Category: Uncategorized

This cat is a grumpy complainy old man. We get along well.

Shows we’re going to for the rest of the year, thus far.

Johnny Marr
The Chameleons
Ride
Marc Maron
Front 242

Edit:
add Kevin James Thornton (comedian) in July.

Not bragging. Just stoked.

A couple of weeks ago we took Riley on his first road trip. We went down to Austin. The plan was to spend the night.

He was really good in the car, and overall he did great on the trip. He did not care for the hotel. I guess he could hear everything in the building. It kept him very agitated. While my wife went to an event he and I spent time out by the pool and took an evening walk at St. Edwards University, where everyone wanted to meet him. This dog is a people magnet, and he loves everyone.

We end up coming home late Thursday night, as it was clear the hotel wasn’t going to work for him (or us). The drunken party by the pool didn’t help things.  Lesson learned.

But overall I had a good time. It’s always fun to be on the road with my wife.  We talk and laugh and it’s always so fun. I love being on the road with her, and while traveling with Riley was a new challenge, it went well. Just needs a little fine tuning.

He is me and him on a wildflower trail near our hotel.

Waltz Skateboards did this little challenge on Instagram to combine some heel-side endovers,  monster walks, and a rolling 360 into a line. Since I do all that stuff anyway I decided to participate, on a relatively big board.

My stats for this site reveal that some AI company in China as well as Google lens is likely scraping this site for content.

God, I hate AI.

Lefty, 3/13/24. I love this cat.

Time for another report, this being Thanksgiving and all.

I am thankful for…

1. The fact that there is something rather than nothing
2. My wife
3. Our cat, Lefty
4. Our dog, Riley
5. My family
6. My friends
7. Skateboarding
8. Gaming
9. Reading
10. Libraries
11. People of good heart
12. Our house
13. That I grew up in a house and family where I felt safe and we didn’t a bunch of fucked up problems
14. Our stereo and music collection
15. Our health

Finished reading my 19th novel for the year tonight, Drowning World by Alan Dean Foster.

Pretty classic ADF. Solid story. Interesting. Great pacing.

Deciding what to read next. This will be the first year ever that I actually meet my Goodreads.com Reading Challenge number, which is 20 books for 2023.

As it turns out, in this Alan Dean Foster novel I’m reading now, Drowning World, two aliens races are living side by side on a planet. One race is native to it. They are trying to drive the other race off the planet, and are getting weapons and tech support from a more advanced alien race wishing to keep the Commonwealth from gaining benefits from that planet. The native species attacks their neighbors by surprise.

That’s as far as I got last night, as I read this while watching news of the Israel-Hamas war.

Weird.

I’m going to see how this goes. Using my nice microphone to dictate this post right into my iPhone’s WordPress app.

I finished reading Blood Music, by Greg Bear, last night. Really good science-fiction novel. This is the first one I’ve read in quite a while that didn’t deal with space. It’s about bio technology and nano technology and artificial intelligence and real intelligence with elements of horror. Not going to drop any spoilers here. I’ll just say it’s pretty good.

This was my 18th novel that I’ve read this year. Starting it on a new one tonight.

There is a hidden joke in this post. If you get it, you are a nerd.

This past Sunday afternoon it was only 90 F, and it was a nice day, so I finally got back out to skate. Simple stuff on a big board. I’m rusty, but the bigger problem is that after a summer of no skating due to the infernal heat I’m in bad condition. However, I know that a few sessions and my legs will feel strong again and everything will be fine.  I mean, I’ll still be a little too fat, but it will take a while to correct that.

It felt good to be back on the board. I think I had a certain amount of anxiety about it. I always do when I’ve not skated for a long time. As I skated I could feel the summer isolation depression melting away. This winter I’m going to have to start going to a skatepark at least one evening during the week just to have a lighted place to ride. Not crazy about that, but that’s how it is.

When I watch this clip on full-screen it’s not as horrifying as I thought. The song is Elephant Talk, by King Crimson, from their album Discipline. I like it!

Back on the board from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

Since committing in April to reading at least 5% of a novel every day, I have read 14 science fiction novels. I’m in the middle of number 15 now.

It is very satisfying to know I’ve spent time reading.

Riley turned 1 a couple of days ago. He’s still goofy.