fragments of memory

The monsoon season began this evening, right as I stepped out of the car to go running. It was a ten-minute downpour, kind of nice at the time because it cooled everything down, but once the rain stopped it was 100 degrees and incredibly humid and I was left picking leaves and seeds out of my hair.

I've been running on the Murphy bridle path lately, which has been amazing; I can't believe how much of a difference it makes to run on dirt rather than concrete. Natural surfaces are awesome, and no one has flashed me yet, so thumbs-up all around so far.

Yesterday I finally broke down and bought a new Mac. I've got a freelance project coming up that really requires an up-to-date machine, and my existing laptop—seven years old and never updated in any way—simply was not up to the task. So I've got this new laptop now, and it's a bit of a mystery in certain ways. I couldn't even open it, for starters, and then it took me twenty minutes to figure out how to get the hard drive icon to appear on the desktop and how to get program icons into the dock. An inauspicious start, but I think we're really on our way now.

Once I finished wrangling the new OS, I went over to YouTube shortly thereafter, because I can't tell you the last time I was able to properly view streaming video at home. It's such a new and shiny thing for me, it's kind of ridiculous.

If you click on the video below, you might, um, want to make sure you turn down your speakers first. I...almost had a minor heart attack.

My run this evening down Central Avenue coincided with this huge classic car parade thing. It's not the first time I've timed this badly, and it's really not conducive to a proper run. People set up folding chairs on the sidewalks and fill the Park Central lot with their cars for other people to circle and admire. As this is happening, still more people drive their cars up and down the street, revving the engines and showing off and generally being obnoxious, although the cars are, admittedly, mostly awesome. Not awesome, however, is having to wind your way through chairs, coolers, and persons aimlessly milling about. Also not great to find yourself on the verge of being run over by a classic car or two every time you cross another street. I suppose if you were going to get run over, though, you might as well go down in a blaze of glory under the super-shiny tires of a '69 Corvette.

Meanwhile, Simon is rolling and scratching and persistently trying to chew a hole through the rug in the living room. I should address this.

( But first, a couple of pics of Larry from Anquan's charity event last night. )