rants, raves, & randoms

Given my financial situation this month, and given my eternal quest to more fully embrace minimalism, I am selling a bunch of crap on ebay this week.  Plus, selling old stuff (sometimes) means you get to get new stuff!

So, if anyone is in the market for a skateboard, a some snowboard bindings, some snowboard boots, a wetsuit, a baroque/classical double bass bow, or a bass viol bow, let’s make a deal!

For some reason, the majority of my closest friends from high school and college were girls.  Maybe it is the fact that I was a music major, and most of my classes were 70% female, maybe it’s because I am not into typical “guy” things like organized sports or video games, but when I sit and think about the people I cared about most, the people I miss the most, most of the folks on the list are girls.

Darcy was one of my closest friends in college.  We met during my (and her) first year in college.  We had a mutual friend who thought we should know each other because we were both kind of weird, both vegetarians, and both into music.  It turned out that Darcy and I ended up hanging out a lot, and I made many other friends through our relationship.

Darcy now lives in Portland, so I had to see her while I was there.  She took my wife and I to this little coffee house called Rimsky-Korsakoffee (I am assuming that is how it’s spelled), which is a cute little victorian-looking house where they serve coffee and deserts accompanied by live music.  It is very Portland, I am told.  When she asked me what I wanted to do, how much of Portland I wanted to see, I told I wanted to see the hairy-arm-pitted, hairy-legged, dread-locked lesbian Portland, and Darcy delivered! :)

I wish that my high school reunion was as nice as this reunion was.  It was really fun to catch up and hang out with such a close friend from “back then.”  It was especially nice that I got to share that reminiscence with my wife, as she wasn’t around for that part of my life, and having her there kind of made it feel like she was.

Our daughter threw a fit when we were leaving.  She said that she really wanted to see my friend too.  She asked me why I wanted to go, and I told her that she gets to go play with her friends sometimes, so I wanted to, too.  She asked if Darcy had any toys at her house.  I said that I didn’t know.  She finally gave in by asking if we could at least take a picture of her so she could see her too.  Here’s the fulfillment of that promise:

I’ve been told that there are three really good reasons to become a teacher: June, July, and August.

Because of those reasons, though, I only get paid 11 times a year.  My last paycheck was at the end of June, and I won’t get another one until the end of August.  The timing of several other events (including a car insurance deductible, and the arrival of my new instrument), we’ve found ourselves really having to scrimp and save this month.

I keep thinking to myself, “I can’t wait until the end of August when I won’t have to scrimp so much.”  But, what this time has taught me is that we actually can get by spending not nearly as much money as we usually do.  If I was to make this “scrimping” more normal, I’d have a whole lot of extra funds to put away or invest in more worthwhile endeavors.

We’ll see how life goes come September…

I am in Portland, Oregon (actually in Hillsboro and Forest Grove).  I’ve been here since Sunday.  I decided to attend the VdGSA Conclave this year.

The VdGSA (the Viola da Gamba Society of America) hosts this big get-together every summer.  Basically it is a week of group lessons, classes, and workshops, most of which are hosted by the top players/teachers in the US.  The conclave moves around every year, usually alternating between the East Coast, Mid-West, and the West Coast.  Ever since I’ve been paying attention, the West Coast events have been in Seattle or Tacoma.  Being from San Diego, Seattle might as well be the Mid-West, as it is still 1500 miles away.  There was a series of events, though, that made me decide to come this year.  First, I have a full-time job.  Second, I have a new instrument.  Third, Portland is at least a little bit closer than Seattle.  Fourth, my wife has family that live very near the conclave’s location.

Anyway, so I came out here to attend the conclave, which was/is my first visit to Oregon.  For me, Oregon has always been one of those mysterious places.  I’ve wondered what it was like, imagined things up in my head about how great it must be.  Three years ago, I had even resigned to the idea that I would get a job up here, and that I’d become an Oregonian.  Oregon always seemed like a rugged, hip, semi-radical type of place.  I liked that it had coastal amenities, I liked that it had a certain DIY aesthetic, I liked that it seemed like it had a vibrant, artsiness.

Now that I’ve been, I have to say that I think I might have built it up a bit too much in my head.  There is nothing wrong with Oregon, really.  It is a beautiful place—more beautiful than most, I’d say.  What kind of surprised me, though, was how rural Oregon is.  I imagined that Portland was a lot bigger than it actually is.  I thought that Eugene was going to be this über-hip college town, simply oozing coolness.  When we went to the beach on Wednesday (which was gorgeous!) I was surprised at how small the beach towns were.  Tillamook takes all of ten minutes to drive across.

I can still see myself living up here someday.  But now that I’ve been here, and driven across the entire state, I’ve let myself down a bit.  I have actually had to remind myself on several occasions that I am not in Canada or some other foreign land, as everything seems kind of backwards ‘round here…you can’t even pump your own gas!

Ever since my first post about speaking French, I’ve been thinking a lot about other cultures.  In the summer of 2001 I went on a tour through East-Central Europe.  Specifically, we visited Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary.  I got this opportunity because I was recruited, at the last minute, as a member of the Ricks College Bluegrass Band accompanying the Folk Dance team.  At the time, I couldn’t think of anything more uncool than singing cowboy songs, dressed up in cheesy Americana attire, accompanying corny dancing.  It didn’t really occur to me that I was getting an almost free trip across Europe, and an exposure to many, many interesting musics and cultures from around the world, while at the same time learning the rich culture of American folk music.

Everything is exotic to someone.  I remember thinking that Irish folk music was really interesting when I was about 18 (not that I don’t still think it is interesting).  The folk music from Ukraine was something that really caught my attention at the festivals.  A group came to Cuyamaca College last semester that specialized in the traditional music of Bulgaria—fascinating stuff!  But, what I imagine is the case, is that back home, people think of this music as cheesy and corny; they probably view it the same way I was viewing the American music.  When we were playing at the folk music/dance festivals, everyone just loved us; the little kids especially came alive when they heard our “authentic” cowboy music from the West.  We were exotic, strange, and interesting to them!

I remember when we were in Vienna, there were these two girls, maybe in their late teens, that were really excited to get a picture with one of our singer/guitar players.  He was tall, lanky, and tough—a real-life cowboy from Southern Utah where he grew up on a ranch.  He wore a black Stetson pretty much everyday.  He wore a pair of dress boots when he got gussied up.  He spoke with a distinct drawl.  These Austrian girls thought this guy was amazingly cool!  They couldn’t wait to show their friends that they had met a real-life cowboy!  I was there, in Vienna, thinking about how cool it was to be in such an old city, with so much sophisticated European culture, so much modern chic.  I was embarrassed to be there, dressed like I was, performing the music that I was, associating with the folks I was, yet these girls thought that was really interesting and exciting.

Isn’t it strange how we only see these sorts of things in other cultures, but we think of ours as pretty boring?  Or maybe I am the only one who thinks that…

Writing my last post got me thinking about my time at Melaleuca.  I worked on the French team, speaking to the Québécois customers.  Like I said, I was thrown for a pretty good loop when I first sat down and tried listening in on the French calls; I only recognized a few words interspersed with what sounded like a whole lot of gibberish.

The first thing that I remember is that the callers almost always had a hard time with my name.  I’d say, “Merci d’appeler Melaleuca, la companie de mieux-être.  Je m’appele Taylor.  Comment puis je vous aider?” (Literally: “Thank you for calling Melaleuca, the company of better-being.  My name is Taylor.  How may I help you?”).  And almost every time, they’d say “Quoi? Comment vous appelez-vous?” (What?  What is your name?)  Then I’d have to try to explain my name.  Early on, after spelling it out for a woman, she thought about it for a second and exclaimed, “Oh, Taylor!  Comme madame Elizabeth!” (“Oh, Taylor!  Like Ms. Elizabeth!”)  Though it felt kind of silly, every time one of the customers had a hard time with my name, I’d tell them, “You know, like Ms. Elizabeth.”  That seemed to work.  When I was in high school, our French teacher had us pick “French” names to use in class, so we’d get used to using the right accent and inflections (instead of constantly “breaking character” to say an English name).  I was François.  I always thought it was funny that I had both the French-est first name and the English-est last name possible.  Maybe I should have just called myself François on the phone.

The second thing that I remember is that I was constantly being mistook for a woman.  Apparently speaking French on the telephone makes me sound like a Québécois woman; many, many, many conversations would end with the caller saying, “Merci madame!”  I did have one occasion when a woman corrected me because I accidentally referred to my self as a woman.  She asked me what I did, how I learned to speak French.  I told I was a student (“Je suis une étudiante”).  She then said, “I think you mean un étudiant.  You don’t sound like a woman…”  So, maybe, folks were calling me a woman, ‘cause I was, accidentally, from time to time.  I was pretty careful about that from then on.

French pronunciation is kind of slippery.  Generally speaking, you don’t pronounce the last letter or two of a word.  So, for instance, you would say “Je suis” (“I am”) like: Zhuh swee.  So, the only way to tell the difference between masculine and feminine is often the pronunciation or the consonant at the end of the word: “un étudiant” (a male student) is:  uh nay-too-dee-ah(n) (you kind of swallow the “n”.  “Une étudiante” (a female student) is: oo nay-too-dee-ahnt.  Another tricky thing is that if the next word begins with a vowel, then you do pronounce the last syllable of the word: “Je suis ici” (“I am here”) is: Zhuh sweez eecee.  “Je suis la” (“I am there”) would be:  Zhuh swee lah.  You have to be really careful with those subtle differences in pronunciation, ‘cause sometimes being sloppy with it will mean you say something that you didn’t mean to say (like “I am a female student”).

A third thing I remember was the Québécois’ funny ways of saying some things.  They have a kind of distinct accent.  The word bien sounds almost like “bang.”  Kind of like Mexican-Americans, the French Canadians of speak in a mixture of English and French.  Once this lady was explaining that there was a little sticker on the box, “Il y a un petit sticker sur la boite.”  We were selling these little lampshades for candles, and we’d hear “Je veux le petit lampshade” all the time. In France, a hotdog is simply called “un hotdog.”  In Québec, they say “un chien chaud” (a literal translation of the word “hotdog”).  The French don’t really have a word for “fun,” the closest thing they have is “amusing.”  The Québécois just say “C’est fun!” (“That’s fun!”).  My favorite ‘cois-ism was the word tabernacle.  Tabernacle, in the correct context, is considered pretty profane.  Why?  I have no idea, though a lot of the French cuss words are connected to Catholicism somehow…one time, I had a pretty irate customer on the phone and he said, “Taber-freakin’-nacle!”  That was totally awesome!

I used to speak French fluently.  I minored in French in college and I even had a job where I was required to speak French on the telephone for about eight months.  I was required to provide customer service, answer all sorts of questions about laundry detergents, vitamin supplements, and shampoos to those francophones up au Canada.  When I first started there, I swore that my trainer was playing a trick on me, and that I was actually listening in on the Chinese line or something, ‘cause that Quebecois accent was très weird.  I think I ended up picking it up, eh, and would have probably sounded like a Canadian if I was to speak with a Parisian.

Anyway, it’s been a long, long time since I have spoken French.  I don’t know if I would even call myself a francophone anymore.  Just today my daughter asked me how to say some random word in French, and I had absolutely aucune idée.  I had to pass two language exams as part of my PhD coursework.  I took the French test right away, and passed it with out any problem.  But that was in 2005.  I have spoken/read/studied almost zero French since then.

I really wish I was still fluent, that I could still speak coherently.  There is something kind of reassuring about being able to communicate in a language other than your own.  I tried pulling out La gloire de mon père (My Father’s Glory) by Marcel Pagnol the other day; I read that in my French 3 class in college.  Unfortunately couldn’t get very far before I was a little lost with the vocabulary.  It’s especially tough because French has these verb tenses that are only used in writing, so it gets kind of confusing when you go from conversation to literature.  I used to be okay with stuff like that, but now it is très difficile.

I am wondering if I should take a French class or two to brush up.  Maybe there is something I could do online…it’d be awesome for me if the French had won the Battle of Puebla (which is what Cinco de Mayo is all about), then maybe our neighbors to the south would speak French instead of Spanish.  Then I could practice.  C’est la vie.

My father-in-law is a little on the crazy side.  He turned sixty a few weeks ago and he decided that he wanted to do something big for this occasion.  That big thing ended up being he and his brother attempting to ride bicycles from Monterey to Mexico.  That is a distance of about 500 miles.  They left on a Monday morning and had plans of pulling into Imperial Beach on Saturday.  That means they’d have to average about 80/day.

My father-in-law is not one that has been an avid cyclist for much of his life.  He isn’t a man who has been really active or athletic all his life.  In fact, my wife says she thinks that she had seen him wear shorts only once before.  He concocted this plan not even a year before he planned to leave, and decided to get himself in shape.

The trip ended up being a little shorter than they had originally planned.  The ended up starting in Big Sur and ended their trip in the UTC area of San Diego.  From a high building or a hill you might be able to see Mexico from UTC, so I figure that’s close enough.  I have to admit that I am really impressed that he pulled this off.

Anyway, on the day that was actually his birthday we decided to drive up and surprise him.  I thought it would be really surprising to him if I was to ride up to him from behind and just kind of casually ask what he was doing way out here…so, we packed up the family and the bike (and the surfboard) and drove up to meet him.  His schedule had him riding from Santa Maria to Carpinteria that day.  They ended up getting kind of lost and disoriented because of the Air Force base that takes up most of the coast up there, so they ended up riding from Lompoc instead of Santa Maria.  So, once we figured out where they were and what their trajectory was, I started riding in the opposite direction a few miles in front of them.  Once I saw them (which was within five minutes of starting, luckily), I turned around and tried to catch them.  He was very surprised, and still talks about how seeing me was a real “shot in the arm.”

I rode with them from about five miles north of Gaviota down to Carpinteria; about 50 miles.  I guess that the first 15 miles from Lompoc were all uphill, which really wore them out.  I caught up with them a few miles after that uphill, so they were already pretty worn out, but they still finished those 50 miles!

We basically followed Highway 1 and 101 until we got into Goleta where we then had to take surface streets.  Santa Barbara has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.  The mountains rise up almost right out of the water, and the city is squeezed between them and the ocean.  There are sections where you can see this tan-pink sandstone uplifted out of the hillsides and it is really stunning.  Like a lot of Southern California, Santa Barbara features a lot of classic Spanish-style architecture; the red tile roofs against the green mountains with the sandstone outcroppings is truly breathtaking at times.

Here is a map of the route we took: A = Lompoc, B = where I joined them, C = Carpinteria.

Here we are shortly after arriving at the hotel in Carpinteria, my father-in-law is in the middle, his brother on the right:

There is a world-famous surf spot just outside of Carpinteria called Rincon.  I have seen photos of the place, and I’ve heard about it, and I’ve always wanted to go there.  When it’s on, it is this insanely long right that peels around the point.  Looking at this picture, you can see how that would work:

Well, since I was planning this trip and everything, I just had to surf Rincon.  Of course, though, when I got there the place was totally flat, totally.  It might as well have been Lake Michigan.  In fact, I tried several other places in Santa Barbara County, but everything was ankle-high at best!  So now I will have to go back someday, as I still haven’t had a chance to even paddle out at Rincon (or anywhere else in Santa Barbara County).

I re-discovered this today.  I think it is stunning.  Not that I don’t like the original version (by Joy Division), but this interpretation feels so much more desperate.  I am especially drawn in during the second verse (“Why is the bedroom so cold?”).  The Norwegian accent only heightens the starkness.

“Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Susanna and the Magical Orchestra (from Melody Mountain):

I’ve been meaning to post these pictures for a while.  For some reason I have a really hard time getting my wife’s camera to take a clear picture without a flash.  I played with a four-part consort today, and I have to say that I am even more impressed with this instrument everyday.  I have really been trying to stay objective about it, trying to not get excited, but just listen and play.  Still, it is really a joy to play…now if I could just get some gigs!