Walking out from the office on Wednesday, I knew something was different. The  sun was blocked out by a huge cloud of smoke from a grass fire. And the air was moist, with cloudy skies. It was unmistakable what it was: the monsoon.

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, there are five seasons in Alta Sonora and no more exotic than the aforementioned monsoon, when the natural order of things is reversed. Instead of having weather dictated by the jet stream coursing across North America, the wind changes and flows from the tropics. And with this humid air comes thunderstorms, mugginess and the like.

Naturally, this required a little adjustment for my weekend. First, I went to Costco to buy some more bottled water and eat the cheap pizza. But then, I started to feel bold and bought some Gatorade as well. I decided to haul it up my stairs and when I arrived in my apartment I was sweating profusely. I thought I might be in shock, but I slouched on my sofa and drank what else, but Gatorade.

Almost sticky, I rushed into the shower to clean off before heading to the cinema. For this was a day like no other, I was actually going to watch a major Hollywood release for the first time in years. And what film was I most anxious to see...that would be Pixar's "Wall-E". At first, it was not on my radar...but thanks to NPR I had heard that the movie was generating waves for its very adult and downright existential themes. And while I was hoping for the Second Coming of Christ, I have to say I was hardly disappointed.

In case you are not familiar, "Wall-E" is an acronym for a robot class which is supposed to clean up the earth from all the trash littering its surface. Humans have abandoned the planet, choosing to live in slothful conditions above massive crafts hovering in space. But what the surviving humans do not know is that only one Wall-E machine is left and he is far from done. All this changes when EVE a robot designed to look for organic matter arrives. Amazingly, Wall-E falls for EVE thus setting off the plot to its inevitable conclusion.

Still, as cute as the film may look, it's not child's play. It has a decidedly dystopian vision of the future, and it grazes some of the same mature subject matter that made "Finding Nemo" so transcendent. I'd venture more, but it will undercut your ability to enjoy it, although as a Disney film it does have a happy ending, which I found just a tad annoying.

The theater happens to be within Cougar Canyon, making it adjacent to The Lightning Rod. In the 10 o clock hour, it is the epicenter of Cougar Country's nightlife with it's famous happy hour. Although I go there all the time, it's rarely for the purpose intended. I don't usually go there not to drink but to eat...because the place offers discounts on food as well as drink. After having lots of activities this month, I almost enjoyed going out by myself and getting a chance to sit at the bar, invisible to everyone and far, far, far, away from the Crunk Factory.

But it was not to be. I was ambushed by none other than my neighbors girlfriend. And it wasn't as if I minded. Instead, I began to realize I was losing my anonymity. After months of being guaranteed to see few if any people from work on weekends and having "limitless horizons" I came to realize, I'm becoming a known quantity.

The monsoon meanwhile did nothing to encourage more poolside activity on Sunday afternoon, which meant that I spent most of my time trying not to faint from my electricity bill. But that's okay...because tomorrow.....is Duane's Day II.....

Well so much for that. Here I was thinking that today would be "high noon" when the House and Senate would duel over the budget. The excitement had been building for days, with the House revealing its plan upon learning that the Senate was preparing to vote on its own. Both proposals included bonding for school construction, which was not popular among the right-wing here. But the House version was more austere and popular with conservatives on both sides. The Senate produced a more biparstian bill, largely because moderate Republicans allied themselves with Democrats, who are the minority.

The House referred their bill to the Appropriations Commitee, the Rule Committee, and the Committee of the Whole. (These are all normal procedural steps.) As it were though, Wednesday ended without the Speaker calling the budget bill to a vote. Had he, and had it passed, it would have been eligible to go to the floor of the Senate right away because it was actually a strike-everything amendment to an existing bill that already had cleared the commitee. The Senate equivalent was also a striker, and thus only needed to get referred to the House to vote in the Committee of the Whole and deliver a final vote. But as I left work on Wednesday, the Senate budget plan had just left the Rules Committee and there appeared to a long, awful day awaiting me. The House also didn't put its bill to a final vote.

At home, I decided to pull the Legislature's online video feed around 10pm. I saw nothing, and I figured that was it.

Then as I got in the car to drive to work today, I caught the tail end of a story on NPR about a filibuster overnight in the Senate. I logged onto my computer and saw the following:

Senate lawmakers narrowly endorsed a nearly $10 billion state spending plan for 2009 early Thursday morning, giving final approval to a proposal that closes a $2 billion shortfall without drastic cuts to services and programs.

The Senate approved the package of seven budget bills on a series of 16-10 and 17-9 votes, a slight majority of the 30-member chamber. The spending plan now moves to the House for consideration. A competing House budget package with more significant service cuts could come to a final House vote around noon Thursday, though speculation is rampant that it lacks enough support to clear the chamber. [link]

And there it was. I could feel the tumbleweeds blowing past me and the ten gallon hat weighing on my face. This was going to end like a classic Western.  But there was one problem: the House was nowhere to be found as it approached 11:30am. I had speculated that the strategy for the House leadership would be to have their bill go first and if it failed, then offer the Senate bill as a compromise. But the hours began to pass, and still nothing.

Finally, around 4pm the Committee of the Whole began to meet, and began to hear non budget bills. Suddenly and without warning, the House COW'd the Senate budget bill, offering no amendments. And within seconds, the vote began. I started to count votes from the onboard screen and I could see it would be very close. It came to down to the last person pushing it over the top 31-29. Everyone in the Office was in disbelief, watching how fast it all ended.

One step, two step, three step, draw! And like that the Senate bill was ordered sent to the Governor. Between the two proposals, she had made it plan she favored the one from the upper house, and got her wish. But the joke was on me, the final voter was a Democrat who I didn't recognize by name, and by the time the vote was half over, it was actually clear it would pass.

No amendments, no final speeches, nothing. It was like watching the scoreboard after a huge upset. You would stare and not believe your eyes.

Marcel asked me what I thought, given that this was first budget. And I told him, "It's made me realize how important our job is."

It also marks the next part of the budget cycle, one frequently misunderstood by political scientists worldwide:

There's something fitting about "The Longest Day" being about war, or more specifically the Allied invasion at Normandy. That's because D-Day occurred on June 6th...not quite the summer solstice. But that's okay because I couldn't avoid being in the trenches this weekend. (Oops mixed metaphor.)

For some reason or another, I contracted the stomach flu earlier in the week. So much of Saturday was spent at the urgent care center after my condition seemed to worsen that day. But fear not, the doctor switched my drug regimen to Imodium and an antibiotic and that did the trick. However, the place was so busy that I spent almost as long there as a real emergency room and watched nearly a whole EURO 2008 game.

I'd tell you what I did after this, except I can't. Yep....it's classified private. Need to know basis only. But let's just say D-Day would be an apt comparison.

Legislative budget talks have unexpectedly paused less than two weeks from a July 1 deadline, but Gov. Janet Napolitano is reassuring state workers that there won't be a state government shutdown.... [link]

 

Tens of thousands of state employees could lose their jobs at least temporarily, and thousands more who continue working might not receive their paychecks when they're next due in the first week of July.

That's if state lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano fail to come to agreement on a 2009 budget before the fiscal year begins July 1, a prospect that grows more real with each day that passes without a breakthrough in negotiations. [link]

So now you know what it's been like around these parts recently. As soon as I step outdoors, another media outlet can't resist talking about July 1. Which is why you'll probably be surprised to hear that this week's update is about....our new software release! Yes that's right, while everyone seems to know when the fiscal year begins (that would be July 1)...less attention is paid to when the "cycle" actually begins. And that was this week. You see, there's always another year to budget for, and no matter what the resolution for FY 09 is...there is still going to be FY 10, 11 and so on.

We happen to use a Microsoft Access-based database program so that agencies can submit our budgets both in print on online. This aids in the publication of the Executive budget later. But every year our in house tech team "tweaks" the program. Tuesday was our day as analysts to get a "sneak peek" of the upcoming changes.

At this point, you are asking yourself "why in God's name are you telling me about this?!?!?!?!?!?" And the answer is:

More than one friend of mine from college ended up becoming an engineer or computer programmer. And even if those in other occupations still grew up in an age of rapid technological developments when people would ooze over a new version of Firefox, Winamp, AIM like it was Grand Theft Auto 4. And that precisely is the problem, like the rest of America....software's boring middle class is in decline.

On the one hand, there's lots of technological evolution in freeware and shareware (note that this week Mozilla tried to steal our thunder and release Firefox 3.0). And then there's the aforementioned GTA 4 which confirms why some of these guys should be called "software architects". But tell me, when's the last time you read something on CNET about, oh I don't know, the newest version of Quicken?!?!?

Uh huh, I thought so.

Yes, if there's one thing that puts even computer nerds to sleep...it's finance. And how do I know this? Perhaps if finance was more widely debated (along with economics) we wouldn't have this whole credit crisis business...or this whole Iraq War thing...or all those tasty Irish children begging for alms. But that's okay, you can go play GTA 4 so loud that the windows vibrate, or customize your Firefox with that new skin. I, for one, will be trying to improve my revenue forecasts so that we can all live in peace and harmony.

Still, if you think you can decipher just how revolutionary this year's innovations are , the new instruction manual is found here. (Currently it's the only manual that is listed as available.)

In closing, I had this professor in college who liked to talk about "mass culture". (I'll give you a hint, this was in a cultural and intellectual history course). And one of the points he liked to come back to was that the 20th century was marked by visual arts overtaken the spoken word as the dominant form of the communication. (But then again, I've read essays accusing Gutenberg of promoting literacy at the expense of the visual arts...go figure!) In any case, it's this preoccupation with the visual that will never make our software release generate as much buzz as say...

One good turn does not apparently, deserve another. If you imagined that this weekend was full of rollicking, bawdy fun, you'd be mistaken. On the one hand I didn't mind this, since I've been going out a bunch with Gary, Ken, and Chey. But as luck would have it Gary and the Company had decided to take a trip to Vegas. I was welcome to join in, but given that the budget was far from settled, I set my sights instead on a pool party hosted by one of my coworkers and hitting up Sunday Funday again.

But then, things got weird.

First, on Saturday I woke up early. This was actually a welcome development; the EURO 2008 games were on and we had been told to arrive at work on Monday at 8:30am. I was treated to a near classic match between Spain and Sweden in which the La Furia pulled out a dramatic last-second victory. I then proceeded to watch the Russians trample the Greeks (sob). Afterwards I decided to go to the pool party sponsored by my coworker in the Silicon Desert. But I should add, this was the first day since moving here that it was over 110 F outside. It was awful; I began to think I might die several times. But then a funny thing happened, after going indoors at first, we began to hang outside in the late afternoon and my body slowly acclimated. By Sunday, the heat was still potent, but it didn't feel so withering.

Ken really wanted to go out and do something on Saturday night anyway...but needless to say I was pretty sure being up all day and facing down the heat would wear me down. So instead we had a late dinner in Old Town and then he decided we should go out for a drink at Yardhouse because he'd never been there. As you might expect, it was dead, and I was more stunned that he decided not to drink at all. This was sort of a shock, given that the reason you go to Yardhouse is to sample "the world's largest selection of draft beers".

Still, all this left me feeling pretty spritely and excited almost about Sunday. I saw my neighbor head down and I was eager to break out the new cooler and head down to the water. But what I saw when I got there was...let's say...only fitting. Present was a few young people idling about either in or outside of the water. Dan "Master of Ceremonies" was there with some of his friends but he didn't say hi to me. Most conspicuous was an Indian gal sunning herself on one deck chair and another gal drying off on another reading a GRE guidebook. This relative emptiness allowed me to sit on the underwater ledge which had been popular last weekend and try it out. I have to say it is as good as advertised. My floating chair seemed so passe by extension, even though, undoubtedly, the chair would still come in handy when there was no room for a guy like me on the ledge.

But the other little surprise was that the pool was really ... unkempt. Not in the sense of trash or smell or...but instead in the case of grass. The water was full of what seemed like weeds. This reminded of my childhood, when my father would fill up a little plastic pool for us in the front yard and my sister and I would frolic around in it for hours. But because of the type of grass that grew in our neighborhood....inevitably we'd find blades of grass and weed anthers floating about. So imagine my reaction to see this again, in a slightly larger pool. Undeterred, I brought my water bottle to the pool's edge, sunglasses and all and sat, should high in the water.

No one said a word to me, and eventually I went back to my unit, but my neighbor never answered his door. Perhaps it was good thing after all...the Lakers won and kept the series alive.

This week might have been the dramatic climax to budget season, with one side or the other (or both) victory and then preceding to get ready for summer break. But you know what they say, life is what happens while you are making plans.

On Sunday, word was beginning to leak out that a member of the State Senate had died unexpectedly. But the details soon emerged. The poor guy had been thrown from a horse weeks earlier and went back to his district far from the capital. He vowed to return before the end of session, but instead he apparently fell that day and tried to get up. The effort caused a heart attack which killed him. But wait, there's more.

The Republican majority in the State Senate is 17-13. Without his presence (living or dead) the leadership was one defection away from losing control of any bill passing through the Senate. So without too much delay the county supervisors began a process of selecting a successor for the rest of his (very short) term. (Another member of the Legislature in House plans to switch his petition to run for the Senate seat this fall, so this isn't quite the end of the story.)

Passage of the budget it seemed, would have to wait another week.

Although there were a couple revelations this week:

• John McCain has $23 million in cash for his campaign. But the Republican National Committee has $40 million dollars. Barack Obama on the other hand has $46 million on hand. The DNC though, despite spending less than the RNC has only $4.4 million left. So for those of you thinking this election is a forgone conclusion and Obama has it in the bag....guess again. The difference between the candidates appears to be one of the control. Obama is able to set his agenda when McCain in fact appears to be reliant on the RNC (i.e. President Bush) to shape some of his message. This is bolstered by the "Strategy Briefing" video on JohnMcCain.com which basically tries to spin this fact into something positive. Salivating of course are the Democrats nationwide, who realize that it's going to be much easier to have Obama run against a third term of Bush than a first term of McCain. Seriously though, do you really think the President's hubris is going can be eclipsed?

• Speaking of the President, the British press decided to reveal recently that we are going to be in Iraq for 100 years. Good thing too, since we are going to need their oil after all with the dramatic decline of the Cantarell Oil Field in Mexico.

• France only tied Romania in the EURO 2008 soccer tournament. Marcel, to say the least, was deflated.

• With Duane's wife going out of town at the end of the month, we've already laid plans for Duane's Day II. We plan to take advantage of "state employee day" at the ballpark. (Ironically it's the first day of the fiscal year.) Now I just have to see if my new vacation plan idea holds up more than 48 hours....

The office was nearly empty when Rita called me to ask if I was coming to happy hour. More specifically the Company Happy Hour organized by Chey and some of his coworkers to help their start-up build camaraderie. Rita wanted me to come not so that I could fraternize with Chey's coworkers but because she was leaving for California the next day. So I waited around, talked to her and the usual suspects...only to watch Chey and Rita leave around 7:30pm. The Company Players however, were just getting started. I was under the false assumption that parking restrictions were enforced after dark in Old Town. (The sign says "3 Hours Anytime".) So as we switched locales from one bar to another to another to another I found myself tepidly moving my car from one block to the other in total fear. Before long, it down to just two, Ken (who has been with the weekend exploits for three weeks now) and Aaron who I had never met before but works for the Company.

I had stayed sober the entire night and offered them both a ride home. But Aaron decided to petition a fourth stop, the local country western bar. I thought I would hate it, but instead it was actually pretty enjoyable. Ken and I were nearly crushed by a pretty young thang who was tottering in heels and seriously inebriated. The music was live, and Aaron even managed to convince some Spanish tourists to come with us to a karaoke bar around the corner. At this point I was gassed....tired...and almost pissed. So the world didn't get a chance at my rendition at "Hungry Like the Wolf".

But anyway, the next day I was beat...tired...and pissed at myself. I ran a few errands trying to muster it up for that night. I had promised Gary and Ken, (and Chey) for that matter that I would indeed go out drinking with them later that night. We had plans to go somewhere with dancing for Ken's liking...but as the day wore on...I couldn't get in touch with any of them. Finally after a few calls to Chey, Gary, and Ken...the latter called and told me to rendezvous at their condo at 10. We were going to leave Cougar Country, for Pointy Rock instead. Gary and his girlfriend Louise, enjoy it because it's close to the university and hence has "buskers" and other things that remind them of London. (Both are originally from England, Louise is just visiting, whereas Gary is working here for the Company.)

All of us were tired however, and it was hot. So as you can imagine, the highlight of the night was taking a cab driven by the cousin of the Speaker of the House! Yes, it turned out the man was a self-professed retired guy who was bored and looking to get out of the house after working for decades as an urban planner. But that he was related to the Speaker was something quite different altogether. Chey and Ken had to listen to he and I discuss the foreign language of local politics, but it wasn't that long a ride.

Before long we wilted, with first Gary and Louise heading home and soon after Chey, Ken, and I. (We feared not finding a cab at last call.) I spent the night at the Company Condo with Ken, Lou, and Gary while Chey elected to drive home. In the morning, I watched EURO 2008 with Gary. They weren't hurrying me out the door, but I had promised to rendezvous with my neighbor at my complex's pool after 2 so that we could find each other before the Lakers-Celtics game. But I struggled to make it there, and only showed up on the water at around 4. But my neighbor was there, along with his girlfriend and her friend.

It ended up being though, that they decided to head inside as the sun began to set while I tried to meet more of my neighbors. This didn't go that well, but it was a funny ass start. Why you ask? Because apparently I live near this Wes fellow who decided to pick a fight with one of other neighbors...this nice looking gal who wore seriously big aviator sunglasses in the pool. (He had castigated me to stop using goggles in the pool and get my sunglasses, because my pool apparently was like "Daytona". She at one point asked if he was Republican, and before you knew it he went off on the most stupendous rant about personal responsibility. He sounded much the burgeoning libertarian, but it also got the point where I was really struggling to reveal who I was and break it to him. But instead, I simply tried to explain that in a complicated, technically advanced society sometimes it really is better to let risk be born by large groups for the health of society at large.

Neither he or Aviator Girl really wanted to discuss it more with me, but it was funny. She was excited to take on someone as a self-avowed former psych major from U of A, and he was glad he could talk about this somewhere. He also confessed that his dad was a libertarian and that he was frustrated with himself for not making more of his life. (More on this later.) I tried introducing them to myself but they were less than thrilled with that. But alas, it turns out that this "Sunday Funday" is a common occurrence and that I'll get many more chance in the future.

At that point it was time to go upstairs and watch the Lakers-Celtics game. While you might think it pained me to watch Los Angeles get beaten silly by Boston...I tell you...it's okay. Ever since the choke job performed by the Lakers back in 2005...I've always put little stock in their "dominance" winning games.  Much as I've seen UCLA struggle, and for that matter USC, I never want to engage in the hubris that accompanies great defeats. I don't like to underestimate my competition and I don't like my teams too either. But for now, my neighbor is ebullient all the while being a gracious host. Which is more than I can say for the Celtics....

This week has been pretty crazy at work, with surprises around every corner. This is to be expected with the deadline to craft a new budget now less than a month away. Usually though, I have to talk in the abstract, for fear of revealing sensitive information. But for some reason or another, information is starting to leak out. This was published today by the local business journal:

A handful of options are arising:

• A moderate Republican plan would include $500 million to $750 million in cuts, as well as bonding for school construction and perhaps some bonding for university research construction.
• A bipartisan budget more amenable to Democrats, the governor and moderate Republicans includes limited cuts ($250 million to $500 million) plus bonding favored by Napolitano and business allies.
• An increasingly less likely conservative plan would use substantial spending cuts ($1 billion to $1.5 billion) and little or no bonding to close the deficit. Those cuts likely would hit prisons, universities, school construction, hospitals, economic development programs and city governments -- and draw a veto from Napolitano. [link]

So in case you have wondered why things have taken so long, now you know. The Republicans never could agree on a single counteroffer to the Governor and instead split into these three factions. The Democrats meanwhile are over 40% of the Legislature meaning that even a small Republican faction can "win" if the D's throw their support to it.

Don't mistake the endgame for "checkmate" however. Seeing where you need to go, and actually getting there are two different things entirely.

For once, I had a quiet weekend. It was just as fitting after spending Friday afternoon at the proctologist. (Don't worry I'm not going to die or even need...."treatment".) But anyway, one thing I did do this weekend was make use of the infamous pool chair I bought. I even waited until after the sun had faded away, leaving the entire area covered in shade. At first I just was content to sit there, in the warm water. But then it occurred me that without much current, I would need to find a way to move around in it. After a little bit, I figured out that the easiest way was to paddle with my arms, almost like in a breaststroke.

Content with this, it soon occurred to me that I could do it pretty easily and began to go back and forth in the chair....from one of the pool to the other. Except for one family, the place was deserted, so I spent almost an hour doing this on Saturday. I enjoyed it so much I actually went back on Sunday.

Saturday night Chey and two of his coworkers, Gary and Ken (they were with us on Sunday) went out to a lounge. We weren't having a gay old time...but Gary and I especially chat at length with each other. He's from the UK himself, and as I mentioned earlier I think, surprised to the degree in which I am knowledgeable about history and such. Like most people born abroad...he finds it hard to discuss such topics with Americans...and I concede this fact. Chey also likes to make fun of his love for soccer.

Perhaps most amusingly this gal started chatting with him hearing his accent. (She studied in Wales, but she's American)....all was going well...until I told her Chey and I met at UCLA. She then stormed off, after telling us that she went to USC. When I pressed as to why she moved here...she said....it's cheaper.

At least she's honest.