montecristo

Heh, it's already 60° F this morning. I love it. Spring is in the air. The sky is vivid purple and streaked with breaks through which the sun shines, and it is attempting to keep raining, off and on. This morning as I walked out my front door, I noticed that there were pink hyacinths blooming in my front yard. If you don't know what those look like, Google for hyacinth pictures. They're really nifty, but don't blame me: I didn't plant them. One of them is coming up in the middle of the yard. This should alert you to the fact that I haven't mowed the lawn in awhile, and my excuse is that house-hunting is keeping me far too occupied to attend to it. Also on the horticultural front this morning, the flowering tree that is also in my front yard is also getting ready to bloom. It flowers even before its leaves come out for the summer. It has large five-petaled greenish-yellow-white blossoms about the size of magnolia blooms but I have no idea what it is. I am wondering if it will bloom by the time that I move. Someday I am going to have to post pictures of this place here. It really is a nice place and I will miss it.

I went to work the usual way this morning. Passing over the Antioch Bridge I noticed that the delta water is very muddy today. No doubt this is the result of the rain we've been having. The top of Mt Diablo was wreathed in clouds, and I realize that this is another wonderful vista which I will miss after I move and no longer drive this way every day. Mt Diablo is a really interesting place to visit. The view from the top is panoramic and magnificent. On a clear day, you can see out past the Golden Gate Bridge.

I didn't play the radio this morning. Sometimes I don't feel like dealing with the chatter and inane commercials. Most of the time I change stations when a commercial comes on, but this morning I was just entertaining myself with my own thoughts. Even without the radio though, I am seldom without music. I have songs playing in my head quite frequently. Occasionally, one gets "stuck" and I hear it for hours. The ex tells me that this phenomenon is called "demon looping." I suppose this has to do with the fact that it has similarities to the concept of demonic possession, in that the music occupies your thoughts and just refuses to let go. Some people don't like it when this happens to them, but I have never much minded this phenomenon myself, as it is always something I am interested in hearing anyway. It lasts as long as does, and I have no difficulty "thinking around it." This morning, I demon-looped Chicago's "Just You And Me" about half-way to work and then rehearsed some other tune out loud (I do that) for possible posting as an audio post, which I have never done, but am contemplating as a kind of dare with myself. Heh heh, if that doesn't convince anyone that they are merely abusing themselves reading these pages, then nothing else will. Eh, it's a flight of fancy. Perhaps it will pass before I kareoke my friends' ears off.

I come down into Oakland over highway 24, through the Caldecott Tunnel. I get off the highway onto Brush St. at the 11th street exit and travel down Brush to 5th, onto which I turn left and continue until it takes me to the Webster Street Tunnel entry ramp, which leads to Alameda. Usually on 5th Street, somewhere between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Webster, you can smell the roasting coffee beans at Hansen's Gourmet Coffee roasting plant. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone has ever thought of suing them for "second-hand caffeine rush?" I wouldn't, even though I find the scent of roasting coffee beans invigoratingly delicious. This morning, they must have been working up a rather large batch, because I smelled the coffee all the way from 11th street all the way to the tunnel. For those of you who do not live in the Bay Area, go mapquest up a map and you'll see what I mean. I wonder if the productivity in Oakland is up today?