The rough transition between the heightened sense of awareness sculpted over a race weekend and this rude, reintegration with the auto-dulling office routine (viva! vida cubano), resolutely underscores just how far from focus my surroundings have fallen. Silently, effortlessly, I fall instep, sleepwalking the fuzzy detachment from the machinations of life.

Suddenly, it dawns on me, perhaps the surroundings are Just Fine, and it's I who've lost focus. Of course, close friends have been saying this for awhile, and I've always passively shrugged it off in agreement. But now, only now, can I feel it like sharp steel on my chest. Change must come soon.

Where are my maps, it's time for a roadtrip.

we all love a clever hack; i can honestly say that this might be my favorite discovery in a lifetime of searching for clever hacks...

http://flickrvision.com

i sit now, listening to 'the universal,' from a band in england. i sip coffee pressed from beans in guatemala, roasted in portland, from a cup that was made in china, captivated by a display designed in cupertino. <...> i contemplate humanity.

(yes, this sounds pompous, self absorbed--gauche even--but spend 15 minutes in this trance, and try to come up with a better description. really.)

the world spins below: somehow both wholly indifferent, yet improbably compassionate. it sends postcards. snapshots. preciously private, profoundly public. glimpses of life behind closed doors. moments that I might not share, would not know, if i lived next door. even if i was there...

maybe even if i was god.

...and then you hear more details, and the anger comes. it washes over you. clinched fists with butterfly belly. such a stupid accident. so common. so deadly. so fucking preventable.

ugh. team z. rider down.

don't worry k, we will build you stronger and faster than before.

today, one leans against the orange wall of my office--static, stationary--a dusty plank that shudders with raw potential energy. it torments me. i haven't made it 10 minutes today without casting nervous glances at its supine, taunting form.

"i dare you. i fucking dare you."

it's here. the 14th of march. the one year anniversary of the great fall. the first step towards jack's titanium future. the cancellation of an entire year's vacations. the perscription for 6 months of surgical procedures and physical therapy... and the lasting explanation for my continued inability to soundly sleep on my right side.

it's been a year. today. now.

after work, i'll pick up that skate, walk out of my house, and towards the mountain. i will walk past the place where i tumbled, walk all the way to the top. i admit: after this, i may never touch a deck again... still, that's a discussion for tomorrow. today i have to do it. just to show that i can. that i'm not afraid.

...but i am.

deep in my stomach, i am. screw butterflies. pansy fragile things; (besides, their wings break too easy). right now, my gut, my mothra. we're talking terror. oppression. violence.

it is this fear, of course, that is precisely why i must do this. a sublime paradox. i concede: in logic problems, there is no less satisfying stance than a circular argument. simultaneously, there is no other answer to this problem. no doubt, i will contemplate these weaknesses as i walk. it's a long way to the top. i will contemplate a lot of things.

anyway. what's the worst that could happen?

city bikes, super bikes, sport tourers, dual sports, a spattering of scooters. lots of *different* people, all out on two wheels. "hi jack," tommy says, "nice to see you crawled out from under your rock." i raise my glass, roll my eyes. yeah, yeah, yeah; i've been busy...

one of the club members hooks me up with tickets from their private-sale reserve; i call the kids, skin my gear, and I'm in.

ok ok ok. i'll admit, sitting down, i did not have high expectations of this film: it's the sort of project that can float on the weight of it's star and subject alone. but, damn, was i surprised. although i cannot say that i'm unbiased—i wear a predisposition to moto enthusiasm on my bug-splattered sleeve—i believe this is probably the best film that i've seen in a year, even for normal people, even for the neighbors....

i found i actually cared about the character(s), which says something. seriously; i have about as much compassion for the human condition as an unattended garbage disposal. the film never took itself too seriously, never felt too "in your face" about anything. i thought it simply an artfully understated compliment to burt himself...

a simple man with an improbable dream.

parkour, which is really just a fancy french name for freestyle walking, has gotten a lot of press lately for being the hip new thing. whatever. i remember covering my zips in duct tape, and doing this on military bases way back in 83. (usually whilst being chased by somebody official looking).

anyway, i ended up on this video. afterwards, i can't help but to think to myself....

"what the hell is with kids today?"

i mean, damnit. skateboards don't cost thaaat much! get a paper route. steal the skinny kid's lunch money. fence candy lifted from the 7-11... just show some freaking initiative! sheesh.

then again, maybe they can afford it. some of those guys are sporting some pretty bling kicks. maybe the answer is that they just don't have the discipline, the patience, to pass skater 101: the ollie. it's ok, really, not everybody can—back in my day, those kids were called rollerbladers.

we had a cool, french sounding name for them too. "poseur"

Leeds, England -- A computer programmer found out his girlfriend was having an affair when his pet parrot kept repeating her lover's name, British media reported tuesday.

( continue reading at cnn.com. )

sqwaaaaaaauuuk. "i love you gary."

ultimately, they were right. it is no longer raining; it's hailing. (dramatically rolls eyes). at least in it's current frozen-ball form, it bounces away, unable to seep through the failing flashing.

no. wait. it's raining again...

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

sweet damn am i pink-poor. as desperate as i am for a new portable mac, i really can't afford to be bleeding edge these days. suppose i can only hope that i'll have enough spare change by the time generation 2 is announced.

quick fix: text updates of the apple keynote are available from the macrumors site.

anyone want to make bets based upon the veracity of mac-plasma rumors?

my paternal grandparents still live in the house that my then-young father moved out of. even today, it's a largely unaltered mid-century ranch: decades of resistance to change has created a time-capsule of cherished period ameneties.

personally, i have always adored her kitchen: polished copper splash plates to contrast bright turqouise formica counters that made everything my parents owned seem washed-out and boring. entire days of my youth were dedicated to a sublime form of counter-terrorism that involved tracing the boomerangs (boomers) in crayon.

i have always dreamt of having something just as flash. as atomic... as hip as grandma.

fortunately for me, formica has just announced that they have reissued the original boomer prints. i have no idea how much it will cost... but i can assure you, i am not above selling blood plasma to do it.

some example swatches from formica.com, and a snapshot of grannie's sink i took a year or two back:

the face value is $2.00.

if this paltry sum accurately reflects the standard compensation policy for county employees, i will no longer wonder why they sound so disspassionate on the phone, or so indifferent at the dmv.

$2.00? really, why bother? surely, the expenses accrued in paying someone to document my presence, calculate that total, request the check, print the check, and post the check is a far greater sum. then again, maybe i paid for all that, and the remainder is the value of the check. maybe i'm lucky for not having to pay them for the pleasure of being on jury?

anyway.. it's quitting time now, and i'm craving a beer and a taco.

guess i better choose.

"It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest."

full article is available here.

an educated reader might note that the domestic media silence on this matter underscores the true danger of this situation: a demonstrably intelligent faction of militants, trained by our government and highly motivated for revenge has been let loose on the public.

"revenge," you might ask, "isn't that a little over the top?"

hell no.

imagine being abducted from your natural environment by a faceless government agency, surgically violated as they placed current-inducting electrodes under your skin, and retained indefinately without representation in the nasty, stank-ass pond water near 'nawlins?

shit yeah! you'd be pissed as hell and out for some stun gun revenge yourself.

one might argue that this could explain the unusually high body count in new orleans. i mean, how else can you explain thousands of people standing on their roofs in 100+ degree heat, with all that fine water available to go swimming in? honestly. i used to live in the area... i remember DREAMING about having a pool in my backyard.

gun shots? man, people were just trying to defend themselves from government trained undersea monsters with freaking stun guns on their heads!

this is why bush did his first visit from the walnut-paneled safety of AF1. this is why even the military was "slow" to respond. they have seen the intelligence reports, they knew the awesome power of pyscho killer dolphins with stun guns!

of course, this revolution—like so many others before it—will not be televised. clearly, the man is already at work, covering his tracks, and subverting the facts...