The concert that wasn't to be is to be

Twice in the past two years I have purchased tickets to see the Dirty Projectors in concert in San Francisco. Each time I had to pass the tickets over to someone on CL or just eat them entirely - school got in the way or I was out of town. I have really regretted each missed concert. They always sell out in SF.

Tomorrow night I shall be vindicated! Tomorrow night the Dirty Projectors (click here for tunes) are playing at the Aladdin Theater. Not only am I 99% sure I will be able to make it (pending car accident or otherwise), but I will also be able to enjoy the show from a reclined position (all seats at the Aladdin are in actual "seats"). The only challenge I foresee will be getting there early enough that I get a good seat close to the front, but not arrive so early that I am bored out of my mind waiting for the act to begin. I suppose I can nerd-out and bring a book with me (Devil in the White City, currently).

My time in Portland has certainly not been musical enough. I am still kicking myself for not getting a ticket last month to see Robert Earl Keen and David Jacobs-Strain play at the Wonderland Ballroom. That would have been a great show with a humorous, interesting energy to it.

I also failed to see Panda Bear play at the Crystal Ballroom during MusicFest NW a couple weeks ago. I am LAME. That show would have been so cool. I adore Noah Lennox.

Off to bed...

Back home. HOME.

That's right, folks. I am back in Portland. To be more specific, all my belongings are also back in Portland. I've moved.

My new address is at my sister's place. It's a fine upgrade, indeed. I have the upstairs of the house which includes a large bedroom and a small office alcove. Nice place despite it getting warm up here in the afternoon.

Tomorrow is the first day of my unpaid internship, and I am really excited about it. I like having a lot to do immediately upon arriving here.

More soon.

List

1. audio slide show (check)
2. volunteer design work (check)
3. unpaid internship (check)
4. Penske truck rental (check)
5. new roommate (check)
6. packing
7. selling IKEA junkiture
8. Sierra getaway
9. beer pong tourney
10. lunch/coffee/drinks/dinner dates to say adieu

Yes, I am moving. Headed back home.

Thank god. California is depressing (this coming from someone headed to Oregon, a state with worse unemployment than here).

He continues to sacrifice

I heard on the radio today that Cincinatti's 'touchdown Jesus' burnt to the ground after being struck by lightening last night.

The statue, built to the tune of about 250K, is likely to be "resurrected" if donor funds can be raised.

In my mind (unreligious as I am), if God struck the thing down, that is direct evidence that it should NOT BE REBUILT. This thing is frightening, a monstrosity. I suppose it is an interesting thing to laugh at as you pass by on the highway - on a journey to somewhere better than Cincy.

I'm with God on this one, though. Don't rebuild. Instead, do something God and Jesus would approve of: Feed some children. Buy books for kids in the public school system. Do something in the world. Smart, I know.

Blast from the Bateman Street past

For the last several days, Bay Area newspapers have been covering stories about men attacking bicyclists. The first assailant used his SUV to injure 4 cyclists in the Mission District of SF. The second assailant used tools to threaten and injure mountain bikers unlawfully using fire trails in the Berkeley Hills. Oh yeah, another little detail: the second assailant also happens to be a former next door neighbor of mine.

Between 2004-2006, my roommate and I called him Crazy Mike. But it was all in good humor - we considered him just one of Berkeley's eccentric weirdos - which there are many. Crazy Mike would ring our doorbell every few weeks to either report errant internet waves intruding into his home, to "lend" us books he thought we should read, or to tell us about how he likes to feed urban possums and raccoons that literally hold Bateman Street neighbors hostage in their homes between sunset and sunrise. Crazy Mike also drove a car that squeaked a hell of a lot - don't ask me why I remember this, but the car bugged me because my room window was next to the guy's driveway.

Other than that, he seemed harmless.

Right now, Crazy Mike is sitting in Oakland's downtown jail with bail set at $12,500 (reduced from $30K according to a mountainbike advocacy website). I have no idea how he is faring in jail, but I bet he is surprised to find himself all the way down in Oakland. A bit of brief research told me that Berkeley has only 16 jail cells in its modest hall of justice. Either Berkeley had no room in its jail when Mike committed his crimes or there is some kind of county jurisdiction at play since the attacks took place in the East Bay Parks District.

Googling Crazy Mike you will find several websites, one is his very own. The other is an interesting FAQ site that someone from a mountain bike advocacy site set up. Happy readings.

First post in many months. Many changes. Many sad things have happened it's hard to even start.

While Youngeffectual may be on official hiatus, I will still continue to post some odds n' ends that don't exactly fit thematically on the new website.

Music for roads trips is a very critical aspect to consider. I bought a few new albums for this long journey and I will share the good ones:

The Mountain Goats, The Life of the World To Come

The Rough Guide to Zydeco - This album is plain good, but may become even more useful if I have to drive a Cajun somewhere.

Vampire Weekend, Contra - Upbeat, pop music is important if you are getting tired while driving.

Please resume reading elsewhere...

I will now do what every website development and business retention specialist would object to: I will encourage you to redirect traffic from THIS site to THIS site. In order to share my soon approaching trip highlights with you enlightened readers, I have created competition for Youngeffectual.

Once the trip is over, I will probably resume writing on this one because it is more private and less visited. In other words, it is a place where I can complain more without offending anyone.

But for the next two months or so, you might find more to read here.

A new column link

After about 6 years of procrastination, I have finally found the help I need to construct my very own personal website. Sorry, this one is professional, so there won't be self deprecating stories or photos available on it.

As it stands, the site is a work in progress. The pages will become populated in a short time, but for now just the skeleton is there. I've gone for the understated approach to its design - simple and clean. The hope is that by keeping it simple, I will eventually be able to manage and update it myself. I received some technical assistance from a very kind individual to get it where it is - hopefully I will get in the driver's seat before too long.

Please enjoy: www.racheledmonds.com

The long (free) ride home

Location: Lihue Airport, Kauai, Hawaii
Time rental car due: 7:30pm
Time of Andrew’s flight: 8:00pm
Time of Rachel’s flight: 11:30pm
Updated time of Rachel’s flight once checked-in: 12:15am
Current time: 10:21pm

Hmm. This sucks.

So here I am at the Kauai airport. I’ve been here nearly three hours already, and my flight doesn’t leave for another several hours.

Despite the fact I am INSIDE the airport and have gone through airport security, I am actually OUTSIDE. This airport is an open-air design, probably intended to make visitors feel the island vibe immediately upon disembarking. Likely cuts energy costs, too. Still, I feel like I’ve been sitting in a public plaza for three hours. And by “public plaza” I mean a place with aging and worn furniture, dim lighting, cranky people, little to no back support, no wifi, and fewer than 3 power outlets for those of us who would like to keep our laptop batteries charged.

I can’t say it’s the perfect end to the perfect vacation, but I suppose it could be worse. I could be stuck in the Vegas airport where instead of the smells of island breezes and plumeria, the mixture of cig smoke and cheap booze is the prevailing odor.

Kauai is a fun place, and I am really glad I had a whole 10 days to experience it, and with the best company one could hope for. I did a lot while I was here, and I drove a TON – maybe around 550 miles – so I have certainly gotten my fill of the garden island. There are a few things I learned about that I would like to share with my reader.

1. Do not expect peace and quiet on Kauai. This place is NOISY – mostly filled with the sounds of chickens and roosters, helicopters, leaf blowers, mowing machines, weed eaters, etc. The only peace and quiet is found either at a swamp that takes 2 hours of hiking to get to or at the beaches. Both of these places have no chickens, which I appreciated after listening to them talk all night long, every night I was here.
2. The best things to eat are kalua pig, shaved ice (with ice cream at the bottom), and spicy tuna poke. You can eat these three things relatively cheaply, too, if they are purchased from budget vendors.
3. The beaches don’t disappoint – lots of choices – swimming beaches, surfing beaches, snorkeling beaches, etc.
4. Avoid Princeville. This place is boring, but the shopping center café area has a good espresso shake and fish tacos. Lots of golfing types hang here, so it definitely doesn’t get my thumbs up.
5. Stay with Connie and Major Inch. Their place is clean, cheap, has a drooling cat, an old horse, has lots of amenities like boogy boards to borrow, etc. However, sadly, they do have loud chickens. Can’t win ‘em all.

I’ve learned other things, but I will not share them quite yet. I am tired and being at the airport is making me less inclined to share all the good nuggets at this time. The above 5 points should satisfy your hunger for awhile.

Aloha from Kauai and signing off.

Time of sign off: 10:51pm
Time of flight, updated: 12:30am

Welcome, 2010: please be a better year!

Two full days into the new decade and I am getting ready to get on one heck of a long plane ride. We fly from RDU-ATL-LAX-LIH. Andrew and I have a TON of baggage and heavy winter clothes in our suitcases. We have an immense amount of woolen under clothes that will make a chance jaunt across the world only to sit inside a suitcase for another 10 days. We are hoping for balmy 80 degree weather. Right now it is 30F in Durham.

A trip calculator reveals the travel is about 4906 miles. The longest flight I've been on is from SFO-NRT-BKK....about 7900 miles. SO this one should be easy peasy.

Snobama '09 DC

I arrived in DC safely on Thursday evening. In less than 24 hours, the city was awash in a fine coating of icy snow, a condition which has not improved in the last 24 hours.

My current status is stuck inside the Marriott Residence inn of Pentagon City with my boyfriend Andrew's family. We left Capitol Hill at noon, and we soon realized our vehicle was not road worthy by 12:30pm. We may try to leave around 2pm tomorrow if conditions continue to get better. RIght now, the snow has stopped but temperatures are likely only in the upper 20s. More snow may follow....

Highlights of the last two nights included a 3 miles jog from Capitol Hill to Foggy Bottom along the Mall. Deserted and beautiful, I had an amazing run along sites I've passed by countless times when I lived in the nation's capital from 1997-2004. Whenever I am in town, I do a similar run and it is always a reenergizing highlight to my visit. Other highlights included meeting a good 50% of Andrew's extended family during a memorial service for a recently departed uncle. Sad, but uplighting the same time.

some holiday news....

Some album news:
Soldier of Love, Sade....first album out since a long ass time ago.

Fall Be Kind, Animal Collective.....supposed to be a quirky followup to two of the best albums of 2008-09. Look forward to their antics.

Some job news: I'm still generally unemployed, but I have seasonal employment with a start up and my friend Kim through the SF Dept. of Public Works.

Some gift news: No one is getting any gifts this year for Christmas. Sorry. See "Some job news" for detailed explanation.

Some sublet news: I'm looking to sublet my room from Feb. - Apr. while I'm trekking through the South. Know of any good, clean, and nonsmoking friends?

Some rodeo news: Just got my ticket purchased for the grand finale of my travel fellowship adventure. This is certainly the way to do it right!

Some kitten news: The kitten I almost saved in October was reunited with its family right before Halloween against my wishes and best intentions. Since that time, I've gone past her house and it appears the owner has been evicted - all the furniture and possessions are on the sidewalk being rained on. I just hope the kitten found a dry place to sleep.

I have staff

In two weeks of working I got promoted and now I supervise people. The nature of my work has changed and I don't really make anything anymore. I simply review other people's work and tell them to fix stuff. So much for creativity.... After giving critiques all day long, I come home and feel like I've been nagging someone all day. The sad truth of it is that I HAVE been nagging people all day long.

A sample of my very enlightening work dialogue:

Me: Um, let's see, to stay true to the design of the product, you should nudge that text box two clicks up. The photos aren't edited right either. You need to open them up in Photoshop, apply a levels mask, and only brighten the photo's background. Oh, and you need to change the font from Garamond to MrsEavesAllSmallCaps. Don't forget to do that.

Staff: Hmm, well, sure, I'll get on it.

Me (10 min later): You still haven't changed it to MrsEavesAllSmallCaps. It's now in MrsEavesSmallCaps, if you look closely. They are two different fonts. Details, I know, but just change it.

Staff: Right.

Me: (10 min later): Ok, I just rejected what you sent me over the website because you forgot to relink the photos and embed them in the file. And the character tracking in "Happy New Year" is too tight. Make it breathe more.

Staff: Right.

Imagine having to reiterate this exchange 50-60 times in one working shift, each time with a new, somewhat reluctant employee, who rightfully questions your so-called knowledge of the product line this company sells to the public. It's a big sham, but someone's gotta do it.

This position has two saving graces. One, I make overtime rates ($27/hr) after I work 8 hours on a shift. The other good thing about it is that it tidily ends on the 16th. Andrew and I leave for Durham/DC on the 17th. And so the chapter of my life as a seasonal dot.com employee comes to a happy ending.

Happy holidays.

I didn't need to see or hear that, Oprah.

I spent the last 15 minutes watching Palin-Oprah clips on Hulu. I didn't learn much from it. Perhaps it was all the leaked interview clips that came out online and over radio the past weekend....or perhaps it is simply because this woman spouted the same crap to Oprah that was oozing out of her mouth more than a year ago. A year!

Ahem, forgive me: Her hair is bigger and more highlighted. I reckon that is the biggest thing different about her at this point in time.

Other news: I am earning wages being a seasonal graphics monkey. It isn't ideal, yet it pays the rent. When is the stimulus money gonna come through the pipes and save my profession(s)? This is getting ugly.

Other other news: South trip planning is making headway. I have all critical reservations accounted for. Presently, I am about $300 in the hole in the accommodations category due to the fact that all of Baton Rouge's mid-range hotels are decrepit, filthy, louse-ridden, and overused since Katrina. Instead, I'll stay at the Capitol Center Hilton which some claim to be the nicest bed you'll find in the ENTIRE city.... That is sad. You'd think Big Oil would need nicer hotels to put up its traveling employees. Perhaps they are slumming in BR along with everyone else.

The Costume Info

Halloween. Yes, every year it gets a bit stressful around this time. People are worried about what their costumes will be. Will they be the funny one? Will they be sexy enough? Will people recognize what obscure movie character I am playing? Is is going to be cheap to do?

These and other questions loom in our minds.

This year I had the luxury of borrowing a costume of my sister's. She went as a roller derby girl a few years ago and told me it would be "no problem whatsoever" to put the costume in the mail for me. Fast forward three weeks and I have no roller derby costume. She flaked. So I began perusing the internet for non-skate requiring costume ideas.

This weekend I put the final touches on an new, even better costume, much of it hand-stitched by me. Since no one reads this blog, I will spoil the surprise. I am going as a black widow spider. I found a costume template to follow on some obscure DIY sewing website. Anyway, so far the costume has cost me about $40.

$6 skirt
$14 shirt
$5 two bags of black tissue paper
$2.50 piece of red felt
$5 cobweb stockings
$4 white hair paint stuffs
$2 little bugs
$1 ribbon
three pairs of old black nylons (free!glad to get rid of those)
Tax (@9%)
Total $43.05

I told myself that I would spend only $25, but whatever. This is Halloween. The paper supplies stores likely use this holiday to gather 11% of their annual revenue (right behind Christmas, V-day, Mother's Day....). Halloween should have been promoted more heavily by the Feds as a fiscal stimulus target.

New Animal Collective Album!!!

Can this be? Less than a year ago we were gifted with Merriwether Post Pavilion. This new album proposed promises to be different, maybe darker, but surely amazing. Watch for "Fall Be Kind."

See article: click here

musicmusicmusicmusic to my ears

Oct. 13, Mon, Junior Boys, Mezzanine, SF
Oct. 21, Wed, Blind Pilot, Great American Music Hall, SF
Oct. 22, Thurs, Noah & The Whale, Swedish American Hall, SF
Oct. 23, Fri, Islands, Bottom of the Hill, SF
Oct. 30, Fri, Regina Spektor, Fox Theater, Oakland

small world, big camera

Below is a series of emails I just received from friends and family of the lost camera owner:
*******************************************************************************

Rachel

The world is SO small. We found the owner of the camera. He is the brother of a member of the Arab Horse society here in South Africa. He lives in California and was on holiday in Italy.

I forwarded your letter to a council member who recognized the man in the photo. I am sure they will contact you. Thank you so much for your excellent detective work !

Kind regards

XXXXX XXXXXX
Secretary
Arab Horse Society of South Africa

*****************************************************************************

Dear Rachel

My goodness! What a small world this is. Thank you for your ‘detective work’ regarding the lost camera!

My husband was visiting his brother and sister-in-law in Huntington Beach in June/ July of this year, when that photo was taken. I know that his brother, XXXXX and XXXXXXXX (our sister-in-law) have recently been on a trip to Italy and so am assuming it is XXXXXXXX’s camera! I will forward your email to her and she can contact you directly.

Many thanks again

XXXXXXX XXXXXXX

Lost and found

Dear Mr. XXXX,

I am writing you on the behalf of one of your members (or a friend of one of your members) who may have lost a digital camera while vacationing in Italy a couple of weeks ago.

I found a camera in a shuttle bus connecting Naples airport to Sorrento on Tuesday, Sept. 15. I took the camera home (to California) and today I looked through the photos more closely to try and find some clues as to who this thing belonged to.

I found a photo of someone wearing a shirt from your organization, Arab Horse Society of South Africa. See attached photo. I was wondering if there is anyway you can identify this person for me? That way, I can contact him directly. He is likely to know who owns this camera, if it isn't his own.



I also attached a photo of the camera itself in case that is of any help.




Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Rachel XXXXXXX
Graduate Student, University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

****************

Dear Rachel,

Thank you very much for your efforts to get hold of the owner of the camera. I will do my best to establish who the person on the photograph is and provide you with his contact details.

Regards,

XXXXX XXX