what i’m doing

Moisture Festival 2013 – this week i’m performing with the fremont philharmonic. next week i’m performing with snake suspenderz.

and, in the middle of all this, we’re having our house completely re-piped to alleviate the massive problems we’ve been having with the plumbing, AND we’re having the kitchen and pantry floor torn out, down to the joists, and replaced, and then we’re having new linoleum laid down in the kitchen, pantry, and my office… which means i have to completely disconnect and move everything, and then reconnect it all once i’ve moved it back.

according to moe, the contractor is coming in to rip out the floor on monday, and he says it should take two to three days to replace it… however, if the joists are still wet, then it’ll probably be longer, because at that point we’ve got to have servicebastards and their portable noise generators (otherwise known as “fans”) come back out and try again…

fortunately, i’m going to be away from the house for most of this… 😛

oy!

so apparently the first step in the remediation process is to dry the place out, which means dehumidifiers and fans, both under the house (where most of the damage originated) and in our kitchen, pantry and bedroom.

the fans are loud. 😕

and they have to stay at least 3 days. if we turn them off. then it’s more like 5 days. 😡

and the fans are LOUD… 😛

dehumidifiers

one or the other…

Michelle Shocked or Ted Nugent?

35 years ago, it was my impression that these people were FUCKING SCREWED UP… now… they’re so far beyond FUCKING SCREWED UP that there are no words to describe it. but, strangely enough, both of these people are not FUCKING SCREWED UP in the way that i would have expected 35 years ago…

my understanding is that they’re both “christians”… i recently found out that the word “cretin” originally started out life as a coloquial european pronunciation of “christian” which was used to mean something like “everyman”, and that it eventually got applied to dwarves and the mentally infirm…

and to aging wannabe rock stars, apparently…

hee

so i found a way to make QR codes fail to work…
an irritating QR code that doesn't work
ETA: almost immediately i discovered that, while it didn’t work when i tested it locally, for some unknown reason, as soon as i posted it, it started working… weird… i’ll have to play around with it some more… 😐

enter title here

we had the most recent plumbing incident, and we had the next most recent plumbing incident, both of which ended up with the guy who rescued us telling us that we need to have the whole house re-piped. the last guy who i talked to said that the current plumbing in our house was RECALLED in 1996, because it’s brittle and the rats like to eat it…

and, no, we can’t sue the people who installed the plumbing originally, because when they installed it (in 1970-something), it hadn’t been recalled yet. if anyone, we might be able to sue the home inspector that did our home inspection before we bought the place, because he should have noticed, and told us about it, but he didn’t… and, at this point, the result would still be the same anyway, which is, basically, that we have to completely re-pipe the entire house, AND we have to completely rip out and replace the floor in the kitchen and pantry (and possibly about half of the master bedroom), because when the rat ate through the pipes (most recently), the whole subfloor got wet, and it’s particle board, so it has to go… 😐

also, since the last time the plumber was out here and fixed things, we have developed at least one major leak in the plumbing beyond the one that i already knew about, but wasn’t doing anything to fix, because it was the kitchen sink, it was leaking into the drain-pipe, and even with the water turned off to the sink, it was still leaking enough that i would have had to turn the water off to the whole house in order to replace the sink faucet, and i didn’t have the curb key to turn the water off at the main, until just a few days ago when the bathroom started flooding… 😐

so i’m sitting here now, sweating because we have the first snake suspenderz rehearsal in, like, 6 months, and the guy hasn’t shown up, and i have to leave in half an hour to get to the rehearsal… and from what his dispatcher told me, it’s not likely that he’s going to show up before 11:00, which is when i have to leave… but if the plumbing is going to be done, it’s gotta be started on first, and if i put the start off for a couple of days, then i have to put up with being in a house with no running water for a couple more days… 😡

so i went out for a walk the other day…

so i went out for a walk the other day, and when i had climbed the side of the hill to the point where i decided that it was far easier to go up than down, and if i didn’t start heading down soon, i would probably be travelling in the dark, which would have made going down that much more difficult…

i realised that i had only reached about the middle of the hill, and i deliberately took the least steep grade possible, but still, a lot of the time, it was much easier to scramble on all fours rather than trying to walk upright…

anyway, i had a fairly decent quality camera with me, that wasn’t my iphone, so i started taking random pictures, most of which are going to make excellent wallpaper pictures…
a flock of deer
this is a fairly good example. i took it more or less at random, picking out features that i figured would be interesting, but not too distracting, because i figured that they would be used as wallpaper…

then i looked a little more closely, and discovered that i had taken a picture of…
a flock of deer
a flock of deer. 😎

in the middle of now here

i went out for a walk today. it was the middle of now here. to give you an idea of how far out in the middle of now here we are, i submit this photo, without further comment:
heppner, oregon
it was during this walk that i learned what it is to hear the voice of God as the wind blowing through the grass.

many, many years ago, before my son was born, i discovered The Tree Of Being, a tree whose existence justifies the exitsence of everything else on the planet. at this point, i don’t remember exactly where it is, but it is on the west side of sehome hill, and i’d know it if i saw it. this was a very similar experience. as i sat, meditating, in the middle of now here, i heard the voice of God as the wind blew through the grass. all around me was the voice of God. i didn’t have to try to perceive it, because i was in the middle of it, and it was all around me. i would have had to try not to perceive it, and if i had, i would have failed, because it was the voice of God.

and it said, “I am Tina Chopp!” 😉

ETA: some of what i say is a lie. like aleister crowley, i have realised that if i don’t say that some of what i say is a lie, some day people may read what i have written and assume that it is all true. this is a warning to those people. don’t take some of what i say seriously, because it is a knowing falsehood.

a brief peek at where i am currently…

heppner, oregon

heppner, oregon

heppner, oregon

it’s a “hunting lodge” in the middle of nowhere. just to the left of the fence, in the center of the first picture, is what we can expect to see directly outside our house.

monique is going to spend the next couple of days at a sheep dog trial. i’m probably going to go exploring with a camera.

pictures can be found here.

3.141592653589793…

Pi DayHappy π day.

(π-approximation day is the 22nd of july)

Some approximations of π include:

  • Fractions: Approximate fractions include (in order of increasing accuracy) 22/7, 333/106, 355/113, 52163/16604, and 103993/33102.
  • Decimal: The first 100 decimal digits are 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510 58209 74944 59230 78164 06286 20899 86280 34825 34211 70679 ….
  • Binary: 11.001001000011111101101010100010001000010110100011 ….
  • Hexadecimal: The base 16 approximation to 20 digits is 3.243F6A8885A308D31319 ….
  • Sexagesimal: A base 60 approximation is 3:8:29:44:1

functioning societies

the new orchid spangiafora album has got me inspired… i’ve got a whole bunch of cassette tapes of evangelical preachers ranting about this and that, which have been waiting for me to do something creative with, for quite a long time indeed, and now is the time. Functioning Societies Don’t Do That is a preliminary sketch, based on the source material found here. enjoy it or else… 😎

Functioning Societies QR-codeETA: i just figured out that, because i posted this on the web, it is now accessible by google, who conveniently gave me this wonderful QR code. because of the fact that i “know what to do” with QR codes, i can now make a meaningless-babble art which, under the right circumstances, will take people to a recording of this, and they won’t have the first clue what has happened…

i remember, a few months ago, i found a QR code posted on a utility pole in some extremely seedy part of downtown seattle. at the time, i didn’t have a QR-code-reader on my phone, but despite that fact, i’m about 90% certain that, if i did, it would take me to some web site for a band, or a porno site, or something like that… this will take people to a place that really will make them wonder… <hee hee hee>

⥣ .333333333333333333333333333333333333…

i’ve been noticing a distinctly moldy-like smell the past few days, but i haven’t found the source. then, this morning, moe mentioned that the kitchen floor was feeling a little soft, so i went down and looked, and sure enough, there was a leak in one of the pipes… so i spent $500 on a plumber at 11:30 in the morning on a sunday. he was actually the second plumber i called, because the first one was in church and not answering his cell phone. i know he was in church because his dispatcher told me he was. i guess going to church means that you don’t get paid on a sunday… 😐 the guy who finally came out recommended a complete repiping of the entire house, which would cost around $7,000. the thing is, i don’t know whether this house is worth it or not… after all, it was a “manufactured” (read “mobile”) home, installed in the early 1970s, which is currently under water with its mortgage… 😐

on the plus side, since the plumber went away, there has been a surprisingly dissipated moldy-like smell… and the leaky pipe may also have been the source of the windows sweating so much over the past couple of weeks…

regular fremont phil rehearsals have started. regular ballard sedentary sousa band rehearsals are starting on tuesday. regular snake suspenderz rehearsals haven’t started yet, which is probably not as bad a thing as it seems at this point, but my impression is that they’d better start soon, or we’re going to be in trouble, because we’ve got a number of performances starting in less than a month. next weekend, moe and i are taking a part vacation and part sheepdog trial in heppner, oregon starting friday and ending monday.

mystery explained!

i logged into my computer today, and discovered the following email message from r. carey, the artist behind orchid spangiafora:

I recently checked the discogs page for Tin Windows and saw your name listed in the “want this” list. I remember our correspondence from the 1990s and I wanted you to have a copy. I have no idea why Feeding Tube didn’t respond to your email. I’ll have to talk to them and make sure they are getting their mail. I got your post office address from a link on the hybridelephant site. You are (obviously) free to do whatever you like with the five copies, but I thought if you had some extras they might find their way to some interesting people. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

squeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀

weird mystery…

in november of last year, i read of a “new” recording by Orchid Spangiafora.

by “new” i assumed it meant “newer than Orchid Spangiafora’s first release”, which was their 1979 album called Flee Pasts Ape Elf — an ASTOUNDING work, which is still one of my all time favourites, but, unfortunately, it has been out of print for a LOOOOONG time.

specifically, the announcement said: “Tin Windows – 7″ vinyl 45 RPM – Available now at Feeding Tube Records, Northampton, MA and at Fusetron, Brooklyn, NY or try Discogs”. so, i emailed “feedingtube at me dot com” with an inquiry, and received no response… after waiting around four weeks, i figured that “new” meant some time before the year 2000, and that it was no longer available. i stopped expecting a response around the new year, and forgot all about it by the end of january. it’s important to remember that i NEVER paid, nor did i give any indication that i was GOING TO pay, and i NEVER gave them my physical address.

today(!) i got a “mystery package” in the mail. it was neither expected nor anticipated. it was addressed to my business address, and had a return address i didn’t recognise. contained within the package were not one, but FIVE copies of “Tin Windows”…

five BRAND NEW, UNPLAYED copies of the 7″ vinyl 45 RPM record…

and it turns out that “new” means april, 2012… meaning that it is, ACTUALLY a completely new release… 😀

i don’t know how they got my address, although it MAY BE because, several years ago (1996? 1997?), i corresponded briefly with the artist behind Orchid Spangiafora, and traded music with him… but if i recall correctly, that was before i had my current email address, and before i moved into my current location — which means that my business address was different, as well…

but, hey… i’m definitely NOT complaining… 😎

average

rick has been transferred to the university of washington medical center, because he is not losing fluid fast enough to suit his cardiologist. they’re planning on keeping him for at least a week, and then who knows what will happen. he’s already collected a pile of boxes at the facility that he’s staying at in puyallup, and that’s not to mention the stacks of boxes that fill his actual home. he may go back to the facility in puyallup, or he may go home, but that’s all dependent on whether he gets the fluid out of his legs. i don’t know much, and it’s hard for me to find out about his condition, because, despite the fact that i have been providing a lot of rick’s transportation the past month or so, i’m not related to him, so the doctors won’t tell me anything… and what i do know makes me wish i didn’t even know that much. 😐

between the fremont philharmonic, and snake suspenderz, i actually have a total of 15 performances at the moisture festival… i remember when the fremont philharmonic alone had 20 performances (and it wasn’t too many years ago, either), but things have changed, and i’m really lucky to have as many as 15 this year. we’ve had one fremont phil rehearsal, and the fremont phil shows start in 3 weeks. the snake suspenderz shows start in 5 weeks and we haven’t had any rehearsals at all… which i think is probably a mistake, but who listens to me anyway? 😐

i plan on trying to make contact (again) with the two smoke shops in the tacoma area that have said they’re interested in buying bongs from me. at one – Kronik – the owners (a husband and wife) just had a baby a couple weeks ago, and they said that they were going to be open the day after, but i went down there a week later and encountered the guy, who was looking rather dishevelled and disorganised, and he said to contact him again in another week. the other one – Sinful Glass – the manager said that she had to talk about it with the owner, who had just changed the schedules, so there was some internal confusion, and she hadn’t talked to him the last time i called. both places have had a couple weeks to “settle into the new routine”, and i definitely think it’s time to harrass them again. 😉

also, i’ve managed to reconnect with barbara, who is someone i know from bellingham. she is still living in northport, and now i have a current email address and phone number for her. 8)