Dave's Thinking

Book Review: "Avila Addendum"

Dave Hovde — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 04:41:27 GMT

$19.95 Big Peak Press
795pp

review by Evad Edvoh, Imperial Book Reviews, Edinburgh, Scotland

"It's another confounding read from an author increasingly difficult to fathom. Fewer twists and turns than a Nebraska interstate highway. Sominex for the soul."

I read Dave Hovde's first book, "The Cambria Conundrum" when on a longer train trip across northern Europe, my Kindle inexplicably broke. Digging in my backpack the only book pending a view was "Cambria Conundrum", and only on a dare from my editors to see what this first time writer, a Yank non-the-less, could manage. After reading that I was certain I'd never thumb through another Hovde effort, and trust me "effort" is the key word here.

As fate would have it, similar circumstances dropped "Avila Addendum" into my lap. Winter began early here along the north coast of Scotland and my older home was in dire need of new heating equipment earlier than I had hoped. A night of 10 degrees C inside the walls was all I could take, I threw some clothes and books in a bag to crash at my friend Alec's flat. That was three weeks ago, the heating problems so dire the work is not yet complete.

As excruciating as powering through "The Cambria Conundrum" was I couldn't avoid the sequel about reluctant and recalcitrant anti-hero Johnny Strongman. "The Avila Addendum" picks up where Conundrum left off with Strongman staring out over the ocean with clouded over skies. The protagonist, Stongman, is perhaps the most involved certified public accountant you'll find, doing more of his work at a bottom of a glass than on the right side of a spreadsheet. I only say that last sentence because Hovde, the author, pens it in the book's jacket. Inside the pages his anti-hero, Strongman, spends more time wandering around town running mundane errands than actually working on any project. Those errands are well detailed, too well detailed.

In Avila Addendum Strongman is hired by some local land developers with a suspicion that local agencies are being paid off not to develop more land near the swanky beach town, Avila Beach. We'd know more about this plot except Strongman nor the author ever reveal it. Strongman, when asked by other characters in the book, simply and repeatedly when asked about his latest assignment, "I'll tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Strongman also repeats, annoyingly, other catch phrases: "Another day another dollar" and "Hit me". For instance, he answers every phonecall with, "Hit me" and less than whimsically uses "another day another dollar" speaking to another character at a funeral in what would have been a touching moment, then Strongman spins both phrases together seconds later ordering and paying for a drink. Then again moments later trying to gain the attentions of the widow.

Hovde never explains the plot in narrative either, rather he gets mired in exhaustive details about coin operated laundries and spends an entire chapter about spotty cell phone coverage in the sparely developed Central Coast, and another entire chapter describing (inaccurately) how the Civil War impacted California (how it drove out the dinosaurs for instance). Hovde's character has friends, but none he involves in cases. Strongman tells his friends in the book, "You nimrods aren't smart enough to tear through these books, there are some big numbers in here." He also says of his relationships with women, "I don't have time to see anyone, these Excel spreadsheets are at least 30% more important than love. Show me a walking, talking spreadsheet and you can book the church."

(Spoiler Alert)

Avila Addendum is ultimately a disappointment because Strongman dies in the 4th chapter, the case left in a awkwardly skidding abeyance. The final 300 pages is a quagmire of dialogue from his friends. First they determine Strongman died of food poisoning, unrelated to the case because he ate something very old from his fridge. Then they make burial arrangements (complaining non-stop about the costs), they eat food and sputter on endlessly about themselves, and Bravo reality shows.

I was shocked when I heard Hovde plans to pen a third book about Strongman. The working title is "The Pozo Paradox". I had occasion to visit with Hovde about the project in London last week, it was not fruitful. Hovde and an army of handlers met me at a small East End coffee shop. After lengthy introductions to at least three people claiming to be his publicist I finally cornered the man who had burnt at least 7 hours of my life in a sea of un-navigated scribble.

"Hit me." Hovde says with a wry grin sitting down. I almost spit up my latte, but gathered myself for a question.

"Why don't you follow a plot in your books?"

(Phone rings. Hovde digs three different phones out of pockets, finds the one making noise and sets the two others on the table both flashing from missed messages of some sort. He hands the phone off to a very tall man nearby. He gathers himself...)

"Do you have one...a plot..I mean in your life? What's it about? I bet you don't. No one does. That's why people love these books."

I couldn't help myself, "But they don't. We only read them around the office because they are the worst books ever written."

"That's not what Korean radio seems to think (as he points to a handler on the phone), I am gonna be on some radio show tomorrow morning. 4 a-m their time, we are still trying to figure out what that means in our time. I'd write a book about that but time travel and physics are pretty hard to write about. So is certified public accounting, that's why I killed Strongman off. That's what you want to know right?"

"Yes, how do you plan to make a sequel?"

"Prequel man. I'd tell you more but then I'd have to kill you."

I wanted to ask why he insists on printing on new paper (not recycled) after he bragged to a Danish paper his latest book had the largest carbon footprint on the planet and shouldn't be thrown because the ink used was so cheap it was a danger in landfills. But just as I was about to Hovde finished his drink. He and his entourage clattered out of the coffee shop leaving me with as much clarity as "Avila Addendum". He only stopped by the counter momentarily stuffing a Euro in a tin. I couldn't hear him or read his lips as we were too far away but I am quite certain he said, "Another day another dollar."

Sensible notions

Dave Hovde — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:16:32 GMT

Yes, from the long hiatus the blog has reappeared. I get e-mails about this from time to time asking where they are and I wanted to take a quick second to explain that. I have been working part-time for the NSA on deep cover in Borneo where some major developments are about to happen, I could tell you but I would be putting you at risk if I did. OK, not even close to the truth. The truth is: these personal blogs are much easier to do from home than they are in the buzz of a newsroom (or studio where I work). I got into a habit for a while there of basically waking up each morning and plugging myself straight into a computer. This is really helpful for long work days where I am going to be live at a distant location or if the weather looks challenging; I can do everything from home, include making the graphics that I use on air, post web stories, etc. I love my job so it is easy to do it all the time if you are not careful. So, I decided I was going to be sensible and try to get some control of that. Not just about the bloging, but about nearly everything. Perhaps I took it too far.

I have not looked in the mirror yet today, but perhaps a manila folder (with eyes drawn on it) would look back at me. This movement started when I moved back to Paso Robles after spending a few years living near the beach. It should be noted I moved to Paso Robles to be closer to my kids, completely sensible. There was additional cost to the housing here and the commute gas, so I switched from picking up good coffee to brewing cups out of big tins with the brand names of big blue-themed stores on the label. It says something like: "Coffee: drinkable". I bring microwave dinners to work with cans of even more generically labeled diet sodas (with no promises of drinkability) to work in line with the great fiscal portion of my sensible-thinking initiative.

I bought a 35 dollar table and chairs for my kitchen from a yard sale, bought glasses from 39dollarglasses.com and cooked more than enough frozen dinners to have satisfied any oversight committee. There are no protesters for these austerity measures, well, except for me. I started waking up to the notion that I needed to take back a little living. Not that I have done much about it yet. I did quit my gym in Grover Beach and joined one in town (because it was sensible) and I am going over there right now (not because it is sensible but because it is what I like to do).

Mindset for Minnesota - Distant Interwebs

Dave Hovde — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:40:17 GMT

I don't want to imply there is no internet in Minnesota, what I want to imply is there is an inverse proportion from the cooing of the loons to the bandwidth available. On quick examination you might simply cast this aside and berate the author for even wanting to merge on the world-wide interbues while glassy lake water or crackling fire beckons. It is true there is simply a time to throw the phone into the water, but rather than pontificate about my Yoda-like awareness of the universe or claim I bonded with the elements I think I'd rather just admit that the whole experience made me realize I am sadly invested, upside down in the virtual world. I have read Walden at least ten times, so I will be apologizing formally to the estate of Henry David Thoreau. It is believed old Hank headed out into the woods to isolate himself from society to understand it better, so maybe in a way my internet deprivation chamber called Tamarac Lake, MN might have similar enlightening qualities.

This lake is about 45 minutes from the regional center of the universe, Fargo, ND and it's metropolitan throng of 192,187 (this includes Moorhead, MN both towns straddle the often spring-flooded Red River). But once you pass Barnesville, Minnesota and it's sign proudly beaming the beginning of Potato Days next weekend the coverage gets spotty as buildings and concrete is replaced by cattails, fields, and meandering cattle.

It is hard to go from being a full time internet content provider and consumer to the monk-like state it takes to sit in a lawn chair and stare across the bright green grass toward the calm water. This is not aided by the fact that after 5 weeks my modern-era kids also welcomed my arrival with requests to have my phone and tablet for game playing, so for what little information trickled in I was not even able to access because virtual farms needed to be tended and zombies eliminated by forces controlled by those ten or younger.

Eventually everyone settled into lake-time: that aimless drifting of hours with the distant hum of motor boats pulling laughing kids across the water or the plunking of my own kids running off the wooden dock which offers just enough distance from the top of the lake to the bottom to perform all kinds of various dives and cannonballs.

I really only had one day at this lake as it is home of my kids' grandparents on their mother's side, it was only a way-stop before heading to my parent's summer spot along the Mississippi in rural St. Cloud where the online conditions are even more furtive.

It was enough though. Long enough to realize I have been gone a significant amount of time, that this was an enviable enterprise. For those of you not from the area, you have to understand that all the big cities empty thousands of people every weekend towing boats and campers to get exactly this, a life less-connected and complicated. It is a mindset I lost a long time ago, even when I lived up here I was not one of the lake-goers but it is nothing short of a religion and the draw is undeniable. For many the status updates begging for you to copy and paste this or that, or announcing check-ins here or there can just wait.

That kind of thinking is nothing to poke a stick at.

(The adventure continues in the next post as time away from the river and into a bin of old toys leads my kids to wedding planning)

Mindset for Minnesota - Other side of the river

Dave Hovde — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:57:02 GMT

This is a look at the stunning vista of downtown Fargo, North Dakota as seen from my 6th floor hotel room at the Radisson. Interestingly the Radisson is the second tallest building in the state at 18 stories and it's visage is like a spire on the otherwise flat as a pancake plains of the eastern side of the state. When I tell people I am from North Dakota most people think I might know something about farming or other rural endeavor but I grew up not far from the cement of downtown. Frankly I was embarrassingly under-informed about what happens in the other 90% of the state. This was never more clear than when farm reporter Steve Wennbloom once asked me to get me video of sugar beets sprouts (a staple crop of the area) and I returned with wheat. It is like the difference between a car and a whale. That was my first year in TV, I learned about rural areas quickly after that.

I was lucky enough to snap this shot of a traffic jam in Fargo. No, actually this was Sunday morning at 9am. I picked the regionally swanky Radisson because I wanted to be only a walk from downtown. I had gone out on the town the prior night with two friends from high school. I have read a lot of stories about my hometown since I left years ago. Stories from national magazines which talks about the downtown character and an active social scene. While it was tame by California standards I thought what I saw lived up to the billing. Place after place near capacity buzzing with the general exuberance which accompanies the arrival of a warm weekend and the stress of work days away.

My chums Tucker and Chuck and I walked from one end of the downtown to the other. I had requested we visit only "old school" Fargo haunts and not the newer-trendy places. We started at Rooters, famous for a off duty Fargo cop shooting his gun into the air apparently for kicks. Then we walked up to "The Empire" the toughest of the places downtown, it once was a dive for only the truly diligent but now gets too many walk-ins by guys like us to brag of general toughness. After that we hit "Sports" which had not changed a bit in the years since I left, in fact I am not sure the bar had been wiped down since then. It was exactly the experience I wanted, a walk down memory lane with my friends then a walk back to the monolith for a night of sleep before my real vacation began. While I am from Fargo my parents moved long ago into Minnesota and that is where I was headed Sunday, if I could get out of the downtown traffic snarl.

I had one other stop to make. My life-long friend Bill who like me had moved to California years ago needed a new "Space Aliens" shirt. "Space Aliens" is nothing more than a burger and fry joint with enough flair to keep the kids buzzing while you slurp down the recommended chicken tortilla soup. Bill was hoping for a grey or black shirt with the authentically cheesy branding and I looked for exactly that, but all that was offered was tie-dyed or pink or long sleeved for made out of the material Sunday softball jerseys are made out of. So I was turned away (after having the soup while the TV in the bar played a feverishly sweated out ping pong match from god only knows where).

"Space Aliens" is right by I-94 the major east-west highway which was about to take me to my kids and lake country and as I was soon to discover radio-and-internet free Europe.

As with every trip back home there never seems to be enough time to walk my old neighborhood or sit on the swings at Roosevelt elementary or poke my head into city hall where I was a reporter for years. The rest of the trip was calling and deeper excursions down memory lane will have to wait for another year.

(more on my trip to Minnesota later this week)

Mindset for Minnesota - The set up

Dave Hovde — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:04:41 GMT

The pool at my parent's summer place just outside of St. Cloud offered ample sunshine and upon jumping relief from the oppressive humidity which has hung in Minnesota for a month. With my kids engaged at inspecting the subtle offerings at the bottom of the pool with about the cheapest goggles you can find (I bought them at the grocery store 3 for 5 bucks) I was afforded my first moments of the mindless wandering I sought, except it happened 3 days into my vacation.

I need to get better at vacations, for one I don't take many and secondly and more importantly reaching that zen relaxation point can be elusive, as we are about to discover. Regular readers of the blog know that there is a yearly pilgrimage to Minnesota to bring my kids home from a 6 week visit with their grandparents on their mother's side, it's also a chance to spend time with my Dad and his wife. This all sounds smashingly fabulous until you realize that my kids haven't seen me for 6 weeks so when I arrive they attach themselves to me like lovable barnacles.

By the time I see my kids after these summer trips I am also needing the hugs and love weeks distant. The kids and I have different perspective. When I show up they are ready to go home, when I arrive I am prepared for slow ambles in woods looking for sunshine cutting its way through pine or oak in bright slats which paint the grass uncountable colors of a bright green we don't see often enough in California. I like time for contemplative musing, the kids call this boredom and want my cell phone and tablet and can't understand why the internet is so slow in rural Minnesota by the banks of the broadening Mississippi.

(In another blog later this week, I'll talk a little more about my new-found realization that I am addicted to the internet far worse then I thought I was)

Having kids keeps you young there is no doubt about that. A week of being dragged behind a boat clinging to a tube with your son or daughter as they laugh hysterically makes you know you are doing the right thing.

Over the course of the trip I was at times: The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Transportation Secretary, Head of the Food and Drug Administration, and Secretary of State as I brokered several peace deals with my children over the use of various toys or preferred seating next to me at whatever table or in whatever vehicle we were traveling in.

So my moments of zen perhaps were more limited than I would have liked. But that doesn't mean I didn't have a chance to resonate with Minnesota charm. I posted a great video of me and a wild deer, came right up to me like I was Nature Channel show. I noticed the sign in Fergus Falls for the "Nice law offices" and the waitress that looked and sounded like Sarah Palin and noticed how many sentences were constructed to end with the word "then". Part of me didn't notice much of that when I grew up and lived there because it was just the way it was. Now having lived in California for about 11 years those normal Minnesota things stand out with the authentic uniqueness which makes me understand why Garrison Keillor has written and performed everything he ever did. There is a magic in it, and for one a year it is special.

Over the next few days I hope to shine a little light on those signposts from the past. The trip was worth it, but now it is time to shave off a week's worth of beard, iron a shirt, pour through some computer models and catch up on a week's worth of news. Life resumes, do ya know?!

Tin Plated Over Bearing Swaggering Dictator with Delusions of Godhood, that's what we want.

Dave Hovde — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:44:42 GMT

The title of the blog is what Scotty told Captain Kirk that the Kligons said about him in the classic Star Trek TV episode "Trouble with Tribbles". (The big fight on the space station really started when the Klingons called the Enterprise a garbage scow to Scotty's face, Kirk could have understood it if it was the prior.)

I think we like our TV beyond bold. Thanks to Netflix I can watch all kinds of TV shows and boldly on display are the pantheon leading men with inflated self-worth toppling over the landscape they walk through, so bold and in charge, perfectly indestructible with unquestioned moral strength to boot which they summon instantaneously.

So, I certainly nominate the old Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek. Not really the new one from the re-boot movies, thus-far he's more of an action hero than a swaggering presence, and don't ask me about Captain Picard. Kirk made decisions, Picard held conferences. In the 1990s did we really make all our decisions that way?

I know all of this dates me but I have been watching the classic Hawaii 5-0 as well and Jack Lord's Steve McGarrett is a simply marvelous construction of ego and self-importance with a impervious sealant of over-confidence. They always get their man. Everyone dies in one shot. And Steve never does the hard work himself, its Chin Ho tailing someone, or Kono talking to the contacts or Danny in the shootout in the docks. Well, Steve will shoot too but rarely in the middle of the show. And of course it is, "Book 'em, Dano." never "Dano, I will take this guy down and book him you go get some rest."

I could go on and on. I think we like our TV people this way. And it is not just the throw-backs from the 60s. Look at Gordon Ramsey, he's about as huge a TV star as there is right now and he pretty much yells at people constantly from a superior tone because he's learned everything there is to learn.

We like fast decisions and instant judgement from people who tell us they know everything. And we don't care about hair. Shatner and Lord both famously sported toupees, David Caruso (CSI Miami) is hanging on to a few orange threads, and Donald Trump...well, whatever that is on his head doesn't seem to impact the grip he has on us.

Do you have nominees for your favorite swaggering tin-plated dictator?

BTW, I am not a nominee. I am a nice guy with real hair at this point.

Not exactly breaking news...but people just don't want to pay a lot for DVDs and BluRay

Dave Hovde — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:10:02 GMT

The recent announcement that Netflix wants you to either stream or get DVDs but not both at least without paying a higher premium has a lot of people dumping the DVD option with vows to head to the RedBox. It is a significant jump from the 9 dollar price point to the 15 dollar area for one DVD out at a time and streaming, the three disk and streaming plan is almost 20 now.

I have already read this about a thousand times on various reviews of the situation, but like everyone else I have held a Netflix DVD hostage for about 4 months (Pirate Radio) and have just been watching the stream. Interestingly I'll save a couple bucks a month going back to streaming only, but I suspect Netflix will save a lot more money. For one they'll recover millions of dollars of lost inventory like mine. Secondly mailing disks flat out costs a ton and with new digital agreements with studios you can be sure that more quality content will make it to the stream faster in the future.

It needs to be said that collectors will still buy DVDs and BluRay (though the rate of that has slowed). But I think this is a pretty strong indicator that the financial issues related to hard media are significant. For a high turn-over business like Netflix, you have to have a high cycle rate on those DVDs to recover the costs associated with buying them, mailing them and replacing scratched disks. This decision was not made in whimsy, they looked at the numbers it simply wasn't working.

People are making a statement about what they are willing to pay for home entertainment. It's my opinion people are fine with RedBox, and fishing in bargain bins for disks to bring home. For the impulse watch, Netflix streaming offers more than most people need. On demand pay-per-view covers a lot of the new titles before Netflix or RedBox has access. This leaves the 30 dollar DVD or BluRay on the shelf to be purchased by collectors or people really excited by the film.

What's missing? DVD and BluRay extras, but I would argue the people who watch those already are in the category of the passionate fans of the movies who simply need to own them.

I know a lot of people will opt for the disks still getting mailed to them and not stream, but I think the tide is turning there. Why? If for no other reason that people are having to make a choice.

The in the theater experience is getting to be pretty expensive, especially if you see a 3-d movie or have to take a family larger than two. So when it comes to the rest of it people are being careful and so are companies. Netflix wants to make ends meet so they change pricing, internet service providers are getting hammered on bandwidth since so many are watching video online that they are putting in usage caps, and cable and satellite providers are duking it out as many are opting to get almost all their entertainment through Hulu or Netflix or a combination of both.

This isn't the first volley of this war, and it won't be the last. But it probably is a significant one as millions of people will be making choices on this one and I'm gonna bet they aren't all just going to pay more. Streaming is coming.

Parallels

Dave Hovde — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:44:56 GMT

My head had the clarity of the sky today so it was time to let my thoughts roam a bit and generally there is not way better for me than to find a solitary spot somewhere. I'd tell you exactly where this is but just like surfing spots keeping the secret is part of the deal. (Note: this is not very hard at all to figure out from the photos).

What is wonderful about this place is that my smartphone doesn't get service here so in a way I am off the grid both literally and virtually which is what I was looking for. As the silence of phone became apparent so did the silence of most everything else. This is far enough from a road that other than a passing plane I didn't see or hear much of anything man-made for about an hour and a half.

It is a bit of a scramble to get to this spot about 200 feet above the crashing surf. I like it because it is kind of timeless. Surf has been pounding away at this little cove for a lot longer than any of my concerns have been around. The bee working on some pollen to my left is barely noticeable because of the roar of the surf, it didn't take long before I was drawing long easy breaths. Other than making mental notes about what I might want to say in this blog, I managed to tune out the rest.

It is not a terribly elegant notion but I was seeing life parallels everywhere. Certainly a function of the way I was thinking heading in. I have been out to this spot a bunch, but like always I never sure the path to take to get there. There are several branch points and I thought to myself, "Isn't life the same way".

I just kept walking the direction I thought I was supposed to be going in and eventually I ran across several wooden stands which reminded me I had been here before and that I was close.

When I crossed my legs and sat down I took off my shoes and socks and unclasped my watch. I only looked to see what time it was when I noticed a chill had set on me having been a while since the heat I worked up hiking out here. No conclusions reached but a calm repose enjoyed I turned and hiked back.

It was a "Kilr" weekend

Dave Hovde — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:29:05 GMT

This sign proudly displayed at the "Auld Dubliner" in Orange County in no way describes the weekend I had. It wasn't "Kilr" nor did it contain high amounts of "Rocktane". In fact what you are not seeing here is that the Irish pub was filled on this day with 60 year old people from the East End with Hello Kitty bags and a small PA system to conduct what is their weekly meeting.

My lifelong friend Bill Hunt and I walked into the pub just looking for a place to watch the Dodger's game on Saturday afternoon. Soccer covered every screen in the place and after careful pleading we did get it on the big projection screen prior to the "East Enders Club" showing up. I am not sure what weighty issues were to be discussed, but as I can't even pull off a passable English accent anymore I was not about to find out.

This was pretty much the weekend in a nutshell. Just about as tame as it gets, and it was what I needed. Seems like I have frantically run around in circles for the last several weeks forgetting that these low-key moments are probably the most recuperative thing I can think of.

I woke up earlier on this day to the wafting smell of freshly brewed coffee and found Bill in backyard reading. I got my book and did the same. Bill's wife was out of town visiting family in Iowa and my kids are spending a few weeks in Minnesota with their grandparents so there were no distractions. I think Bill was pushing through one of the Master and Commander books while I am reading "Being Wrong" by Kathryn Shultz. When I explained what I was reading Bill simply said, "Well, I am reading for enjoyment." So after a couple hours of apparently needless self-reflection for me we found a sushi place where the food comes on a winding conveyor belt where the enthusiastic staff cheers your arrival and departure.

The "Great Park" in Orange County held a big opening gala this weekend and air show. We walked to and back from that getting a work-out in and more opportunity to geek out to the air show assembled for the event. The Great Park is at the old El Toro airbase, famously destroyed in the movie Independence Day by aliens. It is amazing what they did with the place.

We closed that night by watching more sci-fi in the home theater then woke early the next day to go to an auction of real space memorabilia in Beverly Hills. For instance bits of the moon flag from Apollo 11 were available for 50-thousand dollars if you had the cash, or autographs from any of the hundreds of astronauts or mission patches, pieces of heat shields, etc. It was the most 'male' thing I had ever seen. There was only one woman around and she worked for the auction house. These guys were all serious collectors spending big money. I learned a lot about how auctioning at a high level works. Bill bought a very rare piece. I simply marveled at all the space stuff. For hour after hour this went on. At about 1:30pm I decided if I had several billion dollars I could buy enough used bits, plans, schematics, patches, and old pieces from the auction to get back to the moon myself. No, there was no solid rocket fuel being sold but I figured with enough Rocktane I could maybe get everything to work.

This weekend was definitely a weekend where only people who'd seen every episode of Star Trek need attend. It was exactly what I needed.

Gone fishing...

Dave Hovde — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:07:20 GMT

Well, the summer is here and over the last few years that has meant the same thing; time for my kids to venture to Minnesota to see their grandparents. That means a month on a Minnesota lake with fishing poles in hand or slow surveying of the lake in a pontoon. While I grew up near the land of 10-thousand lakes, my kids have lived a stone’s throw from the Pacific with no nearby relatives. Their mother will take the kids “up north” where they will spend all of July until I get them the first week of August.

Pictures from last year look like they were ripped from the mental image of Huck Finn complete with rolled up pants and freckled faces. It is interesting to listen to my son tell me about the difference between “bass”, “crappie” and “northern”. He loves to catch the fish, this year we’ll see if he’ll finally eat more than a simple taste of his quarry. My daughter will also spend plenty of time fishing, but more for the thrill of the catch and to compete with her brother for the fickle bite of the lurking miniature leviathan.

This means a month worth of weekends to myself. And while time off from being a personal valet and chef sounds like a nice change of pace, I already am bracing myself for the inevitable loneliness of not getting that timely hug or insistence that I tuck someone in. Time flies.

An unsorted garage awaits my attention. I used the garage as a “staging area” when I moved into my place in Grover Beach more than a year ago and has received little attention since. It is a tangled mess of wires, stray socks, “important” papers I have not glanced at in 12 months and assorted “art” that I was wise enough to leave in the garage but apparently not bright enough not to transport.

I need to shovel through all of this because I want to de-clutter the inside of my place and would like, for a change, to have some organization to it all. This is what I hope to do with my first weekend free. But I think I also need to just let myself enjoy time free. I am notoriously bad at this. Everyday I find little things to do and often just forget there is a life to be lived out there.

I hope someday my son and daughter discover the real secret of fishing, that it isn’t about catching fish but standing there and just being in the moment. Think. Maybe not think. Just be.

Maybe that’s what I need to do too, perhaps wading through the garage can wait.

Along the path

Dave Hovde — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:52:51 GMT

You'll know Google has it all figured out when someday you'll be able to type "happiness" into your Google Maps Navigator on your phone and it'll actually get you there in your personal life. I know that when you are in Vegas it'll occasionally identify your position as "paradise" but some of those things can be debatable.

All I am asking is that if we get to that point that the additional map layers will include interesting stops along the way, places to eat and rest-stops just like maps we get now. But as we learned this week (when an Irish couple tried to navigate around a road closure) you have to be careful when you leave a known path.

Because when it comes right down to it Google may actually know the way better than we do.

Never enough time

Dave Hovde — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 20:26:47 GMT

That's a look at my computer desktop this morning at home. Let's see, I have a small window with the Mariners game from last night playing on it (my brother lives there so I kinda follow them), I have one of the weather computers at work running remotely and I am also looking at the forecast in another panel, I am also printing a label for a DVD. All that while I am also running three loads of laundry, negotiating with the mother of my kids about weekend plans for the next month and calling my landlord to sort out details on another year lease. Just a regular day in the bee hive of my life.

I am not sure how I got this busy, but it has been so busy that I have not posted to this blog in a while and that is a real frustration for me. I really do love to write for it, but I also think I have made too much work of it. I really try to find something to sink my teeth into when a simple little post would probably suffice.

Let's see what I am putting off: a re-organization of the garage (which is essential really), a much needed trip to the dentist, some cleaning effort and oil-change on my car, and a hands-and-knees scrubbing of the kitchen and bathroom floors. Almost forgot the steam cleaning of the carpets and to hang pictures. Yes, I am one of those guys who has taken more than a year to more or less move into this place.

I basically work all the time. I get up in the morning and make some posts and start looking at and often preparing the forecast because if I wait until my scheduled time at work to begin this there is just no way I can do as good a job at it.

The desktop of my life is like the desktop on my computer screen, just too many things going on at once. I am not sure how good anyone is at multi-tasking. I think we all believe we are better at it than we actually are.

Those big projects just take time. I wish I had more of it. Please send me some.

Blog to resume

Dave Hovde — Wed, 04 May 2011 20:39:00 GMT

It has been several weeks since I have written anything on my blog. I actually love writing for it but time has been at a premium recently and with another weather blog to maintain the personal one took a back seat.

I want to thank those of you who have written me asking for new entries, and I promise you they are coming.

I have been taking some notes, observing the quirks and quarks and put on something with long sleeves just so I can roll them up.

Tearing it up

Dave Hovde — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:49:00 GMT

Maybe Butler could put something inside this basket? Or would it be coffee grounds everywhere? That NCAA final was brutal, and don't tell me it was good defense.

This was my morning emergency. I pretty much need that caffeine lift to get things rolling and this morning I had some good grounds standing by to take a shower in hot water and drip pure life-energy into a carafe. Problem is I couldn't find a filter. I knew I was low, but I had some, somewhere. Now it looks like my kitchen got tossed by a mob crew or FBI task force looking for a stash or something, or microfilm (and honestly, who uses microfilm anymore). I looked in ridiculous places for them: bathroom, under the sink, etc.

Having spend a hazed and overly desperate 20 minutes or so looking, I decided it was time to just man-up and make that 2 dollar investment we all have to make about once a year for more filters because muttering words under my breath didn't seem to be getting me anywhere. So, I threw on my Dodger shirt, Dodger hat, and Dodger flip-flops (I kid you not, that is what I wore) and DROVE the 1 block to Vons. I am ashamed I didn't walk, I would have if I had a cup of coffee in me, I didn't even have instant coffee around, which is shocking. I come with the instructions that I should not operate heavy machinery UNTIL I have consumed some coffee. The systems to keep me running have been carefully crafted by an engineering team, there are back-ups and back-ups to back-ups. So, in a small way I contributed to global warming due to my lack of planning.

Having made my purchases quickly I had to operate the self-check-out. I managed to get the thing to lock up and ask for managerial expertise right away, then I had to text my girlfriend to get her Vons club-card number because I left my card in the car and don't have the foggiest notion what number I had 8 years ago when I signed up for it. Despite my uncaffeinated state I was able to calculate that just the fact of people forgetting their cards or numbers nets Vons many millions of dollars a year, even though my savings today was only 50 cents (I only got three things: the filters, cat food and cat litter...I know the life of a local celebrity, and you wonder why I don't have a film crew following me around).

So, my advice to you is to check your supplies today.

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In other news, yes, I have more blogs planned. I have some great pics and a few good stories to tell from my recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. I just want to write them when I have more than 5 minutes to do it. That's why you are stuck with my thoughts about the issues of coffee filters today.

Stay tuned. Thanks to those of you who have asked for some new posts. No fear, I have you covered.

Seattle's Best

Dave Hovde — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:49:00 GMT

I am doing something this week my family is eminently not good at, actually seeing each other. Like many families of the modern age we have spread to all corners of the U.S.: my mother to Virginia, my Dad to Texas or Minnesota depending on the time of year, my sister is still in my home town of Fargo, I have one brother in San Francisco and my natural-brother is in Seattle. We generally all stay in touch with the occasional phone call.

We can and should do better, period.

So, rather than whine about it I decided to be the first in some time to do something about it. I bought a ticket up to Seattle to see my brother. He called me yesterday to ask what I wanted to see when I was up there, and in a non-schmultzy moment I told him rather matter-of-factly that I was pretty much coming up there just to see him.

He then announced we are headed off to eat some Indian food (which I am not a big fan of curry so I hope the diet coke and hummus served there are pretty good), then he wants be to head out with his running group on Saturday for a jog through a slough (no, really). Ah, reminds me of being kids again. We are right back at deciding what to do, and who's preference trumps. Frankly, I am going to embrace it, if it is face-melting curry we are going to eat then so be it, and if we are going to jog in a bog let's get to it.

All this starts tomorrow, the first leg of my journey is to get to San Jose for my flight. My girlfriend is going to pick me up from my flight back so I will crawl on a bus for the first time in years. It was a humbling moment to be sure that I didn't even know how to arrange such simple transport. 15 minutes of a phone-tree later I discovered that you show up, buy your ticket and get on the bus. I figure I can manage to get from a bus-stop to a hotel once I get there, but I think there may be Las Vegas odds on that.

I booked an early flight out of San Jose and also did something I also don't normally do, actually have a realistic plan to rest before I get on the plane. Generally, I would just get a few hours of sleep and red-eye the drive to the airport and Red Bull my way through my first day of a trip. Maybe, I am growing up.

I really hope this trip does what I want it to do, I want it to re-invigorate some of those family bonds which weaken when we are all too busy. I want to start changing that rule in my family, because I think life is busy you just have to make sure family has it's place and not just an occasional or optional part of it.

Clip and snip and glimpse

Dave Hovde — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:04:00 GMT

Today I was spending my morning as I usually do reading various newspapers and I noticed an article on how the military has stopped delivering 13 different websites to military personnel to free up bandwidth to be used in recover efforts in Japan, a smart move for sure. I had no idea Amazon, MTV, Metecafe's websites was literally getting in the way of any military operations.

I am used to MTV.com and sites like that getting in the way of organizing deeper thoughts (watch a couple episodes of Jersey Shore and you'll know what I mean), and it made me look at the sites on the list.

Metecafe for instance is pretty much a video-clip site. Clips of videos, parts of movies, parts of TV shows, just a lot of parts. The internet is almost literally filled with this, larger things, cut-down, copied and pasted and re-delivered.

Is it just me, or are you ever frustrated trying to find an entire show, or the original article. I worry about our complete understanding of anything.

Did Cliff's Notes really help you study as they were intended, or was it a short cut so you could read 30 pages and not 500? I think somewhere over the last ten years or so we have turned everything into this.

I understand we are all getting busier so the little status updates and tweets and clips may be all we have time for, but I think there is a cautionary tale to be told.

Here is the full list of the websites temporarily blocked:

Youtube.com

Googlevideo.com

Amazon.com

ESPN.go.com

eBay.com

Doubleclick.com

Eyewonder.com

Pandora.com

streamtheworld.com

Mtv.com

Ifilm.com

Myspace.com

Metacafe.com

Not the standard fare

Dave Hovde — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:20:00 GMT

I like to get at least one blog post up a week, and I was sitting here this morning mulling over the prospects: the scraps of paper and short e-mail notes I have left myself with ideas. However none of them really seem appropriate or well-timed.

Perhaps the seriousness of what is happening in Japan has changed my outlook.

I have watched hour after hour of NHK TV as they rattle off the mind-boggling numbers of problems and issues they are sorting through a half a world away, and that half-world never felt closer. When the tsunami crossed the Pacific and our sea level went up and down here you couldn't have ignored the scope how that might have been if you were 5700miles closer to the quake.

Those of us who felt the San Simeon quake in 2003 just need to remember what happened in Japan is thousands of times more powerful, and that is simply difficult to comprehend.

In a way it was like a time machine for us here on the Central Coast. I remember the uncertainty of the moment. And now with the nuclear crisis in Japan, those issues are again up for debate locally. I drive past Diablo Canyon everyday on my way to work.

It all feels like a very small world to me.

Life as a study of the conservation of angular momentum

Dave Hovde — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:07:00 GMT

Sometimes I think the same law that keeps a gyroscope upright keeps me upright: the conservation of angular momentum. In the physics sense, the law relates to the rotational component of momentum, in a less geek-squad view sometimes I am less sure I am making progress in any specific direction but that I am spinning around terribly fast and that perhaps that alone keeps me from falling over.

Conventional wisdom says it is important to know your center, especially since everything seems to spin around it. Pull things into the middle and everything moves faster, just like a figure skater when the arms are drawn into the body.

I think because of my background I like to at least notionally try to break down life in terms of physics, however this last weekend I found that others had done this much better using statistics.

The documentary Freakonomics is based on the 2005 book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. It tackles controversial topics like crime and the raising of children through a strictly mathematical glass. The stunning conclusions include among other things that children can be bribed into doing better in school and the concept of naming children is reflective of a lot more than just parent preferences.

Yesterday I noticed one of my favorite authors, Davd Brooks, from the New York Times has also come out with a new book about society and culture called "The Social Animal". Brooks basically contends that it's wrong to argue that you're a highly rational person, reaching decisions only after weighing all the pros and cons. We aren't primarily the products of our conscious thinking, but of thinking that happens below the level of awareness.

So, should I be thinking harder to understand things? Or is Brooks right and there is only so much I will ever know about that?

My head is spinning.

Hey, maybe I am right.

Check your pockets and your packets

Dave Hovde — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:32:00 GMT

The hulking mass of twisted, crumpled and lightly worn clothing compressed into a plastic baby blue basket could not be ignored any longer. While it fit in the container the density of the object must have started to draw other objects in the room closer to it. The calipers of modern physics allow only a partial understanding of my laundry pile, certainly interdimensional objects swallow up some of my socks and underwear explaining the almost constant need to perform laundry tasks.

My apartment complex has several areas with laundry machines, but these rudimentary implements are not nearly large enough to contain the mass of my laundry nor the can produce the high velocity agitation of the super-colliders at the laundromat on Grand Avenue in Grover Beach. So, I got everything I would need for the two block journey (cell phone, e-book, and a lot of quarter-shaped silver objects the particle accelerators require to function).

I think in my head I made this into a scientific-physics adventure because the mundane task of shoving clothes through water can be a bit lacking. I inadvertently made it much more interesting by not checking the pockets of my kids clothes. They stay with me on weekends and in the flurry of activity I apparently failed to observe the embedding of several handfuls of Light-Bright pieces.

Most of the people in the facility noticed me scooping the pieces, especially as they ker-plinked the ground having slipped out of my hand...half went back in the machine and hit tin, the other half bouncing off the side of the machine and onto the linoleum floor.

I re-pocketed the pieces, essentially just for the photo above.

Having less-than-stealthfully repositioned my clothes into the dryer I turned on my eBook reader. I recently got the Nook Color eBook reader and had already changed the firmware so it is more of an Android tablet than anything else. I used my phone to create a WIFI network so I could pull vital status updates from people on Facebook and see the latest picture of Kim Kardashian without make-up (the website made it sound like she looked like a cratered moon of a distant planet, she just looked the same to me sans makeup).

I was cruising along when I happened to glance down at my phone and noticed 3 other people had hopped onto the network I created. Having recently upgraded my phone firmware too I had default settings on the WIFI, so no security was required for anyone to acquire it. I quickly fixed the flaw once I noticed it, but then I started my cursory investigation. There didn't look like a lot of good suspects. Certainly not the person with less than a handful of teeth tumbling past the door, nor the mother of three just trying to keep her three year old from hopping in a front loading machine. In fact, no one appeared to be operating any electronic devices. But then I caught one guy, sitting in his truck clicking away on his iPhone4. I know this because his WIFI credentials listed him as a user. He was clearly taking his assigned seat inside his pick-up while his partner literally did the dirty work. I never found the other two but suspect the car a few down from the truck which was loudly playing rap music was the next place to look. The iPhone guy I don't get. You have your own 3G service, why steal my WIFI? I actually know the answer to that: he is probably on metered service, I am not. It is the reason I have stuck with Sprint and forked out for the premium phone and the 'everything' plan. This guy forked out for the premium phone too, but unless you really pony up with ATT or Verizon you'll end up seeking free WIFI wherever you go.

Phone providers are trying to clamp down on the amount of data they hand out (hey, so am I).

Interestingly the story about iPhone4 on Verizon is that the sales were far lower than expected, almost no lines opening day, and no reason for specially planned UPS services to deliver the expected mass of orders.

Bottom line is that a lot of iPhone users are in contracts, Android has very competitive products, and ultimately everyone knows it is a 3g device with the next greatest thing to be delivered this summer when it goes 4g. That won't matter either since even that buyer will still be looking for free WIFI.

"Chamberlain for three..."

Dave Hovde — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:43:00 GMT

My basketball weekend started out in a somewhat dimly lit Paso Robles gym at 7:45am, the florescent lights flickering at that hour; or perhaps that was my consciousness having only gotten a hour or two of sleep thanks to a stormy night and plenty of nose to the radar work. Since I don't live in Paso, I got up good and early and drove blearily with a meager curl of steam rising out of a small hole in the plastic lid over quickly ordered McDonald's coffee. It was worth it, my son had played off-guard all year but this week got to play point which meant he had the ball every trip down the floor. It was his first game as field general, he made a few mistakes but in general did pretty well. Due to league rules, he had to sit the whole second half because he had played too many quarters this season. I watched his teammates scratch out at 13-7 victory.

Now that he gets the ball more he is more interested in the philosophy of basketball when he is not on the court. At his level there are only a handful of kids who can reliably dribble down the court without the double-dribble or worse yet give up the easy steal to the first kid who sticks a skinny arm in between nervous bounces of the ball to the floor. Ethan gets that part, mostly because I did to him what my Dad did to me: tell him to steal the ball from me when we play. I just turn my hip toward him and don't let him get the ball. Now he'll employ a little of that with me and protects the ball well under pressure.

This weekend he stopped shooting various zombies, paused intervening in various covert military operations and ceased important space related missions and put an NBA game into the XBOX360. At first I thought he was watching the All-Star Game because we had watched the slam dunk competition the night before. But when I entered the room he proudly announced he was playing the Celtics against the Lakers, and he was playing the Celtics. I warned him what a poor choice that was considering I was in charge of his welfare for the next several days. After that he was more interested in how to play the game. I talked him through the basic controls and after allowing for a good amount of practice time agreed to take him on in a game. I said I wanted to play the Lakers but he could play anyone else. I guess I assumed he'd take the Celtics, or an All-Star team but what he chose was the Legends of the 50s-60s.

Right from the get-go I had my hands full. The aging Derrick Fisher couldn't cover Oscar Robertson or Bob Cousy. And George Mikan ate up Pau Gasol down low. I started explaining to Ethan that picking the best players of all time was not entirely fair, he responded that it is really more about how you play the XBOX and less so who is on the floor. Fine, I rolled up my sleeves down 11 and got to work. Kobe was cold as ice on mid-range jumpers and Oscar Robertson played great defense on him. I tried everyone on the bench. Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic couldn't get anything going either (they never did in real-life either, so I am not sure what my expectations were here). So I went to Lamar Odom, he had a step on Wilt Chamberlain and poured in a quick 20 before half. I was still down three.

Second half my shooting woes continued, I went with Kobe on the drive a little more and got a few to drop but I had more success down low with Pau and Lamar. I got lucky that Ethan preferred outside jumpers, and not always by guys suited to take them. George Mikan and Wilt Chamberlain didn't have a 3 point line when they played so their non-earth-tethered-spirits infused into the XBOX avatars must not have been overly easy with the green light to shoot from downtown. A building could have been built with the accumulated bricks. However there was a nice 30-footer Wilt Chamberlain drained. The voice of Clark Kellogg was the analyst, "Chamberlain for 3....Well, I don't know why he shot it from there, but he did and it went in."

I pulled away for a 7 point win. I had other chores to do around the place, and checked back in later on. I dropped the hammer once or twice in our game so Ethan was looking to figure out how to dunk. I had instructed him that it was the trigger button and 'x' when you are close. He expressed his frustrations from around a corner and wanted me to come and take a look. He had the stars of the 80s on the floor and said, "Number 33 can't do anything, he stinks." That was Larry Bird. Ethan had him going trip after trip down the floor trying to break things down off the dribble and driving the paint. Imagine the frustration his avatar must have had from the joystick instructions. Ethan also thought #11 was lacking in from the air traffic control perspective. I had to tell him that Isiah Thomas was not a dunker (nor a general manager). "Well, who is even good on this team Dad?" His five was the aforementioned Bird and Thomas along with Dr. J, Patrick Ewing and Kevin McHale. It is hard to tell a kid just how good these guys were. Ethan was curious who the best player ever was, so I asked him if he had heard of Michael Jordan. And after some YouTube videos I think I convinced him.

Now he wants an XBOX rematch. I have been trying to convince him that regular NBA teams are better to play again each other. The defenses are not like brick walls and you need to employ teamwork. Ethan prefers to battle the titans of all time, he likes the 60s and 70s legend team and is highly confident in a win this time. I said I am fine with the 90s legends and we can virtually lace-em-up whenever he wants. If he didn't know who Jordan was he certainly doesn't know about Magic, Barkley, Olajuwon, Robinson, and Shaq when he was good. Ethan winks at me like he is really sure, I just wink back.