The smoke gets in your eyes

My truck usually smells like a camp fire. Mainly because we are too damn lazy to unpack all the camping gear just to pack it back up to go camping again. It is a little enjoyable to smell the smells of camping.

unfortunately now the air smells like a camp fire. I work in Burbank and the hills above my employer burned yesterday. 13 miles to the West, the hills are charred and still burning. My truck not only smelled like a fire today, but was also covered in ash.

Friend Rose lives right across the street from the fire command station! If I think it smells bad, just look at her pictures.

I should have worn my glasses today, my contacts don't react well to massive fires.

LOST

I think I like reading the message boards about LOST almost as much as I like watching the show. It reminds me of the initial speculation about the first Survivor on the internet.

Hump Day

I am looking forward to watching LOST tonight! I am also eager to eat a yummy pork roast.

Yesterday we watched the Lords of Dogtown. I really enjoyed the movie. I'm down with the skater boys.

After 12 physical therapy appointments on my shoulder I am not progressing as they would like. Now I get to go to a specialist, for x-rays and an MRI. Call me crazy but in my line of work, we do the diagnostic testing before providing treatment. Whatever, I'm just ready to proceed and get back to my creative life, I'm starting to get depressed.

I'm trying not to post depressing things in my blog. But I really don't have too much going on that isn't depressing.

Weekend wrap up

I woke up at 6:00 yesterday and couldn't go back to sleep. 6 is still over an hour later than normal waking hours but for some reason I can't consider that "sleeping in".

Matt got up with me and we watched 5 hours of Six Feet Under, saving Season 4 finale for later in the day. Well worth the wait. I can see why people didn't enjoy it as much towards the end but we are really enjoying it. I like the character development. I assume the final season will be released just in time for Christmas.

We decided to run errands and go out for bagels. I had an everything bagel with cheese, toasted with cream cheese. It was gross, I'll never stray from my usual again. Matt had is regular salt with cream cheese and Lox.

The rest of the day was spend doing a lot of nothing.

Today I managed to sleep in, or at least until 8. I got up and put a pot roast in the crock pot. I've never made a pot roast, I'm hopefully it will taste ok. We gave the dirty dirty dog a bath. She is now super soft and shiny.

The rest of today has also been filled with a lot of nothing mixed in with bits of uneventful house keeping.

I did make some mean french toast for breakfast! French toast, bacon and mimosas.

I am super duper excited about a job possibility. More to follow.

God Bless America

School Expels Girl for Having Gay Parents
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September 23,2005 ONTARIO, Calif. -- A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter. Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.

"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother. Stob wrote that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition.

Stob could not be reached for comment by the newspaper. Shay and her parents said they won't fight the ruling.

School administrators learned of the parents' relationship this week after Shay was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game, Tina Clark said. Clark and her partner have been together 22 years and have two other daughters, ages 9 and 19

Deep Thoughts

Are mash ups (bits of 2+ songs molded together into one new creation) actual new songs? Or are they just edits of another's work? My DH (dear husband for you non quiverful folk) thinks they are no more than someone taking someone else's work and calling it their own. I kind of think that they are new creative songs. Is that because he is a musician and I'm just a listener?

What did that Irish guy shoot up in the opener of LOST? Does it have to do with the drug plane? Is it a heroin operation like my friends think? Personally I think that is a little far fetched, but than so are special boys who kill rare birds with their thoughts.

I'm very anxious to finish 6 Ft. Under. Will Ruth divorce her new husband? Will David die? When will Season 5 be out? I hope to wrap up 3 tonight and dig right into 4 this weekend.

I'm seriously sick and tired of going to physical therapy everyday.

I had a longer post written in my head earlier today. I can't remember anything else.

One more show

Just in case you were worried that I was skipping America's Next Top Model don't I'm catching in second run on Sundays.

I missed discussing the girls with my sister last season.

I need one more television

Tonight at 8 there are 3 shows I MUST watch.

LOST the review
So You Think You Can Dance
Martha Stewart

I can live without Marth, so I think that is what I'll skip. Unless I find a television on my way home. Which honestly, in my neighborhood, won't be difficult whether it works or not would be the problem.

I thought about making a special mysterious LOST meal for dinner, but we decided take out instead.

Bits and pieces

I know dirt regarding the "fraud" between Kenny and Renee. It is nice to know people "in the business".

We had dinner at my most very favorite Cuban place. It was delicious. We had beef and chicken empanadas, fried mashed potato balls stuffed with ground beef and a Cuban sandwich. I had a special mojito, I prefer the non special.

Tomorrow we get to meet baby Sophie. She was born last Friday to our friends Linda and Robert. She arrived nine minutes after they walked in the door of the hospital! Go Linda.

Matt is at the dentist, I hope he has as good of a review of his teeth as I did.

We are almost done watching season 3 of 6Ft Under. I had hoped we would finish all that are available before this week, but it didn't happen. I have so many wonderful tv commitments coming up in the next few weeks.

I really, really love So You Think You Can Dance. Survivor seems like it will be entertaining. I do have a thing for the Mayans. I CAN NOT WAIT for LOST. I still have been unable to get anyone at work to watch so therefore no one to discuss the plots and stuff. I do however have a number of coworkers that watch The Amazing Race!

Depending upon the dentist, we may go to the south facing beaches to watch the biggest waves in many years. There was a big storm in N.Z. two weeks ago and the waves have now reached SoCal, coupled with the full moon, they should be pretty great.

Regarding waves, when we were camping last weekend the waves were an amazing color of blue in the middle of the night. I had recently read up on why glaciers are blue, they aren't. The reflect all but the blue color because of how dense they are. I think the crashing of the waves is the same concept. I would have liked to take a picture but it was dark and I didn't want to find the camera.

Reggie 2 - Gator Hunter 0

Need I say more? Also as a side note, when the power went out and the refineries had to burn off excess fuel, the coptercaster refered to the location of the burn off as just down the street from the lake where Reggie lives! HA.

L.A. Still Hunting for Elusive Alligator
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September 13,2005 LOS ANGELES -- Authorities on Tuesday dismissed a claim that a wrangler had nabbed a 7-foot-long alligator named "Reggie" from a city lake, where he had been dumped several months ago and repeatedly avoided capture.

Earlier Tuesday, a man claiming to be wrangler Jay Young, who had been hired by the city, told several media outlets, including The Associated Press, that he had caught the alligator overnight.

That story was cast into doubt when the promised delivery of the alligator to the Los Angeles Zoo never happened. "To the best of my knowledge and all the reports I have received this morning, it was a hoax," said Ron Berkowitz, the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks superintendent, who supervises the area that includes the lake. "I called the zoo to verify and the gator is not there. I called the rangers, the city council office and my staff at the lake. There was no capture."

Reached by phone at his Colorado gator farm later Tuesday, Young said he has not been in Los Angeles recently and that he hadn't called the media earlier in the day. He said the caller apparently was someone impersonating him.

In a written statement later in the day, Young blamed "a jealous ex-employee trying to ruin my reputation." Young had been hired by the city last month and promised to capture the alligator within a few days. He left town on Aug. 18, unable to deliver on his promise.

ALASKA

There are a slew of jobs I am well qualified for in Alaska. They are also higher pay than what I make in LA.

I wonder if Matt could find a fullfilling job in the great white north.

New Job

I think it is time.

we all make mistakes

Yesterday my faux supervisor spent numerous hours looking for errors I've made. She was able to find 16. Considering that I work on about 500 accounts on the regular, 16 errors isn't that bad. Today I got this quote from my daily quote sender.

"Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to
determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself.
Otherwise, go on about your business."
*Norman Vincent Peale

I need to work on that. I've never really been good at taking criticism. It all began when I was 15 and working at Skagway, the grocery store in Grand Island, and Judy the bagger supervisor yelled at me for bagging the food wrong. She made me cry.

Tuesday Random

My Doctor's appt was fine. I'm not a big fan of things being inserted in to my nose and down my throat, just so you know. I have Acid reflux, no lump. Now to find a medication I'm not allergic to. Not one physician has mentioned a thing about diet, just pills, it is all about the pills. I'll probably opt for some diet modification and tracking to see if I can make a difference on my own.

Matt and I have been watching Six Feet Under non stop. We are half way done with Season 2.

I can't wait for all the new TV this month. Amazing Race, Survivor, LOST, and all the others I can't think of off the top of my head.

We are camping at the beach this weekend. It will be just the 2 of us, and Emma. We haven't been camping solo in ages. I'm sure we will obsess about Alaska looking at maps and books and daydreaming. It is going to be in the 60's this weekend! I cold camping trip! I can't wait to spend the day by the fire.

I'm nervous about the doctor

A while back I posted about the lump in my throat. Tomorrow I go to the MD to have my throat scoped. I guess they spray down my mouth and throat to numb me and stick a camera down there to check things out.

I'm worried that it is something bad or something that will require further exploration.

And I'm bummed out that I won't be able to talk to my mom following the appointment. Although I am delighted that my parents are on a fantastic 3.5 week vacation to Italy, Greece and Turkey.

Cross your fingers it isn't anything bad.

Dork Alert

Guess who got the LAST ticket? That's right, me! I'm such a dork. Well at least I'm not flying in from Michigan or Washington like the ticket lady said. It should be some good people watching.

Forty Years of Days of Our Lives

Thursday, November 3, 20057:00 to 8:30 p.m.;
reception to follow
Panel:Ken Corday, Executive Producer
Kristian Alfonso, "Hope Williams Brady"
Deidre Hall, "Marlena Evans Black"
Bill & Susan Hayes, "Doug and Julie Williams"
Drake Hogestyn, "John Black"
Peter Reckell, "Bo Brady"
James Reynolds, "Abe Carver"
Moderator:Joe Adalian, Television Editor, Daily Variety

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." For forty years viewers of the classic soap opera Days of Our Lives have heard these words intoned by the late Macdonald Carey, one of the show's original stars. More than 10,000 episodes of Days have been produced, making it the longest running scripted program in NBC's history, with only Today and The Tonight Show surpassing its longevity. Members of the cast and creative team will reminisce about the melodramatic events that have occurred in the fictitious town of Salem and will share their favorite memories from Days of Our Lives, which premiered on November 8, 1965.

ALASKA

We are in the process of picking dates and will purchase the tickets THIS WEEK to go to Alaska. I spoke with cousin Tommy yesterday, he gave us a few must see things and also said if we want to camp in his 100 acre woods we are welcome to hang out with him the whole time. 13 days in the great white north.

Too bad it is NINE months away. I wish it were right now.

Have you been to Alaska? What things must I see?

Day 12 Gator Watch 2005

Today is day 12 for Reggie the gator. It seems that once upon a time Reggie lived in the back yard pool of a former LAPD, current narcotic distributor and exotic animal keeper. Reggie got too big and the neighbors complained. So the gator dad did what any one would do when faced with an unwanted pet. He dumped him. He dumped him in a neighborhood lake. According to the news, the gator at any given moment could jump out of the lake and eat all the children in the neighborhood, the children and the dogs and maybe even a parent or two.

They have flown in gator experts from all over the US of A. I had no idea that there is a hot bed of gator activity in Colorado!?! The first dude came out, claimed his expertise to the point that he declined payment unless he caught the damn thing. He failed. The next group of gator hunters are at least from Florida, I see FL as a more likely location for a gator catcher expert to reside. These guys own and operate Gatorland!

So far Reggie the gator has managed to allude the experts. I think he is out looking for an agent or out on auditions. With all this gator coverage he'd be crazy not to!

I had a baby kitty

I rarely remember my dreams, never really have. But every once and a while I do. Like last night.

I was pregnant and had a baby, a baby kitty. She was so cute, just like a little baby Chase-er-meow-meow. My whole family, all my aunts and cousins and everyone came to visit and see my new baby. I had her big unveiling at some sort of sports arena, our seats were way way up.

I was so happy when I woke up, thinking about my new baby kitty.

I'm pretty sure I dreamed of pregnancy since I dealt with a nightmare patient yesterday, a pregnant girl the tender age of 15.

Death of a theremin

I hope that Matt will play a robust tribute with a choir of theremins and moogs for me tonight.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- Robert A. Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into sound and opened the musical wave that became electronica, has died. He was 71.

Moog died Sunday at his home in Asheville, according to his company's Web site. He had suffered from an inoperable brain tumor, detected in April.

A childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, would lead Moog to a create a career and business that tied the name Moog as tightly to synthesizers as the name Les Paul is to electric guitars.

Despite traveling in circles that included jet-setting rockers, he always considered himself a technician. "I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers," he said in 2000. "They use the tools."

As a Ph.D. student in engineering physics at Cornell University, Moog -- rhymes with vogue -- in 1964 developed his first voltage-controlled synthesizer modules with composer Herbert Deutsch. By the end of that year, R.A. Moog Co. marketed the first commercial modular synthesizer.

The instrument allowed musicians, first in a studio and later on stage, to generate a range of sounds that could mimic nature or seem otherworldly by flipping a switch, twisting a dial, or sliding a knob. Other synthesizers were already on the market in 1964, but Moog's stood out for being small, light and versatile.

The arrival of the synthesizer came as just as the Beatles and other musicians started seeking ways to fuse psychedelic-drug experiences with their art. The Beatles used a Moog synthesizer on their 1969 album, "Abbey Road"; a Moog was used to create an eerie sound on the soundtrack to the 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange".

Keyboardist Walter (later Wendy) Carlos demonstrated the range of Moog's synthesizer by recording the hit album "Switched-On Bach" in 1968 using only the new instrument instead of an orchestra.

"Suddenly, there was a whole group of people in the world looking for a new sound in music, and it picked up very quickly," Deutsch, the Hofstra University emeritus music professor who helped develop the Moog prototype, said in a 2000 interview with The Associated Press.

The popularity of the synthesizer and the success of the company named for Moog took off in rock as extended keyboard solos in songs by Manfred Mann, Yes and Pink Floyd became part of the progressive sound of the 1970s.

"The sound defined progressive music as we know it," said Keith Emerson, keyboardist for the rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Along with rock, synthesizers developed since Moog's breakthrough helped inspire elements of 1970s funk, hip-hop, and techno.

Charles Carlini, a New York City concert promoter, staged Moogfest in May 2004 to mark a half-century since Moog founded his first company while still in college. Emerson, Rick Wakeman of Yes, and Bernie Worrell of Parliament/Funkadelic were among those who played, and a second Moogfest was held a year later.

Moog had "this absent-minded professorial way about him," Carlini said. "He's like an Einstein of music," Carlini said. "He sees it like, there's a thought, an idea in the air, and it passes through him. Passing through him, he's able to build these instruments."

"A lot of people today don't realize what this man brought to the masses," Carlini said. "He brought electronic music to the masses and changed the way we hear music." But the now-pervasive synthesizer's ability to mimic strings, horns, and percussion has also threatened some musicians.

In 2004, musicians extracted a promise from the Opera Company of Brooklyn to never again use an advanced kind of synthesizer, called a virtual orchestra machine, in future productions.

Born in 1934 in New York City, Moog paid for his studies at Queens College and Columbia University by building and marketing theremins, which are played by passing the hand through and around vibrating radio tubes. Theremins were used create the spooky "eww-woo-woo" sounds on the soundtracks of science fiction films such as "The Day the Earth Stood Still."
He went on to attach his name to a long list of synthesizers developed over the years -- among them Micromoog, Minitmoog, Multimoog and Memorymoog.

Moog, who had set up shop in suburban Buffalo, New York, sold R.A. Moog in 1973 and moved five years later to a remote plot outside Asheville, a scenic Appalachian Mountain city and center for new-age pursuits that Rolling Stone magazine once dubbed "America's new freak capital."

A deliberate man with brushed-back white hair and a breast pocket packed with pens, Moog drove an aging Toyota painted with a snail, vines and a fish blowing bubbles.

"When I drive that thing around, people smile at me," he said. "I really feel I'm enhancing the environment."

He spent the early 1990s as a research professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville before turning full-time to running his new instrument business, which was renamed Moog Music in 2002. The roster of customers includes Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Beck, Phish, Sonic Youth and Widespread Panic.

Moog is survived by his wife, Ileana; his children, Laura Moog Lanier, Matthew Moog, Michelle Moog-Koussa and Renee Moog; a stepdaughter, Miranda Richmond; and his former wife, Shireleigh Moog.

A public memorial is scheduled for Wednesday in Asheville.