momentous decisions and humdrum stuff

I sit here, in the easy chair in my old room in my folks' house in Apple Valley, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, on this gorgeous night. It's in the 60s out there...amazing for August...a southwest wind directly off the Pacific Ocean blew up last night and it's cooled the ensuing day off by about 20 degrees. I'm lovin' it. Having downed a couple of daiquiris and popped my James Brown CD into my laptop (currently playing, "Funky President," a.k.a "People It's Bad," which has a frightening amount of relevance and resonance with this new Obama administration, no racism intended: "stock market goin' up, jobs goin' down/there ain't no funkin' jobs to be found"), I think it's about time I gave you a few updates about my status and condition here. First of all, Mom adopted a collie at the animal shelter today. It's a purebred, for certain; the shelter staff insisted she was a smooth collie, but she looks more like a rough. She's six years old and quite beautiful, though today she was a little shell-shocked from being spayed an hour or so before we picked her up. We're still deciding on a name; or rather, we're hotly debating it. The dog herself is currently resting in a big dog carrier in the front room; we reckon she won't snap out of the anesthesia until tomorrow morning. Then we'll see how she does. Second, I've been spending some time with some of my old friends from around here. I finally met up with Virginia, whom I've known since I was 15 (and I'm nearly 23 now), who recently finished up a degree in theater and stage production at Occidental University and is now working for Hesperia Parks & Recreation. We met up at Red Robin (a burger joint) and caught up. Tuesday we went to see Public Enemies at the new Cinemark theater they built down at Jess Ranch since we've been gone. (Despite being about as historically accurate as 300, it was a pretty good film, plenty of action and some drama.) The film was good, but the theater itself was lousy; the screen kept flickering, and even cut out altogether a few times, especially during the final dramatic sequence of the movie. Needless to say, that caused some consternation in the audience, and the theater staff unsurprisingly gave everybody a free movie pass as we exited. Splendid, maybe I'll change my stance and go see this sixth Harry Potter flick. I've heard it's not so bad as its predecessors. Either way, it was awful nice to see good ol' Virge again. Third, and most portentous, I've made up my mind about where I'm going. I'm saving Japan and the United Arab Emirates for a rainy day. Australia I'm putting on hold until after I get my pilot's license. I'm going to wait around here in California until the end of August (when all these job openings for reporters I've applied to finally close) and see if I've got a bird in the hand in the lower 48. If I haven't, then I'm off to Alaska: a 3,600-mile road trip up Interstate 15 through Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, and finally Alaska. (MapQuest estimates my fuel costs will be about $600 or so; not so bad.) Once I'm there I'll get some accommodation and throw all my energies into acquiring a writing position with the papers or (better yet) an on-air job at one of the grassroots radio stations. I'm truthfully leaning more toward radio than print media at this point, though I'll be glad of whatever opportunities present themselves. I'll give myself three to four months in Alaska to find a job; if I haven't secured gainful employment in that time (whatever it may be; heck, I'll drive a cab if I have to, I've always wanted to try that), I'll quit on the business and go to Australia or Japan then. Fourth, after having gotten some maintenance done on my new Jeep (new or refurbished brake rotors, and a repaired blower for the A/C system), Pop and I plan to flush the coolant tomorrow as well as top up the tires, check the oil and wash the windows. We'll give my beloved Cherokee a good going-over and then it'll be all road-ready. Finally, I just want to let you know that, yes, I have finally begun uploading all the photos I took from Jeju and Gwangju, my last two weeks in Korea, to Blogger. See my related posts. Postman out.