I noticed something odd about my passport: it is dated June 1998, but the photograph must have been taken before April. (My hair was cut in September 1989, November 1994, April 1998 – when I stopped parting it – and January 2002.)

How long does it take to issue a US passport?

I can’t remember the last time, but they say one never forgets the first: When an opportunity for a trip to Spain suddenly arose in 1970, Mom took me to the passport office in Chicago. We turned in our paperwork and the clerk said, “Okay, come back in ten days.” “But we’re leaving on Tuesday!” “Oh! In that case, three and a half hours.”

All I seem to do in this blog is complain. I need a hobby. Or a job.
Well, here’s something positive: I’m listening to Dawganova by the David Grisman Quintet (1995), a playful acoustic album with a bit of bluegrass and a dollop of Brazil. (I hope that’s not too misleading. I enjoy a wide variety of music, from ABBA to Art of Noise to Baka Beyond, but lack the vocabulary to describe it.) I first heard them at a benefit in Mill Valley for (i think) Prop 215, and was promptly hooked. (Booker T & the MGs also played splendidly at the same event.)

A week or two ago I wrote to a friend in jail. Uncertain what resources might be available to him, I enclosed a stamped return envelope. The letter came back, marked “RETURN TO SENDER / UNAUTHORIZED MAIL”; it had been slit open and crudely closed with a little piece of tape, and contained a checklist which may be useful to any of you who may know a guest of the Solano County Sheriff’s Office.

This letter / item is being returned to you for the following reason(s):

• Photographs depicting gangs / weapons / unlawful activity/ sexually explicit. Limited to 5 photographs; no negatives, slides, Polaroid’s, sticker photos, frames or albums, nude or partially nude photos. Photo size limit 4″x7″.
• Books, soft-cover only, must be sent directly from the publisher / vendor.
• Newspapers and magazines must be purchased by subscription in the inmate’s name and must come directly from the publisher.
• No pens / pencils, envelopes (metered, plain or stamped) postage stamps or stationary.
• No cash / personal checks accepted. Money Orders must be legible and filled out completely.
• Inmate to inmate mail not approved by the Facility Commander. No Third party mail.
• Item cannot be searched without being destroyed.
• Item contains metal, wood, plastic, cloth, cardboard, paint, crayon, perfume, lipstick, stickers, glitter, tape, glue, power, liquid paper stains or unknown substances.
• Greeting Card size limit is 9″x12″.
• Limit of 5 (newspaper or magazines) clippings or photocopies.
• Packages must have prior approval of the Facility Commander.
• Drawings depicting gang weapons, sexually explicit and/or unlawful activity.
• No hair, maps, jewelry, catalogs, posters, lottery tickets, candy, trading cards, magnets, condoms, ID cards, stencils/tattoo patterns, date/address books or other ___________________________.

I copied the list as literally as I can, including the quaint msplngs; except that instead of bullets the list has ‘__’ (which I don’t know how to imitate in HTML). Note the hesitation between positive and negative in these commandments; pity the person who tries to obey them literally. It’s true that my letter contained “No hair,” etc, but is that really why it was returned?

As a favor to my dearest friend, I went today to the Federal Building in San Francisco to drop off a piece of paper.

I cleverly left my pocket-knife behind (and missed it twice) but, addled by a lifetime of drug abuse and masturbation, neglected to bring along an annotated wallet-size portrait of myself. (In the normal course of life, I may go weeks without needing to back up my claim to a name.)

Hurry home. Get the stupid piece of laminated paper. Hurry back. ($16 for the round trip.) Nine minutes too late for my errand, though the building was still open. The U.S.Marshal at the gate compared my face to the even surlier smaller version, but did not take a note of my name or check it against a list.

Picking a quarrel with an underling might have been entertaining at first, but it would bring me no satisfaction (I’m learning!), so I asked him instead to identify someone in a position to explain to me why such a policy was not a pointless waste of his time and mine. He was sympathetic and helpful on that point; perhaps relieved that I did not make more of a scene? The party I want is the head of the Marshals Service.

The trip was not a total loss: I had a satisfying Vietnamese lunch at Golden House, which would be in the shadow of the Fed Bldg if the sun were in the northwest.

The Geek Hierarchy. Referred orally(!) by John Grigsby.

This weekend’s activities included sitting on a tree stump by the shore of Lake Tahoe. Lesson learned: Sap can be sticky for quite a long time.

At some angles, the water looked strangely metallic to me; unlike the dark green sea-water around San Francisco. One of my companions remarked that those of us without polarized glasses missed seeing down into the water.

In the past eight days I’ve received nine spams from CustomOffers, identical in form but varying in content. I have relayed each to its provider Exodus, but got no response (other than from the bot); perhaps everyone there is too busy being acquired by CW. I therefore resolve never to do business with either of them.

It especially honks me off when spammers use bugs, of the form <img height=”1″ width=”1″ src=”http://shameless.parasite.com/whitepixel.gif?email=target.address”>. This shows up as a dot, but its real purpose is to appear in the sender’s web-traffic log as a sign that your address is valid.

Oh well. This came to my JPS address (rather than through Pobox), and I mean to find another dialup provider anyway.

In 1999 Earthlink acquired Mindspring, which had previously acquired Netcom. Netcom’s list-servers were transferred to Earthlink, but a couple of blunders were made, with the result that the next time a message went through the dormant list digital-anarchy@netcom.com all subscribers got a recursive cascade of thousands of bounces — and I could not unsub. (The list owner was a ghost.) After a couple of days of non-response from support@earthlink, I redirected my mail to that address. A few months later I no longer needed a shell account anyway, so I became an ex-customer.

My other (PPP) provider, JPS, was also eventually swallowed by Earthlink, which proceeded to lose my website. Again, no help, so I sought a new and better webhost (serve-you.net), but kept my dialup account for the time being since it was prepaid for several months. Now that has run out, and I notice that Earthlink’s rate ($21.95) is rather high, particularly for a feed that sometimes crashes every few minutes.

If you’re in Alameda County and happy with your dialup provider, please let me know. I don’t need mail or webspace.