Straight Edge Life

There is no reason. There is no excuse. Liars are liars the fucking world over. I wondered why I was hesitating. I wondered why I wasn’t opening up like she wanted me to. I wonder why tonight, of all nights she decided to ask me to give a bit more, to calmly ask for a bit more from me emotionally, and then immediately lie to my face. Not a “big” lie, but a bald-faced lie nonetheless. Alexandra, she lied to me, to my face, when I asked her to marry me years before tonight. That very same night she lied to me about nothing. But I caught her. It took months before I knew, but when I did… oh it was bad. What a night to lie. What a night to be a coward.

I didn’t marry Alex. I married Nichole, and Nichole lied to my face so many times it’s hard to count. And now, coming out of my failed marriage with Nichole, someone different, whom I really care about, a peer, someone I felt both at home with and, more importantly, safe with, she lies to my face. About nothing. And she got caught. It didn’t take months, it took hours. And I’ll tell you what, it stings. It stings bad. And suddenly it’s clear… I understand why I am hesitating, why my gut is telling me not to put too much on the line emotionally. Either I’m not ready to deal with the hurt from inevitable lies that come out of peoples fucking mouths, or simply she’s not the right one. Either way, I think that’s it. I’m out of the “game” for a bit. I’m not up for games. I’m not up for bullshit. Especially about something as stupid as this.

I just can’t do this. I’m not built for a game of lies and deceit. Fear and protection and self-preservation. Fuck that. What the hell ever happened to courage and integrity?

Have you ever been in a fight? Have you ever stood up for something you believe in? I’ve been knocked down fighting for something I believe in. It hurts a lot less than dealing with the coward of self. Have you ever risked something less important in order to protect something more important? Have you ever had to risk something for respect? What the fuck.

An extended trip to Smith is definitely in order. I’ve been thinking about Smith and snowboarding a lot over the last couple of days. These are two things that are without equal in my life. The happiest two times in my life are when I’m at Smith or while boarding. Nothing can touch me while I’m on the trails or rock at Smith. Nothing can touch me while I’m cutting new lines through the trees at Willamette Pass (still my favorite spot). I don’t have all that much reason to want to escape right now. Life is pretty good, but there’s always reason to recharge. Life can turn into a grind. You can feel it when you’re stir-crazy, like I am now… Something calling your to your higher purpose.

I’ve been blessed in life as I have never been without a passion. I’ve always know exactly what I’ve wanted to do and how to make it happen. That’s not to say that it always worked out. But I’ve never been lost. Never. When I was young it was photography and skateboarding. A little later it was photography, snowboarding and mountain biking. Then photography and climbing. Then it was photography on it’s own for a bit. Now it’s photography, snowboarding, climbing, and programming. No matter where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing these things have kept me excited about life. These things have been life. My philosophies, my filters, my outlets. Artistic, physical and logical.

There’s a certain clarity that comes from being in touch with your passions. Life is either rich with pleasure and adventure, or completely oriented towards getting back to pleasure and adventure. It’s a sort of singularity, a masked, filtered way to view the world that doesn’t allow much room for anything else. Without access to my passions nothing really makes much sense either. And it hasn’t for a couple of my most recent years.

Now that I’m back, doing what I love, I can’t understand how I ever left, or how I survived without it. Without the beauty of a trail sunrise… the smell of fresh prints… the feeling of stone under my fingers. What is life without these things?

quotes from a liz phair song.

Weeee. Here I am in Texas, feeling a little bit like we decided to stay here about 5 days longer than was necessary. But that’s cool I guess. Maybe. I could have spent that time driving down here. That would have been quite nice actually. I dig a long road trip. Dig? Love is more accurate. I love a long road trip. All week I’ve been thinking about my next road trip actually. I’d like to do a gallery of images from Smith Rock similar to my Yosemite gallery. It could be done on weekends but I would prefer to make all the images in one trip. 10 days or so. That’s enough time to get a lot of shooting done at Smith. And winter is a killer time to do it. Fewer people, more interesting light. It will be good to spend a bit of extended time on my own in the woods for a bit too. I’m a little peopled out. Haven’t gotten a moment to myself for 7 days now. Given, I’ve been sick for a couple of those days. But I need it. Like I need air I need it.

Another thing I need is to create. Going to Yosemite in October reminded me of how important it is for me spiritually to create things and be involved in the creative process. Some people say that depression is not much more than repressed anger. I think being creative is as good a way to dissipate it as any other single thing. I don’t know. I’m really tired right now and I’m probably just babbling on here… but I feel as though my life is rapidly turning around. My divorce is almost final. I’ve got some good work. I’m paying my bills. Got a nice lady in my life again. Doing a bit of photography. There’s a lot to be thankful for. I want to keep it up. I want to look at what’s happening through my own heart (photography or writing) and see if I can figure out how to hang on to a bunch of this good stuff. Maybe the trick is to stop thinking about it. Again, I don’t know.

Saw a t-shirt a few days ago with simply this on it:

PETA
People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

That was about a half an hour after I read the most conservative op-ed page and letters to the editor page in any paper, in any city I have visited, anywhere. Phrases such as “founding fathers demanded”, “constitutional responsibility” and, I’m serious here, “the alamo” were sprinkled through the letters like sauce over so many ribs.

This is a different state my sister is living in. Sort of trips me out. Texas.

My sister, father and I are all reading, or have read, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown; both EXCELLENT BOOKS. But there’s a problem with this little festival of good book reading… Nobody but me has read both of the books completely. This commonly happens while discussing 24 episodes in the presence of someone who had to record it rather than watch it because of some prior engagement (flight, accident, hijacking, kidnapping, whatever valid reason there might be for missing an episode of 24, if there are any); you stand there, not wanting to break the sanctity of the episode for the uninitated, yet you are dying to share in the joy of it with the experienced. Yeah, so my unwashed father and sister will catch up in time. But until then, it’s stir-crazy in texas with my family for Christmas. Hope all is well with you out there. Drop me a line. Anyone want to talk about these books? Or 24 for that matter?

I have a good friend whom I talk with about all sorts of exciting things. Life, the universe, everything. But it’s the small and insignificant things we talk about that make me the happiest. It means something when you can do that with a friend. It means you enjoy each other’s company and that your entire relationship doesn’t hinge on common opinions on the big stuff like politics, religion, the environment, and family. Because there comes a time in a person’s life where they need to drop all that “important” stuff and enjoy an uncomplicated life. More to the point, each other’s company. Which in the end, is all we really have.

I’m not to worried about whether or not I end up rich, with a nice house, or with a fabulous career. And for this I will likely struggle in ways that many don’t, but I know that, bit by bit, I’m learning how to enjoy life without all the frills. The value of a good friendship, the taste of a good cup of cocoa, my tabby, Josie, when she purs (it took a year to get her to warm up to me). Because those things will be with you when the money, the house and the career are all gone.

A word of warning for anyone considering an eBook purchase from Amazon.com or Adobe. DON’T DO IT! There are serious problems with the DRM activation process.

If you purchase an eBook from Amazon.com or Adobe you can expect the following: you will not be able to activate your books at all. Or, you may be able to activate your books, but tomorrow you may not be able to read them because the activation failed somehow during the night. This is exactly what happened to me. Not once, not twice, but five times.

In my effort to solve these problems with Adobe eBook Reader, I was not be able to reach their customer support without paying heinous amounts of money. I was be able to join a veritable army of angry customers on their forums page, but no good came of it because it’s clear that the only people not participating in these forums are adobe employees and engineers.

If you use Adobe Reader for ebooks you can be sure of one thing’ at some point during your ebook experience; adobe or amazon will have your money and you will have nothing to show for it.

It makes me angry; the thing is that I love reading eBooks. I think it’s a great way to read. I love the ability to make the text big, the fact that it remembers what page you were last reading, I love that I don’t need a desk lamp or flashlight to read them, just a laptop. But if Adobe doesn’t fix the problems with this software, and fast, I’m going to seriously consider legal action. I don’t buy something and gracefully accept that I can’t have access to it.

This software is terrible. The support is terrible, it just doesn’t work, and I’m angry about it. I’ve never had a more frustrating experience with software or support in my life.

Houston. I’ve only been here once before. I was very young and I don’t remember anything besides that it was hotter than I had ever experienced. So I’m looking forward to exploring the city and getting to know it’s character for a few days. If only a little bit. It’s winter, so it shouldn’t be too hot. Anyway… I’ll have more to report later after I’ve explored a little bit.

By the way, my new phone has a little camera in it, unfortunately, it sucks. That’s my sister, her husband and my dad in a little New Orleans deli thing in Houston.

And now, for the third installation of my mobility ramblings. I’m chillin’ at Borders, working on this and that. I’ve discovered something pretty encouraging… It’s easy to work here. Really easy. I don’t know anyone, I’m pretty much alone. I think a few days ago I saw someone I knew across the store, but I didn’t say hi. So personal distractions. I have my ibook, an ipod and nothing else. No papers cluttering my desk, no cats attacking my feet, computer cables or lunch. No cold air coming in and freezing my fingers. Just plain and simple simplicity. My desk, a 36 by 36 inch tabletop, and a speedy wireless connection. Oh, and a plug in the wall to keep my battery charged. The only thing that gets in my way are closing hours and the occassional cackle laugh noise that even my most aggressive iTunes playlist can’t drown out coming from the obnoxious lady behind me.

Enjoyable.

It’s dawning on me that I might be a bit overloaded with this upcoming 4J job. Lasso 7 was released a few days ago and… well it’s putting me in a position that’s a wee bit burly. One of the most useful things about LP6 was that you had access to the core MySQL database both through the embedded admin application AND through the command line interface. That was nice. That’s no longer the case. Now, access to the core MySQL database is gone. So now my options for database tweaking are limited to the command line interface only. Which is fine. Perfectly fine. But it’s another learning curve on top of learning any new syntax in LP7. The major upside is that it’s going to give me a chance to really get to know MySQL 4.x and will probably prepare me for the core MySQL certification.

But it’s a lot. It’s thick, it’s a serious load of work. And I guess it’s totally cool. My development environment is going to be pretty much limited to my laptop, because I can’t set up LP7 on my live server. Perhaps I can get it up and running on my old G3. That would be good. It would let me set up an environment that’s similar enough to the production environment… I would have to set up my router to bridge more ips through so I can access it from outside. Because that’s CRITICAL. Really, really important.

You know, it is cool that I’m being forced to use an external DB. It’s clean. No overlap, no danger of one of my databases bringing down Lasso. Which is something I don’t think has happened yet. Shit. Grrr. So much to do, so little time.

“Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”

- Professor Edsger Dijkstra

If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want the drilling rights on [his] head.”

- Jim Hightower

“He is the biggest liar of all the American presidents. . . the worst terrorist in the history of mankind . . . a madman, an imbecile and a bum. . . His ideas are from the era of Buffalo Bill, not the nuclear age.”

- Fidel Castro (on Ronald Reagan)

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs-even though checkered by failure than to take rank with these poor spirits who neither enjoy much or suffer much. Be wise, they live in the gray twilight that know not of victory, nor defeat. Nor true sorrow nor true love.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

“Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.”

–John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

- Edward Abbey

“The real work of men was hunting meat. The invention of agriculture was a giant step in the wrong direction, leading to serfdom, cities, and empire. From a race of hunters, artists, warriors, and tamers of horses, we degraded ourselves to what we are now: clerks, functionaries, laborers, entertainers,
processors of information.”

-Edward Abbey

“Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.”

-Edward Abbey

“There is no force more potent in the modern world than stupidity fueled by greed.”

-Edward Abbey

“The plow has probably done more harm–in the long run–than the sword.”

–Edward Abbey

“The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chain saws.”

-Edward Abbey

“Everyone should learn a manual trade: It’s never too late to become an honest person.”

-Edward Abbey

“The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep,
poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight, supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow shit, cheat grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies–and then leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he loves the West.”

–Edward Abbey

“The highest treason, the meanest treason, is to deny the holiness of this little blue planet on which we journey through the cold void of space.”

–Edward Abbey