California Geography

Having now driven around quite a bit for job interviews, I am more familiar with California geography than I ever thought I would be, than I ever really wanted to be.

My dad seems to know just about every route and alternate route and backroad in the state. I used to think that he was some kind of logistics savant (he may be that still), or something, but now I realize he knows so much because he has driven everywhere. Twice. For my most recent journey, I was driving to northern California (Willits, specifically) and I mentioned I was trying to beat the traffic on the 210 by leaving early. "You're not leaving early enough for that," he told me, "you should take the 138 to Lancaster..." what then followed was an extremely specific set of instructions, whose accuracy was, in fact, corroborated by Google maps. "This part of the 138 is called Pear Blossom Highway. It passes through some weird town, Little Rock, I think." I was not sure why he had so much information about the middle of the god damn desert, but I decided to roll with it.

The thing about taking a back road, especially one that snakes through the desert, is that you're never sure it's going to work out until you get to the end of it. It just seems like you're driving into oblivion. Like if the world were flat you might drive off the side of it without noticing, scrub brush and the odd Joshua Tree seeing you off. But of course, this is what makes it a viable alternate route: there are no people. I know I'm not in the middle of nowhere on the 210 because it's so full of people. But then again, it's so full of people.

So my job interview was in Willits this time. I drove up to Ukiah (about 25 miles south of Willits) and spent the night there on Thursday. Friday afternoon I had a lesson demonstration--for actual students on the last Friday of the school year. Nice--and interview. I didn't get out of town til around 4P.M., but I drove the whole day home that day anyway. Normally, when driving to that part of the state, one goes through Oakland, but I knew at that time of day it would be a bad idea. So, I decided to go via yet another less-traveled road. I took the 20, which links up the 101 and the 5, and I spent about 40 minutes driving right next to a giant lake, I looked it up later and found out that it's called Clear Lake.

I've applied to so many jobs, over 200 now, and most of the time, I don't even look up where they are, I just apply because I'm so desperate for work. So, driving through the state I'm seeing all these town names that I recognize for putting in applications. I found myself saying things like "Oh, so that's where Elk Grove is," on my drive back.

I really hope I get a job soon because I can't keep experiencing geography at this rate.

On Space Junk; Guns!

On Space Junk
Today I considered what sort of jobs might be required in the future. I mean this in a generalized way, not in the What The Fuck Am I Doing With My Life way that is so frequently discussed here. The impetus for this consideration was the most recent Science in Action podcast from the BBC. They had a guest who was talking about all the debris we are accumulating around the planet--old satellites, space stations, et cetera--and how we need to start now with a method to get it out of the air before it really becomes a problem. Since I was listening to this at work, the time of day when my thoughts wander freely while my fingers do the work (the typing work, you perverts), I then imagined some years in the future when the earth is essentially surrounded by a giant wall of space junk. The Great Wall of Space Junk, if you will. This limits our space travel, even though we have the technology to reach space, since governments and private corporations (probably more private corporations by now, I am thinking) don't want to damage the still-expensive-to-produce equiptment by trying to get them through the Great Wall. As such, a new sort of freelancer develops to get rid of all the junk. It would pay a lot because it would be really dangerous. These Space Junkers (or Junkers, I guess they would be called) would have to fly large enough ships to haul the junk, but small enough so that they could manouver. The Junkers would, presumably, be paid by volume of junk moved. So they'd have to either incinerate it, or maybe be short-sighted and pile it up on some other planet, or the moon. I think that could be a good anime.

On Guns!
My friends invited to me to go shoot guns! with them on Saturday, so despite reservations about shooting things, I went along. I ended up declining to shoot at all, as it really didn't appeal to me. As such, I ended up standing around in the desert for several hours, taking pictures of other people shooting guns! and getting a sunburn. I fail to grasp the entertainment value in shooting up empty liquour bottles and an old TV. I guess I'm just too much of a pacifist, or something. Since we were out in the desert, I wanted to go see the dinosaurs and eat at the Wheel Inn, but unfortunately, I couldn't muster up enough enthusiasm from the group to do so. Pretty fucking lame, if you ask me. At least I got a few pictures of the desert.

What It Is

So I've been in California sunshine-land for a week now, which is pretty weird since it seems like I've done kind of a lot for it just being a week. One of the first things I did was paint my room; it's now a honeydew green sort of color. I have been meaning to take a picture, but I have to do it at night, otherwise my room is backlit like so much amateur photography.

I went to circus practice all week and I was surprised by the number of people who remembered me. Juggling has been the most fun so far, but I've also been to teeterboard, which has been overrun by young people. When I was in teeterboard, it was mostly adults, so I don't really know what happened, but it's one of many things letting me know that I am now old (in circus at least). Also, the kids in teeterboard keep texting and shit between turns, which I find objectionable. You can't tell me texting is more interesting than fucking teeterboard. I've also been showing up to cradle, but have so far been unable to do much. I lack the strength to even climb up to the damn thing, so I've mostly just been spotting.

On Friday I went to a cake decorating class. It's a four week class, but this first one was pretty boring. It had an infomercial-like quality to it, since you have to get all of your own decorating tools. This explained why it was so cheap to sign up for the class (only $22!). Naturally, I decided that I should just go all out and I bought the biggest, most absurd cake decorating kit I could find. So now I have about 18 tips, a number of bags, spatulas and more fondant tools than I know what to do with, but I figure now I'm set for a lifetime of decorating. For each of the other 3 classes, it's a bring-your-own-cake (BYOC) affair. You have to bring your own icing as well. Fortunately, I fucking love baking cakes, and have already picked out a bunch of recipies I want to do. I think this week I'll be starting with a sour cream poppy seed cake with white chocolate buttercream. I'll hopefully post a picture of it one I decorate it.

Being unemployed as I am, I've been reading a lot. This week I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman, which is about a 17 year old boy who ends up going to a 5 year magic college and then he and his friends find the secret to travelling between worlds and end up in Narnia Fillory. I read a few reviews about it after the fact and there seems to be some contention about whether Grossman was lampooning the genre or what. I, however, doubt that is was necessarily satirical. At this point, it's basically impossible to write a fantasy book without taking some cues from current fantasy lit, so I think he's just providing a nod to the exisiting works. I'd also argue that it's a more adult take on some of those themes. I just started reading Lost Boy by Brent Jeffs, to feed my voyeuristic obsession with the FLDS. I have like 5 books on my Amazon wishlist that are FLDS memoirs, and I'm not really sure why it's so fascinating, but it is.