Archive for the ‘Nonclassified Nonsense’ Category

Lost my pencil. Haven’t really needed it except to keep accounts because I’ve been too busy having fun. I wanted to get a nicer one, but I’m about out of money. Have to change some travelers cheques.

Yesterday was so wonderful. I hadn’t been planning to stay in Assisi more than one night but got talked into it. I’m now on the way to Roma with an American chick, a Mexican guy, and a fellow from Chile.

I got into Assisi when it was dark. The hostel book said to take the bus (didn’t give a line number, just a picture of a bus), so I waited at the bus stop with several other people. A bus came by, but the driver said he wasn’t going to the hostel. You’re going to have to watch out for me, I told God. After many minutes later, another bus drove up. “Ostello della pace?” I asked.

“Si!” he said slowly, smiling. I got on and took a seat. In Italy, you’re supposed to buy tickets for buses ahead of time, but at that time of night no place was open. A couple of Japanese girls stood near the driver, holding money and looking confused. At the next stop, they got off, but the driver motioned for me to come up to the front with him. He said a bunch slowly in Italian, drove a few meters, and then made an unscheduled stop. He pointed straight ahead and then to the right. I nodded and thanked him. I could have kissed him.

But once the bus left, I wasn’t sure where to go. I tried heading straight down the road, but it didn’t have sidewalks and did have a lot of traffic. After a bit, it curved off to the right, but that just appeared to go back down the hill. I turned around and headed back, turning into the open gate of what looked like a huge church complex. No hostel signs, but I walked around the building anyway in partial hope I’d find someone to tell me which direction to go.

I heard someone running behind me. It was one of the Japanese girls. The other one followed close behind. They asked me where I was going. “Oh! The hostel is this way!” they giggled. They led me back to the main road and straight through the curve to a small side road. They’d run couple hundred meters to come find me, but it’s a good thing they did. I never would have found the place by myself, and the hostel closed for the night at 11:30. We walked down a completely dark, narrow, winding road with fireflies blinking on either side. The stars were beautiful, the night was beautiful, and I had two Japanese guardian angels on either side of me to guide my way.

I am amazed by the kindness of strangers. It makes me rethink my whole concept of humanity.

I took a risk and lost. Those of you who’ve played cards with me know I love to bluff and am horrible at it (which explains why you know it). I thought it was a sure bet, but I was wrong. I was positive a train would be leaving the Madrid station sometime after I got there. But there wasn’t. There weren’t any trains leaving until the next morning. Worse yet, the station was closing. And the hostels listed in my book shut their doors at ten. It was approaching midnight.

I must look really helpless when I don’t know what to do because that’s when someone always asks if I need help. This time it was a man leaning against a railing, calmly smoking a cigarette. He didn’t speak much English but communicated enough for me to confirm what the train time board blandly stated and that all the hotels in this area were expensive. Still, I didn’t seem to have much choice. Over to the side I noticed a group of Oriental women (one of their bags appeared to have Chinese or Japanese characters on it) preparing to go…somewhere. Their rucksacks gave me hope, and I determined to follow them–that is until they gathered outside a closed room of lockers and stared inside. Abandoning the group that appeared to be as clueless as I was, I walked over to the nearby hotel, gulping at the four stars on its side.

To get to the door, however, I had to pass through four blokes, one of whom welcomed my approach with open arms, one hand holding a half empty glass. I smiled good naturedly as I walked by shaking my head. The three other blokes laughed at him.

The doorman at the hotel spoke English, something I desperately needed to hear, even though what he was saying was the hotel was full. He kindly gave me directions on the metro to the center of town, where he assured me I would be able to find a hostel or pension willing to put me up for the night.

To get to the metro, I had to pass through the gauntlet of guys again. The tall, built, good-looking one in nice clothes opened his arms again, evidently willing to give me another chance. But they let me pass by once more, laughing as my bloke shouted, “Where are you going? “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”” in an inebriated voiced after me.

The truth was I didn’t know where I was going at all. But the Oriental chicks were descending on the escalator ahead of me, and that gave me hope. Safety in numbers, and if we were all headed the same direction, it must be all right.

I began to wonder about that when the metro pulled up, one car full of ecstatic young people. I elected to get on a less crowded car with the group of Oriental girls. At the next stop, however, we were inundated with celebrating youths. I turned to the man in a suit the next seat over and asked, “Football?” He seemed to roll his eyes and nodded, answering me in Spanish. I nodded even though I didn’t understand a word.

A young man with curly hair and the thinnest line of a vertical goatee plopped down between us. He seemed less manic than the rest, who by now were rocking the whole car by jumping up and down, singing. I decided to ask him where the stop I was to get off at was. “Donde?” I asked, showing him what the doorman had written down for me. Fortunately, he spoke English, a rare occurrence in Spain. He informed me that one of the soccer teams in Madrid had just beaten Italy.

“You picked the worst time to come to Madrid,” he said.

“It’s like the Super Bowl,” his friend, a built guy with short hair added, shouting over the noise of everyone else on board. Some of the others, waving purple and white scarves, taunted Curly and his friend. They explained, “There are two teams in Madrid; we like the other one.” The others handed Short Hair a two litre of Orange Fanta, which he offered me. I declined. Curly invited me to join them in their celebration party, but I said I needed to find a place to stay. “You could stay with me–I have a flat,” offered Short Hair, “No, really, it would be no problem…” I told them I wouldn’t feel completely comfortable with that. They laughed. Then the whole group got off at the next stop. “Two more!” they shouted, “Two more stops!”

But the Oriental girls got off at the next station. I figured I could always spend another buck and get back on the metro, but for now I’d follow them. “Are you looking for a hostel?” one asked, turning around on the escalator up. “We missed our train. You come with us?”

The one that seemed to be the leader studied a metro map and then led the way onto another metro line. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I asked, but they were. Soon we were on another escalator. A bunch of young people were descending on the other side shouting and waving their scarves at us. “Madrid!” I shouted back at them. They shouted back something in suspicious tones of voices.

Then we were out on the street walking uphill. Cars all around honked their horns happily. The girls came to a certain door and started ringing the buzzer. After ringing for perhaps a minute, someone answered on the intercom. “Do you have any vacancy?” the leaders shouted into the speaker. The door opened, and we started climbing a center flight of stairs.

A young woman met us at a door several fights up and retreated as we advanced in on her. Then an older man with a bald head and potbelly came in. The girls started all talking at once, “Remember me?” “Do you have room?” “There are six of us. Seven of us!” The proprietor and his daughter didn’t seem to speak any English, the Oriental girls spoke limited English and no Spanish, and I stood there trying to figure out if they had room or not. The girls even offered to let me room with them.

But they didn’t need to. The daughter led me to a single room and gave me a towel. “Two thousand,” she said –about fifteen dollars. I gladly handed it over.

“You okay?” several of the Oriental girls asked me as they prepared for bed.

Yeah, I was okay. Just amazed.

Neither Dad nor my brother looked up as I carried the blender in its box from the kitchen, through the den, where each was busy reading or scribbling notes, and back into the computer room.

How excited do you get about a blender?

Dad and Ben didn’t even notice the pretty, white box capped with yellow at each end and awash with piles of perfect fruit on chipped ice, except, of course, where a picture of the blender itself leans stylishly to one side, as if to catch your attention in case it should lean too far and need catching itself. Pale yellow and green frozen drinks are propped in the background, topped with thin slivers of fruit and mint leaves, as if to provide a foreshadowing of good things to come.

As if we’ll use it to make anything other than protein shakes or vegetable gravy.

In the upper left-hand corner of the picture, on a jagged field of royal blue, the box insists, “NEW! REVOLUTIONARY POWER BLEND (trademark) BLADE.” Looking at the picture, I’m not sure how “NEW!” this “REVOLUTIONARY” “BLADE” is. It looks exactly like the blade in my mom’s old Oster. That blender served us well for 20 years or more, gracing our kitchen with its warm, harvest gold tones, its multiple speeds you had to punch up in sequence, from CHOP to FRAPPE, exuding a sense of choice and freedom, options galore, even though we never used more than those two.

Dad just came in to talk to me for a minute and went back out, never noticing the blender box sitting on the chair next to me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have the side with the “12 Speed with Glass Jar!” bright green sticker facing him.

When our old Oster was finally retired, my mom purchased a cheap and far inferior replacement with a dubious brand name. It only had three speeds–fast, slow, and off. The center hole lid got lost, and the larger plastic lid started cracking after not too long. Eventually, the jar part (I guess that’s what you’d call it, looking at this box here) cracked as well, and that’s no good at all. My mother went down and bought replacements for the amount she could have spent on a good new blender. The replacement parts aren’t much better. No one can unscrew the blade off of the jar, but it leaks anyway. I dunno. The thought of mayonnaise or Slimfast in the gears doesn’t warm my heart.

Stephanie and Nathan to the rescue. Since my sister and her new husband got several blenders for their wedding, they thought they’d give one to Mom. And so this new Oster (registered trademark) BLENDER sits unopened in its box beside me, oozing excitement, much like our leaky blender oozes milkshakes. At least, that’s what the marketing people in charge of designing the box set out to do, if not make the potential excitement of owning your very own “VERSATILE BLENDER WITH A REVOLUTIONARY ICE CRUSHING BLADE” jump right out at you. Hmm… maybe it was REVOLUTIONARY back in the seventies, but the picture doesn’t look much different than our old Oster
did. It says “Osterizer” on the front, the harvest gold has been replaced by a sterile, but professional, white, and the buttons have different names. CHOP is still there, though in the middle instead of at the end, but I don’t see FRAPPE. That’s okay. I never knew what it meant anyway.

It’s got an “ALL METAL DRIVE” according to a metallic graphic overlapping the picture of the blender. I guess that’s comforting. I’ve never been the mechanical sort.

My brother just came in here and, finally noticing the blender box, demanded in puzzlement, “Why do you have the blender in here?” Ben has always been the observant type. He informed me it is a good thing the drive is “ALL METAL” because it might break if it were plastic.

Oh, if I turn the box, the jagged blue field stretches around the corner to display a cryptic diagram with a possible key, “Ice crushing power in an instant!” Then there’s a paragraph underneath assuring me this is

“Everything You Need In a Blender”

“Designed for performance and versatility, the 12 Speed Osterizer (registered trademark) Power Blend makes everything from chopping to juicing fast and easy. The ice crush power feature plus the revolutionary stainless
steel Power Blend (trademark) blade are designed to crush ice more completely for the smoothest frozen drinks in an instant. Twelve continuous speeds with pulse action on every speed give you precise blending control.
And your Osterizer’s (registered trademark) exclusive All-Metal Drive (trademark) system simply won’t wear out. Osterizer (registered trademark)–America’s first choice in blenders for over 60 years.”

So maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was REVOLUTIONARY in the thirties.

The rest of this box side is, no doubt, extolling the virtues of this most superior machine in Spanish before getting lost in an avalanche of grapes and peaches. The next side of the box is a rerun of the opposite side, even down to the mint leaves.

Ah, last side, and, we’re in luck, it’s all in English this time. “The Cutting Edge of Blender Technology.” Oh ho! How witty! Hmm… the rest of it seems to be repeating itself. Oh, there is a one year limited warranty. What does that mean? It covers the “ALL METAL DRIVE” but not the glass jar?

I bet the glass breaks in a week.

I just got back from the Stones’, where I went over songs with Shawn. Justin managed to come away with a bag full of beef ribs, which he and Dennis and Grody and the cats and I just ate, and books on C,_Schrodinger’s Kittens_, and _The Linux Bible, as well as Linux slackware3.2. So I’ve been eating ribs and reading the linux bible. I found it humorous that Shawn, who’s a double E major, and Justin, who’s taking a class on C, didn’t know how to pronounce “Linux.” It’s all in thecompany you keep, I suppose.

“Before you looms one of the most complex and utterly intimidating systems every written. Linux, the free UNIX clone for the personal computer, produced by a mishmash team of UNIX gurus, hackers,and the occasional loon.” –page 9

“Linux is not difficult to install and use. However, as with any implementation of UNIX, there is often some black magic involved to get everything working correctly. We hope that this book will get you on the Linux tour bus and show you how groovy this operating system can be.” –page 14

“Linux is a freely distributable version of UNIX developed primarily by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland…Linux was originally developed as a hobby project by Linus Torvalds.” –page 15

0.01 was made available in 1991

It’s a huge book. Almost 1600 pages. I didn’t get past the introduction.

On the way to Holly’s tonight, we were listening to the soundtrack to That Thing You Do which led to Max telling Dennis he needed to be exposed to Jacob’s Trouble and how the best song is These Thousand Hills which we listened to all across Wyoming and how that was a fun road trip and shouldn’t we do that again sometime?

“Mount Rushmore!” I suggested.

“We can all chip in and allow four days and go, you want to?” said Max, “We could go week after next.”

“Uh, that’s in the middle of camp.”

So I dunno.I think Max is planning on being around for camp, which would be REALLY nice. We can use all the experienced counselors we can get.

Dang, I’ve got that stupid Thing You Do song stuck in my head now. You hear it like four times in the movie.

When we got home tonight, Max said, “I’m going to bed,” but then ran downstairs, ripping his shirt off. He ran back up a minute later, another shirt unbuttoned and sticking his handgun into a holster. He ran out the back door saying, “I’ll be back in a sec.” Dennis went running after him, then ran out the front door, since Max had run around to that side of the house. He came back in a minute. Then Max came back saying something like, “I’m back. Goodnight,” and going downstairs for good.

He heard something as we were coming in. Which is why he stood out in the driveway staring north instead of coming in and snapped, “It’s symbolic, Jonah,” when he wanted me to shut up so he could hear better.