Welcome to the iFamily.

Maybe it's a sickness, but it seems every time I work at the recycling site, I bring home a Mac or two.

Just this past weekend we held an e-waste drive at Jackson's Sam's Club. Early on I spotted an old PowerMac, but the case was cracked and its monitor and peripherals were missing. Later, I go inside to the bathroom and come out - and there's a Mac SE sitting in one of the bins.

Our recycling president, Steve, and I were just talking about his switch to Apple's. I told him about the iMac I found last winter, and how it works perfectly well and now takes care of all my financial number-crunching and a few other writing projects. He must've been looking out for me after our discussion, because he pointed me toward the pitched mini-Mac.

Digging through the computer rubble, I found the original keyboard, mouse, and power cord, as well as a Macintosh Quadra 605 and LC II. Someone, it appeared, had cleaned out their closet.





My first thought, of course, was my resurgent eBay activities: these babies might fetch a decent price in some auction, and here I hadn't paid a thing for them.

But then, with no keyboard or monitor, I wondered if they even worked. These two consumer models are super easy to crack open. Just pop two switches in the back and you're in. I saw they were a little dusty, but that's it.





So I loaded the three Macs into my car and headed home. The Mac SE would be the easiest to check - I just plugged it in, switched it on, and *PING!*





We're in business.

The Apple is so spartan it defies description. A few simple programs, like MacPaint and MacWrite (and even a version of MS Word!), and a bare-bones desktop. That's it. One floppy drive. A 9" black and white screen. Luckily I had a few game discs, like Frogger and Ultima II and III, to try out (they work great). This little thing was too cool.





After letting it sit for a while, I also found it came bundled with a fireworks screen saver. It's running as I type.

I assure you folks that I'm not the only crazy one here. Some people (like these guys) take old computers way more seriously than I do. If I can't find a good use for it, why keep it?

And if I have to make up a "good use" for some of these, like a Macquarium, for instance, then so be it.

So the list right now reads an iBook G4, an iMac G3, an iBook G3 clamshell, two Mac SEs (one working, one destined to be the home of my next goldfish), a Quadra 605, and an LC II. Plus a Newton, an iPod, an a custom built blueberry iMac G3 for grandma.

I'm running out of room.

Thankfully eBay can save me some space and earn me a few extra dollars.

I still have to figure out if the Quadra and the LC II work. All I need to do is hook them up to a monitor (thank you, roommate!), plug in the keyboard and mouse I already have, and switch them on. With a bit of luck, they'll give me the same *PING* the lil' SE did.

Off the road again

[This was something I put down the night before heading into Seattle, the night of June 1, on the big trip a few weeks ago. I looked at my Route 66 journal entries from last year for the first time since I wrote them, and it brought a lot of things I had forgotten back.

There are many reasons I took that trip, and only one I took the Seattle trip - which helps its "stickiness" in the brain. Seattle ended up being a blast, of course.]



Sitting in the Motel 6 a year after the trip, it's weird to go back and read the entries - the ones I haven't even read since I wrote them on the Route trek one year ago this week.

This time I'm on another big trip: the Yellowstone/Seattle one, once again carrying me across the country on a grand adventure. Although not as grand as last year's. Preparing for this trip was nothing like getting ready for the Mother Road, and it still doesn't hold the fascination that Route 66 did.

Don't get me wrong: Yellowstone was fantastic. Mount Rainier was the most gorgeous site I've probably ever laid eyes on.

But there was something about that trip last year, wasn't there? Something magical. Something special.

There's not a week, and hardly a day, that goes by when I don't think about the Route. Perhaps that's why it's so popular; how it holds the imagination, how it calls you back to it.

Oh yeah. I've thought about doing it again. Are you kidding?

Except if I went again I would have to bring someone along - to be their guide, show them the ropes, right?

This year has been straight Interstate driving, with a few spurs - route 212 into Yellowstone, route 410 into Rainier National Park - that reminded me of the ol' two-lane highway. Since last year I've found that taking the slow way brings the most enjoyment, and this trip is only affirming that suspicion. Even back home I take M-50 instead of the freeway to get to Toledo. Why not? I'm in no rush, and the little towns along the way are always a treat.

Tomorrow is the first time I'll lay eyes on Seattle, which - thankfully - is no Los Angeles, but will still be a great tour. I've gone from extreme wilderness to a posh urban setting in a few days. Remind you of anything? And like last year, when Santa Monica called like a jewel, Seattle is the cap-off of a long week of driving and restaurant food and sleeping in the car.

That thought never leaves though. The Road Trip as the ultimate experience, especially in this beautiful, giant, weird country of ours. Only in America can you go from Eastern Washington, which reminded me of arid New Mexico, to West Washington - the ultimate in alpine, plush mountain greenery. All within a few hours.

I've already entertained ideas about a New England driving tour, to see all the old Revolution battle sites and historical homes (of Emerson and Thoreau, say), not to mention to see the scenery and the few remaining states I haven't visited. After that, I'll have the four corners of this country covered. I've already thought I could comfortably make a home in any section I've seen so far (maybe not Florida or Georgia, or Texas, or Oklahoma, or North Dakota). The Midwest still calls to my heart, however, and so any immediate moving plans are just an idea.

I'm munching on popcorn and drinking various Big Sky beers, and after visiting Missoula, Spokane, and Tacoma within the span of a day, I'm pretty beat. I guess it's like anything: stuff as much experience and wonder into one day and then attempt to put it down in some coherent form before the pillow helps you forget the sights.

The Route, however, will never lose its potency. The spirit will always be there, on any trip I ever try, along any highway I check out for the first time. Every place has some Route 66 in it - it's only a matter of degrees and miles and weather conditions. It's always there, no matter the gas price.

It follows me, as I followed it for one long week one year ago.

On free time.

I'm always amazed at what Americans do with their free time.

Browsing through the pretty incredible steampunk pictures posted to Wired, I couldn't help but think, "Jesus, this is what people do in their free time?" It's not enough to just be a punk anymore; no, now you can be a cyberpunk, or a splatterpunk, or some mutant variety of gutter punk.

Don't get me wrong - the gadgets were cool. People using modern technology but dressing it up in Victorian-style brass and fixtures is pretty neat, and you have to be skilled to make that kind of...whatever it is.

But that's just it: everyone can be super great at something, even your basic hobbies. Model trains, baseball cards, comic books, tombstone rubbing, hiking, movie posters, magic tricks, overseas travel - we Americans are pretty good at filling our free time.

"What do you do for fun?" is a simple, common question, but the range of answers is positively mind boggling. Thinking about what every American does when they get home, or with their free weekends, is enough to drive the average taxpayer Howard Beale mad.

Discussions about the meaning of life aside, a person could develop a whole other personality - in a whole other world - and never have to see the light of day to function as a human being. Or, more practically, you could spend your free time developing award-winning software. For free. That anyone can use. Just for the hell of it.

Not even I'm immune. After I bought my Apple a year and a half ago, I drank the water and swam neck-deep in the pool of old-school Macs. I've got an old Mac SE, one of the classics, sitting in my closet waiting for me to decide what I want to do about the screen that won't work.

I also drop about $20 a month at the local comic shop, and like (actually enjoy!) selling my - and soon my grandma's - crap on eBay.

When we retire, we're expected to have something ready for us - a hobby - when we stop working. To fill the time. Just 'cause.

And what fills that time often ends up defining a part of who we are.

"Oh, you go on wine tasting tours and have a basement full of bottles resting on their sides? I thought I smelled crushed grapes..."

Shit, someone could make a hobby out of browsing Wikipedia pages all day. Then I found someone had actually developed software to help you track the vast web of information you browse through while reading the encylopedic postings.

Is there no end? One things leads to another...

To think that, right now, someone somewhere is slowing placing a 1920s stamp on his collector's sheet, or watching a heretofore undiscovered bird through her binoculars, or paging through his yellowing pulp fiction novels, or holding a sex toy party with her gal pals - the world is full of so much variety and activity that I'm starting to question my thoughts on the monoculture and Wal-Martization of the world.

People will always find their "own thing" to do in the world, regardless of where they eat or do their shopping (and there are some who make hobbies out of those, too).

While many think we have less and less free time these days, I would argue that we just think there's less time in each day. Between all our activities (and non-activities, like watching the goddamn TV) and hobbies, maybe what we have is "disposable time." If we have some disposable income, we can surely find ways to spend it. Same with time.

And there's plenty out there to do.

Ice cream truck turns left, then right

Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide a grin."

- Frank Moore Colby, "Imaginary Obligations"

---

Today is the perfect day, an 80-degree June wonder, a great afternoon to scribble out the American Dream, brittle and dry after so many years in a senseless war, who comes out to chase the ice cream man, but finds the truck turning right instead of left. It leaves this lonely writer alone to sit and sun and dream of Rocket Pops.

Here in the grass of Ella Sharp Park, the few remaining honeybees in existence buzz in vain for nourishment. Across the softball field, rocket hobbyists and radio-controlled plane operators engage in all-out war - the plane is zooming, whipping up a terrible frenzy in the tranquil bee population. If the rocket guys aren't careful, they could blow that plane out of the sky. Things might come to blows.

A whoosh, and a puff, and a trail of smoke follows the exploded rocket down to the earth. Across the street, families are putt-putting, and downtown is full of the constant roar of motorcycle men and women, leather-clad even in the heat.

I stood at the corner of Blackstone and Michigan Ave. for twenty minutes as the parade of beards and noise and chrome thundered by.

"...a local attorney drove his car across the sidewalk and over the ledge of my entranceway, where he leaned on his horn and tried to knock down the door with his bumper. A visiting poet hurled a garbage can under the wheels of a pssing bus, causing a noise like a bad accident. My upstairs neighbor said it sounded like a Volkswagen being crushed. 'It jolted me right out of bed," he said. "But when I looked out the window all I could see was the bus. I thought the car must have hit it head on and gone underneath. There was an awful dragging sound. I thought people were mashed down there in the wreckage.'"

...and so it goes in Dr. Thompson's amazingly funny "Hell's Angels," just like I'm sure it happens all over this great country...at this exact hour...on a perfect June day.

If only we could engage in our world as often as Mr. Bush engages in the world, we might be a sunnier people.

Like the families that bring their lawn chairs and coolers and watch their daughters battle on the soccer field just across the way.

Soon the smell of cut grass will ride this cool breeze over to me, and the bi-plane circling overhead will land somewhere for lunch. If only that goddamn ice cream truck would stop this way...

...blast! He again avoids me, turning into my own damn apartment complex instead of passing by the sun-drunk field where I sit. He won't get away with this. It's times like this I wish I had a metal Frisbee that I could throw and shatter his teeth like glass.

It didn't have to be this way, Mr. Ice Cream. It would've been the easiest $1.75 you ever made in your life.

The ice cream truck turns left, then right

Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide a grin."

- Frank Moore Colby, "Imaginary Obligations"

---

Today is the perfect day, an 80-degree June wonder, a great afternoon to scribble out the American Dream, brittle and dry after so many years in a senseless war, who comes out to chase the ice cream man, but finds the truck turning right instead of left. It leaves this lonely writer alone to sit and sun and dream of Rocket Pops.

Here in the grass of Ella Sharp Park, the few remaining honeybees in existence buzz in vain for nourishment. Across the softball field, rocket hobbyists and radio-controlled plane operators engage in all-out war - the plane is zooming, whipping up a terrible frenzy in the tranquil bee population. If the rocket guys aren't careful, they could blow that plane out of the sky. Things might come to blows.

A whoosh, and a puff, and a trail of smoke follows the exploded rocket down to the earth. Across the street, families are putt-putting, and downtown is full of the constant roar of motorcycle men and women, leather-clad even in the heat.

I stood at the corner of Blackstone and Michigan Ave. for twenty minutes as the parade of beards and noise and chrome thundered by.

"...a local attorney drove his car across the sidewalk and over the ledge of my entranceway, where he leaned on his horn and tried to knock down the door with his bumper. A visiting poet hurled a garbage can under the wheels of a pssing bus, causing a noise like a bad accident. My upstairs neighbor said it sounded like a Volkswagen being crushed. 'It jolted me right out of bed," he said. "But when I looked out the window all I could see was the bus. I thought the car must have hit it head on and gone underneath. There was an awful dragging sound. I thought people were mashed down there in the wreckage.'"

...and so it goes in Dr. Thompson's amazingly funny "Hell's Angels," just like I'm sure it happens all over this great country...at this exact hour...on a perfect June day.

If only we could engage in our world as often as Mr. Bush engages in the world, we might be a sunnier people.

Like the families that bring their lawn chairs and coolers and watch their daughters battle on the soccer field just across the way.

Soon the smell of cut grass will ride this cool breeze over to me, and the bi-plane circling overhead will land somewhere for lunch. If only that goddamn ice cream truck would stop this way...

...blast! He again avoids me, turning into my own damn apartment complex instead of passing by the sun-drunk field where I sit. He won't get away with this. It's times like this I wish I had a metal Frisbee that I could throw and shatter his teeth like glass.

It didn't have to be this way, Mr. Ice Cream. It would've been the easiest $1.75 you ever made in your life.

Meet you in Missoula

Someone swiped my pen at work today.

It was a marvel of modern engineering: all smooth, blue plastic and expert writing ability. It made me want to sign some important document, like the Declaration, with it. But like all beautiful things doomed to fail, it disappeared from my desk sometime while I was at lunch. The bastards tried replacing it with a common American 1 pen, which - as loyal as I am - doesn't hold a candle to the variety Visa produces.

They've got the wealth, surely, and it shines through in their writing utensils.

Goodbye, dear pen. My words looked better because of you.

[update: it was my boss. She took it on "accident."]



* * * * *



I've been trying all week to come up with some unifying concept to wrap-up my Seattle/Yellowstone/all points west trip last week, but the words fail me.

Beauty I saw, and wonder I discovered, in the valleys of Mt. Rainier and the docks of Seattle. Creates great and small noted my presence in Yellowstone, and my footprints grace the trails of Roosevelt National Park.

But I think the pictures do it the best justice. So go check them out yourself. Maybe someday I'll share my thoughts, but some things - toothpicks, tortured humor, and ten bottles of Moose Drool beer - are mine alone to keep.



* * * * *



I'm thinking of leaving the cruel world of MySpace behind.

After my account was hacked while I was away, I have to admit feeling violated and unnerved. The whole thing shattered my sense of online security (mostly because I've never had any problems until now).

Suzanne thought maybe my password wasn't strong enough, but does coolness count for nothing in today's grim world? Must I develop a forgettable amalgam of dates, addresses, and initials so some creep living in his mother's basement can't send stupid comments to all 300 of my MySpace comrades?

Is there no decency?

It will be a slow transition, I think, because I like to maintain some sort of online presence. My photos and Google maps and rants will still have a place online. But going through my friends list with Katie the other night, and explaining who each person was ("How the heck do you have over 300 friends?" she asked in disbelief) left me with a hollow feeling.

I once had a Blogger account, and I think I'll resurrect that. But maybe I'll keep this MySpace account a shell, just in case some sap who graduated with me eight years ago decides to look me up. It happens, and then we don't talk again. That's MySpace.

That, and I'm finding less and less time to devote to this thing. Like everything else in our fickle culture, New Things last only as long as our attention span. And I hear there's good things coming out of Cupertino that deserve more of my attention.

And frankly, it's only the spare 20 folks or so who regularly talk to me on this thing, anyway. To hell with the rest of you.

I started my MySpace career doing research on bands for the music website I was writing for, and quickly found it a worthy replacement to the ultra-personal LiveJournal and Blogger stuff I was participating in. I've done a decent job of keeping my personal life off the screens of others, and for that I can be proud.

So stay tuned. Big changes are coming.



* * * * *



If you've eaten in one Chinese take-out, you eaten in them all.

That's what I've learned after grabbing dinner for grandma and I a few weeks ago. At the recently-opened China Garden on West Ave., I faced existential terror at the prospect of sitting in another bland, institutionalized Mandarin eatery serving the same neon pink sweet & sour sauce as everyone else.

The place was truly spartan. The only attempts at decoration were soy sauce containers on the tables, and etched glass partitions with bamboo and dragons engaged in constant struggle. Bare walls. Tile floors. Creamy, mauve, hospital-waiting-room decor. It was depressing, and as the cashier handed me a bag of almond chicken and egg rolls, I had nightmare flash of deja vu: this happens in the same way, in the same manner, with the same duck sauce, as every other town in America.

If MSG and bland, battered chicken is your gig, then Chinese places are the last refuge for the hungry and bored. Don't feel like spending the 15-20 minutes it takes to make a decent meal at home? Order the Peking Duck, and hope for the best.

General Tso was a bastard, and his legacy lives on in the same sort of cuisine the Red Chinese have learned to hate, much as the Mexicans almost started a second War with Texas over Taco Bell.

Real Chinese cuisine is a marvel of tradition and ceremony. American Chinese cuisine (it's big in Ireland too, I guess) sticks Moa's people in restaurants whose name can feature a combination of "China," "Garden," "Buffet," "City," "Yen," "Lucky," and "King" (go ahead - make your own business by mixing and matching the words).

You have to travel to a big city to sample any kind of authentic Chinese meal, so in the meantime grandma and I will travel to Yen King, the classiest Chinese joint in town, and enjoy our fried rice and glowing sauce amid steaming bowls of egg drop soup.

Good luck, comrades, and may fortune cookies rain down upon you.

In bed.Someone swiped my pen at work today.

It was a marvel of modern engineering: all smooth, blue plastic and expert writing ability. It made me want to sign some important document, like the Declaration, with it. But like all beautiful things doomed to fail, it disappeared from my desk sometime while I was at lunch. The bastards tried replacing it with a common American 1 pen, which - as loyal as I am - doesn't hold a candle to the variety Visa produces.

They've got the wealth, surely, and it shines through in their writing utensils.

Goodbye, dear pen. My words looked better because of you.

[update: it was my boss. She took it on "accident."]



* * * * *



I've been trying all week to come up with some unifying concept to wrap-up my Seattle/Yellowstone/all points west trip last week, but the words fail me.

Beauty I saw, and wonder I discovered, in the valleys of Mt. Rainier and the docks of Seattle. Creates great and small noted my presence in Yellowstone, and my footprints grace the trails of Roosevelt National Park.

But I think the pictures do it the best justice. So go check them out yourself. Maybe someday I'll share my thoughts, but some things - toothpicks, tortured humor, and ten bottles of Moose Drool beer - are mine alone to keep.



* * * * *



I'm thinking of leaving the cruel world of MySpace behind.

After my account was hacked while I was away, I have to admit feeling violated and unnerved. The whole thing shattered my sense of online security (mostly because I've never had any problems until now).

Suzanne thought maybe my password wasn't strong enough, but does coolness count for nothing in today's grim world? Must I develop a forgettable amalgam of dates, addresses, and initials so some creep living in his mother's basement can't send stupid comments to all 300 of my MySpace comrades?

Is there no decency?

It will be a slow transition, I think, because I like to maintain some sort of online presence. My photos and Google maps and rants will still have a place online. But going through my friends list with Katie the other night, and explaining who each person was ("How the heck do you have over 300 friends?" she asked in disbelief) left me with a hollow feeling.

I once had a Blogger account, and I think I'll resurrect that. But maybe I'll keep this MySpace account a shell, just in case some sap who graduated with me eight years ago decides to look me up. It happens, and then we don't talk again. That's MySpace.

That, and I'm finding less and less time to devote to this thing. Like everything else in our fickle culture, New Things last only as long as our attention span. And I hear there's good things coming out of Cupertino that deserve more of my attention.

And frankly, it's only the spare 20 folks or so who regularly talk to me on this thing, anyway. To hell with the rest of you.

I started my MySpace career doing research on bands for the music website I was writing for, and quickly found it a worthy replacement to the ultra-personal LiveJournal and Blogger stuff I was participating in. I've done a decent job of keeping my personal life off the screens of others, and for that I can be proud.

So stay tuned. Big changes are coming.



* * * * *



If you've eaten in one Chinese take-out, you eaten in them all.

That's what I've learned after grabbing dinner for grandma and I a few weeks ago. At the recently-opened China Garden on West Ave., I faced existential terror at the prospect of sitting in another bland, institutionalized Mandarin eatery serving the same neon pink sweet & sour sauce as everyone else.

The place was truly spartan. The only attempts at decoration were soy sauce containers on the tables, and etched glass partitions with bamboo and dragons engaged in constant struggle. Bare walls. Tile floors. Creamy, mauve, hospital-waiting-room decor. It was depressing, and as the cashier handed me a bag of almond chicken and egg rolls, I had nightmare flash of deja vu: this happens in the same way, in the same manner, with the same duck sauce, as every other town in America.

If MSG and bland, battered chicken is your gig, then Chinese places are the last refuge for the hungry and bored. Don't feel like spending the 15-20 minutes it takes to make a decent meal at home? Order the Peking Duck, and hope for the best.

General Tso was a bastard, and his legacy lives on in the same sort of cuisine the Red Chinese have learned to hate, much as the Mexicans almost started a second War with Texas over Taco Bell.

Real Chinese cuisine is a marvel of tradition and ceremony. American Chinese cuisine (it's big in Ireland too, I guess) sticks Moa's people in restaurants whose name can feature a combination of "China," "Garden," "Buffet," "City," "Yen," "Lucky," and "King" (go ahead - make your own business by mixing and matching the words).

You have to travel to a big city to sample any kind of authentic Chinese meal, so in the meantime grandma and I will travel to Yen King, the classiest Chinese joint in town, and enjoy our fried rice and glowing sauce amid steaming bowls of egg drop soup.

Good luck, comrades, and may fortune cookies rain down upon you.

In bed.

Sleepless in Seattle

I can't say it's been a surprise, but the states of North Dakota and Montana (and Idaho, for that matter) don't believe in the Internet.

So I'm writing a long over-due letter from lovely Seattle, the Jet City.

I'll have pictures and details when I get home, of course - and there will be tons - but just know that I'm safe and alive and having a blast.

Talked to grandma at the Space Needle, and she thought I fell off the face of the earth. My dad? He just said, "get me a t-shirt." So I got him a hat.

Mt. Rainier is the most beautiful sight on Earth. Look it up. Or, better yet, visit it. Turns out it's actually a pretty active volcano. Kind of like Yellowstone.

Ah Yellowstone. Where Hell comes closest to the surface of the Earth, a place of boiling springs and bubbling clay and more buffalo than you can shake a stick at. A walking stick, preferrably.

I miss the easy-goingness of the Route trip, and I forgot how boring the Interstate drive can be. But with sights like Roosevelt National Park and the Montana/Wyoming border keeping me company, I can hardly complain.

Yes, my sight got hacked while I've been gone, which is just as well: my fish Mario died, too ("I did everything you told me to," the roomie says). So sorry for the solicitations. If I wanted money, I'd just ask. Fuck Macy's.

Almost home, and almost out of money, but hanging tight in the Pacific time zone. It's weird to thing all my friends are fast asleep right now.

So, three hours behind, I'll join them.