an ascetic lifestyle of leisure

In more nerdy news I fired up my first nethack game in about 10 years, found a lamp, rubbed it, got a wish, and now my gray dragon scale mail-clad Valkyrie is wandering around with Mjollnir, gauntlets of power, a 72 hp pet dog, and a bad attitude. I mean, FIRST GAME? Come on, I recall nethack was a lot harder than that (e.g. spawning next to a floating eye, hitting it, being paralyzed, and dying of starvation as a result).

Of course having posted this I will probably die the next time I play due to a kitten being polymorphed into a mind flayer.

My lamest nethack death ever was when I killed Medusa, went down a few levels, and my game crashed and corrupted the save file. I asked systems for a backup and they recovered it, but for some reason my character did not have any memory of the maps, and they had all reset, so I just shrugged and my god-like character kept going downstairs and retrieved the amulet fairly trivially. I was confident of a win. On my way back I ascended the stairs to the Medusa level and, of course, she had respawned on the stairs down so I instantly wound up looking at her and dying with no recourse.

Last Sunday we saw Ray Lamontagne in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Holly had never been to her woodbowl although she went with me to the greekbowl which is similar. This time we dropped li'l Shrek off with Laura and Dave and used the Bowl's shuttle from the LA Zoo parking lot. Man, that is the way to go. You don't pay $20 for the privilege of being parked in, you pay $8 for two people's round trip shuttle tickets, and that's IT.

Ray played with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. His music was intensely romantic. He seems like a very shy performer. I don't predict that he'll be crowd-surfing any time soon.

Today I am at work. Tomorrow is my wife's birthday, and I will also be at work, at least for part of the day. The sad part is I'm covering for another guy who is in India -- it's not even my show. Talk about grumpy.

I made my wife cry with laughter three times today.

1) We were lying in bed together and my arm was resting across her face because I was being annoying and stupid. She began blowing on the inside of my elbow and a surprisingly deep, rich tone emerged. I complimented her on her embouchure which made her start cackling and then I said "HEY let's play a song" so she blew on my elbow and I flexed my bicep to play the opening notes of "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik", and then she lost her shit.

2) Journey made a little velociraptor-like noise in her crib and Holly made the same sound so I did too, except I did the velociraptor head fake from Jurassic Park, and then she lost her shit.

3) I took this photo. Shit was lost.

Friday we went to Hermosa Beach on a sadly overcast, chilly day where we nevertheless acquired sunburn. Go figure. Afterwards we repaired to Cafe Boogaloo next to the pier for some surprisingly good New Orleans food, gastropub style. Holly's friends Sue and Katie (Sue is a guy, his first name is Trevor) moved here from North Carolina and now live here on the westside in Redondo, so that's awesome. Plus they are kick-ass dancers and really cool. We spent a while in the pub with them and Claire and Izzy and Claire's friend.

Journey has now officially been naked in a bar. I'm certainly hoping it's the last time that happens.

Saturday we went to mteson and Hannah's July 4th BBQ. Marcelo smoked up a ton of ribs and tri-tip and Hannah made tons of delicious sides, so we stuffed ourselves silly and drank yummy beer and then went home and passed out because it was SO FREAKIN HOT in Burbank. Seriously the Westside was probably twenty degrees cooler. This will probably be the last time we'll see them until after they are married. Go them.

Sunday I went go-karting again and banged myself up a little in the second race after I got into a kart with truly evil handling characteristics. It seemed to have much less grip than the first kart and yet I posted a faster time in it. I guess oversteer really is handy for setting fast lap times, but for the sake of my aging bones I prefer a little more neutrality in my handling. In the first race I kept getting held up by random schmos who would spin out in front of me or take corners ridiculously slowly. Once I got past a clot of cars I had clear track for my last two laps and managed to set the fastest time on the second to last lap with that good kart. I only wish I had more clear laps. I am consistently half a second behind mentalflossboy so there is lots of room for improvement. Sadly the easiest improvement is probably to lose 10 pounds. I'm up to 177 these days. I blame the daughter. She's eating all the time, it makes me hungry!

Took a three hour lunch and went to Ramen California, a new noodle shop that fuses California cuisine and traditional Japanese ramen. Reggiano tofu ramen. Good stuff.

On the way there I saw the weirdest damn traffic accident (?) occur in real time. In my lane about 300 feet ahead I suddenly saw the tail end of a white car spin out to the left and then the car shot rightwards across the highway, up a 30 degree dirt embankment, spin to its left, and get back down onto the freeway in the slow lane, all without ever stopping. The driver just ... kept on going after his stuntmanesque death-defying freeway antics.

He must have been on serious Quaaludes because there is no way I would be able to continue driving after that insanity.

It seems like the closer you get to a holiday weekend the crazier the drivers are.

Vanessa visited for a night. She's back in the US after a year in South America (mostly Buenos Aires) bumming around and learning Spanish. She's subsequently going to Santa Barbara, San Francisco, New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas.

I remember when a peripatetic lifestyle was almost possible!

On the other hand these days we get to go to a potluck cookout hosted by Sara and Eric where we gorged on burgers, hot dogs, ice cream, my mac and cheese, potato salad, chips, and babies. We played Boggle and Bananagrams and there was even a game of Risk.

Life is just as sweet now, just different.

I got new tires (Fuzion ZRis again) for the S2000 due to the rock/sidewall destruction incident. Turns out I need new brake pads, and the brakes need adjustment since the left rear brake seems to be lightly scoring the rotor -- which implies I could use new rotors too. Never done a brake job on a car before ... guess it's time to learn.

Someone explained to Holly, who told me, that parenting is relentlessly exhausting and just as you are about to give up in despair, your child levels up and acquires some new ability which totally re-endears him or her to you, and you continue the tedious slog towards sentience despite your earlier pessimism.

Today I was sitting with Journey in the car while Holly was off buying an exercise ball to replace the one I wore a hole through with a chair. (Diagram that sentence.) Recently she (Journey, not Holly) had sort of begun smiling but we weren't sure whether it was random or whether it was caused by external influence. So I leaned over and poked her nose and said "BEEP!" I did it a few more times and suddenly SHE SMILED. I did it a few more times and she SMILED EVERY TIME.

*melt, goosh, joy joy, congeal into a puddle of amazement and love*

This is her life plan as I understand it:
Step 1: Learn how to smile
Step 2: Shake down Daddy for money, the car keys, and permission to date a bisexual tattooed meth freak
Step 3: PROFIT

Went go-karting again on Saturday. Improved my time only slightly. The course was slightly reconfigured to be a little slower, but a coworker improved his time 1.6 seconds and I only improved mine about .3, so obviously I'm still not fast.

We went to a sushi birthday dinner Saturday night where the birthday girl wound up holding Journey basically the entire dinner and crowing "this is my birthday present!" Then we went dancing where people gushed over her. It's a little embarrassing frankly ... sometimes I feel like if I were observing us, I'd be thinking "those jerks are flaunting their cute baby to get attention". Insecure much?

At the dance someone said "Happy Father's Day!" to me and suddenly it dawned on me that a day formerly completely irrelevant to me is now wholly applicable. That was a weird worldview-changing moment. For Father's Day we had brunch with debit and family where Dean was utterly cute. And then we had dinner with my Mom. Both times Journey essentially slept the whole time. Nice.

I put up some more recent pictures on Flickr.

Me to my wife: Barbeque sauce! It's like SYRUP for MEAT!

Went go-karting with coworkers and friends last night.

Verdict: STILL INSANELY FUN.

Results: A dismal sixth place. Ignoring the top two finishers (who have raced a lot and weren't part of our clique), the top four finished only .33 second apart, which is pretty impressive. None of us had raced on this track before, so it was a level playing field. Lots of fun. I got a warning (unfairly, I thought) for ramming someone when in fact they crashed in front of me and I got hit from behind.

Journey slept 7 (!) hours last night.

Two of the India guys are here in the US for a few weeks, so I took Sam and Aditya and a few other coworkers to Versailles for Cuban food. A giant plate of garlicky, oniony pork and rice was just the right cushioning for drinks at Seven Grand. Those guys were super friendly when I was over there, so I'm glad to be able to return the favor, however small.

I got the Fit touched up by a local paint shop because in the two months of ownership idiots have dinged it so severely that the scratches went through the paint itself to the plastic/metal beneath. Unfortunately the paint shop seemed to have introduced a NEW gouge to the front bumper which might account for why they called me and said that they had to spray the bumper, and if that was OK. Of course, during that call they didn't say that the price would go up. And the spray job is pretty crummy. So now I have to go accuse a crummy body shop of crappy workmanship, which can only end in misery.

My dad is in town for a week for my parents' 40th anniversary. They went to the Channel Islands and Solvang (they have simple tastes) and then spent a little time with the baby. Thanks to Chris at Logitech we and the grandparents now have some astoundingly nice webcams and watching the grandparents video conferencing and checking Journey out from 3000 miles away brought me to the edge of tears. Thank you deeply Chris.

So far we've managed to get her to sleep approximately 5 or 6 hours at night via various strategems, which is pretty nice. Unfortunately most people will probably accuse us of being bad parents for letting her sleep in bed with us (even on us) and using a disposable at night for maximum absorbency (so being wet won't wake her up), but screw those people. We're the best-rested parents EVER.

We've taken Journey out to a dance a couple of times now. It is an odd form of ego-gratification to show off your beautiful baby. The cynical part of me wonders whether people really do think Journey is cute, or whether they are just saying that. Whatever, she's adorable. She's also sprouting rapidly. Up to about 7.5 pounds now (up from her low of 6 pounds). And now we have a nice web cam thanks to Chris over at Logitech (thanks Chris!) so feel free to skype me at lordjulius5 if you want to run the risk of seeing me sitting at my desk shirtless.

I heard Angeles Crest was re-opened after a four year closure due to storm washout. So I went for a drive on a gloriously overcast Thursday morning. The massive rush hour clot downtown was balanced out by the fact that I met maybe six cars total on all of Angeles Crest. The road is beautifully twisty without being perilous -- perfect for an S2000.

What wasn't perfect was the rain the day before which washed rocks down off the cliffs. Here is what happens when you see a big rock in the middle of the road and realize that you cannot drive over it because it will slam into your low slung car's undercarriage or, more to the point, front bumper. You try to drive around it but forget the racing principle that you should look at where you want to go, not where you don't want to go.

Thus I drove right over it with a tire. Here is what happens when you drive over a large rock with a tire at 45 mph:



Oh well, I kind of needed new tires anyway. I drove 45-60 mph the whole 80 miles home. LA traffic is sort of hilarious when you drive 20 mph less than everyone else.

We had a quiet three day weekend at home, except for an afternoon at the park. Watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button along with lots of other movies. Unbelievably good movie. I think it would have been good even without the central conceit that he is aging in reverse.

It must be weird being a baby. You don't recognize your hands as part of you, so basically there you are sitting by yourself and suddenly these THINGS come flying at you and bop you in the face and then vanish. And sometimes things just wind up in your mouth so you, well, suck on that. I imagine that their dreams are indistinguishable from reality. And their dreams must be insanely bizarre seeing as they have no referents to what anything actually is. They must dream a lot about breast milk, pooping, and being hot or cold. Come to think of it, I bet a lot of adults dream a lot about that too.

I have been trying to capture amusing facial expressions on the kid lately. When you're at home all the time with a baby, you gotta make your own fun.

In general we seem to have fallen into a routine without really discussing it. Generally I cook and do the first three hours of nightly babysitting; Holly takes Journey for the rest of the night and much of the rest of the time (I'm a slacker dad). I think the next week we will be taking her out a little more to show her off to people.

Tonight I fried some flour-dredged Dover sole in olive oil, then quickly chopped and stir-fried some carrots, celery, green onions, garlic, and broccoli and poured it over whole wheat rotini and topped the pasta off with blue cheese. For improvising, it came out surprisingly well (and all the cooking finished at exactly the same time so none of the food got cold, which is my biggest weakness).

Yes yes, David Cross, blah, blah, I promise it won't be endless entries about Journey. I hate you cwage.

But for now ... JOURNEY.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordjulius/sets/72157618403734407/

5.0, epicenter about 2 miles southeast of where I live.

Strongest earthquake I've felt since Northridge. Holly's parents are here and got treated to a genuine Socal shakeout. There was definitely more than rattling -- I could feel at least one large wave pass underneath us.

I thought I was jaded but I am a little keyed up! Wow.

This is possibly the funniest thing I have seen on the Internet in months.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Truth

The Conservapedia rules state clearly:

1) Everything you post must be true and verifiable. Do not copy from Wikipedia or elsewhere unless it was your original work.
2) Always cite and give credit to your sources, even if in the public domain.
3) Edits/new pages must be family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language.
5) Do not post personal opinion on an encyclopedia entry. Opinions can be posted on Talk:pages or on debate or discussion pages. Advertisements are prohibited.

Well, one out of four isn't bad.

Well, she's a week old now. Fatherhood has been amazing. Motherhood is a lot harder though. Between sleep deprivation, hormones, and uncertainty/guilt Holly has had a rough time. But I'm off work and her parents are here, so that helps a lot. Tonight we had to call in some pros to help with nipple problems -- that is, friends who have been parents for seven months already and had similar issues. Eric and Sarah were totally awesome. Their kid Ethan is monstrously huge. I think when he grows up he might level cities in fits of rage.

Now, as I sit up with a sleeping girl at 12:30 am, my thoughts drift to what she will be like in the future. I guess I should enjoy the present. Everyone tells me she will grow up really fast. Bummer. Turns out I like the tiny big-headed phase.

Some weird things about her: she has hair on her shoulders and fuzz low on her forehead. This is no doubt a remnant of the lanugo. She makes a fast little high pitched noise when breathing in to cry. Her hiccups are ridiculously cute.

My father-in-law's friend Tom also came out with Holly's parents and as usual they spent all their time fixing up my house. This time they installed ceiling fans in all three bedrooms (my house has no AC) and fixed all the exterior lights and some interior wiring. Pretty sweet family I married into!

Someday, a widely read biography will start "Journey Nicole Yang was born in unremarkable circumstances at 10:58 pm on Thursday night, May 7th 2009." That book will go through a dozen e-printings and will reach distant solar systems as part of the colony ships' educational curricula.

Until then, you are stuck with my poorly edited and sleep-deprived entry.

First, her name. Why did we saddle her with such a weight of pop culture jokery? We were trying to come up with an unusual name that wasn't so cliched. Bailey and other "last names as first names" were in the running, as were many others which are now completely unmemorable compared to the majesty of JOURNEY. The name sprang to mind unbidden and I immediately discarded it because of the band. I and Holly actually happen to love the band, so of course it was stupid to name our child that. But the more I thought about it, the more it began to make sense. Holly and I are on a monumental journey both physical and metaphysical. A journey is motion, action, excitement, a destination in mind, a reason for being. It not only connotes travel and learning, it starts with a J and ends with a Y, much like our names. And her initials are JNY, which are a microcosm of her first name (coincidentally).

Should we have a son next, he will NOT be named "Trip".

Secondly she appears defective. She did not emerge from the womb singing Puccini arias, nor was she speaking in Latin, Chinese, and French, nor was she able to use Essence Absorbing Stance on her enemies, nor could she shoot laser beams from her eyes, nor could she drive a race car. Other than that, I guess she's pretty much perfect.

Holly's water actually broke around 2pm Wednesday but it was such an incredibly slow leak that we weren't sure whether it was water breaking. We decided to go to the hospital on Thursday to have her checked out. We packed everything just in case, and lucky we did, because within an hour Holly was hooked to an IV drip of Pitocin. This was not going at all the way we thought it would. Holly wanted to start labor naturally, to get in the hospital jacuzzi to help labor, to take hot showers to help labor, to deliver naturally and not be hooked up to a rat's nest of cables. Well, she was hooked up to a rat's nest of cables, the Pitocin caused extremely strong contractions as was its wont, and she used the code word that said to me she wanted an epidural. (The code word, by the way, was the name of someone we really don't like very much. We're kind of juvenile that way.) The epidural meant she would be confined to bed and would have very limited options for positions to help labor along, since her legs would effectively be numb.

So we were resigned to a pretty dismal birth experience. Journey was not so easily dissuaded from emerging though. Within three hours of the epidural Holly dilated from around 4 cm to 10 cm (fully dilated) and incredibly a small test push proved to us that our baby would have a head of rich black hair. In fact Holly had to not push for half an hour until the OB could get there. And then within about 10 minutes of 3 push sessions Journey slithered out in a giant mess of blood, mucus, and flying umbilical cord.

Well, it wasn't quite that smooth. Her head popped out and Holly had to stop pushing because the cord was wrapped around her neck. (Journey's, not Holly's.) The OB cut the cord but meanwhile I was staring a little slack jawed at a purple, mucus-covered HEAD sticking out from between my WIFE'S LEGS. A HEAD that did not MOVE or CRY. It was SCARY and yet I was GRINNING IN SHOCKED AMAZEMENT. And then the rest of the baby came out in a tornado of blood and still did not cry. Eventually she did begin wailing and turned a little pinker, and all Holly and I could do was gape like yokels winning the grand prize at the state fair. Side note: placentas are utterly alien looking. Hey, a temporary organ! It looks like a gigantic, veiny purple McDonald's hash brown with a fiber optic bundle coming out of it! I may pass out at any second!

Just kidding, I never came close to passing out.

The hospital itself (Little Company of Mary in Torrance) was quite awesome. Our labor and recovery room were one and the same so we did not have to pack up and move. The staff were incredibly nice and knowledgable to the point of being a little scary. (I did get annoyed when the visits proved to come far too often for my taste and without regard for what our needs were at that moment. Baby just got to sleep? Too bad, we need to give her a blood test. We're gonna knock on your door, but we'll just barge right in without a verbal acknowledgement. etc.) The hospital to all appearances was utterly deserted except that we knew at least 10 babies a day were born on that floor.

The first night was hard. Holly could get no sleep due to the need to breastfeed for around 30 minutes every 2 to 3 hours. I was up from 3-5am calming Journey so Holly could sleep a little. The second night was worse, but we managed. I cannot know the depths of Holly's strength and determination to be the best mother ever. She is a real trooper given the initial difficulties of breastfeeding and sleep deprivation and SQUEEZING A BABY OUT. Unbelievable. I love her so much.

I don't know why people are so fixated on birth weight, but okay: six pounds, 14.6 ounces. Length, 19.5 inches.

One last observation. Now that Holly and I are no longer eligible for the Darwin awards, we're free to do immensely stupid things that might get us killed without fear of eternal humiliation! Woo hoo!

Pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordjulius/sets/72157617834925693/

For the last year and a half I've worked on a movie called "They Came From Upstairs" although IMDB seems to indicate it's been renamed to the much more generic "Aliens in the Attic". I wanted to see the project to completion but as of yesterday I am going to be home for a month managing a new project known as UNTITLED BABY. I learned a lot about my job and people on this show. It was my first managerial position and I was told I kicked ass. I never used to be a people person but being a parent and a good employee kind of demands it. Some time in the last fifteen years I went from being a bitter, angry person to a pretty decent guy. I think.

I was reminded of being bitter and angry because two of my closest friends in college came over to the Westside to eat with us at Truxton's, a restaurant we discovered recently that is only a few blocks from our house. Those of you who live in more densely populated cities may laugh, but living in a slice of suburbia in the middle of the city as we do there are limited dining opportunities REALLY close by. Anyway, my best man Pablo drove down from SF to bring his son Christopher (and his wife Angie and Angie's father) to Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo. Debi and Tom and their kid Dean (almost exactly the same age as Christopher) joined us. One thing that I never appreciated about kids is how hilarious they can be. I showed Christopher how to juggle which was a Bad Idea since he immediately began throwing things up in the air speculatively. Dean loves to open doors. You get the idea.

I can't believe I first met Debi and Pablo twenty years ago. That's just ridiculous.

After dinner we all went our separate ways and at home I tried my hand for the first time at staged photography (unless you count a friend I told to go stand in a strong light in his backyard at night. Holly and I thought some late-term pregnancy pictures would be fun, but a real photographer would be expensive. Husbands are cheap.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordjulius/3494644580/in/set-72157617602141500/