

Thanks, VISA and thank you, too Norwest. Or, should I say Wells Fargo. No matter, you're all about as trustworthy as a $3.00 bill. Here's the deal...

My wife, sharp-eyed shopper that she is, spied a great deal on airline tickets today. We need these tickets, so she decided to get them. She used her Wells Fargo VISA card and what do you know? Declined. Wha?!? There's money in the bank... There must be some mistake. She call the bank and the customer abuse drone says that the person at the travel agency must have keyed in the number wrong, because the account's fine.

Chapter 2. We are doing our grocery shopping tonight. We have our groceries delivered and do the shopping on line. We're done picking our list and we go to check out. Declined. What? Wait a minute, there's money in there! We call WF. After telling us that it's our account, and it's not them, they relent and say, "It's our VISA line." whatever that means. Well, I know what it means. It means we aren't ordering any groceries tonight, nor are we getting that good deal on our airline tickets. THANKS GUYS....

So now the whatifs. What if my wife was checking into a hotel in Chicago and this happened? Fortunately we have a friend there. What if we were having dinner out? Oops, embarrassment city. What if we lose those airline fares? This little fubbup could cost us upwards of $50.00 not to mention having to schedule another drop-off date for our grocery delivery company. What it cost us was time and opportunity, and that's just flat-out unacceptable, especially since there's actually money in our account waiting to be spent.

You know, the more I use credit and debit cards, the more I like cash.

Cash is good. You spend it and it hurts. You give it and it's gone. You always know how much you have. Nobody tells you, "you don't have enough cash," when you really do have enough cash. Nobody keeps a secret rating on you and what kind of cash you have. Nobody tells you that you can't buy something for cash. Best of all, you can tell the salesdrones who always seem to want your address and phone number at the register that your name is, "Cash. U.S. Cash." and that your number is "555-CASH." That's right. Cash. Untraceable, pretty, hefty and always welcome. It's really too damn bad you can't use cash on the internet.

5/1/01

It's May First. Wow. It's like this year has sprouted wings and is now doing its level best to fly away.

This will be a big month for me. My birthday is coming up. I'm going to be 34. It's really not that big a deal. I kinda wish it would be going to be 24, but that would be silly now, wouldn't it? We're also going to be going to Boston later this month. That will be cool. I've so much to do and yet time seems to just slip away.

We went to the Mega Home Superstore tonight to pick up some materials for fencing the flower beds in the back yard. My wife is getting into gardening and getting out of the 60 hour work week. This is a good thing. We dropped a hefty chunk of ching at the Mega Home Superstore, but I can't help hating that place. It's as big as all hell, it's nearly as loud and you could die in one of the aisles and not be discovered by the scarce employees of this place for days. You almost can feel the danger of precariously stacked boxes. You feel that it's really possible to catch your wrist on something sharp and bleed out in the Home and Garden section. What a terrible way to go. I have nothing against the help, they were courteous and helpful when cornered, but tracing one of them down required all the skills I learned in a childhood spent playing sandlot sports. A juke, a spin-move and the flying tackle and, "where are the sledge hammers?"

An ordeal such as this can only be healed by poisoning our bodies with food. We went to DQ. It's the only chain restaurant I'll go to these days. Trite as it sounds, food IS better at places that don't get their food off some corporate conveyor belt. The exception to this for me is DQ. Their soft-serve ice cream is the stuff summers are made of. Sure, hand made and hand packed ice cream is better, but it's better in a different way. Soft serve is this concoction that is mostly ice cream, but quite a bit air as well. It flows like a liquid, it eats like a solid, and it tastes like what Heroin must feel like. I will testify to the superiority of premium ice creams and places like Sebastian Joes in Minneapolis, Grand Old Creamery in St. Paul and Browns Dairy Store in Stillwater, but for the impulse stop on the way home from a sucky trip to the Mega Home Superstore, nothing beats a DQ.