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James in words.  had busy weekend filled with good stuff. Friday, whitney had off from work, so we disassembled our old full-size bed and assembled the queen-size bed that we had gotten from Booboo's house. we had nice new queen size sheets as a wedding present, but we had to run out and get a queen-size mattress pad. moving all the stuff around set off my allergies (dust), but the new mattress doesn't seem to be affecting my nose, which is good. we also laundered and put away our electric blanket for the season - prompting us to also buy a clothesline, which we currently have set up from the house to the citrus tree. Friday night, i played a little "Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings" Saturday was the University City Celebration, our neighborhood's annual Independence Day festival, held at Standley Park and Rec Center. As a UC resident, I've been involved in organizing the photo scavenger hunt with Dan there for the 2nd year in a row. But first, i got up early to go volunteer at the 5K Run/Walk. I worked the finish line again, putting racer's tags onto the rankings boards. I managed to film some bits of the race: UC Celebration - 5K Run/Walk - July 4, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWwu7-4F After that, I started to get set up for the UC Photo Race. We had a booth for teams to sign-up and I started answering people's questions about the race while waiting for Dan to arrive with the registration forms. My dad's band, the Armadillo Scrub Band, had gotten an early timeslot in the stage schedule, and so they played to the morning crowd. I let my sister borrow my Flip and she recorded some of their set: (My dad's the bassist in the blue ball-cap and gets a little bass solo in "Brown-Eyed Girl") Dan and I got a bunch of teams signed up for the UC Photo Race and we got the race started at noon from the stage. 22 teams participated, and I went to check on them out in the field. Last year's winning team returned to triumph this year, and took home Starbucks gift cards for first place. Overall, 16 teams finished, and most of them got all the clues. While waiting for our turn to announce the race results, Joseph and I competed in the water balloon toss. we did about average, and i ended up with a big splash instead of a big catch. After packing it up from UC Celebration, whitney and i went over to my parents' house where we would be having a big family barbecue. whitney and i ate a late lunch and played a few rounds of Farfalia with jennifer and mom and joseph. then joseph's friend bach came over, and we started up the grill (or more correctly, the little grill on top of the big grill) and cooked up some burgers, brats, chicken, steak, and shark. we ate good. and two kinds of pie for dessert. too lazy to go anywhere for fireworks, we watched the top of the different La Jolla fireworks from my parent's back deck. the first show was a bit overcast, and not that enjoyable, but a later pair of shows were clear enough and high enough to be decent for watching fireworks at a distance. Sunday, we slept in, then finished straightening up our room from the bed moving. we went to the 5:30 mass, and caught a little food (we tried to go to Dumpling Inn, but alas, they were closed for the weekend!) and then went over to the Carta's to play Settlers of Catan (and introduce it to Mr. Loeb, who was in town). today, joseph came over in the afternoon to watch today's stage of the Tour de France. i've never watched cycling before, and it gets pretty exciting near the end of each stage. 1. so i ate the last of the hawaiian shredded pork today, that was leftover from the catholic community luau on june 7th. still good. we had a lot of leftovers, and i have been slowly working on it. and now it's gone. 2. this morning, we found that ants had gotten into the remaining few cupcakes that jainamsolo had made for whitney's birthday. boo on ants and the loss of sweet cuppycakes. thus marks the first real ant attack of the season.
G4 is going to be broadcasting Friday's "Star Wars Spectacular" panel live from Comic-Con, and the hosts of the panel will be the hosts from G4's "Attack of the Show" (Kevin Pereira, Olivia Munn, and comics expert Blair Butler). Part of the presentation will be a videos of Star Wars fan stories, and Star Wars fans asking questions about "The Clone Wars" series to the creators (including George Lucas, who may be taping some responses to the questions). My inside informant asked me to get the word out on getting Star Wars fans to submit videos that may end up part of the presentation (and maybe even get a response from George Lucas). Here is the link: http://upload.g4tv.com/upload/starwars_ Here are some of the key things to remember: * Videos must be no longer than 90 seconds, and no more than 150 MB * Must be shot against a white background. * don't use copyrighted snippets or music. * no trademarks, logos, etc. - I asked about Star Wars costumes and SW logos and SW fan group logos, and these will probably be ok. Deadline is the end of next week (July 10). -- Now I have a med-res Flip video recorder and some white walls, so if someone wants to record a video of their fan story or their Clone Wars question, I can help with the video. I'd really love to see friends get their 90 seconds of Star Wars fame! so what happened last weekend.... Friday, I got a termite inspection on the house. guess what.. termites in the garage. looks like we will need to get treatment. also dropped off mom at the train station, after taking a detour to avoid Fair traffic. Saturday, played in the Transwarp Draft tourney at the Phoenix Tournament for the star trek card game. knowing that most of the booster packs being drafted were from "What You Leave Behind", i tried to use Starfleet. ended up going 1-2 in the tournament. but i made a video of tournament progress - come check out the players of Starbase 619. while you can't hear it in the video, the Arby's was tuned into a station that was all Michael Jackson all day. luckily Jackson has a huge playlist of hits. after that, i came home. we had planned to meet up with some friends, but they were nowhere to be found. so we relaxes and home, and then put together decks for the Tribbles fun game (using cards from the April's virtual expansion based on the Star Trek Animated Series episode with tribbles) which would end the Phoenix tournament. Tribble time came, and whitney and i went to Arby's for the tourney, and as we got started, Arby's closed (it was already 10 PM), so we moved the Tribbles game to our house. Whitney ended up winning with her new deck, but all had fun. Matt stayed late for a game of "Ticket to Ride". Sunday was to be whitney's birthday gathering with our gaming friends. we got the house ready, and went to church, then came back home to keep cleaning. as i checked my email, i realized that i needed to pay my Target bill that day, and alas, the online deadline had already passed (Curse you, server in Central Standard Time), so i drove to the nearest Target and paid my bill and was back in half an hour. Several friends showed up sirrogue and jainamsolo, Dan and blusurfer with Cordelia, and Mac and Rachel. Whitney's idea to watch a few episodes of Venture Brothers didn't gain much traction, but we played a round of Tribbles, and popped in the Star Trek Scene-it game that Rogue had brought. we also enjoyed yummy cupcakes and brownies, and picked up some pizza from round table.Monday was whitney's real birthday and i gave her a ride to work in the morning and then played some "Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings" on the Wii. during the day, i caught up with miana_dude and bought some hardware to finally seal off the gaps above our front entryway where birds were dwelling. no more pesky sparrows darting out of their hidey-holes every time we step out the front door! no more poop in the entryway! no more cheep-cheeping so close to the house in the middle of the night! (there's still this neighborhood mockingbird in the middle of the night..), then i took whitney out to dinner... to the finest place ever, Red Robin. Red Robin does a turkey patty substitution on any burger for free, so i give them props for that.
2009 is about half over. the state of california officially doesn't have a budget again, which means that my friends working for the state may get some IOUs instead of paychecks. my friends at the county probably won't be getting payments for projects that are supposed to be state-funded. at least with this year's monumental budget deficits, people (and the media) are actually starting to realize why California has been in a perpetual state of budget deficit off and on for the past decade. They're realizing that decisions made over 30 years ago have put us on this collision course with bankruptcy when the economy goes down. In 1978, California voters passed Prop 13, which did a few things: 1. it lowered property taxes to no more than 1% of the value of the property, with at most a 2% change in rate per year unless there is a change in ownership. this cut property taxes by 57%, and pretty much screwed the local jurisdictions like counties, cities, and school districts, which then had to resort to raising fees and assessments, raising sales taxes, and getting money from the state (thus making the state more powerful than the localities in issues like education). it also provided a major disincentive to selling property, and major corporate landowners made out quite well - if the property was never sold, but the corporate owner was merged or bought, the taxes on the property never got any more adjustment than the annual 2%. most local jurisdictions then had to rely on the state to give them money to fund things that had been previously funded by property taxes. others created special assessment districts to fund local infrastructure needs, creating layers of replacement taxes.. but only in areas where the local electorate supported their creation. in areas where property value grew rapidly (such as all of coastal metropolitan california), revenue brought in by property taxes wouldn't meet the demands of the public, and due to the disincentive to sell property, development was forced elsewhere, to places that would initially gain from higher property values (and taxes), but then slowly lose pace and need to raise revenue through other means as property taxes weren't keeping up with values. 2. it changed the requirements to the state constitution on the majority needed either by legislature or by popular vote on proposition to requiring 2/3 passage. yup, 50% of the state's voters can change the state constitution to take away the right of gays and lesbians to marry, but it takes 66% of the state's voters to get a tax increase. the legislature similarly needs a 2/3 vote to get a tax increase passed. which means... not a lot of tax increases, even if badly needed. in 2000, two props tried to undo some of this supermajority: Prop 26, which tried to undo the supermajority requirement completely, failed, but Prop 39, which lowered the requirements for local school bonds to 55% instead of 66% passed. In the post war era, California built up a lot of public infrastructure - a massive freeway system (part of which was federally funded), and strengthened the public school and university systems, health care and others. After Prop 13, California's schools slowly deteriorated from being top in the country in the 60s, to pretty much the bottom nationally by today. our state and local government's ability to build infrastructure and provide services is severely hampered by having less money to keep up with the demand on our public institutions. yes, there should be protections for people, especially those on fixed incomes, so that their property taxes don't cause them to have to move off of property they've lived on for years, but both parts of prop 13 really need some re-doing so that the things californians want and need: infrastructure, education, health, law enforcement, clean and safe environments, etc, can actually be paid for. california used to be the top in the world in many fields, and californians still expect that - but don't want to pay for it. well, you get what you pay for. bah - this was going to be a reflection on where i was halfway through the year, but as you can see.. it ended up somewhere else. here's the latest on playing Rock Legends!, the facebook application game from Serious Business. In this section, i go over some of the new changes to Rock Legends!: * Slight tweaks on equipment rules * The Oakley Summer Tour in Newport Beach * Arena and ranking points * Playing at Level 50 and above Rock Legends! can be found: http://apps.facebook.com/rock_legends/ Here's links to other parts of this series: Part I - Putting together a band, equipping instruments, battling Part II - Marketplace and Local Gigs (Your Hometown through Chicago) This guide is written to cover how Rock Legends! played on June 30, 2009. ( Part III inside ) Keep on rockin'! Dad and I went up to Booboo's house again yesterday, to move some more furniture. As I went to move Booboo's dresser, I found this photo behind the dresser. That's me and Booboo in the late 1970s and my favorite pear sweater. Back when i had hair. Dad and I weren't sure where it was taken, but Mom identified the background as the front of the condo we lived in on Via Sonoma, south of La Jolla Village Square for a few years before my parents bought their current home in 1980. One of our missions for the day was to take an old steamer trunk to the locksmith to have it opened. It belonged to my dad, who had inherited it and stored it at Booboo's house ages ago, and it had somehow gotten locked, and there was no key. It took the locksmiths more than an hour to custom make a key for it. We took it back home and opened it up, not sure what we would find inside. It turned out to be a wardrobe trunk, which opens vertically like a little closet, with a set of drawers on the left, and an area to hang clothes on the right (with special hangers that fit on a set of parallel bars). The inside was in great condition, and even had a key to lock the top drawer. I did some research on this Mendel Trunx wardrobe trunk, and in past auctions, one sold in England this year for 330 pounds. I'm sure with a little brass polish on the outside, we can make some money with this trunk. last friday, Jennifer and Darren brought over their Wii and the new Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings game. good fun. got to near the end of the Chinatown level -- the Wii is perfect for using that whip! saturday was two parties for me: * San Diego Fan Force - annual picnic. we had it at mission bay, and while it was almost a little sprinkly, we mostly stayed dry and had lots of food, played some bocce, flew a kite, and hung out. * then i zipped home and picked up whitney and jetted up to San Juan Capistrano for the So Cal stop of Tamas' farewell tour. it was at shannon's house, and i hadn't seen her in like a decade, and so got to meet her husband and her two boys. martha was already there pitching the plastic ball to the boys. dave and christine came up later in the afternoon, and we started some fun with bubbles in the backyard. later, we moved indoors, and had a big feast of mexican food, and peter showed up and we all caught up on the gossip line from the paulists and alumni of the catholic community. didn't get back home until around 1:30 am. Sunday, Dan (and wee Cordelia) came down to scout out locations for the UC Photo Race, coming this July 4 to UC Celebration, my neighborhood's annual Independence Day festival. then whitney joined us for lunch as we tried to go to Teri Cafe. They are closed on sundays, so we hit up Lolita's next door. Sunday night, after church, we went out to dinner with my sister and darren and my parents, who had just returned from LA after a week of sorting out stuff at the Repton house (i went up last tuesday afternoon to pick up some stuff they had set aside for me). we had a family meal at the Leucadia Pizzeria - a big sampler of pasta and meats and salad. monday night, we were asked to babysit for Leah and Jon, who wanted a night off to celebrate their anniversary with a movie out. despite our lack of diaper-changing ability, we gave it a shot, and went over and played with the kids, and got them ready for bed. we ended up having to change a diaper, which though tag-team, probably wasn't that great of a job. as the night went on, Danni Lu got a little cranky when it was time for bed, and i ended up rocking her to sleep. we got Gabe into his jammies but he continued to stay up with us, counting and sorting his cards, until his parents came home. why does my computer room feel warmest right about now? - mid to late afternoon. i should go grocery shopping. Here's a second part of my gamer's guide to How to Play Rock Legends!, a Facebook application from Serious Business. This section covers: * Local Gigs for Your Hometown, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago * The New Marketplace where you can sell instruments to other players. See other parts of my walkthrough here: Part I - Covers the basics: what everything means, how to do gigs, battle other bands, and picking instruments and professions. Part III - Changes to equipment, the Oakley Summer Tour in Newport Beach, Arena Points Rock Legends! on Facebook http://apps.facebook.com/rock_legends/ ( James' Rock Legends! Instructions and Strategy Guide - The Marketplace and some local gigs ) Keep on rockin'! family photo outside the Repton house, after the big yard sale. |
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