the squibix family blog

It was all good, though, because we didn't have to fight our way through crowds, and there was no one in most of the stores we went into (though sadly there were so few people in the Coffee Bean, where Leah wanted to buy a cookie, that the guy sweeping up had to call someone from the back to tell us that there were no vegan cookies to be had). We even got some personal shopping assistance in the Gap, where I was looking at things I might want for my birthday. The only place that was crowded was Barnes and Noble, where I took Leah to show her a great book of Japanese teen fashions I saw there yesterday. I wish more people around here wore stuff like that. That is, I wish they wore stuff like that if they could do it in a fun and lighthearted way, like the folks in the book (most of them anyways) seem to be doing, instead of the horrible pretensious wise that most Americans trying those sorts of fashions tend to display.

Now we're home, and despite that we wanted to be in bed by 9:30 today, are still awake. Leah is training again tomorrow, as she did today; and thus has to be at the store at seven in the morning, as she did this morning. So we'd better get sleeping soon!

We were up on the roof because asides from being clear it was also sunny and warm, nay, hot; the hottest it's been in two weeks, since Valentines Day or so. And like she did Valentines Day Leah had the day off, so we spent all day hanging around and doing nothing: cuddling, eating and lounging around on the roof sunbathing and reading and drinking beer. Actually, only I drank any beer: it was left over from the Superbowl, so you can tell we're big drinkers here. It was a little past its prime, I'm afraid, but still quite potable. We also made some ice tea (it was so hot it practially demanded we do so) which was a little more refined and civilized.

Asides from all that relaxing we also cleaned house some, especially in the bathroom, which really needed it. I would describe some particulars, except that I don't particularly want to relive them at this moment. But be assured, dear reader, that you would find them amusing were I to recount them. Aaron also had the day off, and whether we inspired him with our cleaning or he had the same idea himself, he cleaned up his and Kimberly's room something fierce, and in fact put us to shame. Ours is more an on-going project, you know. The only problem with this parallel cleaning effort was, he tied up the washing machine all day with his massive pile of laundry (which was all Kimberly's, I imagine), so we were barely able to make a dent in our own (all Leah's I can assure you). On-going, on-going. But it's more relaxing that way.

We decided to go south, down the coast to Crystal Cove state park, which is sort of in between Costa Mesa and Laguna Beach. For the latter half of the trip down we took US 1, the Pacific Coast Highway (it runs right by our house so we could have taken it the whole way, but between here and there it's kind of like the Atlantic Rt 1 in southern Maine), and there sure were some interesting vistas. Low flat wetlands backed 20 miles inland by the big old Santa Ana Mountains; expensive developments built in said wetlands with water access for each house, and masts poking up between the tile roofs; oil derricks scattered liberally among the luxery, including one on the grounds of the Hyatt Hotel (at least it looked that way); and all that luxery leavened by not only those derricks but five or six whole oil refineries or power stations, and about ten giant oil drilling platforms visible what looked like about three miles off the beach.

But we left all that when we got to the park. First we went out to look at the ocean from Pelican Point (we saw no pelicans, but I did see a roadrunner up on the bluff above the beach, which I though was pretty neat), and then went down to the beach for a while. Then we got back in the car and went up to the other part of the park, the backcountry part, where we hiked about 4 miles over the hills and through the canyons. Four very hot miles, I assure you, cause not only was the air temperature in the high 80s or even 90s (we passed an electronic bank sign that said it was 93), there was almost no shade the whole way, what with the no trees and all. There was onle little patch of trees down in the bottom of one valley, where a bit of a stream ran through, and I took a picture of them. As far as animals are concerned we saw a whole lot of rabbits, squirrels and lizards, as well as one snake, but no mountain lions or rattlesnakes, both of which we were warned against in the trail map. I can't say I was unhappy about that.

Then to cool off we went back down to the shore and climbed around a couple bluffs of vary curious rocks (more pictures were taken) and in and out of a number of sea caves (it being low tide). Down there we added a small white egret or herron to our list of wildlife, and it suffered us to come quite close indeed without it taking fright, but sadly my camera took that moment to run out of batteries. So we turned for home, stopping only to eat some delicious Thai food on the way.

The only unfortunate bit of the whole experience was, I made a delicious lunch for myself, but then in the hurry of getting everything else to bring I left in on the coffee table in the living room. So I whined and moaned about that for a while when it was time to eat, but Leah kindly gave me half of her burrito that we bought at the co-op on the way out, which was nice of her only it tasted too much like hippies for me. Fortunately we also had some chips along, so I survived. Mothers and other concerned individuals should also note that we were well covered with sunblock, so I didn't get any sunburn at all (despite the raging hot sun) except on my forehead, where all the sunblock washed off while we were on the hike, from the sweat.

So that was our day, and don't you know that we'll sleep better tonight than we did last night.

Now, though, we have flour and sugar and salt, and a reasonable array of spices, and two kinds of rice, and unopened containers of things like soup and peanut butter and pasta, so I feel like if I want to have a little snack or a little dinner the ingredients for something, at least, will be at hand. It makes grocery shopping a little less stressful too, cause I know that I won't starve if I forget something; but rather, each trip to the store is adding a little bit the bounty which is collecting in the cupboards. Of course, I still need to make special trips before preparing most dishes from actual cookbooks, to get things like coconut milk or mangos, but that is to be expected in even the best-run households.

You know you're all set when you find food you didn't know you had in the back of the cupboard. 'We have applesauce? Good deal!'

In entirely unrelated news, I'm thinking of moving squibix.net to a new host, not coincidentally one that offers mySQL, which would mean I could host this blog on my own site instead of being beholden to EVula. I don't have anything against him, sure, and rather appreciate his kind services; but it sure would be easier to make changes to the blog templates--especially the stylesheet--if I could edit them directly instead of through the MT interface. That would also let me add database-y goodness to the rest of the squibix web, starting probably with the poor old words site but extending eventually, hopefully, to the front page itself; saving me a whole lot of work in updating. That's the plan anyways. I've installed mySQL on my own machine here and progressed as far as creating a table of grocery items and prices. (No, I'm not fixated on grocery shopping: that was the first example in the book I have. It does tie this entry together nicely, though, now that I think about it..) What I haven't been able to do is make the database talk nicely to PHP, but that'll come in time, I'm sure. It seems to be a problem with my particular installation here, anyways. So, things to look forward to.

Not the I really mind the state of affairs, but I suppose it isn't really ideal. There are some big things happening out there in the world, after all! So I try and do something about it, but it's harder than I imagined. In Lexington, I could absorb all kinds of news by mistake: the paper open on the breakfast table, the radio on before dinner. Now if I want to be informed I have to make a conscious effort at it! And my time is filled up with other things--my time and set habits, both--so current events barely gets a look in. Things are changing now, though, because I've started to listen to WBUR over the internet; thus getting All Things Considered and Marketplace and things at a time when I'm more likely to be able to listen to them. Also I'm starting to get used to reading The Economist online, though it's still nothing like lying down on the couch with it and reading through from beginning to end. So I'm now upgraded to not completely ignorant, and if present trends continue I'm on track to be as informed as any other average American by the end of next week.

In any case, the number pi (and if I could get some unicode action up in the house here I'd show you something like π) is an irrational number, which means it can't be represented in decimal form: only approximated. And they approximate it as 3.141592... &c &c; so you see why it's celebrated today, which is 3/14 in the American style. (Observant readers will note that neither Pi Day nor its close relative Mole Day can be celebrated in England or, indeed, anywhere else in Europe (I don't think). Just another thing we've got on those dirty Yooropeans.)

Now, as to the question of why pi is so celebrated, we come to a trickier matter. After all, I understand that there are other irrational numbers out there--hordes of them, even--as well as things called 'imaginary numbers,' which sound even more fun! (for numbers, that is: you gotta cut em some slack). And yet pi seems to be folk's favorite. In that movie Contact (warning: hideously irritating Flash intro) it was even said to contain a secret message from the aliens, or at least from some aliens anyways. Maybe that's it. Or maybe math teachers just need something to get excited about.

In any case, I'm aware that I've imparted you this information too late for you to be able to do much with it in the way of celebrating or trying to get off work/school (unless you're in Hawaii or the Aluetian Islands or something), but in case you're curious for next year, I've aquired some tips about how Pi Day is meant to be observed. Ready? Eat pie, and act irrationally. Ha ha, get it? Although I must say I'm quite in favor of both of those suggestions on general principles, so I can't really object. It might be kind of like Lent to a vegetarian though: how will we be able to tell my Pi Day from any other day of the year?!

Oh yeah, and besides Einstein Day and Pi Day today is also Theresa's birthday, so a big shout-out to her: Happy Birthday! She's a math and physics type, so I guess she picked a good date to be born.

And that was, the clouds were just over downtown! Now, that might not sound that impressive if you're thinking of a downtown area like that of Los Angeles proper or even little old Boston, but this is Santa Monica we're talking about. And here were these considerable clouds, rolling in heavily laden with moisture... and disappearing somewhere around seventh street. I went straight from downtown out to Staples, which is just outside of Santa Monica in LA--about 35 blocks from the ocean--and the sky was totally clear overhead. Pretty amazing!

As things cooled off the clouds did a little better on their inland progress, and by a couple hours after sunset they settled in nicely all over town, and all the way down to the ground too. It's fun bring inside a cloud: it reminds me of Ithaca. Visibility is about three blocks, I'd say; two, closer to the shore. Wonderful cool too.

Still no news on the website move--Earthlink is holding on to my domain registration with a grip of iron I guess. Maybe I should give them a call. One thing I know, though, when I have MT on my own server Ima add a little customization feature that'll provide a seperate 'weather' field for each post. If such a thing is possible. Which I think it is.

And one final note: I took Leah to work at one, right? And she's still there. She expects to be until midnight! Poor thing. Good thing I take such good care of her.

What we're doing is, the store got a big shipment from Canada (Lululemon is a Canadian company, and this is their only US location so far), and somebody needs to take everything out of the boxes, count all the items to make sure the invoices are right, reprice everything with price tags more appropriate to US currency, and put on the security tags. All told it takes, oh, thirty seconds to a minute for each garment, and there are about a million... a billion garments to be done. It's kind of fun... for a little bit. But now my back hurts and I'm glad to take a break to write here. I'm glad I don't have to do that sort of thing for a full time job! Poor Chinese factory laborers. On the other hand, I did work on web sites all day, and by 5:00 my arm was dying with pain. The desktop is too high for comfortable long-term mousing, is the problem.

In other news, other people at blog.evula.net had been reporting spam in their blog comments in the past week or so, and today I joined the ranks of the spamees. Four junk comments deleted from two IP addresses, which have been banned. But I'm sure they have more. Pretty irritating. I'll think about what can be done about it if the problem gets worse.

That formulation, of course, is 'clearing to the beaches,' as in 'Low clouds and patchy fog clearing to the beaches by afternoon' or 'Low clouds and dense fog clearing to the beaches by afternoon.' You see the tremendous variation involved. Now, I haven't been here long enough to know if this is a commen occurence, but from the fluency with which the 'to the beaches' phrase is uttered it seems very much like it must be. Furthermore the locution, if not the weather pattern itself, seems to be confined exlcusively to Southern California, at least if Google is anything to go by. Clearly, though, more research is needed into this topic.

And oh yeah, we've had Low clouds and fog clearing to the beaches by afternoon each of the past four days.

As you may recall from an earlier post, I've been using Leah's bike since I got here--which is fine most of the time, like where I want to vistit her at work or bring her something, but which is a little less convenient when we want to bike somewhere together. So I've been meaning to get one of my own, and now I have; though I don't exactly have it yet. But I will soon.

We got it at REI, and the immediate motivation for the trip wasn't the bike (that's never immediate) but the fact that I needed new shoes, since I can barely walk in mine, let alone run. And I got some very nice shoes too, just barely resisting the temptation to buy this year's model of the shoes I've been wearing for the past year or two. But you don't want to hear about shoes! So the bikes at REI were cheaper than the ones at the local bike store here to start with, and they were offering a membership promotion whereby you could get 20% off any purchase for signing up. Since membership is only fifteen dollars we went for it in a second, and ended up saving over a hundred dollars. Only I wanted a 15 inch frame, cause I got sick of 13 inches with my old purple bike, and all the 15 inch bikes had the handlebars too far forwards for me; so I had to get a new thingy to attach the handlebars to the rest of the bike (I'm secure enough in my masculinity to use such non-technical terms, you see) and since they didn't have one in stock we had to order it. So next week sometime. And won't we have some fun then. I'll write more about the bike itself when I actually have it in my hot little hands, and get a chance to take it through its paces.

While I was working, though, my site wasn't. And it's still not. I guess they're celebrating signing me up as a customer by switching all the accounts to new boxes. At least, I assume that's the reason, because if it's just random downtime I'll be less pleased. But in any case, I'm excited about the new things I'll be able to do with the squibix web when it's working, and I was already so excited last night (when I noticed the domain had been transferred) that I stayed up til midnight playing with it. Leah was away at a party (a girls-only affair) so I was bored and lonely anyways.

Alright, that's enough self-indulgant prattle. Only, I'm too tired to think of anything else right now.

And for all the Will Rogers business and 'visit a real movie star's home' hype, the scene was pretty much like you'd expect at any state park anywhere in the country, with suitable adjustments for climate and disgusting overdevelopment of truly marginal canyon land. Which is, when you get down to it, what LA is like all over: it's different from New England, sure, but not cause there's a star on every corner. Far from it! Most of Los Angeles, I'd even venture to say, is less glamorous than an average neighborhood in Bangor Maine. Well... that might be going a bit too far. But still, it I'd say that the folks who read things like that seeing-stars website and come out here with a desire to see nothing but 'movie stuff' are in for a considerable disappointment.

Though, what do I know? Maybe there really are stars all over the place, and I just haven't noticed! After all, I'm probably the least-qualified star-spotter you could find, so the place could be crawling with famous names and I wouldn't even notice! And, now that I think about it, Leah is like best buddies with David Duchovney, and she (and this week I as well) work with Michelle Harrison, star of stage and screen--I mean, star of movie screen and tv screen--so perhaps I'm a bit too hasty in dismissing the allure LA ought to hold to celebrity-seekers. And now I'm qualified to help them in their quest! Available now, for a limited time only: maps to the grounds of Will Roger's old house, and Michelle Harrison's appartment!

See, clocks and calendars and things aren't able to take context into consideration; they need to pick a point to switch from one day to another, a point that applies to everyone, and it doesn't matter what you may be doing at the time. But we as humans need not bow blindly to their fiat in all cases, and this one here presents a prime example. We haven't gone to bed yet; clearly, then, it is not yet tomorrow. 'Wait, Dan!' I hear you saying. 'What does that mean when folks stay up for three days straight?' Besides suggesting that such a thing should never, ever be attempted, I say that we have another, far more obvious marker of the new day than the chiming of the pedantic clock: and that, of course, is the sunrise.

So where does that leave us? It's simple. A new day starts when you wake up from your night's sleep or at sunrise, whichever comes first (one proviso being that if you wake up from your night's sleep and then fail to stay awake past the next sunrise--if, that is, you were sleeping during the nighttime hours--that doesn't count as a new day). With that in mind, I see no moral objection to cheating a little with Moveable Type's dates. Which I will now do.

Now the tunes, on the other hand, are catchy, as per order, and the last few days I've been catching them alot more than I would like. We can't wholly blame Leah for this, though, because since I control the primary means of music-listening in our abode, I usually get to select the day's tunes and make her listen to my noisy squonking non-pop. Which she takes very well, I must say, with nary a complaint. So she's entirely innocent in the pollution of my brain by commercial radio's sugary ditties.

No, the problem (this week anyways) lies in the amount of time I spent at that store, where Leah is in the majority as far as musical tastes are concerned, and where pop music over the store's speakers is the norm. And then, since I was working all those hours listening to pop, I was unable to be home listening to whatever else I usually listen to; and the end result is, fragments of two or three tunes took up permanent residence in my head over the past couple days. What were they, you ask? Well, I prefer not to relive those particular memories (it's dangerous, if nothing else: haven't you ever heard of a relapse?!), but I seem to recall Hilary Duff's song about 'Let the rain fall down' featured prominantly, as did Justin Timberlake's song about breaking up with Britteny. Which I can't think of the title to right now, nor the tune thank goodness.

Yes, a little pop has its place now and then, but my disposition simply can't handle it for exended periods of time. I'm like an aboriginal native as far as pop is concerned, or a newborn baby: all too suceptible due to my lack of exposure to the contagion. But thankfully, pop is unlike smallpox in that the recovery time is swift and nearly complete. Plus, no one ever said smallpox had a good beat, and I'm sure you'd be hard-pressed to dance to it.

The park is in Malibu, just up a little road off PCH that you'd barely notice, because it goes up into a canyon that can't be more than thirty yards wide: so narrow that in a few seconds the canyon walls shut out the view, and the sound, of the highway and you're plunged into a cool tree-shaded canyon that looks like it can't possibly be within 300 miles of Los Angeles. It was amazing to see real trees (city trees are never the same, and even the ones in Will Rogers' were pretty dusty), and even more amazing to be walking up a narrow path besides a burbling brook. It was almost like New Hampshire!

We didn't stay beside the brook long, because we took a side path that brought us up the canyon wall back towards the mouth, and then back the other way still higher, so that after twenty minutes we were looking down at the path we had been on before from who knows how high up (though not far at all in horizontal distance). Up and up it went, and it got hotter and hotter and more an more plagues with flies; but then the trail turned downwards again, and finally back at the canyon floor it deposited us next to a wonderful ruin surrounding a waterfall, or series of waterfalls, at the beginning of the back of the canyon.

The ruins were those of Tropical Terrace, a house built in the 1950s and destroyed in 1982 by fire; but while only a quarter century old the ruins looked like they belonged to a long-lost ancient civilization, with the palm trees and succulants that had been part of the garden overgrowing the stones and contrasting very strangely with the surrounding live oak and eucalyptus. And there were stone structures and statuary and the waterfulls, only smallish trickles really but still wonderfully pleasant and cool and mossy, and rocks to climb on and deep cool shade. Photographs were taken.

Then we left in a hurry, because it had taken us how long to get to the ruins over half the mountains in the Santa Monica range, and now we had to get back in an hour to meet Leah's mother for dinner! Fortunately there was also an easy way to the Tropical Terrace, and taking it back (moving at a good clip) we found back at the parking lot in oh, fifteen minutes.

All the hurry was worth it though, because we got to go out to a very pleasant restaurant in Malibu and eat a great deal of quite delicious food. Too much, indeed, both in quantity and richness, to our poor stomachs accustomed as they are to more spartan fare. It tasted awful good though, so stomachs will just have to lump it. And now it's time for bed, and again I can say: won't we sleep well tonight.

But we had a good time, and neither of us was skipping anything. It was almost painfully hot at noon, at least to our poor frames unacustomed to such things; but the water was quite cold, so as long as we stood knee-deep in it things were just perfect. And we got some good sun so we can make the folks in New England jealous when we come home for a visit.

Then after that I got a new cell phone, so folks can call me again. It sure is exciting!

There's one crew that hangs out onthe Promendade who's goal in life is to show you this little laminated card and ask you which of the vaguely religious questions printed on it you find the most interesting. What happens beyond that I have now idea, because I've neevr suffered them to detain me any further, but that alone is plenty annoying. Especially since most of the folks involved in this project are not what you'd call native speakers of English. Well, I don't know if that makes it more annoying or less. But it is true, in any case. Today I was out on the Promenade for about half an hour and was approached three times, twice by the same guy, and twice when I was sitting down reading a book! That's just not called for. Leah was complaining about the whole thing the other day and I argued they weren't that bad; but now I have to say: yes, yes they are.

So I don't have any idea what they're up to, but just now writing this I had an idea. Maybe, could it be, they're in on a project designed to demonstrate the silly, annoying side of historical American and English missionary efforts in non-English-speaking countries. We've all heard about the horrible evil parts, to great and indeed (in some cases) ahistorical length, but The Poisonwood Bible to one side the ridiculous doesn't get as much of a look in. But when you think about folks trying to expain existential concepts in a language of which they have only the faintest grasp, well, humor and annoyance alike are sure to result.