Constructing Christmas. OR: Where the %%$^& is the little brown fencepost?

"Maybe we should just put it together now, and have them out under the tree for her when she wakes up tomorrow morning."  I suggested to my wife after we put my daughter to bed on Christmas eve, as I looked at the box that contained the Playmobil Wildlife Play Station

Fiona had received the Playmobil Animal Nursery  the weekend before as an early christmas present from a family member,  and the insanity of IT'S assembly was still fresh in my head.

"No, she won't have as many to open then."  My wife answered.
"She loves opening them."

And she does.  And more specifically to the story, she did.   She loved opening everything Christmas morning.
What little kid doesn't?

The problem is, we ended up spending 10 minutes opening presents, and AT LEAST two hours putting them together.

The box states that the set comes with a bazillion pieces, and that sounds pretty impressive.   And it truly IS impressive, but not QUITE as cool as it sounds.

Because when  you open it, you  find out that the worlds smallest flashlight is two pieces; the worlds smallest jar is two pieces; every VEGETABLE is two pieces; a tree is at least five pieces, the little straps for the binoculars and camera are each their own piece, and the structure itself... yikes.
And yikes again.

It came with a sheet of stickers, so you could label the small pieces if you wanted, to make them look more "real".
Wonder if each sticker counted as a piece?


And while the end result is sturdy and looks great, was it really necessary to make the product so that every little piece of the structure is... a separate piece?

the instructions might as well have read:

"Here's a wall, the wall has space for a window and a door.   We could have made it so that the window and the door are framed already,  but... no.  Those are separate pieces.
So here's the wall with holes, now insert the frames into the holes, now insert the window into the window frame into the window hole, and NOW the door into the door frame into the door hole...."

And the packaging of the bazillion separate pieces left a bit to be desired, too.

"Honey, do you know which of the eight bags of randomly thrown together pieces holds that small dark brown fence post?  I can't finish the railing without it! No, not the bigger, lighter brown one, I already found IT - it was in the bag with the zebra, the rifle, one of the tree pieces, two of the carrot tops and the cage padlock...."

All while your child's standing there, with two cheetah cubs in her hand, asking you if she can play with it yet.

"Not yet, darlin'.   I have to snap the cot into the side wall into the front wall into the floor...."

Can I put the monkey in the cage?  The monkey really needs to go in the cage!

"Well as soon as I put the four pieces of cage together, and then attach it to the underside of the floor of the stilt house, and then connect the house to the top of the floor ...."

And the pieces don't just snap together.  Nope.  That would be crazy.

Instead, they provide you with bags of little, tiny connectors of various colors, and a little tool designed only to insert the connectors into their respective holes on each piece so that you can in turn connect that piece to another piece....  And of COURSE each color connector's specific to various pieces, because having all connections being the same size is, well.. just plain silly, I guess.

And yikes again.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter, as she loves the toys, and has played with them a lot over the last  couple of days.  

How life changes

Even though I’ve been at it now for awhile, I still find myself marveling at how my life’s changed in the last few years, due mostly to the arrival and continued presence of my daughter.

Today, it was a trip to Target on my lunch hour.
A few last minute Christmas baking items, mostly. But there were a couple of other things. After all the baking goods were in the cart,  I found myself looking at wrapping paper, because presents from Santa cannot be wrapped with same paper as presents from mom and dad.
Duh!
 And I’m looking at all of this wrapping paper, trying to think about what kind of paper the elves would use to wrap presents.
 Probably not the CARS2 paper, doubtful they’d use Toy Story or Tinkerbell themed paper… Would they use paper that said “Ho Ho Ho” on it?
Blue wrapping paper? Would they even CONSIDER using blue paper?

WHAT IF I PICK THE WRONG PAPER AND END UP RUINING SANTA CLAUS FOR MY DAUGHTER????
 This is a serious dilemma, my friends. And I laughed aloud at myself for spending so much time on it, startling the two older ladies who were standing nearby, conversing in polish, probably about what kind of wrapping paper they use at the North Pole.

 I went with a pattern that’s reminiscent of a candy cane, by the way. Red and white strips, mostly, with a little thread of green mixed in.

On the heels of the wrapping paper conundrum, I found myself looking at shoes for little girls. Right up until the mother of the little girl started screaming for security, and reaching for the can of leftover pepper spray she had in her purse, forgotten there since she finished up her shopping at 5:30am on Black Friday….

 Sorry, I drifted off there… Where was I?
 Oh! Shoes for little girls!

 See, Fiona has a light blue and white dress that we’re hoping makes it through Christmas. It's made it through a couple of holiday functions already, and..we're hopeful.
However, there was an incident yesterday, which forced us to dispose of her silver, sparkly shoes that went with that dress.
"But you can’t have a Christmas dress without the appropriate shoes!" some of you are saying.
I know, or more accurately, I've been told.

So I was standing in the little girl shoe aisle, looking for a pair of sparkly silver shoes in size 10, to ensure proper accessorizing on the part of my four year old daughter.
And I found just the pair, and spent several more minutes going through all the rows of boxes, trying unsuccessfully to find them in size 10.

Without exaggeration, I spent less time shopping for the last fishing pole I purchased.

 Yesterday, it was an off-handed comment I overheard a mom say, as my daughter told Santa what was on her Christmas list.
 Earlier in the morning, my wife relayed a story to me, about friends of ours shopping for or with their four year daughter. If I have the story right, she wanted, or had picked out, a car related toy of some kind.
 She was pretty excited about it.
 And the woman at the check out voiced surprise at it, surely she didn’t want the car related toy.
 (Inferred – that’s for boys.)
 And we were indignant on their behalf.

Fast forward a bit, we were at Brunch with Santa, at the Brookfield Zoo, a “My, how life changes" moment in and of itself.
Fiona’s telling Santa that she wants a drum for Christmas.
The woman standing next to me, likely not knowing I was Fiona’s dad, exclaims: “A drum? The little girl wants a drum?!?!?” And I was ready to throw down, right in front of Santa. I was gonna give this complete stranger a lecture about NOT being ignorant and forcing outdated gender expectations on your…. Blah blah blah blah. I didn’t, of course. Santa was watching.
 And a few moments later, my daughter got sick and hastened our exit.

 But oh, how life changes...

Spring Forward, Fall Back - Part 2

Daylight savings, after not meaning much at all to you for the first 18 years of your life, can become more of an issue, real or imagined, around the time you dip your toe into the murky stream of adulthood.

You’ve a bit more control of your own life and schedule, and the twice a year clock manipulation becomes part of that.

Of course, when you’re 18, and away from home for the first time, it takes the form of:

A) Dude! We fall back this weekend!
B) Uh, we tend to fall every weekend.

A) I said “fall back” not fall down.
B) Oh. So what’s the big deal?

A) An extra hour of partying!
B) Yeah, like we party to some kind of schedule…

End of discussion.

So it SOUNDS like a big, cool deal, but in reality – it amounts to nothing.
This does not, however, keep 1000’s of youth from using it as an excuse to throw a party, every fall.
Cuz a THEME for a party makes it just a bit more fun, for some reason, than a party thrown for no stated reason.

A couple years later, you’re old enough to go to bars. Then, and perhaps ONLY then, does falling back actually become an issue of note.

See, because the bars really DO demand you party on some kind of schedule, and 1am becoming your 2nd midnight of the evening means an extra hour of bar time.
Finally, FINALLY falling back MEANS… something.
Sort of.

IF you decide to go out that night.

Sidenote: I worked in a bar for awhile, after college. Falling back meant listening to an extra hour of drunk karoake performances, while getting in an extra hour of total immersion in clouds of cigarette smoke. Oh, and an extra $6, before taxes.
Jivin’.

But once you settle down in a life a bit, falling back and springing forward goes back to meaning… nothing, when you get right down to it.
At least, nothing after you’ve changed your smoke alarm batteries and corrected the time on all the clocks in your house, that is.

Unless you have kids.

Then it’s a topic of conversation amongst parents, how to handle the time change, should you start adjusting bedtimes for the big one hour of sleep a few days in advance, or not?
I’m guilty of this too, even though, when you get right down to it –

IT’S ONE FREAKIN’ HOUR.

And the extra time you feel you’re getting in the morning, you’re going to want to give back by 7pm that evening, when you realize it’s not actually the little nipper’s bedtime anymore, even though it really, REALLY feels like it should be, to you.


Really? It’s only 7:05? REALLY????
Damn.

And a couple mornings later, everything’s shifted back to the clock schedule you were used to before last Sunday morning, and life moves on, unchanged.

So to sum up: Thanks, New Zealand Bug Boy, for… a whole lot of not much.


The “likes to use his imagination” part of me wishes for more.

Springing forward should mean that it’s 2am all the sudden, and there’s a gap in your life that you can’t fill in.
Whatever you’re talking about at 1am… well forget about it, it’s 2am now, and your life moved an hour forward without you.

Perhaps best illustrated in some edgy indy movie where a dozen people’s lives intersect in that missing hour, and we spend the entire movie piecing it together.

“How’d I end up in Jail with half my goatee shaved off, wearing a clown outfit? Last thing I remember it was a few minutes before 1am, and…. Uh oh.”

Meanwhile, across town, a clown wakes up naked in his car, with a woman’s bowling ball next to him on the passenger seat…


Falling back should have some youthful rom-com / coming of age feel to it.

An extra hour to win the girl, fix the problem, fall in love with your spouse all over again, come to some life decisions…whatever. You wake up the next morning somehow better and more self actualized for the extra hour you were given, optimistic about the future and the person sitting across from you drinking diner coffee.
An upbeat but unmemorable modern rock song begins to play as the camera pans out of the diner, showing a fresh, clean day starting, before it fades to black and credits roll.

Not realistic, probably. Hard to pull off in real life, year after year.

Except for maybe the diner coffee.

Spring Forward, Fall Back - do the hokey pokey and you shake it all about...

So, it happened.

This past Sunday morning, early.
All the Sudden, with little fanfare, the earth reversed it’s rotation, and we all went back in time one hour.

What’s that? The earth didn’t actually reverse it’s rotation? It’s just an arbitrary executive decision that decrees we move our clocks backwards once a year, and then forward six months later?
(Or should that be …our clocks forward once a year, and then backwards six months later? Chicken, or egg?)

Seriously? What’s next, mis-matched sock day every Wednesday, for the entire free world? No meat on Fridays depending on ones’ religious affiliation?

Oh, wait. We already did the no meat thing….The only good that came of THAT was the invention of the Fish Fry.


Decided to spend two minutes researching the origin and logic of DST.

Kinda interesting, actually.


(DST) is the practice of temporarily advancing clocks during the summertime so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.[7] Modern DST was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson.[8] Many countries have used it since then; details vary by location and change occasionally.
The practice has been both praised and criticized.[7] Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours,[9] but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun.[10][


George Vernon Hudson was a shift worker in New Zealand, and liked collecting bugs after work, so figured if there was more daylight hours AFTER he got off – more bug collecting!

And in the time before electricity, you could save a lot on candles and coal if you didn’t waste any sunlight by, say, sleeping or other frivolous activity.

Anyhow, it's kind of a big deal, every year. Set those clocks forward, change that smoke alarm battery, set those clocks back, change that smoke alarm battery....

Sidenote - my smoke alarm batteries last YEARS. Just sayin'...

(Another sidenote – when they DO start to fail, it’s always at 3am. When we wake up because of some irritating beeping noise that we then have to track down, so we can remove the battery, and hope to remember to install a new one, whenever we get around to buying some…..)

I've been thinking about it the last little bit, and have to say - whatever.

As a child, it had little meaning to me. We weren't allowed to watch TV on sunday mornings, not there was anything on in the days of pre-cable anyhow. Not like we were at risk of missing our favorite show at 8am on a Sunday morning…

Springing forward meant that you noticed the folks who forgot to do so, when they walked into church 45 minutes after services began.
Nothing else really to it.
You woke up, you ate breakfast, you spent the day, you went to bed - remarkably similar to every other sunday.

Falling backward - same thing, only no parade of the embarrassed at mass.

As a teenager - really, same deal. Maybe you felt a bit more rushed on sunday morning, when we sprang forward. falling backward had no consequences.


It became a bigger deal (good or bad), or in some cases a handy excuse, at the onset of adulthood.

More on that next time, as this is very long already, and I fear I’ve already lost half of you…..

Three passports, a couple of visas, I don’t even know my real name...

So, I’ve been traveling a bit, on business. Not unusual for people to do this, but I’ve traveled more on business in the last 8 days, then I did in 5 years at my previous job.

And, should anyone from my work stumble across this, I want to state for the record that I AM grateful for the opportunity.

I’m a numbers guy, so, here are some numbers

In the last eight days, not counting the two days I was home between trips, I have:

Set foot in three states and two provinces. And set foot in two more, on one of the afternoons I was actually in town.

- Slept (very) poorly in one state and two different provinces
- Coincidentally, made hotel room coffee, tasted it, and then promptly discarded it, in one state and two different provinces
- Ate dinner in 2 states and two provinces. And ate well, thank you very much.
- Crossed the international border 4 times in 24 hours.
- Ate five hotel breakfasts. Complimentary breakfasts… not good as a rule. But probably won’t kill you.
- Missed three lunches altogether because of flight schedules
- Watched aprox. 6 hours of Canadian news on TV.
(I love Canadian news channels. They’re so much… quieter and calm than US news channels. And they assume you are relatively intelligent and knowledgeable. Crazy.)
- Attended 2.5 days of meetings (when you add ‘em all together); one plant tour; and got to drive a golf cart around a grain port located on the St. Lawrence River.
- Missed 3 nights of reading to my daughter, and two nights of walking my dog.
(I didn’t actually MISS the dogwalks…)
- Been to the gym exactly 0 times.
- Drank three different, very good beers, brewed in two different provinces, and Pennsylvania. (Yay, Yeungling!)
- Ridden in four hired cars, four taxi cabs and two rental cars.
- Made countless hours of polite conversation with folks I don’t know all that well.

So, those are the numbers, and I’ve friends who travel for business a lot, and they would not be impressed with these numbers. But I am. And I’m exhausted.

Let’s add the human element, the uniquely me voice to the numbers, in attempt to flesh out the tale a bit.

As you drive east out of Ogdensburg, NY, just past the Lowes, you see a road sign. It lets you know that you can turn left, to enter Canada, or go straight, to go to… a psychiatric hospital.
I’m not making this up.
We, logically, turned left.
At the Canadian Customs booth, the agent asked us why we were crossing into Canada today.
“Duh, because we didn’t want to go to the psych hospital. I think that would be obvious, officer Doo-Right!”

I didn’t actually say this to him. They don’t have much sense of humor, customs and border patrol agents. And honestly, I wouldn’t want them to.

Driving east on the 401, right after hotel breakfast #2, I saw, in the tall grass by the side of the highway, a donkey. I’ve seen deer before, fox, coyote, turkeys, woodchucks… this was my first donkey.
Coincidentally, there was a truck with a livestock trailer parked on the shoulder, and a number of harried looking individuals in the tall grass behind the donkey, and not gaining very fast.

I walked into the restaurant where we were all to meet for dinner the first night, and realized that I had eaten in this very restaurant, almost exactly seven years earlier, when in the 1000 Islands area on vacation. Pub food has given way to upscale Italian. By the end of that evening, the guy who was running the place was giving us all lessons on different ways to decoratively fold napkins.

1000 Island region – love it! Read my previous blog post for more about it.

Want fun? Have 9 Americans walk into a tiny, very expensive French restaurant in PQ, just over the river from Ottawa, ON, at the end of a long road trip, and have them decide to unwind, with many glasses of wine, beer, and apple cider martinis. If you’re lucky, you’ll have your back to the wall, and your face to the room, and you can watch snooty French people shoot little snooty French daggers out of their eyes at the backs of the increasingly loud people sitting across the table from you.
Hi, bon jour! We’re leaving your country tomorrow. Lighten up.” He says, followed up by an outrageous French accented laugh.

I walked around the nation’s capital after my conference ended today. Never been in DC before. My coworkers had the capital building and the white house all mixed together in their heads. They don’t tolerate dissenters much, and just about had ME convinced I was wrong, until I came across the map sign showing all the points of interest. Including of course the White House, which was blocks away from the “You are here” arrow in the map.
Check AND mate.

And now I’m home, unpacked, and eagerly awaiting the return of my wife and daughter from some pre-school function. My dog gave me 60 seconds of unbridled excitement upon seeing me, then quickly went back to eating her food, and laying on my couch.

My daughter will walk in the door soon, get really, touchingly excited to see me, and then start searching for the white plastic bag that signifies that daddy brought her home a “surprise.” Soon after, I will have the dog drag me around outside for a few blocks, come back, and fall into bed……
Cus it’s a work day tomorrow, and a boy needs his sleep.

One Foot Square and One Live Tree

Spent the last few days in Canada and New York, bouncing back and forth across the border on business.

I spent almost the entire time within a mile or two of the border, along the St. Lawrence Seaway, in the 1000 Island region.

I had the pleasure of spending a little time here in the past, on a vacation, and remember being dazzled by the beauty of the area. It ranks very high on my “If I didn’t have to work for a living I’d live here” list.

This go ‘round, my Canadian counterpart was nice enough to give me a bit of background information on the region.

For a piece of land to qualify as an island, in the 1000 Island region, the following criteria must be met.

1. It must be above water, 365 days a year. 366 days a year during leap years.
(This is specified, should the piece of land think it’s going to be able to submerge itself for one day during a leap year, due to some governmental loophole. Nope.)

2. It must be at least one foot square
3. It must have one live tree

Something about these very simple, likely very old guidelines, really tickled me.

One square foot and one tree…. Awesome.

And as we drove back and forth along the Promenade Heritage Parkway (look at a map, people!), I had to laugh as I saw many tiny lumps of land sticking out of the river, with one very small tree on each. No wonder they claim nearly 1800 islands in total.
Got a pontoon boat, a shovel, and a greenhouse nearby? Let’s go make 12 more islands today…

I want that job. I want to be the government employee who’s responsible for motoring up and down the river, counting islands. A tape measure and a boat is all I’d need. Stop, measure, make sure the tree’s still alive… Check, check and… off we go.

“How was work today, sweetie?”
“I…love...my…job…so…much…..” he answers, holding up the bag of fresh walleye, caught while trolling between the islands he had to measure that day.

You can’t be too careful, because trees do die, and ground erodes. All the sudden, your private island residence… isn’t.

“Tree’s looking a bit sickly, and the guy who counts islands is due to drop by tomorrow. Shit! We’ve some planting to do RIGHT NOW.” And off you go in your boat, in rain and 40 degree weather, to the mainland, where you get in your car and drive to whatever greenhouse may be open on a sunday, to buy whatever tree's available...

A house and a boat house and a tree and the nearest neighbor’s 500 yards of river away from you. AND A great view no matter what window you look out.
Sounds like heaven.

As long as you keep that tree alive.

Purloined sirloin

The man’s doorbell rang while he and his family were eating dinner last night.

His dog barked, of course.
The man answered the door.

He sees a younger guy, probably late 20's, in a t-shirt, shorts and boots, standing in his front yard, about 8 feet back from the front steps, staring at the lawn.

He looked up when the man came to the door, but made no effort to come back up the stairs.

The man stood there and waited, staring at his visitor, making no effort to open the door.
He already knew he didn’t want to talk to the gentleman standing in his yard.

Finally, after confirming that his dog was secured, he opened the door.

The visitor made no effort to come back up the stairs, so the man had to practically yell to converse with his visitor.

“You rang my doorbell?”

And without introducing himself, the visitor jumped right in with..

"I, uh… I work for a distribution company in the loop and... Uh.... You like meat?"
"Do I like meat??"

"You know, do a lot of grilling, stuff like that?"

WTF???

"No." The man answered honestly.

"C'mon, you cook up steaks, burgers?"

"No, we're vegetarians."
(Actually 2/3 accurate, the man’s wife and daughter are vegetarians)

"Oh, bullshit!!! your nose is growing!"

REALLY??? Good sales technique there, sparky. You must have taken classes.

"No bullshit."

“What about seafood, fish and shrimp?”

The man thought about all the times he’d ask his wife if he could buy a BB gun, and she said no…

“You’re actually interrupting my dinner. We’re having beans and rice and vegetables.”

"Seriously?"


The man looked up and down the block, saw a white delivery van parked two doors down on the street, It was obvious that the gentleman on his lawn, the one not making eye contact and behaving in an aggressive manner, was going door to door, trying to sell (assumedly) stolen meat.

The man wished he had a sprinkler system, with a remote starter.
Or a dog he trusted to NOT run off.

He had always wanted to be able to say “Release the Hounds!” like Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons, and then… actually have hounds released. Maybe someday…

"Seroiusly.” The man answered, showing great restraint.

“And it's getting cold."

"Fair enough."

And the man shut the door on him, and went back to his now cold dinner.

Should he have called the police? Behaved less civilly toward the goofball in his front yard? He wasn't sure.

But he was pretty sure he didn't want to buy meat out of the back of some random guy's van....

Perception

Perception.

I’ve had reason to think about this a bit, of late, never mind why.

A lot of us go through life, assessing ourselves based on how we perceive others.

We know we shouldn’t, but….

Person A always has their shit together, Person B’s always so upbeat and positive, I do /do not stack up in comparison.

Why can’t I be like ______? They’ve a nicer car, always look well turned out, are obviously more successful and more refined and more together and having more sex and….. You get the idea.



I try to avoid this pitfall, comparing my life to others, and finding my life… wanting.

It’s MY life, the only one I got, the only one I have any control of, and I’m plugging away at it.

And, honestly, the lives that others may or may not actually be living's got nothing to do with me.

Easy enough philosophy in theory, a bit harder to stick with in the day to day.

Other people’s lives…. You’ve no idea, really, about them, do you?

You don’t get to see the little man behind the curtain, usually. You get to see the great and powerful Oz.
Hold on… with proper emphasis: The GREAT and POWERFUL OOOOOOOOZZZZZ!

And how do you expect you’ll stack up against HIM?
I mean, geezus, he’s great AND powerful!

And you, at any given time, might feel like the lion, the tin man, or the scarecrow.

You’re kinda screwed, when making that comparison.

So try not to.

Because the great and powerful Oz is really just a regular joe huddled behind a curtain, frantically spinning dials and knobs.

No knock on anybody for doing this.
We’re all frantically spinning dials and knobs.
We're all the tin man, the lion and the scarecrow.

(I was Dorothy once, but it was a costume party, and I had lost a bet, and there was tequila involved, and... nah. made that last part up.)

Y'see, here's the scoop:

The person who’s always got themselves together is on three different medications.

The one with the sweet car and the nice hair lives in a house smaller than yours, and is sad most of the time, when they allow themselves to be.

The person whom you met and want to be-friend, but they seem on a different level than you? They’re almost embarrassingly excited when you finally suggest you meet for coffee. Turns out, they're really shy, and lacking in self-confidence.

The person to whom you aspire to be, might even… Listen to country music and… own cats.
More than one!!!!
(shudders)

And I find that this to be comforting, and like them more for it.

Except maybe the "listens to country music" part…

A man and his dog entertain the masses

Dusk, Wednesday night.
The man and his dog were finishing up their walking route.
They need only to safely cross the street at the dreaded four way stop, and they'd be seconds away from their front door.

They started to cross, going south, when the Lincoln in the east bound lane, slows, but does not stop, and eases into the intersection, a foot or so in front of the man and his dog.

The man is ill-pleased.

"That's a stop sign!" he hollers to the older man and his two friends who are in the Lincoln.
"And I have the right of way!"

The man knows that this action is futile. But he gets crabby, and occasionally- yelling helps.

He's almost finished crossing, when he hears it.
Applause.
He looks up, and notices a jeep with four high-school aged boys in it. It had pulled up behind the Lincoln at the intersection and was currently waiting for the man to finish crossing. The boys were.....clapping.

"F*ck yeah!" one of the jeep's passengers yells out.
"You tell him, dude!" another one adds.

The man is embarassed by the attention, and feels like a dork. He grins shamefacedly at the youths in the jeep, and shrugs his shoulders.

"Have a nice evening." Comes from the Jeep, as it pulls into the intersection and continues down the road.

Thanks boys, you too.

Thoughts on being Fiona's dad, on her 4th birthday

So, my daughter turns 4 years old today.
Holy crap.
Time, as they say, flies.

She is, to get right to it, everything we could have asked for, and everything we dreamed of, in a child.

At every stage, we were given bad odds or doom and gloom.
Odds are 3-1 against us getting pregnant and carrying to term.
Many months in, we were told there was 10% chance of her having special needs. Then it was all about how kids who were conceived as she was had higher percentage of slow development in sitting up by themselves, etc etc etc.

We spent so much time… Worried.
Geezus we worried.
And when we’d start to relax, just a bit, we’d get hit with the next scary statistic, unreliable test result, asshole doctor… We HATED the asshole doctor...

But then, all the sudden… there she was. And was on the small side and maybe not 100% “done” before she came out, and she didn’t sleep, and wouldn’t let us put her down (as if either of us wanted to…), and cried a lot, and she was… perfect.

And as she grew, and we continued to not screw up too bad; we watched her like a hawk for slow development and she always seemed to develop at the slow end of range and she was… perfect.

She tripled her birth weight in the first year, exceeding expectation; her doctor was thrilled for the 4 minutes he spent with us, $20 please, and we rejoiced.

And we were constantly tired, and anxious, and worried, and excited and happy and felt like the luckiest people in the world. The really tired luckiest people in the world, but still...

And then she started talking, a lot, while steadfastly refusing to walk, and we had pictures of her CRAWLING off to university at age 14. That ought to keep her from dating, at least...

And we started to realize what a great sense of humor she had, how she asked very wise questions for a two year old, and that we should really be writing down a lot of what she said. So we started to do so, and she was perfect.

And we realized that while she was really smart, she was also a complete dreamer, and tended to be off in her own world a bit, and we worried about it, and asked her teachers about it, and they chuckled and patted us on the head, basically, and told us we really needn’t worry.

And now she’s four, and utterly charming, and sweet, and pretty darn even-keeled, and a good sport and a great traveler, and is now singing along to the music I used to sing along with, to put her to sleep, when she was a baby.

And she makes me laugh, all the time.

Except when she very earnestly tells me that I’m being crabby, and she doesn’t like it when I’m crabby, and maybe I should stop being crabby. Then she makes me cry, a little, though she doesn’t know it.

But I stop being crabby, at least for a little while.

My daughter’s four years old today, and she is sure she grew taller overnight.
She might be right.

And she was excited to go to camp/ preschool today because there would be yoga, and because she got to take stuff to give to her classmates, and this is HUGE, obviously.

Tonite there will be cake and presents and family, and I’ll likely not sleep well because I STILL have an ear tuned to hear her in the night. Tomorrow there will be ½ dozen four year olds at my door for a “Girl Pirate” party, and it’s going to be loud, and chaotic, and perhaps head-ache inducing and… Perfect.

And I still feel like the luckiest man in the whole world, when I think about it.

Happy birthday, darlin’

Thoughts on Driving in OH, childhood stories, and “I’m pretty sure that used to be more fun…”

Spent the last couple of days in Sandusky, OH.

Met some friends at Castaway Bay resort and water park.
Spent a day at Cedar Point, and the rest of the time at the water park.

It was great fun, and I ended up feeling like one of those guys in the commercials; the ones where the dad comes away feeling more connected with his family than he was before they went.
And I already felt connected, before leaving. My daughter's a trooper and a half, and my wife's a great traveling companion.

Anyhow...

I think the last time I was at Cedar Point was…. 1987. I might have gone with my buddy, Dave Burke. Not even sure about that.
I just remember getting chastised by my bandmates, because I was going to miss one whole rehearsal, the week before our first (we only ended up playing two) gigs.
In a band that was, by design, only going to last until school started up for everyone in the fall.

I was young in 1987. Standing in long lines to get on rides that simulated car accidents was an awesome time. And did I worry about stuff like dehydration and sunscreen when I was 19 years old?
Puh-leaze!

So 43 year old me got to go with my wife and nearly 4 year old daughter. And hydration and sunscreen were much bigger deal. And standing in line was a much bigger deal.
And we had a fantastic time together, mostly hanging in the three different kiddy areas, with occasional forays to rides we could all go on together. We were all riding in a Model A Ford, when the sky opened up and poured rain down upon us, for instance, and all three of us thought that was pretty darn fun.

I hit three roller coasters in quick succession upon entering the park, with the other husband/dad. I described the third one we were on, The Maverick, as akin to ”Riding a bull, whilst getting punched in the face”.
Repeatedly.

Later in the evening, we went back to the park and got on a couple more. I found that, unlike when I was 19, I spent most of the time just holding on real tight and hoping for the best.

While I will continue to go on them, I’m pretty sure that roller coasters used to be more fun.

My daughter’s obsessed on hearing stories from our childhood. I’m not sure she’s actually listening, nor filing them away, but she has an unlimited desire to hear more and more.
I made some up.
Told her about how grandma and grandpa used to keep me in a cage when I was little.
Told her I was joking afterwards.
Last night we took my mom to dinner on the way home from Sandusky, and she told grandma she didn’t think I was joking, when I told her about the cage.
Uh…. Check please.
All the way home, she kept asking for more. I realized, fairly early on, that I didn’t have a lot of stories that I remembered from my own childhood, that she would find interesting.
I’d tell her a story, she’d want to know what toys I had during that story, if there was a pet involved, etc. I'd tell her about riding my bike to the park to fish in the creek with my buddy Rick, and she'd add people to my story, to the point where there were.. 5 of us fishing in the creek, including my brother, and also my brother-in-law, who I would not meet until I was in my 20's.
Or I’d finish a story, and she’d ask “Is that story over?”

Yep, it’s over.
Hey, if I’m boring you, we could listen to music for awhile, or drive in companionable silence…. “Tell me another story!”
Alrighty.

I forget, since I don’t do it very often, that driving on the OH turnpike…sucks. A lot.

Driving anywhere in OH can be interesting, as many of the folks there did not ever embrace the change of speed limit from 55 to 65 or 70 on the interstates. It’s like they still think it’s a trick, to hand out more speeding tickets. And given the reputation of the OH state police, they have every right to be cautious about it…

But the OH turnpike… extra primo bad.

The service plazas are, largely, dumps.

“Hey, this one says they have a Uno’s, an Einstein Bagel and a hot dog joint!”
And you pull in, get out of the car, and find that it has a convenience store, with a microwave, and that microwave is the Uno’s, the Einstein Bagel and the hot dog joint.
On the plus side, over 50% the toilets are NOT either bagged up or clogged. I like those odds!

But at least the actual driving part is terrifying and frustrating as well.

One person’s doing 60 in the left lane, the next person’s weaving back and forth across the center line, and 5 minutes later an emergency vehicle passes us on the shoulder, and keeps on driving up the shoulder, because noone will get over for it.
A greyhound bus literally ignores the lights and sirens and keeps it from passing and getting to… what ends up being a really bad accident.
There’s a van that looks like it was dropped from the sky blocking a lane, which angers truckers, apparently, because one of THEM in turn ran me off the goddamn highway moments later, because… he wanted to change lanes RIGHT NOW, and the fact that I happened to be in it…. Not his problem.

It’s the same guy who had just leaned on his horn and sped forward at the accident site, making sure that noone could get over in front of him to go around the van and emergency vehicles.

Of course he ignored me as I leaned on my horn as he steered me off the road, doing 60 mph. I had to gun it to pass him on the shoulder to keep from going into a ditch, and got the bird for my troubles.

So to sum up: crappy facilities, bad driving, psychotic truck drivers… oh yeah and multiple construction zones.
And you pay for the privilege.

Last time I drove this stretch, I watched the car in front of me veer off the otherwise empty highway, smack against a guard rail, bounce back onto the highway and keep on going like nothing happened.

It takes a special kind of driving experience to make me look forward to crossing the border and entering Indiana.

Winnie the Pooh, Stephen King and Ripon, Wisconsin

It all started innocently enough.

A few minutes spent looking at a map, checking out what was between point A and point B.

That's all.

We had slack time built into the drive, it was through a part of the country we'd never seen before, so we checked out our battered atlas.

"Hey, Ripon's kind of on the way, and only about a half hour or so south of our destination. Let's route so that we can check it out."

We had a week to kill at our cabin rental in middle-of-nowhere, WI, and a potentially cool town, a half hour away, sounded like something we should investigate.

Really, if we'd been paying attention, we were given a warning before it was actually too late. But at the time, it just seemed like one of those things.

Directions from the mapping website told us to get off the main highway, 151, and onto a secondary highway, 26.
Which led us through miles of farm land until eventually, after 30+ minutes, bringing us back to... Hwy 151.



Yes, we were instructed to get off the highway, for the sole purpose of driving through nothing for 40+ minutes until we were BACK to the same highway from which we started.

But, we continued to follow the directions as outlined, even while commenting on how odd they had been thus far.
We had a plan, dammit.
And we were gonna stick to it.

5 miles further up highway 151, we were instructed to get off, and onto highway 26, AGAIN. And we did.

Because taking 151 straight to the interstate and onto our destination from THERE would be BORING, and we were on VACATION, and we wanted to SIGHT SEE, mapping website logic be damned....

Anyhow, our second time on highway 26 was uneventful, and we eventually ended up in Ripon, just like the print outs said we'd be.

And it looked like a cute town, worthy of a return visit, and life was good.

For a moment.

But the moment passed, and everything turned bad.

We exited the west side of Ripon, and were immediately back in remote farm country, without ever having seen any signs for highway 44. Highway 44 was our alleged hook up, so to speak. It went north out of Ripon, according to our directions and the atlas, and would eventually connect us to 116, a road I'd traveled on before, and one that would lead us straight to our destination.

Highway 44 did not appear to exist, in real life. We were out of town, and there was no signs for HWY 44, and we were headed west through more middle of nowhere without a plan.
My wife looked at the map.
"We'll be ok, I think." she said.
"About 5 miles up, there's a north south, #71, that should take us to to Hwy 21, which we can take back east to 116. "

We were still lighthearted about our drive, approaching the bad directions and lack of signs with good humour.
For another 5 miles, until we saw the sign that our road would be closed, just ahead, and we were to turn south to detour.

The lightheartedness ended, as we detoured south as directed, further away from our destination.

My wife, always the trooper, checked the map.
"No, no. I think we'll still be ok, because we should still cross 71, and we'll just be on it for a bit longer."
2 minutes later, we came to highway 71, and....It was closed, too.
"Well, hell." My navigator said.
"I'm out of ideas, we have to go back to Ripon."

And we did.
And the round trip to end up where we started? 35 minutes.

My daughter woke up from her nap as we were checking out the map for our next attempt to successfully leave Ripon and ultimately reach our destination.

"Are we at the cottage yet?" she sleepily asked.
"Nope." I answer.
"When will we be there?"
"Your guess is as good as mine, darlin."

My navigator looked up from the map.
"County Road F heads NE out of Berlin, and will eventually run into Hwy 21....."

Which I know will lead to Omro, where I can pick up 116 to Winneconne....

Let's do it!

Except once I was on what appeared to be County Road F, it meandered in a SE direction, until we found ourselves... Back in Ripon.

I made a terse joke about how it was actually County Road FU....

For those keeping score.... 45 more minutes to end up back where we started... again.

We
Could
Not
Get
Out
Of
Ripon.

And it was beginning to be a bit unnerving, for a guy that prides himself on finding places, picking the right routes, knowing what direction I'm going, all the time....

I grew up on Stephen King novels and old Twilight Zone episodes, and I'd just ended up back in the same town for the 3rd time, unable to leave it.....

My mind started to wander.

Would we discover that the town itself was evil, and preyed on random travelers?

Would I come across a huge fertilizer plant with car carriers full of out of state cars parked out front, and make the horrifying realization that WE were the fertilizer?

Would I have to steal WI license plates to disguise my car from the local sheriff and his men (all possessed by a long buried demon of course), long enough to escape via some random country road to god-knows-where?


"Are we there yet?" my daughter asked again, pulling me back from my thoughts of demons and evil in America's heartland.


Another literary influence popped into my mind, and I started to smile.

I thought about Winnie The Pooh.
The story where Pooh, Piglet and Rabbit were lost, and kept on ending up at the same sand pit, when looking for a way home.

Pooh, the bear with very little brain, decided they should try to find the sand pit again, instead of a path out of the woods, and by doing so, guarantee that the would not end up back at the sand pit...
In other words, they should stop looking for a way out of the woods.

"That road, right there. It heads north, and looks like a major road." I tell my wife, as I put the car back in gear, and head out of the parking lot of the empty store where we had stopped to look at the map again.
.
"Ok..."
"We're taking it."
"To where?" My wife asks.
"Does it really matter at this point?" I ask in return.

I threw the Pooh reference at her, she laughed.

2 miles up the random road, we found out we were on HWY 44, the very road we needed to be on in the first place.

Lightheartedness returned.
Music was turned back on.

When my daughter asked me "When will we be there?" a minute later, I could actually give her an answer.

Hwy 44 did exactly what the map said it was supposed to do. We continued on without incident.

Our 2 hour trip did, in fact, take more than 4 hours.

We decided we did not need to visit Ripon again, though we figured we'd end up back there at some point, completely by accident.
But I was comforted in the knowledge that when this DOES happen, I now know what NOT to do to fix it.

Thanks Pooh.

Three O'clock High, and notes on "Trying"

Buddy Revell: You know what Mitchell? You're the biggest #$#^%^& I've ever seen in my life. You didn't even try. How does that FEEL?


Watched a great, if tragically overlooked, film a few nights ago, On Demand.

Three O’Clock High.


A story about a pretty regular high school kid who manages to piss off the new-to-school bully before 9am, and spends the rest of the day going to ridiculous extremes to avoid having to fight him after school.


Pretty basic plot, but was done in a very entertaining manner. Great little nuances, like how the camera flashes to the clock with increasing frequency as 3pm draws near. Or the fact that Buddy may be a hyper-violent psychopath, but is also secretly a bright student. Add to this some minor characters that don’t quite fit into the John Hughes mold, and other creative camera work, and it was a pleasure to watch.


It ends up being not so much a story about a day in the life of a high school kid, as it is a story about how your life can change, when you decide to man up, so to speak, and simply… try.

From a movie pacing standpoint, the referenced quote’s the midpoint. The Main character was going in one (very bad) direction right up until this point. Then he switches gears / goals - the actual plot changes.

It didn’t strike a big chord with me, when I as 21 and probably not 100% sober and watched it one night at the dump I shared with three other guys at college. It was just a movie, y’know?

But watching it from my current perspective, it resonated.

All the important shit, the big stuff, the A-list things in my life that I value.., they were HARD.
It would have been much easier, at each turn, to not put myself out there, so to speak. Less scary, too.

But if I hadn’t have even tried, I’d probably not have my wife, nor my daughter (certainly not my daughter), nor the job I have.

As examples.

I wish I’d have been so wise, when I was 17, 19, 22….


Switching gears a bit, I’ve a class reunion coming up.

The end of this movie reminded me of something that happened 25, maybe 26 years ago.

There was a guy who showed up for one year. This was not unusual. Our school collected the odd guys; someone who needed a change of venue from wherever they had been going to school. Usually it was an issue of hoping that our school would provide more discipline for the person. Those people rarely stuck around.

Other times, like in the case of Eric, I’d guess someone had hoped that he’d be treated nicer in a smaller, more stable environment…..

He was a dork.
That’s my 17 year old brain memory of him. Goofy, didn’t dress very well, didn’t do particularly well academically, didn’t have very good social skills, bad skin…

My 43 year old brain can assume that by the time he got to us, he was used to playing a role, filling an un-desirable spot on the food chain. We were not his first rodeo.

He suffered through the year, not a lot of friends, probably getting picked on by those who enjoyed that sort of thing. And then it was the last day of school, and he was free of us.
You’d expect a quiet exit, maybe, a sigh of relief as he slides into his car and drives out of the parking lot for the last time.

Nope.

In the parking lot, after school, he gets into a fist fight with one of his biggest tormentors.
And even though he had to have known he was going to lose, he stepped up.
He… tried.

Of course he lost the fight. And he drove out of the parking lot for the last time sore and bloodied. I can only hope that he did so with some pride, having met the adversity head on.
Maybe it changed his life for the better, the notion that a bloody nose, real or metaphorical, stops hurting and bleeding after a bit, but the results of NOT trying can last you a lifetime.
Hiding from your problems can become a lifestyle…

I’m probably over-analyzing it, and over-romanticizing the event.
I’ll let you make up your own mind about that.

And to be honest, I’d not thought about it all for 25 years, until after watching the movie again.
I hope I’m right, though, and that Eric ended up doing well in his life.

Oh, and watch the movie already. It's worth 90 minutes of your life.

A man in a car....

The man dropped off his wife and daughter at the pool, and headed back out into the world with a list of errands. His vacation starts in one week, and there's stuff to be done. Further, he's...exhausted.

Just whipped.
Beat Down.

His daughter had a really bad night, sleep wise, and this means he did, too.

He's on his way to get the Subaru's oil changed, when he realizes the car in front of him is not really driving very well.

"Clown." The irritable man mutters. They stop at a stop light, and when itturns green, the car in front does not go.
"C'mon, you $%$#%^ clown!" he says, more loudly.

The car in front of him finally takes off. The man looks around, to see if there's a way around the car in front, before they get to the next light, where he'll have to turn left.
Nope.

He watches the car in front of him weave slightly, as balloons blow around inside of it, obstructing the other driver's view. He's not at all pleased.

"Please go straight, please go straight" he thinks to himself, as they approach the next stop light.

Nope. The car in front of him slowly eases into the turn lane in front of him. He watches the driver adjust the rearview so that she can look at herself in it. He gets angrier when he sees her lean out the driverside window, to check herself out in the side mirror.

"no way this #$^& clown's paying attention to the light." he says aloud, hand poised and at the ready on the horn.

Sure enough, the turn arrow flashes on, and all the traffic in front of the woman moves, while she does not.

"C'mon, you #@$%$%^& clown, GO!!!!" he says, as he hits his horn once, briefly.

And she does, and he does, and they both make the light, and he whips into the right lane to get past her, still upset.

As he passes, he takes a quick glance over at her, and begins to laugh.

Her face was covered in white grease paint, with a large smile painted on.

That's right, my friends. The " #@$%$%& clown" really was... a clown.

the girl who played with fire

Was briefly talking books with folks yesterday, and The Girl who played with Fire came up.
actually, the trilogy came up, and I likely confused titles with plots, but.... just continue reading.


I recalled that I forced myself to finish it, whilst one of the people I was talking to, admitted that she didn't finish it.

I know I frequently miss why a mediocre-at-best book is actually secretly a brilliant work of fiction; so it was good to know that at least one other person didn't get into this one, either.


Here's my review / plot synopsis for the book.

Some little tiny girl named Svenson, with a big tattoo and a brand new boob job, has a troubled past, and is treated poorly by men, all of which were named Svenson, or perhaps Sverngensen. She's framed for a crime against someone named Svenson (or perhaps Svergensen, a writer who was about to release an expose about someone named Svenson, and is pursued by the local police, all of which were named...Svenson. There was a dirty cop, however. His name might have been Svergensen.

The lead male protagonist, Svenson, does not believe that Svenson / Svergensen the tattoo'd girl committed the crime against Svenson, and does what he can to help prove this, whilst nailing his boss, Svergensen. He thinks she's troubled, and maladjusted, and maybe dangerous, but not a killer of anyone named Svenson. Oh, he nailed her, too, before he started nailing his boss. The bosses maiden name? Svenson, I believe. They work together at a newspaper or magazine, which I'm pretty sure was called Svenson Weekly.
Their office was located on Svergensen Blvd.

Oh, and the dwarvish tattoo'd chick with new boobs? all she has to do is put on a wig, and she's unrecognizable by the entire population of whatever country she lives in.

And there was lots of stopping off at 7-11 for random meals, and a trip to Ikea to furnish a big, shiny apartment, likely located on Svenson street. Noone knows she lives there.
We spend more time reading about the Ikea trip, than we would actually spend... in Ikea.

And then Svenson Svenson Svergemsen Svenson Svergensen Svenson Svenson......

The book was at it's best early on, before the plot moved back to whatever scandinvian country in which the main plot took place. Early on, there was action on a tropical island, populated by people with different, non-interchangable last names. I could keep track without graph paper.
And the author didn't feel it was necessary to mention that they all stopped off at the island's convenience store for food.

Of COURSE I exaggerate.

But only a little.

If you're going to translate a novel into a different language, spend more than 5 minutes @ babelfish.com to do it.
Having it properly edited up front would help a great deal as well.

The US equivalent would have been set in Atlanta. All the characters would have had the word "Peach" or "Peachtree" in their names, their addresses, etc.
At least one of them would have had the nickname "Peachy" or "Peaches". There would have been many random, non-plot related mentions of stopping off at the Piggly Wiggly for vaguely named food items.

And after it became huge, it would be translated into many different languages, and some snarky, lazy-minded reader will mock it.

And rightfully so.

Smashing Pumpkins video shoot

I've learned something in the last year.
If someone you know says "hey, you want to be an extra in a movie/ music video, I can make it easy for you to do so" or words to that effect - say "yes".

And not because it will be the coolest thing you've ever done,because while you're doing it you CERTAINLY won't be thinking this; or even because you'll end up being able to say "see, right there! there I am!"

Because I've no idea, at all, if I'll be able to say that.

But you should still say yes.

Friday night, about 75-100 people took part in shooting footage for a video for the Smashing Pumpkins' song OWATA.

Billy Corgan's a big fan of wrestling, and is tight with the local indy group AAW. I've a friend who's heavily involved in that group, and I've been to a few of their shows.

So I already knew where the Berwyn Eagle's Club was located.
Yep, video was shot at a sorta run down Eagle's Club, similar to a VFW hall.

Cuz rock and roll is GLAMOROUS!

Stood outside for way too long, then we were finally ushered in. Our job there was very simple. There would be wrestling, we'd cheer and boo and act like a rabid wrestling audience.
Over, and over, and over.....

Was by far the most diverse wrestling crowd I'd seen at the Eagle's club, given that over half were Pumpkins' fans.
There were...women in the audience, just to mention one BIG difference from the normal crowd.

I do not know the premise behind the video, the storyline if you will. They had been filming for 8 hours already by the time we were allowed in to "watch" the wrestling.
Cameras rolled for the main event - Two well known (if you're into that sort of thing) women wrestlers going at it for "the belt".
do not ask me whose belt.

We were given our instructions, and then watched and reacted to the match.

It was actually a pretty good match, the wrestlers were talented.

Then it was over, the cameras stopped, we were told to hang out for 15-20 while they rested, so that they could film it again.
They moved some of us around to the side where most of the filming would likely take place, gave us further instructions as to who EXACTLY we were supposed to be cheering and booing, and started everything back up.

We watched the EXACT same match a 2nd time, cheered and jeered and booed enthusiastically, were not at all surprised by the outcome of the match, the cameras were stopped again, and.... They told us that they were going to have the match ONE MORE TIME.

My friend, Phil, and I looked at each other, looked at our watches, thought about our wives and little girls at home, and opted out of the 3rd viewing.

Still, it was cool, I have a new tale to tell, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be in the video; waving a sign provided by the crew over my head, or pretending to be outraged by heel tactics on display in the match.

Physics

I've a confession to make.
I managed to graduate both high school AND college, without ever taking a physics class.
Which is a shame, because at this point in my life, I'm pretty clear on how my brain works, what it focuses on, and I think it would have really enjoyed physics classes.


I was feeling the physics ignorance awhile back, so picked up a book that highlights and briefly explains 50 laws of physics.

Cool.

Same people also published similar books dealing with philosophy and other fields of study.

Smart Stuff for Dummies, in other words.

Perfect for me.



Besides the fact that it seems like a bunch of guys became famous in their fields for stating the obvious, I've found a lot of what I've read to be very interesting.

I came across a little bit of physics in-fighting the other day.
A genius version of Biggie vs. Tupac, Elton vs. Madonna, Axl Rose vs.... everyone.

Only.... for nerds.
Historical nerds.

Law # 1:

Copenhagen Interpretation:

Neils Bohr was hanging out in Denmark, partying with a bunch of scientists in a mansion donated by the Carslberg brewery folks; thinking deep thoughts and staying away from Nazis. He came up with the notion that an object is not fully formed, until you observe it, and that by observing it, you dictate the form it will take.

Light's both a particle AND a wave, for instance, but will adapt it's form to how the observer wishes to measure it.
If that's not enough, the ACT of observing alters what is being observed, because the act of observation "involves the transfer of some energy and momentum."


In coming up with this, he introduced a bit of philosophy into physics, which really cheesed off some of the other scientists.

(This happened decades before folks realized that you CAN mix chocolate and peanut butter, for the betterment of mankind.)


This theory caused a guy named Schrodinger to go all east coast vs. west coast on Bohr's ass.

In part to mock Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation, which he thought was ridiculous, he came up with own.

A cat, in a closed box, may or may not have been poisoned, and may or may not be dead...

(Sidebar: Schrodinger had some serious issues...)

Schrodinger's Cat indicates that the only way to determine if the cat's alive or dead, is to open the box; but that the cat's obviously not both alive AND dead at the same time, waiting for us to peek inside and determine it's fate.

(Did I mention that it seems like a bunch of guys became famous in their fields for stating the obvious?)

He equates a possibly poisoned, possibly dead cat with light waves/particles.


This is what happens when brilliant nerds get bitchy.

Schrodinger, when not talking about torturing pets, left a trail of illegitimate children across europe and the UK.

Yep, this physics stuff is pretty fascinating.....

Camo is the new black.

just got back from 3 days of fishing in Wisconsin. Things i've learned.....

1. Camo is the new black.
2. Sunburn's for people in a hurry. WIND burn takes way longer, but is just as unpleasant.
3. If the rain's blowing hard enough, you CAN actually get rain all the way into your ear canal.
4. You have fried fish on your menu? Really? It's tonite's special? what's your other specials? Other kinds of fried fish? Tough call... I'll go with the fried fish, I think. Oh, definitely want the fries with that....
5. OOPS. Sorry, I didn't see you there, what with all the camo and all. You blend right in.
6. Critters Sports advertises indoor archery range and full bar. All thisi time, I just assumed they were in the same room... I stand corrected.
7. I don't want to own a camo painted boat. I'd never find it.
8. Beer is so very cheap. and it goes great with fried fish.
9. leeches are nasty. Yeah, I didn't JUST learn this, but was reminded of it continually for three days. However, they're like...fried fish to the fish, so I endured it.
10. Pontoon boats and high wind and swift current do not go together nearly as well as...say.... fried fish and a 30oz mug of beer.....

Fishing wasslow, but steady. And the company was... AWESOME.

New adventures of a man and his dog

Wednesday, 7:15pm.

The man and his dog head out into the evening.
There were reports of bad weather in the area, but it had all missed the man's neighborhood thus far.

He looked to the western sky, and was not pleased.
But - he was not worried, either.

They began their route.

They had not yet traveled a full block, when the previously-light breeze turned into a wind. By the time they reached the school, the wind was really beginning to assert itself.
They turned west, into the wind, and kept going.

The sky that had not worried him, mere minutes before, was now quite ominous, and much, much closer.
The man mentally shook his head and grinned ruefully.
"Why the hell not?" he thought to himself as the weather continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate.
"This is how I roll."

But then an amazing thing happened.
He came upon a flowering tree, resplendent in tiny purple blooms. It smelled wonderful.
As the strong wind blew through the tree, it picked up thousands of tiny purple petals.

The man stood immediately downwind from the tree, and, grinning with awe and childlike delight, stretched his arms out wide as he stepped into a blizzard of tiny flowers.
He was sublimely happy, and made no effort to continue on their way.

The dog, a simpler creature perhaps, was not as impressed with the spectacle, and began to whine at the first flash of lightning and rumble of thunder .
The moment had passed.
"You make a good point." The man said to the dog, turning away from the tree and the flowers.
The headed across the field, the man's gaze turned downward to avoid the flying dust and dirt.

Their pace quickened as the wind began to howl, and the first splatters of rain struck them. They ran the last half block, and were inside before the rain began in earnest.

The man found his wife and daughter on the back porch, rocking gently on the porch swing as the storm became fully involved.

"You beat the storm!" The man's wife said with relief.

"Just barely." the man replied as he sat down next to them, and his big, brave dog slunk under the swing and laid down.
"But the coolest thing happened..."

Semantics

Martin: Whole grain pancakes and an egg-white omelette, please.
Waitress: What would you like in your omelette?
Martin: Nothing in the omelette. Nothing at all.
Waitress: Well, that's not technically an omelette.
Martin: Look, I don't want to get into a semantic argument about it, I just want the protein, all right?
- From one of the best movies of all time, EVER...Grosse Pointe Blank
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Had occasions over the weekend, to think about semantics.

Semantics... they're fun.

Hell, the definition of semantics even sounds important and profound.


se·man·tics
[si-man-tiks]

-noun ( used with a singular verb )
1. Linguistics .
a. The Study of Meaning.
b. the study of linguistic development by classifying and examining changes in meaning and form.
2. Also called significs. the branch of semiotics dealing with the relations between signs and what they denote.
3. the meaning, or an interpretation of the meaning, of a word, sign, sentence, etc.: Let's not argue about semantics.


"The Study of Meaning".... Impressive!

Yet, generally speaking, when we use "Semantics" in conversation, it's generally as a prop, a set up for humor, perhaps, or a (hopefully) good spirited argument. I lump it in with words and phrases like "oxymoron" and " contradiction in terms" and "that's redundant".

"Wow, he's... very staunch in his convictions."
"He's an ass-clown."
"I guess it's just a matter of semantics..."



So, in the study of meaning and context...

My best friend, a guy I've known since first grade, came to see me on Saturday. He, his pregnant wife and almost one year old son were in town for the afternoon. Only non-negotiable point - real Chicago-style pizza.

We had lots of fun breaking down the semantics of this. Ordering chicago-style pizza in...Chicago.
"I, uh... I don't think they call it that, here."

Chicago-Style Pizza. You order this at pizza joints NOT in or around Chicago. Here, it's simply listed as "pizza" on the menu.
Noone advertises it.

Like Chicago-style hotdogs.
they're just hot dogs, here.

Does this mean, if you just want a hotdog with, say... catsup and a slice of american cheese on it, you'd walk into the Plush Pup, around the corner from my office and order a... Kalamazoo dog?

(Oh, and as an aside - Good luck with the whole "Catsup on a hot dog" thing around here. "You want WHAT?" is the apparently only correct response to that request, at every mom and pop place within a 25 mile radius...)

"Look, I don't want to get into a semantic argument about it, I just want the protein, all right?"

It'd be like looking for a good Chinese restaurant, in China. It's not chinese food there, it's... food.

See?
Semantics! meaning and context.


There's a winter storm advisory for W. Michigan today.
But... it's Spring.

Wait, let me retype that with proper emphasis...
But... but...it's SPRING... (followed by quiet sobbing...)

It's been Spring for almost a month.

How can they call it a WINTER storm, if it's no longer winter?

I just had my exit interview for my soon to be ex-job. I kept it largely professional, because...I'm a pretty professional guy.
Yet, there were some points that REALLY needed to be made...

Semantics, my friends. Meaning and context.....

The day that Santa died.

Was trying to transfer some old files from a mostly worthless old laptop, prior to recycling it, and came across some stuff I had written years ago. I completely forgot this existed.... perhaps I'll clean up some of the other ones, and post them, too.


The day that Santa died.

As is often the case, the story begins before I had a chance to sit down with my first cup of coffee. I was actually on my way to my sister’s house for coffee, and early morning pandemonium courtesy of her boys, my nephews, to whom I am a large wonderful toy. You’ve all seen the scratching post /perch/ carpeted thing to climb that are the joy of so many house cat’s existence? I am this toy, for my nephews. Which I wholeheartedly approve of, until they get big enough to be a real challenge to my superior might and intellect. Which will be 3 or 4 more years on the might part, and 6 weeks or so on the intellect.
But I digress.

Early and often.

I was driving down the street, listening to Ike Reilly on the CD player, when I spotted him, crumpled in someone’s front yard.
“Jesus Christ, that’s Santa.”
Santa looked like he had fallen from his sleigh at some great height, and came to an abrupt and permanent halt at terminal velocity in the slushy front yard of a brick Georgian, in a southwest suburb of Chicago. What an anti-climatic end for such an august personage. This guy had made millions happy over the years, brought a sense of wonder and whimsy to generations of people, hung out with cats like the Mizer brothers, Burghermeister Meisterburger and the Winter Warlock, and had a well documented obsession with the undersized. But, like it is for all of us, at some point in time, it’s your time. The siren song of Mr. Coffee interrupted my thoughts, and I kept driving.
A couple of blocks further on, and goddamn but there was Santa again, in the same sad state I had just witnessed him to be in. And this time he had company. It looked for all the world like Frosty the snowman had broken the big guy’s fall. This act of selflessness did neither of them any good.
I listened close for Jimmy Durante’s voice, explaining to all of us what had happened, but heard nothing.

While I never cease to amuse myself, thinking like this, I was questioning whether or not it would amuse others in the re-telling, as I pulled up in front of my sister’s house.
Not everyone has the penchant for dark flights of fancy, as do I.

Of course I had not actually observed the tragic evidence of some mid-air collision earlier, but a number of those gawd-awful inflatable lawn ornaments with which so many have gone to so much trouble to ugly up my neighborhood during this most sacred of seasons.
They’re ugly enough when wasting valuable natural resources to power the engine that powers the fans that keep them inflated, but they look like nothing but colorful piles of refuse when the plug is pulled.
Or, perhaps, the result of a really bad accident...

Routine.

Fiona mentioned to me yesterday that there’s a new girl in her class.

“Is she nice?” seemed like a good question to ask my 3.5 year old daughter.
A simpler form of “Does she play well with others?”, if you will.

Because that would probably be what registers and is important at that age, right?
You want the other kids to be nice to you- kind, you want the other kids to play well with you.
At this point in my daughter’s life, she’s probably not looking much past these basics.

It would be a simple verbal transaction.

I ask “Is she nice?”
Fiona answers “Yes.” Or “She took my pink crayon” in lieu of “No”.


Or so I thought.

“She doesn’t have the routine down yet.” was her vaguely critical reply.
“But she’s nice.”

Alarming visions flashed through my head as I waited for the light to turn green on our way home from her school.
Brief flashes of The Shawshank Redemption… various boarding school movies… “What we have here is a failure to communicate”……. Flew through my brain, all in an instant.

“Doesn’t have the routine down yet?” from my 3 year old?
WTF???

“Ummm… Do YOU have the routine down?”

“Yes!” was her prompt and matter-of-fact reply.

“What IS the routine?”

(Please don’t let it be that they’re making athletic shoes in a sweat shop atmosphere, please don’t let it be that they’re making athletic shoes in a sweat shop…)

“Doing things you don’t want to do, because the teachers tell you to.”

My relief that her pre-school is apparently NOT treating their students as cheap labor, quickly morphed into something less upbeat.

She’s already figuring out what a large chunk of her life is going to be all about. 14+ more years of school, and then college, hopefully grad school if she wants it.

And jobs. There’s little chance that she’ll go through life without having to work jobs to make ends meet.

Thanks for making me think about this sweetheart, after just leaving a particularly difficult day at the office behind. No, really. Keep up the good work...

That IS, and will continue to be the routine, for most of your life, darlin’.

That’s why we all embrace what’s OUTSIDE of the routine, with such vigor.

Fishing weekends, family getaways, live music, dinner with friends, the odd night out….
playtime.

Never, EVER take playtime for granted, darlin'.
Because the rest… Is routine.

That moment, between sleep and waking....

You know that moment.
The brief time when you're no longer asleep, but you're not yet awake.
When your dreamworld and the real world briefly overlap, until you fully orient yourself to the reality of your morning.

Odd things populate that moment.

For me, it's usually sounds.

A siren might be my daughter, crying.
Or vice versa.
My neighbor wheeling his trash can to the curb early on a Monday morning, might be the sound of a far off train, or perhaps thunder.

Rain is radio static, radio static is rain...

But only for a moment, that moment that's populated by odd things.

I've never been a real deep sleeper, but have become even less of one, since my daughter was born. It got a bit worse, when she became mobile; as she regularly would pad into our room in the middle of the night. It got so I'd be listening for footsteps in my sleep.

This morning... well. Let me tell you about this morning.

I've had the place to myself the last few days, while Wendy and Fiona visited Wendy's mom. I woke up well before the alarm clock, convinced myself that I was awake for the day, and promptly fell back asleep.

We've a large dog, and wood floors. Not even realizing that I had fallen back to sleep, I heard the sound of footsteps entering my room, and opened my eyes.

Odd things populate that moment between sleep and awake....

This morning, it was an extremely tall...something.

I opened my eyes to a fleeting vision of an extremely tall woman, in a white wrap, staring down at me.

"Gah!" I shout aloud and incoherently in that moment.

The giantess disappeared, replaced by the reality of shadows and a white bath towel draped over the bedroom door.
Eventually, my heart stopped racing.
I thought about the giantess, and... was kinda sad she had disappeared so quickly.
I would have liked to have had a better look at her.

Was it really just a towel and a trick of the light?
Or was it something else?

I would have preferred the answer to be "something else", be it an apparition, or proof, perhaps, that someone DOES watch over you.


But in the time it took me to register what I saw, and holler aloud, it was over, and I'm left only with a vague longing for more,and the reminder that:

Odd things populate that moment, that moment when sleep and awake overlap.

Things I don’t want to ever hear myself saying to my daughter - Thoughts on “character building”.

Growing up, I built a LOT of character.

Bucket Loads.
Newspaper delivery bags full.
250,000 snow shovels worth.

Because, you see, every menial task, every roll-up-the-sleeves chore… built character.

Why do I have to hold the wedge against the log while my brother tries to hit it with the blunt side of an ax?
Why do I have to clean out the garage? I don’t use it for anything, except keeping my bike out of the rain.

Because “It builds character”.

“It builds character” was usually accompanied by laughter.

I was too young to understand the concept of “character”, when I first started building it.
I wasn’t sure WHAT it was, but if I got it by, say…picking up wagons full of walnuts, I was pretty sure I didn’t want it.

We never went to the beach to build character, we just went to the beach.
I never played “Asteroids” at my buddy Rick’s house, to build character.
I never rode my bike to the park with my fishing pole, to build character.

“Can I go to the city pool with Allen and his mom?”
“Sure, it’ll build character.”

Nope, “character” never entered into these discussions.

So, following this logic, one’s character is defined by….unpleasantness.

That doesn’t sound very promising.

I’d like to think that the music I played, the friends I’ve made, the camping, the fishing, the acts of love, both emotional and physical…. Had way more to do with my character, than, say… organizing my dad’s random tool room detrius.

To that, mix in professional experiences, fatherhood, college and many wonderful random adventures.

These things HAVE to be responsible for my “character”, don’t they?

Jesus, I hope so.

And I hope the same for my daughter, which is why she’ll never hear “Because it builds character” from me, when she wonders why she has to help shovel the driveway, weed the garden, and clean the basement.

Oh, she’s gonna do all of those things, but she won’t ever be led to think it’s what defines who she is.

random winter storm and ensuing panic thoughts -Part 1.

Lines out into the street at all the gas stations yesterday afternoon and evening.

REALLY?
Because…. Everyone’s gonna be doing a lot of driving over the next couple of days as we get 12-20 inches of snow? Seems counter-intuitive…

Both of my cars have full tanks.
But they both NEEDED filling up.
Honest.

Co-worker told me his wife had to drive to ½ dozen different places yesterday before she could find ice melt. And when she DID find some, she bought every bag in the store.
He tells tall tales, but claims that his wife was approached by other shoppers, offering HER money for the salt in her cart, that she hadn’t even paid for yet.

On the count of three, everyone panic. Ready????
1….. 2……3……FREAK OUT!!!!

Yeah, this storm’s gonna be a monster, but not sure what a bag of salt’s gonna do to combat that.

random thought: Seems lots of people made sure to stock up on booze and junk food for the impending blizzard and forced stay-at-home time. I've ridden through hurricanes, people. Drunk's really not the way to approach crisis. Just sayin'.
At least they won't be on the road...

I’m working from home today. Because I don’t want to wait for the storm to arrive before being told I can leave early. Compound with fact that all the decision makers, and aprox. ½ my coworkers are all at our big market event in Florida.
Where they will remain, as they were likely scheduled to fly home either tonite or sometime tomorrow.

Hopefully, there will still be hotel rooms for them, if they are, indeed, stranded.

Headed out to Target last night, it was as busy as I remember it being just before Christmas. With all the hoopla, I was surprised to still see plenty of milk and other staples, like chocolate chips, available.

Decided to get Fiona a sled, so was checking out the sporting good aisles. Hmm…. Pool toys, beach paraphernalia, scooters, skateboards….. Excuse me, where are your sleds?

Seems they pulled all the winter stuff off the shelves just a couple of days ago, to make room for beach umbrellas and kiddie pools.

HA-ha (In best Nelson from the Simpsons voice)! Good planning! Don’t you folks watch TV?

The drug store around the corner’s a little slower on the trigger, and had plenty of sleds.

Fiona climbs into bed with us at 5:45 this morning.

“Let’s go sledding!!!!!”
It’s still nighttime, darlin’.
“Oh! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”

Nice.

A not so near miss

Monday night.

Got home from errands, and light snow was juuuuuuuuust starting to fall as I unloaded the car.
Five minutes later, I’m walking out the front door, leash in hand, dog on other end.
And…it was icing.

Not the yummy kind, but the kind that usually flies sideways in a strong wind, and makes pretty little tinkly noises as it smacks against the ground, houses, my coat…. It’s pelts my face in silence, however.

I’m not diggin’ it.

But it’s supposed to be a dead on blizzard by walk time tomorrow night, so can’t shirk now.

We do the loop, and are back at our 4 way stop. I begin to cross and… the car headed toward us brakes, and everything works out like it’s supposed to, EXCEPT…. The car does not stop. 10 minutes of icing has made the road slippery.

The car slid past the stop sign and I…. was not in front of it, knowing that it was likely slippery, I hung back.

I’m learning….

Another near miss…

Saturday night.

The man and his dog had completed their loop, and were a few yards away from their house, when it happened.

Once again, he was well into the cross walk, when someone nearly ran him over.

The man was greatly displeased by this, and voiced his displeasure loudly, and crudely.
This, it turns out, might have just saved his life.

The driver of the offending vehicle had her window down, and heard him yell, which caused her to stop.
She had apparently not seen the man and the dog.

She looked slightly ill, at the realization that she had almost struck the man, as she spoke.

“I don’t know what the f*ck I WAS doing.” she said, answering the EXACT question the man had loudly posed.
“I’m so sorry!”

The man could not help himself, and broke into a big smile. He waved to her, as she patiently waited for he and the dog to finish crossing the street.

Imagination and Tim Burton movies….

Sunday night.

He was walking down his driveway with an armful of boxes, a bag of recyclables, and a big dog on a leash.

His goal – put all the boxes and recyclables on the curb; and then proceed to take the dog for her evening walk.

“Hope the dog doesn’t take off on me.” He thought briefly, as he crouched by the side of his busy street, placing the bags and boxes on the curb. And, as it tends to do, his imagination ran with the notion.

He clearly saw in his mind eye his dog seeing a rabbit, taking off, and yanking him over, facedown into the street, as a white van approached…

This did not happen of course.
Nothing did.
Done with the unloading, they proceeded together up the street in companionable silence, until they reached the corner.
Looking both ways, they entered the cross walk at the four way stop, and crossed the street.

They were over halfway across when a large white van, barely slowing down at the stop sign, bore down upon them. Seeing this, he quickly jumped back, pulling the dog with him, and started cursing mightily at the van, which by this time had already hit its brakes, and was speeding back up, never actually stopping for the pedestrians who had the right of way.

“Jesus, that was close!” he muttered, wishing he had a cell phone with him so he could call the police with the van’s description and license plate number.
Shaken, he and his canine companion continued across the intersection, and on with their walk.

Moments later, images from Beetle Juice popped into his head. The movie started with Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin narrowly missing a big accident, only to find out that they not only did NOT miss it, but they were actually dead.

He noticed how quiet it was outside, and how there wasn’t anyone else to be seen. He thought about the movie some more, and laughed to himself, amused by his own imagination. And they walked on.

And on, and on, and there was still no one else to be seen. Down two blocks, left just past the elementary school, through the empty playing fields by the train tracks, and back toward home. And he thought again about the movie…

As he approached the four way stop again, a garage door opened, and the home’s owner walked out. He was a nice guy, wife, two kids, spent lots of time in the summer shaping his hedges until they were perfect.
The man and his dog had stopped numerous times in the past to exchange pleasantries with him, whilst he trimmed. The man remembered a particularly pleasant exchange from the end of last summer, where he was encouraged to smell the greenness of the freshly trimmed hedge. It had smelled wonderful.

“Happy new year!” the home’s owner said cheerfully to the man, as he walked to his van, parked at the curb.
“Oh, whew!” The man thought, smiling to himself.

“Happy new year to you, too!”

The walk concluded without incident, and he was delighted to hear his wife giving their daughter a bath, when he walked into the house from the cold, quiet night.

“How was the walk?” She called from the bathroom, as he took off his coat and scarf

“It was ok.”