I am granted admittance through the act of swiping my ID, a near meaningless hi-tech sacrament repeated without reflection. I avoid the elevator and turn counter clockwise, winding up the stairs numbering each tread in my mind. 13 stairs to a flight, 2 flights to a floor, 5 floors to my level. I pace an additional 14 steps to the second carded gate I must pass. 144 paces in all. 12 squared, and the 13th Fibonacci number. I must pass this portal with more than a perfunctoral scan of my badge. I place my thumb on the altar of plastic, "I am me".

With a tinny click corroborating my existence I push into the priory of geekdom. I'm not as old as some, but I remember a time when the pre-dawn glow would have been a greener monochrome. Out of the corner of my eye I see the sleeping monitors their surfaces reflectively dull and speckled with dust. I pass another old-timers cube, his monitors' sleep function overridden and dancing with a simulated waterfall of Matrix code.

I turn counter-clockwise once more at the end of the aisle to my low-traffic station. My monitors alive and endlessly drawing and redrawing what would seem to be a layout of aged European cities. As I fall into my Aeron Chair the screens awake seemingly in anticipation. I drop my hands to the keyboard in another holy rite and my fingers affirm my password without the aid of thought.

For the first time I hesitate. I have little inkling what derangement led me to this juncture, but I find my inquisitiveness overrides all caution. Maybe it's the endless knocking of near-do-wells and outlaws at my digital gates. Somehow I got the idea in my head that maybe there was more to the endless, mindless probing. Possibly it was one too many Laundry novels; some Pratchett predilection that posited the path I now undertake.

Many things are unnatural, and most have consequences. I begin my work of undoing to weaken the world. Opening an xterm I use secure shell to connect to another machine and invoke the virtual machine manager. The manager spawns a Windows minion in a new screen. Inside the virtual windows machine I call upon xming and SSH back to my desktop completing the unholy circle. Machine alerts begin to register in my task bar and I see the load begin to spike under a deluge of requests for admittance. I feel I can hear the nameless horrors I'm about to receive. One last command to type before my newly profaned processors perish. My hand hovers over the enter key...

I was just over 5 years old in December of 1972 when my dad sat me down with him in front of the TV. He told me it was going to be the first time a rocket carrying astronauts took off at night. I'd been crazy for spaceships ever since I could remember. I had Apollo print pajamas and a sleeping bag sporting sputnik's. I remember it was special because I could watch this one with my dad. It's funny, I even remember where the TV was sitting, but for some reason I don't remember it being in the winter. It's funny the things you remember as a kid.

Today the Shuttle Discovery took off on its last mission. Peripherally I was aware it was coming up, but when I saw a news article saying it was today, my productivity at work shot out the window because I discovered NASA streams the launches online. I called up the NASA website a couple hours before launch time and saw them strapping in the last of the astronauts. I was pleased to find that most of the commentary wasn't the inane dribble of tv talking heads, but mostly live radio chatter with some explanation by a Kennedy Space Center official.

I tried to just listen to the audio while going about my other work, but I kept getting sucked back in by all the little details. The crew that was buckling in the astronauts wore their mission patches on the tops of their hats so the cameras could see the patches as they are standing while the cockpit is aimed heavenward, so the camera is pointed down. The harnesses that the white-room crew wear to clip in their safety lines has the primary tether access on the shoulder, rather than the back, so they can wear their oxygen tanks and not have them in the way. And my favorite, they said one of the astronauts "...worked at KFC for 5 years before she became an astronaut." I had a mental double-take at that before I realized that KFC probably stood for Kennedy Flight Center, and not the chicken place.

Time ticked away and, as interesting as it was, I was getting a little impatient for the launch, and I vividly remembered asking my dad why they couldn't just "light it off". A small piece of the ceramic heat-resistant tiles came off when removing the protective tape around the door. A glass slurry was used to patch the hole and we heard discussion of how that patch cleared the rules for repairs within specs. The radio chatter with flight control started ticking off more completed items off the checklist above the 400 mark about then. The detail of our downtime checklists have stirred a bit of pride in me at work in their detail, but these were pretty complex and infinitely more thorough.

I had shared this time-killer with my team in an email, and every so often Sam would come to my cube, or I would run to his with some exclamation at the developments. Before the planned hold at nine minutes one of the downrange communiques reported in a rather stressed voice that there was a problem with downrange monitoring and they were a no-go. Flight control stepped in calmly and asked them to work on fixing it.

I was awestruck contemplating the bulk of the procedures involved that I hadn't considered before. I'm fairly anti-bureaucratic and have done my share of scoffing with news reports of the boondoggle that goes on in any government agency, but in this case I found myself struck with wonder at the balance that has been achieved in safeguarding not only the lives of the astronauts and crew but the huge monetary investment of the mission. A valve was discovered to be .9 degrees outside the allowable differentiation in temperature. The area was checked and showed that one side of the valve was sitting in sun and the other side in the shade. A little discussion showed that fit in with an allowance that could be made regarding natural elements causing temperature differentiation.

The countdown resumed at nine minutes with the downrange still broken. An agreement had been made that the countdown would continue as planned until five minutes to launch and a window could be held a further five minutes to resolve downrange problems before scrubbing the attempt. In a dramatic climax you would expect from the movies the clock ticked down to fifteen seconds left in the window before the hurried commands were given that cleared the error and allowed the count to resume. The cone over the nose of the main fuel tank retracted slowly and the control surfaces and engines gave their final computer-aided tests, swiveling back and forth in a pre-programmed dance almost as if eager to leap from the pad. Flight Control gave the word that the launch area was being bathed in water in some sort of acoustic dampening procedure to withstand the launch stresses. The count hit zero and the sparking ignition sequence lit. For two seconds Discovery hung trembling and with my heart tight in my chest Launch Control said the word "Go" and like it had been unleashed Discovery began to climb.

And again I was five years old and trying to hold back tears at the roar and the light propelling a handful of people outside the safety of the Earth. I was struck with the accomplishment of putting together in working order such a broad spectrum of knowledge that we can move men to an extremely hostile environment and support them there and bring them back again.

In the end I was a little sad at the thought that there are only two space shuttle missions left. Maybe NASA will undertake great projects again, but the step back to single use rockets for supplying the ISS as well as the push for commercial companies to step in to that role also seems to be the ending of an era. Looking back to that December night when, with my dad, I watched a black and white tv and dreamed of being an astronaut, we didn't have any idea that the Apollo 17 mission would be the last time that man would go so far into space for more than 40 years. Maybe the hope is with commercial space ventures and a reboot of competition to push back the boundaries once again, but I was always a NASA kid.

That's not what's weird, though.

In the shower I drop the soap, and I get a little freaked out.

Not like that.

The soap drops and sticks a landing like a little green Chinese gymnast on it's narrowest end, defying Newton to say anything about the sudden loss of inertia.

But that's not the weirdest part.

It's the dozen Neolithic drain monkeys that swarmed up and began touching and barking at it almost as if it could enhance their chances of survival.

Stupid drain monkeys.

I don't know what it is.

It has caused a bit of trouble, including almost getting kicked out of a car in the middle of the Mojave...

In 2006, I decided I could, with a little help from my friends, build a largish garage to replace the one that was falling down and end up with a studio of my own. I really wanted that studio.

The studio is not done yet. If I really wanted the studio, wouldn't it have been finished by now, despite the tumultuous few years I've had? It is close, if I only had some money I could get the insulation and drywall done...

If I really wanted it done, wouldn't I have the money to do it?

I have a digital video camera on my desk.

I thought I needed to have it because I had so many ideas for little movies and this new youtube thing sounded like it might catch on.

I don't think it got 5 hours usage and it's quite dusty.

The video editing software I bought with it won't install on any current version of windows.

I could probably repeat this scenario a hundred times, and not just with material things. My education butted my wants up against reality several times. Even after I found myself in a respectable career I decided I could finish a degree that wasn't pressing me to use it daily, but could just be an enjoyable aesthetic enhancement. I'm reasonably close to a couple degrees.

It turned out I really didn't want that, either.

Or, at least that's my assumption.

It could be that I just don't want anything, but it seems like there is some sort of pressure there.

Not knowing what I want really causes problems when people are trying to decide where to eat. Some of my friends and my wife have mostly learned to deal with it. It's not often that I'm craving anything specific, I just get hungry. And I don't often run up against a place I don't want to go to. When Debbie found out after ordering pizza that it would be my 5th pizza meal in a row a while back she got a little angry. "Why didn't you tell me you've only had pizza since lunch yesterday?!" Well... For one, I like pizza, and two I didn't have to decide what to eat. Left to my own devices I often had dinners of microwave popcorn and soda. Or more frequently several trips to the fridge to find the same nothing inside and then off to bed.

But I digress.

Some questions can bring me to a screeching halt. "What do you want for your birthday?" is quite a show stopper. "Do you want to go to a movie?" is an easy one, the answer is always yes. However, "What movie do you want to see?" is fairly problematic. That question is closely related to "What do you want to eat?" But for some reason, with a movie I often care.

Right now I don't know if I want to finish this entry.

That's not unusual, I often have 3-5 unpublished entries floating in limbo that eventually meet a bad end in the lightcycle arena, or something.

And it wouldn't be the first time that I thought I wanted to write about this topic and ended up being wrong.

Maybe it will be the last.

I woke up.

And I bumped in to a friend on 13th East and 2nd South. It was raining and dark but it seemed he was happy to see me and asked if I'd walk with him to his office, because he had something he needed to tell me. I said ok, and as I turned around I ran into another friend who lives out of state, and I hadn't seen in a long time. He asked if I'd go to lunch with him and I said OK. As I turned again I saw the first friend who looked disappointed in me for forgetting about him so soon. I tried to quickly explain that I'd catch him after lunch, or the next day and that this other friend wasn't going to be in town long and this was my only chance to see him. I was a little annoyed I had double booked and...

I woke up.

again.

I was in a shabby casino, standing in front of a huge craps table made entirely from chocolate with a molten surface three inches deep. The croupier urged me to play quickly and I found a couple chocolate dice just against the inner wall. I picked them up and threw one, rolling a six. The die began to soften in the molten confection and the dealer urged me to throw the second quickly. I was curious how I could see so clearly in the molten liquid. I threw the die and it came up five and she shouted, "Winner!" She handed me another die and told me to roll it to see what I won. It came up 5 again as the first two dice dissolved into the liquid mass. The dealer counted me out 5 large square chips confirming each as a hundred as she lay them down on the candy rail. A die rolled past nearly round as it dissolved, the six dots on its face constantly towards me. "Buy yourself a new saxophone, kid!" she said. I picked up the chips turning towards the cashier and thought, "Who am I, Lisa Simpson? I don't play the saxophone..."

And I woke up.

The sun was shining brightly in the room, and outside it sounded like a car pulled away from the curb. My first thought was, "Damn you Leonardo DiCaprio!" And I wondered if I ought to do anything that came into my head all day.

So here's how it's going down. I resolve this year to make resolutions. New Years is as good of a time as any, and I think I'm adult enough to know I'm in a constant process of evolution, but there may be something to setting a few clear goals at the beginning of the year and follow up on them at the end.

To begin with here were my handful of goals from last year that definitely weren't resolutions.

I took today off work and actually did accomplish a little around here, and that's a start. I moved a lot of the scrap wood cluttering the basement to the garage and I got the old kitchen cabinets that the Hallman's replaced when they did their kitchen in too. They'll probably work good for garage storage if I ever get the insulation and the drywall (and their respective inspections) done. I'm too afraid of getting stuff in there and then having to juggle things around while I do the finish work, but I don't really have the money right now to attack more than one problem, and I have too many that need attention; which brings me back to needing to move stuff so I can get started on one project or another.

I made the temporary post and got it installed under the centerline beam in the basement to help support the sagging kitchen floor, and moved the jack to the front of the house to get the last of the adjustments made so I can hopefully start on the living room floor before too long. I was telling Jack the other day that I've been in my house for 10 years and it still feels like that first apartment when you moved out of your parents house and had the thrift-shop furniture and cinderblock-and-pine shelves. Before I got married I had my kayak in the living room for 2 years because I didn't have anywhere big enough to put it. Sure, it made a conversation piece, but it's not like I got enough company to justify it.

Somehow, I also got a week out of sync. I thought I had one more week until the Clay Arts Utah Potters Workshop with Brian Jensen, and that it was going to work out great because it would be on spring break Saturday when the studio would be closed and I couldn't work. Now I have a bunch of stuff languishing in the studio that I won't be able to finish unless I take a day off next week too. I may have to take one, though, I don't think most of it will last more than a week without drying out.

And speaking of Clay Arts Utah, I don't think I've posted anything about my new position. I was nominated (and ran uncontested, I guess) for the Secretary position for the next year. We had our first officer meeting a couple weeks ago, and I think it's going to be a good thing for me to have to have responsibilities associated with my membership so I actually get out and see what's going on in the community. I really need some sort of gallery representation, or at least get my online presence going because I'm kind of stuck artistically too. I keep making the same stuff over and over, and while I get a lot of wows from people that see my stuff I think I need something more concrete that will force me to grow a little, or maybe even give me some incentive.

It sounds like the random junk in the driveway is clattering around, which is funny because I've moved it all inside the garage. On Friday I even gathered up all the spare lumber from the build and moved it into a semi-organized pile near the back of the garage in expectation for this weeks storms, and I even managed to get a couple lengths of rain gutter hung up. It's almost strange to look out the back and not see the big silver tarp looming over the back corner where the sheeting lay for almost a year. I really wanted to get more done before a lasting snowfall, but it looks like this may be it.

To be honest, though, this has never been a good time of the year for me. Not anything to do with the holidays in and of themselves, but from when the days start getting noticeably shorter the dark depression hangs over me. I often wonder if it's as silly as being afraid of the East wind. Does it hit because I expect it to come with a sun that doesn't rise very far above the horizon?

This year has even had an added bonus. The first cold and stormy day I found a pair of gloves in a hat and bundled up to go to work. Something in the combination of the extra outerwear and the snow took me back to the January before last when I was going for my chemotherapy every weekday, and for a few minutes I had a reaction just like I was back on the Interferon. They had told me that I needed to dress extra warm and take precautions so I didn't get sick, because the chemo would have me weakened anyway, and if I got sick then my immune system would have to fight two battles, or something like that. Normally I don't wear anything other than a coat, and in High School I even toughed it out a couple years in an unlined Levi jacket. Maybe it's my way of saying that if it's not winter, then I won't get depressed.

Anyway, when I would go for the infusion I wore a nice coat that Jack gave me when he ungrew out of it. I'd also put on gloves, a hat and scarf. Something about the ritual of it every morning was comforting and unusual. Combined with the pain of the treatment and the cheerfulness and compassion of the Huntsmen Cancer Center staff it made a complex impression on me that I think is embedded in my already turbulent winter gestalt. There's something really confusing about a feeling that makes your joints ache, your stomach fall and puts a happy smile on your face at the same time. But I hadn't expected the feeling to hang on this long, and for some reason I don't remember it happening last year.

And maybe that's why sleep just won't come right now. The East wind is blowing and I fear that somewhere out there lurks a brick with my name on it...

Lots more walking around today and some impressive scenery, but my camera ran out of batteries just as I came across this first one. Lots of artists choke on large installations, I think. But this one was really nice, especially once I looked at the close-ups and could make out the interconnected pieces. I got the feeling in art school I was a little too simple and literal to be considered much good, but I'm all about simple beauty. And size is hard.

Portland has kind of a funny vibe so far. I've been here a couple times before, but always alone and always just for the afternoon as I was on my way to the coast. This is the first chance that I've had to just spend time aimlessly poking around. I'm really digging the variety of architecture, especially the late 1800's masonry and the way the regooding hasn't seemed to caught it all yet. One of the best examples I saw of this today was a preserved corner facade of a building that separated another building from the street, complete with trees growing inside the old building space. If my legs work tomorrow I'm going to see if I can't get some better pictures when there's some light, and when I have something other than my phone to capture it.

I've also not seen so many people begging for cash since Baltimore in '02, and the Baltimore panhandlers were at least soft-spoken lot and only gave each person one shot. Most of the ones I've been approached by here are persistent and fairly obnoxious. The homeless situation here is heartbreaking, as you can't walk from here to the convention center without seeing several people wrapped in blue tarps in doorways and under the bridges. The hotel in which I'm staying has two buildings next door that have little cardboard gates in front of their stoops with people huddled against the chill and the rain. I'm not sure as to what good a 1' high cardboard barrier provides, but maybe it's a talisman for personal space.

The light rail system is really nice for getting around as we're in the free-fare zone, although it does tend to shake my room every 15 minutes or so enough that I'm often tempted to toss the conductor a quarter for the vibrating bed. But today the preferred mode was walking in the light drizzle that the locals have referred to as 'the rainy season'. It's been a fairly mild and pleasant, but gray storm all day, and going over google maps from one destination to another it looks like I may have walked between seven and ten miles. My legs are feeling it, too. I'm starting to get the landmarks down. There's a building with a greenish neon strip at the top that puts me close to my hotel. The North Steel Bridge shows up near the river, but there's not a lot of real skyline that is visible for a long distance to get my bearings, and without mountains or big, distant buildings I'm left to navigate from the light rail maps (when I don't get them turned around).

One if the huge differences is it's just really hard not to j-walk across these tiny roads. There hasn't been much traffic most times and it just feels stupid to stop at a streetlight with no traffic when you can practically spit across the street. And with the majority of the streets seeming to be one-way it's not like some traffic is going to surprise you. We got so caviler about it that it's almost funny the way I nearly fell into the streets several times when I've actually seen that I needed to stop. At least there's been the added humor of looking for the purported sources of the names of The Simpson's characters on the street signs. We've seen Flanders and Lovejoy, but those are the only ones I've recognized so far.

But for now it's off to bed with the rattle and squeal of the Morrison train to rock me to sleep. I think I hear one coming now.

Did I mention I tend to ramble when I'm tired?

Mix equal parts of gem salt, rock alum, white vinegar, chalk and Peebles' powder. After the mixture becomes quiet, put into it any wood or porous substance, and the latter becomes like stone.

Google tells me Peebles' Powder is powdered skim milk.

Actually I found out I can, those were just the leftover crust clumped up with cinnamon and sugar because I find it hard to throw food away, which is the reason for the pie.

We got apples at costco a few weeks ago, and only four or five got eaten, despite the fact they were fairly tasty apples. I figured they were a getting a little on, and the skins were starting to wrinkle just a bit when you pushed on them, so I figured that I ought to give a swing at seeing if I could do pie.

I found a recimape on the internets and it turned out we had everything but the crisco, so I substituted butter for shortening. Mmmmmm, butter.

All that experience working with clay slabs gave me that edge for rolling out the dough, but I think clay is more forgiving.

Look Ma, no hairnet!

And when Debbie said I had to make some vent holes I couldn't resist making it cute, 'cause I'm such the homemaker.

Just another example of why I dislike going out in public. And it's not even Christmas yet.