Year: 2000

To Redding

 

Most people just sort of assume it will get cooler as you get closer to the mountains. Most people haven’t been to Redding in August. It’s a great place, but it’s hot as hell there. When I arrived on Friday afternoon, it was 100 degrees. It got even warmer on Saturday. This was the first two-night road trip I’ve taken in a while, and it was much more fun. I had plenty of time to see everything and even do a little reading.

Friday afternoon’s drive took me through Farifield (Chick-Fil-A) and then Williams and Willows (just to see what was there). I was beat by the time I arrived in Redding and I checked into the first Motel 6 off the highway, which was an expensive mistake. But I figured it would be a good weekend when “Keeping Up Appearances” just happened to start as I turned on the TV.

 

After a quick dinner, I went exploring in an old Safeway, marveled at the neon motels on old highway 99, visited California’s only ShopKo, and drove through what was left of downtown.

 

Heading down old 99 south of the city, I made a wrong turn from hell and ended up on some godforsaken winding road to nowhere. Being a guy, I didn’t ask directions. Not that there was anyone or anyplace to ask anyway. After a while I got out of what I later learned was something called “Churn Creek Bottom” and headed back for the Motel 6. On the way, I passed not one, but two sobriety checkpoints which convinced me I was way too tired to go out that night, so I read my book and went to sleep.

A Break

Leaving town for a few days tomorrow. I may have someting exciting or interesting to say when I get back. I make no promises.

I’m thinking of taking a break from these front page journal entries for a little while. Those of you who have been reading them lately might get the feeling that I really did this about three months ago. I’m not sure what happened. For one thing, I got a little lazy. I haven’t had much to say. And it could just be that my life isn’t particularly interesting these days and I haven’t been faking it very well.

I should rephrase that. My life is quite interesting to me. I just can’t imagine it being all that interesting to anyone else right now. Not that it was necessarily all that entertaining to begin with.

So I’m going to spend a little time concentrating on other things, I think. I’m going to work on updating, editing, and significantly re-working the “innards” of this site, for starters. I’m also going to try to do some writing off-site. I may even do the occasional journal entry if the mood strikes and I actually have something to say. But I’m not making any promises about that right now either.

You never know. Inpsiration might strike in just a couple of days. It may take longer. This is not a retirement announcement. It’s just a little vacation of unspecified length.

If you’ve just gotta have that journal fix right now, you might check out some links or even some re-runs.

I’ll be back soon…

Birthday Photos, Finally

In case you care, here are pictures from my birthday bash at Tad’s 12 days ago. Sorry for the delay, and thanks to Sarah for these, because the pictures I took really sucked…

 

It was fun. We had a flesh-based feast at Tad’s, followed by dessert at David’s Deli, both of which are becoming traditions. Met some great people, has good converastion, and actually put faces with several names. I did not, alas, do the nasty with an 18-year-old as planned, but I was happy with the evening all the same.

Yer humble host’s annual birthday picture #36…

Mailbag

It strikes me that, on the rare occasion that I publish a bit of email on this page, it may look like I trash everyone who contacts me. I don’t. I think I tend to publish email which is negative simply because it looks a little self-absorbed to publish all the “you rock” and “I love you” messages. In fact, I rarely publish any of it, positive or negative, unless it strikes a chord related to something I want to write about.

I’d imagine that most people don’t really care about my email one way or another, but I’m sorry if the quotes I use roughly once a year make me sound particularly nasty toward readers or anything. I usually only respond harshly or sarcastically when someone is either:

  • Really idiotic or obnoxious to me first (in which case I have a really short fuse), or…
  • Seriously overreacting to some passing reference (which causes me to do pretty much the same thing they did), or…
  • Taking something competely out of context after reading one page of the site (like assuming I’m a right-wing straight homophobe when I’m, in fact, a queer homophobe with leftist sympathies).