Eight Feet Deep

It doesn’t take a hi tech wizard to publish a blog. Any geek, lunatic, or ya-hoo can crank one out. I think I am a shining example of that.

I came relatively late in absorbing all of this technology that engulfs us. I say relatively late because I have known people who started using computers in their 80s. I started in my 30s and am on 50’s doorstep.

Certainly I am not loathe to admit that technocrap befuddles me. I don’t think I have gotten much past speed-dialing and maintaining an address book on my cell phone. I have had to learn more and more about computers as time progressed. But I still am pretty much in the category of techno-ignoramus, not to be confused with Uncle Remus. That is why today was a living hell for me.

I have just acquired a new (refurbished) laptop and a new (refurbished) digital camera. Hey, I’m a starving artist, I can’t afford all that expensive stuff. Combining heap more technodespair on me is the fact that I have a desktop operating system that is compatible with … itself basically. I won’t call any names but its initials are NT 4. I think I am about to change that. But in the meanwhile I had to simultaneously get my laptop and digital camera to, at the very least, introduce themselves to each other. So I spent a lot of time in tech support chat rooms this afternoon.

These people I chatted with online seemed very helpful, but sometimes I thought that maybe they were making up some of the stuff as they were going along. I suppose in their world everyone has the basic technological knowledge of a sixth-grader, which is better than I have.

Technology — like auto mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, all those good skills that would have earned me a decent living more so than writing for newspapers — seems tedious to me. I can removed a motherboard or a carburetor, but damned if I could put them back in the right spot. This brave new world is a little difficult for me sometimes in that respect. So if I happen to ask a dumb question that any sixth grader would know, try to realize where I came from technologically. And have mercy.

President Bush talks to his new Video Army

Anytime President GW goes anywhere it creates quite a to-do. Of course, there are airspace restrictions, buildings have to be checked for bombs and people in the vicinity are screened to ensure they are not wearing attire that criticizes the president.

At the same time, the White House has found crowds of military men and women very receptive to his speeches. And why not? They have to support the commander-in-chief even if he is as loony as a March hare. Remember “Mission Accomplished” or Bush speaking to soldiers at Fort Hood or his speaking to more soldiers at Fort Bragg?

Bearing in mind the tulmult when GW travels and his success in using military personnel for his personal backdrop, the White House has created Bush’s very own Video Army. From now on, Bush will forego making trips to drab military bases or aircraft carriers but can still have a good-looking backdrop of soldiers at his every whim.

When GW speaks about Iraq, he will have his Video Army there to back him up. Harriet Miers? The Video Army is 120 percent behind the commander-in-chief. Social security? Anything the president says the Video Army stands behind.

The video soldiers may also lessen the need for back-breaking detail from senior members of his staff such as Karl Rove. That’s just in case Karl has other commitments in the future.

Off we cast our impatient and uncaring little saying for Cervantes. Whatever else one might say about him, he could turn a phrase and continue to turn phrases. Perhaps it would be inaccurate to call the Don Quixote author a “literary Energizer Bunny” although the bulk of the classic work suggests he kept going and going and going …

I have never been able to finish Don Quixote. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s reader’s block. Perhaps some books are meant to be read and some aren’t. Although, that’s skirting way too far out on the edge of profundity for me. But it seems like every time I try to read the book something distracts me and I will put the book down only to pick it up for a few pages in a couple of years.

My copy of Don Quixote belonged to my maternal grandmother, so I really don’t know when the English version that I possess was actually printed. But even though I have this mental force preventing me from my impossible quest I can, nonetheless, praise the very construction of this book.

Yes my friends my copy is, in the words of The Commodores, built like a “brick … house.” Which as many of you probably know, the song was referring to the saying that a particular woman is “built like a brick s—house.” I really don’t know how the saying is all that flattering to a woman, but maybe I’m not applying my limited geometric skills. Nevertheless, a brick outhouse is no doubt sturdy and the same can be said for my own copy of Don Quixote. There’s no telling how many bugs I’ve slain with it. So even though I can’t bring myself to finish it, its very existence on my bookshelf is of immeasurable worth.

Enough about that. When is the last time you heard Cervantes and The Commodores discussed in the same context? Never?

Mighty, mighty, just letting it all hang out …

I live a very simple existence. I want a lot but I don’t need much. So I am asking fate to bring me just one little thing for my half-century birthday (sigh) two weeks from tomorrow. I would like to see the Astros win the World Series.

Granted, being given Donald Trump’s fortune, Brad Pitt’s looks and throwing in world peace might be an easier wish. Particularly so if the Astros continue to play as they did in last night’s disappointment against St. Louis.

But that is really all I am asking for. First they beat the Cardinals and then defeat whomever they might face in the Big One. I don’t even care how many games it takes. It would make a 50- (oh my God) year-old man happy.

Power company trucks and a steady stream of traffic ensures you can’t get to there from here.

The first few days upon returning to Beaumont, Texas, after evacuating for Hurricane Rita were like a perpetual Sunday to me. Next to nothing was open. Often times you would see more dogs on the street than people. And the curfew presumably kept the looting class off the street.

Now our city leaders didn’t jump up and down on top of City Hall and proclaim to the world that Beaumont is open for business once again. But people began trickling in. The curfew was lifted, as was the evacuation order. More businesses continue to open each day and we find ourselves enmeshed in a never-ending Saturday. It’s more like a Christmas shopping Saturday from hell.

It is hard enough to get around town with the utility crewfolks, all 9,000 of them it seems, on every third street with their big trucks. That’s not to mention the tractors and big trailers on every other street picking up limbs and logs from downed trees. So when you throw in a lot of people driving their pickups, SUVs and every other vehicle in this galaxy, you have a hell of a mess on your hands.

Of course, I’ve got no complaint about the utility or cleanup crews. I don’t really have a beef with those who have returned. The more people who come home, the more businesses will open and perhaps sometime in the near future we’ll see some sanity prevail in our local traffic situation.

But I’ve got to ask. What are all these people doing out on the streets and where are they all going? It would seem Wal-Mart and Home Depot would be a couple of destinations. Or so you would think, judging by the crowds packing those places like dead men’s ballots in a Louisiana election. Maybe these people are just wandering around like nomads. Perhaps the storm left their houses unfit for living but they have no other place to go, so they just drive and drive and drive.

Or maybe they have just lost their minds. That sort of makes the most sense to me because you really have to be crazy to be driving around in my city right now.