“Once Every Three Years…”Tedious and exhausting grunt work, not the less important for being so. An operating system will degrade over a few years, and there exists the unpleasant but necessary duty every three years or so of getting a clean start: the upgrade to the computer system. And so after almost a week of tedious and stressful work, my computer system at home is upgraded. Everything is finally working (from OS down to all drivers and every software application installed and operational. Actually, it was more of a OS upgrade with existing system transferred into a much better computer case. New lineup: Windows 7 (operating system on a 160…
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“The Road”
A VERY “HUMAN” STORY, SET AMIDST GREAT INHUMANITY “…this life-giving, tenacious connection between parent and child.” I found myself, on a rare morning with not much planned, reading that the film version of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” opened today. A big fan of the novel, I attended the first possible showing today at 10:10 a.m. in the company of approximately six senior citizens. The film was not as good as the book — but it was far, far from a failure. Kenneth Turan’s review, which I read today at breakfast, claimed the following: “An honorable, yet unfulfilling, attempt at filming Cormac McCarthy’s unfilmable book.” To the contrary, the film is…
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Riding the Malibu Canyons Again
A BLISSFUL AFTERNOON: A PHOTO ESSAY“Oh, how I love to escape to the Malibu canyons for a bike ride!.” In the late morning of November 15, 2009 I drove to the Malibu canyons to ride along the Santa Monica Mountains. It has been a long time since I had been here. Before marriage and larger life responsibilities, I used to escape to these canyons above Malibu for looong bike rides just about every weekend! Even as they physically exhausted – and even traumatized – me, they were spiritually relaxing and restorative. Here again for the first time in a year or two, the effect is the same. Above is a…
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Unsent Letter to the Editor
DOING MY CIVIC DUTYAfter voting on November 3, 2009 local election… I wrote the following letter to the editor for our local newspaper but was persuaded not to send it. It was considered impolitic. Alas, I resort to posting it here: I would say a few words about the candidacy of Monique Dollone for the Ventura Unified School Board. My wife, Maria Geib, was hired as a long-term substitute teacher at Montalvo Elementary School and eventually became a full-time teacher there. It was while Monique Dollone’s daughter was in Maria’s 4th grade class that Monique was arrested for violating a restraining order. I heard all year long from her about…