Self-portrait of the artist on Halloween, goofy hat, tamale stained lips and all.

(Patricia van Casteren / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

So, as a lot of you know, I’m a diehard Cal football fan. (It’s awful. Don’t ask.) And so, like any Cal fan, I want to know more about my team that I support, and I fell in with the crew at California Golden Blogs. One of the features of CGB that really lets the zaniness show is what’s called the Daily Bear Dump (yes, Cal fans can be both clever and immature), and it’s sorta the daily links/random commentary post.

I hang out in there sometimes, although I’m gone an awful lot more than I’m present, and there’s a core of regulars. One of my favorites went by the moniker CalBandGreat, who seemed to have a warm sense of humor and was always friendly. He was also known for his great tailgates, which, sadly I had never made it to.

I never will now. He passed away last Thursday.

I just got looking at his LinkedIn account, and I see that he’s a fellow member of what I refer to in my sig on the site as the Lost Tribe of Mooch — that is the Cal fans who started school in 1996, the one single year Steve Mariucci was our coach. This makes it hit even harder, and I don’t know how to talk about it.

One of the thoughts swirling in my head about the whole thing, one of them is simply “how will I be remembered?” Let me say very clearly at this moment that I am not suicidal. I do not want to die. I am merely thinking about what would happen if I were to die, due to natural causes or being hit by a bus or struck by falling space debris or whatever.

And it haunts me deeply that I do not think I will be missed. Now some of this could be depression speaking. It’s not exactly a rational response to it all. All this struggle, all this fighting, and nothing to show for it. It does not help that I’m reticent by nature and prone to disappearing.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this. Just — a good guy is dead, and now I’ll never get the chance to meet him. Yet, he has his small piece of immortality — the gang at CGB remember him.

How will they remember me?

How will any of the communities I am in remember me?

There are many tools in a system administrator’s arsenal. But none are quite as awesome as the bent paperclip for manually popping CD drives. :)

So, we’re at my uncle’s house, passing around my welder’s goggles I bought to keep my eyes protected during the height of the eclipse. It wasn’t my turn, so I turn around, away from the sun, and suddenly gawp. “Look at the rocks!”

Here’s what they looked like — click through, it’s definitely more obvious on the Flickr page, especially on the back of my uncle’s shirt:

They looked like that, because they were under a tree, and the sun looked something like this:

Photo by retstak

(That’s shot on a cellphone camera through a pair of welder’s goggles, so my apologies for the size.)

Yeah, it was definitely worth it to go to Redding this weekend to see an annular eclipse.

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create
[…]
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

(And this is here only to keep LJ from completely munging up the text when I post it…I hope it will work.)

Something showed up in the mail today.

It is a totally awesome hat. It keeps my head warm. It is in my favorite color. It slouches quite admirably. It has a sweet band design. And it was made by the completely amazing , whom I heart so very much and wish I lived much closer to.

(And the instructions which came with hat were hilarious too.)

I’ve spent all afternoon wearing it despite the fact that the house is way too warm for a wool cap. :) I feel pretty darn special right now.

PS: I don’t think I’ve shared a picture of me wearing my new glasses yet either, so well, that’s me in my new glasses as well.

Since it’s my car, it’s a fracking pain in the rear.

Yeah, some $#*(&(*#$&@ went and spraypainted my car. There’s also a streak of orange down the passenger’s side, and some lovely green on the driver’s side, but the headlights are the worst victim, and the most frustrating part of the whole thing.

That said…it’s spraypaint. I don’t know what they’re going to have to do to fix it. *sigh*

It’s a sweet gesture, Sobe Bottle, and I appreciate it, but…I think the relatives would be a bit freaked out by the idea of my marrying a drink beverage bottle.