stevengharms.com

Items of Interest:

I.

This weekend I finished the hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I bought it a CostCo for eight dollars. It’s a cartoon + diary written by an average Junior High kid who manages to capture the humiliating, elating, confusing, and baffling experience that society inflicts upon youth: Jr. High. Much like “Freaks and Geeks”, “Diary” hits a little too close to home a little too often to have left me without a few “squirmy” moments, but it was tender, never-patronizing, and rather funny.

I mean seriously, I have never met anyone who said of Junior High, “Wow, those were the greatest days ever”. It’s like there’s some sort of social amnesia that kicks in around 16 such that, some decades later, adults can consent to inflect said aforementioned Hell upon their own children.

II. I had my first tutoring session for the GRE. I have a lot of work to do to get to the score I want.

III. I am doing my first day of volunteering at the Texas Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic. In these first few sessions I have to get the hang of the system and process: after that I am eligible to do a voice audition.

IV. I finally finished Gaiman’s Sandman Volume 9: “The Kindly Ones” collection. I’ve really been avoiding this one because of where the story arc was going. Nevertheless Gaiman is very conscious of the story threads that have been introduced in the previous 8 volumes and makes use of characters and insights that you should remember from the very earliest threads.

In this, due to a primeval crime, Dream is hounded by the Eumendies and the domino effects of revenge are explored.

Preludes and Nocturnes remains my favorite, ( thank you Tim ) from my Senior Year Creative Writing class.

V. Lauren has a huge spider bite on her leg. Steroids and Benadryl have been deployed and she’s responding well.

VI. Starting 7th month of dancing!

Friday afternoon I made a visit to my alma mater to participate in a symposium in concert with the School of Business on the status of their MIS curriculum.

First, let me say that I was very impressed with my graduating program’s status. While most MIS programs in this nation are flat to down, UT’s is sharply up. It’s definitely thanks to some hard work by the faculty and administration there. It’s also an effect of the hard work of research staff who now are gladly working with incoming business school students to establish the passion for seeing IT as a business value proposition, versus a mere cost center.

After said event, my girl came to meet me downtown and I thought that it would be a great night to have a proper “date calibre” dinner out. We headed over to Vespaio on South Congress. Vespaio is the grand dame on the S. Congress strip with respect to “fine dining” and we had, as yet, not eaten there since we visited.

The food was quite good: I had a cioppino while my shellfish-allergic girlfriend had a creamy pasta with chicken. This plus two glasses of wine and I would say that the meal was a success. I don’t think it would be too improper to say that the meal for two was over 100 dollars but less than 150, all told.

But…then I realized that meal was a 2 tanks of gas for a great many people.

Bus. Pass.

During SXSW my house-guest, wired up on too much of the highest points of the Web 2.0 society and jet-lag, graciously headed over to Wal-Mart to buy some basics as his luggage had gotten misplaced by American Airlines; one’s pickings are slim, mind you, at 3 in the morning.

Part of the booty that was left behind by said guest was an exemplar of the all in one coffee-making cup. Being a daring sort, I drank it upon his departure.

The first element to note is that this thing is heavy: comaprable to a Slim Fast can in density. You might be needing a trip to the ER were this thing to fall an your foot.

Speaking of slim fast, the preserved coffee herein tastes reminiscent of the “low fat shake” icon.

The real magic ( or science ) of the device is that by puncturing some liquid bladder on the bottom ( I can feel your desire growing here ) you begin an exothermic chemical reaction that warms your slim-fast coffee right up. I admit it, I drank it, and it was about as good as the stuff in my office break-room.

But what really struck me is that the thing was still tarsal-damagingly heavy after consumption of the liquid payload. I have checked out their site which re-assures me that our reaction only produces natural bi-products [sic].

I just hope everyone drinking these is putting them in the recycling bins.

I found a dissection of a out-of-date can can as well.

I take my final in Trigonometry this afternoon.

I’ve got a rendezvous with Blue Moon Wheat Ale and disc II of Ergo Proxy around 1900 this evening.

We live in a woodsy part of Texas which means that the out-of-doors is warm, humid, grassy, with thick shaded forests where flora can decay and be consumed by insects and whatnot. This creates near legendary swarms of mosiquitoes in the summer, and provides a home to a great many arthropods that break down dead organic matter and help the cycle of life continue.

As such, it’s not entirely unusual for one of these creatures to permeate the illusion of the hermetically-sealed home and lo, there is a bug.

When encountering such a bug a human can ask, “Shall I dispatch this small, yet alive bit of matter, animated by forces unknown or shall I do something else with it like dress it like Carmen Miranda and play showtunes or, perhaps, return it to the great out-of doors.

Oftentimes when coming across a “roly-poly” I will take an extra moment, scoop it up in its defensive ball form and return it to the nearby garden. I wish it well on its way. I hear the great chimes of Lhasa toll for me and the name avalokitesvhara whispers on the wind. Lauren says “That’s very Buddhist of you”.

But last night as I wandered into bathroom I noticed an insufficiently cute Symphylian of some sort scurrying across the floor. In a moment I grabbed a copy of Vanity Fair and with the full fury of 18-th century Johnathan Edwards’ Puritan God, struck out at that interloper, tossing a brick through the delicate gossamer web that suspends the lives of all sinners and arthropods over a firey Hell.

Although I feel bad that as I turned him to a shade the last thing he saw was the forced, painfully-cool smirk of Shia LaBoeuf. The perfume girl ad on the back was much more pleasant.

What? How am I now paying 17% more on my monthly note? Surely those dancing cowboy ad people wouldn’t have oversold me on my dreams by making cheap money possible today all the while plotting that I would have to owe dramatically but years later?

I mean, all reputable lenders use cheap gimmicky ads to draw you to a responsible lending institution that will help you chart a financially prudent course to home-ownership.

In the meantime I pay rent, until…

I was discussing this post from yesterday with Lauren and Kerbey Lane ( Eggs, Biscuits & Gravy, you know it’s good for the soul ) and was recalling this particular section.

I think this phrase, quite like no other, is a shibboleth of “I went to a university and got a degree of consequence” . Ironically, it is usually the people who adopted the shibboleth for exactly that reason, who most misuse it, leaving your fry cook’s teeth it ill-repair owing to the induced gnashing.

The discussion went something like this:

Lauren: So you wrote that people use “beg the question” as a shibbloleth of having had “higher education”. Me: Yes. Lauren: But that you know the word “shibboleth” is a shibboleth of that selfsame phenomenon: “I have higher education and am using a word for its shibbolethic power.” Me: Yes, and because the meaning of shibboleth is appropriate to use to describe the phenomenon.

I could be off in my count, but that’s a triple-irony-count discourse score.

She asked if I could count on my readers ( all 4 of you ) to correctly discern the weird subtlety afoot. If you did, you think I’m ridiculously ham-handed. If not, you may still think I’m ham-handed, but you may think that I was making a very inane joke.

Hello there readers, this is just to let you know that my baby and I are making it through these wintry days in central Texas just fine. Saturday night we were over chez League having a charming evening and there was some discussion about sleet, ice, and snow.

With the 4x4 in place, we made it back home, feeling rather ho-hum about the affair.

We re-rendezvous’d with The League and Mrs. League at Alamo Drafthouse South to catch the fantastic Pan’s Labyrinth. As we exited from the 4:30 showing close to 7:00 the winds were strong, the rains icy, and it was generally not fun to be outside.

We headed to the local grocery store and, I kid you not, everything was picked over. I hadn’t seen the shelves so bare since the Safeway strike in California. It looked like the final days before a hurricane’s landfall. We ultimately decided to brave the rain and get a few days’ of provisions from another grocer. Thus we retired on Sunday evening.

Today we’ve not been outside. Well, actually, this evening we did briefly try it but after Lauren slipped on the steps we decided to head back into our 3rd story lair. Our stairs are now a treacherous, icy death-slide to oblivion ( can you sue a property management company for not sanding your stairs? ).

So, we’ve become shut-ins. I spent this fine holiday doing a bit of Guitar Hero II and catching up on some reading. Lauren, because she so loves her electric blanket doesn’t move more than a few feed away from the outlet at all times.

This evening we were to meet up with my mom and sister for dinner but my car’s glass was iced over and the stairs were all slippery; it just didn’t seem like a good idea to be out and about. Every time I check out the Austin Statesman I see another picture of someone spun-out and wrecked.

The last time I saw conditions in Austin like this was in 1998 when I returned from Christmas break in Houston to Austin in an ice storm. It was crazy. I was going up a ramp into a garage, lost traction, and started to go backwards out into the street. It was a scary experience ( everything was fine ) and I don’t care to repeat it. It’s odd that these things seem to be on a decade-long repeat rate.

Let me re-visit one point above, I really enjoyed Pan’s Labyrith, or si usted habla Español: El Laberinto del Fauno. Imagine the stark, violent, menacing world of Amon Goeth from Schindler’s List on a small mill in the Spanish countryside. This blood-thirsty maniac has acquired a new wife who, by a previous marriage, has an adorable daughter who loves fairy tales. This girl, Ofelia by name, envisions a rich fantasy world where she can while away the hellish hours as Stepdad from hell tortures, maims, shoots, and searches for anti-Francoist elements. And what of this fantasy world? It’s impeccably created, beautiful animatronics, characters, tasks and quests, all which help our heroine discover her true identity: a princess that wandered away from the immortal kingdom buried beneath the earth.

It’s a rich tapestry and is altogether a fine film. If it’s showing in your locality I recommend it to you.

It was actually reading back-story on the Spanish Civil war that whiled away many hours today, it’s a large and ill-understood episode.

This evening, after dinner, Lauren and I gave a watch to our friend Jim Dedman’s movie: Pleadings. I must say that my friend, and former editorial reviewer, has written a compelling independent film that had us really not liking some characters, feeling a lot of pathos for others, and interested through to the end.

Tomorrow is my first day back to work since the holiday and my Java class ( which I rather enjoyed, and am excited to put into practice ). I’ll be working from home because there was, just today, a 5-car pile-up right at my exit. I’ll hold out on the VPN until things get a bit warmer.

Tomorrow was also supposed to be my first day of classes at ACC, but due to inclement weather they’ve opted for a no-class day.

Ho ho howdy.

I saw a horrible movie from the 80’s. “Slam Dance”. Terrible.

I saw a very good, albeit intense movie from a few years back, “Mean Creek”. It was a bit like “Stand By Me” but with a body count. I have to give incredibly praise to the adolescent and teen actors in this movie. They all showed skill beyond their years. Particularly impressive was Josh Peck playing a bully with more complexity and depth than such a character is usually given when Our Hero is the smaller picked-on kid.

A lot of great and heavy questions were asked: who has the right to judge, if you could kill your tormentors would you, the bond between brothers…it was all there and very, very real.

I saw some good lighthearted fare as well. My sister and Lauren and I went over to the Alamo and caught the new Will Smith movie. It was, of course, pretty by the numbers. Hard situation, adversity, more adversity, and through pluck and luck and determination it all works out. It’s good for the holidays and I left with a smile.

To be perfectly honest I was feeling a good bit burned out Saturday and seeing a movie like that was precisely what I needed.

Sunday we headed down to the outlets in San Marcos and, having arrived there, I thought we would make a visit to old San Antone for an early dinner. We drove into town and parked near the riverwalk. After a stroll we ate at Rio Rio and then wandered about some more before heading over to the Alamo, the real one, not the movie theater.

I also had the chance to read a bit more of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Having seen “The Hours” I was inspired to pick up the source. It’s very slow going, being proper ‘litra-chuh” and all, but it’s good to do hard things

Hello, thanks for stopping in yet again for the life and times of Steven and his, quite often, wunder-fraulein, Lauren.

The Fourth saw me get up early to make 9 o’clock ( - 40 (+11 5)) yoga class. Afterwards I got some Fourth of July gas when it struck me that no fourth of july is a Fourth of July without Bar-B-Q (to say nothing of being components in two Robert Earl Keen songs).

I headed home and the lady and I headed over to Rudy’s for some lean brisket on whitebread with gallons of iced tea. Rudy’s is so fine, and I do mean so fine.

While we were getting ready to go Lauren mentioned going kayaking on town lake and that sounded like a capital (ho ho ho!) idea. After Rudy’s we wound through Westlake (the more direct route via Barton Springs Road was in closedown preparations in advance of the Austin Symphony extravaganza) to Austin Rowing Dock. The day was rather cool owing to a rainstorm that had passed early in the morning so it was a fine time for heading out.

I had never kayaked before, but it was really good exercise and quite a bit of wet fun. We headed through Town Lake on towards Longhorn Island when suddenly we found ourselves being flanked by one of those energetic Texas thunderclouds. Moments later we were being poured on.

We made the best of it and made for some shore-side cover and tried to get slightly less drenched. As things let up we head back closer to the dock only to encounter another storm. I espied a small dock on the side under which we found shelter.

Moments later the rain let up again and we paddled back to the dock. Slightly waterlogged, we left the boat and drove home. After a shower and a snack we started walking down to Zilker park for the evening’s symphony / fireworks show. We wisely left with our umbrellas in tow; chastened by our morning’s earlier experience we had become.

It took about 30 minutes to walk to the field where we sat and listened to the warm-up music and watched people toss balls about, banter, play cards, and relax. As the show got underway droplets started to fall.

….purple lightning seared the sky

…droplets became more regular

…thunder became more regular

The MCs told us that the event would go off rain or shine and that the rain wouldn’t last long as it passed over. As conditions worsened Lauren decided to scrub. Her hiker’s aversion for ‘open field, lighning, and me’ kicked in and we decided to demonstrate that contrary to the human animals instinct for gregariousness, we are smart enough to get out of the rain.

Umbrellas a-hike we headed soggily up the Barton Spring’s exit adjacent to MoPac back to our apartment.

Back home, a warm shower and a cup of tea set things aright and we went to bed.

You’ll note that we missed the fireworks and the 1812 Symphony + howitzer from Camp Mabry. That was a bit of a drag but sitting in mud with a field full of other lightning rods was not the ideal viewing venue.