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And that brings us up to date, again, with nothing

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it’s weird to realize the last time I posted was just before – well, weeks before but time means nothing, never would again – before the world changed all at once (which is going ti be a theme for everything I post today, which is, well, this I guess).

I see my last post before pandemic,  of me playing my then-new gretsch in my friend Chris’ house, shortly before the last xmas that actually felt like xmas.

Since that time, i’ve more or less stopped playing guitar (at least stopped playing nearly enough), sold all my motorcycles (the FXDB and the thruxton), bought a new one (FSLRS low rider softail). I’ve gotten older than I ever shiould have gotten, and then started to fight back with a renewed go at fitness. I’ve quit caring about work, so much so that i’m now having to decide if I can ever get back to being good at something for a living again.

I’ve been though familial upheaval I wasn’t sure all my family would survive, though we did, at least so far; my younger daughter now lives in North Carolina, where she’s doing vastly better, as are we with her there.

And I’ve figured out that my favorite people in the whole world are dogs, and that I don’t really need anything much from here on (see the instagram links to the left, if they still work, for pictures of my dogs, who are so cute they’l; melt your eyes).

It’s been ten years in two years, and yet in effect nothing happened, and everything changed, and very little seems very real anymore.

I should have more to say about it than this, really, but it turns out that I had nothing at all for two years, so, this may take a bit of practice to get out, since writing is now something I do only into slack windows, with people who care way too much about things that do not matter in the least, and who will throw a fit if you use the right words for things and they don’t like the words.

So writing, as someone once said to me, ‘without a net’ isn’t something I know how to do anymore. At least not yet.

Who knows if anyone will ever notice; blogs seem to quaint in 2022.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The world changed

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My god it’s been a long time.

I miss being what you might call a writer or at least a blogger.

I miss days when it mattered.

I miss being creative, and living a life that routinely got me in trouble – I miss the trouble, and the people I used to get into it with. Well, certain people anyway.

It’s been a long fucking pandemic; will any of us ever be the same, when this is objects-closer-than-they-appear in the rear view? Not the over that people are pretending now, the ‘it’s not over at all but we’re too tired of it to know that’ kind of over thats’ whole-cloth nonsense. Will we ever, though, be who we used to be?

I need a martini, but I need it with the people I used to drink martinis with. My dogs are good company and all, but, well, it’s not the same, now, is it? They can’t mix a decent drink, and though they’ll definitely kiss, they also don’t kiss nearly as well as – well, as some other people –  and gin doesn’t cover dog breath.

I need to write something better than this. See if I still can.

Maybe i’ll be back tomorrow. Or maybe in another year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously on…

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So, you can see that it’s been close to six years since a tragic, stupid, pointless death stopped my tragic, stupid, pointless blogging. Sometimes life is a series of small, largely irrelevant disruptions amounting to never getting a goddamn thing done.

Whatever.

Last week I posted something on facebook to the effect that most human progress begins with simply getting frustrraded and fed up. And that’s more or less how I got here, and have a web site and blog again. For quite a few years I tried to get help from Brandon’s family, and from hosting company Digital Ocean, to recover whever was left of his server (and which contained my blog and many of my friend’s blogs.) We never got anywhere with that, after after a while I just began avoiding the whole thing.

Last week, I wanted to find something I’d written, and didn’t have any place to put it, and I just got fed up.

So – does that matter? Does anyone care about a blog anymore? Probably not, but I care, and small achievements matter sometimes more than big ones.

I don’t have everything recovered; images and songs were not all archived with blog backups, and some of the auxiliary blogs (like the one with all my short stories are erotica) will have to get restored separately. NOt everything posted back in the day needs to be out in public anymore, either, so some entries will probably get un-published.

But here we are, anyway. If you happen by here, please comment so I know you’re here. Because while this is just for me, if no one at all is reading, I might as well just be yelling at a wall.

Brandon Dawson – Fallen soldier, lost friend.

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I just now learned – 3 fucking months later – that Brandon Dawson, my friend, my business partner, and the guy who’s provided hosting for me all these years, passed away xmas eve 2013.

I’m crushed. He was the guy I came to for web help, and he never failed me, no matter how rough things got. He was more a family member than just a friend; I’ve helped him out of jams, he’s helped me keep my life afloat emotionally for years, just by providing this space.

I don’t even begin to know how to process this.

Dammit Brandon, what happened? Was it that bad you could even reach out?

The world I’d a poorer place; I’m fucking sorry I didn’t know it.

Roland Pacheco’s blog

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I wanted to give a shout-out to Roland Pacheco, a tattooer, writer and owner of X-Isle Tattoo in Hawi, Big Island, Hawaii.

I’ve met him a couple of times, but have yet to get inked by him (timing problems; I dive a lot when I’m in hawaii so it leaves my windows to get tattooed somewhat problematic).

The thing I specifically wanted to share was some of his brilliant breakdowns of how he designs the polynesian work he does; I’ve never seen anything like it.

Here’s an example of one of his diagrams (click the image to see Roland’s writeup).

 

 

cara_foot

 

 

The details on design elements like use a the fibonachi sequence and meaning of both shape and content is absolutely wonderful.

Roland’s blog is here, and his shop website is here.

This is the best shop I’ve found anywhere on the Big Island. It’s a long way from Kailua-Kona, but it’s worth it.

one without so much ferret

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I’m only posting this because I’m sick of looking at those stupid fucking ferrets.

While I certainly have plenty to talk about, I’m actually way too aggravated – not to mention fatigued – to be all that eloquent.

It’s just been one of those weeks at work. The ones where everything breaks and you get caught holding the bag for crap that’s someone else’s fault. You know the kinda think I mean, you know you do.

In our case, it’s a combination of tool problems, pilot errors, and impossible expectations, coupled with new management and executive personnel who haven’t quite figure out that mean team are the Ghostbusters and Team America and Winston Wolf all rolled into one. Oh, they’re figure it out after a while, but not ’til after they try to manage us for a while (and when I say manage, I mean et in our goddamn way).

Oh, and there’s that choice to double our workload, now, with no resources and no ramp time, and no budget. Thank You Sir, May I Have Another.

But nevermind. I just want those ferrets gone.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out what to have embedded in one of these incredibly cool custom-made shift knobs for my car. I can’t decide if i should take one of my skull rings (one of the ones I like the least), or if I should get a flaming spade from my friend Carlos from Sinners in. Or maybe some kind of pin that says elvis if I can find the right one (I want something in silver script). The guy can also embed stuff like pins or badges or even something like a poker chip or a spade cutout from a playing card.

Too many choices. And I’m open to ideas. I don’t wanna spend a shit-load of money though ’cause I’m already spending too much on crap for this car (it’s that kinda car)

There. Now at least we’re somewhat ferret-free.