A friend of mine lives in California, but he’s not your stereotypical Californian.
This morning we were chatting and he was telling me all about California’s current financial clusterfuck. His summary:
California is the demonstration of unchecked liberal good intentions.
He refers to this article by George Will.
And you would think the folks in Washington might want to pay attention and learn, but you know that won’t happen.
In going to see a concert last night, I had to do something I don’t care to do.
Went to the Scout Bar in San Antonio last night to see the mighty Opeth.
This is the second time I’ve seen them live. I saw them some months ago when they came through Austin doing initial support for their Watershed album. Went with W and K. W is a major Opeth fan; last night was I believe the 7th time he’s seen them live.
The show was great. Opening act was a Norwegian metal band called Enslaved. Never heard of them before. They’re not quite my thing (I’m not that into death metal). But the music had a groove at times and really wasn’t all that bad. I’ve certainly dealt with crappier opening acts. I doubt I’ll go buy their album, again mainly because I’m not that much of a death metal fan, but they weren’t that bad.
Opeth hit the stage for 2 hours of music. The band was tight. Mikael is an interesting front-man to me. He’s calm, but he’s not. He’s witty, but mellow. He plays off the crowd, but knows when to ignore then. He’s peaceful, but yet writes music like this. Just an interesting cat, no doubt. W was commenting on how he believes Mike has some of the best stage raps of any front man.
Set list:
Good set list. Flowed very nicely. Of course, there was bits of teasing and noodling between some songs. During Closure there was an extended jam and they went into some riff which we all recognized but couldn’t place. I think it was a Jimi Hendrix riff, very familiar.
One funny side note. When we were in line to get into the club at the Austin show some months ago, there were a couple of goth-chicks in the line in front of us. We spoke with them, very cool chicks. So who should wind up being in front of us in the line to get into this club? The very same two chicks. 🙂 It was easy to recognize one of them, by her tattoos. Nice girls. I’m sure we’ll run into them again.
Updated: Recounting the evening with the family over breakfast I remembered something.
Smoking. Austin is a “clean-air city” so you can’t smoke in bars and most other public buildings. Apparently San Antonio is not this way. Walked into the club and the smell of cigarette smoke was everywhere. I haven’t smoke a cigarette in about 10 years. That last time I stopped was truly the last time I stopped because since that point cigarettes have been physically revolting to me. While I chose to stop smoking, the fact my body is repulsed by the smell of cigarettes was not a choice and I can’t really explain how that came about. It’s interesting tho that when I’m in a situation like a club seeing a show, my body can put up with it. I couldn’t take many deep breaths last night, but I could deal with it. While I apparently prefer the “cleaner air” of Austin, I also don’t like how it is a mandate. If you don’t want to suck up smoke, don’t go to places where there will be smoking. I grant there will be smoking at a club; if it bothered me so much, I wouldn’t go. W said it best when he smelled the smoke: “Ah, the smell of freedom.”
I had the strangest dream last night. Of course I don’t remember all of it, but I remember a few things.
I was hunting, sorta. I recall being up on something, like a platform or a deck (like a wooden deck you’d have off the back of your house). I think foo.c was there. I know I had my M1A in my hands. Hogs were all around, on the ground below the deck, fair easy to get a shot off. I recall looking through the scope but not being able to see anything… it’d be blurry, or I couldn’t get a bead on a hog. But then when I would get one, I’d pull the trigger and nothing would happen. I’d rack the bolt and a round would eject, new round chamber, pull the trigger again, still nothing. Eject that round. I’d look at the ejected cartridge and the bullet would be all deformed. Like a oozing blob of copper and lead. Very strange. Then I’d try to chamber a round by hand, and I do remember being gentle in releasing the bolt so as not to cause a slam-fire. Then I was able to get a shot off, but I don’t recall if I actually hit anything.
There were certainly other bits and pieces to the dream, but it’s interesting how the brain works and how this is telling of what’s on my mind:
Dreams are always interesting things.
While driving to Houston the other day I heard a commercial on the radio that was going on about “free”.
You know what folks? Nothing is truly free these days. For this, I’m talking “free” as in beer (not as in speech).
JR has an entry covering the state of some gun legislation in Texas, including the concealed carry on campus bills.
He’s right about the need to inform, because I do believe a large reason for the bills not happening was massive amounts of misinformation, just like he points out in his article.
So to begin with that, let me remind folks of what it takes to obtain a CHL in Texas.
And also note that this isn’t just about college students, but the employees of the college as well.
The trailer/teaser for the upcoming documentary, Wreckage of My Past, the Story of Ozzy Osbourne.
I don’t know what to make of Ozzy any more. His time with Black Sabbath was seminal. His early solo work was great and he always found the most amazing guitar players (e.g. Randy Rhodes, Jake E. Lee, Zakk Wylde). Then… there was stuff like the TV show, which was amusing, but also rather sad to watch. Then there are performances like this (sorry, can’t embed it, you’ll have to click to watch).
Obviously Ozzy is still compelling enough for me to care enough to blog about him. In a way I’m wondering if this movie, being done by his son Jack, might show more of John Michael Osbourne and less of Ozzy. I don’t know. I’ll admit I’m curious.
I know it’s been a light posting day. I’ve been buried in code.
I’m an application programmer. I tend to write most of my stuff in Objective-C and C++ (and Objective-C++ and sometimes straight C). Sometimes I do some work in Python. A few other bits of dabbling now and again.
I haven’t looked at serious database work in almost a decade.
But today I needed to consider using SQLite as a solution, so I had to pull out my SQL book and remind myself just how it all worked.
Of course by the end of the day I came to the conclusion that going straight to a relational database wasn’t going to be the best avenue to solve my problem. Instead, I think I’m going to use Core Data. I’ve used it numerous times in the past but didn’t feel it was the right fit for the work at hand (given Apple’s design intent/constraints on Core Data). But the more I thought through things, the more I think it’s going to be the way to go. At least, that’s my thinking right now. Could change tomorrow when I start prototyping.
Yeah, this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to most of you. But I’ve been nose-down in that all day, thus minimal blogging.
I hadn’t read the original essay before, but because of this then this I was directed to this original essay.
I thought about what relevant snippet was worth quoting. Thing is, the whole thing is worth quoting. Hopefully Marko Kloos won’t be too upset by this, especially since I’m giving him proper credit (not this Major Caudill, who didn’t write this) and I’m not Ted Nugent nor writing some commercial book. I’m only doing this so I can add my own thoughts to his. I have quoted his essay in its entirety, just broken up so I can comment/respond:
That rain that came through the area yesterday was brought by a strong cold front. This morning the temperatures were in the low 60’s and maybe even slightly lower out in the country. The skies were mostly cloudy, which helped to keep the early morning sun out of my eyes. Made for a cool but wonderful morning motorcycle ride.
The Texas Hill Country is gorgeous this time of year. Things are still green (not yet scorched by the summer heat and drought), seas of wildflowers in bloom. Rolling hills covered in lush foliage. Sure I could go 70 MPH but why? I’d miss all the beauty out there.
Bike was humming along pretty well. I noticed I was getting about 40 MPG which I am happy with, but I think the bike can do a little better. When I got home I leaned out the pilot mixture screws on both carburetors a quarter turn. We’ll see how that fares. Hopefully I can just tweak it there and don’t need to tear into the carbs to adjust things like the needle shims… much of my throttle is spent in the pilot circuit and I don’t want to lose much power in the needle circuit, so we’ll see what this tweak does. Such is the fun of a carb’ed bike. 🙂
Bottom line: I was just happy to ride. After not being able to ride to/from Houston yesterday, just being able to ride about 100 miles this morning was a welcome thing.
Stuff From Hsoi 