:: Ray's Periodic Rantings ::

:: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 ::

Two steps forward, one step back

Tuesday was a good example of what my ongoing struggle against entropy, and my current push to prepare for Burning Man, are like.

The laminated pieces and the cushions for the big dinette restoration were ready. I hotfooted it out of work at 4PM and fought Wicker Park traffic to get to the laminate guy. I picked up the pieces and they looked great.

I was hot and sweaty, so I ran the AC in my VW Golf. As I neared the upholstery guy to pick up the cushions, I heard a loud "POP" from under the hood, and heard hissing. Right away I knew that something in the AC had blown -- something that will probably be expensive to fix. Bummer.

I picked up the cushions. They look great. My enthusiasm was a bit dimmed as the hissing continued in the store parking lot. At least the newer refrigerant doesn't kill as much ozone as the old stuff used to.

This evening I worked with the computer controller I intend to use to animate the neon for the Burnstream Court sign I am making for my camp. After fussing with it unsuccessfully for a while, I realized that some of the outputs seem to be fried from last year. Ack. Fortunately, there is a second bank of them that still work, but even in hooking these up, I don't seem to be able to make them do what they did last year. Today I will go to the electronics store to pick up some parts that I hope will do the trick. Otherwise, my sign will not be animated this year. We'll see.

I've said it before: Entropy sucks.
:: Ray 12:18 AM [+] ::
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Hunger

There are different kinds of hunger and emptiness. There is a hungry belly, groaning for food. There is a carnal hunger of unfulfilled lust. And then there is a longing for companionship.

I can feed my belly. Lust, well, sex is good, but it isn't everything. It is the companionship that I miss.

A companion that I want to be with, to share a bed with, that I look forward to waking up with; a companion who inspires me when I am running out of steam, who provides clarity when I am overwhelmed with distractions; a companion as excited about the direction of our lives as I am, and with whom I want to raise children...I had a companion like this once. Letting go and moving on has been the most difficult thing I have ever had to do, and I am not finished yet.

In self help programs, it is sometimes taught that we can't fill our own holes with love from other people, but rather we need to learn to love ourselves first. I believe this, wholeheartedly, but it is not an easy thing to do alone, struggling with my own failures and bad habits, even as I accomplish many things.

I am hard on myself sometimes. Tonight is one of those times. I wish she was here.
:: Ray 12:13 AM [+] ::
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Adult Bummer and Church/State redux

I can hear them rehearsing, as I write this. The Air Force Thunderbirds are over the skies of Chicago, preparing for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show. I have gone every year for a long time. Something about loud, fast military planes gets the little kid in me excited (I guess I have that in common with our chickenhawk of a president, only I don't pretend to be a pilot). Anyway I won't be going to the show this year, and I am bummed. I have far too much to get done before I leave for Burning Man, and the adult in me is saying, "get the work done...you'll be having plenty of fun on the playa, soon enough."

It is especially a bummer because this year the Thunderbirds are performing. You see, usually we get the Navy's Blue Angels. Not that they suck or anything -- in fact they are very cool -- but because we see them year after year, it is nice when we get a break and the Thunderbirds perform instead. Plus I like the F-16s that they fly.

But this year, I won't get to see the F-15, the B1, the C-130. I won't get to see the Stealth Fighter or the Apache helicopters. I won't get to hear how inconvenienced a lot of the acts are because our short-sighted mayor closed the airport that used to support the event, Meigs Field. Being an adult sucks sometimes.

Meanwhile, in Alabama, Chief Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has indicated he does not intend to remove a monument to the ten commandments from the state judicial building, which he placed there with donated private funds in 2001, despite an order from a US District Judge to do so (read about it here. What is it with this guy and people like him? In a country whose constitution forbids the government from establishing a religion, why would someone in a position of responsibility like him go ahead and do it anyway?

I have no doubt that the vast majority of Alamabans are God-fearing Christians, and God bless them for it. But that doesn't change the fact that they live in a state that is supposed to be a secular one, designed to protect minorities, not the majority. So where does this guy get the gall to lord his ten commandments -- from a book that a lot of people, myself included, consider to be a wonderful work of fiction -- over everyone else, including those that don't believe?

Give it up, Justice Moore. You can practice your religion all you want at home, but you aren't supposed to take it to work and force it on others.
:: Ray 2:33 PM [+] ::
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More Anxiety and Recent Media Consumption

I got Betty back today. I won't be shopping at the national chain RV service place again. Their prices might be lower, but they run a dysfunctional business with some fairly bitter employees. They did a terrible job of communicating with me about what they were doing, and then they did something differently than what had I asked for, without telling me. In the future I'll be sticking with my neighborhood trailer service place, Erhardt's, in Des Plaines, where the prices might be a bit higher, but they know their stuff and they are happy to explain everything.

The important thing is that I got Betty back, and can now resume getting her ready for the big Burning Man trip. Timewise, I am cutting it fairly close...some pieces being professionally laminated won't be finished until three days before I leave! To resolve the dilemna of the upholstery fabric being on backorder, I chose to temporarily have slipcovers made for the cushions, from $9 worth of yellow IKEA bedsheets. The progress is good, but there is still a lot to do, and my mind almost continually flits from project to project.

Where last year we had 4 Airstreams, this year we will have 13 at Burnstream Court, the trailer park in the suburbs of Black Rock City. It will be a fabulous week. I know my stress level will drop quite a bit when we hit the tollway westbound, and plummet precipitously when I see the dust rising from the playa in the distance...whew! For now, however...ack!

I can be a bit of a curmudgeon about art flicks and "good" Hollywood flicks, and I have to admit I was reluctant about going to see Seabiscuit. Wow, was I surprised! It was really, really good, and I highly recommend it to everyone, with not even a hint of hesitation. By contrast, however, Pirates of the Caribbean sucked. Sure, Depp was amusing as pirate Jack Sparrow, and the effects were decent, but the film never really pulled me in. I know it is a movie based on a ride at Disney World, but frankly, I had more fun on the ride. It didn't help that I kept thinking about how good Master and Commander promises to be, when it is released later this year, unless they really screw it up, which seems unlikely, with Peter Weir directing it.
:: Ray 4:21 PM [+] ::
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Anxiety Level Rising

The national chain RV service place (not my neighborhood one), seems to have screwed up the installation of a new power unit in Betty. Their service people are working on it, and don't know when it will be done. Ack! I ordered custom cushions for the dinette, but the fabric I chose is on backorder. Ack! Two weeks to go, and I still haven't finished the neon sign I am making for my camp. Ack!

Pre-Burning-Man anxiety is rising. There is so much to do! Ack!
:: Ray 3:29 PM [+] ::
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Circus

I'm thinking about running for governor in California. I have the money and I can get enough friends to sign the petition...why not? It would be just like running away and joining the circus, a fun way to spend the autumn after Burning Man! Who cares if I'm not a resident. I wouldn't be surprised if such a sloppily written law didn't even include residency as a requirement. Maybe I'll even submit a stupid fake name to appear on the ballot, like "Joe Ksonyou." Does anyone else want to run with me? Cheap entertainment at the expense of millions who deserve a stable government!
:: Ray 6:10 PM [+] ::
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Go Al and Tron

Today Al Gore gave an excellent speech to Moveon.org at New York University. This paragraph, referring to the Bush Administration, summarizes it very nicely:

"The administration has developed a highly effective propaganda machine to imbed in the public mind mythologies that grow out of the one central doctrine that all of the special interests agree on, which – in its purest form – is that government is very bad and should be done away with as much as possible – except the parts of it that redirect money through big contracts to industries that have won their way into the inner circle."

Full text of speech is at Alternet.

Tron kicked butt, with more great humor than I can describe here (one example, from the narrator, repeatedly, "I wonder what that might represent!"). I think I'll be spending more time at the Neo-Futurarium than I have in recent years. It's good, cheap, yet thoughtful entertainment that isn't TV.
:: Ray 4:17 PM [+] ::
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Playa Prep

I have been in high gear getting ready for Burning Man. Dinette project in Betty is underway, as is the neon sign for Burnstream Court. Other than that, I have experienced the usual ups and downs, with a few more ups lately, among them that my friends Raúl and Carolyn are proud parents, and that my refinancing mortgage was funded -- 30 years at 5.0% -- woohoo!

Tonight, of course, it's Tron.
:: Ray 5:04 PM [+] ::
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Fantastic Voyage

Wednesday night found me at the Neo-Futurarium for a riotously funny reading of the script to Fantastic Voyage. Part of a series of readings taking place this summer, this one-time production was brilliantly, yet minimally staged, with a small cast and no budget, but it was far more entertaining than I remember the film being.

For those of you who don't remember, Fantastic Voyage is about brain surgery performed by a crew in a nuclear submarine specially miniaturized for the purpose and injected into the patient, but the shrinking effect only lasts for one hour, so they have to work fast. Special effects in this production included a technician blowing bubbles and holding up a model of the submarine in front of a drawing on a chalkboard, and audience members spraying silly string at the Raquel Welch character during the infamous antibody attack sequence.

This is the first non-TMLMTBGB performance I have attended at the Neo-Futurists, and I was not disappointed. They included a preview of their reading of Tron, to be performed next week. I'll be there.
:: Ray 5:08 PM [+] ::
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