I finally resurrected my other site. I think as part of project decloak I might use that URL for everything and merge the two. I originally went with the .org email address and domain name, thinking I'd use the .com email address and domain for, oh, I don't know, commercial work? Use the .org for personal things.

I'm not sure what I'd do with the .net, .biz, .info and .us domains. They just sorta linger.

But now, when I see people with addresses of firstname@lastname.org I think, huh, couldn't get the .com, eh? You weren't fast enough were you? I was fast enough, to the point where I wonder if all the other Hodsdens hate me, actually. I have the .com domain name, but don't really use it. Dad does a little bit, but really, it just sits there, all lonely and stuff.

Eh, I'm just not sure.

What do you think?

Should I use kitt.hodsden.com or kitthodsden.org as my blogging domain? The one that I release to the world, removing the .htaccess file limitations to search engines? You know, the one you'll be able to find from Google and Yahoo.

Kris, Bella, Annie and I went to Andy's for dinner tonight. Andy grilled, which fit in nicely to Kris' and my agreement that this summer is going to be a summer of enjoying the outdoors in the evening. We went to the park near Andy's house for the dogs to meet "on neutral ground" before Bella and Annie toured Blue and Shadow's home as Blue and Shadow had done our house two weeks ago. The other thought of heading to the park was to tire them out before a bit so that the dogs would be managable during dinner. Unfortunately, Annie both runs away when she's offleash and doesn't tire very easily. So, instead of allowing her to run run run offleash, and run away, I ended up running next to her, with Annie on her leash. I tired out instead.

That, and the running made me sweat. I'm sure I was ripe before heading over for dinner. Poor Kris. Poor Andy.

Dinner was tilapia (for Andy and me) and salmon (for Kris), rice and mojitos. Andy's growing mint in his back yard, in a hydroponic pod he and his father built, which makes it really cool, and less likely to overtake his garden bed. Before he started the fish, he made us mojitos. I couldn't convince Kris to mash the mint in a rotating manner, so that I could wiggle my hips like the rum commercial. Instead, he just plunged the handle up and down, making my movements more like squats. Not very sexy.

The dogs were very much a highlight of the evening. Shadow likes to circle the yard, barking at birds and rats on wires. Blue and Annie wandered the house, Annie looking for food, Blue making sure she didn't find any. Annie is totally part of the Crews pack. She fit right in. Bella, not so much. She just checked out the house, then hovered around us.

I'm starting to believe Andy knew me in college as much as I knew him in college: which is to say, he knew of me peripherally, knew which house I was in, but didn't much pay any attention to me, as I was outside his world. Which suits me fine, as there are many, many, many parts of college I'd like to forget. The one part, however, that he did know about was my senior picture. "Want to see Kitt's senior picture?" Not that it's particularly forgetable. For some reason, that's what I wanted at the time.

At Tech, each senior receives a half page in the yearbook. A senior can submit one or several photos, and they'll be arranged with other seniors on the various pages, with a quote if desired. When I submitted my pictures, I liked them a lot. When the yearbook the following year had a senior picture in it that mocked my photo, I started to doubt the wisdom of my picture choice. That, and my mother was scandalized when she saw my pictures for the first time. Scandalizing one's mother? Not always a good thing.

So, in the spirit of embracing that which embarrasses me, making it my own, overcoming the embarrassment, I'll post my college senior photo. Imagine what it looks like, if this is the mockery in the following year's yearbook:

I'm fairly convinced today is not only Friday the 13th, but also a full moon, given all the retarded people on the road today on my drive into
work.

I made it all of maybe a half mile when I stopped at the first light across a major intersection on the way to work. When the light turned green, I started up, crossing the road at a reasonable acceleration. As I started to exit the intersection on the other side of the major street (like seven lanes across major street), a woman in a black Honda (license plate 5YSZ792, if you must know) rushed up to the intersection to turn right onto the street I was on, but didn't actually stop at the red light. Instead, she accelerated through the right turn, barely missing both the pedestrian who was stepping off the curb into the crosswalk with the white walk sign, and the right side of my car as she pulled in behind me.

I was so mad at both near misses and the driver's obvious lack of concern for the personal safety of the people around her that I decided to help her drive more safely.

I slowed down.

The speed limit on the street I driving on is 30 mph. I slowed to 25. Then 20. Then 15. With the parked cars, she couldn't drive around me. Well, the parked cars and my foot on the accelerator pedal and my hand ready to downshift if she tried. I debated going more slowly than 15 before I realized, eh, my car doesn't actually drive more slowly than 15 mph. It just doesn't.

When I reached the end of the street I was one, the idiot driver having turned off before I arrived there, I turned right and started accelerating to the speed limit of 35 on the next street. I managed to drive all of maybe 150 yards before an older brown sedan pulled out in front of me to turn right onto the street in front of me.

Now, usually when people turn right onto a street, they accelerate onto a street while turning, straighten out the wheel and continue accelerating.

Not this guy.

He pulled out straight in front of my car, turned to the left and saw my car approaching at about 35 mph, and stopped. He just stopped - a total deer in the headlights motionless stop. How I didn't manage to hit him, despite his best efforts, is a vision to behold.

So, I continued along, amazed at the idiot drivers, vowing to drive under the speed limit today, alert for the next moron who was sure to cross my path in the 2.5 mile journey from my house to work. Yes, so far, that's more than one idiot per mile. Possibly a new record.

I turned left off the 35 mph street onto a quiet commercial street and make another right at the end of the block. In order to enter the parking lot where I park during the day, I need to turn left off of Washington Blvd in downtown Sunnyvale. It just so happens this left turn lane I'm sitting in is a dual left turn lane: traffic from either side can turn left from the lane as needed. Unfornately, California drivers aren't as sophisticated as Arizona drivers, who are quite used to the dual left turn lane and can navigate such traffic lanes with ease and grace, merging flawlessly and turning effortlessly.

Nope, not California drivers, who think dual left turn lanes are for driving in. Especially moron van drivers who, rather than stopping several car lengths back so that the small sports car, the one that rides ass to the ground and can't see around the 10 miles per gallon beast in front of her, actually has a chance to see if there's any oncoming traffic in the right lane, the lane that has to be crossed before entering the above mentioned parking lot, decided to park 10 feet (yes, less than the length of one car) in front, then proceed to honk, flash his light AND gesture wildly about how he wants to turn left and how dare anyone be in his way.

I sat there.

My choices were sit there and wait for the idiot to back up and go around, thereby teaching him the dual LEFT TURNING LANE is for LEFT TURNING; wait until I was really sure of no oncoming traffic and turn left anyway; back up and let him turn left, where I'd have to blindly back into two separate crosswalks; or just sit there and wait for him to do something.

So I sat there.

And watched him become more and more agitated.

Honk went the horn!

Flash went the lights!

Wildly gesturing went the arms.

I gestured back, indicating he was, indeed, an idiot, preventing me from turning left because I couldn't see oncoming traffic with his grill up my nose.

And after a few minutes of this, I couldn't take it any longer. The truck didn't have a front license plate, so I couldn't write it down. And watching idiots in vans lather into a frenzy, though humourous in retrospect, can be somewhat boring in real life.

I turned left as I shook my head, wondering just what day today was. I'm sure I set a new record for witnessing near accidents and idiocy per mile. Combine the morning with the moron children who thought riding skateboards down the middle of a busy road during rush hour traffic was safe, and we definitely have a new moron record today.

Must be a full moon tonight

Kris: "Do you smell that?"

Me: "No. My nose is all stuffed up, remember?"

"Oh."

"So, what does it smell like?"

"Like skunk or something."

"Maybe you should close the door so the house doesn't smell like skunk?"

"Nah, I'd rather have it cool."

*blink*

At dinner last night, Kris, Brynne, Beth and I talked about various Mischief recruits. There are a couple women recruits who would fit really well on the team, both in terms of skill sets, as well as personality, the latter being one of the big traits for the team: haters need not apply.

One woman in particular had come out to a practice a month or so ago, but hadn't come back. The captains, and by captains, I mean Shirley, had contacted her via email several times, asking what's up, what's her schedule, what is she thinking, was she still looking for a team to play with? The recruit was remarkably poor at communicating back, so Brynne decided to take matters into her own hand and go to dinner with the recruit, ask her face to face what was up.

Turns out, this particular recruit wasn't interested in playing with Mischief because she 1. felt if she joined, she'd be the top women player on the team, 2. thought the team was full of egos and 3. didn't think we throw to our women. That water I was trying to drink? Yeah, I nearly choked on it when I heard this.

That the team doesn't throw to the women players is clear bunk, just watch the various Nationals videos. This is a myth that's perpetuated as near as I can tell by the other local elite Mixed team in their recruiting attempts. I find it hard to believe when we play four women in the semis at Nationals that the women wouldn't receive the disc. That, and as the person who recorded every single pass at every game at Nationals, I can say with confidence that our women not only received the disc, they also threw the disc and had their own share of turnovers.

Personally, I don't know how good the recruit is, but to say she'd be our top woman player without having actually played more than a practice with us sort fulfills the second part of her concerns: she'd definitely bring an ego onto the team if she joined.

Most of these thoughts were reactionary. Recognizing them as such, I tried to see the team from an outsider's perspective. If I didn't know the group of players, these people with whom I've shared a large portion of my daily life for the last four years, would I think of them as full of egos? Would I consider them unfair in their sharing of playing time? Would I really think our woman suck so bad that a random woman could come in and dominate?

Clearly not on the last one. It's hard to win Nationals playing just over half our players, and if they sucked that would happen. The level of play at Nationals is high enough that everyone on the field has to carry his own weight. There were a couple teams who played their men nearly exclusively, who didn't have strong women. They did poorly at Nationals. Their playing style was called out, a men's team with token women. I'm confident that the top half of our women's roster would play just fine against most of the women's teams at Nationals. But, perhaps that's just ego.

Thinking about the egos further, however, I had to wonder how accurate this stranger's opinion was. I thought about Donner Party and tried to make the comparison of Mischief to them. I hated playing against Donner. I thought they were unfriendly, unspirited, aggrogant players. Any call that went for them on the field was "Good call! Good spirit! Good spirit!" Any call that went against them was "What?!? That's wrong! That's bad spirit!" They muttered under their breath on the sideline about how the other team wasn't playing fair. They didn't interact as players with any other team, they stayed with their clique. They were poor ambassadors for the sport of ultimate, which is unfortunate as they represented ultimate at Worlds.

Now, this is my perspective as an outsider, as an opponent. In ultimate, a call is a call. It's a statement of fact of the play, of a potential violation of the rules. If a player breaks a rule, calling him on it doesn't make the opponent unspirited. Spirit has nothing to do with making the call. One could, though I never do, argue that not making the call allows the opponent to continue to break the rules, thereby violating the spirit of the game. Making the call is therefore the spirited action, done to preserve the quality of the sport.

As a result of my dislike of Donner, I try very hard not to be the horrible player on the sideline who mutters, who views the other team as the enemy, and not just as an opponent. I recognize the other team loves this sport just as much as I do, and that, contrary to my gut reaction, they are not deliberately cheating. I try to keep my mouth shut, my perspective may not be the best one, and my opinion doesn't count for anything when I'm on the sideline.

I fail sometimes. The heat of the moment, I'll call out what I saw on the field. I manage to get into arguments on the field, still. If I'm not a player, I'll remind myself to shut up. I'll bring out the rulebook and offer it if requested, but I try very, very hard to both keep the discussion on the field, as well as between the players directly involved.

It's the rulebook I think that bothers some people. Our team knows the rules. We know where to find the rules in the rulebook. We will use the rules to our advantage, just as we expect our opponent to use the rules to their advantage, never breaking them, but always knowing them. I think this also intimidates other teams. Some action may not seem "fair," but it's well within the bounds of the rules, often both the letter and spirit. Speaking of fair, the 11th edition pick rule is the most retarded rule change ever. My tournaments will be 11th edition rules with the 10th edition pick rules until it changes back to something reasonable where reasonable is defined as play goes back to when the pick happened, not when the thrower acknowledges the pick.

So, perhaps the recruit's opinion isn't really that dissimilar to what mine was for Donner Party.

Though, if she's really good enough to be the top woman on our team, she'd recognize that she's just bitter her team never won it all.