Twenty-sx degrees

Twenty-sx degrees and it feels a lot colder than the recent time when
it was twenty-nine. Everything that might get frosty is. I feel the
cold in my head and my fingers. I have a band around my ears, but the
top of my head is exposed. (I lost the nice REI skull cap.) And my
fingers. I have been wearing a pair of Thinsulate driving gloves,
which until today had bee perfect.

But being outside at this time of day still feels great. The streets
are quiet, there are few cars. Like going back in history. How far
back would one have to go for there to be so little traffic? Probaby
forty or fifty years.

The bike ride from my house to the Selby-Western area is almost
entirely along Laurel Avenue, except for a jog to Summit and back
getting over Ayd Mill Road, and the turn north on Western. Laurel,
which reachs from the Mississippi on the west, near Shadow Falls, to
near the Cathedral of Saint Paul on the east, ends at Nina Street.
Nina was a woman who ran a brothel nearby.

The ride is like an archeological, geologic historic journey. I was
struck today by an old house, eighty years old at least, surrounded
left, right, and back, equally aged biuldings. Not just a hold out,
that house, but a long time hold out. The ride is like a passage
through a protracted, real-life Monopoly game. Slow motion Sim City.
Small houses give way to duplexes, then apartments. A few blocks oxer,
mansions. Nearby, the lesser homes of managers and professionals. All
atop 500 million years of bedrock, and punctuated with evidence of
thousands of years of human habitation.

--
David
www.schons.net

On my bike, rode to Nina's.

On my bike, rode to Nina's. Don't have a good reason for either riding
my bike this morning or for having come all the way over here, except
habit. I got started late, so I am skipping the YWCA. Could have
driven directly to work, but am not in that bg of a hurry to get
there.

Starting late has also meant that I have gotten caught up in queues--
traffic at intersections causing me to wait where I'd usual not have
to; at the grocery store, where usually I feel like the only customer,
lines at the checkouts were two and three deep and there was a rare
call for another cashier; line was four, five deep at the coffee shop
counter, people coming in the door pretty regularily.

The definition of probability that I like: if it can happen, eventually it will.

Definitely cloudy this morning. Something has arrived. Warmer out this
morning then previous mornings by far--Yahoo says 50 degrees. I am
definitely over dressed. Just took off my outer felt layer, right
here, in front of (or behind) all. A bit expo.

Madeline and Enzo went to the Sadie Hawkins dance last night. Pretty
amazing, I said-- going to a dance, going to that dance, driving,
driving on the interstate to get there, the there being downtown St.
Paul, parking in a parking ramp, the whole thing at night, was
something I couldn't have pulled off at her age, probably coud never
have imagined it.

I was awake when they came in a little after midnight, and was
introduced to yet another new world, that of the after dance whatever
downstairs in my livingroom, my daughter. Now I am the parent upstairs
in bed.

--
David
www.schons.net

A listing of the contents of a vending at the YWCA

A listing of the contents of a vending at the YWCA that is across the
room from the elliptical trainers. It is the view from the elliptical
trainers.

Sour Punch
Cheez-it
Sun Chips
Potato Skins
Lays
Doritos
Animal Crackers
Cheetos
Goldfish
Snyders Pretzels
Snickers
M&Ms
Twix
Reeses
Hershey
KitKat
Milky Way
Snackwells
Nutroll
3 Musketeers
Skittles
Butterfinger
Mounds
Nature Valley
Trail Mix
Chips Ahoy
Rice Krispie Treats

--
David
www.schons.net

Nina's burning ring of fire

Up early this morning--4:00 AM-ish--to check on our servers--my
department's servers. Everything seems to have survived updates this
weekend by two other departments. The administrators of of the
database servers updated the clustering software, and the
administrators of the scheduling software updated that to a new
version.

Dorothea and I went to see District 9 this weekend. Dorothea's
distaste for the movie's violence has been seconded by a Facebook
friend. It will be interesting to chat with my co-worker who was so
enthusiastic about the movie that he and his whole family--kiddies and
all--saw it three times. Certainly the set designers and props people
got the techno junk right. We are all complicite. Be alert.

--
David
www.schons.net

Saved by the bell

Life seems to be a matter of distractions from confronting the gaping
existential maw of . . .well, don't know. Won't know until. . .when?
Till then, green grass and high tides, la Vida tranquil. What will be
the next distraction? Will it be benign or malignant, pregnant or
barren?

My current groove is biking to the YWCA in the morning, sitting at
Nina's for awhile, ( that's where I am now), writing a bit--thumb
typing on the old Tmobile Wing PDA that no longer functions as a phone
but has WiFi, a mechanical keyboard, and Microsoft Word Mobile, and
even editing. (Kazaaw bada bing--using spellchecker!)

While I was on the elliptical trainer at the YWCA, listening to a
podcast from KEXP, to a pretty much rap style song, there was a lick,
probably a sample, of a little piano run, Stevie Wonder-esque. And I
thought "wouldn't it be great if I could notate that little lick?" so
I could remember it? Ah! The App Store! Sure enough, there's a bunch
of stuff there. And so -- I downloaded so far: Grand Piano Lite and
NLogFree. The next question is whether I want to delve in, aware of
the risks of obsession and compulsion.

Saved by the bell. I need to trundle off to work.

--
David
www.schons.net

Virtually virtual?

Online life. Pondering the the stuff I put online, and the virtually
eternal life of what I put online, my virtual self. Sort of like
outsourcing my life.

Deciding what is appropriate for where. What to tweet, facebook, blog,
flickr, and to whom. Of course, in the cases where we think we can
control who sees what, friends on facebook, blocked on twitter, public
or private on flickr, we are deluding ourselves. All the calculations
are for naught. Some innocuous update may come back to bite you. I say
picking a healthcare plan, or financial iad package for your kid, or
deciding between a cash balance or traditional pension, or becoming a
rocket scientist, is easier.

But the human urge to connect persists. People can have very real
personas online. Viverant personalities. In a sense, there is nothing
"virtual" about virtaul. It is still our life, still time spent; the
coal burning to provide electricity for the datacenters that are the
"cloud," very much real. As is the techno junk containered to Africa
by the shipful. Oh well.

Long queues at Nina's counter today. I tried to sit it out, but
eventually joined in. I used the gift certificate for the first time.
Sure enough, the barista at the cash register dutifully wrote "$2.31"
on the back.

At first, by the way that she was holding the pen, I thought she was
left-handed, but realized that it was her right hand and elbow that
she was sticking out. I commented, and she responded, tiredly; heard
it before. Something about her mother being left-handed. I shared that
I tied my shoes weird because I had been taught by a lefty. She seemed
to find that mildly amusing.

--
David
www.schons.net

The coffee counter queue

The coffee counter queue stays full. I sat down first and wrote a bit.
Coffee and a smoke, things that I was just reminded are not taken for
granted by all. I sat in the sauna this morning. Stll warm from that.
Two other guys my age in there too, both contractor types, talking not
only roofing, but a particular roof of a prominent building at the
corner of Selby and Snelling. I steamed them out. Such is shared
existence. Guess we'd all be lonely otherwise, right?

Bought a Nina's gift certificate for myself, on which they will keep a
tally of my tab. This in an effort to reduce the number of times I use
my credit card. Credit card fees are a bad deal for small mechants.
Prepaying seems to be trend for me.

IRV voting was approved in Saint Paul by a relatively small margin on
a light voter turnout.

I sit at a table, vigilant, awaiting the refill of the half and half
carafe. Ah. brb.

Life--swirling flecks of dust and viruses. Dorothea texts me just
now--this is very real time--with "what are we doing david?" Dread.
That could be a light-hearted question. Could be something else. The
something else is what came to mind instantly. Old habits die hard. If
at all, really. Perhaps they just keep morphing and transforming.

Dorothea walks to St. Thomas and gets on the bus. I leave the coffee
shop to drive to work.

--
David
www.schons.net