I had a sad realization the other day. I cannot look at ample busted women anymore without wondering if they're fake. This is a shame. I have always appreciated the bodies of women and found the beauty in them regardless of how large or small their breasts were. What is horrific is that our society has destroyed this with plastic surgery and breast augmentation for the masses. There is nothing beautiful about fake. The mere fact that I am writing such a bizarre entry is testament to the wretchedness of this.

Where I live there are so many blond women - clearly fake as well. Along with this apparent need to be blond is the need to be Malibu Barbie. Humans are really screwed up.

I'm surprised to find myself making an entry to, what appears to be, a dead blog. So much has happened to me since the last entry, that I'm trying to figure out all that I could say. I've been building a race car, albeit slowly. The weather here has been so hot that gearing up and welding has been hard to look forward to. Oh, the car is my 1990 Mazda Miata. I've joined the SCCA and there is a Spec Miata class that often has 30-40 cars running in a field, which makes for some amazing racing. These guys get a bit out of hand, going so far as to bump each other.

I've been enjoying the lakes here again too. Last year Carina and I bought a 1987 Bayliner Capri ski boat to allow us to enjoy the lakes while we try and complete the dead-in-the-water restoration on our Glasspar Seafair Sedan. It was a cheap purchase and we really like the boat. I just picked up a clamp-on-the-railing BBQ for it. That should make our trips easy as far as cooking is concerned.

Carina and I have decided to adopt a child! We're going to get a kid from Ethiopia. We're beyond excited and cannot wait for the experience of raising a kid - particularly one from another country. We just submitted the paperwork, so the year long process has just begun...

Stay tuned???

Oh, the Formula One season has been insane, no!??!

Death

A few weeks ago I got a speeding ticket. It wasn't anything special, 75 in a 65. Big whoop. Friggin' quotas.

A few days later I got stopped by our local PD for sliding my Miata through an extremely sharp left hand corner followed by a 90 degree right turn. It's something I have been doing EVERY time I go through that same s-bend for the last 4 years I have driven home, so the fact that there heavy traffic was simply an exercise for me to up the ante. The challenge was gone years ago simply taking the curves fast, I was looking for an opportunity for potential braking work. Anyhow, the officer who stopped me asked me if I was on parole or probation. I just about lost it on him. I told him he was out of line asking me that question for simply stopping me for speeding. I told him I didn't appreciate his insinuating that I was a potential criminal. I think I surprised him. He tried to offer up a weak explaination that the question was for his safety. I pointed out that if he was so concerned for his safety that he should be pointing his Glock at me. He then proceeded to tell me that in some parts of Los Angeles that is precisely what they do. I told him that I lived in Los Angeles, and grew up in Oakland and never once had an officer ask me if I was on parole or probation, nor have a gun pointed at me by an officer of the law for a routine traffic stop. After this banter, I reminded him that I own a home right up the road, and receive the little pie chart from the city that shows just how much of our property taxes are going to the local PD (try 80%+) and that I'm paying for his paycheck, and I'd appreciate his treating ordinary citizens with a little more respect.

He let me go free after voicing his concern regarding my sliding my car.

Needless to say, I refuse to drive the Miata until the full race car conversion is complete and I can't drive it on the street anymore. I simply cannot keep my foot out of it.

I love being anti-social.

On of the greatest parts of living where I do is the access to bird watching from my very own bed. I have a small canyon view out my second story sliding glass door that affords me the opportunity to observe a myriad of bird behaviour. Perhaps to some of you this may seem a bit, how should I say, old British man in calf high socks, kaki shorts, a pith helmet and field glasses, but since we are talking about me it wouldn't be too far from the truth, of course minus the old man part. Birds have always fascinated me. They have been around since the dinosaurs and have an amazing ability to thrive.

Where I live there is an incredible array of bird species, and I have come to find their presence a part of my daily life that I literally live for. Hanging just outside are two bird feeders. One is filled with a basic wild finch mix, which attracts Lesser Goldfinches, House Finches (which have a bright red breast), White Breasted Nuthatches (who perch on vertical rather than horizontal surfaces and look really cool), Red Winged Black Birds, Stellar's Jays, Scrub Jays, Dark Eyed Juncos (who have little black hoods and seem to enjoy picking up the seed that drops to the decking rather than grab it from the feeder) and even Magpies (whose sheer size makes it nearly impossible to feed from the feeder). My other feeder is like a Slinky held end-to-end in a circular shape. You pour peanuts in their shell into the ends of the "Slinky" and fill it. It attracts the Jays. They hop from the railing of the deck up and onto the feeder and then, with a great fluttering of wings to maintain balance, begin pulling a peanut through the winding of the feeder until it pops out and they fly off. It's mesmerizing to see how clever they are and how quickly they begin defending the area, claiming it for themselves.

Now that I'm able to identify all the birds here by sight, I want to learn their Latin names and identify them by song and call. The city just drives these wonderful creatures away. What a pity.

I recently eliminated FaceBook from my life, and I feel all the better for it. I began to see it as a ridiculous way to communicate with people. In a simpler time, people who you actually cared about would stay in your life. They would either be physically close allowing you to interact regularly (or not) or you'd write them a thoughtful letter or even a simple post card with a few simple words scribed on the back. It seems to me that these old ways of staying in contact had far more meaning than biting someone and turning them into a vampire or poking them. If you really want to stay connected, pick up the phone and call. Social networks just aren't social.

I can't believe that America is so frivolous with petrol that it has billboards mounted on lories that drive around and advertise.

Okay dumb-ass Americans. Let's get something straight. Jeffrey is spelled REY not ERY. I don't care if you spell it the Olde English way Geoffrey or if you spell it the modern Jeffrey, it is still REY. It burns me that even when I spell it out to some jackass American, they get it wrong. Not only are they incompetent, but they are hard of listening; two wonderful traits in a human being. My favorite is when they toss in the extra E on top of spelling it wrong - Jefferey. WTF. Perhaps I should start going by "Jeff."

I did something really stupid recently. I allowed myself to get involved in something that hurt me deeply. As I think back over what happened, I am stunned that I am still so young and incapable of allowing myself to be cold. I want to be angry and yet I don't know if I am supposed to. Sometimes you think you understand someone, and that they understand you only to discover you were horribly wrong. The bottom line is that I am simply disappointed in myself for not being wiser and for not being a cold-hearted son of a bitch.

Seriously the iPhone has given new life to my insomnia. My 17" PowerBook is so unwieldy when trying to reach down to the floor from my tall bed in order to make use of it on a middle o' the night whim. My precious, on the other hand, is perched there upon my nightstand in its dock awaiting my talons.

It makes such a great blogging device, although I would like to see some improvements, such as a larger window above the horizontal key pad. I prefer the horizontal keypad, but it is very hard to navigate the minutely sized window to correct your text. This is particularly the case when trying to use the "magnifying glass" to position the cursor. Vertically, however, there is a significantly larger window, but the keypad is much more compressed, which I find best used as a one finger typing surface vs. the horizontal's wider keys and wider spacing between said keys. With it, I can actually type "two-thumbed". Solution? Head off to apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

I love my iPhone! It is better than iCrack!

Thanks Apple!

Ok, double-plus whatever it's the 4th post of the evening. What the hell is with Google Street View not mapping the ghetto??? I lived on 25th street right next to the projects in San Francisco, and I can't get a street view of my lovely old abode. I swear whitey must pay.

San freaking Luis Obispo needs me to buy an old motor lodge (you know the kind, several little bungalows surrounding a pool, built in the 50s or 60s) and turn it into a swanky disco hotspot. Stock the rooms with retro furnishings, paint the place something mid-century and have the pool be the center of attention. I imagine importing groovy DJs from around the globe to entertain the kids here in the central coast SF or NYC style. I really miss house music and an outdoor club on a sunny afternoon. Long live Studio 54!

Holy cats! I just realized I didn't write about my drive to work the other AM. I'm driving my 1961 Ford Galaxie Sunliner down "the grade" (don't ask, it's a steep ass grade on the highway) bombing along at 70ish when of-a-sudden BOOM! wisps of smoke form around the hood lines. I glance in the rear-view mirror to see a vortex of blue and black smoke and feel a major loss of power. I shut down the ol' mill, eased into the right lane and coasted my way to the call box at the bottom of "the grade." A quick glance under the hood reveals, perhaps, a blown head gasket, but upon further inspection there is a friggin' hole in the side of my engine block with a connecting rod winking an eye at me. Scratch one engine, score one really massive car with no mobility to sit at home until I figure out what to do with it. Yay!