I'm in training again. Unlike the last time we did this, when my expectations were to be reduced to tears at least twice, I'm having a good time. The lunch-time visit to the winery up the road may have helped my mood. The hummingbirds outside the hotel window this morning may also have had to do with it.

Solvang has two needlework stores, a quilt store, and a spinning and weaving shop just across the street from my hotel. Is this a great village, or what?
Another reason I'm in such a happy place today is that the place I'm in is not my office. Despite a three-hour layover at LAX, where you cannot smoke outside the terminal, and a twenty minute flight on a prop-driven puddle jumper, the flying itself wasn't bad, either.

Let me go back to the no smoking rule for a minute. What's up with that? Are they afraid that smoking will damage the air quality at the airport? I mean, jeez, the air was brown and visible when I got there. Air you can see, what a concept.

Maybe it was the airport, maybe it was being in the puddle jumper annex, but another thing I noticed about California was that there is either a lot less plastic surgery than one is led to believe, or the surgeons out here are infinitely better at their jobs than the ones in Miami. I didn't see the same quantity of obvious noses, tits and facelifts than I do at home.

And the radio out here! Wow! It had new music, and Tejano music and classical music and live interviews with interesting people. Except for that thing about fire seasons, mud slides, mountain lions and the occasional earthquake, this could be a cool place to live. I prefer my natural disasters to have a timeline attached, like: "You have a hurricane heading your way, it should be here in a week." And then there's the price of housing. Even here in the valley, housing is not affordable. For what would buy a mini-mansion with a lot in over-priced Miami, you can get a cottage on a zero lot line here.

More observations later.

Cat, I'm a kitty cat, and I dance dance dance and I meow meow meow. (Thanks to Styrofoam Kitty for the heads up on this. And thanks to G-Shack, from whence I stole this, and loaded it on to my server. Full credits and kudos, but no link, cause it wasn't working.)

I can't stop playing that. Over and over. As for the Squirrels that go WHEEEEEE!, you can find them here. It's an acquired taste.

I'm blogging instead of packing. I told you I was into avoidance in a very big way.

Now this is one I didn't see coming. After all, I haven't listened to Howard in years. He'd ceased to amuse me since before the biographies. But this story in Salon has me gaga for Mr. Stern once again.

Among the other things the story has to say is this tidbit about exactly why Clear Channel pulled the plug on the King of All Media.

"Stern's torrent of Bush barbs came in the wake of Clear Channel Communications' move in late February to pull Stern off six of its stations, condemning his program as "vulgar, offensive and insulting." Following the controversial Super Bowl halftime show featuring Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, Clear Channel, like most major broadcasters, was under scrutiny over allegations it broadcast indecency. ...

...But Stern quickly complained on-air that the real reason Clear Channel yanked his show was that just days earlier he'd begun questioning the president and praising comedian/commentator Al Franken's anti-Bush book "Lies, And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." Stern insisted it was political speech, not indecency, that got him in trouble with the San Antonio broadcasting giant, whose CEO, Lowry Mays, is close to the president and the Bush family. The jock still condemns Clear Channel and its Republican connections, but most of Stern's firepower today is directed squarely at Bush and his close association with the religious right, which Stern says is the driving force behind the FCC crackdown on indecency."

And since I live in one of the six markets where Clear Channel cut Stern, I hadn't heard any of this:

"Stern had strongly backed Bush's war on Iraq, but in the past two weeks, he has derided the president as a "Jesus freak," a "maniac" and "an arrogant bastard," while ranting against "the Christian right minority that has taken over the White House." Specifically, Stern has assailed Bush's use of 9/11 images in his campaign ads, questioned his National Guard service, condemned his decision to curb stem cell research and labeled him an enemy of civil liberties, abortion rights and gay rights. "

I don't know about you, but that kind of talk just makes me all warm and fuzzy.

That's from Dilbert. It's also my motto.

I've been reduced to posting PDFs as content on my day job's web site, because... uh, I don't know why because.

Because nobody will part with actual content? Because people think that scanning some piece of crap that was printed off a dot matrix printer and posting it is a good idea?

I leave for a week of training on Sunday. I'll be tripping out to the left coast. It's not that I hate to fly so much, as the terror I feel about ceasing to be flying. But it's a long flight, and I have money for alcohol and a bag of knitting, so I should be OK. Just call me Madame Defarge.

Not that I have much of a choice.

I'm starting to live in the zen moment, not because I have evolved and meditated to that point, but because I am practicing avoidance with every breath. Spending one's time not thinking about stuff leaves one with very little except the moment.

I'm a brain wave away from catatonic. Numb. Crazy.

Sucks.

Up front, I'm telling you this is a rant about bad bathroom behavior. If you don't want to read about nastiness in public places, come back tomorrow.

Item 1

Random young(ish) bum, pissing into the bike lockers at the train station, in broad daylight. The bike lockers are right on the main street, too, not buried behind the station, somewhere in the parking lot. OK, you're a drunk, or a junkie, or maybe just mentally ill, so the public pissing thing is a gimme. But pissing in the bike locker? On the bike locker? That's just nasty. Because he's doing it on the front side, on the door side of the lockers. Which means that there's going to be some pretty foul bikes in there. Thanks a fucking lot, pal.

Item 2

There is a huge difference between "ladies" and "women". I don't care what the sign on the door says, if you need to see a poster on the inside of the stall door with this bit of doggerel :

"If you sprinkle,
when you tinkle,
Please be neat,
and wipe the seat."

then you are not, and will never be, a lady. You are probably not even a dame. You are a pig.

One of the unforseen side effects of the office move is that I no longer have a private bathroom. I share with all the females on this floor, and let me tell you, I have no desire to ever set foot in any of their houses. Ever. If the way they use/abuse the public latrines are any indication of how they live, then the basest untouchable in the farthest reaches of inhabitable space could give them some lessons in manners.

There seems to be no knowlege of indoor plumbing, or the concept of a flush toilet. Every single stall has a reeking toilet, with evidence of numerous uses without the benefit of a single flush. Every seat is wet. The floors are wet. The sink surrounds are wet. There is dirt and filth every where. The room itself reeks. This isn't a matter of poor housekeeping, this is a matter of disgusting habits and a total lack of concern for other people. A blinding disregard for their own health and cleanliness.

I have never, and I mean never, in my twelve years at this institution, seen a more revolting sight than the ladies' loo on this floor. That includes the public access bathrooms in the main lobby.

This is a professional office floor. There aren't junkies wandering in from rehab here. You couldn't tell that by strolling into the loo.

I could just throw up. Except nobody would even be able to tell.

It's primary day here in the Sunshine State, and I went out bright and early to exercise my civil liberties while I still have them. There was nobody and I mean nobody in the polling place except election workers and they almost cried tears of joy when they saw me and the RLA stroll in.
I'm swanning around the office in my "I Voted Today" sticker, feeling all holier than thou.

But it's a sham and a lie. I did vote, I cast an electronic ballot with no confirmation of any sort other than the ATM ballot screen showing an electronic "Thank You for Voting" message. I can only go on faith that my vote was recorded and recorded correctly.

There isn't a big turnout today because the Democratic candidate has been anointed by the voters in the states that hold their primaries earlier than Florida. There was only one item on the county ballot today besides the pointless exercise of Presidential nominee, and that was the question of whether the county mayoral election should be held on primary day or later. Not an especially pressing question, so the voters aren't turning out.

There I stood, in the half-box of the voting station, not really a booth, anymore. Not like the big ole lever-driven, cloth-curtained booths of my childhood. No. A spindly, waist-high table with an electronic tablet and three "privacy" flaps on the sides, coming to shoulder height. Depressing, really. Kind of like the choice I was faced with.

As usual, I was of three minds about it all. On the one hand, the candidate I wanted to vote for was still on the ballot, just no longer in the race. I could cast a vote for him. On the other hand, that would be a futile gesture, a symbolic vote. On the third hand, I could vote for The One, the one that the voters in other states had named our candidate. Doing so would push the numbers in this most watched of states, and give the pollsters and pundits something to say, an avenue of speculation for what will happen in November. Satisfying as that is, in and of itself, I wanted to be able to vote for the candidate of MY choice, without feeling like it was a waste of everybody's time. Unfortunately, that was not an option.

So I did something I have never knowingly, or willingly done before. I threw my vote away. I voted with my heart and my conscience, and voted for General Clark.

Besides, considering the turnout, I should be able to tell, when the precinct results are in, if my vote was cast and counted. It'll be the one and only vote for the General.