1800 Miles Later

We returned from a long camping trip yesterday. It was a trip we'd been planning for years, or at least discussing for years. Discussions even predate our European Adventure, and that was 2005.

We finally did our North Coast caper, only with less psychedelics than I would have guessed if we'd kept to our original dozen-year-old plan.

We followed the following map pretty closely, for a total or nearly 1800 miles. We left Long Beach and headed to Sacramento up I-5, replaced our Passat's battery in Redding, continued up to Medford Oregon and on to Grant's Pass where we picked up the start of westbound US-Hwy 199---part of the "Redwood Highway" system---and headed down into Crescent City, a few miles short of Oregon:

After camping outside of Crescent City, we camped south of Eureka, saw one of the main sites for the Forest Moon of Endor, camped a third time south of Fort Bragg, visited some of my ancestors in Bolinas, and landed for two nights in San Francisco, on hand on the cusp of Pride Weekend as news of the Supreme Court's decision broke, trying to shake off the smell of campfire.

Yesterday itself was a long one, starting early (pre-4) at Ryan's, in SLO, and ending after the chores and unpacking and dishes were done (after 1).

We had a stowaway banana slug. We mastered the percolator coffee maker. We walked from the ocean to the Haight. We watched the trees change over a few hundred miles. The night was inky chill for the eyes and ears. Ribbons of asphalt sprayed across landscapes.

I was thinking of something new for these few posts.

Off to the Coal Mines

It was almost that way. A gentleman found himself on hard times financially and considered moving to the coal mining region and getting a job.

His profession? A wordsmith, a writer.

Being a writer has always been hard work, and it had often been very low-wage work. This writer in question wrote a book that won an award, and the award was enough to raise the book's profile and sales to the point where the writer was able to stave off heading to mines to work.

What is this, the nineteenth century? Is this some forgettable author of overwritten pretentious award-winning crapola?

Nope.

The year: 2014! The award was the Man Booker Prize!

The author: RICHARD FLANAGAN!

The man behind the masterpiece Gould's Book of Fish was going to leave his home and move to northern Australia to work in a mine because he was too broke to continue on as a writer.

This is a very difficult and strange era for authors. I identify with authors, even as I've yet to complete anything serious. Am I lucky to have a gig that can support Corrie and myself while I try and carve writing time out? How does that effect my writing?

The sad and exciting story can be found here.

Check out the award winner: The Narrow Road to the Deep North

And the masterpiece: Gould's Book of Fish

And, if you're curious:
Wanting
The Unknown Terrorist

Sap!

1

Saturday, December 1st, 2012. Corrie was off in Dobbs Ferry, surprising Linda and making it to the baby shower they were having for Marco. I had the weekend to myself. Robot Crickets was edited and in for the final time, I had a meet and greet the next week for something called the Urban Teacher Residency that had a fascinating opportunity. This weekend was an island.

The morning started off blue and bright, with some patchy bright white clouds off to one side. I went for a walk to Lyon's, an art supply store a few blocks away. I needed some colored paper for a project I've been working on and off for a few years now, but back then it had only been for a few months.

In the dozen minutes it took me to find and choose the appropriate sheets of paper, what had originally appeared as white clouds moved had since overhead and started dumping water. It was raining. Still visible through the window in the distance was blue sky, and even among the rain the immediate area appeared bright and sunblasted. It was interesting.

Lyon's offered a mylar bag for my colored papers, which I accepted, but I noticed a slowly building congregation in the back area of the store. They had coffee on offer, along with cheap cookies. The cashier lady/older Japanese owner of the place noticed me checking it out and proffered, "You want to stick around? We've got a free demonstration today. Comes with coffee and gifts..."

Frankly she had me with "free coffee", but gifts? For sure I'll stick around. I moseyed back to the spot, grabbed some coffee and a few cookies, exchanged pleasantries with some other folks, and took a seat.

The demonstration was by a painter, and he was there explaining some very interesting things about painting, but not technique stuff like Bob Ross---not how to paint, more like what's the difference between pigment and dye, why does sable-fur make the best brushes, why expensive paint is better than more affordable mass-marketed stuff. The gifts were a non-sable-but-still-nice brush and some high quality paint.

He also spoke about gum arabic and ox gall, and gave us gum arabic as part of the swag. Both gum arabic and ox gall are liquids that pigments are added to to make paint. Ox gall comes from the gall bladders of oxen, and while synthetic ox gall is available, the real stuff is better.

Gum arabic is processed sap from the acacia tree.

Sitting in the art supply store at an unexpected lecture and demonstration, I imagined people throughout history---ancient artist types---grinding minerals or flowers into colorful powder or mush and adding it to random liquid substrates, just to see what made the best paint.

2

The rain let up and I made it home, content to drink beer and watch nature programs on PBS. There was a show about the excavation of some Chinese statues. When originally unearthed, there had been a very thin covering like paint that had blown off of the statues like dust in the wind. It turns out that is was a kind of paint, in fact it was a colored lacquer.

The show then went on to talk about lacquer. A toxic tree in China produces toxic sap that, when processed carefully enough, produces a resin that can be "painted" onto wooden objects in order to cure them. This tree is called the lacquer tree. 

(Also, in history, the lac insect produced a red resin that appears to be one of the original roots of the word, but...)

I sat up on my couch. Lacquer, processed sap from a toxic tree.

Barely and hour earlier I was learning about gum arabic, a processed sap.

My brain started to race. Plenty of things were made of sap, right?

3

Latex and rubber seem natural fits for the next spot to head in the imagination's exploration. Rubber has been an important thing historically in the realms of science and preservation, while latex has proved useful for many items, including gloves and prophylactics.

Because both latex and rubber originate from the sap of trees, they tend to be noxious to some degree, and cause irritations in many people. That's why nitrile is popular in the restaurant scene for gloves.

From there I said to myself LATEX? That's where you went next?

4

OPIUM! The greatest processed sap of them all, am I right?

All jokes aside, we have quite the array of plant-blood fixin's here: a substrate for pigment; a wood cure; something stretchy, pliable, and watertight; and a magical pain killer.

Where could we go from here?

5

MAPLE SYRUP! How about one of the sweetest waffle accouterments. Maple syrup is the processed sap of one of the species of maple tree.

6

As animals we have a vascular system that collects oxygen from our lungs and delivers it to our muscles and brain. There is also a delivery system for the nutrients we need.

Systems for nutrient delivery and respiration are needed for life on earth, and plants share those needs and systems. This point was never lost on me, but never before had I started to wrap my head around all the things and styles and ways the "blood" of plants can do and be to assist us.

Paint base, wood sealant, watertight seal, prophylactic, pain killer, deliciousness...these are just a few...

7

This post was many years in the making...well, that's probably hyperbole. It's surely many years in the "floating around in my brain like a 4/5 formed idea" zone. 

Even now that I've finally typed it up, it cannot possibly live up to my desires to show off the wonder that I experienced on a Saturday in December, alone in what amounts to be "winter" in Southern California.

It's just another piece of the puzzle---life's puzzle---showing part of the interconnectedness of this web.

The Clowning

(or)

IN DEFENSE OF LITERARY BLOGGING

(again)(See Post 600)

On a Saturday in February of 2013 we held the book signing for Robot Crickets. On Sunday Corrie's Grandma June passed, and on the Monday we drove off to Texas to be a part of her farewell. I have this post to show for it.

A pair of close friends who weren't able to make the signing came and visited the weekend after we got back from Texas. As always it was nice seeing them---it keeps us connected to our college selves, for better or for worse.

One of the friends started to mildly poke fun at what he perceived to be "what I did", as in the act of being a blogger, or blogging in the sense of income creation and tiny book-writing and selling. "And this is where the magic happens," he said with a smile upon seeing the computer desk nook in our tiny apartment. I didn't correct him with the truth: for the most part I never sit there to do blog-post writing. But in that moment I realized that the truth didn't matter.

He made another comment about needing a laser pointer to tease Tuxedo, thereby creating more content for my blog. Like I spent my days sitting around, playing with the cat to make content, and trying to make a go of it. I could tell he resented what he perceived to be my occupational goals given that I had welched (as he saw it) on my kitchen skills and was loathe to return to the industry.

Nevermind the fact that I was in the middle of getting the paperwork ready to go back to school and get a new start on the "career" aspect of my life. There have been different points in my life when I thought creating content and getting eyeballs to check it out could have generated enough income to sustain the gig. Nevermind the fact that those days were long in the past by this weekend conversation.

We had a chuckle about the laser pointer, and I agreed that that wasn't too far off, but that I would like to think that some of the posts I write are about things slightly less trivial, or in a manner that renders trivialities into something more. He smiled and said, "Of course, of course..."

As we walked to dinner that night what he'd said had stuck in my craw. He was clowning on something I partake in as a means of artistic growth, or catharsis, or experimentation, or memory preservation, but what he said NEEDED to be said. I needed to hear it. It got me thinking. A whole scenario played out in me head as we walked.

This good friend of mine had checked out the blog right before the trip down to Long Beach. The leading post that day was most likely What is That Sound?, a post that is about being in a twilight state as Corrie showered and Tuxedo macked away on the dried leaves of a  flower that had been next to the bed. It sounded like someone eating potato chips next to my ear.

A blog post about the writer's cat.

But in general I could tell this good friend doesn't read the posts. I realized on that walk that if you don't respect the art, you're certainly not going to respect the method.

I needed to confront an existential crisis.

While living in Brooklyn and years before starting this blog I wrote a piece called "Forgery for Lingerie". I had a few days before starting a new job and decided to spend one going and retrieving some of Corrie's Victoria's Secret gear from a shipping hub across Brooklyn. Some things happened during the day, I eventually had to forge her name on the slip to get the package, and then made it home. The piece itself captures the story along with the perceptions of different neighborhoods in Brooklyn, sneaking a can of beer during the walk, the forms and combinations of public transit and walking--all the inglorious realities.

It was certainly inspired by Hunter Thompson, but more mundane; truth, but fully subjective. The excitement is rendered through the words and sentence structure. The experience was only as exciting as I was excited to have been doing it, and that was something I tried to capture/amplify for the writing of the piece. That is the craft and the artwork being created.

"Forgery for Lingerie" is the perfect example of a "blog post" piece of literary art: it has a short-form format, it's anecdotal and truthful, it has perceptions of the world and possible interpretations of larger meanings, it tries to capture excitement in the mundane, and it is rendered in an artistic way. BUT IT HAS NEVER APPEARED ON ANY BLOG EVER. It is just an example of a form.

Some of the posts I write I feel aspire to a higher plane, to be among other written pieces that make up the capital-A Art, but whether you agree or not is the conversation, the artistic argument. I don't think I have pantheon-level artistic examples, but so what? This media is young, and we're pioneers.

If a belief structure posits this as a forum that cannot, and will not, produce Art, then that belief structure certainly won't appreciate the work that goes into creating the content. Even recognizing the enjoyment of some of the content isn't the same as recognizing the possibility of Art, and still a person wouldn't necessarily respect the method.

The good friend who got me started on this internal debate as we walked to get fancy BBQ is an extremely hard worker. He works out regularly, manages a bar, makes a home with a wonderful woman, was a performer in high school, sings karaoke so well it altered my opinion of the whole endeavor, and felt close enough to me to clown me in my own home about something I did/do.

Whatever it was worth, he generated an opinion on my work, informed or not. As a writer, not everyone is going to like your material, and this was the most mild form possible to help someone confront the existential crisis. Today people are usually far more vile in the way they show their disgust for content and its creators.

I appreciate this friend for helping me to look at this writing endeavor from a different angle. I try to not be too full of myself, but looking back on my reaction that evening, that would be hard to argue. Hearing what you need to hear is what good friends are for.

I'm going to finish this whole thing off with a quote that guides me:

"If you can create content, you can create Art."

Introducing Picasso Kahn

1.

KKAAAAAAAAHHHHNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!

2.

Netflix is an interesting gauge for solitary free time. Like, what do you watch when you're by yourself and have time? For me, late at night I tend toward old X-File episodes or a series of random horror/suspense movies that look shitty and that I can only stomach for maybe 10 minutes. I watch these then because Corrie doesn't like them.

On the occasion that I return home when Corrie wasn't working, or nowadays when she's got something on (which is rare), she tends to watch animated fare. She'll pick one of the endless computer animated films in Netflix's Kids/Fantasy category.

It's not that I don't like these types of movies in the same way that Corrie doesn't like the horror/thriller films I watch. But not disliking them doesn't mean I'd choose to watch them.

Frankly I'm always surprised upon watching. In most cases the surprise is pleasant.

One Friday I got home and she was watching a Belgium-produced film called "Thunder and the House of Magic". Now, a title like that has about a 0% chance of being watched by me. And missing it would have been a shame.

3.

I did miss the beginning of "Thunder and the House of Magic", and after hearing what it was, I am happy to have been absent for those initial ten or eleven minutes. The titular Thunder is an orange tabby kitten. The movie opens from his point of view, riding in a car. The car door opens and his favorite toy is tossed outside to the curb while he gives chase, leaving the car. The door slams behind him and the car drives away, abandoning him.

Horror movies, thriller movies, emotionally charged movies...none of those effect me, for some reason, like a kitten being abandoned on the side of the road. I'm trying to figure this out.

In any case, Thunder proves to be a resourceful kitten, eventually making a home with a magician and eventually saving the day. The plot is nicely convoluted, and there are many obstacles facing our young hero, but, of course, he prevails in the end.

Watching the movie and being a cat owner, one can see that the animators and producers both knew cats quite well, knew how they behaved and expressed themselves with their physicality, and tried their damnedest to realize that knowledge in this movie. That as a viewer I could tell all of that meant they were at least successful in that regard.

4.

It may have been watching "Thunder and the House of Magic", it may have just been time, but Corrie was now convinced to finally go out and get a companion for Tuxedo, a little brother if you will. This was January.

We decided to head to the rescue shelters and take a look, think about it, decide when would be a good time to pursue a new addition, try and get our apartment in order, and make it happen.

Corrie doesn't handle the dog sections of shelters well: "They all look so sad! I want to save 'em all!" It's endearing. I'm exactly the same way with the cats. I want to save all of them. I don't know why I'm not affected the same way with the dogs, because I love dogs as well. I'm just not emotionally spent after ten minutes at the dog shelter like I am with the cats.

It would seem to come down to which kitten Corrie would want, because I'll be fine with any of them, even ones that would obviously not be good mixes with Tux.

We found a few candidates at the shelters, talked about them, eventually heading home as Corrie found one last spot on her phone she wanted us to go and visit.

At this last place they had one absolutely terrified orange tabby kitten I was smitten with immediately, but it was pretty obvious his personality may not have been strong enough to make it living with ornery Tuxedo. At this same place Corrie found herself conversing with a loudly purring black and white kitten with a serious head tilt.

He liked to nuzzle and his purr was blender-like in volume. I thought at first he was purring as loud as possible to get this human attention, but I was wrong, (SPOILER ALERT) his purr is just that loud.

5. The Name Game

Like Tux, this kitten picked Corrie, and she needed to rescue him. His head tilt was due to a poorly managed inner-ear infection from a few weeks prior and it may clear up, we were told. His name was Pepper or Mo-Mo, but we could change it if we wanted.

Tuxedo came with a collar adorned with the name "Tuxedo" on the nickel-sized aluminum medallion, along with a phone number, after he was found on the side of a San Luis Obispo street, having been dispatched like Thunder. His name was 100% perfect: it is cool, can be shortened easily, describes what kind of cat he is, and describes exactly how he looks to boot.

During our first few months with Tux, we started adding names to his moniker, mostly trying to accommodate his evolving personality. I think this may be only me, but I settled on Tuxedo Cartman-Katt as an official name: "Cartman" because he's a manipulative liar and food monster like Eric Cartman from "South Park"; and "Katt" because of his propensity early on to nap with his tongue out like Stimpy, who's last name was Katt.

The vet claims his name is Tuxedo Sherwood.

So now, a decade later, we have a new kitten, and this one likes to nuzzle. I've never seen a kitten climb up to your face, sniff at your nose, then bury his tiny face in your neck:

To quote Monty Burns: How wretchedly adorable!

But we also have the head tilt to deal with. Turns out it was not going to go away. Check out this little video Corrie took:

It's silly cute. Corrie was thinking along the lines of "Sherlock", because of the inquisitive nature of the tilted head, but Sherlock is too close to Sherwood, and difficult to shorten. She suggested Picasso, because it was like one of his cubist paintings, and it can be shortened to 'Casso or even 'Cass. Why is shortening it so important?

Anyway, he came to us being called Mo-Mo, while Pepper was something from earlier and seemed too distant (for a four month old runt kitten? But still...), and we were compelled to make a change.

Related note: I was originally planning on calling this post "Cat People", with a stronger tie to the Thunder movie and how those producers had to have been cat people. But, while Corrie and I like cats, we're not so much "cat people" as we are "animal people who live in an apartment and can't agree on how small a dog will be acceptable." Then Tux went ill, this post got postponed...and postponed...and postponed...while we started to learn about Picasso, and the post's title changed.

6. Life Imitates a Horror Movie

And then life got interesting.

Picasso, newly minted newest member of the household, was doing kitten things. Tux was pissed off, making deep horn-like vocalizations displaying his disagreement with the situation, but mostly getting along.

After a few days, maybe a week, he stopped hissing and the angry horn-like bellowing, and it seemed like things were going to get better. He wasn't so pissy. This may work out, we said to ourselves.

Then one day Tux didn't want breakfast. Then dinner that night. Then breakfast the next day. 

To repeat, Tuxedo didn't want anything to eat for three meals. When offered a piece of pork from my own plate, he demurred. WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

On top of that, he started looking uncomfortable, like he was constantly trying to choke back vomit. By day three, when he did barf, it looked like a huge green slug that wouldn't come all the way out. He hadn't used the box for peeing or deuce-dropping. He hadn't eaten in a few days. Cats not peeing is a certified emergency, and we knew that, so we headed to the vet.

What was up? Could it really be about the kitten? Tux'd seemed ready to accept the little bugger...

The vet took an x-ray and saw he was constipated something fierce and bloated with gas. They gave him an enema and me a $300 bill.

It was the next day, when Corrie was out at an after-work function (her own going-away party), where Tux had morphed.

He was hiding under the bed when I came looking for him. When I found him, I'll never forget his face: it had changed into something out of a horror movie. Later they told me it had become bloated due to his constant air-gulping. It was badly bloated and deformed, his mouth lay open, sagging and crusty, his eyes glazed over. This was not good. This was exactly what the vet wanted us to pay attention for. Back to the hospital with the little dude.

He needed to stay overnight. That turned into two nights. They weren't sure what was happening. I was oddly confident he wasn't going to be leaving us permanently, but Corrie was far more worried. Feeling helpless was the worst part. THIS IS A CAT AND NOT EVEN A HUMAN BABY. I started to see a bigger picture about fatherhood.

Meanwhile Picasso's nature was coming into focus. He desperately wanted to be around his brother, and even after getting Tux home from the vet and needing to sequester him, Picasso was unsure of what he could do:

His multi night stay at the vet gave us a $2k bill and more questions. And directions. Because of his bloated face and madly irritated throat, Tux needed to be "assist-fed". He also had five different meds that needed to be "assist-administered" at different times of the day and in specific orders.

Are you familiar with "assist-feeding" a cat? Essentially, you need a cat-food that is ridiculously soft, mixed with water, and able to be both drawn up into a ginormous syringe and shot out of the syringe down the throat of an angry and squirming cat. Corrie, newly done with working in Orange County, found herself in this role. Near the end of this horrific multi-times-a-day process, she and Tux had an unwritten understanding: he knew he needed the food, and that the act was as traumatic for her as it was for him.

Again, meanwhile, Picasso was too goddamn cute to pass up paying attention to, and he spent much time being doted upon by Corrie, in between the force-feedings and force-medicating. Also, it became apparent Picasso liked to TEAR SHIT UP. Here he is messing with Corrie's fifteen year old philodendron, aptly named Phil:

7. Corrie's the Real Superstar

In between all this, Tux being deathly ill and Picasso in DESTRUCTO-MATIC mode, she managed to study enough to pass her last ARE, eliminating the ticking clock of her seven nationally needed architectural exams. She's almost an architect! She only has the California supplemental exam, and then she'll be a licensed architect!

I'm so very proud of her. This could easily have been its own post, but time was never on my side in the six months of this year leading to now.

8. Tux Feeling Better; The Boys "Getting Along"

After a while Tuxedo was feeling better, eating on his own, but his voice still hadn't returned. The vet said that it would be the last thing to return. We weren't too upset, seeing as how Tux has long been known for his mouthy actions leading up to the two meals of the day.

But now there was another mouth to deal with, and occasionally the two would sit together long enough to pose for a picture:

Now may be a good time to reflect on the size issue: at first I was sure that Picasso was going to be substantially smaller than Tux, but only because Tux is a beast. It wasn't so much that Picasso was destined to be smaller, it was more that it's not fair to be gauged against such a large specimen. At least 'Casso's attitude and demeanor matched a beast far larger.

Pretty soon they were chasing each other all around the apartment. Tux finally was getting the exercise an older cat needed as well as some camaraderie. They "played" often, and by that I mean they bite, chew, and generally beat the hell out of each other, going at it pretty roughly, until Picasso screeches and Tux lets up. But Picasso is right back at it. They say cat play shouldn't be as rough as our boys get, and it has to do with who's training whom in the play, and because of Tux's aggression that Picasso won't learn easy-play. Um...okay. Not exactly sure how to manage that, so we just let them do their thing.

Afterwards, they pass out together for hours:

9. "Kahn" or "Stitch"?

If there is a writing instrument, tag of some kind, plastic label...anything actually made out of matter, it seems, floating around, Picasso has deemed it enemy of the state, and will try to destroy it. On top of being labeled THE DESTRUCTOR like Gozer in Ghostbusters, he turned out to be a fearless acrobat, jumping at bad angels and turning his tiny body into a torpedo of claws and soft, soft fur.

The bad angles are due to his depth perception issues related to his head tilt. It's cute and tragic. He manages like a champ, though.

Corrie and I likened him to the indestructible alien Stitch in Disney's Lilo and Stitch. But that didn't seem to capture his attitude as much as his physical daring-ness. That's when we finally settled on Genghis. Genghis Kahn, or the historical perception of said Mongolian leader, seemed to align perfectly with our little ball of energy.

Corrie was quick to defend Picasso, saying that Tuxedo was able to spend this age outside at our Palm Street place in San Luis, where he had two little buddies as well (Bullet and Cous-cous). So we didn't get to see the kitten-destructor mode of Tux. That's true, but Kahn fits as a moniker.

Picasso Kahn.

10. Five Pounds of Life Altering Change

Corrie mentioned at one point during this entire half-year of adjusting: "It's amazing how much 5 pounds can change your life."

Picasso has been that. And now he's getting bigger and won't be such a runt, and Tux has slowed down on his rough play, likely because he can't just throw lil' 'Casso around like he used to (and boy, how he used to). It seems like we found a good complement to Tuxedo.

This was also part of a larger master plan, one which I'll leave alone discussion of for the time being. Finding a pal for Tux and trying to adjust to cramped life in our beloved Long Beach apartment...

11. 

One last thing to mention is the noticeable shift in pet-owner-ing styles Corrie has adopted. Ten years ago when Tux was brand new in our lives Corrie was loving yet stern. Tux needed the attitude adjustment. Nowadays, Corrie is a softie using the kid-gloves while I am the disciplinarian. Not that I wasn't with Tux, only that with Tux the needs of the situation were different. 

Watching Corrie adjust her "caring-for" styles has been interesting. She's much more patient these days. 

Oddly, I'm finding it hard to describe exactly the truth of the matter. She's just different. But that makes sense: we're different people than we were a decade ago, like everyone.

12. Time Gets Away

I wanted to post about getting a new cat before now. At first it was going to be tied in to "Thunder and House of Magic", but then Tux fell deathly ill. Later I was trying to figure out how process all of those tough emotions about the possibility of losing a beloved pet. 

We dragged Tux to Kingston, then to Brooklyn and to Austin and back to California! He's better traveled than my charges; Corrie and I weren't even engaged when we got him---now we've been married for more than a half-dozen years. We expected at least another five-to-seven years with him, but those few weeks made his final exit a much more tangible thing. 

Being able to celebrate a new addition was clouded over by difficult realities. 

Work demands were constant and draining, and blog life took a seat way in the back of the bus.

Tux has recovered from that mess, but now he's chewed his ass nearly bald, and we're not sure what's up. We are sure, though, that we won't be going back to the vet until he stops eating: we don't need to throw another thousand dollars at a problem and get no answer.

Life rolls on. The boys play, they eat, sleep, frolic, bask in the sun, play some more, and sleep a whole lot more.

13. The Boys

When we first saw this, our hearts melted a little:

They'll be fine, right?

As their size gap diminishes, their camaraderie shifts...

Our furry boys...

Rare View

I've been busier than I would have thought, given the "end of work" event that my profession gets to enjoy, mainly because of "not quite the really real end of work yet" activities.

I may be discussing a Rookie of the Year topic, but modesty and mild embarrassment may prevent it a bit.

Also, I learned a bit about Neil Armstrong today that I hadn't previously known, and I'll likely discuss it here soon.

I consolidated some blog-post notes and was surprised by the ideas I'd had in the past and how severely I'd forgotten them. This summer could be fun with the longer form posts...

The "Rare View" from the title of this post came about earlier when I was on a quick drive to get some "not quite the end of work" done. Today, and for some reason the last three or four weeks, have been cloudy and generally wacky weather-wise, and on a drive on the Palos Verdes peninsula, I caught a view, on a cloudy day, of the entirety of Santa Catalina Island: