Author: Stagger Lee

The ongoing health issues have now caught both my in-laws, although each of them seems to have a simple surgical resolution, on the face of things. Both at once is kind of problematic. My knee is way down the list, although it’s officially official: I need to have my knee scoped to clean up 21 years of neglect. It’ll be a one-day thing, outpatient in the afternoon and fine by morning (theoretically), so it can kind of wait. Meanwhile, the heat hasn’t subsided. Although we did escape to the mountains at the weekend for two days largely away from computing, cell phones, and news and the wider world in general. It was almost worth sleeping on the ground just to truly be away from it all…looks like time to update my list of stuff I’m enjoying.

I don’t know what it is about the hot weather that makes me depressed, but it would explain a lot. I always hated summers growing up, and I think the steady diet of humidity and 90 degrees is probably why. Now I’ve gotten used to California weather, and when the high pressure sticks over the Bay Area, I go completely pear-shaped. And now they’re saying that it’s going to be like this until Friday?

No wonder I love the fog so much. If the next five days weren’t packed to craziness, I would have long since split for Skyline Drive in the evenings and maybe even a trip to the city this weekend once the weather lifts. of course that’s always assuming it does lift…and that awful stretch last June makes me think it might not be over as quickly as they think.

Vandy goes down in extra innings, 4-3, and is out of the tournament without even getting out of regionals. Pretty ignominious finish to an otherwise glorious season – owned the SEC, rode the top of the rankings for months, but couldn’t win a regional playoff at home – against Michigan, of all teams. Sigh. What is it about the Wolverines that gives us so much trouble? (See the opening of Dudley Field in 1922 if you don’t believe me.)

Wednesday night, I piggybacked on an offsite with my wife’s company. I sat in the hotel bar of the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, drinking 15-year-old Laphroaig and watching the fog drift in over the Pacific. (Okay, there wasn’t any drifting in – it was there from the moment I arrived.) I had fish and chips and a free bottle of red wine and vanilla-laced creme brulee for dessert. I got to sit by the firepit outside our door and just unwind and do nothing. It was beautiful. Actually, though, almost as good was the next day, taking a drive up Skyline with the fog barely above the roof of the car. And then I got to work from home for the afternoon…so really, I was only 4 hours away from work, and yet it felt like I got the whole vacation I missed having company here all week through Memorial Day.

And then tonight I got two pints and a curry for half price at the Saint (that plus the wife’s gardenburger added up to a slick 16 bucks) and am now relaxed on the couch watching Coupling, and the new Graham Norton starts tomorrow night, and dammit if I’m not having a great time. It’s like somebody threw a switch. I think it’s the old “mutually-reinforcing traumas” – when you have guests for a week, you need to go to work to get away…but when you’re getting pummelled at work, you need to get away at home. To get relief, I had to get away from both.

So as I play Suggs’ show back from this morning, I’m thinking…I need to start blogging more. However, I need to see what the tradeoff is in the Valley between anonymity and hire-ability. After all, I may not have this gig forever…

50 wins.

Regular-season title.

Tournament champions.

#1 in the rankings.

VANDERBILT COMMODORE BASEBALL

TAKE WHAT YOU CAN – GIVE NOTHING BACK!!

Well, work went a little pear-shaped this week. Can it be a coincidence that this was the week of the mini-heatwave in the South Bay? I doubt it. Anyway, a long weekend (with a possible extra day off next week, time permitting) is just what I need at this point. I’m two theater movies in arrears, I have a Scottish Cup final shown on TV on Tuesday (NO SPOILERS!), there’s a new ep of The Zombie Show (a.k.a. Studio 60…it’s been so long that I don’t care any more, but may as well finish it). Actually it’s sort of unfair, because two new shows have been slotted into that Monday space since they pulled the plug on S60…and both of them have been cancelled. Maybe if they’d put S60 on in place of, say, that dinosaur on Thursday nights, we might have something…

anyway, back to holding down the fort.

…for fear of a jinx. But the last couple of days at work have gone really well since I got back. Sure, it’s been slow, but that was to be expected after the chaos of April and doing two jobs for most of the month. There’s the usual stuff to deal with, but it’s been less irritating than previously – and certainly less so than my first week back doing just my work.

Apparently, the Myers-Briggs that I took confirmed just what I expected: INTP. Severe INTP. I couldn’t be any more of a Cylon if my spinal cord lit up while I was…erm…anyway, suffice it to say that I remain just the sort of employee you’d expect in a state governed by an Austrian robot from the future.

(It doesn’t hurt that the heat finally broke and now it’s cool at night again. This is key. I don’t want to write another string of three-figure checks to PG&E all summer because we had to keep the AC running all the time.)

…let’s go RACIN”!!!!!!

They’re running at Talladega today, the biggest day in sports in Alabama (yes, Iron Bowl, but the track at ‘Dega holds more than Bryant-Denny OR Jordan-Hare, and the fans all agree: hate Gordon). It’s a special race, and it’s a nice thing to have to point to in Alabama. But having to fly that same weekend always makes for a pricey trip…

(Don’t know why this didn’t post on its original date. Suffice it to say the finish was exactly what I expected.)

I’ll tell you how long. When I first got Danny, the girl in the passenger seat was Katie.

Yes, that Katie. 14 years and 205,495 miles ago, she was the third or fourth passenger ever in my new 1993 Saturn SC 2. Dad was first, of course, driving home from the dealership. Who was second? My grandfather, who was still a regular Tuesday-night dinner guest (and who had over 10 years left to live). I was at BSC. I hadn’t even started applying to grad school yet – hell, I didn’t even have a summer job lined up yet.

Time passed.

Danny was named for three basketball players – Majerle and Ainge of the Phoenix Suns and Servick of the Panthers, all of whom combined quick movement with tenacious defense. The aquamarine coupe only had a 4-cylinder engine, but produced 80% of the power that my much-heavier Monte Carlo’s 305-ci V8 did – and with considerably more torque. It was compact, zippy, and got easily twice the mileage of my old ride with MUCH less smoke pouring out the back. It was new, it was fresh, and it was reliable, just asking to be pushed.

So I pushed it.

Danny has been parked by the beach in Pensacola, in a back alley off Bourbon Street and by Fenway Park in Boston. It’s been pulled over on a snowy stretch of the Ohio Turnpike and on the side streets of Arlington, Virginia. It’s taken me through the dark woods in New England, over the George Washington Bridge in New York City, through the suburbs of Chicago, across the Cumberland Gap. It’s carried me through overnight darkness in Kentucky, tornadoes in Kansas, and rush-hour traffic on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. It took me to Vanderbilt, it took me to Washington DC, and eventually, it took me to California. The same car that drove me to Piggly Wiggly in the pre-dawn hours in Warrior, Alabama, drove me back and forth to my office in Silicon Valley.

I’ve eaten Milo’s fries and In N Out burgers in this car. I’ve had Swensen’s drive-thru in Akron, OH, Varsity hot dogs in Atlanta, GA, and Dairy Queen on the outskirts of St. Louis, MO. I’ve bought fudge on the north fork of Long Island, a service plaza on the Indiana Toll Road, and a Stuckey’s in Wyoming. I’ve spilled coffee from Bongo Java in Nashville and Clocktower in Mountain View. It’s played mix tapes, iPods and satellite radio. I’ve sprayed off sand and scraped off snow. I’ve gotten out and walked on the beach on both coasts.

It carried my dad. It carried my wife.

I broke down last fall and picked up a new car, a gray VW Rabbit. It does just fine, for what it does, but it doesn’t feel the same. In less than a week, Danny will be towed off, a donation to the Arthritis Foundation in honor of its first passenger. It leaves behind memories enough for several lifetimes.

Vanderbilt has won its first team national championship – in women’s bowling. OK, it’s no Sugar Bowl or Final Four, but it’s a national title in an NCAA-sanctioned sport, and what the hell, I’m proud. Hopefully some of it will rub off on our baseball players.

Would somebody please remind me that I do not need a new cell phone, a new pair of sneakers or new sunglasses? At all? Thank you.

Work is making me quietly insane – I just sort of hit the perfect storm of covering another person’s job for 3 weeks at the same time as catching a sinus infection (right maxillary sinus, if you must know) and tendonitis (left wrist). It all adds up to one big ache, punctuated with snot and coughing. Not too too money!

That’s about all I have at the moment. Although Celtic is in the Scottish Cup final. That works.