Thwarted Again

Month: February 2012

  • Cricket

    When I was freshly unemployed from Cypress I went to Flatstock at South by Southwest as I am wont to do. It was fun as per usual and I found some things to buy from a studio called Cricket Press. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them but after a while I got my new bedroom put together and decided that they would look good in there. Michael’s had a 70% off sale on framing a couple of weeks ago which is lower than they usually have sales so I had the prints framed.

    I picked them up yesterday after I got home (more on that in a bit) and tonight I hung them up. I think they look pretty good.

    Anyway, about getting home yesterday. It was a gorgeous spring day (February 23rd. You know, spring) and I need to put some miles on the bike so I decided to ride to work. That went fine. The ride home is a bit tougher it being more uphill than down and me having done 25 miles into work and a full day at the office already. So I’m going up the hill towards Kenai on Parmer and traffic is passing me but slowing as the light is red. A Suburban goes by and there’s a teenage girl, probably not more than 15, in the back seat with the window down, both hands on the window, head poking out barking at me. Like bark bark, arf arf barking. They go on past and stop at the light and I pedal by them and she’s still barking at me and then the light turns green and we cross for a third time, girl still barking. It’s been stuck in my head for the last day as it’s definitely the strangest thing to happen to me in a while. I got some mileage out of it on the bookface though so that’s good I guess.

    The prints are here:
    The Rabbits
    The Foxes
    The Cicadas
    Lightning Bugs

  • Winter

    When I walked out of Mighty Fine after lunch today there was water coming from the sky. Just taken on face value this is a strange thing to say because it doesn’t rain here anymore. The other thing it doesn’t do here anymore is Winter so imagine my shock when I walked out into the parking lot and didn’t get wet because the water was bouncing off of me. Truly I am a wizard and my might is awesome and terrible. That and it was sleeting.

    My plans for today were install new license plates, hair cut, Mighty Fine and then down to Houndstooth for coffee and work. The license plates are only half done because I don’t have the technology to install the front holder thing. I guess I’ll take it to the dealer tomorrow afternoon and get them to put it on and finally do the state inspection. Hair cut went as expected. Mighty Fine was crowded with the post-church crowd. Initially I decided to brave the weather and drive into town for my coffee but about three miles down I-35 it really started coming down in earnest and I thought better of subjecting the new car to the aggressive, weather agnostic Texas drivers and came home. By the time I pulled into the driveway there were actual snow flakes mixed in with the sleet.

    It reminds me of the first winter I spent in my house. Cypress had, in typical bizarre fashion, scheduled its Winter Christmas Holiday Solstice party for Valentine’s day at the Driskill Hotel and the weather turned very cold over the course of the day. I went down, had dinner, chatted with the people I saw every day at work and then left to visit my friends Hunter and Cali. I watched them play poker for a little while and then looked out the back window and saw snow. We all reveled in the novelty and had a little miniature snowball fight. Then I realized that I needed to get home before the roads got really bad and the drunks from 6th started filtering up into the suburbs. I got all the way up Parmer, down 1431 and into the neighborhood very slowly but without incident. The street through the neighborhood hadn’t been driven since the snow started so it was just a flat white blanket of snow. I crept down the road and, with the engine idling, touched the brakes, instantly locking the wheels and sliding in slow motion onto the curb of the hated traffic circle. In shame, I drove off and over the two blocks to home. At this point it was after 1:00 in the morning. I stood out on the back porch in the dark watching the snow fall and listening to it whisper. If you don’t get snow regularly it is beautiful and serene. I felt like the only living thing around. The next morning all of the neighborhood kids made the saddest little foot-tall muddy snowmen which melted by the end of the day.

    NOAA says we’ll be back in the 60’s tomorrow and 70’s Tuesday but today is winter.

  • Plans

    I don’t know if I would call myself a planner. Definitely a dreamer, but less confidence on the planner. Sometimes a brain gremlin will escape and I’ll end up with half finished bookshelves in my garage or a computer simulation of a human powered flying machine. I’ve been thinking about trying this planning thing out. All of my friends live in town. I work in town these days too. My commute is 40 minutes on a good day and over an hour on bad days. Each way. I love my house but it is far and I would like for it to be near. So, what if I decided to start saving to buy a house in town? I could figure out how much I needed and put that away over a few years and then move right?

    If it were simple it wouldn’t be me; it wouldn’t have that intrinsic me-ness. Here are the problems.

    • My house is paid off. Not having a house payment is super awesome and it will be sad to have one again.
    • I like the fact that my house is “new”. Plumbing and electric have improved since the the 70’s and anyone who says different is trying to sell you something (a 40 y/o house probably).
    • Stuff in town is expensive. Selling my house wouldn’t buy me an unimproved lot in most of the neighborhoods I like.
    • I like pretty things. I would like a house that is interesting but still functional.
    • I want a garage AND a workshop. This thing where I have to move cars to tinker with stuff is bullshit. My unicorn must also have wings.
    • I also want a house that is efficient in terms of electricity, water and gas use.

    A person who is a planner would figure out the cost of building a reasonably sized house with the necessary features in an acceptable part of “in town”, decide how much house payment was tolerable and from that how much money needed to be saved. Then such a person would determine how much money could be saved balancing quality of life from available dollars and quality of life from spending two whole weeks per year driving to and from work (1.5 hrs * 5 days * 48(ish) weeks = 360hrs = 2.14 weeks).

    I’ve been telling my friends I’m on the five-year plan, but clearly that’s crap because there is no plan. I have, however, obtained the Employee Direct Deposit Enrollment Form to change the amount that goes to savings. I suppose it doesn’t hurt to save one way or the other but I’ve been thinking it would be good to make an actual plan and commit to it. Shows responsibility, maturity, that sort of thing. Alternatively I could put a zip line between the office and home.

    This will at least be an opportunity for me to collect pretty house pictures.