So I suppose the crazy-looking one-uppedness and record-setting campaign finance numbers can be pardoned, or at least for the purposes of this particular editorial, as that is not the intended topic of my upcoming fluff.

No, what interests me is the widespread, generally agreed-upon hysteria about gas prices. Gas now costs about $3.90 where I live, making it one of the cheapest places in the western world to fill your tank. About once every two weeks, I pay about twenty dollars more to fill my tank than I did two years ago. That totals about $520 more, per year, that I pay for gasoline. That's almost twice what I paid two years ago, but here's the thing: I don't care. I hope that two years from now, I have another $520 to pay on top of it, if I'm still driving enough to need that much gas.

I think gas getting more expensive is a good thing, as it forces two things that make economies great: innovation and discussion. In the free, open internet-powered world, there is little standing in the way of solutions to our energy problems being found. Unfortunately, nobody that I've talked to seems to feel that way. Instead of using the completely unprecedented power we have in collaboration and communication, the current politically popular action falls on blaming someone, whether it's speculators, suburbanites, the party on the other side of the aisle, the oil companies, the current administration, the international community, or my favorite, the economy.

The only corrective action that I've seen has been flawed from the start. If we attack the speculators, we take away the underlying freedom that powers what's left of our economy. If we attack people's lifestyles, we take away the underlying freedom that powers what's left of our work ethic. If we attack a perceived shortage brought on by what alarmists are with little evidence calling, "peak oil," then the underlying problem is not addressed, and nothing is done in the immediate term.

The proposals I have heard from both sides of the 2008 presidential campaign can best be described as political bullshit. They are all based on blame, and on depriving America of something far greater and far more important than cheap energy. Though I don't know the answer, technology will account for its existence, and technology, combined with freedom will reveal it to us, if we can just get the god-damned campaigners out of the way.

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Yeah, so I've kind of lapsed in my updates lately, and for this I offer my apologies, with such credibility as I can muster.

Let's just dive back in, shall we? The first game of the summer kickball season was last night. With weather moving in from the accursed west, many people on the team seemed unwilling to accept that we might have a game, as if the very possibility of rain would free them of some kind of obligation. As such, I received countless messages asking if the game was canceled, and incredulous replies to my simple negative answers, as if they were trying to justify having already made plans.

All told, five people showed up, compared to zero from the other team. The extremely light rain was almost completely over when the game was called for reschedule and those of us that remained when to Grinders. We were joined there by Erp, Amber, Nick, and Rosisella. Danielle helped us out and did the best job I can remember ever getting there. We had a great time. Such a great time in fact, that all were invited to Erp's house for "one more," and all accepted.

For the next two or three hours, Erp, Amber, Chris, Rosisella, Nick, Andrea, Liana, and I noisily capered around Erp's living room, carrying on conspicuously to some sort of music. I gave Andrea and Nick rides home, and I went to bed after tearily watching the scene from Return of the King when Gondor lit the beacons of Anorien to call for help from Rohan. I had never noticed how epic and excellent the music in that scene was before. Also, you can just shut the hell up. I know what I am, and I embrace it.

Geoff and I are throwing Erp and Amber a going-away party tomorrow, I filled a pitcher this morning before I left for work, and the keg failed to blow. I unhooked it and judging from the effort I expended in lugging it up the stairs and out to my car, I'd guess it was down to about 1/5 of its full capacity. It was the second time we'd had that beer(O'Fallon 5-Day IPA) on tap, but the first time, it had blown in three hours. This time, we couldn't kill it in nine months.

Anyway, now my car smells like beer. See you soon!

Julia arrived on Northwest, which is to say she arrived late. That's fine, because I was still pretty hung over from Thursday night when a bunch of ex-coworkers came to town to show me a good time. I decided that while Julia was here, we would not eat any barbecue or steak. I would make an allowance to the "huge chunk of meat" category with a trip to Chefburger, but for the most part, I wanted to show Julia things to do in Kansas City that wouldn't immediately come to mind when visiting.

She rolled up to my front door in her immense rental car(some kind of Chrysler megasedan), and I informed her that parking would be nonexistent near the house until later that night, because Death Cab for Cutie was playing a big outdoor show over at the nearby City Market. So we went to West 39th, and got dinner at Blue Koi. She had the Ants in a Tree dish, and claimed to have thoroughly enjoyed it. Neither of us was able to finish our gigantic dinners, and turned down to-go boxes, stating that in the city, the food will get eaten, even if it goes in the dumpster. We spent the rest of the short night sitting with Erp and Amber behind Erp's house in West Plaza, before heading back to my place to sack out hard.

Julia was still on Eastern time on Saturday morning(and so, apparently, was her filthy new Verizon phone) and stirred about an hour earlier than I would have wished. But by 11am or so, we were both all cleaned up and ready to go, so we spirited down to You Say Tomato for some breakfast. I had never been there before, and the biscuits and gravy were delicious. Julia has some kind of sandwich of melted cheese which she assured me was of the highest quality, and we headed home to take care of some paperwork before heading out for the bulk of the increasingly hot day.

At my suggestion, we drove up to Parkville and walked around the tree-covered sward at English Landing Park. The Missouri was running very high, a fact that hadn't escaped the notice of local anglers. Apparently high-running water makes for great fishing, as the biggest fish can then be found in almost any part of the river, and not just in the deep center channel. This was evidenced by the gargantuan catfish they had lying on the ground behind them, and the 12-13 inch drum they caught as we watched. They were just using worms, but it was a bonanza for them. High-running water. Good to know. I used to love fishing, too.

We walked over to the Power Plant for a quick beer. On the way we passed a point in the road where a tributary creek noisily flows under it through a couple of cement tubes, and runs on to the swollen Missouri. Sunning itself on the cement ramp from the roadside to the creek was a three-foot long rat snake, which Julia took to be a facsimile until I moved closer, to nudge it with my foot. It quickly slithered down to the creek and out of sight. Julia was surprised to have seen a live snake, and one of that size as well. My eyes on the prize, I prodded us along to the brewery. I tried an experimental beer called, "Hoppeweizen." The jury's still out on that for me, as it was for the brewer. Julia had a stout.

We continued up the road to Weston, where we first went to the surprisingly excellent Pirtle Winery. Like any Missouri winery Pirtle had its share of sweet sugary wines, but atypically they had a good selections of very dry reds, and even a dry white, all made from locally-grown grapes. We picked up a couple of bottles and availed ourselves of the free parking. We walked from there through a small vineyard, across a sunlit lawn, and past a bunch of Saturday bikers and their rumbling machines to the highly unassuming front door of O'Malley's Irish Pub. Located entirely in underground 166-year old beer cellars, it's another brewery that in my opinion has had some trouble getting their brewing operation off the ground since they started it back up in 2005. I've only visited at night once, because of its location almost thirty miles from home, but the people with whom I went agreed with me that it's the best Irish pub in existence.

From there we headed back into town. I didn't want to drink any more beer and drive. Two was plenty for one afternoon, and though it certainly wasn't enough to make me intoxicated, it was enough for me to enjoy the places we went. We parked, took care of some more paperwork, and walked over to the Flying Saucer, as is my custom. We arrived in time for a shift change and got to high-five the incoming staff just as well. After I'd finished my daily allotment, plus one, we merrily headed over to Chefburger for dinner. Despite the agitating contrarian opinions of some of my friends and acquaintances, the food at Chefburger was outstanding that day.

We crossed Walnut into the Power and Light District proper, and picked up some to-go drinks at Gordon Biersch. We wandered around the district amid a large and growing crowd, while I pointed out the places I knew to Julia. We exited through Raglan Road, where as we left, a young attractive woman danced on a table to the Irish music being played, her breasts bouncing around like pudding as she did so. Julia was less than pleased, but I overruled her. By twilight we walked to JP Wine Bar, where we revitalized with large cups of coffee before walking over to Nara. Julia ordered a small plate there, and made sure that I tried some of each of the items thereupon. I really enjoyed the Ahi Tuna sushi, especially when dipped in wasabi-infested soy-sauce, but I almost lost my dinner when I tried the shrimp tempura rolls.

Geoff joined us there, extending Katie's apologies for her fatigue-induced absence. We talked around the table, listening to what I regarded as good music until they chased us out at 1:30am. We ran into Gavin on the way back up Main, and made an attempt at a nightcap at the Flying Saucer. As we approached the door, a couple of employees having a smoke turned to tell us that we'd just missed last call. I recognized the woman as a bartender, made a plaintive face, and said, "oh, come on, Jen!" She saw who I was and said, "okay, just one?" And we were in business. The three of us stood around a tall table as the place was brought down around us. We drank our beers, thanked them, and said good night.

We went home, and somehow, I drunkenly beat some difficult bosses in Lord of the Rings Online that had been plagueing me sober for weeks. We fell heavily asleep, and woke up on Sunday morning with slight headaches. We got up, got cleaned up, and headed over to the K to catch the Royals-Indians game. It was my first game of the year and I was really excited to be there, but it was really hot out. I could feel beads of sweat rolling down my back as I sat. We sat watching the game for perhaps five innings before getting up to get something cool to eat/drink.

We stood in the shade until the 7th inning stretch, at which time the Royals were winning 6-0. We reasoned that if we stayed and something changed, we wouldn't like what we saw, so we made a beeline for the Plaza, arriving at the Palace Theater with ten minutes to spare before the 3:55pm showing of Indiana Jones. After the movie was over we walked around the Plaza a bit, and stopped at Houston's to get a drink. We picked up Matt and Amanda, and went down to Tacqueria El Taco Nazo in Armourdale for dinner, where they told us about their trip to what was probably the worst Mexican food they'd ever had on their trip to St. Joseph last weekend.

We went to bed and slept heavily until my alarm went off. Julia's working at a factory in North Kansas City all week, doing some kind of air quality audit. Her employer has put her up at a casino, which I find exceedingly humorous. Anyway, it was a great couple of days. I always enjoy Kansas City, and I like even more to show it to people that don't know it.

We sat down to some two-dollar Modelos and some of the best chimichangas either of us had ever had. After finishing we left, promising ourselves and each other that we'd be back as soon as we were hungry again. We started walking up Summit, and stopped at the 51 stop just before the light for Avenida Cesar Chavez. It was 4:40pm, and the next 51 would be along at 4:49pm. Nine minutes seemed like a perfectly acceptable time to wait for a bus, to me. Geoff wasn't having it though, and insisted that in light of the ridiculous nine-minute wait time, we should walk the 2-mile, 250-foot vertical to get home. I found this odd, considering it was now well into the upper 80s, or at least felt like it.

We walked home, and I wound up having to change my clothes and shower again when I got home. Now, I'm trying to find someone to join me for a movie today.

But instead I woke up, got ready, and drove to work in pouring rain, getting drenched on the walk from my car to the door of my office building. I had a long morning, most of which was spent thinking about how I'm going to miss my friends Craig and Amber when they move to Chicago in a little over a month. I feel much the same about Craig's departure as I felt as my brother's wedding: that I'm losing one of my best friends to much greater things. I'm very excited for him, but I feel like I'm losing a part of myself.

I hope everybody has a nice Memorial Day weekend.

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play_mp3(Trash80 - Bait and Switch.mp3)

To show him a good time, Geoff, Matt, and I took him to the Rheinland Restaurant on the Square in Independence. Dinner at the area's last remaining German restaurant was delectable, and everybody seemed to get along pretty well. Bill was in talks with a real estate agent who had designs on him buying a house somewhere in 913, even though his place of work is going to be in North Kansas City. We talked to him about houses in North KC and Parkville, and he seemed encouraged.

Bill and Matt wandered off after dinner, so Geoff and I went to the Flying Saucer, and met Brad and Stacy there. They left soon after we got there, and we were soon joined by Katie, and later by Cassie, an off-work waitress with whom we have a good rapport. Geoff and Katie left us there to talk. After two or three more beers, and lots of discussion about inconsequential crap, she invited me to join her and her friends in Westport.

I suppose my age began to show at that point, as she was a very attractive young woman that appeared to be at least somewhat interested in my company, and all I could think about was that it was almost 1am, and I had to go home and go to bed. She gave me a ride home, taking a relatively leisurely and roundabout route, like an attractive cab driver. She told me that she'd be working the next day, and that I should come in and see her. I suppose I should go.

I woke up this morning with a headache, and uncomfortably tired from not getting enough sleep. The building next door to my building is a DST(ironically, my employer) office building, and there was a semi-truck backed up to the loading dock when I went to get in my car and drive to work. The semi was taking up the space that's normally taken up by the DST delivery vans that shuttle between their various downtown and suburban locations. So, there was a DST van blocking my car. I asked around over at the loading dock to see about getting the van moved so I could go to work, and a middle-aged guy came out and offered to trade parking spots between my car and the van. "Sounds good," I said, and I climbed into my car, splitting my pants wide open as I did so.

Good times.

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This plays hell on pretty much every useful part of my face. My eyes redden up like they would after soloing a bottle of bourbon. My nose doesn't quite stuff up, but whatever fluids I may have consumed within 24 hours come out it like a disgusting slimy spigot. And so it is this morning. I woke up inexplicably early, about 6:30am. This was with a slight hangover from $2.75 pint night. I did my filthy business in the bathroom, and decided that if I went back to sleep for two more hours, it would be more difficult to wake up. It made sense at the time.

So, I got to work this morning at 7:15am. That's a new record for me, at this job. My car was the first one in the parking lot. I have spent the time between then and now buying computer parts, and using up about ten yards of toilet paper to blow my nose. Sorry I didn't have anything of substance to say.

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I went on Saturday for a "quick three," but settled down for four or five more when the heavens opened up and dumped ridiculous amounts of rain on the downtown streets. After the rain appeared to have completely subsided, I settled my tab and headed out into the newly cold air to meet Nick at his house. We went to Gilhouly's, where they're taking full advantage of the last three weeks of legal smoking in Kansas City, and closed it. Nick and Anna and I then went to Taqueria Mexico on Southwest Boulevard for late-late night food. I didn't get home until after 3am, and I was drunk.

I was cruelly reminded of this when I woke up at 9am for seemingly no reason. I soon found out though that I was jolted awake by my churning stomach. I optimistically popped a couple of antacids and settled back to sleep. It worked! I celebrated by still not folding my laundry.

UPDATE 5/13: I did not go last night, and it was awesome. I might not go tonight either!

All that said, I love the Flying Saucer. It's everything I'd hoped it would be, and much more. The staff is friendly, easy on the eyes, and I always run into someone I know when I'm there. I'm about to leave the office on this lovely Friday afternoon to meet Geoff there.

I have in store a completely unallocated weekend to spend in Kansas City. I am ecstatic about this. See you on the boring end of it!

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After we arrived in Louisville, we parked in a fantastic spot right on Fourth Street and walked over to "Fourth Street Live!" which is an all-at-once development in downtown Louisville that was planned, assembled, and constructed by the Cordish company in Baltimore. It was kind of eerie seeing all the bars and restaurants, because many of them are also in Kansas City's brand new Power and Light District. But along with some less impressive names like Wendy's and the US Post Office, Fourth Street Live! also had an excellent British-styled beer bar called, simply, The Pub.

Erp, Amber and I sat down in The Pub and enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine and warmth coming through the opened front windows, along with some of their well-poured beers. After we finished there we walked back down the street to the patio at Bluegrass Brewing Company, or BBC as it is locally known. We greedily clutched some beers as we waited for Michael and Liana to arrive, and confirm my status that weekend as a fifth wheel.

After a couple of beers and catching up at the BBC, we all agreed it was time to move on. Prior to leaving Kansas City, I consulted Beerfly, as I always do when I travel, to find a good beer bar in Louisville. The place that seemed to have the best aggregate review was a place called Flanagan's Ale House, which was about a mile from the BBC over on a diagonal street that points away from downtown called Baxter. On the map it looked to be a simple five or six minute trip. Unfortunately though, there was a parade just getting out, so the traffic was horrendous. On top of the fact that we were sitting in parking lot traffic, the police had most of the streets blocked off, specifically designed to direct the thousands of cars back to the highway so they could all go back to their far-flung homes.

So, getting to Flanagan's took over an hour. We literally could have walked faster, there and back, but we were parked on the street, and feeding the meter would have been highly unpleasant from a mile away. When we got reasonably close we kind of threw our hands into the air and just grabbed a curb parking spot and walked the remaining three or four blocks past the stopped cars with drivers agitated as we had been or more.

Flanagan's is a great bar, and they have a lot of beer available in bottles, but the tap selection is pretty austere. We grabbed a table on the back patio, and the other four people lit up all at the same time. I think it's great that they were able to relax, but the smoke got to me after a while. I probably should have said something. We stopped at one more place on the way back, and went back to the hotel for deep sleep and breathe-right strips for me.

Everybody was up and about by about 9am, and helped themselves to free breakfast. Erp and Amber slipped away for some private time in Louisville, leaving me with nothing to do in particular. So, I went with Liana and her mother to find and choose adornments for the hat that she'd be wearing for the derby the next day. It was a hoot. For real, I actually had a good time.

After that, Michael and Liana and I went to the White Castle that was fortuitously located next to our hotel, and ate many many teeny tiny burgers. We retired to the hotel lobby after that, where I taught them how to play Maui. But Maui is really hard to play with only three people. Craig and Amber came back late in the afternoon, and we spread a map out in front of us to decide where to go for leisure time that night. It showed all of Shelby County, Kentucky, which seemed to extend for about ten miles in all directions from Shelbyville. My suggestion was that we just drive the twenty miles to Frankfort and find something downtown. This opinion was brushed off by everyone else though even though nobody would think twice about driving 45 miles to Louisville.

Anyway, we wound up just piling into the rental and driving down the main drag of Shelbyville. We were about to turn around, and Criag was indeed in the process thereof, when we spotted a bar in an unexciting building on the side of the road. We figured it'd be as nice a place as any, and wandered in. Liana lost her footing in a frantic attempt to get inside out of the slightly-drizzling rain. Her tumble was apparently watched in full by the bar's patrons inside. No matter, we thought. It was time for a beer, and possibly some food.

Sergio's, as the place turned out to be called, features about fifteen taps of carefully selected beer, and as of the day of our visit, six hundred and fourteen different bottles of beer. As I always enjoy, Liana, Michael, and Amber for the most part deferred to my judgement for beer selections, and were pleased with the choices I made for them. Sergio himself, a Brazilian immigrant who had to tell us he was not actually from the US, served the beers and was happy to fill us in about any beer-related knowledge he had. The beer was fresh, delicious, and served in chalice-like glasses. When we finished our beers, our bottles were not picked up, much to our confusion. But it allowed for a feeling of accomplishment as the table was quickly and completely covered with dead soldiers.

All payment is made at the register on the way out. Sergio advised us that if we had forgotten the number or nature of the beers we drank, to just bring up our bottles as we paid. So that was why. We made it back to the hotel in time for Letterman and a deep and heavy sleep. I was awakened seven hours later by the sound of the Angry German Kid that I set as the wake-up ringer on my phone. We got hastily dressed, and by 7am we were standing out in the gloom and drizzle, ready to go. Liana's aunt was in a very big hurry to get going, but once we reached them on the highway in front of us, we found that they were driving at ten miles below the limit in open traffic. "Oh well," we thought. "We're on vacation."

We arrived at Churchill Downs about 40 minutes later, and found a free parking spot on the street in a nearby neighborhood. Apparently the folks in the other car were approached by a large man when they parked who offered to "watch their car," for twenty dollars. When they told him that they weren't worried about it, he rebuked them with, "this place is ghetto. Your car isn't safe here." Near where we parked there were lots of piece of the curb that were blocked off with milk crates and garbage cans, so that the local residents could try to charge people to park there. Everybody's trying to make a buck.

The pictures can speak better of the Derby itself, and this entry is getting long, so I'll just say that though it was the first Kentucky Derby I've attended, it certainly won't be the last. It was extremely fun, and the weather cleared completely within an hour of our arrival. We never even got wet. Beautiful women beyond count were all around, dressed better than I'm used to seeing women dress for weddings. The sun became kind of oppressive, though it never got hot out. I lost about $175 in wagers and won about eight dollars. As far as I'm concerned, the 2009 Derby is a go.

I spent Wednesday night doing long overdue laundry, in preparation for the impending trip, and for the overall long-term goal of having clean clothes. I stayed up questing with Nick until after midnight, and still didn't get to bed until after 1am.

My alarm clock screeched to life at 4:26am. I don't know why I picked 4:26 for a 5am pickup. I know it sounds arbitrary and I can't explain it. We got on the road closer to 6am though, as there were some delayys about which I didn't ask questions. We stopped in Boonville a while later for some breakfast.

We rolled into Louisville at about 3pm, and wasted no time in finding a place to get a drink. We checked out Louisville's older and smaller version of the Power and Light District. Keeping with Cordish's modus operandi cheesily called, "Fourth Street Live!"

I don't really have time to go over much more, except to say that we had a great time in Louisville last night. More to come.

So now, I have fluxbox installed and working beautifully. I still have a couple more customizations to make, but it's now in really excellent shape for a laptop of mine. I've gotten a couple of keyboard shortcuts set up, and the precious screen real estate is preserved in a much more efficient manner now.

In other, possibly more consequential news, I've been elected to the board of my building's homeowners' association. There's not much more to tell than that, though. I'll brief you when more developments arise.

I the course of my normal daily routine, I kept turning my attention to my new little laptop, and set about customizing it until it became clear to me that the default graphical user interface was not going to cut it for me. On a Linux-powered laptop, I require 7 relatively simple things: a web browser(firefox), console access(xterm), ssh(openssh), instant messaging(pidgin), perl, image processing(imagemagick), and the ability to play media(SMPlayer). These things are all arranged in difficult separated-out places in the default simple configuration, so I decided to start reading some of the startlingly abundant resources out there for hacking/customizing an Eee PC.

I quickly decided that I wished to use fluxbox instead of the default interface, and found a pretty detailed page on how to make this happen. I followed it closely, rebooted, and found that somehow, the setup I had followed caused my X server to break. On a normal Linux machine, if the configuration is broken, it tries a couple times and then stops, informing you that there much be something wrong, and that it's been disabled until you fix the problem. Not so on the Eee. It just kept trying and flickering and restarting X until I got tired of waiting for it to quit.

The Eee ships without the ability to have virtual consoles, so there was nothing I could have done even if it had disabled X. I had an unusable machine. Through a labored process, I finally managed to get a System Rescue CD loaded onto a USB thumb drive. I was able to get in, mount the root filesystem, and undo the changes that had been made.

Through some actions that are definitely not within the scope of novice computing, for which the Eee is targeted, I was able to restore operability on my computer. That said, most novices aren't going to mess with the system's settings either. There are lots and lots of resources out there for customizing Eee PCs, so I'll have to be more careful when I read them, at least now I have a bootable rescue disk on USB.

It's remarkable how fast the system boots. Except for one slow spot when my debbie-downer cube neighbor, Wayne, was watching, it takes literally under fifteen seconds to go from powered off to ready to use. Shutting down takes about five or six seconds. The system has a sleep/suspend capability, but it takes about ten or fifteen seconds to recover from it. With that in mind, I think it makes more sense to just shut down when I'm done using it, and turn it back on when I'm ready to use it again. It's a total difference of perhaps ten seconds between going to low battery consumption and just turning it off.

From my experience of using it for the last ten hours or so, I would highly recommend it. The solid-state drive is whisper-quiet. The fan, when it eventually kicks on, is imperceptably quiet. All that indicates to me that a fan is even running is a slight warmth on the left side of the keyboard.

Anyway, give one a try. I think it's great.

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