Sailing: An Odd Essay

Test Driving Hardy Heron with Wubi

I felt like unwinding with a technical challenge, yesterday evening. And what could be more fun than screwing around with a new operating system?

Well, since I couldn't do any of those things you just thought of, the operating system was the way to go.

I've been dying to try out Ubuntu Linux on a fully powered desktop, but since auto repair costs have been eating up all my computer-building money I haven't had the opportunity.

I could have partitioned the hard drive on Donna's one-year-old Dell and set up Ubuntu on that. But partitioning a hard drive is a bit like giving birth: you might get a new operating system out of it, but there's lots of groaning and screaming, and once in a while, somebody dies. I wasn't willing to repartition my wife's hard drive and run the risk of wiping out all of her stuff. (Unlike regular birth, hard-drive partitioning usually leads to the death of the husband.)

But I'd read that Ubuntu's latest release, "Hardy Heron," uses a program called "Wubi" that will install Ubuntu alongside Windows without partitioning the hard drive. This is a tremendous improvement, and it will doubtless bring Linux into the homes of millions like me: soft-core geeks who like messing around with technology and like the idea of open source, but who don't have the patience to compile a kernel from scratch--or risk partitioning their hard drives.

The install was immediate and painless. I downloaded and burned a disk image of the Hardy Heron release, but when I went to install it I learned that wasn't even necessary--Wubi will even handle the download and installation for you! I'd already burned the CD, though, so I used that, rather than download it all again.  Wubi asked me how much of the hard drive I wanted to devote to the install. The core files are going to take 5 GB whatever you do, but you can specify how much space you want to reserve in your partition-that's-not-a-partition for the OS, additional programs, and all your data. I set aside 15 GB, figuring I wasn't going to be storing lots of big media here.  I pulled out a novel and let it go to work, remembering long laborious Windows installs of yore.

Ubuntu was installed and functioning in 10 minutes.

This is remarkable, given the amount of configuring you used to have to do to get a Linux system to work. I expected big problems with detecting USB drives and CD/DVD burners, but they were detected by the system right away. Even our wireless Microsoft brand keyboard and mouse worked without a hiccup.

Now when I re-boot the machine, I'm given the option to use Windows or Ubuntu. If I press nothing for ten seconds it goes to Windows, like it used to--so maybe Donna won't even notice that I've been messing with her computer. When I select Ubuntu I pop into that OS just as if I'd split the drive with a 15 GB partition.  After working in Windows XP (and especially after working in Windows Vista), Ubuntu seems preternaturally fast and responsive.

When I'm in Ubuntu, I can't see the Windows files that share the disk with it, but when I switch over to Windows I can track down the Ubuntu files--and I can remove the whole installation from the Add/Remove programs dialog, just like any other program, when I'm through with it.

I understand that this type of installation--without a dedicated partition--slows down disk performance some, but it's not really noticeable.  All the standard open-source office and graphics programs are there already.  I didn't notice anything ground-breaking, or anything I couldn't necessarily do with my Linux-powered Asus, but all the good stuff was there and I was ready to go hunting for more.

A couple of disappointments, now.

All the flashy graphics effects I've seen featured in Linux magazines don't seem to happen here. I expected a big rotating cube and animated program switching. Not that I wanted it, so much as I wanted to know I could have it, if I ever did want it. I know we've got the processing power and the graphics card to handle them, so it must be a driver issue. Clicking the radio button to turn these effects on returns the error message, "Advanced graphics effects are disabled in this system." I'm sure with some research and a couple of downloads I could flashify the system by 200% or so, but...

The big deal-breaker for me right now is the wireless networking. Ubuntu doesn't seem to recognize our wireless card. I went to the vendor's website and found a Linux driver, downloaded that, and tried to make sense of the installation instructions by crossing my fingers and cutting and pasting commands into a terminal window. (Hey, at least if I screw up my installation at this point I've only lost 20 minutes of work.) All it returned me were cryptic error messages. So a bit more googling turns up some program called Ndiswrapper which works, through some arcane process, by converting a wireless networking card's Windows driver into something Linux can use.

The walkthroughs for this process are all several pages long and beyond my capacity--or at least too much for an evening's light entertainment. And from the comments other Linux users leave beneath these walkthroughs, I'm not alone. "I've try this every time a new tutorial comes out and still no joy," one user wrote.

Because we share our internet connection with a neighbor (legitimately, I might add--we pay half) we don't have access to the router or a wired connection. So for this Linux install--no internet. (That might be a good thing. I might get more work done if I wasn't distracted by email and youtube videos every time I sat down to write something.) But connecting to repositories of free software is one of the great joys of Linux use, so it's discouraging.

And it seems kind of ironic that, using the Wubi installer, you can download and install an entire operating system, wirelessly--but that once you boot into that OS you're completely cut off. If only operating systems could understand irony.

Hey--maybe that could be a feature of the next release. We've had Feisty Fawn, Gutsy Gibbon, Hardy Heron. Get your hard drives ready for 9.0: Ironic Iguana!

So anyway, if you have a computer with a wired internet connection and have been wanting to try out Linux, give the Hardy Heron Ubuntu distribution a try. It comes bundled with all the usual open-source office, graphics, and internet applications, it'll do everything 95% of the population needs to do, and you don't ever have to run anti virus software or spy-sweepers or spend hours deleting vendor ware. The other 5% of users will be able to hook up to repositories and get whatever else they need for whatever else it is they want to do. As always with Linux, you can't beat the price. And the install was mind-bogglingly simple--a hell of a lot easier than downgrading this computer from Vista to XP, for example.

It's getting to the point where, I fear, having Linux on your PC won't even make you cool any more.

Unless you can get the wireless networking to work, in which case you are cold as ice.

Parallel Universes and the Soul-Body Dichotomy

The question of the existence of God hasn't been settled yet, as far as I know.  Neither has the question of the soul--whether it's something separate from our bodies, something that may be able to survive bodily death and install itself someplace else (reincarnating into another body, rising to heaven, dropping to hell), or whether the soul, and our consciousness, are simply artifacts of our vastly complicated but purely material minds.  People have been arguing circles around this for a few years.  Penrose and Dennett are still at it, if you can believe it. 

But if, as some scientists and philosophers assert, there exist an infinite number of parallel universes, and if everything conceivable must be happening in one or another of those, well then, there have got to be some universes where these questions have already been settled.  There's got to be a couple where the answers are so obvious that you don't even have to wonder.

There has got to be a universe where there's only one planet, and it's Earth.  The Sun circles around it on a rusty but serviceable track, and a radiant, bearded God floats across the sky on a throne of semi-sweet whipped-cream clouds and tosses gifts down to the surface when he's happy and thunderbolts when he's mad.  There has got to be a universe where our souls are encapsulated in animals that follow us around throughout our lives, a la The Golden Compass.  And there has got to be a universe where we tow our souls around in tin wagons, and our souls are the size of a football and the consistency of jell-o, and if you lose your wagon you die,  and if you leave it out in the sun too long your soul gets bitter and leathery, but if you mist it with a water-bottle you'll fell better.  If you're clever and you find someone who leads a happier life than you do, maybe you can trick them into trading, and then you'll be happier for a while too, but you'll be someone different from before, and it'll probably only last a while because inevitably someone will con you out of your satisfaction in turn, and then you'll be clever and unhappy again.  And life won't be a matter of who has the most money, but a matter of who can be clever enough to protect and preserve their souls and remain happy at the same time, too.

It's as absurd as Tralfamadorians, but those have to be real someplace, too.  In fact, there has to be a universe to accurately reflect every novel ever written, and one where we age backwards, and one where we all live forever and never get sick.

And a lot more, besides.

Honda Civic Repairs

New distributor for the Grapemobile, today.

I drive my 70 miles and pull into the parking lot and hear this grinding noise when the engine idles.  Figure it's the vent fan.  I turn it up and down but it doesn't change the timbre of the grind.

Stepping on the gas does, though.  Not good.  Hey, if I really rev the engine, the sound gets drowned out.  Also if I turn up the radio loud.  But this can't be a real solution.

So I pop the hood.  It takes me five minutes to find that bar that holds the hood up but after that I do pretty well.  I almost lose my tie in the radiator but I locate the noise coming from beneath the distributor cap.  In fact I can feel the vibration when I lay my hand on it. 

I figure, something in there needs some grease or something.  If I'd had a screwdriver and some time I'd probably open that sucker up then and there.  But instead I drive it to the mechanic around the corner from where I work and ask him to have a look.  "Something's making a noise under the distributor cap," I tell him, beaming with pride at my own knowledge. 

I call the wife and tell her the same.  "What's a distributor cap?" she says, "How do you even know what you're talking about?"  I remind her that I contain multitudes.  Plus I used to change the spark plugs in our boat motor.

Fat lot of good that does me.  Mechanic calls me back an hour later and says the whole distributor is shot.  Gonna be $525 parts and labor.

So I call Heidi at Mr. T's Auto, in Mashpee, who I value and trust.  They do it all, and they'll rebuild, or weld, or go used if they can.  They once fixed a muffler for $200 that Midas was going to charge $995 for.  And what do I know about this guy in the city?  I wish I could take it home to Heidi and let them do it.  But she tells me, yeah, distributors, Honda Civics, it's a problem.  A grinding noise?  Don't drive it home like that.

So now I'm out another week's pay just for the privilege of getting home from my job.  Seen another way, my economic stimulus package has just done some stimulatin'.   

Drat, as they say.   I miss public transportation.

City mechanic said this, after: "High mileage car like that, you want to start thinking about a new water pump and timing belt."

And I said, "Ha!  I already did those!"  At Mr. T's, of course.

And he said, "Well then, I won't be making any more money off this car."   

I have now officially fixed everything that can go wrong with it.

Except for the paint-job.

More Noises?

How does your mind work?

Chili's comment to my previous post got me to wondering about this. 

While my father drives he builds buildings in his head. When you get to know him you'll know that I don't mean this superficially. He has been known to arrive home from a 1200 mile round trip and sit down with a pencil and a straightedge and draw a COMPLETE SET OF CONSTRUCTION PLANS (including dimensions, cost estimates, architectural details, material specifications, etc.) from memory. This is how my parents have a house in Canada now... many quiet hours driving. This skill requires a level of concentration that I have not attained.

So now I'm jealous, jealous like a zombie.  I want his dad's braaaains!

As I wrote the other day, I've been pretty happy about the zen-like trance I can sink into these days.  It's a nice change from my younger self, who was constantly churning over material from philosophy and literature classes, and an even nicer change from my older self, who burned all his spare processor cycles on one irrational anxiety after another.  It's peace and quiet, at last.

But compared to Chili's dad, peace and quiet are a huge waste of time.  Wouldn't it be nice to draft entire houses in my quiet time?  Nah, my wife would like that better than I would.  But it would be nice if I could plot out my novels.

I've started a new one, by the way.  And this time I'm doing a bit more outlining and research before I settle down and start churning out manuscript.  One step at a time, right?  And little steps should lend themselves well to long quiet stretches of introspection; a 90 minute drive should have me putting out character sketches and plot points like nobody's business. 

But it doesn't work like that for me.  I'm never able to come up with more than a single idea during my drives.  For example, yesterday I worked out how I'm going to incorporate the narrator's POV into an epistolary story structure.  A significant achievement, but it took all of five minutes of focused concentration.

Getting any real work done--it just doesn't happen.  I need to have a computer, or better yet a stack of paper, in front of me.  Words just don't come without media to record them.  And they don't linger in my head without it, either.  Anything I wrote yesterday--it's gone if it's not in front of me.

(Gene Wolfe wrote a lovely thing about a similar condition.)

So what's the problem?  And is there a problem? 

This is a new anxiety--the fear that I'm wasting my silences.

* * *

I've always loved emptinesses.  I don't know why.  A bare, undecorated room is where I'll feel most comfortable.  I could never be a Catholic because the churches are too fancy.  There is too much detail in them.

Woods are nice but a craggy mountainside is better, with lots of open air below me. 

I'd like to see the desert.

I may not have a paperless office, but when I'm not working on those papers they need to be tucked in a drawer, out of sight.   

I can't drive a cluttered car.

Too many books on the shelves make me claustrophobic.  CDs and DVDs are better tucked away, but at least they're not as bulky as VHS tapes.  Files on a hard drive are best. 

Time should be pristine, too.  A crowded schedule makes me feel like I'm drowning in a tank.  I hate making plans.  Plans are too much like furniture, heavy and bulky and hard to move around.  For the rest of your life you're making paths around them. 

Official letters, insurance declarations, mortgage applications, financial statements--what a waste of pristine, white paper!  I threw away a ticket into Harvard (from the retired head of their biology department) because their application was too long.  Harvard!  How would I have lived around a piece of furniture like that?

The text of stories, at least, has a uniform gray blankness when seen from a distance.  Still...

A blogger once kindly asked me (it was either Scamper or Outer Life; they're both great), "Wouldn't it be nice to just wake up one day at the end of your life surrounded by all the words you've written?"  I didn't have the heart to reply that that's a nightmare of mine.  I'm a compulsive diarist who's happiest when there's nothing to write about.  "I want to be bored."  I'm disgusted by all the soiled journals I've left behind.  All that blank potential whittled down to a few words about what actually happened. 

Paper may be cheap but toner is expensive.  I always shudder over the "print" button.

* * *

So that's the trade-off, I guess.  Make plans with your free time and it's not so free any more.  Put something in your open spaces and they're a little less open.  I've probably thrown away a lot of opportunities by clinging to all the things I didn't have. 

I probably would have dated that red-haired girl if I'd kept my car in high school.  I probably would have done some interesting work if I'd gone to college.  I probably would have had kids if...well, all I can say is all my ex-girlfriends are mothers now.  That red-haired girl is a mother, too.

So it turns out I'm still pretty happy about the stuff I don't have.  There's still room for the stuff I care about, and some space left over, besides.

Best Chinese Food in Eastern Massachusetts

Life may be harder now, what with working more, driving farther, money tighter, and recession looming. 

But on the bright side, China Chef is along my commute.

I would pit this little Wareham strip-mall Chinese place against any comparable restaurant on Cape Cod.  Tiki Port in Hyannis has tiki style and a giant bronze Bhudda.  Hunan Gourmet in Orleans has an all you can eat buffet.  Boston has lots of exquisite Asian cuisine but little of it is reasonably priced. 

But China Chef has flavor.

Their prices are low too.  House lo-mein, crab rangoons, chicken wings, and General Tso's chicken, all large, came to $32.  That'll be dinner for two and lunch for two, twice.  A suitable treat for recession-era dining! 

I don't know what they do to the house lo-mein beyond piling it with loads of chicken, shrimp, and pork.  It's got a smoky flavor and the noodles are larger than usual, more like a fettuccine noodle than your usual lo-mein, and it has a texture that's a little chewier than most, too.  The noodles are not just filler for the meats they cradle.  They're a treat in themselves.

The crab rangoons hold a huge deposit of...that rangoon stuff, and the chicken wings are meaty and tender on the inside despite being crunchy and fried. 

When we lived in Wareham, China Chef was the place we'd go after a long sailing trip, when the boat was unpacked and we wanted to veg out with TV and fast food.  So maybe that's why it tastes so good to me--it's a sense memory linked to good times. 

Or maybe they cut their MSG with opiates. 

Anyway it's right off of route 25/495, and I'm passing by there a lot these days.  So for the "looking on the bright side" file--hooray China Chef!  We've missed you.  We may not be living in Wareham again (hey, that belongs in the "bright side" department, too) but we'll be stopping by.

More Silences

Been thinking a lot about silence again, lately.

I'm very comfortable with silence.  More than comfortable.  I need it.

I remember walking through the cold as a young man.  The collar on my second-hand wool coat was turned up because I wasn't sensible enough to own a scarf.  I'd walked twenty minutes through the woods from school, along the power lines that led towards my house.  It was a silent cold, with no wind; the cold lived in the still air and didn't need any help at all with being cold. 

It was cold enough that walking didn't warm me. 

Suddenly I thought, "This must be the temperature at which thoughts freeze."  My mind, which usually chattered away with observations and analyses, non-stop, walking or sitting or riding a bike or practicing the piano and pretty much always, my usually busy mind had been absolutely silent for those twenty minutes.  It was extraordinary, because there was no sound from the outside, either.  Absolute stillness, leaving behind a twenty minute vacuum in my narrative, walled off by the thin membrane of awareness of a lack.

And back then, this was a remarkable occurrence.  It terrified me, because my mind never stopped.  It was always too busy trying to be right about everything, back then.  Friends would say to me, "Don't you get tired of thinking all the time?"  And I'd wonder what the alternative was.

I'd just walked through it.  The alternative was very still and cold.

* * *

I've never liked television.  The sound of a TV completely shuts me down.  Put a picture to it and I can't notice anything else.  But language in general does this too.  Words coming in from anywhere--they don't leave room for anything else.  If they're not something I've chosen to submit to, they'll erase me.  No reading,  no writing, no thinking, while those words come in.  My mind becomes the machine's mind, when the machine is broadcasting.

Getting to my new job takes a 90 minute drive.  I don't mind it.  I was listening to those podcasts for a while--and I'd choose to do that anyway, so drive time becomes leasure time plus an excuse.  And if I got tired of stories I'd play indie rock or classical music.  It made for a pleasant hour and half, twice a day.

And then the cassette adapter that connects my mp3-capable cd player to my car stereo jammed and broke.  I went a couple days without buying a new one, and then decided I rather like the interior of the car better without all those wires snaking from the console to the passenger seat.

That leaves the radio.  So I'll listen to public radio once in a while, classical or jazz or news about stuff I wouldn't hear about otherwise.  I tried flipping through some of the other stations and wondered, how do people listen to "regular" radio?  There's so much chatter and advertising--even the stuff that isn't advertising is advertising.  I can't understand how people take that much advertising.  It's insulting and invasive.  It makes me violently angry.  I will not let it re-program me.

So it's public radio.  The signal only carries me halfway home, though.  My evenings fade out to static and silence, and my mornings begin with it.  Somewhere around exit four I can turn my radio on and make out the voices.

If I want to. 

For the last several days I've reached my destination without turning it on at all, and realized that I've just spent 90 minutes listening to nothing more than the purr of my engine, the click of my standard transmission when I shift it, the whisper-friction of my brakes when I apply them, the hum of the tires and the whistle of wind around the dented body of my Civic.  And I can't recall a single thought that troubled the emptiness of those 90 minutes.

It's a strange meditation to practice three hours a day, but I've been choosing it without choosing it.  And it feels pretty good.  It doesn't even feel as cold as that early one.  I know something must be going on during these spells.  I just don't know what it is. 

I guess I'll hear it when I'm ready to hear it.

Ugh

I wonder what's going on with my immune system.  I used to go years without getting sick.  Now, I've been laid up five times in the past 12 months--usually for several days to a solid week of bedridden angst. 

Predictions were, when we left the city and stopped riding the T, I wouldn't get sick so much.  Predictions have been proven false by this past week.  A tickle in my throat on Tuesday has led to me spending 44 of the past 48 hours in bed.

This wouldn't be such a big deal if it happened last week.  But the thing is, I've just started a job at a new business which can't really afford to hire someone just to have them call in sick on their second day.  Which I've already done.  Now it's my third day and I've got an hour to decide whether to call in again (and probably lose the job) or buck up under a load of ibuprofen and acetaminophen and shoulder a long commute and a bit of training, hopefully not passing out in front of customers (or in the car) and hopefully not getting everyone sick around me.

Damn bodies.