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If you're not sure who any of the great people I'm talking about are - then you are missing out. Check out: Bonnie from Noodle Scar, Rick from RickRey, Steve & Zadi from SmashFace (plus RSS News, JetSet, etc...), Kent from Ask a Ninja, Micki from Mickipedia - and not to mention all the great bloggers/vloggers we link to in our "blogs we heart" in our sidebar.

Tonight is going to be very, very busy - at 7 Angela and I are going to the Halloween Vloggers Festival in Santa Monica at the Yahoo! offices. The event last until 11 but we'll have to sneak out a little early to then head over to a costume party in Arleta that is being thrown by Amanda's step-sister, Amber.

Two nights ago Justin got an idea for a Halloween-related short that we could submit to the Vlogger Festival - at some point during the event they are projecting these shorts for everyone to see... which, when I think of it, is going to be a bit embarrassing... perhaps I can attend incognito.

But all the same - I thought I would give everyone a not-so-exclusive chance to watch our short early. Enjoy.

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I wish I would have taken footage of us cleaning up the mess that was made - all the tiny pieces of greasy Frito-Lay chips thrown about the living room had to picked up by hand after we realized that our vacuum cleaner was at a friend's house.

I'd like to ask you to join me in a drink... "Here's to our allowing this to happen. We are a pathetic, fearful, little people who don't, it seems to me, deserve the freedoms that our ancestors fought so courageously for. Cheers."

- Mark Maynard

Perhaps the worst realization in our government run-amuck with power over it's people - is not that those in positions of power use that power to obtain more, but that we've let them get away with it. And for the worst of reasons: fear. I read Mark's 'toast' and I feel ashamed, I feel guilty, I feel that I have let down people who have given me a great responsibility.

I'm afraid that history won't paint me, or anyone else alive today over the age of 18, in a positive light.

So I have to admit it's a rare occasion for me to cry-on-the-shoulder [via cell-phone] of my Uncle Brian for political comfort - but yesterday; I did just that. And I'm very glad I did - before I called I was pretty bad: angry, depressed, feeling powerless - and I still am on some level, but, thanks to Brian, in a way that I can cope with.

To explain: Yesterday I read that, after sitting on the legislation for two weeks, Bush finally signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law. Which, without getting to lengthy, simply means that 9 of the 10 rights with-in the 'Bill of Rights' are gone... not suspended, not weakened, not re-worded... gone.

As of today... in the United States - a person can be thrown in jail or one of our who-knows-how-many secret prisons without trial... without evidence [or sorry, that's not entirely true, there is "evidence", but for reasons of national security it can never be show to the person detained or to any level of judicial review] for the rest of their lives by the President alone.

It's also worth mentioning that the person detained can be tortured to the point right-before permanent organ failure or death - and it also is worthy mentioning that the hundreds upon hundred of cases against the government by people who were wrongfully held and tortured by our government before Oct' 17th [a.k.a. - before it was legal] no longer have a leg to stand on in the courts. The act retroactively pardons all involved.


I just kept remembering sitting in history class during middle school, learning about the constitution - the Bill of Rights - Habeas Corpus. I can still remember that, I still remember half-paying attention as I stared out the windows overlooking Slee Road. I wonder if I would payed closer attention then if I had known that by the time I turned 25 those very same civil-rights would be gutted by our own government? I hope I would have.


When I called Brian he, at first, didn't recognize the bill by it's name - but when I mentioned Habeas Corpus he knew immediately what I was upset about, and he sounded just as stunned and scared as I was. It was strange, I felt such a relief in knowing that someone else out there was paying attention to this... that someone else understands how terrible and serious this is. I think all I needed to know was that I wasn't alone.

Then just before we said goodbye he made me laugh by having me look on the bright side of things, like for example, he said, "ok, so you don't have any civil rights but you still have your health, right?". I guess the only you can do sometimes is laugh at how amazing fucked this country has become. Either that or get in a car and drive to Canada.

If you're still reading this - I'm going to embed a clip of Keith Olbermann discussing this on Countdown, please take the time to watch.

What seems like forever ago - Amanda and I went to see our friends, 'A Faulty Chromosome', play their 1st show at an under-ground art gallery. Before they went on stage people were walking around the main floor, perusing the art on display, one of my favorite pieces there was a 10-ft wide painting made of several smaller canvases.

I took a post-card for the gallery home with me and later cut out just a small 2"x2" picture of the same painting... taping it to my computer monitor - which I then months later took a picture of [below].



The night of Amanda's birthday [Oct 5th] we spent most of our time in Pasadena on a dinner & movie date - but around midnight we dropped by her step-sister's place to watch a few episodes of 'Arrested Development' with Krissi, Rebecca, Rebecca's boyfriend, Kai, and Kai's friends. Yes, all of this is leading to something.

Two nights ago Rebecca sends me a mySpace message that reads:

So, we just got back from clap your hands & it was allllright. They need to work on their stage show a bit, but architecture in helsinki was amazing.

However, why I am writing is due to your page on myspace. Amber brought it to my attention--and the shot that is in that montage of the painting--the woman--where did that come from? I have to say I'm curious...you do realize that its my boyfriend's work, right...the boy that was with me on arrested development night? It flipped me out. Um...check him out off my page... he has his art work in his pics. Didja know? Or is this freaky coincidence stuff?

This, needless to say, blew... my... mind. Talk about six-degrees of separation.

The full-scope of the painting, titled 'Left Empty', is much larger than the close-up I took, the full painting, which again, is huge, looks like this:

Please, please, please watch this - and after you watch it, please leave a comment on how this makes you feel. Simply because your comments might make me feel not-so alone in thinking our country, government and constitution I was taught about during school is now nothing more than nostalgia.


I'm serious - please watch this and please tell me it scares you too... or tell me you don't care... just tell me that people out there are aware of this.

Amanda's Mom snapped this picture of us in-front of her house in Ypsi [a few months before we moved]. I remember it was actually a fairly warm winter day... not anything like the 3-degrees temperatures that had a huge part in driving us to sunnier weather.



I really don't have much to say about this - I just found it while flipping through iPhoto and it made me smile.

It's not much - but here is some video of Amanda's surprise birthday party, minus the actual "surprise", Justin accidentally hit the 'record off' button in all the excitement.

As long as I've known Amanda she has said how sad it was that no one had ever thrown her a surprise party - so it was very funny to see that, finally, when someone had planned a surprise party for her - it made her terribly embarrassed.

She said when everyone yelled "surprise" she went weak in the knees and her heart started going a mile a minute.

I noticed last night that Google finally updated their satellite images over several areas in Michigan - specifically my old 'home town': Onsted. Unfortunately everything west of Onsted Hwy is still very-low-resolution - you're only able to make out the east-half of the school.

If you click here [and open up the file in the Google Earth] it will fly you straight to this point - if you don't have GE yet, just click here to download it for free - you can't beat that.

It's Amanda's 27th birthday! I have pictures and some video to post from a surprise party last night - but I'll have to get to those later... lots to do today.

Sorry it's been so quite here on Caliblog the last few days - a small part of it is every time I've sat to write anything, all I could think about is all the unbelievable shit happening to our constitution right now... but a much larger part of it is I've just been very busy with 'Pedal'. I know there hasn't been a post there in over a month - but there's a lot of things changing and building-up behind closed doors. I don't like to be secretive about any aspect of 'Pedal', but I'm just trying to get all my ducks in order, so to speak. I hope to be ready very soon, with-in the next few weeks.

Amanda and I have been house sitting all this week in Van Nuys - and we spent the last two days hanging out with Amanda's sister, Emily, who came up from San Diego for the first time since moving, with her boyfriend, from Detroit.



I know this post is ridiculously short - but I'm feeling very distracted tonight, I've just been staring at the screen the last five minutes wondering what to blabber on about with no real results.