darrell came over for dinner. afterwards he showed me how to boot roslyn's computer. sometimes i am such an idiot. i had already given up on it and was expecting to spend hundreds of dollars taking her computer to a repair place, maybe even buying a new motherboard. he saved me from all of that cashflow anguish. i was so happy i gave him 512 mb in spare ram i had sitting around. what a great trade. thanks, darrell!
posted by Will Ross at 08:48

we have to do better

u.s. press ignores australia's pain,
the homeless guy
and the grapes of wrath

if not now in this generation, then when do we get to address the continuing madness of hatred and intolerance raging out of control everywhere on every continent? what possible justification remains for the unrelenting exploitation of the poor and weak by the rich and powerful? or for the despicable assaults by cowardly freaks who target innocent non-combatants with random acts of violence? what possible consolation can we offer to the survivors of these crimes against humanity? what words do i have a right to say to the father who tried but failed to shield his son from israeli bullets? or to the families of firefighters who never came home from the world trade towers collapse? or to the vacationers in bali whose only crime was a carefree evening at a night club?

this ongoing evil sucks. it has to stop someday. the generation that finally achieves sanity and stops this wretchedness will look back on every preceeding generation with a mixture of contempt and compassion. i already have contempt and compassion for my own generation for our first contributions to world leadership, clinton and bush. i am appalled by this miscarriage of justice. i am ready to vote for a solution, but i am unwilling to throw away civil liberties or freedom just to buy security from the criminally violent. we have to do better. aren't we smarter than this? apparently not.

i don't know the way, but i will never stop looking for paradise.
posted by Will Ross at 17:06

today was a long day. i fed the dogs, cats and horses in the dark before dawn this morning, then i drove away towards sacramento. i listened to some choice music on the drive: neil young, mark knopfler, pat metheny.

when i hold you in my arms
it's a breath of fresh air
when i hold you in my arms
i forget what's out there

i was singing along with neil on my way through winters, california when i saw a bumpersnicker: "the road to hell is paved with republicans" on a pickup truck with "liberal" as the vanity license plate. i laughed when i saw it, a nice start to the day. then i drove to davis and ate breakfast at cafe bernardo. from 10 am til 4 pm i attended a software user group meeting in downtown sacramento. then i drove home, three and a half hours plus a stop for dinner and a quick purchase at trader joe's. i fed the dogs, cats and horses in the dark this evening. they were happy to see me. and i'm glad to be home in my little corner of paradise.
posted by Will Ross at 21:09

after work today i planned to catch news headlines on the radio, then switch to the tape player for my hour long drive home. unfortunately, the news was preempted by a speech featuring yet another plea for war from president bush, continually sounding like the boy who cried wolf. i didn't need to hear more than a couple sentences of his war mongering doubletalk before i flipped off the radio and cursed the insanity of bush's misguided slippery slope foreign policy. if i weren't already so cynical about politics in general i would be more upset with this intolerable situation. unfortuantely i am pragmatic enough to recognise, after 30 years of voting for or against this or that fool on the ballot, that our governance options are constrained by the disgraceful corruption of the powerful and by the apalling ignorance of the masses who fall for what is little more than political marketing. true, this president achieves new lows for misleading people, abusing power and crying war while the economy, as trashed by his henchmen, is in shambles. i hope the democrats do well in the upcoming election so we can return to complete legislative gridlock, disempowering either party from their self-enriching agendas. i'd rather see our government incapacitated than see the republican agenda advance. i don't mind if the democrats attempt to advance their agenda because they are generally incompetant and rarely accomplish much so they can't really hurt anything. but the republicans are cold hearted and steely eyed thieves with unbounded arrogance and negative ethics. they need to be stopped, hence my willingness to vote for democrats in spite of generally disagreeing with their hand wringing platform. in the absence of true options for a reasonable government, i'll continue, with clear eyes and a guilt free conscience, to vote intentionally for inertia.
posted by Will Ross at 22:33

darrell called from halted specialties in san jose, a geek's dream store. he said old macs were on sale at 50% off. he was looking at a powermac 8500 for $32, with s-video inputs. he also said they had 21 inch monitors for $100, and older printers for under $20. i reminded him that his bank account is a few dollars shy of zero, he doesn't have the rent saved yet for next month, and he can't afford another obsolete computer. he said he earned $35 in tips last night. well all-rightee, then, let's roll.
posted by Will Ross at 16:30

megan said she associates women cross country runners with anorexia. she mentioned two top female runners with obsessive eating disorders. i said i cannot speak for the stars winning the races, because as a fifty year old running for exercise in the middle of the pack i never see the hyper competitive rail thin runners she mentions. the men's and women's bodies i see around me in races are fantastic and inspiring, young and old, tall and short, but generally on the firm and appealing side. seeing so many people taking such good care of their bodies is one of the benefits of distance running. being amidst them is both an honor and a visual feast.

my next road race is sunday morning, on kendra's birthday, a 10 k outing in santa rosa at the sonoma harvest fair.
posted by Will Ross at 23:11

their ears are up and alert as i park the car. yvonne and sandy meet me at the gate, wagging their tails and bodies. sandy yelps and howls. yvonne drops a damp tennis ball in the dirt path at my feet. sandy shifts from paw to paw, dancing and capering. the cats, looking bored, glance past me with casual disdain. i walk down the driveway conversing with the animals in falsetto tones. yvonne tosses the tennis ball at my feet twice more before i boot it across the yard. she overtakes the ball in a cloud of dust like a shortstop going deep into the hole. sandy dashes round me in figure eights. i'm happy to be home in paradise again. a tune pops into my head:

night and day you are the one
only you beneath the moon and under the sun
whether near to me or far
it's no matter darling where you are
i think of you night and day...

posted by Will Ross at 21:57