Did you know stuff happened today while you weren't watching?

I'm only updating my LiveJournal these days. Oh well.

Did I forget to mention this? Oh. Oops.

I slept for twelve hours. It was nice.

So, yesterday.

After lying in bed for several hours (two), I decided that I was not tired. An amazing revelation that would change the day forever. I took a shower, picked up my stuff, and, at 0257, drove out the confining gate of Level P2 of my apartment building (using my nifty Weigand-effect Security Activation Card).

Traffic was still heavy on I-80, but, being the middle of the morning, it was mostly Commercial traffic. But there were a few mean car drivers running around, enough to cut me off twice and refuse to let me pass once, all in the three quarters of a mile that I actually have to drive on I-80. Insterstate 580 was barren by its daylight standards, and I was able to make it through the valleys quite quickly (I was still breathing the buzz of delight from leaving at 3am). I wasted a lot of gas, though, by taking the grades too fast. That would turn out to be a common theme of the first half of the trip.

Since getting down into the San Joaquin forces one to abandon all hopes of listening to Bay Area radio stations (ie, KQED), I spent the next three hours being bludgened with country music and conservative talk radio, in the standard Central Valley style. Getting down to the level of Merced, I did find an NPR affiliate. But shortly thereafter (about an hour), I was in the Bakersfield area. The NPR affiliate in Bakersfield is the same as the one from Merced, except that the programming is an hour later. So I got the same hour of Weekend Edition over again. That was frustrating.

I was forced to write an entire block about radio stations because there is nothing to talk about for the Central Valley. It is utterly boring. And it smells funny. The stench of grapes and almonds and everything else they grow there is forced up your nose until you can smell nothing else.

Watching the sun rise from behind the Sierra was kind of nice, though. It gave me something to look at while driving south (the road is perfectly straight, too).

Just before Bakersfield, at around 0700, making it nearly exactly four hours, I get off on the CA-58 exit. I didn't get lost, sadly. The (sub)urban sprawl in that city is a little disgusting. But I recovered. The first section of 58 through Bakersfield is a two-lane yellow-dashed-line strip, a main throughfare for farming equipment. Eventually it connects with CA-99 (and is cosigned with it for about a mile), followed by an exit ramp that turns into a four lane divided highway. This road climbs off the valley floor and up to just above 4000 feet in the Tehachapi Mtns. (I remember the 4000 feet sign because it is the first time I have ever seen an accurate highway elevation marker. Usually, they are between 20 and 50 feet off.) The map says this mountain area is "forest". I'll admit that there were some green splotches ocassionally, but overall, it's dry; the leaves of everything deciduous were detached and crisp, and the conifer population confined to mostly juniper.

Mojave came and went. The desert here is mountainous, but still feels flat. There was a cool circular breeze all morning, the temperature was in the upper 70s by my estimation. I was on my way to the confluence.

The first time I got off the road was way too soon, so I got back on and tried again. Eventually I got to a road at 118d01.000m and decided to go down it a few feet. This led to an east/west path that didn't make any sense compared to the map. I decided that neither road is actually on the map. There is a gas pipeline that runs the southern spine of 58, and there is a dirt maintence road above it. I followed this road until I hit 118d00.000m, and then turned on the first southbound path I found. It happened to be a rather large road, running right next to the shoddy fence that marks that border of the Edwards Air Force Installation. Driving south until I came close to 35d00.000m, I found another maintence road, this time for what looked to be a sewer line. This road runs directly parrallel to 35d, so I took it over until I hit 118d. I parked, got out, and walked no more than twenty feet. Took a few pictures, spit the sand out of my teeth, and got back into the truck.

That's probably the easiest confluence in California. Very nice views of the surrounding mountains, and the odd rock formations covering them. (But the things on the east side hill are not rock formations. As 58 gets closer to them (but not too close), they start to look like missle launchers! I didn't investigate, as there were already Black Helicopters roaming.)

CA-58 pushes through the remainder of Kern County to Kramer Junction, where it connects with my beloved US-395. The road is filled with trucks and locals trying to avoid tourists.

I stopped and went to Hinkley, the town that Erin Brockovich is set in. The town itself is mostly abandoned, the majority of the 1960s Cheap Rectangular Homes boarded up. The post office shares its building with a gas station, and across the road there is a church with quirky phrases on their sign.

In Barstow, CA-58 finds its terminus at the longest approach ramp I have ever experienced (and I've experienced it twice now) coming onto I-15 to Las Vegas. In the middle of town, CA-247 comes up, cosigned with Barstow Rd. A gas stop and a few red lights later, and I was into free desert again.

Lucerne Valley is some of the most incredible high desert I've seen. The mountains have odd white stripes on them, making some of the foothills look to have marble capstones.

Going by Dry Lake, I saw a very large group of people and large travel vehicles out in the middle of an uninhabited portion of land. There was an illegible sign next to a dirt road. A quick google search led to me to here, and I immediatly recognized the logo with the XX's. I should've stopped!

In Landers on 247, I was starting to get suspicious. There were lots of signs up to the effect of "X Rd formerly Y". As I would later hypothesize, there are lots of roads that were renamed since my map was made, but there was no sign put up for them. For one thing, Mikiska Rd appears to no longer exist. The southernmost Reche Rd still exists (there are two on my map -- they are strictly parallel but have identical names). I drove on this road for a long way, hoping to find the intersection with Giant Rock Rd. There was none.

Reche Rd ends. I tried to make U-turn, however, as usual, it turned into a three-point-turn. In the initial turn, I clipped the soft shoulder, and when I went into reverse, I discovered I wasn't going anywhere for a while. I had found some rather deep, foundationless sand. (I think what happened was that when they paved Reche, they dug down a bit below the foundation, paved it, and pushed all the topsand from where the road is and made a shoulder out of it. Not smart. But it was also not built for stupidity like mine.)

I sat there in disbelief for a few minutes. Its hard to believe that you're stuck in quicksand miles from town in the middle of the desert.

Eventually I got out and waved a man down who was driving a small pickup. He got out and stared at it for a while. I've met ceiling fans more coherent and talkative than that man.

I decided he wasn't going to help me, whether he wanted to or not, and flagged down a guy driving a big diesel F-series. He was an older man, with his wife and dog in the truck with him. He got out and stared for a while, too. He said he could tow me, but didn't have anything to tow me with (chains, etc) because he'd just cleaned out his truck of all such useless things. He was a local, though, and owned the chains if needed. I felt safe at that point, because it was only a matter of time.

He, his wife, and I rummaged around in some discarded rubble by the sides of the road. We found a cloth mat and a thin board. We dug out some sand from the three wheels that were off the road, stuck the board under the rear-right tire, and a few accelerations later, I was no longer the proud owner of a truck stuck in sand. The wife told me that her husband was recovering from a stroke, so he really shouldn't be doing this. I thanked them both, wished his arteries well, pet the dog, and drove off.

The roads in Landers are dreadful, but the people are nice.

The wife asked me while we were pulling boards out of the rubble: "So are you a college student?" "Yes." "Figured as much." (She had a very odd style of speech. Very friendly, yet quite disjointed and distant. It reminded me of Ms Culbertson from high school.) They asked me what the hell I was doing in Landers falling off roads. I avoided the question, replying "Just wandering around.". They told me I probably shouldn't be doing that.

I agreed, but I still stupidly continued to search out the Integratron. I went back up 247 to Linn Rd, and took it until it ended. It ends at the Integratron. It looks sort of condemed, and the property is littered with "Private" and "Keep Out" signs. It's also right next to several houses. It looked nothing like the pictures I saw of it so many years ago on television. I remember it being in the middle of nothingness, with just an old man standing out front, muttering something about rejuvination and aliens.

At that point, I was extremely paranoid of anything that wasn't blackened with asphault. I never found Giant Rock Rd, nor anything that resembled the largest freestanding boulder in the world. But, fearing more attacks by the Gods, I left the cooky town of Landers and continued on to the cooky military town of Twentynine Palms, and Joshua Tree, on CA-62, after a gas stop at the 247/62 junction.

I spent the next couple hours driving through the fully heated Mojave, without air conditioning. I had been accuratly warned that there are exactly zero gas stations (or anything other than sand, rock, and juniper bushes) between Joshua Tree, California, and Parker, Arizona. It was rather hot. I turned south at US-95 (not AZ-95!) because I was ready to get back on real roads by then, and US-95 goes straight down to I-10 on the California side of Blythe.

It was a somewhat painful drive. The heat at its peak, and my awake-time near its normal end. From Joshua Tree to Blythe, I pulled over to the side of the road about a half-dozen times, taking five minute naps to avoid falling asleep while driving. They were limited to five minutes not by my need to get somewhere, but by my lack of tolerance for still hot air. At least while going 70mph (and then 75 in AZ), the wind 'chill' keeps the air feeling reasonable with the windows down. (It also creates this neat tornado effect inside in the car with all the windows down. I must say, though, that it is much more thrilling when the air is thick ocean-side seabreaze as opposed to the thin stale heat of the desert.)

CA-62 makes slow, cautious winds through the minor valleys of the region (the mountains there are tall, skinny, and abrupt, making for an inarticulate definition of 'valley'). Somewhere along the vast nothingness, I slowed to find two CHP cars and an ambulence stopped on the side of the road, with their lights shut off, and their occupants standing outside staring in amazement at an overturned pickup. I am just as bepuzzled as they were. That particular section of the road is perfectly straight. Someone wishing to roll over their truck would have to make a very concerted effort to do so. It was rather surreal. That region lends itself well to surreality.

The last twenty miles before Blythe, I decided I couldn't stand it any longer, and turned on the air conditioning. It was at a half-tank of gas remaining, easily enough to make it to civilization before I ran out, with or without air conditioning. (If I had kept the air on all through the desert, I would not have made it, however! I think it nearly halfs the fuel economy.) I stopped for gas and a Giant Coke (I needed something Giant, rock or no rock) in the lovely town of Quartzite, at the Mobil/BurgerKing complex I always end up at (probably because it has the tallest sign).

With the air cold and my mouth wet, I had no problems convincing my mind to stay awake for many hours to come.

Two hours on I-10 to the AZ-101 interchange, and another half-hour or so to my parents' house. (What happened to 101? It actually runs at the speed limit now. How depressing.)

I arrived to find my parents' house empty, as expected. They weren't anticipating my arrival until Sunday evening, so they went to Prescott for the weekend. My first reaction upon opening the door was that my father had finally given up on keeping power bills low: it is a rather pleasant 79deg throughout the house.

My father also took over my old room. Its now his computer room. I guess he gave up on the garage. This is probably related to the low temperature of the house. (He really can't stand the heat, and he used to stay in the garage all the time because it has its own air conditioning and it could be cool. Perhaps he just decided running two air conditioners wasn't a smart idea.)

I got home around 1830, I think. I decided I needed food (all I'd eaten was a couple of egg mcmuffins at Blackwell's Corner (the CA-46/I-5 junction) at 0600). I picked up mandies and we went to Big Heng.

And then I slept for a few hours. Twelve or so.

So. I've decided to go to Arizona.

Pity me.

I'll probably leave Saturday, unless I get Cal registration done in the 7am slot on Friday, in which case I may leave on Friday. Yes. Tomorrow. Sigh.

In case I don't show up for a week, I'll tell you where to look for my decaying, desert-beaten carcass...

After I avoid killing myself getting across the six lanes of I-80 in Emeryville (The Northern Maze), I'll get to the I-580 East parking lot. Then, recovering from the noxious air of Castro Valley and the Tri-Valley Suburban Waste Zone, I'll make my way through the Altamont, after which I must drive slowly and careful so as to not miss the tiny gravel throughfare known as Interstate Five, humorously called the Golden State Freeway, despite the scenery being mostly brown, not gold. Three hours into the boredom, the CA-58 exit will blow by and I will be forced to turn around and go back to it while cursing at myself for being so blind as to miss it the first time. After all, it wouldn't've happened if I weren't speeding! Soon, the boredom of getting lost in Bakersfield will be overwhelming, and I will be forced to continue on 58, slightly ascending and then descending into the Mojave.

Here, I may find myself on a detour to the 35/118 confluence, as it seems really easy to get to and mostly on the way. However, if the temperature is too high or it is getting late, I may forego the adventure.

CA-58 ends in Barstow at I-15/I-40, where my auto will jump off the USDOT-standard thick asphault of I-15 onto the thinner CA-247. I will soon be overcome by the will of the powerful alien forces surrounding the Integratron, and will need to pull off onto Lander's small roads to take pictures and possibly put on a wild rave, possibly requiring police attention. Assuming Giant Rock doesn't decide to bifurcate once again ontop of my soul, the road will take me to CA-62.

Depending on the mood this junction inspires, I will either head west to connect with I-10, or go east all the way to the muddy Colorado. If I-10 catches me, then the obvious route to Phoenix will ensue, through Blithe where I pray that the homeless will bless my existance once again.

Otherwise, the desert that 62 glides through will either consume all the water in my mortal body, or it will consume all the water in my mortal body. Either way, I'll run out of gas, and hitchhiking will be required to get me to a glass of water. Of course, the first few people that pick me up will be frightened by all my insulting remarks towards Sprint PCS regarding their lies about their Nationwide Network, and will run away in horror. Eventually, however, I will make it back, and an ending to this plot will arise from nothing in an act of cosmic brilliance. Just like on Star Trek.

Anyway, AZ-95 (formerly US-95) will grab ahold of the tires and ... Well. I don't know where I'll go from there. Maybe Peoria. Maybe Mexico. Maybe Canada.

Me's glad I spek good engrish.

I found the manual for my TV ("Ed"). I didn't even remember that I had a manual for my TV.

Now I can control the DVD player with the TV remote.

And my window has a screen on it now!

My life is neat.

There are never enough Star Trek episodes showing on local stations at any one time. Yes, the airwaves are full of ST from 1pm to 6pm every weekday (and some hours, you can choose from a couple different episodes), but damnit. There are not enough. I need something watchable every hour of the day, so I'm not distracted by even more mindless daytime television.

Because I am bored beyond my own capacity to believe it.

I want to be part of a scene. I used to think that I didn't need to be part of a scene, because I was my own scene. But now I'm not me anymore, and I'm back to needing a scene to belong to. But I don't need to belong.

I need more time. I need more time. I need more time to waste.

Someone walked by on the quiet street, yelled a Python "Nee!", and walked on. It was momentarily surreal.

Holy Grail is playing over at that theatre on Shattuck. I should go see it sometime. Am I that bored?

I'm sure I had something interesting to say when I started this.

April, 1991. Large numbers of people gathered at a church in Loveland, Colorado to celebrate the nintieth anniversary of the birth of one Kate Chasteen. Much reminiscing occured, to the delight of everyone in attendence. Even video tapes were made to preserve the experience. Everyone who attended the event remembers it at a personal level.

Several occasions in the 1980s. Family, sitting around in the old Chasteen house in Loveland, listening to Kate retell stories of her family's past and present.

The carpet is green, the furniture old and creeking nearly as badly as the hardwood floors in the more than sixty year old home. The furnace groans, plumes of dirty air flow from the large vent on the floor near to the doorway to the kitchen. A camel sattle sits as an endpiece to a small coffeetable, so bizare that it needs no explanation. A chair and a couch fill the remaining wallspace of the living room, letting off the smell of permanance when touched. The air becomes stale as soon as it comes in through the window. It seems to be a room that will be the same forever. The same as it has always looked to me. A strange anachronism, something to be seen and a portal to a different age; but not a place of personal connection for my identity, despite being so for several people in my family.

She told tales of people, most of whom I don't know and never will. Tales about people who have grown older, sometimes much older, and possibly those who have had their aging stopped by the Gods. People who have been distanced from their past by time, and the limits of their memory. The tales are embodied in the people they molded, in the distant past, and perhaps not so distant past.

I am part of the last generation to be blessed with the memory of sitting in that house, listening to those stories told by my great-grandmother.

Kate Chasteen died today, the twenty first of June, 2001, around 8pm MDT, having aged a mere one hundred years, two months.

I hate them. I wanted a score, damnit.

I passed that Subject A writting test. Yippee. (And I'm "mythical", according to Eric.)

So. I moved.

It is a lovely overpriced, undersized apartment, in the heart of modern Emeryville. Of course, its under construction. But they only work near me for about an hour a day. (I will not mention when that hour is, except that it is an hour in which having people work on your balcony can be really annoying.)

But its very nice, anyway. It is very White: a whiteness similar in scale to that of a modern emotion-numbing hotel room. It has a balcony. Its the sort of balcony you stand on at three in the morning, having meaningless romantic conversations while holding cheap revolting cocktails. The balcony looks out to the North, where an amusingly Gargantuan, visually loud antenna is in the direct line of sight. To the right are the Nuclear-Free-Zone City of Berkeley, and the hills that overlook it (including the brown spot that is LBNL perched on the ridge). And to the left is the Great Bay of San Francisco. If it weren't for Sybase being in the way, I would be able to see the City, but as it is, I can still see the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and the various other dots of light that adorn the north chunk of the Bay.

Its nice to look at. It pleases me. And it could be worse. Much worse.

I had forgotten to do some critical things before I moved. Like start phone service, finish some paperwork, submit the change of address card, file for the PO box, etc. Oh well. I remembered last Wednesday that power had to be activated three days before move-in (Friday). I did that in time, however, I don't think it was really necessary. I called on Monday to start phone service, and they said "by 5pm tomorrow [Tuesday]". As it turns out, they did do it on time. But they gave me the wrong phone number. Or rather, the wrong area code. Of course, I didn't figure this out until today, delaying ordering DSL service slightly longer. (I also had to actually go out yesterday and buy a regular phone. How bizarre.) Cable service is supposed to be installed on the 18th. I'm skeptical.

PacBell refuses to give me DSL, so Covad recommended speakeasy.net. The company is paying for it, so I went with the 1.5/384. This should be interesting. They say it takes 20-25 days just to process the order. Life is so much fun.

I noticed... I don't remember what I was going to say.

I am very bored, for some reason. Yawn.

I wish that I had the time, energy, and patience to sit down and write a special version of my daily thoughts to each individual I want to hear them, personalized for what I want to tell them, and what I can tell them.

I wish that I could form a simple phrase, without criticizing my diction, without thinking numerous times about what I'm saying, who I'm saying it to, if they will understand it, if they will interpret it correctly.

I should expand every contraction in that run-on sentence.

I wish I could say whatever I wanted to, without consequence. Without the consequence of my future self finding my words ridiculous, dreadful, painful, perfect, to read.

I am looking for the truth. I am looking for lies. I am looking for understanding. I am looking for cognition.

Someone on NPR mentioned "Jeb Bush", while I was driving home tonight. Those two words just kept repeating themselves in my mind, back and forth, different rhythms, different pitch. It was disturbing, and lasted most of the drive home.

I've been sleeping in bad ways recently. Very uncomfortable.

I was unable to sleep past 10am this morning, because someone kept making use of machinery producing dreadful noises. I'm guessing either a large leafblower, or a wimpy chainsaw. They actually started it around 9am, but I was able to muster enough laziness to stay in bed for the hour following, despite being driven near to the edge. I had visions of me, angered, with a weapon.

Some days, I get out of bed because of fear. Fear. Lots of fear. Everywhere.

Yesterday, while I was making my daily commute to the office, I was given an opprotunity to test my stunning depth perception.

The intersection of San Antonio and El Camino. I was at the front of the line in the right lane of San Antonio, going north, waiting for the green light, on my way up to Central. This intersection, like many similar ones on the Camino, is not designed with inobservent drivers in mind. That is, drivers who assume a green light means 'go'. The lights are timed so tightly that there is zero delay between the yellow-state of one direction and the green-state of the next. The yellow-states are also quite short. Also, people here have a nack for 'running' yellows (me included). This is a major problem. You go through a yellow, it turns red just as you enter the intersection. Oncoming traffic is given a green, while you're just beginning to go through.

Anyway, theres this guy on a nice BMW bike sitting inter-lane, riding my front tire on the left side. We get the green. We both go about three feet, and then see that an extremely large truck carrying massive amounts of soil decided to go through the yellow, making a left turn from the outer southbound turn lane of San Antonio, onto El Camino. The guy on the bike was not a problem here. The truck was easy to see.

The truck clears. We go again. A few more feet. This time, theres a problem. A middle-aged woman driving a minivan with a boresom paint job decided to turn left, from the inner turn lane. Initially, she was obscured from my view by the startlingly yellow BMW bike riding my front left tire. He managed to brake early, revealing the minivan, and, yes, I was able to stop in time as well.

Barely. Less than an inch away from my shiny new (well, eight month old) front plasticwork, sat the minivan with the boresom paint job. Inside, was a truely horrified middle aged woman, absolutly stunned by the event. Being the emotionally calming person I am, I gently smiled and, after twenty seconds that seemed to stay forever, I could see her relaxing: taking her hands away from her face, and eventually she regained conscious control of her environment, and she drove away.

The light was still green. I went to work. I forgot the entire incident even happened until a few minutes ago.

I suppose that I should "care" more, about these things. I have a hard time doing that. Perhaps it just takes practice to care about things that don't matter. But if so, I should be well suited for it. (This case was obviously not going to be a life-threatening situation. At worst, the outcome would be a battle in a land of insurance companies, bickering about figures of money that doesn't really exist outside of either side's mind. They are just cars.)

Jeb Bush.

Googly googly. Gurgle.

The Beast wanders in the maze. Watch out. He has an Avatar. The Avatar of Doom. Luckily, he has a dozen feet, and entirely too many people lounging on his back, arranging letters and dying instead of crashing mySQL.

During the week beginning 27may, arthurdent's odometer elevated by over 1100 miles. He was able to see entirely too much of the coast line, Yosemite in the Spring (with Brock), several trips to Sunnyvale and back, and a few other things.

It also turned my left arm and the left side of my face a lovely shade of flaming pink.

I've threatened to take Brock to Death Valley this summer. I hope he realizes that I'm not joking.

As I was walking by the apartment quadrangle in front of my door coming home tonight, I noticed large amounts of lumber laying about. The wooden fence that currently stands now fashions a long segment of white spray paint, with arrow points on each end.

It would be my current estimation that I will be out of bed by 10am again in the morning.

Pity, too. I'm starting to get rather tired.

I am not ready to move, no matter how you look at it. I haven't even made it up there to finish the paperwork and I was supposed to do that weeks ago.

I am such a horrible human being.

While laying in bed all morning, I overheard one of the neighbors talking to a visitor of theirs.

Apparently theres this neighbor that "comes and goes all night" that is keeping her cat from sleeping properly. This cat has insisted on sleeping outside all winter long, in order to keep watch on this neighbor. The cat's owner is confused, but apathetic to the plight of said cat.

I'm not sure whether I am supposed to feel insulted, ignore the comment, or be proud that I've been unknowingly torturing that cat for months on end, and forced out a neurosis that kept it shivering in the cold.

That cat is mean to me, anyway.

Yeah. So.

I was planning on not writing again til I had something interesting to say. I hope you survive.

I've spent the last two days thinking and starting to implement RDP (RFC 908/1152), and my own variation RDP over UDP (RoD). I think I've decided to give up.

I'm giving up for partly the same reason I gave up on WAP. I have nothing to test with -- I have to write both ends. Thats annoying. I don't like not being able to test my code often, and even more, I don't like not being able to test my code against things that I know should work mostly well.

I'm going to revisit my TCP implementation. Its not in good shape. Its quite flaky. I'm going to try to help it out a bit. You have to understand that everything I originally wrote last week I implemented from memory. This time, I'm actually going to read the RFC. Maybe the result will be something that works a bit better.

I think with SACK, and maybe a few home-grown TCP options, TCP could be workable over Mobitex and Mobitex-like mediums. It won't be easy. But damnit, it'll be testable!

My other conclusion of the evening, after a minorly extensive effort to find someone who already implemented all this for me, in a way I could use without hassle, is that less than 10% of the existent TCP/IP implementations are not one-week-or-less-break-if-you-sneeze hacks.

But the most amusing highlight of the day was TinyTCP/TinyFTP. If its not immediatly obvious as to why this is so damned funny, you should download it and read some of the code (and commentary). Its definitly 'unique'. I mean, where else are you going to find a TCP where every memory access is guarenteed to no be a byte-level access, through specific hacks to every part of the code?

Very creative, I'll give him that.

I didn't make it to bed, or even home, before sunrise. How sad. I do need to run away before P comes running in...

Looked down to put shoes on. Then I remembered I left them at home. I lead such a tedious and irrelevent life.

In preschool, they taught us how to clean things with shaving cream.

They never taught us how to clean up afterward.

Hi. I'm bored. Its Friday. Remind me to pick up Brock at the aeroport tomorrow.