bkdunn.com

Because who has time to blog when there are mutants to decapitate and robot factories to explore? Probably the best adventure/RPG game ever released on a console. Seriously, I think that’s the reason. Blame Google Bart for telling me how good it was in the first place.

bkd

Speaking of places I used to live, the place I used to live, from 2000-04, is for sale:

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Mission-Viejo/26292-Los-Viveros-92691/unit-166-A/home/18547846

My old kitchen in all its glory (except that it’s yellow now).

Asking price is only $100K less than I sold it for in 2004. Ouch. From the signs on the windows in the photos on the Redfin listing, I’m guessing it’s also been through foreclosure and auction. Looks the exact same as I left it though — except for the new wood floors and fresh paint. Kind of sad, yet kind of reminds me that it wasn’t really that nice of a place to begin with. I still have strong recollections of the upstairs neighbors inviting their large extended family over so all the kids could race from one end of the (wood-floored) unit to the other while I was trying to work downstairs. Again, ouch.

bkd

The odd thing about looking at the below list of moves is that it leaves me realizing how many places I *haven’t* lived and makes me feel like I’m probably missing out on a lot of residence-oriented experiences. And that I should maybe try out some more options.

2009 – Moved from Mission Viejo (by the lake) to Mission Viejo (by, uh, Taco Bell)
Because it’s like having $1,150 a month cash drop from the ceiling. Plus the old place was gated (don’t get me started), had sub-competent gate guards, too many speed bumps, old people who stared at you from their windows but never came outside, had some weird tiles (well it did), and sound carried way too well across the lake. And the bathroom was carpeted.

2007 – Moved from Foothill Ranch to Mission Viejo (by the lake)
Because the new place only cost 30% more despite being twice as big, having twice as many bedrooms, and having a pretty nice view of the lake. And the old place was pretty scrappy. And gated. With speed bumps and too-narrow parking spaces.

2006 – Moved from New York City to Foothill Ranch (via Michigan)
Because I got the job in California and didn’t really ever quite adapt to life in the Big City, in no small part because of the outrageous expense and constantly having to walk through the snow/wind/sleet/rain to get to/from the subway station. ‘Course, I think if I’d carried more accurate expectations into the job, found a roommate out in NYC (or thereabouts) to cut down on the cost of rent, and/or there’d been a few more people in the End Point offices, I might have stuck it out for another year.

2005 – Moved from Lehi to New York City
Because I got the job in NYC and sitting around that house by myself all day every day was making me crazy. Or crazier faster I guess would be more appropriate to state. And stuffing my 1,700 s.f. Utah lifestyle into a 430 s.f. Downtown Manhattan apartment offered an interesting challenge…

2004 – Moved from Mission Viejo (The Condo) to Lehi (The House)
Because I wanted to buy a house, thought that I knew a lot of people in Utah that I could hang out with, and because working at Epson seemed to have run its course and if I was going to start a business, Utah was an easier/cheaper environment for that.

2000 – Moved from La Mesa (the studio on the lake) to Mission Viejo (The Condo)
Because I started business school at UCI in 2000. Went back to the studio’s neighborhood over Christmas and drove around — it was kind of a cool area, I think.

1999 – Moved from La Mesa (Mellmanor) to La Mesa (the studio on the lake)
Because the studio on the lake was pretty cool and its owner was a friend from work who really wanted me to move in there. And the Mellmanor place was a pretty funky apartment — seemed more like a hotel, but without any elevators or lighting in the hallways. Althought it was the site of the Miracle of the Fish that I should probably chronicle some day. It made for a good church talk.

1998 – Moved from El Cajon (Rick’s House) to La Mesa (Mellmanor)
Because after a couple months of living in your brother’s house it’s hard to feel like you’re doing a good job of maintaining your dignity, let alone advancing it. Sadly.

1998 – Moved from Twin Falls to El Cajon (Rick’s House)
Because I’m not a farmer and I’d heard the job market in San Diego was promising.

1997 – Moved from Rupert (C&A’s apartment) to Twin Falls
Because I was working in Twin by that point, so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to still be living in Rupert.

1997 – Moved from Boston (Allston) to Rupert (C&A’s Apartment)
Because after arriving in Boston to pursue my masters, I realized that the degree I was going after would probably over-qualify me for any sort of meaningful job, plus the other kids in the program were not quite as brilliant as I was hoping they’d be (“Utah’s one of those Great Lakes states, like by Michigan, right?”).

1997 – Moved from Provo (the house of low ceilings) to Boston (Allston)
Because I was starting a masters program in writing and publishing at Emerson and, really, it was high-time to get out of Provo.

So I’m not sure what would be next anyway. I’m thinking maybe I ought to buy a house or some property somewhere, call that home base, then just keep on living cheap wherever I end up finding work. Or else living out of my truck. Man — that just seems so romantic. Oh well. Mal sehen was wird.

Transiently,

bkd

And I’m now really tired of carrying stuff. Big thx out to DLF and DDF/DLF-Prime (whatever she’s going by these days). It was, actually, better than being at work for the last three days. Huh.

And as a result of the move $1,150 cash will be falling from the ceiling of my new bedroom every month. So cool.

Things I Won’t Miss About the Old Place:

• Those stupid, giant birds and the crab carcasses they’d always vomit onto my deck. Ugh. I’ll post a picture one day. Of the birds, not the carcasses. Sadly.
• The tiles in the entry way and the chandelier.
• The stained glass.
• The sound of sirens echoing off the lake.
• The lake’s Summer Jazz Festival.
• The gate guards — they had a greater than 50% failure rate at letting my guests in.
• The speed bumps.
• The old people who would sit in their living rooms watching — although it did make me a little nostalgic for East Germany.
• The stunning lack of cash falling from ceilings.
• Paying for utilities.

bkd

How am I — how is *anyone* — supposed to trust this guy to be an objective arbiter of good-bad when he lacks the self-awareness to openly address is inadequacies? Plainly, *plainly*, someone who “knows” whether someone has been bad or good during the course of a given year *should* also know what gifts said person would most prefer without having to be told. Anything less than that is just lamely convenient and smacks of collusion (with whom I can only guess) as well as corruption.

A truly all-knowing Santa Claus should, further, have the ability to assess gift preference with a precision superior to that of the gift recipient. Just because Little Johnny *thinks* he wants an Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle, that doesn’t exactly mean he wouldn’t be happier if he instead received a full-on Stomper 4×4 set-up complete with styrofoam mountains. Why, really, is it incumbent on the poor six-year-old to make this assessment himself? I’m sure all of us remember a time when a Claus-given “gift” turned out to cause more trouble than joy, whether through jealousy, disappointment, or by unexpectedly exploding into shards of plastic.

Does anyone remember Santa Claus admitting culpability?

Given the unavailability — or unwillingness — to provide this superior gift-giving capability, the positive associations generally assigned the Santa Claus brand seem largely unjustified.

Beyond all this lies the other core concern regarding the jolly old elf. He’s set himself up as the ultimate annual judge of behavior, but has NEVER stated the actual criteria upon which children are to be judged. Naughty or nice? Sure, but is the scale relative or absolute? Upon what value system is it based?

Say, for example, that Girl X, through her incompetence, drops an anvil on the head of Unsuspecting Bystander Y. Then let’s say that Boy Z, while he would very much *like* to drop an anvil on the head of Unsuspecting Bystander Y and wishes all sorts of harm on Y, chooses not to do so because his opportunity cost of dropping the anvil is *slightly* higher than the utility value of Y’s crushed head. Which of these two, X or Z, is naughty? Nice? My point exactly.

So with the thought of making this post a *constructive* exercise and to ensure the loyal readership that this post is not just another pile of anti-Santaist rhetoric, here’s what I’d propose should happen to resolve the issues set forth.

1. An open, public response from Mr. Claus explaining the selectiveness and mechanism behind his “knowing” powers and a full investigation into how these powers, if verifiable and found objective, could be further used for the betterment of society.
2. Complete transparency within the system; black boxes are in no way acceptable.
3. An established means of consistent two-way communication, including the availability of to-date judgments and FOIA compliance — given the volume of transactions Sant Claus completes within the United States, his status as a non-citizen should not absolve him of the obligation to allow people to understand their status under his system.
4. An annual independent audit of evaluations to ensure fairness and objectivity as well as compliance with best-of-breed privacy standards to protect the interests of the judged.
5. Establishment of a means of appeal for all decisions made by Santa Claus.
6. Creation of a binding service-level agreement, including agreed-upon language regarding consequences of failing to meet the requirements of the SLA.

Barring the above, I don’t see any reason why humanity doesn’t pursue other holiday-related figurehead options. While I don’t necessarily think the incumbent’s intentions are impure — I truly have no idea what Claus’s motivations might be — surely we’d be better off with an objective, transparent gift-giving apparatus that can easily be held to high standards of accountability.

Until it happens, the establishment of an acceptably better regime will remain my fondest holiday wish.

Defiantly,

bkd

I’d put a link in this post to the photos section, but I don’t want your link-hunting skills to atrophy.

bkd

Went camping in Death Valley last weekend. Camped for two whole nights — an adult personal best!

The lowest point in North America. Yes, that pot hole right there.

Pros:

• The roller coaster roads, featuring many inversions.
• Taking the Emigrant Road way back to civilization — brilliantly washed out and steep.
• My new flannel-lined sleeping bag passed its test. No more nylon strangulation sacks for ol’ bkd.
• Ubehebe Crater was cool.
• I get to cross this off my cross-country road trip list.
• Campground neighbors were not visited by the police.

Cons:

• Campground neighbors were not visited by the police.
• No two scenic points are within 50 miles of each other. Seriously.
• Fire wood cost $9 a bundle.
• I kind of don’t think deserts are all that pretty; I imagine any run of the mill missile testing range has similarly spectacular oddities hidden in it.
• On the way home, traffic at Kramer Jct. was backed up for five miles.

And if you ever go there yourself, keep in mind that everything at Stovepipe Springs is 20% cheaper than it is at Furnace Creek (e.g., Gas was $3.10 rather than $3.60, soda was $0.75 instead of $0.89, etc.).

Y’know, the first time I ever went to a desert was when I was in college and I thought it was amazing. Weird colors, cactus, scrub brush: amazing. The second time it was a little less amazing. Third time less. Fourth time less. Und so weiter. Just that I’m sort of over the desert by now — I don’t know if it has anything left to offer. Tja. It was a fun trip, the camping was good, the company was good, offroading to avoid the five miles of traffic at Kramer Jct. was good. But if I had a choice between going to Death Valley again or going to Kauai again, I’d go to Kauai every last time.

More photos if you care:

DLF and DDF tempt imminent death as they skip along the crater’s edge.

 Yours truly in Titus Canyon, yearning for some faraway slot canyon that actually has water in it.

 Artist’s Drive — featuring all the colors of the rainbow, everything from brownish gray to grayish brown!

 

The campsite at Mesquite Springs campground, located a scant 90 miles from the park entrance… Was unable to locate named springs and it seemed that this particular spot of vacant earth was designated a campsite by virtue of it being particularly windy. Just guessing, though.

Oh well. It really was a reasonable use of a long holiday weekend.

Happy Pearl Harbor Day.

bkd

I’ve had this dream like three times in the last couple months:

I’m on vacation. The vacation’s a week long. It’s day six and I realize I haven’t done anything yet and I start getting panicky about how I can cram enough into the last two days of the vacation to not feel like I wasted it.

I had a class at BYU on Dreams, Archetypes, and Myths (in German Literature) wherein it was suggested that repeated dreams probably mean something. I could draw some conclusions, but unlike the dream, in real life, I’m not sure what I was supposed to have done over those first five days. Oh well.

bkd

A little unfair in that, in fact, I’m surprised they included so many novels that I don’t think suck. Also unfair in that I’m not sure I can confidently name more than 15-20 novels that, in my mind, don’t suck. And that I haven’t read most of the list. Ah well.

I also appreciated Game Dame‘s validation for not having to finish reading books that one does not like. I’m not sure she meant to imply thereby that it’s also okay to claim to have read a book that you only read, say, 100 pages of, but I’m taking that next step. Wikipedia mentions some worthy concerns and useful details about the list (it was compiled in 1998, Darkness at Noon shouldn’t qualify, it doesn’t include anything written after 1983, etc.).

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce – Never read it, but read #3 and drew (I’m assuming) accurate conclusions to the effect that James Joyce is the ultimate combination of Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome and Reading This Was Torture So It Must Be Art Syndrome.
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald – Deathly slow and dull. Which, I imagine, is what F. Scott was going for. OTOH, to be called The Great American Novel — I dunno, I suppose our country *is* deathly slow and dull. Hopefully Obama will fix that.
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce – Described above at #1. Unbearable, self-absorbed writing that shouldn’t be forced on anyone.
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov – Never read.
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley -I *liked* it. I think it’s a joke that it’s considered the fifth greatest novel in the English language. But, yeah, *liked* it.
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner – Never read. What I’ve read of Faulkner I’ve despised, but OTOH, I’m not sure that isn’t just because I didn’t like my Faulkner-phile AP English teacher. In retrospect, I’m *glad* I pissed her off by doing my Chemistry (Physics?) homework in her class every day.
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller – Oddly, the Modern Library website left the author out of their list. Are they insinuating something? The novel is *so* one-note it’s unbearable. I may use that word again in this list. The characters don’t matter, the destination is vague, very little happens, and while I can appreciate snarkiness better than most, like violence, snarkiness without substance is doofishness.
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler – An odd inclusion in that this book was translated from German. Oh. Well. It was okay. Interesting information and insight into post-revolution Gulaghood. But the writing was far from brilliant (although that may have been an issue with the translation).
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence – I think I was supposed to read this for a college class that I ended up dropping once I took a look at the middle four pages of this book. Never read. Aside from those four pages.
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck – Never read, but I sort of like Steinbeck, so I probably should.
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry – Never read.
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler – Never read.
13. 1984 by George Orwell – Greatest novel in the history of mankind. Too bad no one but me learned anything from it. I should probably read it again — it’s been a couple years.
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves – Never read, but it *is* in my guest bathroom in case the stars ever align correctly.
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf – Never read.
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser – Never read.
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers – Never read.
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut – In my personal Top 5. The one novel Vonnegut ever needed to write. Sharp, funny, fast-moving, relatable.
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison – The opposite of Slaughterhouse-Five. Although I’m not sure it’s fair to claim books that I read in, yes, AP English. In 1989.
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright – Never read.
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow – Never read, but it’s in my Amazon account as being “saved for later” and has been there since October 2, 2005.
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara – Never read.
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos – Never read.
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson – Another AP English novel and one that I remember somewhat pleasantly. Slow but occasionally-enough engaging, IIRC.
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster – Never read. Saw the movie, which I know doesn’t count, but didn’t portend to a book I’d enjoy reading in any way whatsoever.
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James – Never read.
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James – Never read.
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald – Never read, but the Fitzgerald-James love bender that the Modern Library’s editorial board was on that day in 1998 seems noteworthy.
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell – Never read.
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford – Never read.
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell – It is amazing how applicable this novel is to Every Single Organization on Earth. If I could have two Orwell books in my personal Top 5, this would be there.
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James – Never read. And, oddly enough, I usually confuse Fitzgerald for Henry James (and vice versa). Or at least, the two names occupy the same compartment in my brain. The compartment of “highly respected” American writers I’ve managed, probably thankfully, to avoid reading my entire life.
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser – Never read.
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh – Never read.
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner – Never read. But hey, I was pretty solid back when we were doing the Top 20, right?
36. ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren – Never read.
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder – Never read.
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster – Never read.
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin – Never read.
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene – Never read.
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding – Really liked it when I read it in 9th Grade Honors English. Re-read it a few years ago and, well, it was still *good*, but it didn’t seem all that brilliant. Just seemed like mass market-quality writing with an interesting, iconic story.
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey – Never read *or* seen the movie.
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell – Never read.
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley – Never read.
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway – Never read.
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad – Never read.
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad – Never read. I *did* read Heart of Darkness though. Liked Apocolypse Now better.
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence – Never read.
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence – Never read.
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller – Never read.
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer – Sucked. Tragically. I kept thinking there was something to this book, but it didn’t ever want to pay off. Or stick with the useful characters. Or end 500 pages sooner than it did.
52. PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth – Never read.
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov – Never read.
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner – Never read.
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac – Never read, but I’ve always meant to.
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett – Horrifyingly unbearable. To me. Only to me. I realize the style wasn’t cliche when it was written, but it sure is now.
57. PARADE’S END by Ford Madox Ford – Never read.
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton – Never read.
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm – Never read. And I thought Ian made up the name Zuleika for his underwater arcology story. Huh. Notion shattered!
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy – Never read.
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather – Honestly can’t remember if I read this or not. If I did, it was in an American Literature class at BYU. We read *something* from Willa Cather for that class. Maybe this was it. I’m gonna say yes and that it was okay.
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones – Haven’t read. Didn’t really dig Thin Red Line, but thought FHtE was a pretty good movie, so: maybe.
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever – Never read.
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger – I love Salinger’s writing quality, but hate his characters. Especially the ones in this book. I don’t get a lot out of understanding the inner-workings of the self-obsessed. Or maybe I do, just that I don’t need more than, say, five pages of it before it seems redundant.
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess – Liked it, but thought the movie was way better. [spoiler]I think the original US editor of the book made the absolutely correct call to remove the ridiculous deus ex machina ending of it. That ending was in no way deserved or established by anything that had gone on before it. Ridiculous, IMHO.[/spoiler] But the made-up language especially was brilliant. I hate it when people tag stuff as being spoiler material.
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham – Never read.
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad – Right, read it. Seemed slow. Was a long time ago.
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis – Never read.
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton – Never read.
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell – Never read.
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes – Never read.
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul – Never read.
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West – Never read.
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway – Read. I’m not a Hemingway fan. It seems like his real life was way more interesting than his writing.
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh – Never read.
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark – Never read.
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce – Never read. Maybe Joyce is more enjoyable when you’re drunk. Probably puts you in the right frame of mind.
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling – Never read.
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster – Never read.
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh – Never read, but why are so many of these books the subject matter for BBC-made movies and mini-series? Crazy. I don’t like BBC-made movies or mini-series I don’t think.
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow – Never read.
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner – Personal Top Five and a little surprising to me that any sort of editorial board manned up enough to include this book. This is, IMHO, without a doubt, IMHO, arguably, IMHO The Great Novel of the American West. No one else ever needs to write another one.
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul – Never read.
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen – Never read.
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad – Never read, but man, what’s with the Joseph Conrad love?
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow – Never read.
87. THE OLD WIVES’ TALE by Arnold Bennett – Never read.
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London – I *think* I’ve read it. I like everything I’ve read by Jack London. I *know* I read White Fang. I *am* going to write a novel set in the asteroid belt that basically borrows the plot from Call.
89. LOVING by Henry Green – Never read.
90. MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie – Never read, but his name always reminds me of the fatwa that went out against him and the corresponding Dennis Miller SNL Weekly News in which was stated that his last name means “man who is in a rush to die“. I don’t remember it because it was funny, I just remember it.
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell – Never read.
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy – Never read.
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles – Never read.
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys – Never read.
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch – Never read.
96. SOPHIE’S CHOICE by William Styron – Never read.
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles – Never read.
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain – Never read.
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy – Never read.
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington – Never read.

In terms of heinous omissions, the only two that come readily to mind would be Bukowski’s Post Office and Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I might also argue for Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles.

I’ve only read 20 of the above, but that still seems like a lot. Meh. You?

bkd

Best sporting event ever. Well, not counting the MNF game, which, arguably, *was* the best sporting event ever. That I attended. Although the ’90 BYU-Miami game was pretty amazing also. And the USA-Costa Rica World Cup qualifier. But, yeah. Comparisons are hard. And sporting events are better when the right team wins.

Assuming JL ever checks in here again, thanks again for the games.

bkd