Zona

Music minute

I cleared a kid going back to work on his masters degree at Julliard. Says I, "you must be pretty good with that violin bud". Says, he, "I try". Says I, "no dude, nobody gets into Julliard because they just try".

Today is the 15th anniversary of the passing of trumpet legend Miles Davis. KCSM is playing a Miles Davis tribute all day.

In Hollywood they are revealing the new Miles Davis star on the rock walk. If you ever get to Hollywood and want to find the star of this trumpet legend you will find it easily.......in front.........of the guitar center.

I LOVE this post. If you don't comment I'll be very hurt.

Let's play a game called: YOU tell ME

Today's scenario is an actual personal ad in a local paper. YOU tell ME, does this person exist.

I'm looking for these 30 things:

1. happy, optimistic, glass half full
2. loves animals
3. doesn't want kids
4. not racist or homophobic
5. great sense of humour
6. reads
7. non-smoker
8. taller than me
9. has excellent table manners
10. friendly to new people
11. good with money. frugal but not cheap. generous but not foolish
12. likes card games, board games, old school games
13. likes to dance
14. good kisser
15. will scratch my back
16. doesn't stay up late (past midnight on week nights)
17. doesn't eat a lot of meat
18. has no bitter relationships. speaks well of exes and family
19. likes to eat lots of different things
20. not into drugs
21. doesn't play dungeons and dragons
22. has had a couple of long term relationships
23. loves/likes what he does for a day job
24. kind
25. good at lots of things but hopeless at one thing I can do
26. has a nice smile
27. tidy
28. encourages all my idiotic plans and ideas
29. takes encouragement from me
30. thinks I am funny and interesting

She describes herself as "Plain but sexy girl (with a good rack)"

 

Now you have some idea of just how I feel today. Scantily clad female soup, aspirin, and nyquil bearers would make me feel better. 

Weekend Whack (because the mood needs to lighten now)

I have my bi-annual change o' the seasons cold. Starts with the heated ball of thorns feeling in my throat. Then it rattles around in my head before bailing out of my nose. So I stayed home sick and watched the US team get it's ass kicked at the Ryder Cup. (golf)

Soon I will go back down stairs and watch my Arizona Wildcat football team get it's ass kicked by the #2 ranked Southern California Trojans.

Today is one of my other sister's birthday. My older sister. The one who spray painted my birthday cake green on my fourth birthday. I don't remember it. I was way too drunk by the time they brought the cake out.

My baby sister emailed me to remind me of what happened ten years ago today.

My nephew, Tucker, was born with a heart defect and as the doctors worked to save him my sister realized that there were no pictures of him. So she called me and of course I said yes.

There he was in the pediatric ICU with a tube in his nose and an IV in his arm. He had tiny earphones as lullibys played. My sister took his tiny hand in hers as I shot a dozen or so shots. They ended up being sacred shots because less than an hour later he was gone.

 

An elderly couple, Camilla and Charles, are holidaying in Texas. Charles always wanted a pair of authentic cowboy boots.

Seeing some for sale, he buys them, wears them back to the hotel.

He walks into the room and says to his wife: "Notice anything different about me?"

Camilla looks him over, "Nope."

Frustrated Charles storms off into the bathroom, undresses, and walks back into the room completely naked except for the boots.

Again, he asks, a little louder this time, "Notice anything different NOW?"

Camilla looks up and says, "Charles, what's different? It's hanging down today, it was hanging down yesterday, it will be hanging down again tomorrow."

Furious, Charles yells, "AND DO YOU KNOW WHY IT IS HANGING DOWN, CAMILLA?"

"Nope". She replies.

"IT'S HANGING DOWN BECAUSE IT'S LOOKING AT MY NEW BOOTS!!!!!"

To which Camilla replies, "Shoulda bought a hat, Charles. Shoulda bought a hat."

Monday. Day off or off day?

It's gray miserable outside and my lower back is gray miserable inside and the pain goes down my right leg. I'm on injured reserve while my fave pain killer has been permanently shelved by my wife because of the rumors and fears of heart attack causing side effects.

So I stick to Bayer aspirin now. I have world class cholesterol levels and my greatest fear is that my heart will explode while I roll on the floor laughing at a great Simpsons moment.

Probably a rerun at that.

I just hope that if that happens one of my kids posts a comment on the blog so you guys will know what happened. Can you imagine that? An obit in a blog comment? How wild would that be?

Not as wild as me writhing in pain and using my last breath to say "I love........oh, tell my blog buddies that I'll miss..........................................................................

But until that day I'll answer a question that Patrick posted in his blog.

What was the worse thing you ever did at work?

It depends on your point of view.

If you're mgt the worse thing I ever did was make decisions based on logical thought processes. I do that a lot.

If you're an outsider it was the time I told a man he couldn't take his new wife into the US until she had the proper paperwork and that it would probably take 6-8 months. Of course that was because their lawyer had given them bad advice. That happens a lot.

"Dan, why did you spit on that man?"

"He's a lawyer."

"Oh, okay. Not a problem. Carry on."

The FUNNIEST thing I ever did was help push start a van with several undocumented El Salvadorans. The driver, once the van had started, asked me what he should do with the van since it wasn't his. I told him to leave it parked on the street in L.A. and the police would contact the owner and tell him where he could pick it up. He shook my hand, thanked me, and drove off.

These are some of my prized collection of Bolivian hats or "Lluchus" (YOU choose). One day when I return to the States and buy a house I'll have them individually mounted. You have to look hard for good lluchus like these and you're gonna pay at least triple for them versus the junk the tourists buy. 

Weekend WTF's

I'm restless. I'm edgy. Something is about to happen. I don't know what. Somebody is about to contact me. I don't know who. I feel a disturbance in my aura.

Stay tuned.

I know I will

I may be in the minority but I just can't see why anybody over the age of 21 and without children would want to go to Disneyland.

The family tried to teach my grandson to say grampa and it came out bah bah. He can now tell by looking at bah bah's face when bah bah has m&m's and the begging begins. Then we drive everybody crazy by calling doo wah, doo wah back and forth.

I am one happy Zona Boy right now. I found Stephen A. Smith on the radio. Online. WEPN out of New York. Stephen, I love ya brother. (ESPN Sports)

I was sleep walking last night when I saw a wagon full of zombies being pulled by two black horses. I attacked with all my might only to awaken and discover that I had burned my neighbor's mini van and porch swing into smoldering heaps of metal. Anybody have any good ideas for a "make good" gift?

My buddies, the hip hop group Swollen Members came by today on their way to the States and the continuation of their 3 month tour. Prevail slipped me their new disc and Mad Child said, "Dan, this is our best stuff yet". Prevail reminded me to email him so he could take care of me for the show with Black Eyed Peas in October. I slid the disc into the player for the drive home and I like it. I like it a lot. You can find some tracks on their site.

www.swollenmembers.com

Some of my son's pics from the road. He's got some good shots. The top shot is the men's room at Garfinkles in Whistler.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/embody-the-invisible/sets/72157594277748487/

The tour is over. The van the band traveled in gave up the ghost and they rented a truck to get their stuff back to Edmonton. There is a possibility of a one week/four show tour to Japan in April. 

 

Hey! Monday Night Football started tonight. Somebody said the president gave a speech. Something about 9/11. Like we need him to remind us. Anyway, sorry I missed your speech Dub yah. 

September 11th (not to be confused with 9/11) is an important day for me.

September eleventh, 1988 was my first day at the job I currently have. Of course I switched it around a little and it morphed into something else but I still do the same thing basically. So 18 years later here I am about to tell you some of the highlights. Pull up a chair.

At 9AM I reported for duty at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ. (where I was living at the time) There were 500 Border Patrol Agents "entering on duty" as it is officially called and 250 of them reported to DM. They would house us there for two weeks until a satellite academy at Fort McClellan, Alabama was ready.

They divided us up alphabetically into groups of fifty which suited me fine because right next to me was a gorgeous red-headed hispanic girl and when we ran we did a right face before starting and that put her right in front of me. Oh boy.

When we arrived in Alabama (Oct 3rd) we were housed in the National Guard area of Fort McClellan. Our classroom buildings had been built in the 40's and some of the barracks housing the trainees were that old too. I lucked out. I was housed in what was referred to as "Beverly Hills". Concrete block buildings up on a hill overlooking the rest of the facility. The gal who provided me with miles of running pleasure back in Tucson soon left the academy due to pregnancy. No, is the answer to your question.

The women were all housed in the same building and most evenings it appeared to be in "heat" as most every swinging dick hovered around the place.

I think POW's were treated to better food than the Alabama Natl Guard gave us and Fort McClellan housed POW's during WWII. None were around for comment though.

I learned to shoot, drive fast, control skids, (my fave) law. and Spanish. Of course I already spoke fluent Spanish so I helped classmates with their homework. My third child, Ilsen, was born (11/03) while I was in the academy. I first saw her when I flew home for Christmas. I graduated in the top ten out of my class of 50.

I was stationed at the San Clemente station which is a checkpoint station on Interstate 5 just south of San Clemente, California. I never had so much fun in my life. It was like a big game of tag. Smugglers would attempt to get illegals through or around the checkpoint. Hills to the east and the ocean to the west. I always realized why these people were coming to the US and most of them realized I and the others were there to stop them. I've posted some individual stories and may do so again someday but this post would be much too long if I did that now.

Southern California proved very expensive for a young family with four kids, (Robert was born 12/11/90 in San Diego) so I took a bust in rank to transfer to Douglas, Arizona in July of '92. There we bought a house and the kids grew up while I worked as an Immigration Inspector at the border crossing between Agua Prieta, Sonora and Douglas, Arizona. Life was pretty good there. I spent 4 months teaching at the temporary inspector academy at Charleston, South Carolina and got a slot on the national audit group and traveled around doing audits.

In June of '99 I transferred to Calgary, Canada to work as an inspector. I spent 4 wonderful years in Calgary before transferring to Vancouver, Canada where I am now on this, my 18th anniversary. It's been a good job with ups and downs like any other. I am blessed that it has allowed my wife to remain at home and raise the four beautiful children that she gave me. I am very very lucky because I got this gig with only a high school diploma and my two year mormon mission counted as the one year key experience that was required. Now it is impossible to get hired with only high school.

I consider myself as being pretty good at what I do. I make decisions quickly based on what people tell me and how they tell me. While I DO use several factors to determine what I ask and who I ask it is not what you might think. I use several profiles to determine my actions and those profiles run across all ethnicities and age groups. I might ask a 23 year-old American caucasion male 3 or 4 questions and ask the next guy who might be a 40ish of Iranian descent nothing beyond the where and why of his trip.

I believe in being an inspector and not just a robot that is pointed at some group or groups of people. I try to teach young inspectors, hell, and even some old inspectors to do that.

I have 12 more years before I can retire unless I win the lottery. Some people I work with are already eligible to retire but choose for whatever reason to remain on the job. To me, those are the biggest idiots on the planet.

Chloe inspired travelogue post. I give you the tiny hamlet of Trail, British Columbia. 

Dear 9/11

Dear 9/11,

Please forgive me but I am over you. I mourn for those killed but all of your symbolism has been removed forever from my thinking by the actions of those taking your name in vain to promote an agenda of fear. Retired General Wesley Clark said in an interview that we are losing the war on terrorism and Bush and company are not blaming the terrorists as mush as they are blaming the American people. Bush and the boys would toss all those who oppose the war in Bin Laden's camp.

Bush chose a "preemptive" strike in a country that had nothing to do with you. Dwight Eisenhower was given the suggestion to make a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union years ago and he responded that you don't start a war that you don't have too. In fact we know that Bush was planning on invading Iraq even before you happened. He just used you as an excuse.

A few days after you happened Bush vowed to bring Osama to justice. That hasn't happened.

What HAS happened?

Guantanamo. A memo on the use of torture. Not by somebody like Hussein, or Pinochet, or Stalin, but by US Atty General Gonzalez. Abu Ghraib. Faluja. Haditha. The Patriot Act. Illegal monitoring by the NSA.

All in your name.

Let me tell you the level of ridiculous paranoia that those in power have created. I have seen bulletins on guns being disguised as cell phones. I have heard of cell phones being used to detonate bombs. I have heard of cameras disguised as bombs. I have heard of people using cameras to take pictures of intended terrorist targets. I used to be asked by airport security to turn my camera on and even remove the lens so they could see it was actually a camera.

I flew out of a Canadian airport a few days ago. I just had a carry on bag. No checked luggage. In my carry on bag was a cell phone and it's recharger, (wires) as well as my canon digital camera. Security completely ignored those two items and instead removed the two greatest threats in my bag and seized them. What were they? My bottle of shampoo and my toothpaste.

I'm sorry they did this to you.

Dan

I met two pretty talented women this week. I'm off to Calgary in a couple of hours. Talk amongst yourselves.

Next post: 9/11

I look at this picture of me taken in early 1959 and I am amazed that I still feel that way. Whatever got me to this place and time has served it's purpose and I'm ready to move on. I'm an old soul, a wanderer, a teacher. Too many people around me are mere annoyances. I do best on my own and in fleeting relationships where attachment is not an issue. I move through a multitude of strangers pausing only long enough to share energy with somebody who interests me. Somebody who is moving with the same motivation as me. That being a slight pause before resuming the "getting on with it" of an adventure that can have no end, no definition, no real purpose.

That's the result of a meme that doesn't exist. What planet am I, which dead rock star, which character from Lord of the Rings. All of those random results that we claim to identify with like the hopeless watching the con game of tarot cards and crystal balls and television evangelists.

The trip to the Amazon was the last time I ever drank something offered to me on a dare. Who knew that these people had attorneys on retainers of even KNEW what DNA testing was?

I will admit the kid DOES bear some resemblance.