Damn Kerouac

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful dusk falls on North Carolina and I am once again sitting on my back porch with Jack Kerouac. Damn Jack Kerouac, you had it easy in your gifted days. Your distractions are my life and your simplicities are my mind wonders into what I wish my days could be. We both feel the same pain and frustrations yet why would I trade mine for yours for the years that separate us? I stare at a blinking cursor, a turning hourglass. You stared into a blank notebook, an open window.
I have traded simplicity for convenience. Even now a pop up reminds me that new updates are ready to download, but I'm not ready for those updates. I'm ok with the state of things as they are now. How did you give up your wonderings, your freedoms for a home in Florida the days before you died? Even now the light fades, what was the orange glow of the sun setting is now blue like a glass of water against a dark wall. Before I was under a white sheet with the light on overhead. Reading a book with comfort of sleep not far away. Now I am sitting looking through my glass, knowing that soon I will be staring into the woods after a set of headlights has passed and the detail of the forage blackens to nothingness. Lightning Bugs. They are even sleeping as I type. Night has not yet fallen.
Damn damn Jack Kerouac, I can't live to be in the place you were. Why must I hear of your challenges when my own will never apply? What would you do about a page not found when it is the last one that you desperately need. How am I to find my dessert retreat when you never made it to yours? There that’s it!
You never made it to your place either. You worked around the edges in the box that you were in, didn't you? You were still afraid as well. Sure, I will never hop on a train to somewhere in California with a Mexican girl that I just met. I will never work on a migrant farm or beat it with Cassady. But I will be a man of my time. I will muse and I will explore. I will wonder and I will doubt. I will write and I will read. Who will listen to me, Jack Kerouac? Who will read my notes and wish that they were in my simple time?

Change is good...

...but it sure can wack out your grove from time to time. Life has been settling out in many ways over the last few weeks. After the car-jacking, there were a couple of trips, the hoop-la of finding a new car, still trying to keep the house in shape because it's STILL on the market, a weekend retreat with the UU teenagers at church, a major computer crash at home (my fault), there was the visit from my parents for the big 2-9 birthday, one more trip last week to Austin/Houston for play/work and then wrap it all up with my office moving over the weekend and this week. And so here I am, somehow timetraveled from July to (almost) October.

So, each time you look over your shoulder, it's always wise to look ahead again before you hit something. What's on the plate about to be served? This weekend is a trip to Charleston with Katie and her friend Peter from down under. Then pause, take a breath and breathe in October, then another Church retreat for the kids at UUCC, (the elections), a work trip to Chicago and Katie will probably tag along, and few music shows on the calendar, the beach for Thanksgiving, another work trip, and wrap up the year with the holidays and the messes they bring.

Backwards, forwards, where are my feet? They'll be ok. On the ground most of the time, a little shaky at others, they wear different shoes, and contine to carry me to change.

Microsoft in Wonderland

Step thru the rabbit hole to see the most unconforming MS website page I've ever seen. Leave it to the CSS guys to throw something out there that is out of wack. I love CSS, I wish I was better at it. All the same, c..c..c..catch tha wave....

Get political, political, come on and get politicaaaal, let's start the party now...

While searching for another piece of info tonight I found an interesting database online that lets you look up all kinds of goodies about congress: Congress Merge.

For example, as for religious affliation:
Of politicaians who are unspecified or unavailable:
- 12 Senators and 290 Representatives
- 151 Democrats and 151 Republicans

and...

There are 0 muslim senators or representatives in congress.

Can't wait to play with these tools more...

Better than Hallmark

Birthdays aren't all that big of a deal to me anymore, but it's messages like these that make them fun:

My sister Kelly, and my nephew, Harrison left me this message over the weekend. I don't know what kind of voice Harrison was trying to pull off. Pretty funny stuff.

Final Race to Car Selection

Earlier this week I was committed to the Scion xB but a stall in finding a manual, green (technically metallic camouflage), xB model with a factory installed 6-disc changer has thrown me for a loop. There was some misguided hope that they may be able to get one by next friday, but it looks like that is squashed so not I'm back to for-going the 6-disc changer, paying another 300 bones to have the dealership install it, or waiting another 2 weeks. I can't go another 2 weeks without a ride so it's down to the leave it or pay extra for it option.

Then there's the painful option of considering another car. I'm going with my parents (visiting for the weekend) to look at a Mazda Protege5 at CarMax (the Walmart of used car dealerships) this AM. If that doesn't look to appealing, I'll just go belly up with a white flag and decide to get the Scion one way or another.