Push pin city

Okay, kids, time to get out the old National Geographic United States map and all your colored push pins and mark where Accumulate Man has sent off applications these last few months....

Boise, ID
Fern Ridge, OR
Issaquah, WA
Ridgedge, CO
Santa Clara, CA
Puyallup, WA
Prineville, OR
Pueblo, CO
Twin Falls, ID
Nampa, ID
Pocatello, ID
Lakewood, WA
New York, NY
Spokane, WA
Silverdale, WA
Los Angeles, CA
Port Orchard, WA
Pasco, WA
Caldwell, ID
Eugene, OR
Prossor, ID
Woodland, WA
Moscow, ID
Tacoma, WA
Seattle, WA

Some of those cities have called for multiple applications. Some apps coming up include Stevens County, Washington, Bakersfield, San Diego and a little town outside of Chicago called Glendale Heights. I've even considered Louisana. For the gumbo? No, for work.

It's been one grand geography lesson. Know that I just might end up anywhere which is fine by me. Anywhere has a paycheck. PO? Well, let's just say it's been swell.

Salud!

Sideways moment

Forget the Terminator or Transformer sequels. Sideways was my favorite movie this last summer. I have this bad habit of catching up with movies long after their release date and this was one of them, but gosh, what a film. It has the potential of making me weep every time I see it. Great actors, great script, helluva story. Plus, it's made me a mad man for Pinot Noir. If you haven't seen it, see it, then go take a road trip out to the wine country here in Washington with a good friend. Sip, breathe, enjoy. Just try not to crash the car, ok?

Salud!

A fellow tip-of-the-hat to Sideways:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/popcornprejudiceamovieblog/2010638403_looking_backwards_at_sideways.html

52 things

Happy New Year!

New Year's resolutions? No, instead I make lists. What's written dowm on my old lists doesn't matter a wit and my new list only has power over me while I'm writing it down. The variables of life change so fast, heck, they can change the moment you set down your pen. These lists I post here annually are alot like those little pieces of paper that the Japanese hang on trees on New Year's Day or like the messages to the ancestors that the ancients would toss into the bonfires on the Solstice. For me they've been an annual laundry list of dreams and wishes and desires to send off to the gods, to the ancestors, to the universe. As a "pie in the sky" exercise goes it's not a bad thing. These lists are clarification tools, grand things-to-do lists, action plans, packages of hopes to lay my head down on at night before I go to sleep. So, find below the latest list, circa 2009. Let's see where it goes.

Happy New Year to those of you who follow this heartfelt blog and may all your hopes, wishes, dreams and desires come to pass!

My 2009 list of 52:

1. Strive to be happy regardless of what life brings to my doorstep.
2. In the midst of that happiness, remind myself to appreciate and find joy in what I have.
3. Walk more.
4. Buy less.
5. Concentrate on finding work in the library sector no matter where it lands me.
6. Sell the house, and if it doesn't sell, rent it out.
7. Find my way back to selling online and unload all the old toy soldier stock.
8. Buy a couple turntable needles and play my old records.
9. Get back to three new recipes a week.
10. Renew my WA sellers license.
11. Look into that lithographed box thing so Nathan and I can have something to work on together.
12. Continue to polish up my resume.
13. Get that darn new Kitchen Aid mixer out of the box and make something with it!
14. Make a file of all the movies that I own and then strke that list of films against those that I have watched.
15. Take good car of my children, my car, my friends, my body, my heart and my health.
16. Make good on all those FB connections I've made and renew friendships with those folks who have reached out to me.
17.Get back to writing my book.
18. Say goodbye to the Professora and mean it.
19. Make the drive to Boise at least once a month to see the kids until my ship comes in.
20. Continue to work with the foodbank even after I find paid employment.
21. Finish the painting and tiling projects before spring.
22. Drive to San Francisco to see my oldest. Be prepared for the wrath and renew that relationship if at all possible.
23. Take Spanish lessons and put them to use daily.
24. Ride the new lightrail in Seattle all the way to the airport.
25. Pay off all my old debts to friends and creditors alike.
26. Go to Seattle at least once a month just for the hell of it (and for Dick's burgers, too).
27. Watch more sunrises.
28. Breathe.
29. Put those weights and barbells in the backyard to use.
30. Embrace gardening once again.
31. If I find a job that turns out to be local, figure out how to love this house all over again.
32. Find a companion for my cat.
33. Find one relatively unknown band, director and writer to champion and learn all there is to know about them.
34. Make more Vietnamese, regional Mexican and North African foods.
35. Buy and learn to operate (safely!) a chain saw.
36. Continue to don costumes and play.
37. Find a way to get down Ren Faire in Northern California this coming fall.
38. Go see the swifts in Portland with Punkin.
39. Get down on the floor more often with Thomas.
40. Look into my old LA movie contacts for Will.
41. Find a cat for my Estranged One to replace Louis (can that ever be possible?)
42. Embrace the fine art of letting go.
43. Get a passport and then try it out.
44. Make up my mind on this last name thing and then stick with it.
45. Get a tattoo.
46. Learn to love again.
47. Laugh more often.
48. Make love more often.
49. Fight less.
50. Worry less.
51. Get more sleep.

and

52. Live today like there's no tomorrow.

Love, Accumulate Man

A grand award for a great ex-librarian

Some of us, not all of us, in the library business dream of someday finding our own works on the shelves of our local branch library. I know for I started a book not too long ago. I hoped it would shake up the literary world and send those who sent me packing to the local big box store to pick up a copy of their own. Hasn't happened yet. All the same it's great to read stories about colleagues who share that love of reading and writing and storytelling and, in turn that love into published books. Ms Patron did one better: she turned her imaginative work into a Newberry Award. How wonderful is that?

Nice story. Now it's time to find a copy of the book. See you at Barnes and Noble.

Salud!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez30-2009dec30,0,5078340.column

NY Times reader's photographs of the decade!

Sometimes the best photographers are the ones who aren't getting paid to pay attention to the world at large. They're just normal folks like you and me out there taking "pichers". Take a look at these snaps. Some ruly wonderful and wooly and tragic stuff captured in those photos. This was our decade. Be sure to post some of your own.

Salud!

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/2009-decade.html?hp

Holiday greetings!

Merry Christmas one and all!

May your day be a wonderful one!

Love, Accumulate Man

Brutal, relentless, beautiful

Michael Mann's Public Enemies, right along side Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and the Coen Brother's Miller's Crossing, is the quintessential gangster flick. It has all the trademark features of a Mann film that you've come to know and love: lush cinematography, incredible set and costume design, fantastic acting, a rousing score, roaring action sequences, all of it. It is one outrageously mesmerizing film, but, as a reviewer put it, one without humor or let up. You start the movie, take a breath and finally breathe out two hours later. How good was it? Okay, I don't usually watch a movie twice in the span of twenty four hours these days, as I have too many movies backed up and only have so much time in the day to watch them. But this one? I didn't have to think twice about what film would be my kick off flick for the evening. And I look forward to seeing it again soon.

Incredible stuff, Public Enemies. Watching Johnny Depp play Dillinger will wipe away all those images you might have of him playing that simpering Jack Sparrow character for Disney and have you believing in him and his acting abilities once again. Check it out and be sure to bring an oxygen mask, you'll need it.

Salud!

Roger Ebert's review:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090629/REVIEWS/906299997

DVD Verdict review:

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/publicenemies.php

Old to me, new to you

Digital thinking. Hmm. I don't know if jacking plugs into card reader boards counts but I've been into computerized employment since the mid-seventies. Let's blame it on that darn typing class I took in high school. If I hadn't struggled through that elective I might of ended up sorting mail on an aircraft carrier somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I have to wonder where I'd be right now if I had gone that route.

No, computer work then was nothing like the "geek squad" kinds of things they want kids to get into now. My kid has already been taking game building classes in high school, but hey, codes a drag and I have to wonder if, in the end, that'll be his passion. I don't think that all of us out here utilizing computers in our daily work lives need to cosy up to hardware repair or software building but I do think we need to demystify the beast and make everyone comfortable working with computers, or, at the very least, have the courage to challenge them when they get ornery. But I have to admit when I worked at the desk I would see very few internet issues with the young breeds. It seems to be almost instinctual these days. Now if we can only transfer that comfort level into paid employment.

So here's to the new science and computer learning initiatives. I'm always happy when someone gets excited about something new, even if that something is pretty old hat to me. I suppose I felt the same way about the movie Jaws when I first watched it, almost twenty years after it's release. What's new to me can be very,very old to you. Good to go on that.

Salud!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/technology/21nerds.html?_r=1

Governor Moonbeam's rock

I always's thought that Pat's boy was the man to beat. California's Attorney General Jerry Brown has always been a stand up guy. As governor was beyond bright, spiritual, economically frugal, dated a beautiful singer, liberal, progressive and just an all around nice guy, a man who was not just part of the machine but occupied the soul of it, too. So after I read the story posted below I was a bit sad. It wasn't because of the sculptors' timerity. Sure, he dodged a bullet, or played it save, whatever, by carving the visage of John Wayne instead of Jerry Brown. And sure, when folks go to Christian University library where the rock is stored they go to see the face of a great movie star, not the image of a long time politico.

But still.

Maybe that was the moment where things turned. Maybe when that rock was denied a great face Governor Moonbeam's shot at being president all went away. We all say silly things out loud, but I suppose when you are living in the public eye those things take on a life of their own. Pity. Life would have been a heck of lot better with Jerry Brown in the White House.

So, let's go out and find that man another rock. Better late than never. Yeah, Jerry Brown for governor (here we go again!)

Salud!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-then20-2009dec20,0,2486738.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

Buzz words of 2009

News stories generate new words, and I'm a sucker for new words. Sometimes,when I can't find a good book to read, I'll pick up a dictionary and cruise the pages for some new term or phrase to bandy about, to laugh over, to use over and over again until I'm completely and totally bored with it. Today I stumbled on this nifty article and thought that maybe, until the 2010 edition comes out,that this list needs to be printed out and pasted into whatever slang dictionary is handiest. Fun stuff. Yeah. thank goodness for new words. Life would be much too boring without them.

Salud!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/weekinreview/20buzz.html?_r=1&hp