beancounters

Potholegate

Ever since Friday, I've been hoping an op-ed column would determine how much Arnold's pothole press event had cost, or whether the pothole he filled was really dug specially for him prior to the event.

Schwarzenegger strode toward television cameras on Laguna Seca Way to the sounds of the Doobie Brothers' "Taking it to the Streets,'' while flanked by 10 San Jose city road workers wearing Day-Glo vests and work gear.

After speeches by the governor and city officials, a dump truck backed up and unloaded a mound of black asphalt and, as television cameras recorded the moment, Schwarzenegger joined the work crew, taking up a broom and filling the 10-by-15-foot hole, later smoothed over by a massive roller truck.

Somebody who lives on this street said there hadn't been a pothole to begin with, only "a few cracks" that were "unsightly". And he also reported that crews had been in the area for a few days anyway.

So it seems that the crew that was working in the area already found a likely street and dug out the 10-by-15-foot hole (which is bigger than what you could reasonably call a pothole) just to take care of a problem with cracks. If they jumped the gun on that particular street by a few years, hey, who can say. I wish they'd picked my street for the job - there are so many cracks it looks like a roadmap.

As far as the taxpayer expense of the repair, I don't think there's a story here. What galls me is just the fact of all these ham-fisted circus events. He's trying to impress the people, forgetting he first has to impress the media that reports to the people - and he really doesn't. If he put half this much effort into working seriously with the legislature, maybe we wouldn't need this upcoming $100 million special election in November.

What big ears you have

"Padme, I'll be back tonight. Be wearing that little blue number, with the pearls."

"Oh, Ani!"

I'm going to need a course in Naboo civics. She was a queen? An elected queen? Plus a senator? At the age of 15 or so?

No wonder she moped around in Episode III, acting like a kept woman. Career-wise, where can you go after being Queen? But it's a shame she couldn't take a night class or something on Corusant. I mean, I fell in love once too, folks, but I managed to finish college at the same time, that's all I'm sayin'.

Otherwise, I really, really liked Episode III. I had absolutely no problem with the dialog being on the stilted side. All Star Wars movies have that going on; it's one of their defining traits. It's like comic book-speak. It was actually refreshing to hear Obi-Wan and Anakin talk to each other like friends.

And I figured out why Darth Vader doesn't recognize R2D2 or even C-3PO. I think it's because both the droids are standard-looking models. You see R2 units in almost every spaceport and docking hanger. They're like Volkswagens - sure, you used to drive one, but does that mean you'll recognize your old VW?

We took the Girl, in spite of people saying the movie was too dark for kids. She's seen SW1 and 2; she has a sort of sci-fi investment in the series. Plus nerves of sisal. She was all right with the story. We sort of laughed at the places that reminded us of the parody that we have memorized. And you should have seen her on the drive home. "So, that was number three. Will there be a number four?" Oh, youbetcha. So we watched that one last night - she's seen it but wasn't interested before now. Soon she'll be One of Us.

The 'battle' over the purse-strings

Today's recommended reading: The Liberal Order remarks about the "fight" between parents and their children for material possessions.

We shouldn't be surprised that a generation of people, led by a government that is passing on to its children trillions of dollars in debt, is rearing that generation to be impulsive spendthrifts who know no limits. We're doing a pretty poor job of teaching our kids values of temperance and thrift.

My daughter, who is eight, is already asking when she can have a cell phone. Please understand that at no time is she out of the presence of a responsible adult in her whole day (most with their own cell phones strapped to their belts). Yet she claims many of her fellow students own phones, and her time ought to come sooner rather than later.

I have no problem with a cell phone for a teenager, but when the time comes to take on this expense - and others such as a car! - I hope to remember some of the points in this blog post. It's better to draw the children into the household decision-making process, and teach that privileges come with a cost that responsible people always bear. Better this than to set myself up to "battle" her for control over my budget.

Picture yourself

Why I love the internet, # 500,000: Flickr, which I joined in March but never explored in-depth, has a feature that lets you send any picture you want to your own blog, along with comments. And (so far) my agency’s server does not block Flickr – I guess because it’s a commercial site and not a “message board or club”. So until/unless they catch on, it’ll be a back-door method for me to be able to blog at work!

That is, if anything urgent ever happens at work. Did I mention I am a civil servant? Yeah. Okay. Don’t hold your breath on that “urgent” gig.

I’m having a lot of fun this weekend, sending photos and other pics to the account. Of course, I have to exercise the same caution on personal photos as I do on the blog, until/unless I figure out and trust the privacy function.

Why I love the internet, # 500,001: Within minutes of my first Flickr-assisted blog post, Dr. Laura’s Worst Nightmare kindly set me up with a Pro account. Wasn’t that awesome of her? Grace, you rock. Thank you!

A coup d'etat in the makeup regime

At the risk of sounding too superficial, I think it's time I got a real makeover. I have never known how to wear makeup, I have the world's worst haircut, and I don't know what to do about either thing.

But how does one go about acquiring a makeover without fear? It seems logical to simply approach the large make-up aisles in the department store, and strike up a conversation with the young women in lab coats. I do get all the way to the store, within breathing distance of those gleaming white counters, but then I always back away and run to the bookstore instead.

It's like in The Truth About Cats And Dogs. That wasn't much of a movie, but the scenes where Abby reacts to a makeup counter woman are worth the price of a rental.

Okay. The Direct Approach. I think I'll just have to find a female friend to ride shotgun, steel myself with a shot of tequila, and just march in there. Unless you have a better suggestion. Or you want to come along. Please. The tequila will be on me!

On finals and the future

I got my economics final back by mail, and I'm pretty happy with my A-. I thought I'd mention it here, because you deserve to be told, having had to read my non-stop whining for a solid week.

My lowest score was on the health care segment - but I hadn't read that material as thoroughly as others, so it stands to reason. You should see my paper. That section is blue with all his notes! On the other hand, I was happier with the two other segments I wrote, and it shows. My professor seemed to find everything that was supposed to be there.

I'm still waiting for my Budgets paper. I know I got a B+ for the course, so I can guess I got anywhere between an A and a B+ on the final, but that's a broad range when you're in grad school. I'm a little impatient.

The frustrating thing about the Budgets paper is that the subject encompassed events that continue to unfold this spring: Arnold's proposed budget from January, his "May Revise" of that budget, reaction from the Legislature, various analyses, protests by groups who will be feeling the budget cuts, etc. Every day the newspaper points up another facet, and I mentally slap my head. "I wish I'd put that in my final!" I remark over every breakfast. And Bunny silently hands me the comics page, as if to say, Relax and read Marmaduke, Woman. The course is over.

I have my mind on next semester already. Some of my cohort will take three classes instead of two! They are being lured by the fact that the land use course will be given on Saturdays during the second half of the semester. Some people will be able to handle the workload, in addition to their day jobs, but I know I could not, so I will not be signing up for that third class. December in my house is always ultra-programmed, between BB's choir concert(s) and Bunny's school. If I add three finals to the mix, I will simply go mad, and take everybody with me.

Zombie Friday

fukitol,
originally uploaded by beancounter.

I got to bed nice and early last night, for a change, because I think if I keep doing these short nights, I'll go completely psychotic. But at 3 a.m., Bunny woke me up. She had had a nightmare. It took a lot of hugs, a big glass of water, and reading about ten pages of some book called "Charlie Bone" to calm her down and get her back to sleep.

But when I went back to bed, I started to worry too much to sleep!

I want to make a complaint to management. Nobody told me that when I became a mother, I would experience sympathy nightmares. :-)

(This is a test post using Flickr's blog transfer system. Hope it comes through, because then I can blog at work again.)

One or two more Jedi quizzes

:: how jedi are you? ::

Oh who am I kidding? Bring me more Jedi quizzes! Lightsabers and podracers for everyone!

Except ... I didn't like this Star Wars Personality Test - the questions were very inventive, but I wound up as my Arch-Nemesis ...

[both via quiz-a-day]

Reich is gone, but his Orgone lives on

Pops e-mailed me about it first. Asked if it was a neighbor of mine, ha-ha. And I was going to take the high road and not blog it, I really was. Look, it's almost 11 p.m. Look how long I held out! But this story has been internationally blogged about today, so I'm obliged to finally say something.

A home in Sacramento's south Natomas neighborhood is surrounded by sheet metal, and neighbors are calling it an eyesore.

The family lives in the home on Timberwood Court, and claims the aluminium pieces are necessary to protect them from unknown neighbors who have been bombarding them with radio waves and making them sick.

"(It's) a shield to protect against radiation, because microwave radiation is reflected off of aluminium, so it's a protective measure," Sarah said.

Now, I've been to the Natomas area, and I can't say I blame these guys for their concern. Check out this map:

We don' need no stinkin' Norton

Yesterday, my coworker asked me if BB might like to help her get a laptop computer ready for her teenage son to use. She said she tried to install anti-virus software on it, but something kept blocking her path. I told her BB would definitely like to muck about with a dysfunctional computer, and I brought it home.

As I type, BB keeps me apprised of his progress from the other room. It's been too funny. So far, he's found 265 trojans, viruses, worms, and adware programs on this one little computer. Ih-magine! Gee, lady, I think I know what happened now - all that crap banded together and scared the bejeezus out of your anti-virus.

Sacramento: future ocean-front property

Isn't this a comfort? View California's real-time forecast of earthquake hazards.

Will you still love me if I'm only moderately effective?

For years I studiously avoided reading it. Even though my friends raved about it, I stayed away. Even though it became wildly popular, and spawned a franchise of economic proportions that rival many South American countries, I vowed I never would crack open the cover on that book or its many spin-offs.

But now comes next year's public management course reading list. And look what's right smack in the middle.

It's a cult! A cult, I tell you! A cult of work/life balance and spheres of time-managed people! And now they've even claimed the soul of my esteemed budgets (and soon to be public management) professor!

They suck you in, and next thing you know, man, you're into it all ... the Covey dayplanners, the calculators, the posters, the subliminal tapes, the hairdo minders, the kitty organizers ... they'll have you, and there's nothing you can do, because you'll want to belong. That's right! And from there it's just a short step to buying some Dr. Phil underoos, and licking O/prah Book Club novels! I am very worried now.

Give the people what they (don't know they) want (yet)

Conceived of five years ago, Operation Droplift. It was the opposite of shoplifting: people would take this home-burned CD of independent music and drop it into record store bins all over America.

Kind of a mad constructive way to get your name/music out there, but what if the record store charged its customers for the disk and made a 100% profit? Some record stores, I wouldn't mind giving a small windfall like that; others definitely don't deserve that kind of good energy. Still, cool idea.

How to make a blogger's quilt

Okay. Let's try again. Here's what's on my mind.

I'm very interested in starting a whole new blog, just for the summer. I would teach the utter, bare bones, for-dummies basics of patchwork quilting, and write a series of blog posts that are sequential lessons for a small quilt project, like an Amish doll quilt/wall hanging.  No sewing machine experience necessary. Lots of explanatory pictures. A few interesting asides. Lots of e-mail extra help upon request.

The beauty of the blog format is, the weekly lessons would be blog posts, so if anybody took a few weeks off from the project they would not lose their place.

What do you think? Can it be done? Are blog-style craft lessons being done elsewhere and I haven't spotted it yet? Would you consider starting a blogger's commitment-free craft project?

Tomatoes and crafts

Good afternoon. The weather turned California hot with a vengeance this weekend. The tomato plants (yes, the very ones Bunny wouldn't allow to be planted until I was done with school) are in the ground, but not loving life. We'll have to remember to water them faithfully. If the sun doesn't get them, and Daisy doesn't dig them up, and the slugs don't eat them, we might have fruit this summer!

We visited the library this afternoon. In spite Sacramento's very lean library budget, they make it a point to have the main open on Sundays, and boy is it popular. I got a translation of The Art of War(fare), and also Huckleberry Finn, because believe it or not, I never read it before. Idoru will have to wait, because it turns out it's a later book in a series - I have to look for Count Zero to start.

What does it mean when I get very excited to find that the main library has stacks and stacks of city environmental impact reports and county zoning reports? It means this silly school stuff is sinking in, that's what. No, actually, to be fair, I was like this before - now I have an outlet, that's all.

BB is visiting a few friends, so Bunny and I are off to the pool. I have something I want to talk to you about more fully later, but for now maybe you can just ponder this:

Have you ever seen a blog that is designed to teach a craft to its readers on a post-by-post basis? Not an informational blog, with regular updates about a field of study, but discreet, sequential lessons.

If you know of a blog like that, please share the URL with me. I'm thinking of starting one this summer, and I want to see how other people do it, if it's being done at all.

Highlights from the pub

Lu and her husband are sitting next to each other at our little corner table. Lu has two plus more years left to go in this policy program. Her husband has just been accepted into law school, and Lu is thinking about going to law school herself after he is done.

"We won't have sex for four years!" she declares. I happen to be looking at her husband as she says this, so I'm the only one who sees his classic double-take. Then he says, "Maybe you won't!" It's one of those jokes that sounds very trite to read about, but works anew whenever you know the guy making the funny. I snuffle so hard that wine goes up my nose and I have to swipe a bar towel and hold it to my face to keep from making a mess. Bad form.

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The Obligatory Rant about our econ prof is done in 15 minutes, flat. We are getting more efficient. We talk in shorthand now. For example, the phrase "water forum" conjures up a whole series of complicated injustices that no longer need to be articulated in sentences.

Just blew in from Chatanooga

That one book meme is back already, with little travel stickers all over its cardboard suitcase like in a 40's movie. It's Jo what tagged me this time. It goes like this:

Grab the closest book to you. Resist the urge to get hold of one of the cooler, intellectual ones! You've gotta be honest. Turn to page 123. Go down five sentences, and then post the next three sentences in your blog. Simple.

"Simple" all right, except nobody wants to hear me read from that pile over there. The last time I answered a book meme with a policy book list, Tonya quit speaking to me!

So hang on a moment, while I look for one of the books I've saved for summer reading. Here: Idoru by William Gibson.

It was a boy-nightmare, the sort of environment Chia knew from the brothers of friends, its floor and ledgelike bed long vanished beneath unwashed clothes, ramen-wrappers, Japanese magazines with wrinkled covers. A tower of empty foam ramen bowls in one corner, their hologram labels winking from beyond a single cone of halogen. A desk or table forming a second, higher ledge, cut from some recycled material that looked as though it had been laminated from shredded juice cartons.

** yaaaaay! **

My turn to tag three people. (I saw that.) I choose ... Tonya (of course), Karen, and Snow. Have a safe journey, little meme.

Under the Tusken Sun

It's Saturday, and you haven't had qui-i-ite enough of Star Wars fever ... so go on and visit Chaos Theory for a whole lotta Lucas.

Star Wars radio ads

Random Star Wars goodness and a sardonic movie primer

The parade of unfortunate Star Wars costumes

Even Worth1000 got in on the act!

You scored as Yoda. Yoda 72% Clone Trooper 56% Padme Amidala 56% Obi Wan Kenobi 50% Mace Windu 50% R2-D2 50% Darth Vader 47% General Grievous 44% Anakin Skywalker 42% Emperor Palpatine 36% C-3PO 31% Chewbacca 22% Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

[via Twilight Cafe]

Friday Dog-Blogging

Ends and odds

How weird but wonderful, to be sitting at this table again but not working on policy. I've got that sensation in my heart, you know? That silvery bubble sensation, like I'm playing hookey.

All these books and papers. I'm looking forward to organizing them and storing them on the shelf. That'll be another good sensation; mustn't waste them by lumping them all together on one night. Would shredding them do me even more good? No, better not. Might need them later.

Took my econ paper to the college tonight, and met the prof and other students at the pizza place. Not surprisingly, I found out it's even harder to socialize with this man than it is to talk in his lecture! But we hung out a while and shook hands and called it good. Then a bunch of us escaped and went to a pub for a real drink. Done!