Beach at Torrey Pines Park

Last Sunday morning on the Coast Highway just before Del Mar

It's all About the Bike

This morning Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France. Unrelated to the tour (as you can probably tell from earlier posts) I have been riding a road bike for about a dozen years on-and-off and currently have a wonderful Torelli Countach frame with Campagnolo components that I plow the roads around my home with. I'm relatively new to the San Diego area and am really enjoying discovering the rides. I ride early and today noticed a LOT of people on the road and finally realized it was because they probably woke to Lance's win. Anyway, I look forward to nxt weekend when it gets a little quieter again. And by the way -- still nothing like the circus I left in Palo Alto - many fewer and more normal riders down here! Enclosed pics show my bike and Torrey Pines Beach this morning about 6:15. J

Kudos to the Spin Doctors at the White House

Un frigging believable. It looks as if Carl Rove has committed a felony and he's got his shorts in a bunch right now. George deftly pulls John Roberts out of the hat, a man who seems not to be of the administration's ideological ilk - actually a reasonable man. The dissonance this has created completely overshadows Carl-in-the-corner. Don't worry, buddy - we Democrats my not have the penchant for making things up or the killer instincts you've shown over the years - but we have enough not to let this one get away. Have a wonderful weekend. J

FW: Paradise

-----Original Message----- From: James Dorst <jim.dorst@verdisoft.com> Sent: 7/19/05 6:13:44 AM To: jdorst_us@ailsoft.blogger.com Subject: Paradise

I am sitting in my kitchen literally in a cloud. We live on the top of Mt. Soledad in La Jolla. So quiet -- have always wanted to live in the mountains or beach -- am finally at the beach and it is delicious.

Need to start on the vision quest blog; Have only been thinking on it for 12 years now....

:-)

J

Ken or Saddam ???

Saddam has been a bad-guy longer than Ken Lay but I think someone ought to handicap who gets to go to the "Big House" first. Personally, I think George would get more votes out of locking up Kenny-boy especially because the big bang-for-the-buck with Saddam has already been had. I mean pulling him out of a hole like a rat -- that's pretty good when you want to demonize somebody. Saddam on the stand nobody in America so much cares about unless he does something goofy. Lay is differnt (Texas sp). George can spank his buddy and look like a reformed man! Maybe Kenny-boy can be in the same cell as Karl! They can cheat at poker with one another! This would be cool. J

Big Fun

When you get to a certain point in life it is sometimes hard to just have pure fun. Behold Lauren, William and Marian all having pure fun at Pacific Beach yesterday. It just doesn't get any better than a big-ass inflatable "slip-n-slide". J

Speaking of Propaganda

I was being a lazy-dog watching CNN the day after the multiple blasts in the London tube and suddenly stiffened up when a "news bulletin" peppered out of the TV. It went something like this; ".. an unidentified high-level CIA source indicates that the terrorists involved in the bombings in London may have connections to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi the infamous Al Qaeda leader in Iraq....". Excuse me, but the Brits (who seem to really have their act together in responding to all of this) had barely begun speculating that the bombs themselves were set by timing devices and were not suicide or cell-phone bombs. One day after the events how in the hell could anyone in the US intelligence community have ANY REAL IDEA that this terrorist attack was connected to Al Zarqawi? I am afraid that the answer is that they could not have any such information but such a "connection" would be valuable to the White House -- just a few days after George went on TV to fumble through a "decisive" speech trying to justify the stupidity of Iraq. If any government types read this (and I assume you might because blogs are probably scanned for these sorts of sentiments) I want to apologize. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it but when you make it so damned obvious it just sticks in my craw. Remember when we used to call Soviet leaders "ham-handed"? J

Supposed to be my Last Day and Podcasting

How's that for two disparate topics. Later this afternoon the boys are going to have pizza and cake for my last day at Yahoo. Turns out I will be working tomorrow as well and some into the future but as the last day of the month it is kind of a line of demarcation. I loaded the iTunes podcasting software on my Powerbook and iPod. iTunes doesn't support BitTorrent so some of the podcasts that look the most interesting I can't get but I am sure that will change soon because these are some of the most advertised podcasts. It's interesting when you look at the Top Ten podcasts, Al Franken is in there and his deal is Bit Torrent I think. So what I guess this means is there are a bunch of pissed off people trying to download Franken's shows, failing, but still driving his show into the top ten. What's wrong with this picture? J

Neighborhood Watering Holes Not a Good Idea

When I lived in Menlo Park I was riding my bike to work at Yahoo in Sunnyvale. Along the route on Old Middlefield road I saw a classic old bar near San Antonio road - called Fred's Bar. It is set back a bit from the street and has a classic neon sign, come-on-in-after work look to it and it made me think about taking up drinking again. There were people in there who would be interesting. Today in the newspaper, the following: "About 2:15 AM Friday, a patron of Fred's Bar on Old Middlefield Road was arrested on the 2500 block of Alvin Street after allegedly standing in the middle of the road with his pants down and scratching five vehicles with a knife." Reminding me that there is a damn good reason for both my abstinence and the lack of as many "colorful neighborhood bars" as there used to be. A

Friday and going home

Well, here I am finishing up another week. Detroit lost last night but it was a good series and things could be worse. I have been thinking about people's overall complacency regarding the war in Iraq (and the acceptance of this administration's completely implausible and sometimes outright false explanations for things) and what the real reasons for creating this hell in Baghdad are and I am afraid of the answer. I go back to the Vietnam war. I think at the time if one had taken a reasonably intelligent 12 year-old child, shown her a map of Southeast Asia and explained to her the "Domino Theory" of the spread of communism, she would have looked at you as if you were insane. The argument on its face just made no sense. Taking another equally intelligent 12 year-old today, show her a map of the world, explain to her how a country like Iraq possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction which can be used against the United States a half a world away and this is somehow a threat to us ??? (I am going to forget about trying to get her to buy off on the, "Terrorists from Saudi Arabia, by way of Afganistan, trained in Iraq, blew up a couple of buildings in New York" argument) ...... Anyway, I think you get the picture. Collectively, we Americans are stupid and easily led around by our noses. I will scream in anguish against the war if my son or daughter comes home in a "transport tube" (they don't call them "body bags" any longer) but am then forced to rationalize the loss by accepting the Bush Administration's specious argument because if I don't -- then I am guilty of sacrificing my child to my own unquestioning lack of critical thought. I don't think it's completely blood for oil -- later on this topic and apologies for being so bleak. I take comfort in Cheney's learned assessment that the insurgency in Iraq is in its, "last throes"...... A A

Off the Back Deck

Might be hard to tell but this is what I can look out on when I am at home....

Kinda Back

Well, I am soon to complete my stint at Yahoo and am leaving a front row seat for their mobile initiatives but for probably a good reason. That being to move to La Jolla where my family already is. I had tried to warm to the Yahoo360 blog product but, although in beta, it is nothing near as robust as the Google blogger so I am going to stay here I think. Today across from my cube I had a chance to talk to Russell Beattie (just search for him and you'll find his blog) who sits right across from me. I am sorry I leave next week because Russ is a real interesting guy and I could spend a lot of time talking with him about a lot of things which mostly would educate me. He is a very interesting guy. Today is the first aniversary of my friend Don Cochrane's death as well as my daughter's 10th birthday, so a lot of mixed thoughts run through my mind. A

From San Diego

Blogging from San Diego on the Easter weekend. Spongebob and Scooby on the tube and trying to get to the beach. Will return hopefully with some pictures to post. Still need to figure out how to do this on a Powerbook. Weather is cool - will report back on the beach situation later. August

Well things are Kind of Evening Out

It has been a long time because our little software company is now a small piece of a much larger company and being the operations guy - I took a big shot of the brunt of the thing, I still have a couple of weeks of insanity but then things should settle down and I will show up here again. Probably the newest thing is that I am now the proud owner of a 15" Powerbook - I have made the switch to Apple and my main thought has been - "Life is too short to live it inelegantly". This machine is amazing. Later - A

Too Long

I can't believe its been over a month - I will get on it but its late so I sleep .... A

Importance of Being Lucky

I am listening to my 3 small children squabbling and at the same time looking at an old picture of me holding a 20 lb. steelhead on the banks of the Deschutes River (two truly mutually exclusive experiences). These things remind me that through a remarkable accident of birth I am able to indulge in these thoughts/pastimes and not eke out a subsistence life elsewhere in the world. We (I) are (am) stunningly lucky to dream about and occasionally even do those things that bring us the most pleasure and fulfillment in life. Mine are easy; fishing, road-biking, reading, cross-country skiing and running (all with my kids). The latter two I am working back into as my heart is not where it used to be ~ but I will get it there. I think I mentioned it before now in this Blog but coming up on two years ago I had my aortic heart valve replaced with a porcine (read, "It used to belong to a pig") valve because I had a congenital defect I knew nothing about. The alternative was, "You have 12 months to live", hence the "Lucky" part. Anyway, I can exercise but the hardest part seems to be getting into good enough shape to assimilate oxygen while exercising. It is simply harder to breathe than it used to be, although I am told that I can work up to it. We shall see .......................A

Depression

I suppose things could be worse, but the thought of four more Bush years has me dreaming of Canada and New Zealand. I have a haunting nightmare of the Red/Blue US electoral map - is it just me or does anyone else see the Union/Confederate comparison here? In my dream Carl Jung is explaining to an audience that, on average, the empirically determined IQ of the red states is 94, while the corresponding IQ value for the blue states is 132. The audience erupts into a kind of an academic riot (I later realize the presentation hall is on the Mississippi State campus). Everything disappears into a fog until I awake with my foot blown off on the front lines of the Civil War of 2005................. A thinks he maybe should start drinking again.

Hard to Believe

I suppose it's the excitement of the debates or the volume of email I am getting from MoveOn.org, but I have not made it to the keyboard. I will improve this weekend. Anyway, still thinking a lot about Don. His memory motivated me to call a couple people I hadn't spoken to in a long time. One is Ross Hawkins who is a very wonderful spirit - living up in Portland (where I met him ) and running an eclectic and equally wonderful publishing house (www.arnicapublishing.com). I also called another good friend, Tom Harper from Berkeley. Tom, Don and I worked together at the same small "science project" in Emeryville. Both doing well and new (old) threads to the tapestry. Definitely members of the tribe. Then there is Balch who is out there somewhere doing webcams and Putnam smoking a bowl and howling at the television. later .... A

Music and Poetry

A few years ago I read in an interview with Gary Snyder his answer to a question about the demise of poetry. His response was something like, "What do you think popular music is? Poetry is more popular than it has ever been". Now, to music. I am a true non-explorer of contemporary music of the past 20 years. I tend to listen to stuff I happen to hear on the internet or very obscure stuff. Being a big dead-head I tried Phish ... sorry, don't get it Trey. Then I bought a couple of Dave Matthews albums. I am as blown-away as seeing Terry Haggerty play up in Marin. Really good. and I am exploring. It's hard for me to believe that he's been playing for a dozen years and I hadn't bothered. Oh well. At least he's still alive an making music. Marian and I are listening right now. ....A

Marian and Dad

We are looking at the blog and trying to figure out what to do and what to write today.