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Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.) Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu. This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things. Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Work.
Blech. Gotta do some right now, as well as tomorrow morning for our twice-monthly exercise in civil servitude. And tomorrow's going to be particularly interesting in that we are moving from the lush confines of our offices overlooking Lynn Park to a different location. It promises a larger meeting space, as well as the possibility of co-eds. We'll see. Anyway, to work. See you again much later tomorrow.
Weeping Madonnas, Images of Jesus In Tortillas, and now...Owner thinks cat's marks honor Earnhardt DELAND, Fla. (AP) -- First it was the Dale Earnhardt goat, now it's the Dale Earnhardt cat.Now this is just me, and let me say first that I think it's right interesting that there's a cat with a 3 on it, but I really, REALLY think the much bigger story here is the screaming fur. Fur in the shape of something is cool, but when it screams, well, now that's just something you don't hear about every day. He told his wife of 30 years, "Valerie, we're rich."We can quit spending $500 a week on lottery tickets! Albury, a NASCAR fan who regularly watches the races on television, called up the Daytona International Speedway to see if officials there were interested. The Speedway officials suggested he call Dale Earnhardt Inc. based in North Carolina. He hasn't gotten a reply.Wow--it's just like listening to Britney Spears' mom! This isn't the first animal born in Florida bearing the number 3 since Earnhardt's death.You know, this whole deal with pilgrimages to see numbered animals just cries out for a new version of the Canterbury Tales. Someone get me that Chaucer guy on the phone!
Awww--'Umbilical Cord' Holding Mars Rover Successfully Cut
I remember cutting the cord on my own little Rover--the only one I got to do that on was Catherine. They really need to give you better instructions and prepare you for it, though, because even with sharp scissors it's pretty tough to cut. Must be all those wires and cables.
Mmm. Lunchtime!
Reminds me of a joke--two aerospace engineering students from Auburn were on their first day of internship at Huntsville with NASA. At the most critical part of the countdown of a new rocket, the boys suddenly broke out their lunchboxes and started chowing down on barbecue sandwiches and cold drinks. The supervisor yelled and asked what they thought they were doing--"Well, y'all said it was time fer launch." Thank you--I'll be here all week.
Oooooh--SHOES!!
Lifestyle Brand of Yak Leather Footwear Sells for Up to $300 a Pair By Lisa SandersMan, gotta get me some YAK! And each shoe only weighs 6400 pounds! Anyway, I don't quite know if I want Hummer participating in my life when I cover up in the sheets. I'll let all of you fill in your own jokes about knobby tire treads and go-anywhere capabilities. And the name Hummer, for that matter.
Francesca says this doesn't need to be in the comments, but out here where everyone can see it.
But then, if I did that, it would not have the hallmark subtlety that makes Possumblog so very annoying.
Stoking the literary fires
As you know, commentary on most of the world's literature can be found herein, which is why some young student just came through searching for: the enormous turnip(synopsis. Happy to be of help--see there was this turnip, and it was enormous. And speaking of great stories, this morning's Toothbrush Story was a pretty good one, if I do say so myself. It was about a gopher, whose name was supplied to me by Tiny Girl as "Gophie." Of course, Gophie was a big dumb lummox of a nutria, who had large yellow teeth which grew and grew and produced the need for Daddy to make buck-toothed chewing sounds. One day he (Gophie, not Daddy) was sittting on a bench at the park eating a bag of carrots when a very beautiful female gopher happened by. (Catherine said her name was Kasey with a K.) Kasey, who sounded like a Valley Girl with an overbite, took a liking to Gophie rather quickly (as is the way of rodents) but was shocked and appalled by his ghastly yellow dentition. She told him he needed to BRUSH HIS TEETH. It seems Gophie had never seen himself in the mirror, so Kasey showed him with her makeup compact how hideous he was, and he was VERY embarrassed that he had allowed his dental hygeine to slip so far. AT ONCE, he scurried home to his burrow annnnnnd--"BRUSHED HIS TEETH!" Yes, that's right, Catherine. He brushed his big yellow incisors until they sparkled like a brand new set of piano keys. And he and Kasey hit it off really well afterwards, and set up housekeeping in a very nice three bedroom hole. "Did they have any children?" Yes, they had thirty-eight. "Did they brush their teeth?" THAT, my dear, is a story for tomorrow.
Who knew!?--Soup: Savory and satisfying
Despite the banal title, the article actually has some pretty banal suggestions: [...] A basic vegetable soup can be made even heartier and will serve more diners by the addition of some vegetable, chicken or beef stock, water and noodles. Let the mixture simmer until the noodles are tender.And now we know where all the hot air in the Senate comes from.
Won’t you beeeeeee, my neighbor.
Obviously I’m a day late and a dollar short on commenting on this story, but whatever. Seems Howard Dean was in Iowa Sunday and was castigated by an old man for being surly and rude. The man, a Republican retiree named Dale Ungerer said Dean (and the rest of the Democratic candidates, for that matter) ought to quit attacking Bush and each other. […] Ungerer, wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Mr Fix It," rose to his feet and condemned what he called the incivility of the campaign and the political press. He suggested Dean and the other Democratic candidates stop "tearing down your neighbor" and cut their "slam, bam and bash Bush" rhetoric.Mr. Ungerer begged to differ, which seemed to light off Dean’s burner and demonstrate to the audience exactly what he had been accused of. And then there is this strange quote- […] "It's not the time to put up any of this 'love thy neighbor' stuff ... I love my neighbor, but I'll tell you I want THAT neighbor back in Crawford, Texas where he belongs." […]I say it’s strange, because this is the same Dean who came swinging through here not long ago saying how religious he is, and how he wanted to let us folks down South know what a pious feller he was. I’m sure he thinks he is, but I fear the only religious people who are going to be enthused by his theology are the ones who believe God is a cross between FDR and Whoopi Goldberg, that Jesus is like the really cool guy you know who you can trust to hold your stash without smoking it all up, and who think the kingdom of Heaven is run like the local zoning board of adjustment. Although there are probably a good many who share his view, not a lot of them live around here. Further, the story behind all that “’love thy neighbor’ stuff,” whether Dr. Dean likes it or not, is one of kindness and compassion for your fellow man, despite any earthly differences that may separate you. Seems that there are an awful lot of Democrats out there who think such ideals are their sole province, which makes Dean’s response seem, well, un-Democratic, and much more like those filthy Republicans. Odd that a physician would so lightly disregard a lesson from the Great Physician, but then again, Jesus isn’t a caucus delegate. Anyway, according to Luke’s gospel, what happened is that a man who knew his Scripture (and wanted to test Jesus) stood up and asked Jesus to tell him what he needed to do to have life everlasting. Jesus asked him what the Scripture said, and the lawyer said that you were supposed to love God and love your neighbor, which is exactly right. But the lawyer thought he had him with that nigglingly imprecise word “neighbor,” and asked Jesus to explain exactly who his neighbor is--probably thinking that he could figure all kinds of ways to trap Jesus with whatever he said. Jesus then told them of a story of man who got robbed, beaten and left for dead. A priest passed by without helping him, then a Levite (a man of the priestly tribe) passed by without helping the man. Then along came a Samaritan, who felt compassion on the beaten man, put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and paid for his medical care, and promised to pay any other costs that might accrue between then and the time he got back from his business trip. Jesus asked the lawyer who was the man’s neighbor in that scenario. 36 Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers?Some things to consider--the Samaritans were despised by the Hebrews of that day, and were regarded as little more than dogs. The men who refused to help the robbed man were of his own people, and further, were religious leaders who should have known better. To have someone so reviled behave in such a way would probably have seemed incredible to some who heard it, but to make it hit even closer to home, some believe that since Jesus said that this was a “certain man” and “a certain priest” and “a certain Samaritan” that this was no simple parable, but an actual event that was well known to the audience. The shame of not helping, compounded by the shame of who did help. And if it were an actual event, it certainly would have been much harder for his lawyer interlocutor to simply dismiss it as a hypothetical. In any event, there are a good many folks who take that “love thy neighbor stuff” seriously. If Dean wants their votes, it might be worth it for him to remember that. Monday, January 12, 2004
Up early Sunday, doze while listening to the television, shower, shave, brush, get kids up, help Cat get dressed, try to get wife up, fix little girl hair, prepare scrumptious breakfast of something out of a foil packet, answer phone (as noted last week, this is never good---and I was right this time, too. One of Reba’s uncles had to be taken to the hospital for a heart attack--he’s having quintuple bypass right now) load giant stack of Bibles and class materials in van, chase down coats for children, shove everyone out the door and into the van.
Almost immediately have to begin delicate proposition of brokering a cease-fire and enforcing a DMZ in the rear seat. Decide to build concrete wall down center of van. Get to the church building, manage to get everyone devanned and embuildinged and actually got to sit through an entire class without having to chase after anything or anyone. Good class getting started on the book of Proverbs for the young adults, and for once we had a packed classroom. (Lot of late risers in the group) On to morning worship, where I noticed a strange odd thing--it seemed that Oldest was separated from her beau of late by another person--a girl person! Oh my. This might be something terrible. Or not. Come to find out, the young fellow I have spoken of so highly in past entries--the boy who slobbered after Oldest like a whupped puppy, who pledged his undying heart to her--managed to act just like a 14 year old boy. Decided he still had the hots for some other girl, decided to break things off, decided to call around and tell everyone else except Oldest that he was going to be breaking things off before telling her, and then tried to play the “I know you probably think I’m terrible” card. Oh please. As if. Whatever. Which is pretty much what she told him. Heh. As I told Reba, the self-centered and arrogant side of her personality does occasionally stand her in right good stead--although miffed that the boy she had been linked to had acted like a heel and a cad, she was not quite so broken up as he would have liked. In fact, she was rather relieved. Of course, that relief was further helped by yet ANOTHER young man who seems to have fallen for her charms, who told her in no uncertain terms that he was sorry she had been so meanly victimized, and promised to call her with words of consolation. ::sigh:: Such plot twists. On for some lunch, then on to one of the other local congregations for the big Bible Bowl contest (senior team won, junior team came in a distant fourth), then back to the building for some more testing of some sort, then evening worship, which I spent in the fellowship hall with Catherine trying to explain why it was not a good idea to keep standing up and turning around during services, especially when her top was three inches shy of her belly button, and her skirt was likewise three inches shy the other way. (She wallows around and fidgets a great deal, causing anything she wears to head to the polar regions.) Home, sandwiches, sign report cards (all good ones this time--mostly As, a few Bs, no Cs), collapse into bed. And here we are again!
As you know…
I have been doing this bit of ongoing sociological research now for over two years--in that time, Possumblog come to be known as one of the world’s foremost authorities on any topic you can ever imagine. While I may often be wrong, I am never at a loss for an answer. The possumy oracle you see before you has been the destination for many, many querists over the past months, and each and every one has come away with something valuable, even if it is the value of knowing that something called Possumblog is not really that likely to have nekkid pictures of Norah O’Donnell. In my short time, I have seen all sorts of requests and questions and inquiries and ponderables, but now I believe I have seen it all. Just dipped into the algae-covered aquarium of the referrer logs and found this little gem: Dear mr.Google, I know Rome was not built in a day,but if it is posible (and only if) to cure Bilka's stomach? ::blink::blink:: I know Rome wasn’t built in a day, too, but please, take Bilka to a doctor, not to someplace named after an omnivorous prehensile-tailed marsupial!
Just in case...
...you have found that the amount of hard-hitting philosophical content of Possumblog has not quite been up to par lately, word just came from Brian Anderson, Senior Editor of City Journal of some hearty fare--I haven't gotten a chance to read any of these articles yet, but they sound really good: Dear Terry:I think it's probably safe to say little exists like this anywhere in the Middle East, not just Iraq. In "What Makes a Terrorist?", James Q. Wilson answers that it takes a village--even a whole culture. As Wilson shows, most terrorists belong to tightly bonded groups, whose members reinforce one another's delusions: that evil is good, wrong is right, death is life. All this might make rational-if immoral-sense if terrorism actually achieved its political goals; but as Wilson finds, it rarely does. Nevertheless, Wilson soberly concludes, little platoons of nihilistic, death-dealing unreason, cheered on by a culture of rage and resentment, wish to wipe out Western civilization and will plague us for some time to come.Indeed--simply because your enemy is terminally stupid and pathologically incapable of reason doesn't mean he's not dangerous--in fact, quite the opposite. Sadly, sometimes it's much better for all concerned to just let them take it up with God. The Winter issue also features two articles on important domestic issues:Hey, go figure. In "The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave," Heather MacDonald shows that some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest-in Los Angeles, for instance, where 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide target illegal aliens--cops cannot use the most obvious tool to catch them: their immigration status. Reasons: fear of offending powerful immigrant lobbies and, even more disturbingly, the non-stop increase of immigration, which is reshaping the law to dissolve any distinction between legal and illegal aliens and, ultimately, the very idea of national borders.And citizenship, for that matter--it seems that some people are now is perfectly willing to bestow the rights of American citizenship to anyone, including to those who consider themselves our enemies. Other fascinating stories in the Winter issue include Michael Knox Beran on self-reliance versus self-esteem, Walter Olson on how the ADA has spawned a sleazy lawsuit industry,Actually, the ADA didn't spawn a sleazy lawsuit industry--it just opened up new feeding grounds for the poor, hungry, emaciated sharks who couldn't find enough ambulances to chase. Julia Magnet on the films of Whit Stillman,If you're like me, you can't read that without thinking Wilt the Stilt. It's wrong in so many different ways, but hey... Richard Brookhiser on DeWitt Clinton, and Theodore Dalrymple on Stefan Zweig.Thanks much to Brian for the note--all of you go read!
Why I don't like snow...
It seems that Nate McCord has done gone and explored the combined effects of gravity, friction, inertia, and inverted flight this past weekend. Good to hear that everyone is in one piece, Nate--anyone with some spare change, I know Nate would appreciate some of it jangling down into the tip jar.
And now…SATURDAY!! Well, this being us, and we being we, Saturday was the normal combination of trying to be everywhere at once, so that we could do everything at once.
Up early, and after high-level consultations figured we were going to have to take both vehicles, since I was going to have to haul Soccer Girl back across the county to the soccer park before the rest of the kids were through with their other activity--scrapbook. Finally got them all dressed in something warmer than tee shirts and shorts or nightgowns and headed out the door right at 9:00, and was met by some guy in a beat-up truck. Ahhhh--a PAINTER!! Stood there and jabbered with him for a few minutes to let him know what all sorts of things he would promptly forget about the moment we drove away, then hopped in the vans and off we went. Got to the building, which was freezing, and while Reba and the older two had their respective study sessions for Bible Bowl, I did my Wednesday evening lesson and kept Boy and Tiny Girl occupied with some stacks of scrap paper and colored pencils. Thankfully, it was quiet, and they pretty much stayed in one place patiently being creative--until everyone started coming out of the classrooms for break, which was just too exciting to sit still for. You know, you would figure after living with me for so long, Cat would know just how much of a control freak I am, and just how much I would prefer it if she would sit down and not run up and down among the folding chairs, happily screaming about princesses. Go figure. Anyway, it finally got close enough to time for me to leave with Bec--nearly noon, and nearly lunchtime. One of the guys had cooked hamburgers, so Rebecca had gotten a plate and was about to chow down on one, before she was stopped by her cruel father intent on keeping her from puking all over Trussville. I tried to get her to eat something lighter, but she just pouted. ::sigh:: The story of my weekend. Got her out to the van, stopped at the store to get her some Gatorade, kept trying to get her to eat some fruit or something else, but she just shook her head sadly and pouted more. You know how Andy Griffith would get exasperated at Barney or Goober or a mob of angry old women, and just fuss and shake his head. That’s what I felt like. Got to the park, let her out, talked to the concession stand guy for a while, then turned the hoity-toity opera music up, laid the seat back flat, and promptly started drooling and having really bad dreams. Which were stopped when I heard a tiny tap at the window and nearly killed myself jumping up in fright. It was just Reba--they had gotten finished and she swung by on the way home to see what all was going on. I was still sort of bleary--she leaned on the window and chatted for a very long time about all the latest gossip. This is my downfall, you know. Like the old Far Side cartoon about what dogs hear when you talk to them, with the guy who’s going on and on, ‘Oh, Ginger, what a GOOD dog you are, aren’t you! You want to go play ball, Ginger? Maybe go to the store, Ginger?’ And all the dog hears is ‘blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah Ginger.’ Well, on occasion, that is me. Normally, this is a benign sort of tendency, but just to make my life interesting and justify monthly purchases of expensive medications designed to keep me from keeling over, in the midst of these streams of consciousness, actual, important, information is occasionally transmitted. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was one of those staticky warning buzzes like when they interrupt the radio for important weather information, but it comes through with the same pitch and tempo and gesticulations as everything else and just runs RIGHT BY my cerebral cortex and goes right there beside my brain stem. It’s the verbal equivalent of steganography. As I have mentioned before, after several years of such, you would think everyone would get the idea that Terry’s brain is very much like an earthworm’s, and that one shouldn’t burden it with complexly-coded hidden message things. And get angry with him if he happens to ask about something that had just been presented to him only five minutes previous. Hey! I’m a planarian!! Cut me some slack. After using my defense mechanisms of feigned mental defect and loud flatulence, I managed to extricate myself from harm’s way. And yes, it would probably be safer just to listen better in the first place--you never know when there might be an open flame, or some guy hovering around with a straitjacket. But hey, such is life on the edge. Miss Reba went on back toward home while I continued to wait for practice to get over--I flopped the seat back and went back to fevered dreams and angry French opry music. Sometime later I roused up and saw that the girls were standing around drinking hot chocolate, so I assumed, rightly, that practice was over. She got in the van and said that they had gone on a cross-country jog along the multitude of nature trails, all the way over to the old elementary school. And that she saw Mommy while they were running along the road, and that she slowed down and rolled down the window and started talking to them. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Reba talks as much as I blog.) Stopped by the library for a moment or two, then on to the house for a moment or two before getting us all into one vehicle for our trip to Wal-Mart. Tiny Girl needed some more school supplies, BUT before that, we had a side trip to make to the bookstore to return a gift and to let the kids use their gift certificates from my mom, BUT before THAT, we all took Boy in for a haircut. He spends most of his days with unkempt hair. The odd thing is that he LIKES for his hair to be neat and short, and gets flustered when it won’t do right. But most of the time it still looks like a cat sucked it. At least when it’s short, it’s not quite so bothersome to him, so, a haircut and he was just fine. On to the bookstore, which is never fun when you have to play zone defense. Too many aisles, too many tearable things, one little girl who likes to wander the aisles tearing things. GAAH! They gathered up their purchases, and I allowed myself a purty half-price wall calendar for the new year--365 Days in Italy. 365 architectural and artsy still-life pictures from all over Italy--beautiful stuff, even if it doesn’t have any pictures of girls or cars. Checked out, then on to Sam Walton’s Emporium, where I stayed in the van with the kids--much less stressful, believe it or not, than it is to try and ride herd on them in a place with yet more aisle and yet more tearable things. Catherine is now loaded up with some new crayons and pencils and glue and a pink-and-purple plastic box to keep it all in. She was very impressed. Home then for some supper, then time for Most Thorough Saturday Evening Toilet, consisting of baths, hair scrubbing, blow drying, ear wax gouging, nail clipping, and various made-up tales of wonder. Then to bed. Then up once again Sunday for some good ol’ churching up!
BUT...
Before we get to that, I have to run over to the hospital for a moment or two--my mom-in-law had to let the plumbers in for some one-day surgery this morning, so I've got to swing by and say hey to her. (She's fine, by the way.) Be back in a bit.
Friday--Get home to the loving embrace of my family and...LAUNDRY! Man alive, what a mess of clothing.
Got the debrief on the Fabulous Paper Trebuchet. As I had envisioned, it was broken before it ever got to class--it seems Catherine decided to pick up the carrying box sometime while she and her brother and sister were waiting in the gym to go to class, which managed to snap off the plastic soda straws I had used to hold the axles in place. Grr. Anyway, after much wheedling and digging--for some reason, Rebecca was very shy with the information--we found that even handicapped by having its poor little wheels gone, the trebuchet let fly with two fearsome volleys of sugary fury. One hit the ceiling toward the center of the classroom, and the other hit the bookcase. She explained all about it, and made one of those discoveries that changes your whole outlook when you’re young. Your teachers sometimes don’t know everything. I remember when I figured that out--I was in the fourth grade, and my teacher told us that every time you learn something, a small crease or fold forms in the surface of your brain. I knew that was total BS, even at nine years old. Anyway, Rebecca had her epiphany when the subject of what defines a machine came up. Their teacher had told them that to be a machine, something had to do work, which meant it had to produce a change in force, a change in direction, or create a change in distance. ALL TOGETHER. (It actually can be any one of them individually.) Anyway, some little smartypants kid asked Miss Teacher how the lovingly-created machine before them actually did all three of these. She figured out after much deliberation that it did indeed produce a change in distance (since the Dot candy went way far away) and she figured that there was some sort of change in force, although she wasn’t quite sure of the magic. But the stumper came in the change of direction--just couldn’t figure that one out. So, obviously children, it was not a machine, now was it? Seems that someone didn’t get that particular crease in her brain when she got her college diploma. Anyway, I assured Bec that work doesn’t have to do all three things, and that even if it did, the fact that the candy first has to go in a big, looping, circle before being released meant that it did change the direction of the object, so her experiment was just fine. “Hmm. Well, you know, my teacher said she’s not real good at science stuff.” Am our children lerning? Anyway, it’s a good thing I can figure stuff like that out, because when it comes to remembering anything else, my brain is completely smooth. We got a call later on Friday evening from one of the dads on Rebecca’s soccer team to let us know the practice for Saturday got changed from 9:30 to 1 o’clock (which was very nice to hear). What was not so nice was I had absolutely no idea who it was until very far into the conversation. CALLER: “Hey. This is [muffled--sounded like Drmlshfm].” ME: [Thinking, ‘I wonder who in the world this is?’] “Hey, man, what’s going on?” CALLER: “Awww, not much. Y’all have a good Christmas? ME: “Yeeeah. Y’all?” CALLER: “Yeeeah, I reckon so. Listen, I’m supposed to call and let everyone know that we’re going to get the team together and run Saturday at one.” ME: [Totally mystified, unable to maintain charade of familiarity.] “Okay. And, ummm, this is for…who, exactly?” CALLER: “For soccer…soccer practice.” ME: [Okay, wonder which team this is supposed to be for--not making the connection that it could only be ONE team, since Middle Girl’s is the only one practicing at the moment.] “Who is this?” [Really, I have NO clue.] CALLER: [Sounding somewhat perturbed] “This is Daryl [muffled--sounded like Donno]!” ME: “And it’s going to be Saturday? At one?” [Tiny internal doorbell FINALLY goes off, and I FINALLY figure out who this is. Decide I must continue charade of denseness to make it seem as though initial bout of brainfade was intentional for the purpose of sporting about.] “And your name is Daryl?” CALLER: “Right.” ME: “And who are you again? And this is about soccer?” [Add slight snicker at end] CALLER: “Aww, now cut that out!” ME: “I’m really sorry, but I’m not sure what sort of soccer team you might be talking about.” That went on for a little bit longer just so as to convince him totally that the whole exchange from the start had been my idea of a little joke. He either thinks I am quite the clever boy or a raving lunatic. Or quite the clever raving lunatic boy. Whatever. Anyway, that was welcome news, in that it meant Middle Girl could still go with us up to the church building to study. Which will be covered in the next installment we like to call…SATURDAY!!
AAGGGGHHHHH!
There now. All better. This morning has been interesting, in the sense of the old Chinese curse about wishing upon someone that they be born in interesting times. You know, every once in a while, the idea of going on walkabout has a certain allure, even though around here there's not really that many wild, desolate places you can walk without crossing several superhighways along the way and we all know the usual consequences which befall possums while walking near roadways. Anyway, the normal long-winded tale of the weekend will be here in a bit as soon as I can manage to douse some brushfires and beat back some alligators off of my pasty buttocks--be back in a bit. Friday, January 09, 2004
And speaking of non sequiturs...
It's nearly time to hit the road for the lovely Ville of Truss. Long weekend--soccer practice for Middle Girl is supposed to try and start up tomorrow after the aborted attempt on Monday. I really don't look for it to happen since everything is still soggy from last night's almost-winter-weather conditions. (All the kids think that a 20% chance of light sleet means IT'S GONNA SNOW!!) And also tomorrow, we have a thing at church for the kids to go and study their Bible Bowl questions, which, believe it or not, is not all that fun if you're just tagging along because you can drive. Might have to bring along some reading material. Laundry? Oh and how--last week's blessed reprieve due to getting it done during the holiday meant that the hamper started filling up on Thursday rather than Sunday--all the mounds of carelessly dropped kid clothes looks like an explosion in a Chinese sweatshop. I imagine that this will mean that tomorrow morning, there will be no early morning under-sheet wrestling with Miss Reba. ::sigh:: Housepainting? Well, ol' Mickey's crew got started right after the first of the year, hammering and spot painting in the back and...and...well, not much else. It's either been too cold or too rainy to do anything the past week, after I went to all the trouble of moving Franklin down the driveway a bit so they could get all the way around the garage doors. Oh well. I do have a big JoBox sitting out on the platform in the backyard, some ladders, some dropclothes, so it's almost like they've been working. At least I still have my money. Finally got in my tax forms, which means it's time to break out the old pencil and paper--I wonder if I bought a Curta, if I could get a deduction for it if I used it to figure out my taxes? ANYway, it's time to get packed up and head that way--all of you come back Monday, and let's see what kind of trouble we can get in!
And speaking of redheads...
Because I occasionally wax rhapsodic about cornbread, and my wife's name is Reba, I tend to get folks dropping by looking for things such as: Reba McIntyre cornbread. Well, first of all, it's McEntire--spelt the other way, it refers to Alistair McIntyre of Electric Scotland, to whom I occasionally link. Second of all, it would help if all you Googleers would do the little trick of putting quote marks around names. This keeps the name together in the search process, and keeps you from getting one of the thousands of other Reba's out there. Like, say, Miss Reba, my wife. Let's try it--"reba mcentire" cornbread. The very first result gives you a recipe claiming to be the famous singer's recipe for Mexican Cornbread Casserole. I don't know, but it reads like someone's attempt to get some attention for their own less-than-spectacular blending of Cheese Whiz, storebought mix, and canned corn. If you read on down the results page, there is also a recipe for Reba's Tennessee-Style Corn Bread on Bob Kelso's ("The Man Who Can't Cook") page--again, this is something that is somewhat less than credible as being from the hand of Ms. McEntire, in that we are being led to believe that Tennessee-style cornbread starts out with Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix--mix that is packaged in the well-known Yankee redoubt of Chelsea, MICHIGAN! Anyway, for some real cornbread recipes that even MY Reba would approve of, you can go here to Jane Linton's website, which has the best-sounding recipes for plain old cornbread. (I also tend to get a lot of search requests for revealing dress reba. I've said it before, I'll say it again, my wife doesn't have a revealing dress. Certainly nothing like Ms. McEntire has.. )
And speaking of medieval siege engines...
Today is the day for Middle Girl's big demonstration of the scientific principles behind the paper trebuchet we built. The bigger problem than construction was how to get the thing to school in without tearing it up. "You're going to have to be REALLY careful, because it's made out of what?" "Paper, Dad." "RIGHT! Paper." The way it's made, it is possible to disassemble it into three pieces, the throwing arm, the weight basket, and the frame. But, disassembly must necessarily lead to undisassembly if she was going to get any class points for it, and I don't think she has the necessary fine motor skills required to keep from making a large pile of paper. So a carrying case was needed of some sort. It stands about a foot high, and I thought at first I could find an adequately-sized shoebox from the kabillions all around the house. No such luck. Next best was a copier paper box, which we also have tons of. (If you are imagining the home of one of those people who you see on the news who hoard every useless thing and live among stacks of papers and magazines and books, well, you're WRONG! We NEED every single useless thing we have!) Anyway, got a paper box and set it on the kitchen table. Hmmm. Fits in there just fine with the box set up on one end, but it still needs something to keep the terrifyingly effective combat weapon from rolling around (we modified it a bit and put wooden wheels on it) and bashing itself to pieces. The search for an effective set wheel chocks carried me hither and yon throughout the far reaches of the garage. I thought about cutting some strips of foamcore board, but that would have involved cutting. I thought about gluing down some dowels inside the box, but that would involve gluing (and I wasn't really sure the dowels would arrest the motion). What, ho!? Ah-HAAA! Useless junk, indeed! I spied a cardboard box full of decorative Christmas cookie tins. The lid of one of the Oreo ones looked to be just about the right wheelbase and track. Popped it off, ran back in the kitchen, crossed my fingers, held my breath, lowered the model down, and...perfect! I popped it back out and put several loops of tape (the cheap guy's double stick tape) on the top of the lid to hold it the box and stuck it back in place. Slick. Of course, before putting it away for the evening, we had to make a run-through just to see if she could load it and fire it without help and explain all the subtle physics involved. The ammunition has evolved away from using marbles to something a bit less lethal--Dots candy. (As long as you don't try to eat them, you'll be just fine.) I gave her one and let her load it into the sling, draw back the arm, set the hook, and fire it off. Perfect shot, dead center in the upper cabinet doors. "Okay, now how does it work, Bec?" "Um, well, there's a lever and it has a weight and when you pull it down and the weight goes up it make po...potential energy." "And?" Blank look. So I went back over how the potential energy gets all kineticky and what sort of lever it used and how the sling makes the arm even longer and how the wheels help the weight drop down straighter which makes more of the energy go into throwing the Dot. Somewhat less blank look. "Aw, you'll do fine." She ran on off somewhere while I carefully marked a series of big black arrows all around the box. UP. (No use taking chances.) Be interesting to see how this all turns out.
[rant]
Sadly, for your first helping of Possumblog this morning, you must endure a particularly pointless bit of self-centered indignation. {WARNING: The following episode contains references to certain items commonly sold as "food", which may or may not be an accurate description. Ingestion of these substances on an unregulated, ongoing basis may lead to breathing through your mouth and watching "The Apprentice" on NBC. Remember, all food intake on Possumblog is conducted by trained personnel.} Anyway, I ran to the bank around 10 this morning in order to deposit my paycheck and stave off the sheriff for another two weeks. I skipped any sort of breakfast this morning because the kids were SO INCREDIBLY LATE getting ready and getting out the door, and it was rainy and I knew there were going to be wrecks, and I had to make an out-of-the-way side trip to mail some letters at the post office. Sometimes I will stop on the way to work and pick something up, but not today. So, by the time I got to the bank and got back a few pennies for my allowance, I was nigh onto hungry. Hungry enough to stop by...McDonald's. [insert sound of clashing organ chords] I stopped at the one right in the heart of the UAB Medical Center area--across the street from Spain Rehab, squished in between a Captain D's and an Arby's. Hmmmm. What to order, what to order--it wasn't yet 10:30, the magical witching hour when all breakfast food must be destroyed, so I figured I would get something full of good, hot, breakfasty-type cholesterol. Eggs, sausage, cheese--all wrapped up in a convenient, edible wrapper. That's right, a BREAKFAST BURRITO! [Yet again with the bad spooky music] A grainy voice came over the speaker and asked my selection. Being a Very Smart Person, I made SURE to ask if breakfast was still being served. Ahhhh. Sure was. So I ordered the Number 8, consisting of TWO Breakfast Burritos (and by the way, never has there ever been a food more insulting to breakfast or burritos--McD's are like cadaverous hunks of steaming...anyway, remember, I was hungry, so I was not in control of my faculties) and a hash brown (mmmm--FORBIDDEN CARBS!) and a Diet Coke because I have to watch my figure. The scratchy voice told me the total and to drive around to the first window. It's best to just do as they say, so I did. Waited. Waited. Waited. The car in front of me finally pulled away from the cashier and I pulled up, eagerly waiting to hand over my hard-earned lucre for something to sate my gut. "You ha the Big Breffus wit pancakes an coffee?" "Uhm, ah, ye--NO, no. I had the burritos and Diet Coke." "Oh sir, I am SO sorry, but we out of burritos. She just told me." AAAGGGHHHHH! How dare She. Well crappity-doo. I tried to figure out what else would be similar in fat and calories and artery-clogitude. "Oh, ahhhhmmm. Ahh, oh, just give me a steak and cheese biscuit with a Diet Coke. And hash browns." "You wan a steak biscuit wi a Coke." "A steak and cheese biscuit, Diet Coke. AND a hash brown." "Threethirtysevenwindatwo." Paid her my money, got back my change. Wait. Wait. Wait. Watch a pigeon pick up a french fry and drop it. Wait. Finally get to pull forward again to the Wondrous Window Two. "You ha the steakeggcheese?" ::sigh:: Whatever. "Yes, ma'am. Steak, Diet Coke, hash brown." "We ain got no hash browns--we just run out. You wan grits?" Why sure, because grits are so handy to eat WHILE DRIVING!! I laughed out loud at her question--"Nooooo ::snort:: no, no grits! I...I...uhhhh..." I tried to figure out something else, but for some reason, the whole experience had now just been all messed up for me. The mood had passed. She stood there looking off somewhere far beyond me. "Look. Just give me my money back--it was $3.37." She turned around wordlessly and consulted with someone back out of view. She distractedly turned back and said, "She say you pull up there by the cur and come insigh." You know, "SHE," whoever She might be, has really gotten on my very last nerve. I let out one of my patented exasperated ::sigh::s and angrily moved the van up to the Wait Here Because of Our Poor Ability To Serve You Your Order Quickly Line, slammed it in park, yanked the key and went inside and stood at the counter, fuming like I actually had reason to be miffed. Stand. Stand. Stand. The kids behind the counter lackadaisically throw food into paper sacks, shoving errant garbage and bits of food on the floor aside with their feet, moving at a pace between glacial and death. The Window Two Associate studiously avoids turning around, and then another girl looks out the window toward my van, then back at me, then announces, "Hey, he come inside," to no one in particular. Then, I see an employee whom I take to be She. A large, pleasant-looking young lady, moving about the crusty floor with serene ease. She wanders past the counter and barks at the Window Two Associate, "Where the receipt!?" She is handed the paper and hoves about while keeping her stern towards me, and steams majestically back to Window One. She disappears around the tip of the penisula. I stand there. Wait. Wait. Wait. Finally, her bowsprit appears around the corner, and she stands there with my money in her hand. She stops an older woman and puts the money in her hand and points up to the counter in my general direction. The old woman obediently comes up, hands out the money, "Here." Thanks. Grr. Boy, I sure am hungry for lunch. [/rant ]
I'm here!
Just too busy at the moment doing dumb old work to be able to pump out any silliness. Check back in a bit... Thursday, January 08, 2004
Oh my
Gangsta rap meets ceilidh to put purists in reel spin By: JIM McBETHNot that there's anything wrong with that... But over the past decade, ceilidh has become cool. And now it is to receive the ultimate make-over - all the way from the inner city ghettos of the United States.It's what the world has been crying out for. Dance Base, the company placing a new spin on ceilidh choreography for the show Off Kilter, believes it will forever change the world's impression of Scottish music and dance.Granted it will suck with hearty vigor, but calling the entire culture of the US "violence-ridden" is a bit much from people who play the bagpipes and eat haggis. Daisy Mackenzie, who is an international adjudicator and examiner, and one of Britain's most respected teachers of dance, said: "I'm traditional; dancing is for everyone, but the joyous nature of our dance associated with an American culture rooted in violence, is not a natural cultural mix I would recommend."Again with the violence--man, someone needs to knock some sense into these people! But Morag Deyes, the artistic director of Dance Base, said the time was ripe to "update" Scotland's musical heritage.Word up, homey. The production will premiere in Edinburgh in April before embarking on tours of Scotland and North America. Some of the show's cast of ten are expected to wear "sexy" mini-kilts.Well, with the paragraph up top about poncing lads, one certainly hopes that the minikilt wearers will be of the female variety. Ms Deyes added: "We think it's going to be sexy, funny and uplifting. There are lots of people doing things, which have moved Scotland away from its shortbread tin image."Pass de bass? Are we having a fish fry, too?! The show's producers are also planning to ask the BBC for permission to incorporate television footage of the legendary White Heather Club dancers.Yes, let's save our mockery for the violence-prone American culture, please. "It does no harm when people try to make dance exciting. If people like it, it'll take off; if they don't, it won't. But I'd feel uncomfortable if there was an element of mickey-taking."Oh good grief, now they're bringing the poor Irish people into this! That also worries Billy Forsyth, the vice-chair of the Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust.Huh? Janet Cook, the secretary of the Highland Dancing Teachers' Association, who is also a specialist in the ancient Hebridean tradition, added: "This may be an unfortunate fusion. Variation and choreography are fine, but the basic roots give dance its strength and identity."Hey, a new ad campaign for Calgon laundry soap--"'Ancient Hebridean Tradition,' eh?" Dance Base, however, is adamant that it can modernise without mockery or show a lack of respect.By all means, let us get jiggy wit it.
I don't want to disappoint Dave.
Dave wrote me a bit earlier, with no small amount of disappointment and chagrin. It seems Dave believed that I, in all of my morning's historic reveries, had forgotten one of the other world-altering occurrences that happened on this date. An event, much like the defeat of the British at New Orleans, that would thrust America into the forefront of the world stage. Lest any of the rest of you become all shook up that I may have neglected to mark this day, let me say--Ladies and gentlemen, today marks the birthdate of Elvis Aaron Presley. With humble beginnings from his small Tupelo, Mississippi boyhood home, Elvis Presley would become a world star--shaking hands with a Quaker, marrying a really hot chick, and even in his eternal rest having his own signature wine. Be sure to visit the Elvis-a-Rama Museum when you reach Las Vegas. (Free shuttle service available.)
Oh, I DO get a chuckle, alright...
You know the guy I have talked about before--the one who couldn't figure out how to do a table in MSWord, the guy who talks to me while I'm standing at the urinal, the guy who drops his pants all the way to the floor while standing in the middle of the restroom just to tuck in his shirt, the guy who thinks everything he says is an absolute LAFF RIOT--that guy? Well, he just came bumbling in here with the newspaper from sometime last week with the article about 2003's Big Stories. There's a picture of some rock singer all bent over backwards with a microphone. (Hold on a minute--he's in here again, rummaging through all the stuff on my drafting table...LEAVE ALREADY! Better now) He shows me the paper and in his best impression of a fading comedian on the Catskills circuit, points to the picture and says, "Hey, you see what we have to do to get a raise around here!" ::crickets chirping:: You must also remember that he carries around his tiny little heart right there on his sleeve, and if you ignore his moronicity and lame humor, he pouts like a spoiled baby and gets his tiny little feeling (sing.) hurt. "Boy, you don't get a chuckle out of anything, do you." Awww. "Now, come on, Moron Man--I DO get a chuckle every once in a while." What he could not know was that I was about to explode inside trying not to laugh. For Moron Man, you see, has had a thick head of gray hair for the entire eight years I have been here but he returned from the Christmas holidays with a thick head of Medium Ash Blonde #17 hair. Seems his loving wife and children had treated him to a day at the spa as a present. It's like watching the old Mary Tyler Moore Show episode when Ted dyed his hair black. And it makes me chuckle.
Children build burial mound for Keiko OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Hundreds of schoolchildren in western Norway bid farewell to Keiko the killer whale Thursday by building a burial mound of stones over the Hollywood star's grave. [...]Sounds like a barbecue pit to me...
Judge to look at media in Jackson case
Media vow to look back; both sides decide to avoid looking at Jackson for more than few seconds at a time.
Gates touts more 'seamless computing'
Proposes doing away with common CTRL-ALT-DEL key sequence in favor of built-in function tied to variations in wind direction.
Gary Hart said to be mulling Senate bid
Said to be considering whether to again taunt press to follow him; decides against "I'm Still a Chick Magnet" tee-shirt giveaway.
You know...
Despite what you might think, Birmingham and the surrounding area really is nice to look at. BUT, only when the sun's shining. It's cloudy and cold today and the whole place looks like People's Victorious Ball-Bearing Factory Collective Town #23.
Well in 1814 we took a little trip,
Along with Colonel Jackson Down the Mighty Mississip... A little reminder via the Library of Congress' American Memory collection that today marks the anniversary of the end of the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812: On January 8, 1815, Major General Andrew Jackson led a small, poorly-equipped army to victory against eight thousand British troops at the Battle of New Orleans. The victory made Jackson a national hero. The anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans was widely celebrated with parties and dances during the nineteenth century, especially in the South. [...]The War of 1812 is one part of American military history I haven't studied a lot about, aside from knowing that my great-great-great-great-great-(great?) grandfather Sabert was enlisted in the South Carolina militia during that time. At around age 72! (He also fought during the Revolution when he was around 40 or so. We have a long history of being grouchy old men and not being able to get along with anybody.) Anyway, again, my knowledge of the Battle of New Orleans is as limited as what I know of the rest of the war, and is generally limited to the details found in Johnny Horton's song. It sounds like a pretty good rout, but I was suprised to learn that the tide could very easily have turned--the British had managed to land across the river from Jackson's postion and the Kentuckians assigned to hold the area broke and ran. Jackson gave them all a very stern upbraiding for their conduct in this address to his troops, giving them the benefit of the doubt about their bravery and laying the blame for their conduct on lack of discipline and order. Jackson more fully describes what occurred in this letter to the Secretary of War James Monroe: [...] We have taken about 500 prisoners, upwards of 300 of whom are wounded, and a great part of them mortally. My loss has not exceeded, and I believe has not amounted to ten killed and as many wounded. The entire destruction of the enemy's army was now inevitable, had it not been for an unfortunate occurrence, which at this moment took place on the other side of the river. Simultaneously with his advance upon my lines, he had thrown over in his boats a considerable force to the other side of the river. These having landed, were hardy enough to advance against the works of general Morgan; and, what is strange and difficult to account for, at the very moment when their entire discomfiture was looked for with a confidence approaching to certainty, the Kentucky reinforcements, in whom so much reliance had been placed, ingloriously fled, drawing after them, by their example, the remainder of the forces; and thus yielding to the enemy that most fortunate position. The batteries which had rendered me, for many days, the most important service, though bravely defended, were of course now abandoned; not, however, until the guns had been spiked.The fog of war. Had the British stayed, they might have been able to flank Jackson and bring about a much different outcome. The source for both of these letters is the Hillsdale (Michigan)College History Department's collection of military documents. Very good resource--it also includes this anonymous account of the battle, which proves that sometimes it's better not to taunt your enemy: (Describing the scene after a British assault upon their works) [...] Among those that were on the ground however, there were some that were neither dead nor wounded. A great many had thrown themselves down behind piles of slain, for protection. As the firing ceased, these men were every now and then jumping up and either running off or coming in and giving themselves up.Don't patt your butt as you run away from armed men. Paleface is introduced a couple of paragraphs previous-- [...] The white flag, before mentioned, was raised about ten or twelve feet from where I stood, close to the breastwork and a little to the right. It was a white handkerchief, or something of the kind, on a sword or stick. It was waved several times, and as soon as it was perceived, we ceased firing. Just then the wind got up a little and blew the smoke off, so that we could see the field. It then appeared that the flag had been raised by a British Officer wearing epaulets. I was told he was a Major. He stepped over the breastwork and came into our lines. Among the Tennesseans who had got mixed up with us during the fight, there was a little fellow whose name I do not know; but he was a cadaverous looking chap and went by the name of Paleface. As the British Officer came in, Paleface demanded his sword. He hesitated about giving it to him, probably thinking it was derogatory to his dignity, to surrender to a private all over begrimed with dust and powder, and that some Officer should show him the courtesy to receive it. Just at that moment, Col. Smiley came up and cried, with a harsh oath, "Give it up - give it up to him in a minute!" The British Officer quickly handed his weapon to Paleface, holding it in both hands and making a very polite bow. [...]So there you go. Wednesday, January 07, 2004
Doc 'Forced' Dying Beatle To Sign Guitar A doctor is being sued for allegedly forcing ex-Beatle George Harrison to sign a guitar two hours before his death. Papers filed in New York claim Harrison told Dr Gilbert Lederman: "I do not even know if I know how to spell my name."Harrison's estate, which is bringing the case, wants back the guitar and two cards it says the musician signed as he was tended to by Dr Lederman, an expert in treating cancer.You know, I think Mr. Roth shouldn't have added that last little bit of info. He didn't coerce him, but let's face it--the doctor brought a GUITAR with him for this little house call. I may not be up on my oncology, but I really don't think waving a guitar around is part of the normal treatment procedure, nor could non-coercively getting your dying patient to sign it really be an effective form of therapy.
Finishing up supper last night, I had turned around to get something and heard Middle Girl and Boy giggling. Seems Rebecca's eyeglasses lens had popped out again, right onto the table and nearly into her plate. Why that was particularly giggleworthy, I'm not sure, but in any event, I told her to leave it alone and let me fix it later.
I've already tried once--the old clear-nail-polish-over-the-screw-threads trick--which held for exactly four days. After I got through eating, I got her itty bitty glasses repair screwdriver and tried to get the screw to behave and stay in place, but alas, it was all for nought. And I jabbed myself in the finger. ::sigh:: Got on the phone, found out the Vision Center at my home away from home was open until 8:30. I really, REALLY didn't want to get back out--I already had on my long-handles and sweatshirt, and it was cold. Oh well. Got my jeans back on, socks, shoes, billfold, keys and took off for the store. The nice lady put in a self-tapping screw and neatly popped the excess off from the other side of the frame, cleaned them and handed them back all nice and shiny. No use letting an entire trip to Wal-Mart go to waste, so I ambled over to the magazines to see if there was anything interesting. There was, but it was in its late-20s, balding, except for the long stringy mess that hung down off the back of his head. He was slouched over by the motorcycle magazines, with an older woman I took to be his mom. "I'm gonna get me that V-Twin magazine right there, 'cause it's got that article about the new Sportsters, and that's the one I think I'm gonna get." The woman was silent, just standing there probably wondering why it is her baby seems so interested in buying one of them fool things when he won't even move out of the basement. She slowly pushed her shopping cart on around toward the end of the aisle, then paused briefly, looking down at the bottom rack. She picked up a thick paperback book with a boldly printed cover, all about dogs and cats. He looked at what she had picked up. "What's that book about?" he asked. Remember friends, always wear your helmet.
I said, "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!"
(Yes, I realize it would be much funnier if it was Verizon instead of Sprint.)
You know, as cold as it is...
You would think that a tinfoil hat would freeze right to your head. It's really scary, you know.
First they came for our snowballs, then they came for our hockey sticks... Pupils Told to Cool It on Snowball Fights TORONTO (Reuters) - A snowball fight is almost a rite of passage for students in Canada but Toronto schools are moving to strengthen a ban on the practice they say is violent and dangerous.SNOW FORTS!? What are these people trying to do to these children!? Don't they know that building "forts" only reinforces the society's unhealthy fascination with guaranteeing its security based upon the exclusion of outsiders? And aren't forts in and of themselves manifestations of the Eurocentric colonial imperialism that destroyed the native peoples of Canada? SLEDS?! Sleds...built from wood hacked from the virgin forests of British Columbia; steel runners made from iron ore ripped from gentle Newfoundland--all to provide temporary enjoyment to those who would use Mother Earth as some sort of PLAYGROUND? How would YOU like it if someone sliced into you with razor sharp runners, laughing and acting as though it were nothing more than just a fun time for all!?
Y'learn something new every day
Even if it's about something old. Now then, I know Peg Britton and MommaBear have both used slipsticks back in the pre-silicon chip days, but I wonder if either of them (or any of the rest of you, for that matter) ever used a Curta? I picked up a copy of the latest Scientific American the other day and just got around to reading it last night--inside was an article about a wonderful little calculating device (link goes only to an article intro, not the full article) invented by a fellow named Curt Herzstark, who as a prisoner in Buchenwald came up with the idea for a small, handheld, mechanical calculator. It looks a bit like a pepper mill or a pencil sharpener, but aside from the interesting appearance, it is a wonderfully precise bit of Liechtensteinian machining and ingenuity. Mr. Herzstark, born in Austria in 1902, imagined and developed the device as a simple alternative to the gigantic, multikey mechanical desktop calculating machines used by engineers and architects. (My mother works for an electrical contractor, and they still have one of these old behemoths they keep around to look at. I think my mom and one of the estimators are the only ones who remember how to work it.) Anyway, I can barely tie my shoes, so the interaction of the fiendishly complicated working bits of the Curta and the concepts behind them haven't quite filtered into my understanding, but it is still a wonderful looking tool designed by an incredibly interesting man. Herzstark's nifty invention died off with the slide rules when electronic calculators were introduced in the mid-'70s. The article notes that they were sold in the pages of Scientific American back in the '50s and '60s for $125. A lot of scratch back then--even more now. E-bay lists several (along with various manuals and other ephemera) that range in price from over $1,000, all the way up to $3,000. I still haven't finished reading the article, but there is an even better online resource at The Curta Calculator Page, which has just about anything you could ever want to know about mechanical calculating in general, the Curta in particular, and its fascinating inventor. There is even an online simulator of the Curta you can play with if you have Flash 6 or above installed on your computer. (I don't have it here at work, so I will have to find another way to waste time.) Pretty cool stuff.
Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold, Pease porridge in the pot, Nine days old. Not exactly nine days, but last night we had some of the leftover black-eyed peas we fixed for New Year's--I'd forgotten we even had any left. Let me tell you, if there's anything better than a hot mess of fresh black-eyed peas, it's having them after they've had a chance to mellow for a week. Absolutely the best little things in the world, all warm and soft and...I'd better stop now. Anyway, they were so good I made myself a plate of them to bring in my lunch today. Which I left right there on the top shelf in the refrigerator this morning as I ran out the door. ::sigh:: Oh well, I guess they'll be even better tomorrow. Pease porridge in the fridge, Nice and cold.
Okay, stop me if you've heard this--two hookers walk into a gas station in Saint Louis--one looks at the guy behind the counter and says to the other, "Hey! That's Mahatma Gandhi!"
Well, you know what they say, it takes a village to raise a village idiot. I have a feeling, though, that somehow, some way, this ill-thought-out gaffe will be blamed on George Bush. Tuesday, January 06, 2004
ENT
Obviously not an abbreviation for ear-nose-throat, but a literary reference to big, talking, slow-walking, trees. Got there on time at 1:40, didn't leave until 3. And to make things worse, Cat's left ear is still stopped up and she might have to have a tube installed if it's not clear in ANOTHER three weeks. ::sigh:: I did manage to read the equivalent of one entire Entertainment Weekly--picked one up in every room we were in and read about 20% of each one. I am now 100% stupider, believe it or not.
Oh my--short day it seems
I have to take off in a bit and go get Catherine to take her for her follow-up visit to the ENT. She was SUPPOSED to have gone last Friday, when Reba had taken a day off from work to be able to take her, but we got a message on the answering machine Thursday from a relentlessly perky scheduling person at the doctor's office who filled us in on the fact that SOMEone had mistakenly scheduled us for a Friday visit with the OTHER doctor in the office, and our doctor wasn't even going to be in the office Friday. Hee-hee! SORRY! Oh! And y'all have a Happy New Year!! Grr. Actually, I suppose it would be difficult to be too angry with someone so zim-zam zippy...nah, that's a lie--I really would liked to have done something mean to her like hide her favorite pen or leave bite marks on the individually wrapped slices of cheese in her refrigerator. But, that urge passed long enough for us to reschedule another visit for today. I suppose that it won't take long, and that I will get back to work today sometime, but I'm not real sure. Anyway, if I don't, all of you folks remember to bundle up around here--after bragging that it was 71 two days ago, it's now supposed to go down to 17 tonight. Thankfully, I have a warm coat of fur and a thick layer of blubber to keep me warm.
How very odd...
I was just perusing the referrer logs, and saw that Possumblog had two separate visits last night at 11:15 and 11:22 p.m., from two separate users in two separate time zones (Central and Pacific), both searching for James Lileks "fruit by the foot", (for which Possumblog is the only returned result.) Now what in the world is going on with that?! Some sort of radio contest? A grand convergence of sugar and Minnesotans? A sign of the Apocalypse? Two of the most bored people on the planet working on a plan to take over the Midwest?
A Caucus of Democracies
A good article from today's Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal (registration required) written by former ambassador Max Kampelman, discussing his thoughts for reforming and revitalizing the United Nations so that it more closely acts in accordance with its charter. Amb. Kampelman (by the way, the boss of one of the folks up in the blogroll above) notes that totalitarian regimes have abused the structure of the organization for years, sometimes with the tacit approval of supposedly democratic states--the most egregious example being the recent gutting of the UN Human Rights Commission: [...] The U.N. Human Rights Commission has become a travesty. Two years ago, the U.S.--which has worked diligently to make the commission an effective instrument--was replaced by Syria, a corrupt, totalitarian supporter of terrorism. This year, in spite of American efforts, Libya was elected to chair the commission, an egregious challenge to the commission's integrity considering Libya's rule by a militant tyrant responsible for the 1988 bombing of a U.S. civilian jet in Lockerbie in which 270 people were murdered. U.S. opposition to Libya was supported only by Canada and Guatemala; 33 countries voted for Libya, while our European "friends" conspicuously abstained from voting at all. In electing such states as Syria, Libya, Vietnam, China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Zimbabwe to serve on the commission, the ostensible guardian of human rights, the U.N. has forfeited its commitment to those values. [...]Kampelman's solution to this and other abuses is for a more vigorous engagment by representative, democratic nations: [...] At a minimum, it is essential that the U.S. take the lead in establishing and strengthening a Caucus of Democratic States committed to advancing the U.N.'s assigned role for world peace, human dignity and democracy. The recently established Community of Democracies (CD) has called for this move, a recommendation jointly supported in a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations and Freedom House.Well, never. But then, other nations cooperating with the United States on anything is not news--opposition to the U.S. is the hot thing, you know, which is another in a long line of reasons why the U.N. has ceased to be effective at anything other than holding meetings and deforesting vast swaths of pulpwood trees to write reports. As long as the structure and framework of the U.N. rewards nations such as Cuba and Zimbabwe by giving absolute dictators equivalent status to truly democratic states, the U.N. will never be much use and will never fulfill the promise of its ideals. Calls for reform are welcome and needed, but not nearly so much as ACTUAL reform--and this effort, although well-intentioned, doesn't seem to have the necessary firepower behind it to lead to any sort of major institutional change. As reform goes, it ain't exactly Martin Luther getting out his box of tacks and a hammer.
Well, I'll be.
Just got an e-mail from Dave Helton noting that today is the the 80th birthday of one of America's great musicians, Earl Scruggs. I have to admit I thought Earl had gone on to his reward a good while ago, but he seems to still be kicking along and able to get at least three of his fingers moving. There are several sites around devoted to Earl and to his longtime partner Lester Flatt and to the Foggy Mountain Boys, but the Flatt and Scruggs Preservation Society seems to be the most comprehensive. (Martha White Flour also has a tribute to their work.) So, anyway, Happy Birthday, Mr. Scruggs!
SOCCER!!
Jim Smith and my daughter Rebecca have been anxiously awaiting the return of soccer season--Rebecca in order to see her friends and play, Jim so that he could hear of the glories of concession stand hamburgers and the Breck Girl Mom. Well, last night was the night when practices for the spring season were supposed to get underway--Rebecca was VERY excited. Jim, on the other hand, will be sorely distressed to learn that Reba already had us a bowl of soup and a sandwich waiting. Gobbled that down and started getting all the stuff together again--shin guards, socks, cleats, ankle brace, water bottle, gigantic carry bag. ::sigh:: Since it had been raining the night before last and yesterday morning, I thought it might be good to call the coach and see if we were still going to be able to practice. Called, got his son, son said that coach was not home right then, but that he had made the high school team practice earlier. Well, sounds like we're going to practice. Loaded up Middle Girl and her junk in the van and headed over to the park, which was lightless. Hmm. Pulled in to the lot, which held one lonely vehicle, parked, rolled down window and the coach said the field was a bit too sloppy to use, so, we'll wait until Saturday to try again. Rebecca was very disappointed. Back to the house by way of the gas station to fill up Moby, and for some reason Rebecca decided she needed an entire course in comparative religion. As we drove down the road to the gas station and all the way back home, she asked about every church we saw and what they believed. Predestination, transubstantiation, absolute depravity, snake handling--you know, there's an amazing amount of information in just five miles of road. UPDATE: I just hope she doesn't ask me to explain this. Monday, January 05, 2004
Why don't I like to hear the telephone ring on Sunday mornings?
Well, see, whenever the phone rings early on Sundays, it means A) someone died, or B) someone is calling to tell me that he or she can’t teach that morning. And since yesterday was the first day of the new quarter, I just KNEW I was going to have a call. Sure enough, 7 a.m. the phone rang--although since it was so early, I figured it must be the fatal variety rather than the other. Usually I get teacher calls at the exact moment we’re trying to get out of the house so we won’t be late for church. Picked it up, reluctantly, and yep--a no-show, although for a good reason. Got it covered, maybe, with the Wednesday night teacher. I’ll spring it on him when I get there. Then, an hour later, ANOTHER call--sick kid, can’t get there. Got that one covered, too--I sent them to the next class up. I fixed breakfast just KNOWING I was going to get another call as we were closing the door, but it didn’t happen. WHEW! Got there and made the necessary rearrangements, and then…nothing. All the other teachers were where they were supposed to be, on time, ready to go. That was a load off. The best thing was as I was finishing up checking on everyone--one of our usual latecomers came in with her two little boys, one of whom is going to be in Reba’s class this quarter. The mother took them to the hallway around the corner from where I was, but still within earshot, “Ooh, boys! Let’s see who your TEACHERS are going to be!” She found the one for the little one, and then came to Reba’s closed door and told the older one, “Oh, Miss REBA’S going to be YOUR teacher!!” “BUT I DON’T LIKE MISS RE-MPHH!” The second syllable was plainly quashed by a hasty hand plastered to the little dear’s piehole--I had to laugh. Reba’s taught him several times before--he’s really a good kid, but her class is apparently the ONLY place in the entire world where there is anyone who insists that he behave himself in a semi-human sort of way. I debated on whether to tell her his reaction later--there was, after all, the theoretical possibility that this could hurt her feelings. Theoretically. I told her on the way home and she just busted out laughing--“He doesn’t like to mind is what he doesn’t like!” They’ll get along famously. For some reason, I got tagged to be the greeter between Sunday school and worship--I really can’t figure out why. I’m not very nice, you know, but I rounded up Jonathan and Catherine to help hold the doors and pass out bulletins, and managed avoid the nice lady from a few months ago whose name I didn’t know. Finished up and rounded up the kids to go sit down. The normal sermon part of the service was set aside to go over the work plan for the year, which went pretty well. (Folks are always touchy when the subject of attendance and contribution come up.) On then to home for a quick lunch, some time spent reading the paper, then it was back for more meetings for everyone, then evening worship with song leading courtesy of some portly guy with a terrible case of what sounded like kennel cough. (I really need to go see the vet about that.) Back to home, supper, and bed. And up this morning much too early. Blech. Back to work.
Well, since Lileks has deadlines and no Bleat...
Allow us here at the Possumblog News Center to fill you in on all of your Land O' Ten Thousand Lakes News with our Iron Range Reporter, Toni Albani: Terry,Toni! I know I have been derelict in my duties as the Gopher State ReporterNoted in your personnel file and in your pay envelope... so I thought I'd better give you some sort of event news.What better way to enjoy gigantic frozen-water architectural anomolies? The temps were is the negative 20's the whole time the palace was on display. This year the city is hosting the NHL All Star Game so the palace is being constructed next to the Xcel Ice Arena in downtown. Now, I would link you directly to the website for the Winter Carnival [http://www.winter-carnival.com/] but for some unknown reason this site comes up BLANK!!!!! Somebody has screwed up in a major way. So instead I link you to the St. Paul Pioneer Press site for the Winter Carnival. What a glorious winter celebration (yech) for all to enjoy and the parade! Who in their right mind could turn down standing out in the freezing cold to watch a parade in January with the Vulcans running around smearing black ick on your faces.Man alive, you Yankees know how to do it up right! On the other hand there's the medallion hunt with the daily clues which mean nothing to most people unless they've lived in St. Paul for their whole lives.Thanks for that report, Toni--and yes indeed, you're back in the good graces of the entire editorial staff! (And your frigid tale of the Brutal Minnesota Winter allows me to brag on my new bedside weather station, which recorded a high temperature at Maisson d'Possum yesterday of 71.2 degrees. But we do have a cold front moving in, so it will get cold tonight.)
Dah Mall.
Went over to Century Plaza, a mall on the east side of Birmingham. It has seen better days, although it still has some good anchors--J.C. Penney, Sears, McRae’s, and Rich’s--and some pretty good infill stores, but it just has that atmosphere about it that makes it seem like it’s teetering. The design is dated, the parking lot--in addition to being badly laid out--looks like the surface of Mars, the stores have way too much obvious deferred maintenance, the food court’s pitiful, there’s too many junk joints and kiosks. But, it’s close. And, since fewer people shop there, we were able to swoop into a parking space right in front of the entrance to Penney’s! Hooray. We stopped by the counter at the front door to make our returns--some more jeans, a dress shirt, a too-small outfit. The lady was a model of indifference and torpor, with a matching sense of humor. After that task was done, I took Boy for some more blue jeans and Reba took off with the girls for girl stuff. We were done in five minutes again. The girls came back with a ton of pants for Catherine, who tried them all on and wonder of wonders, they all fit. Amazing! Checked out then went downstairs to see if I could find a couple of pairs of my special Possumblogger Haggar Plain Front, Uncuffed, Boring Polyester Pants. I looked for about five seconds, which was just long enough for the kids to overwhelm Reba’s defenses and start acting like absolute nincompoops. I broke off my pursuit of comfortable pants to come to her aid, which resulted in more loud whooping by Youngest, indifference from the middle two, and stony-faced hatred from Oldest. Man, I LOVE constant positive reinforcement! On then to the other store for a couple of takebacks--the younger three didn’t have anything to return or try on, so I corralled them beside the pitiful little wishing well fountain and engaged them in games of skill and knowledge. (Where’s that Steve Irwin guy when you’ve got THREE kids to dangle in front of a crocodile, eh?) Anyway, we occupied ourselves with I Spy (of course, I couldn’t tell them all the things I spied--they might think I was a dirty old man or something), then Rock Paper Scissors, then Odds ‘n’ Evens, and then a game they taught me that was actually kind of fun. Jonathan called it “Chinese Numbers,” but I don’t know if that’s the right name--it involves each player holding up one finger on each hand and tapping another player. The player who gets tapped then holds up a finger on the hand that gets tapped, then taps another player. If he taps with the hand having two fingers, the other player holds up two more fingers for a total of three. This passing of fingers back and forth continues until someone’s hand has all five fingers up, and that hand is retired from play. Last player with a finger still standing wins. There’s some strategy to play, too. If a player has an out-of-play hand, and two or four fingers on the other hand, he can bring the unused hand back in the game by “doubling” or giving that hand half of the fingers from the hand still in play. It’s all much harder to explain than to play, but best of all it kept them quietly busy for half an hour. Thank heavens. Mom and Ashley finally came back out after an hour-long marathon of shoppiness and it was FINALLY time to go home. NEXT: Why I dread hearing the telephone ring on Sunday mornings!
It had to happen sooner or later.
Over the past few years, I have made a habit of phoning My Friend Jeff’s office whenever Auburn would beat LSU in football, and loudly singing the War Eagle fight song into his voice mail. I just got an e-mail of the dumb ol’ "Goxe Tigers" song from Jeff-- GEAUX TIGERS!!!!!!Bite me, Bengal Boy.
You know...
The previous post was full of typos. I guess I should proofread before posting, eh? As it is, it's like one of those picture contests where you spot all the things that are wrong in the picture. Anyway, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, if you see an error, reload a couple of times and if it doesn't go away after a month or two, drop me a note and I'll fix it.
Saturday Saga, Part the Second
Up then, and got dressed and got the kids to start getting dressed, and by the time everyone was ready to go, it was almost 11:30. Time for breakfast! Cat wanted to go to Sonic, “to gets that thing, you know, with the stick, and it’s got a stick, and it’s brown, and sausage and it’s on a stick with a pancake…” “Pancake on a stick?” “…mm-hm, pancakesticks with a sausage on a stick, and that’s what I want for breakfast and we have to get that at Sonic and we can go there right now.” She said this while still wearing only her pajama top, a bathrobe, floral-patterned panties, and Mom’s houseshoes. “You know, you’re going to HAVE to put on clothes to go to the store, right?” “Yes, Daddy.” Okay, just so we’re clear on that--anyway, she’s the only one who wanted breakfast, and the only one who wanted to stop at Sonic--everyone else wanted lunch, since the day was now half wasted by our sluggardliness. “Cat, let’s just go get some lunch.” Bottom lip pooched out, Lacrimal Discharge Apparatus set to “Fake” and shoved into high gear, sound control set to #4, (one of the few settings it has, those being #1-Giggle Uncontrollably, #2-Scream in Terror, #3-Whispering Suitable for Use Only in a Foundry, and #4- BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!). Oh for the love o’Jiminy Carter… “HUSH!” In the interest of not bleeding from my ears (which can happen when you stand too close to a jet engine or listen to her verbal manifestations of dissatisfaction) I made the command decision to make a special trip to Sonic, and then take the rest of us for a real meal. We packed the van with the stuff we had to return and took off for the Land on the Next Big Ridge to the North. For some reason, Reba had a craving for Mexican food, so we stopped by the place next to Wallyworld. Man, they were fast. That happens when they are not real busy, I suppose. I got the #4 (not the same as the #4 noted above)--very tasty for a numeral, although one occasionally wishes for some selections with decimals--I hear the #5.409 is good. Or maybe some of those imaginary numbers. I’ve heard so much about. Mmmm. Got finished, got our stuff from the van and walked on in to the Promised Land of Low Prices Always. Always. Let the little old lady check the bags and put a sticker on all the stuff--three pairs of jeans, a lovely wooden Christmas decoration that had all the earmarks of having been produced in a Chinese labor camp, a shirt, a DVD, a video game cartridge. One of the nice things about waiting a day or two before bringing things back is that you miss the huge crush of folks who come out the day after Christmas. The bad thing is that sometimes items will already be taken out of the inventory control system, so that even if your lovely wooden Christmas decoration that has all the earmarks of having been produced in a Chinese labor camp and it DOES have a price sticker from Wal-Mart stuck to it, it doesn’t mean that you can get a refund, and you are thus forced into the uncomfortable position of either passing it along to someone at next year’s Dirty Santa contest, or giving it to some charity who will take it and sell it in their thrift store where someone else will buy it and give it to you. Or, you could take out a whole year’s worth of frustrations on it with a 12 gauge and a 3 inch magnum load of 00 buck, but that would probably make people nervous around you. Got that done, and it was time to go shopping--my very pragmatic mom had given each of us a gift card. My sister was just aghast at such lowbrow gifting, but doggone it, it’s hard enough when we shop for OURSELVES to find stuff that fits right, much less to ask a little bony old woman to go traipsing about all over town trying to figure out what to get us. I told her if she wanted to do that, it was fine by me. Especially since we’re there all the time anyway. I took Jonathan and Catherine with me, and Reba took the older girls with her, and we promised to meet back in the front of the store in forty minutes. Boy, that old saying about time flying when you’re having fun is way, WAY off. First stop was to try to find Catherine a belt. She has a a couple of pairs of jeans she wears that are too loose, and she thinks nothing of walking around with plumber butt shining proud. To be so nonchalant about that, she sure is picky when it comes to PICKIN’ OUT A BLEEDIN’ BELT! “No, that one’s ugly. No, that one’s for a boy. No, that one has the wrong flowers. No, that one’s for a boy, too.” (All of these “boy belts” were in the girl clothes section--anything big and bulky with rivets she seems to think is masculine. Go figure.) Anyway, nothing came of that. I told her we’d just tie an extension cord around her. Next, jeans for Boy. Three pairs, took five minutes. And he got an Auburn sunvisor. Next, a wallet and a key case for Daddy. I have one of those cram-packed George Costanza wallets that looks like a backpack shoved into my butt pocket, and it had seen its better days. So, a new one. Too many choices, nothing like what I needed. Finally settled on a black leather tri-fold one with a neat little pull-out ID carrier. When I finally got all my junk crammed back into the new one after I got home, I discovered that I really didn’t want my driver’s license being in something that upon closer examination seemed awfully insecure. I want everything wrapped up in a nice neat bundle with nothing on the outside. But I’m not taking it back. It’ll wear out soon enough. No key cases, by the way. Lots of key rings, lots of gigantic trucker wallets with six feet of chain, lots of nothing that I needed. Oh well. On to the restroom. Then on to videos and games. Two games apiece--if there ever was a rip-off, it’s paying twenty or thirty bucks for a circuit board and a hunk of plastic the size of a matchbox whose only utility is damaging your eyesight and building up gigantic thumbs. Battle for Bikini Bottom is pretty fun, though. And oddly enough, Galaga translates pretty well to the small screen. AHHH!! What am I saying!? Anyway, somewhere in Electronics I remember that we were supposed to be meeting someone at the front of the store about twenty minutes earlier. Meandered back up and found no one, so we looked at books for a while. Catherine found a Dora the Explorer book with an annoying voice recorder on it and a Disney Cinderella book with three tubes of glitter paint. Glitter paint is the bane of my existence. Long after I am gone, archeologists will dig me up and wonder what sort of ceremonial significance the tiny flakes of sparkly stuff on my scalp could have had. Word of advice, parents--DON’T DO GLITTER! Finally the other members of the Away Team walked up--“Did you not hear our page?” Nearly biting my tongue in two to keep from spouting off the obvious smart-alecky comebacks, I simply said “Oops, no--sorry,” thus cheating certain death yet again. Finally got all finished up and checked out--surprisingly smoothly considering we were using six different gift cards. I’m sure the people behind us didn’t mind a bit. Then, on to the next place. BUT, not before forgetting that we had left film in the one-hour photo. This created its own dilemma--we were already on the interstate when we remembered. The final decision was to circle around to the house, unload the loot, then drop back by the pharmacy to pick up the prescription we were supposed to have picked up Friday afternoon but forgot, then loop back up to Wal-Mart to get the film, THEN go to the next set of stores. Fine--home, unload, Wal-Mart, interstate. Along about the exit, I turned to Reba, “You know what?” “We forgot to go by the drugstore.” “Yep.” ::sigh:: Anyway, next--THE MALL!
Who Knew II!? Annulment Of Quickie Marriage May Not Be As Easy As Britney Thinks
Who would have ever thought they would see the word "think" applied to Miss Spears?!
Hey, even Honest Abe has a blog!
Web Site Looks at Abe Lincoln's Life By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press WriterHeh. Indeed.
So…
The first unbelievable tale is that I actually got to sleep late Saturday morning!! Although, in the technical, truest sense that’s not quite accurate, but I have come to the point where I take what I can get. Little Boy has his own alarm clock in his room that he occasionally sets--he never turns it off, and it never wakes him up, but it does go off and wakes ME up. It bleepbleepbleep…bleepbleepbleep…bleepbleepbleeps for a minute or two then cuts itself off. It did this around 6 Saturday, so I sorta woke up from that. But went back to sleep. Ahhhhh. Then later, there was some sort of crashing bump and loud giggles. Rebecca was now awake, and had gone into Boy’s room so they could practice their screaming and demolition skills while watching cartoons. I drifted back and forth between awake and dreaming about doing naughty things--I would just get to a really, REALLY good part, and then there would be another rumble and crash from down the hall. Then Reba got up--this is usually the part of the morning when I guiltily roll out of bed. She went and got Cat up to go to the bathroom, then went to the bathroom herself, then MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, she GOT BACK IN BED!! I guess it was because all the laundry had gotten done the day before and she didn’t feel the need to get up so soon, but I didn’t ask why because I DIDN’T CARE WHY! Of course, with three-quarters of the children awake, and the one of them with a freshly-emptied bladder now bouncing on the end of the bed loudly demanding to watch DragonTales, it’s not like I was going to be able to have any real fun, but it sure was nice for once to be able to wallow around and stretch and creak and pop and snuggle and doze and not have to get out from under the covers at the crack of dawn. Managed to stay that way until after 9, and believe it or not, I was the one to say we needed to get up!! Strange…BUT TRUE!! Next: Many Happy Returns. (Well, many returns, with only some of them happy.)
Yes, I'm here...
...having returned from distant lands and from meeting the peculiar peoples of those lands. I have sacks full of frightening tales of mystery and intrigue--peculiar and freakish yarns of trips to places undreamt of by our ancestors, such as the Sonic Drive-in, the Trussville Wal-Mart, the JC Penney and McRae's at Century Plaza, the CVS Pharmacy (which lives under the bridge at the foot of the hill, not unlike some sort of troll or ogre), AND, the Leeds Wal-Mart! Yes, it is a thrilling and incredible saga that some may think pure legend or prevarication, but I say NAY! 'Tis true! More or less. BUT, before you read them, I have to type something other than this silly placeholder--give me a minute or two and I'll be right back. Friday, January 02, 2004
Well, just about time to head home again--lots of stuff on tap this weekend--first thing is to see if the painters knocked anything else off the walls.
They went around the house yesterday nailing boards back down and managed to knock a decorative plate off of our kitchen wall. Oddly enough, the plate didn't get hurt a bit, but it did fall on one of my Christmas gifts and damage it. The gift was from Reba, too, which made it hurt even more--it is a set of Statler and Waldorf figurines (I guess you could call them inaction figures--the idea that they would be the action sort is comical in itself) from the Muppet Show, each in his own little black suit with chairs and over-ripe tomatoes. Poor Statler suffered a broken vest, right above where his legs attach. ::sigh:: Time for the Super Glue. Tomorrow, we've planned to go do returns of clothes that didn't fit, which promises to be wonderful, all-day fun. (Not really) Then Sunday starts the new quarter for classes at church, and as always I expect there will be at least one teacher who comes up to me and says she had no idea she was teaching. Why, YES, you ARE! Thankfully, all the Christmas decorations have been put away--that was another thing I did yesterday, in between weather forecasting and changing the light bulb in the shower stall and going to Target to pick up photos and going back to the grocery store to pick up some sherbet for a wife of mine who was acting very pitiful because I had twice forgotten in previous trips to get some sherbet. Taking down the tree and putting away all the ornaments is always such a bummer--everyone wants to decorate, no one wants to undecorate. And I had to get out the stupid blasted vacuum cleaner afterwards, too, which I think is why I hate having to put everything away in the first place. Anyway, there's probably a lot of other stuff that'll happen this weekend, so be sure to drop by Monday and let's see what it was.
Mmmm. SOUP!
From Alistair McIntyre's Electric Scotland, all kinds of soups, via an 1840 Scottish cookbook--it's full to the rim with calf's heads and crappet heads and pigeons and ox cheeks and other delightful offal.
Life can be so unfair
First, we don't get that many people up here from the outside--most of them are taken care of downstairs at the main counter. Every once in a while, though, we do have some folks who wash up here either on purpose or by some other department's ignorance. Just got a call from the secretary--"There's someone here to see you." No use asking for more details--it just creates tension. I walk out and there's a Ruben Studdard doppelganger covering up an electric scooter there by the door and WOW!--standing beside the GIS terminal there's a beautiful girl with long curly red hair and rosy skin who looks like a grown-up version of Amber Barretto from the stupid NBC show "Hang Time". "Ma'am, did you need to speak to me?" "Not unless your name's Carla." ::sigh::
And in other news--TOAST!
Steven Taylor has the newest Toast-O-Meter rankings up for the newest of years. Mmm...Toast!
And in other news--Richard Cohen is perplexed
Starting off the new year right, Charles Austin once more takes the ol' cat o'nine tails to Icky Dick: [...] As for myself, I am still perplexed.Well, I gotta say that any man who notices with admiration the straightness of another man's pants pleats is just begging for abuse. Thankfully, Charles is quite up to the task of administering such abuse.
Ooooh--WEATHER!!
Now, it’s not quite as nice as the one Lyman got for Christmas, but it’s pretty neat, nonetheless. My brother- and sister-in-law sent me a nifty little deal from La Crosse Technology that has all sorts of stuff--it’s like this one, but it also keeps up with the moon phases, and it has a projector light that shines up onto the ceiling with the time and outside temp, and best of all, it has one of them there nucular clocks so I can know precisely how late I am for something. I got it out and set it up yesterday morning while watching the Tournament of Roses Parade (looking for the elusive Bayer Advanced float) and it really is pretty darned cool--even if all I could think about was how many Quebeçois teenagers would be laughing at the company’s name. Anyway, it has now taken the spot on the nightstand previously reserved for the pile of cash register receipts and television remote. The projected time/temp deal really is cool, except as I learned this morning, without my glasses on, I can read it no better than anything else. Maybe if there was a way to blow the image up to two or three feet high. (Oh, by the way, it's still not as accurate as a weather dog.)
New Year, New Weevil
If you have been reading along (as you should) over at Miss Susanna's site, you will know that she has decided to leave the murky confines of Noo Joisey for the lovely land of Alabam. Which can only mean one thing--another move is now required. WHEREAS Susanna has been proven herself over and over to be fully compliant with all the other burdensome and heavy-handed requirements for entry into the Cotton States Quilting and Recoil Society, and WHEREAS she has now fulfilled the foremost qualification, namely, taking the brave and necessary step of obtaining passage across the border of Alabama, and WHEREAS she has not objected to her name being moved from one spot in the list to another, and WHEREAS it has been weeks since a new member was added, and WHEREAS...ah, where was I? Anyway, THEREFORE let it be HEREWITH RESOLVED, by the power vested in me by Mickey, the guy who's painting my house this week, that one Susanna Cornett, famed authoress of Cut on the Bias is hereby inducted and otherwise encumbered into the dreaded and ever-so-odd Yellowhammer Tract Society, otherwise known around the world as the Axis of Weevil, with all of the deprivation and sickness pertaining thereto. Congrats, Miss Susanna, and as with all new members, you will be receiving your very own World Famous Axis of Weevil Gift Pack, containing a slab of Dreamland ribs, a gallon jug of Milo's sweet tea; a G-Lox Wedgee gun rack from Mark's Outdoor Sports for your pickup truck, a package of Bubba's Beef Jerky (according to Dr. Weevil, this is homemade and is available only at the gas station at the end of Highway 82 in Bibb County); a three piece, 24 ounce box of Priester's Pecan Logs; a box of Jim Dandy grits; a 16 ounce bottle of Dale's Steak Sauce; AND a six pack of Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale! These will be sent to you just as quickly as we can get the Pinto started. Mitzi used it last week to take her Christmas tree to the dump, and it got high-centered on a rock and tore a small leak in the oil pan that she didn't know about until she got back and parked it by the dumpster where it left a big puddle after sitting for about four hours which Tim didn't see when he cranked it back up because it was dark and we think it might have either spun a rod bearing or something else because it sure does shake a lot but we fixed the oil pan with some JB Weld so it will hold oil but we have to first get it over to Randy at the Shell station to look at. Chet the E-Mail Boy volunteered to let his lady friend Miss Nelda bring it, but she smokes like a foundry and it makes everything stink when you let her carry anything for you. But it will get there soon, we promise. BUT WAIT, there’s more! As we all know, Jimmy from next door (not Jimmy from Accounts Payable) has been doing decorative crafts for new members as therapy for his "condition." During the past few weeks, he has been very down about the new year, seeing as how it ends with a four (his lucky number is three) and according to his aunt has not really been doing too well. I just spoke to him across the fence, though, and he perked up at the possiblity of creating a brand new artwork suitable for Susanna. Hoping to give her a small remembrance of her homeland which she can use to comfort her during any lingering bouts of homesickness, Jimmy has taken it upon himself to create a mosaic tableau of the cast of the hit HBO series "The Sopranos" on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood using nothing but cleverly cut-up frozen dinner boxes! So, best wishes all around for a happy start to the new year! (Just be sure not to leave anything in the refrigerator too long because Michelle gets all freaked out and starts throwing everything out.) Now then, everyone be sure and say hey to the newest member.
Well, now, someone must have been VERY good...
or very bad--it's kinda hard to say. Anyway, just went downstairs to the snack bar to get a cold drink and lined up in the corridor were all sorts of brand-new mop buckets and floor polishers and squirt bottles and shoulder-carried vacuum cleaners and mops and whisk brooms and rolling trash cans and accessory holders to tie around the trash cans and Piso Mojado signs and dust mops and gloves and all sort of stuff. I suppose housekeeping is like anyone else and appreciates new equipment when it comes in, but still, getting a vacuum cleaner for Christmas is right up there with coal and switches in my mind.
Oh, please.
Good grief, yet another fine tradition undone by a bunch of scolding ignoramuses. Well, the way I see it, the best way to combat this is to have a girl wearing these in the cage next year. Of course, it's New Zealand possum, but hey. (You will note in perusing this page that the master of ceremonies has an awfully familiar last name...)
Well, bless her heart
More mislingua from the dim world of local teevee news--both from the same person. Reba overheard her anchoring a story about the earthquake in Iran, noting that without fresh water and sanitation, the threat of cholera was very high. Except she pronounced cholera as "ko-LERR-uh". Long o, short e, emphasis in the middle. Then yesterday, there was her reading of this story from Rome, in which she noted that revellers were jumping into the famed, historic TIBET River. I suppose I should be grateful she didn't call it the TIE'-bet River. Anyway, it's not like I don't mess up words, too--I do. But it I can never figure out how it is that people who have access to huge walls of televisions can manage to get in front of a camera themselves without ever having heard anyone say words such as "cholera" or "Tiber." I guess I shouldn't get too worked up over it--I mean, it's not I watch the news for information or anything.
Rush Guitarist in New Year's Eve Fight NAPLES, Fla. - The lead guitarist for the rock band Rush faces criminal charges after a New Year's Eve fight with sheriff's deputies.Stunning. I mean, who knew Rush was still playing?!
Wacko Jacko's Antipode Counterpart--Irwin Takes Baby to Crocodile Feeding
Seems the wound-much-too-tight Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin decided to introduce his baby into the act, holding it while he was feeding a lovely Bruce croc some yardbird. Mo-ron. I saw the video of this on the news this morning, and I have to tell you that anyone who plays with crocs is a bit daft to begin with, but to allow yourself to be so overcome by your own sense of invincibility around giant reptiles as to allow your own infant child to accompany you on such forays is beyond stupid. I'm sure he will trot out the exact same excuses Jackson did when he dangled his baby over the balcony in Germany (although in a much deeper voice) but the act was still intolerably asinine.
Mmmmm.
(And happy MMIV to you!) That sure was some good food, and I am now quite full of good luck and the promise of great remuneration for the coming year. I must confess that it was not quite like old timey times--I didn’t have to wash the greens in a #10 washtub, I didn’t have to kill my own hog, I didn’t have to make my fingers bleed by shelling peas--but it was still pretty darned good, nonetheless. The turnip greens were the 10 ounce frozen kind--open, dump in big saucepan with a hunk of the honey-glazed ham leftover from the piece my mom gave us, set on low, let simmer five hours or so. I like collards, too, but they’re a bit too strong in flavor for the rest of the family, so we stuck with turnip greens. The best is a mess of mixed greens--collards, mustard, and turnip. Serve any of them with a spoonful of pepper sauce, which is not the same thing as red sauce, but the vinegar from pickled peppers--it adds some spiciness and keeps the greens from being greasy. Mmmm! Black-eyed peas--dried, left over from Catherine’s art project of the gigantic turkey rendered in a variety of dried beans and peas. Always be sure and look them over before cooking to pick out the worm-eaten ones and any rocks or trash. Soak overnight (the peas, not you), change the water, and add another hunk of the honey-glazed ham leftover from the piece my mom gave us, set on low, let simmer five hours or so just like the greens. These usually need a bit more salt than provided by the ham, but go easy on it. I also like to add about a teaspoon of Louisiana Hot Sauce. Country-style ribs--cover with minced onion, black pepper, salt, and a bit of water in a glass baking dish--cover with foil and shove in oven at 325 degrees for several hours or until they fall apart. I nearly cried when I found out we didn’t have any barbecue sauce--all we had was some A-1 and some of the aforementioned Louisiana Hot Sauce. Turned out pretty good, actually. Cornbread--again, confession time, but I used a couple of packages of mix and didn’t realize they had some sugar in them until after I had already mixed it all up and poured it in the skillet. It tasted fine, but the very idea of sugar in cornbread is so anathema that I felt like a traitor for eating it. It sure cooked up good, though--beautiful crunchy crust and crumbly inside. Had it for lunch and supper--it was good both times. What was funny was that Catherine has been on an anti-vegetable jag lately, and had to be strongly urged to eat her greens and peas during lunch. Oddly enough, suppertime came and she actually ASKED for them. She got a few more than she anticipated, however, leading her halfway through to ask if she could just have the amount she had at lunch. “I don’t want all of these stuff--I just want what I had for lunch and THAT’S ALL. Mama, would you take some of these off?” Reba was about to get frustrated, but I leapt in with my child-like reasoning skills and said, “Cat, I tell you what--just eat away all the extra ones you don’t want, and when you get down to the amount you had at lunch, you can eat that.” She thought for a second--“Okay.” Makes perfect sense, don't you think? And worked like a charm--she only had about ten peas left on her plate, and not a single leaf of turnip greens. Wednesday, December 31, 2003
About that time...
It's time to go home. Here's wishing each and every one of you a wonderful New Year--I will be at home tomorrow cooking up the peas and cornbread and turnip greens and old Mr. Hog, so no posting is planned, but I will be back here Friday to kick off Twenty Ought Four. See you then.
More Christmas Books
Another nice present I got this year was from my mom, in the form of two family histories for her side of the family. One was for the Gilberts, her dad, and the other covers the Tuggles, her mom. Super interesting stuff. Both sides lived in Walker County, which is where Miss Reba’s daddy’s family is from. Which means…yep, you guessed it--we’uns is related! It’s not real close--a couple over and two or three back--although it is through both my grandfather and my grandmother’s branches. We had great fun figuring it all out, and there was much naughty talk about being kissing cousins, which just scandalized the kids, although they weren’t quite sure why they were being scandalized. Anyway, both books are the product of a nice lady named Gladys Gilbert Mahlmeister out in Oceanside, California, who has done lots of genealogical digging around and hunting and gathering to come up with information on both the Gilberts and the Tuggles. Lots of old photos of grim, hollow-cheeked folks stiffly posed in front of mules or corn, or later in uniforms, with automobiles. Along about the ‘40s, folks start cracking a smile, and by the time the end of the 20th Century rolls around, there is quite a selection of very happy guys in ball caps with no shirts on. You know, I’m not trying to be uppity, but I think if I knew my picture was going to be in a family history book, I would at least put on a tee-shirt. And take my hat off inside the house. The Tuggle book is particularly interesting--there are two newspaper articles reprinted in it detailing the death of one of the relatives--I’m not quite sure of the relationship, but it looks like he is a second or third cousin of my great grandfather. Anyway, the articles are interesting, and I hope I’m not stepping on any family copyrights here by copying them. The Cordova Herald Thursday, April 4, 1912Whew! They don’t write ‘em like that anymore. The other article comes by way of the Mountain Eagle (now called the Daily Mountain Eagle): AN OLD GRUDGE, IT’S SAIDIf anyone ever gets the idea that eyewitness stories will always agree in every detail, just read both of those accounts. Likewise, the idea that “spin” is a new concept. Epilogue Not to leave things unsolved, the following is the result of the trial… The Cordova Herald Thursday, November 7, 1912A note in the book states that Underwood appealed but the verdict and sentence was allowed to stand. Family history sure is something, eh?
Slow Cars, Driven Fast
Going back to the OXA post yesterday, I got to thinking of a couple of car-magazine-writer articles I have read in the dim past (usually, this means any time over ten minutes ago, but in this case it’s probably been at least a couple of years) noting the odd idea that it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast, than it is to drive a fast car slow. Obviously, the ideal is to be able to drive a fast car fast, but there is something to the frustration inherent in having to drive one slowly--especially those older ones with carburetors and anvil clutches, and without computer-controlled engine management to keep the plugs from cooking or fouling or boiling away all the coolant. Cars are a lot better now, but it still has to be something of a drag to sit in 30mph bumper to bumper traffic in a Viper. ON THE OTHER HAND, when 30 represents half of the available speed, it tends to change your priorities. The ability to see if you can get that bad boy up a hill faster than getting out and walking has a certain charm. It’s a bit like driving one of those tiny remote control cars, I guess. Maybe it’s just the thrill of taking a machine to its absolute mechanical limits. In any event, I sat down just now and tried to figure out all the slow cars I have ever had the pleasure to push to their low heights of mechanical fury. The first one I can think of was early ‘70s VW Beetle owned by one of my neighbors. Its astounding lack of power was further sapped by Volkswagen’s tricky manual shift automatic. My neighbor, a fine, upstanding fire fighter, allowed my best friend and me to experiment with driving it before we were statutorily able to do so, which seems rather shocking now, but one of those things like riding in the back of a pickup that people used to not worry so much about. Anyway, it was nifty, for no other reason than the automanual meant not having to know about the use of a clutch pedal. Sadly, the fire fighter would not let us drive one of his other toys--a tube-framed dune buggy with a turbocharged Corvair engine that could pop the fronts off the pavement by just thinking of the accelerator pedal. I had a friend in school who was much older than me, even though were in the same grade--he had his license in the eighth grade--and besides being a terrible moral influence he had a clapped-out 1971 Ford Mustang with a 250 cubic inch straight six and three on the floor. It looked something like this--not the sexy fastback, nor the sexy convertible, nor the somewhat recognizable notchback, but the one with the ungainly, saggy, swoopy rear C-pillars. Such a pile of junk--full of candy wrappers and cigarettes and garbage and a sawed-off BB gun and stolen porno magazines--it was bog-slow, but deafeningly loud. It looked like it was ready for the crusher, but then again, when any vehicle is used regularly on logging roads and in strip mines, it does tend to take its toll. I did learn to use a clutch in this one, however. Sorta. This is the vehicle we were in when stopped by a deputy sheriff for acting suspicious in the vicinity of a mailbox. The sawed-off BB gun got confiscated, but thankfully we were allowed to leave. A few years later, another friend in school became the proud owner of a mid-‘70s Ford Fiesta. It looked a bit like this one, except it was the color of bile. (Thanks for the photo to those wacky guys at Mongrel Motorsports, by the way.) Actually a fun car to fling around, believe it or not, even though the idea of “fit and finish” was as alien a concept as would have been an automatic herring dispenser. Whenever I was allowed to drive it, I did so with much gusto, and it never rolled over. It did take on some remarkable handling characteristics when it was fully packed with mouth-breathing teenaged classmates and I would sit in the back and slam myself from side to side. That was sorta scary. And this would not be my only brush with a Fiesta. When I did my three-month study abroad program in college in 1986, I rented one to drive from Heidelberg to Munich. If you have never driven in Germany, rest assured that it is everything you could dream of. Unless you’re driving a car that will only do 160. As in 160 kilometers per hour. Which works out in round terms as 100 miles per hour. It wasn’t really so bad--I left the pedal all the way to the floor the entire distance, but there were several moments of warp-factor 8 butt puckering when I would be passing a big truck that was only going 99 miles an hour, and there would be a big BMW or Benz in the rear view mirror closing at 170. Couldn’t back off, couldn’t go forward any faster. Yikes. Equally ignoble was when I was being passed by VW Golfs--even Cabriolets with their roofs bulging upwards from the air pressure would zip past me like I was standing still. Probably the most embarrassing thing was before I even left, when I drove from the rental office back to the hotel our group was staying at in Heidelberg. I kept smelling funny burnt clutch odor. And then, some insane German guy pulled up next to me screaming and pointing at the car and yelling something. About the only German I know is, “haben Sie einen zimmer mit Bad?”, so all I could do was shrug. And wonder about that horrible smell. Finally got back to the hotel and parked, and reached down to pull up the parking brake, only to discover it had never been let down in the first place. I had been driving with it on, and I imagine that I was trailing a plume of blue brake smoke the entire way there. Which really seemed to get everyone agitated. Also, there is no right-turn-on-red in Germany. Anyway, back to the chronology of slowness--the next one on the list was the car I took my driving test in, my sister’s 1978 Toyota Corona. As with most of the cars on this list, I couldn’t find a contemporaneous photo of such a beast, but it looked somewhat like this one, except it was silver, and was the ultraluxurious Lucaya edition. I think it had vinyl over the usually bare metal upper window sills, as well as a fat, pseudoleather-wrapped steering wheel. Not a bad car, from that time when it was still possible to find a small, rear-drive sedan without it having a high-dollar German nameplate. Slow, and despite having a fat, pseudoleather-wrapped steering wheel was resistant to any sort of truly spirited driving. The (power assisted) steering was annoyingly logarithmic like the decibel scale--turn the wheel a little, the tires would steer a little; turn the wheel just one more degree in the same direction, and the wheels would heel over into the next county. Brakes were the same way. BUT, it was the first car I ever got to drive in all by myself. An unfortunate time in my life was after my beloved (and not slow) 1972 Monte Carlo was slid into a ditch and totaled by yours truly, that I decided that I needed something frugal--we were, after all, in the throes of Oil Shortage Panic II, version 1979. So, with the insurance money, a beige and gold 1976 Vega wagon was purchased. It looked nothing at all like this, and only barely like this. What can I say about the Vega that has not been said before? Precious little, although I will aver that when you are driving down Highway 78 in the rain, and you are just before the intersection with Finley Boulevard, and you see someone up ahead pulling out of the shopping center into your lane, and you decide to move over to the next lane, and then that person pulls over in THAT lane just as you are within spitting distance, that the combined effects of tiny bias-ply tires, drum brakes all around, and manual steering can cause a 1976 Vega station wagon to slew violently to and fro across several lanes of traffic; further, it is not outside the realm of possibility that a 1976 Vega station wagon might cross over into ONCOMING TRAFFIC, and avoid missing the front end of a 1975 Ford LTD Yellow Cab by only the merest sliver of inches before it miraculously sluds back into its own lane, having caused the driver to see the entirety of his short life replayed in vivid and heart-touching clarity. Onward then, to another junky Ford product, my best friend’s graduation present of a 1979 Mercury Capri. (This picture is of an ’84, but it looks the same.) Four cylinders. Four speeds, not a single one of them fast. He was very enamored of this thing’s “handling”--honest to goodness exchange: Him, sawing steering wheel from side to side: “See how good it handles!” Me: “What?” Him: “How good it handles. See, you can just turn it, and it goes just like this!” Me, laughing in his face and calling him a very rude name related to the part of his body he was sitting on at the time: “You moron, that only proves the steering wheel is connected to the front end!” He never mentioned that anymore. It was actually somewhat fun to drive, and it looked almost cool. He wound up burning up the clutch in it because of his insistence on riding it. “I’m not riding it! I just have my toe on the pedal!” Mo-ron. Of all the slow cars I’ve driven, there is only one that I absolutely hated, and that was my mother’s ill-advised purchase of a 1986 Buick Riviera. 140 rated horses hauling around 3300 pounds of crap. What an execrable jumble of idiocy. If anyone wants to know where my antipathy for computer screens in cars comes from, it’s this thing. A lemon and a junker from day one. Destroyed my mother’s brand loyalty to Rivieras going back to her and my dad’s robust 1969 Riv with its great honking 455 Wildcat engine. The good thing was it made Mom so mad that she traded it for a 1988 Lincoln Mark VII LSC, which Miss Reba and I later drove on our honeymoon up to Asheville, North Carolina. Now THAT was a car--and quite a nice trip, too. Driving fast is one thing, but fast driving with a fast woman is an entirely different game!
Oh, yeah...
How in the world could I have forgotten that the Auburn Tigers are set to take on the University of Wisconsin Badgers in the Gaylor Hotels Music City Bowl in little less than an hour in the lovely town of Nashville?! I mean, you know, besides the obvious things of the game being played during the middle of the day in the middle of the week, against Wisconsin, in a bowl sponsored by a hotel chain. Add to that the fact that all the post-season stupidity of the administration over the botched ouster of our head coach kinda sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and you have a surefire recipe for lots of yawning. At least Wisconsin's Badgerettes, or whatever they're called, look like a group of fine, healthy representatives of America's Dairyland. And one thing I know they have us beat at is women's hockey. Anyway, my prediction for this game is Auburn 45, Wisconsin 21, based upon the simple fact that badgers are smaller than tigers. UPDATE: Oh well, I was wrong--it was only 28-14. The bad thing is that it took them until there was only 3:30 left in the game to go ahead. That's either some really tough badgers, or we have a lot of work to do in the off-season.
The long march
Oh, that hurt. First, property taxes, then I decided to walk on over to the bank and pay the mortgage. Did I mention that it hurt? Today seems to be the day for it--I brushed my teeth this morning, using my new tube of AquaFresh Extreme Clean. I bought it because the tube is shiny silver, and, well, you know, I like shiny things. Anyway, the goop inside promises nice shiny teeth, too, and it has "Micro-Active Foam" that has some sort of "dynamic foaming action"--I think they copied from Dow Chemical's Scrubbing Bubbles. I can tell you this thing for sure--although its effects on my teeth may be debatable, sucking a tiny bit into the upper portion of your respiratory system is nigh unto drinking a Drano shooter. The dynamic foaming action hurts, and the fresh minty flavor burns, not being the least bit cool and tingling. Although it does last. I hacked and coughed and spit and heaved, then did the same when I got in the shower, until I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital. I'm all better now, though. Sorta.
Now then...
I have to take a brisk walk across the park to the courthouse to pay my property taxes for the year, so I will be back in a bit, crying uncontrollably.
Possums in the Mainstream
Big news across the world of marsupialia--many thanks first of all to Mac Thomason for the lead to this story appearing in THE NEW YORK TIMES!! Keep Your Ball. We've Got the Possum.Frankly, I believe the one in New York was inspired by the one in Carolina, but that's just me. On Thursday, at the stroke of midnight, at the exact moment that hundreds of thousands of people holler in the New Year at Times Square, with millions more tipping back champagne flutes and watching it on TV, a few hundred people will huddle at a Citgo station in this little Appalachian town, wearing hunting jackets and hats with dangling ear flaps, to cheer the descent of one confused marsupial.The law of gravity being universal and all... At midnight, as he lets a rope slip between his fingers, lowering a possum in a plexiglass cage from the roof of his gas station, Mr. Logan will call out, as he has every New Year's Eve since 1990, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"Nothing like a vodka possum martini--shaken, not stirred. The show is more than just the spectacle of suspending in the air a fuzzy-headed, pink-pawed animal that looks as if someone stuck it together with spare parts. There are fireworks, the firing of muskets, country food like peach cobbler and bear stew and the Miss Possum contest, a cross-dressing affair in which bearded truck drivers wear eye shadow and strut across the stage with hands like oven mitts swinging at the sides of bursting lace dresses.Of all the snotty and condescending bits in the story, the part about cross-dressing truckers is probably the one part that will greatly appeal to all those sophisticated alt-lifestyle Manhattanites. There will also be bluegrass music, including a crowd-pleaser that includes the line, "Down in the darkness, much to my delight, there's five pounds of possum in my headlights tonight."And where there is desperate need in the world, there you will find the noble possum. The town, tucked in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains about two and a half hours north of Atlanta,...the only town south of Boston (or north of Miami) that anyone from Times readers would recognize... survives on cattle farming, a few small tobacco plots and industrial jobs where people can find them. Brasstown became famous for 15 minutes a few years ago when townspeople were said to be sheltering Eric Rudolph, the abortion-clinic bombing suspect who was captured in May after five years on the run.Ahhhh, it IS the NY Times...after all, what good is a human interest story about possums unless we can interject subtle jabs at 1) people who eat meat, 2) people who grow tobacco, 3) unemployment (no doubt caused by evil Republicans), and 4) abortion? Mr. Rudolph grew up around here, not far from the Citgo gas station near Greasy Creek Road where Mr. Logan does a brisk trade in stuffed possum toys, cat-food-size tins of "possum roadkill" (actually filled with dirt), and T-shirts that proclaim possum to be "the Other, Other White Meat."Wow! Thanks for that insight, Mr. Wizard! In the afternoon, Mr. Logan and his buddies drove out to inspect this year's star, curled up in a wire cage on a breezy hilltop in an undisclosed location. Each year, several Brasstown hunters trap a cast of possums for Mr. Logan to chose from.Nothing funnier except when fancy little guys from New York drop in and can't quite seem to understand that the joke's on them, that is... "We're kind of poking fun at all the stereotypes of rednecks and hillbillies," he said.Ooops, we forgot to throw in the obligatory slam against 5) people who drive their own vehicles, 6) people who drive their own vehicles that happen to be enormous pickup trucks. Whew--thought the Times might be going soft on us, there! And for all of you sophisticated sorts, it might be worth reading the Salon article published on this same festival back in February of 2002. It covers a lot of the same topics--not that anyone would ever accuse the "Paper of Record" of looking over anyone else's shoulder during a test. Now then, having dispensed with the domestic possums, Jim Smith says it's time to run down underneath the globe to Wellington, New Zealand with the boys from Reuters-- Possums on power trip spark blazeBummer of a way to go--I'm sure they were just trying to find a safer way to cross the road. ANYWAY--there's your possum fix for the day! Tuesday, December 30, 2003
So, you like the style of the new BWM-sourced Mini, but it would set you back a few too many kopeks? Well, buddy, you now have a choice!
Via AutoWeek, a story about the newest import brand vehicle to hit our shores--is lovely OKA! Which will be viewing for peoples at the L.A. Auto Show! The article mentions that we will first be receiving the City and Race models. Powered by a two-pot 749 cc engine producing 35 entire horsepowers, the City model sprints from 0-62mph (100kph) in a breathtaking 20 seconds! The Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price comes in at a low, low $7,300, making it easy for you to act all snooty and superior to those Mini drivers who paid WAY too much. (And, there's a special treat waiting in the wings--something "Designed Especially in Collaboration with your Analyst, recommended for those who would suffer serious SUV withdrawal symptoms"--the OKA SUV! Can hardly wait for that to come over here!) Happy Motoring!
One of the other movies I went to see over the holiday (along with Middle Girl, both of us acting as chaperones to Oldest and her beau) was Return of the King. Here is a very nice synopsis of the action that perfectly captures the stern, sweeping beauty of the film.
(Thanks greatly to Miss Adler for the heads-up)
Well, you know what they say... Party Chief Won't Break Up Scuffles
By John M. Glionna and Matea Gold, Times Staff Writers DES MOINES — Democratic Party National Chairman Terry McAuliffe has no plans to play referee to what has become a vitriolic presidential primary, saying through a spokeswoman Monday that voters would decide whether the negative campaigning was good politics. [...]...they say, "Circuses are FUN!"
Mr. Burns would never allow this to happen in Springfield... KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The Tennessee Valley Authority has disciplined employees for hazing a new worker at a nuclear power plant, and a report concluded that such rituals had been going on for years.Smithers! Get in here on the double!
Wow--Spurrier Quits As Redskins Coach By JOSEPH WHITE, AP Sports WriterCouldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Assuming, that is, that Saddam doesn't try his hand at coaching--I imagine he would have his own ideas of what "fun and gun" means.
Dog bites man...
Isn't a news story. Man bites dog, on the other hand, is. Both, however, seem to be trumped by a dog bites dog story.
What an odd story--Local Rose Parade float ready to rock that town KATHY SEALEWell first, who knew that a Bavarian pharmaceutical giant had one of their division headquarters in Birmingham?! Second, isn't the combination of a parade, rocks, rock music, flowers, stray cats, fertilizer and herbicide just sorta strange? Maybe not.
Late News
I mean that I'm late getting to it, but Peg Britton out there in Kansas has moved her blog to a new address--http://kansasprairie.net/blog/blogindex.htm? All of you fix your links and go say hey to Peg.
A shout from the amen pew.
Doc Reynolds tumped over an ant's nest yesterday when he got into the highly controversial topic of cookware. Fritz Schranck, though, has a much better idea than all that fancy-pants stuff--first, he dropped by "The K" and picked up one of Martha Stewart's fancy-but-not-pricey-pants versions of the copper clad cookery, and then almost in passing noted what is the true gem of his collection: [...] one I’ve been using for 25 years, a 10 ½-inch cast iron skillet that my wife and I both love. [...]Folks, if you want to REALLY cook, get yourself a big iron skillet. They're good for frying, sauteing, searing, baking, and hitting people. Thus, they combine the hearty masculine qualities of being useful as both tools of sustenance as well as a weapon. Fritz continues: [...] For preparing most of my Creole/Cajun recipes, I rely on an 8-quart cast-iron dutch oven that we’ve owned for over 20 years.Yet more virtues--the health benefit is especially important, because if you're anemic, it's much harder to whang someone a good lick. Anyway, before you go out and load up on Calphalon, first buy yourself a good set of iron skillets. Speaking of which, New Year's dinner at Chez Possum this year will be black-eyed peas, turnip greens, country-style ribs, and cornbread cooked in my iron skillet.
Now I know...
You see, my boss told me the wrong station when he came running by my office--the reporter didn't work for the ABC affiliate--she works for the local WB affiliate, WTTO. I am such an idiot. Anyway, I'm going to see if the story ran and if I can get a copy. Grr.
'Nother one bites the dust--Historic restaurant La Paree closing SHERRI C. GOODMANSorta sad--if for no other reason than for the history of the place. I've eaten there a couple of times--good food, but not great. The decor is mid-'60s--old, but not old enough to give it that elusive, funky/charming retro "atmosphere". It's just old and shabby. Birmingham is one of the toughest places around to be in the restaurant business--not for lack of customers, but for the incredible competition. There is great food to be found here to rival anything you can find anywhere--and that's not bragging. Not to say there's not room for the old-style meat and three places--there is--but it darned well better be great.
Really? Angelina Jolie voted America's top New Year's Eve date: survey WASHINGTON (AFP) - Film star Angelina Jolie is the woman most American males would like to date on New Year's Eve, according to a survey by movie rental chain Blockbuster Inc.I think the headline might more accurately say she is the choice of Cheeto-stained Tomb Raider nerds whose lack of socialization skills leave plenty of time for filling out Blockbuster surveys. Then again, maybe I'm just too old to find crazy chicks appealing.
If I had better short term memory...
I would be able to remember that reporter's name and call back and find out what happened! I think I need to start writing people's names down as soon as I meet them or something. Oh well. And speaking of short term memory loss, one of the kids got Finding Nemo for Christmas, and it was a very cute movie, especially Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres, but I have to ask one question--if the fishies in the aquarium have a friendly pelican who comes and visits all the time and is on a first name basis with them all, and they all want to escape--instead of all these elaborate plans for getting put into a baggie and rolling across a roadway into the ocean, why couldn't the pelican just dip his bill down in the water and let them all swim in and then he could fly them out to the harbor? Just wondering. In other news, I still have teeth. Catherine is still missing one in the front. And sadly, since she has repeatedly stuck her tongue into the gap, the one that grows in will not be gold. (This is one of those cruel hoaxes perpetrated on children, in the same vein as "you can catch a bird by putting salt on its tail" and "your face will stick like that.") Monday, December 29, 2003
Well, now, that's all for today...
We television celebrities have to have our down time, you know. I also have to go get Catherine and take us both for our dental checkups, so further exciting details of Christmas Holiday Past will have to wait until tomorrow. See you then.
I'm gonna be on the tee vee!
Well, maybe. Just got off the phone with a reporter (sadly, not the ebullient, blue-eyed Nikki Preede, who still owes me a lunch and a FOX6 coffee mug, by the way) but a nice young lady from ABC 33/40 who is doing a story on neighborhood revitalization. I found out I was supposed to do the interview approximately five seconds before she called me on the telephone, so I had to put her on hold while my boss filled me in on what it is I'm supposed to be talking about. One of our neighborhoods here in town is working with the kids over at the Auburn University Center for Architecture and Urban Studies (website seems to be busted at the moment) to do an analysis of their area, and I'm supposed to talk about how their work integrates with the City's design, planning and regulatory processes. I think it's supposed to air on tonight's news, so all of you in Central Alabama be sure to tune in and see if you can catch a glimpse of my rugged, Tom Selleck-like face and hear my rich, baritone voice. In case you see someone who looks like a potato and sounds like someone hopped up on radiator moonshine, please rest assured he is an imposter. UPDATE--10:31 p.m. CST. Well now, that was disappointing. No story at all. Either there was more work to be done on it and it'll air later, or I was PUNK'D! I think I will now go to sleep and weep hot, shamed tears into my pillow. Or not.
Gifts!!
I gave up in frustration at trying to find Reba something wearable this year--she’s lost a lot of weight, so I don’t know what size to get her in clothes--so we just went to Parisian and let her shop away. She likes shopping as much as any other gift anyway, so it was like getting two presents. And she could try it on and make sure it fit. Making matters even more difficult is that with her hiatal hernia, she has been very strict with herself about not eating chocolate and other sorts of reflux-inducing foodstuffs. There’s just something wrong when you can’t have chocolate for Christmas. I did manage to get her a couple of books, and some interesting little stocking stuffers--a miniature bonsai tree (no, that’s not redundant--this thing comes in a box about the size of a pager) and a companion miniature Zen rock garden--they both promise hours of soothing relaxation, you know. The younger two kids got her some more books, and the two older girls got her some jewelry, which she was quite pleased with. I, on the other hand, racked up famously--books included Horatio's Drive. It’s the companion book to the Ken Burns PBS special about Horatio Nelson Jackson, who in 1903 (along with his mechanic and a dog) became the first person to drive across the United States. It makes a breezy bit of half-day reading, and has a nice selection of letters and photographs and period newspaper accounts. I took it with me when I got tires and read it in the waiting room. I thought that was rather appropriate. The next one I read, last night before I went to bed, was The Civil War on Roanoke Island North Carolina. Now, I like any book about the Civil War, and picture books especially, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. The idea of comparing present-day photos with photographic and illustrated images from the past is a pretty interesting idea, but the book does a terrible job of it. You would think that it would be relatively simple to look at an old engraving of a place, then go and take a photograph from the exact same angle, but apparently that’s too much to ask. One of the most egregious examples was an aerial view of the island that was across the fold from an image of an old map, with various batteries and landmarks marked on each. The only problem was that the photograph was taken from the north, pointing south, and of course the map had north to the top. I think the problem stems from attempting to use stock photos rather than taking proper ones, but whatever the case, it’s annoying. Also annoying was the use of modern-day sketches of various lighthouses in the area produced by a woman whose drawing talents rival those of an arthritic monkey. I’m sorry, but my kids do better work. One more annoyance was the use of letters written by a soldier who was in the area, reproduced photographically, as well as in text adjacent. The problem was that the text reproductions were set in a face intended to look like old handwriting, which NEGATES THE NEED TO SET IT IN TEXT. If you can’t read the original, reproducing it in an equally unreadable typeface is just dumb. Just set it in italics! Anyway, I still like it because it was a gift and I like looking at old photos and maps. Two other books I haven’t gotten to read yet are Secret Empire--Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage, which, like all spy stories, promises to be a real corker, and one written by a retired Samford University professor, All Because of Polly. Sounds like a sweet book, and Reba got the fellow to sign it for me. The kids? Oh, they got more stuff than they’ll ever know what to do with--the big hits include, for Catherine, her very own GameBoySP so she’ll quit having to scream and beg to play someone else’s; for Jonathan, a variety of Hot Wheels/Matchbox accessories, including Ice Mountain (actually the way most people in Alabama learn to drive in snow!) and a remote control Viper which I have decided is mine; Rebecca got a Fib Finder--I’m not quite sure why she wanted this so bad, other than to try to catch Ashley when she’s lying; and Ashley (who has reached the sad age of thinking that Santa Claus is not real) got mostly clothes. Oh, and everyone got batteries.
Okay--what all’s been agoing on…
Well, let’s see--I have been assimilated by the Borg Collective. It was only a matter of time, you know. But I was over there at one of their big cubes last week buying some last minute Christmas presents, and there beside the checkout line was a plastic string full of Wal-Mart Connect CDs. Hmm. 700 free hours, then $9.95 a month afterwards. You know, I’ve been paying over 20 bucks a month to BellSouth for dialup access, and that’s just ridiculous. Especially considering how crappy their e-mail service is. Oh, what the heck. Might as well try it. So I did. Not too bad--my BellSouth account has a 56k connection, and the Sam’s Choice version hooks up at a ripping (relatively speaking) 115k or so, which is pretty nice. The browser is some sort of proprietary Wallyworld version with great big squishy buttons to click (but no smiley faces, oddly enough), but it lacks some of the oomph of IE--no setting your own homepage, no View Source, and the windows have a completely unpredictable sequence of opening and sizing. The search engine is Google powered, though. There’s some sort of Instant Messaging (which I never use) and probably some other junk in there that everyone wants, but you know, it’s still not bad. It’s good enough for the little bit of time that I get to use the Internet at home, so I think I’ll keep it. Making our Yuletide complete, I bought tires there Saturday (see perturbed comments below on the post from the 23rd--assuming HaloScan is working right) which were Christmas gifts from my father-in-law, and my mom gave us all Wal-Mart gift cards. My next big plan is to sell the house and have us all just move in and live there.
Where am I?!
Oh, yeah. Now I remember. GOOD MORNING, all! Long holiday, there--full to the brim with all sorts of boringly mundane minutiae which I will be replaying herein in the coming hours. It'll be just like watching someone else's home movies!! YIPPEE!! BUT FIRST, there is the matter of the Monday staff meeting to attend to, so off to that and then you'll get to hear all kinds of silly stuff about Christmas at the asylum. Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Ganging Agley a Little Too Aft
Funny how that happens. Anyway, this morning's activities were relatively simple--1) Go down to the county jail building to get my pistol license renewed, 2) Go pick up Ashley from her grandparents' house, 3) Take kids to McDonalds to pick up the newest piece of plastic (Happy Meal toy, not food), 4) Go home. The clock went off at the usual time, but I was bound and determined to go back to sleep this morning, so after rousting Miss Reba I was back in slumberland. Some time later, a little girl--soft as a box of hammers--sleepily scrambled under the electric blanket. Seems she had doused herself during the night, so Mom washed her down with a warm cloth and put her in with me so she could finish sleeping. I just hoped that was all she was going to finish doing. Reba gave me some sugar before she left and I dozed back off, only getting punched in the throat once, and only once getting an elbow gently placed into my eye. (Catherine is usually much more active.) Finally got up about 8 and started getting everyone roused up to get going. Answered some e-mail and played with the blog comments for a second, dunked Cat in the bathtub to finish cleaning up, confirmed our schedule with Ashley's grandmother, and started getting everyone dressed. Tiny Terror was a sight to behold--red Joliclub (I have no idea) Cheer Squad shirt, blue sweat pants, and rainbow-striped toe socks. I would say she did this herself, but occasionally I will dress her that way simply for comic effect. I like seeing the disapproving glances of the prissy sorts as they think to themselves that they would never let one of THEIR children out of the house looking like that. (Since Middle Girl and Boy both dressed themselves, they didn't suffer such indignities.) Dressed, everyone saddled up, and time to go--BUT FIRST, had to go to the Food World at the foot of the hill to get some money and shampoo and deodorant and hopefully some tire goo, if they had it. I've been rolling on a set of front tires that are held together with the barest of carbon black molecules and a large amount of prayers. Back before we got the Honda, this was Reba's van and her lack of concern about such things is a wonder to behold. She never checked anything, and one day I absentmindedly looked at the (very nearly new) tires and saw that the outer shoulders of both the front tires had ground away to a broad band of slickness. AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!! (This is what I said in my head. Such an outburst in an audible manner would have created a flood of tears from someone who admittedly has only the barest of understanding about things frictional.) Anyway, the front end was aligned and I vowed to get as much more mileage out of these ruined rubber rings as I could before having to change them. I've been seeing wire now for a good while, and the driver's side tire only holds air for a day or two before needing to be reflated. Obviously, this is dangerous, especially in light of the fact that I occasionally carry kids around, but dear old father-in-law has stepped in to purchase some new skins, so it was just a matter of when we could meet to get the transaction done. I figured some time this week while I'm off. Anyway, I figured I would get a can of spray-in tire goo to hold me until later on in the week, so after I got my Sure Unscented and the bottle of L'Oreal Kid's Fruit Blast Kewl Radical FasDRY Blasted Fun SunPoo, I found my can of ick, and then decided I had better get the piranhas something to eat so they wouldn't attack me. Three little milk bottles and a fried pie apiece (yes, I know that wasn't the healthiest foods in the store, but they don't really like tofu doughnuts.) Time to check out, and for once, the Uma Thurman Girl actually smiled. She works the morning shift, and I see her every so often when I stop in to buy my morning repast of dried meat snacks and sugar-free carbonated beverages. She really does look like the dark-haired Uma of Pulp Fiction--tall, rail thin, generously-proportioned nose and lips, straight across bangs, lots of eye makeup. But she always a sort of weary ennui about her--I imagine it’s a combination of things, caused in part by having to fight off the hounds all the time, and then having to work as the early morning cashier at a Food World when you look like Uma Thurman. Anyway, she hardly ever says anything, but today having the kids with me seemed to break the ice a bit--I actually caught her smiling at least twice in the short time it took to run the register tape! Off then, shoved the kids in the Plymouth and proceeded to empty the can of highly combustible junk into my tire, finished that, threw the can in the handy trash bag by the cart return corral, and drove back around the long way to the Citgo with the free air. Hopped out, finished filling up the driver's side, topped off the one on the passenger side, and it was off to the jail! Whee! I went up Chalkville Road and made sure to get out my permit and stick it under the clip on the sun visor so I could be sure and get it. Made the turn onto the interstate without having to stop and headed on down the ramp and…gee, that tire sure was running rough. Went on a little bit further, and then the whole van started vibrating like I was driving over cobblestones--"Kids, I think we've got a flat." Sure 'nuff. It was the tire over on the PASSENGER side. Flatter'n a flitter. I always joke with myself that it's only flat on the bottom, and I never fail to make myself giggle. Even today. (I have a low comedy threshold for such things, I think.) The kids started trying to work up the requisite fear and anguish--"ARE WE GOING TO GET KILLED!?" "No, kids. I just have to change the tire." "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE IT TO!?" "The SPARE tire. Just hush and sit still and hush and be quiet." Closed the door and opened the hood to get the jack out and just then a big pickup truck with a conversion package and custom stripes pulled over in front of me and started backing up. It stopped and out jumped a short, burly, awfully friendly lass with a tightly curled mullet, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. "You need some hep!? Ah got a cell phone, or if you need some hep, I can hep you!" "No ma'am--I just got a flat. I got a spare, so I reckon I will be okay. But you sure are nice for stopping!" "No problem a'tall--but if you wan' me t'stay, I kin!" What a sweet girl--"Thanks, but I think I got her covered." She hopped back on board her pickup and took off. Found a hunk of tree to chock the wheel, broke loose the lug nuts, winched down the spare tire, praying that it had some air in it, came back around and started working the jack. Such a contraption--a screw-type pantograph jack, with a swivel handle that doubles as the lug wrench. There is just enough available leverage to scour only half the hide off your palms, one half-turn at a time. Any longer and it would have been too simple. I was vigorously rotating the handle when another kind fellow stopped by and offered a cell phone or his hydraulic jack. You know, I figured the days of people stopping to help someone along the roadside were over. It sure is nice to know it's not. I thanked him and told him I really appreciated that he stopped, but I just about had it changed. Off he went and off came the flat. You know, another good thing is that they don't make cars like they used to. Back not too long ago, a tire with a gaping hole on the shoulder would have been a recipe for a spectacular loss of control incident. As it was, there was very little drama--just pull over and stop. Jack a few more jacks to get the hub a bit higher, slip on the spare, tighten the lug nuts, drop the jack back down, further aggravating the dime-sized hunk of raw meat the trip up had caused, roll the old tire back around to the back. "I thought it was flat, Daddy. It doesn't LOOK flat!" "It's just flat on the bottom, kids." "Oh." Winched it back up, stowed the jack and handle, and we were off. Maybe thirty minutes tops, but then I had to stop and get some new air for it. By the time I got back around to the station, (still in Trussville, by the way) it was only fifteen minutes before I was supposed to pick up Oldest. Well, we'll stop at the jail on the way back. Got across town with no further emergency, picked up Oldest and headed back toward home. She said she was tired, and that her stomach hurt. She then went into clinical detail about her lower intestinal problems, and allowed further that it was That Time of the Month. And she had no pads. ::sigh:: "Could you not get one from Grandmama? Did you not have a spare in your purse?" She started to answer in the negative on both, then, behold, she had one in her purse. Whaddya know. "Well, would you like to stop and change?" (After all, her expedient had been a wad of toilet paper.) "Oh, I guess." You know, I think were it my lower nether region, I would be begging to stop. Anyway, we had to make a detour from the old back road we were on and get back out to Highway 78. Stopped at the Crown station, door locked, told her to go get the key, it didn't work except in the men's room door, told her to go back and tell them it didn't fit, she came back with the same key and said they had told her it fit both doors, try it one more time to verify that the women's room would not open, then told her just to use the guy's, which I inspected beforehand to make sure it wasn't covered in the normal service station men's room filth. Surprisingly clean! NOW, thus completed with her hygienic pit stop, it was once more time to try to get something else accomplished. Oh, and it had started to rain. Got to the jail (a.k.a The Melvin Bailey Jefferson County Criminal Justice Center, a.k.a. Eric Robert Rudolph's current address). It actually houses both the county jail as well as the Jefferson County criminal courts, and for some reason, the application office for pistol permits. "Daddy? I have to pee." ::sigh:: "Okay, let's go inside first." Luckily, we had found a place to park on the street, which made the whole ordeal of getting four children out of a van in the middle of a downpour with only two umbrellas somewhat less onerous. Got them all out and safely across the street and in the door and…and…oh crap. Why in the world did I not just leave my permit in my wallet instead of taking it out and placing it under the clip on the sunvisor WHERE IT STILL WAS? Because I am an idiot. Rounded them all back up and back out to the sidewalk and had them stand under a big lightning ro--I mean, tree--while I scooted back across the (middle of the) street in the rain--a fine example, indeed. Leave the kids under a tree in a rainstorm while I jaywalk. Oh well. Got my permit and ran back across the street, got back inside with everyone, paid my tab, finally got them to correct my weight (I haven't weighed 215 since, well, you don't need to know) and then it was time to go pee. The restroom is over in the jail side of the building, so we went down the ramp and 'round the corner…"Is this the JAIL, Daddy?" Yep, sure is. "Is this the JAIL, Daddy!?" YES. "Is this where BAD people go?" Yes. "Is it a jail!?" ::sigh:: No, it's where they bottle Coca-Cola. "REALLY?" ::sigh:: Thus relieved of his pressure, Boy was refreshed and it was time to get back toward home. BUT FIRST, a stop for a Christmas present. Ashley's little beau wants a book--I went out last night looking for this thing at Books-A-Million in Trussville AND at the Barnes and Noble at the Summit. Neither place had what he wanted, so I got a couple of others that would do the trick. BUT, not wishing to contribute to a disappointment at Christmas, I figured we would stop by the BAM at Eastwood Mall and just by chance maybe find it. Eureka! They had it, a book with a 12-foot-long fold out timeline chart of architectural styles over the ages. Nifty. Got it and headed off toward home, with the final stop at the Clown Place for new plastic junk toys and wonderful foodstuffs. It sure has been an eventful day. Ain't over, either--we have Bible study tonight instead of tomorrow, so there'll be more getting out and driving around in the rain with a carload of fussy children. We're going in the Honda this time, though. Monday, December 22, 2003
Oh, I know...
I said I was taking a week off, but the most extraordinary thing just happened--believe it or not, I am now the proud owner of a silver, 1965 Corvette Sting Ray small-block roadster with red interior!! A miracle, indeed! It came with this note: TerryWell, I just gotta say what a wonderful, unexpected surprise it is to receive such a gift, even if the maroons down at the Post Office nearly destroyed the derned thing when they ran the Priority Mail envelope through their dumb ol' machines. I made Little Boy run out to the mailbox just now (what good's having kids unless you can send them on mindless errands for you) and he came back with a stack of stuff and a mangled envelope swathed in clear tape. Utah?! I opened it up, and there in all its shining glory was a brand new Johnny Lightning 1:64 scale 'Vette. (None the worse for wear, thank goodness--I'd hate to have to go down there and get all postal on 'em.) Anyway, thanks very much to my good buddy Nate McCord out there in The Promised Land for the great Christmas wish come true! I will drive my new car all over the top of many tables and possibly head out across-floor. While I'm here, might as well go ahead and fill you in on some more stuff--Reba's at work this week, so I am home with the three younger kiddies. Oldest is spending today and tomorrow at her other grandparents house, so it's only 3/4 of the madhouse it could be. Had to get up early this morning to maintain peaceful marital relations with my bedmate. For some reason, she really has a thing against me staying in the bed if she's awake. "You are going to be sure and get me up in the morning, aren't you?" She knows to be all coy and sweet when she says it, so I'll maintain the quiet complacency of a puddle of butter. "Yes, sure will." AARRGGHHHH! How DOES she do that!? Clock went off and I flopped over onto her and breathed on her and told her it was 6 o'clock. She eventually got up, and then proceeded to go get all the kids up so I would be forced to wake up and tend to them after she left. She's very crafty. She went on to work, and out of equal parts duty and terror, I got up and got moving. The kids were all stacked up in Cat and Bec's room, tearing apart the boxes of stuff they came home with yesterday from Ashley's grandparents. They always give them too much--but that's a story for another time. Anyway, tons of wire ties and bits of cardboard flinders everywhere. I grunted and went and put on some jeans and scared myself by looking in the mirror to get the old heart pumping. I came back through and told them to throw away all the bits of ephemera and plastic sprue and after that, it's been a blur of having to put batteries in this, and fix this, and make this work right, and why's it doing this, and such like. I had such high hopes of cleaning at least one room today. Oh well, they'll only be young once, and the house will be a wreck forever. In other news, Oldest got her first kiss. And for some odd reason, I don't have the thoughts I thought I would think. I always figured I would fuss and fume and such, but as I mentioned last week, the kid--tall, all Adam's apple and bone--is just too nice to want to really hurt too badly. The teenagers from church went to see White Christmas at the Alabama Theatre Saturday night, and at first he thought he was going to have to be out of town. To her undying credit, Oldest decided to go on anyway because she likes the movie. Good girl. I told her I was proud that she decided to go on by herself--no use thinking she had to have some boy (no matter how nice) to make it fun. And then, plans changed and he got to go, so they were both just beside themselves. They had a good time, and according to the debriefing administered by my G2, Mrs. Oglesby, he managed to overcome her defenses just as they were turning into the driveway at the church building. You know, you gotta figure that was probably a pretty special something or other--a night at the Alabama, a wonderful old movie, and furtive smooches in a crowded fifteen passenger Dodge van. As I said, it's hard to fault the boy. Other than he wants to be an architect. Time to go referee a fight downstairs, so I'll sign off again for a while. Once more, many, many thanks to all of you who left such warm comments below for the second anniversary of this silly mess. It really does mean a lot to me. Friday, December 19, 2003
The Terrible Twos
Well, it's finally gotten easy enough, so I herewith launch out into the fetid, overcrowded harbor of blogginess, courtesy of some computerized thingamabobber. You know, when they tapped out the old "what hath God wrought" line on the telegraph, I'm sure they figured this is where it would lead. Serves 'em right.Thus at 11:29:35 on the morning of December 20, 2001 did Possumblog come into being. A lot's happened in the intervening one hundred four weeks, and I just figured out that I've managed to type up about 1.3 million words, some of which even made sense. Over the past 24 months, this silly hobby has allowed me to vent and spew and chatter aimlessly, all the while getting to correspond with hundreds of the most interesting sorts of people from all over the world, and two absolute jerks. I started this exercise partially as a way to gain some emotional catharsis from the events of September 11 of that same year. I'd been playing on the Internet for couple of years, hanging out at various message board sites and leaving the odd comment (some more odd than others) here and there. It was interesting in its own way, but there sure seemed to be a high concentration of idiots with the brains of a gerbil hanging around. Too much stupid, even for me. What I knew of weblogs at the time was limited, but I was no more impressed--they seemed awfully heavy with poetically maudlin teen angst. I did find several humor sites to enjoy, including the quirky Institute of Official Cheer, by some guy up in Minnesota. We wrote back and forth a good bit--I was one of the ones who got him to join the Straight Dope Message Board (which broke down almost as soon as he signed up). And then, September. It jarred something loose, I suppose. All the raw feelings, the sense of imbalance, the dark thoughts--they needed to be said. For right or wrong, there is a stoicism I impose upon myself in the face of hard times--a jaw to the wind, hands on hips, 'don't worry kids--Dad'll fix it' sort of construct. It's dumb posturing, I suppose, but there are enough things to worry about in the world, and I think my wife and kids deserve something solid and dependable they can count on when they have their rough patches. But those thoughts were still there, and didn't need to sit around--they make mischief, you know. So, I wrote. There might not be anyone at work to unburden on; I might not feel comfortable even if there were. I might not want to stand face-to-face with someone and admit my limits. But I could sure put words down on paper. Think about them. Rearrange them. Get them to say what I felt. I wrote, and it felt good. Some of those things are still out there, some still stuck on my hard drive. But it felt good. And then, one day that Minnesota guy had some links to some of those silly weblog sites--but these were nothing like I had read before. Tight, concise, reasoned, informed--better written than 95% of what passes for popular journalism today. I was hooked. Couldn't get enough of them. Finally, it looked like there might be a way to not only write for my own consumption, but also maybe even see if there was anyone else out there who might enjoy it. A dangerous proposition, to be sure, but one that was undertaken with much vim and vitality, and occasionally the use of a dictionary. I wrote, and continue to do so, with the idea that although I may not have a person physically in the room with me, there's at least an imaginary one sitting right over there in the chair by the door, and that person wants to hear what I have to say. I respect him enough to not feel I have to explain every little obscure reference, but if he misses one, I'll back up a bit. I figure he's smarter and better read than me, so I try to make sure I have my facts right. I know some of the stuff bores him, so he'll get up and leave--but the cool thing is, there will come along someone else! Then I blabber until he's bored. I write about the stuff I want to write about, and for better or worse, Possumblog has steadfastly resisted easy categorization. Part of that is intentional--once someone thinks he has you pegged, the tendency is to forget about you. You're as likely to find a post on Bucephalus as you are on barbecue; on etiquette as you are on flatulence. I try to make sure the subject and verb agree in number, that the spelling is right, the adjectives and adverbs are modifying the right things, and participles are strapped in as tight as Michael Jackson's baby dangling over a balcony. [Most of the time--and sometimes it takes a couple of more swipes throught the edit tool after it's been posted. If something looks weird, wait a while and reload and maybe it'll be corrected. If not, send me a note and let me fix it.] The style, what there is of it, is conversational--I can get all thoughty and eloquent when the situation calls for it, but most of the time it just give me a headache. I don't mind making fun of myself, or anyone else that deserves it. I appreciate every single time someone mentions me or links to me, but I don't go begging for folks to read my scintillating thoughts on maritime salvage law or The Lord of the Rings. For having done this for so long (relatively speaking) and for being somewhat widely read (relatively speaking), I have a pretty paltry total number of visitors. That's okay by me. Again, I'm not trying to make money off of this or be the first name that pops into your head when you want to know about something--so, whether I get one hundred or one thousand hits in a day, I'm no better or worse off. If you come, I'm glad you're here--hang out, send me an e-mail or leave a comment, and come again. I've thought on more than one occasion that once I got to some particular point--certain date, certain number of posts, whatever--that I would stop writing this. Sometimes it does get in the way, and sometimes it feels forced, and sometimes I can't say what I want, and sometimes I just don't want to do it. Last month, I vowed that if I got to my two-year anniversary that I would just pack up the shop and call it quits. Don't quite know why, just felt that way. Today, I think I could make a go of it all the way in to the second week of January! Anyway, so--as Possumblog hits its Terrible Twos, I want to thank all of you who have come by and hope that you found something that made you think, or laugh, or grit your teeth, or cry, or best of all, something that made you decide to come back again. Have a seat over there, grab you a glass of sweet tea, and let's see what all else comes around. OF COURSE, having said all that, I must now tell you that ALL of next week I will be at home for Christmas vacation, meaning that there won't be any new stupidness here until the 29th (Check the archives for old stupidness.) I will be keeping up with e-mail and comments, though, so if you get an itch, drop me a note. Until I see you again, I wish you all good tidings and a merry Christmas. Let no Pleasure tempt thee, no Profit allure thee, no Ambition corrupt thee, no Example sway thee, no Persuasion move thee, to do any thing which thou knowest to be Evil; So shalt thou always live jollily: for a good Conscience is a continual Christmass.--Benjamin Franklin
$36,866.36 per foot.
That's how much it takes to build a new condo that's 217 feet higher than everyone else gets to build. The developer managed to work out a nice deal with Orange Beach for some land transfers and improvements and offered to build a fire station, all of which worked out to be worth $8,000,000, according to his lawyer. [...] [Council member Brett] Holk argued that coaxing a rezoning with such offers was unfair.All you gotta say is that when a developer is happy, someone got screwed.
Always remember, guys--it's always better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Field expedient armor and other protective devices have been around for a long time--soldiers are going to do what they can to see that they have protection. They know that Army time runs a bit slower than bullet time--BUT, they also know all about the bureaucracy. The problem is that someone let the idea slip out before they got to where they were going, and now the REMF guys have to get involved, if for no other reason than to cover their neatly pressed backsides. It may sound dumb, but it is the way it is, and once all that mess gets started, there's no going back. The article does say that the troops will get to take their steel with them to Iraq, but may not be able to install it when they get there. Don't despair guys--you don't have to install THAT sheetmetal. Why, there's probably tons of OTHER steel plate all over the place where you're going...not saying anything--just making an observation.
Just wondering...
(I mean, aside from trying to figure out what's wrong with Blogger the past few days.) What I was wondering was, where have all the railroad bulls gone? This thought occurred to me last night as I was waiting on a slow-moving freight to clear the crossing down at the foot of the hill from my house. I have noticed for some time now the explosion of graffiti on rolling stock--not just a simple tag or two--but huge, elaborate murals that obviously took a lot of time and effort to produce. Folks have been marking on cars for as long as they've been around, but it seems in the last 10 or 15 years it has gotten all out of hand. Even the model railroad crowd is in on the trend, and several companies even have graffiti decals to make their tiny boxcars and gondolas more authentic looking. Maybe I'm more sensitive to this since Birmingham has such a long rail history, but I know that at one time railroad police were greatly feared for their foul temper, as well as the fact that they were pretty much a law to themselves. A dim view was taken of such shenanigans--I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was young, but I sure enough knew better not to get caught anywhere near a rail yard, much less with a box full of spray paint cans. I looked at the CSX website and couldn't find anything about such activities; Norfolk-Southern was a bit better, with one article about trespassing and a link to their police department, and a short history of railroad police. Maybe they figure the less said about it the better. Anyway, the train finally stopped dead on the track, so I had to turn around and go around the long way.
From the Awfully Obvious Conclusion File: U.S. Says Catching Bin Laden Difficult, and then there's this one--Jackson's Attorney Vows to Fight Charges
Thanks for the updates, AP!
Aliens driving illegally cause traffic problems
Danged bunch of idiots with them flying saucers just a-whizzin' in and out of traffic! Thursday, December 18, 2003
Oh, please.
Bias keeps Internet from global expansion By ANICK JESDANUNOh give me a break. All this proves is that the one site he went to wasn't very good. Maybe it's not a case of bias so much as it is of simply not knowing how to do a search. Take for example, a Google Image Search. Type in India, and you get 418,000 results. Sure, some are flags and maps and stuff, but think about the poor Swiss, who have to make do with only 154,000 results. Why, it's RAGING ANTI-HELVETIANISM!! Even po' ol' Alabama only gets 165,000. If Mr. Dewan had tried, he could have found hundreds of India faces, and India hands, and even entire India people. Surely there are barriers to learning to use the technology, and non-English language sites aren't as well-represented as English sites, but it's senseless to make that case with this example. (It's also senseless to believe if there's a buck to be made that someone won't jump in with an Urdu-bay auction site or HOT! LIVE! girls who want to chat with YOU! in Sanskrit.)
I'm going to lunch now and you can't stop me!!
Everyone at Sneaky Pete's says hey. Small crowd today, although Bicycle Riding Man came in. I don't think I've ever seen him stop in anywhere to eat before. I'm just glad he had on his winter clothing. Nine months out of the year, he usually has on some kind of tank top, and tiny little shorts covering his massive legs. He also has a rather large assortment of beads and necklaces and knit caps and baubles and trinkets on his body, neck, and tied into his hair. And festooning his bike. Thankfully, he's not loud like Screaming Guy, but he rides like a man possessed and usually up on the sidewalk instead of on the street, and in the summer he gets all sweaty and slick and he comes whizzing by and you really hope he doesn't get funky sweat all over you. Winter is better--his sweaty parts are all covered up. And the beads and jewelry are more appropriate to the holiday season. Anyway, he got a hotdog. The ladies behind the counter where cutting up with each other and picking on one in particular--the tall lady with the square jaw and high cheekbones and hair pulled straight back into a long braid--who feigned deep emotional hurt from their taunts. They're all a fun bunch, and everyone who comes in is "hon" or "sugar". I told her not to listen to all that mess, and she pouted and half-yelled over her shoulder that they were just all a jealous bunch of old hens. They got a big kick out of that. We swapped Merry Christmases and money and I got my load of artery-clogging foodstuffs and now, it's time to get some work done this afternoon!
Chrysler Cancels 'Lingerie Bowl' Sponsorship DETROIT (Reuters) - DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler division, bowing to critics, said on Wednesday it was abandoning plans to sponsor a Super Bowl Sunday televised football game featuring underwear-clad models.Well, good. You know, I really, REALLY like girls. I will admit to occasionally lingering a bit too long at the lingerie section in the Sears catalog. But this whole thing is just dumb, and since Dodge first announced their sponsorship, I never could see how it would ever help sell more trucks. Maybe I don't understand the buying habits of the whole Girls Gone Wild/Jackass-lovin' demographic--but I really don't think they're the ones who are keeping the Dodge Truck division afloat with their purchases. Trucks are profitable for automakers, and they aren't cheap. The folks with the scratch to lay down on a new SRT-10 or Durango probably aren't going to be watching a bunch of dimwitted chicks in underwear pretend to play football, nor is such a spectacle going to make Mom decide she really needs to rush down to the White Hat Boys' place to plunk down some dough for a Hemi. Good riddance. UPDATE: And lest you think this crap was foisted on Dodge by a grotty old coot with Hefnereque fantasies, here's an excerpt from an AdAge article from yesterday: [...] A spokesman said Mr. Murphy approved the deal presented to him by the marketing communications director on Dodge, Julie Roehm, who oversees advertising. (Her role expands Jan. 1 with the same title to Jeep and Chrysler brands.)For the record, Ms. Roehm--product is what sells.
Free Dick!
Scrushy asks limits on travel be looser VAL WALTONMartha Stewart?! Martha, although I think she's guilty of insider trading, is accused of nothing as serious as our old Dallas County Line lead singer. And Waksal, though a rogue and a cheat, at least has the sense to admit when he got caught red-handed, and his crimes haven't involved defrauding the public for years, as our buddy has been accused of doing. Anyway, here's the real money quote: In a letter to prosecutors, lawyer Abbe David Lowell said Scrushy has taken no steps to flee since he learned he was the subject of a grand jury probe and saw 14 former HealthSouth officials, some of whom have implicated him, plead guilty to offenses related to the fraud at HealthSouth.Oh please. He ain't Madonna, folks--with his current fashionable affectation of slicked back hair, all he would have to do is regrow his cheesy little mustache, he could be serving salsa and chips at any place in town and not be recognized.
SACS details reasons for Auburn's probation By KYLE WINGFIELD::coughBobbyLowdercough:: and that the university had not sufficiently prevented a minority of trustees from micromanaging the school. [...]::coughBobbyLowdercough:: Walker said in a statement Wednesday evening that he and the administration are studying the letter.It might be worth remembering that he also said a few weeks ago he only wanted to talk a little about football with some guy up in Kentucky.
What's wrong with my stupid machine?
I noticed, as well as that Aardvark feller, that some of the punctuation in my posts from the past couple of days has been replaced with stupid symbols instead of the desired marks. I changed a couple of posts by hand yesterday, and thought maybe it was just some gremlin in the ether between MSWord and Blogger and Blog*Spot and my IE browser. I apologize to anyone else who's having problems reading the stuff below (I mean, aside from the normal problems with having to read run-on sentences and stuff). If I have to, I'll just compose this garbage on Notepad. UPDATE: Sure enough, it's still happening--just had to go through and change the above stuff to make it correct. The ghost of Ned Ludd must be lurking about. Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Stuff to Look At
Go Google on "architecture" and you get 24,300,000 results. That's probably a bit much to wade through in the next five minutes or so. By adding "possumblog" to the search string narrows things down considerably to about 96 results, but that's still probably a little too much to look at. Further adding the word "poophead" to the string unfortunately leads to a zero result, which I find very difficult to believe, as well as not the least bit useful for our discussions, so I will endeavor to give you the abbreviated version of Interesting Architecty Stuff to Look At. Books! I love books of any sort, and just about any book you pick up on architecture will be jam-packed with lovely photos and piquant ripostes and all sorts of letters and numbers. Click on Books above and it'll take you to the American Institute of Architects' store webpage, which is probably as good as any other place to start looking. (Not necessarily to buy, though--you will usually do better at Amazon or B&N or Books-A-Million) Over the years, the ones I have consistently come back to and reread are things such as the reprint of the 1932 Graphic Standards--nifty book from back in the day when draftsmen were men and smoked like coal-burning four-stack destroyers. Beware the reviews you see on the Amazon site--quite a few dimbulbs bought this and complained that it didn't have any current information in it. Hey, go play in traffic, Sparky. I have a rapidly oxidizing paperback 3rd edition on my desk right here beside me of The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture . Lots of arcane, as well as darned useful information. You never know when you might need to distinguish between an aedicule and an adytum. Or what a zoophorus is, for that matter. Another one I thumb through on occasion is Ye Olde Banister Fletcher, densely packed with stuffy turgidity and pictures--a must-have! Of course, NOBODY'S library would be complete without the always exciting Hollander Manual. If you are intent on becoming an architect, it pays to know what sorts of junkyard parts will fit your falling apart piece of tin that's the only thing you can afford to buy because your cheap, idiotic boss won't pay you what he pays his cleaning lady at his condo in Orange Beach because intern architects are a dime a dozen and it's hard to find good cleaning ladies and... uh. Sorry. Never mind. For all you theory buffs, I think it's hard to go wrong with Louis Sullivan's Kindergarten Chats or his The Autobiography of an Idea. He was the originator of the phrase "form ever follows function," and he was Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor and boss. Sullivan had a profound influence on Wright, and by extension, the whole of American architecture. A brilliant man, who died a penniless drunk in a rundown Chicago hotel, April 14, 1924. Before Sullivan's ideas about organic architecture, there was John Ruskin, who wrote both Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice, which still give me goosebumps whenever I read a few passages. Good stuff. I have stacks and stacks of other books, too--you can never have too many books, even if you'll never read them all. Toys! We're all a bunch of big kids. Some of us do seem to have a sort of pyromanic/electrophilic side to us, so I would recommend not getting anything containing petroleum distillates or that has any loose or easily accessible wires. Clicking on the word "Toys" above will take you to the biggest list of architectural toy links I have ever seen with either of my two eyeballs. Some of them are antiques, some of them are still being made--just click through on stuff and see what you find. If you're an insufferable yuppie who is hell-bent on forcing your child into a life of servitude, get 'im a set of Froebel Blocks, just like Frankie Wright's crazy Welsh mama got for him. For the more pedestrian sorts of us, it's hard to beat Lego. (Except for their recent foray into making stupid sets of stuff that are intended to be built into the thing pictured on the box.) Just plain Legos are best. Don't leave them in the floor or you'll puncture your foot. A more grown-up toy is the fabulous Rotring 600 Trio. It's three, THREE writing tools in one--a red ballpoint, a blue ballpoint, and a .7mm mechanical pencil. Way, way cool. Made of satin nickel plated brass so it weighs 54 pounds. Be the envy of EVERYONE when they ask to borrow a pen and you slap this chunk into their palm. Can also be used as a self-defense tool and won't get taken away from you at the security station like a pair of stupid nail clippers. I've had mine for probably ten years. It needs a cap for the eraser socket. Another great toy is the Calculated Industries Construction Master IV Foot Inch Calculator. You will never again need to remember how to add decimal inches again! (Let's see-- .08, .17, .25, .33, .42, .50, .58, .67, .75, .83, .92, and 1.0. And that's just 1 thru 12 inches with no fractions.) Use it to figure rafter solutions, stairs, area, volume, and convert back and forth between real units and made up metric units. One of the handiest tools you'll ever find. (You can also use it to figure out how much cubic inches an engine has when all you know is its size in cubic centimeter or liters.) Now, all of you know I never seriously beg for money or anything on here--I may joke, but I have remained scrupulous over the past months in not operating this site for profit of any sort. Having said that, I would now like to make an exception and beg you to send me the one toy I have always wanted. Tuxedo black, 327, 4-speed--I won't ask for anything else this year, I promise. I realize it's not strictly an architectural toy, but I promise I will use it to look at buildings. Clothing! Nobody making enough fun of you? Well, bucko, slap on some of these, and one of these, and a pair of these, and maybe this, and then snuggle down inside one of these, and you'll be stylin' like all the famous architects! Now then, that should be enough stuff to look at today. I'm about to go out and see if anyone has left me my present yet.
So, anyway...
Dr. Smith also mentioned in passing that he wondered what the world looks like to an architect. I have no idea what anyone else sees, but I know I have a real hard time soaking up the ambiance or atmosphere or design intent or Great Ideas in a building, because I always start looking at the way it was put together. Part of this is what I was talking about yesterday about the subjectivity inherent in interpreting the particular artistic expression of a composition. I can look at something and come up with equal numbers of explanations of why it is The Greatest Thing Since the Wheel or Why This Is Just a Pile of Crap. I figure I can let the pointy-headed academic sorts fight about that--they're good at it and enjoy it much more than walking around a muddy jobsite. What I look for is how well things are thought out, and how well they are made. If afterthoughts and brain-fade are evident as you walk through a building, if it's obvious that the designer never figured on having to allow for THAT mechanical louver be located right THERE, it the ceiling grid is off-kilter, if the drywall looks like it was finished with a rake, if there's a large water-filled Rubbermaid garbage can sitting under the roof leak in the glorious atrium--well, I notice it. Those things say that someone, somewhere, wasn't thinking. If there's one thing that separates art from sitting on the john, it's the idea of deliberate, contemplative, reflective, thoughtful input into what you're doing. (Obviously, this also means that sitting on the john can be quite artistic.) There are a lot of architects out there who make wonderful sculptural assemblages of fascinating bits of junk to look at from the outside, or that have bits and pieces of wonderful space inside, but in the end I will always find them failures if there's a fire alarm pull station right over there by accident, or if that door over there bangs into the other one, or if you can hear the elevator pump squealing. Next--some stuff to look at!
Such fun!
Not really. But at least it didn't last as long as the meeting two weeks ago. Anyway, stuff to get done this a.m., then more silly garbage this p.m. Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Working
The rudest shock of my education was how little it prepared me for the real world. Actually making a living requires actually doing things, and in the normal sense, that means going to work for an architect and drawing for all you're worth. (The abnormal sense is dropping out and living in a small cabin in the woods.) And not pretty sketches, either. Actual construction drawings, done as fast as possible, and as free of errors as possible, and as clear as possible. Which was not one of the things they taught down on the Plains. I had a little bit of mechanical drafting experience from UAB, and quite a lot of doing presentation drawings, but construction drafting is its OWN art and science, and bears little relationship to scholastic exercises. This was at the time when computer drafting was still in its infancy, so I had even less experience with that. Thankfully, I found a job with a medium sized firm here in town--big enough to get some meaty projects, but small enough so that I quickly got some experience other than making coffee and sorting the mail. (I got to do that, too.) After foundering for a few weeks as I picked up the necessary minimum knowledge required to do construction drawings, I was thrown into the middle of the lake and told to swim--big post office over in Atlanta that had been languishing on another guy's desk, and in a fit of pique, the boss fussed and fumed and told me to get it done. Which I did. For a while there, it had the distinction of having the tallest Keystone wall in the Northern Hemisphere. Good experience all the way around, from having to learn to deal with the U.S. gummint and the local revenooers, to how to coordinate the engineers, how to move lackadaisical contractors, and how to draw right. As one of the oldest firms in town, our basement held a treasure trove of old drawings from the mid- to late '20s, all the way up to the present. These were done mostly by draftsmen, but that is intended as no slight. Each sheet was a work of art in itself, and each man had his own little tweak or twitch that identified his hand. I learned more about setting your ideas to paper in looking over those old drawings than in the entire time I was in school. And I got to where I was a pretty darned fine draftsman--just about the time that computers began replacing old, nearsighted guys hunched over a drafting table. I still do pretty well, though--like ol' John Henry, I can still work faster than those steam hammers. At least on some things. And the drawings still look awfully pretty. Anyway, I stayed on and learned a lot, and got to do a lot of things that I would never have otherwise since I had a degree in construction, too. Field observations (architects NEVER inspect anything) and site grading plans and such like helped break up the day and got me out of the office a little. The office wasn't so bad, though--we had a good group of young guys, all smart and fiery and full of venom and fun. Good guys who knew their beans, and who could sit and spout academic fooferall AND browbeat a contractor without missing a beat. Fun times. And then it got very, VERY bad. I've talked about the stupid, ill-thought-out changes that overtook the place before, and they doesn't bear repeating again, other than to say that just because someone seems to be honest on the surface, doesn’t mean they really are. But in my time there, I still learned a lot, which I have codified into my RULES OF ARCHITECTURE. I know they're pretty good, because I sent them to James Lileks back before he got a million e-mails a day, and he liked them enough to write back and tell me so. For the rest of you, here they are: 1. If it don't line up, it ain't architecture. 2. Anyone can dress up like a clown, but it ain't funny except at the circus. 3. The fact that the human eye can discern 32,000,000 colors does not mean that there is a requirement to use them all on one project. 4. You only get one "f*** you!" to a client in your lifetime. Use it wisely. 5. Put on a hard hat and carry a clipboard, and you can go anywhere in the world. 6. Never wear your good shoes to a construction site. 7. You are paid to draw, not erase. 8. Why is it that there is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over? 9. "We can fix it by addendum," or "figure it out in the field" never work. 10. Wait about 2,000 years before you tell me how great a building is. So, there you go--the sum total of my knowledge, free for you to clip out and save on your refrigerator! That's about all for today, folks--and tomorrow is going to be one those fun regulatory excess days here at the place I went to after I left The Bad Place. (The fact that being a government bureaucrat is preferable to staying in my previous employ should let you in on just HOW bad The Bad Place is.) Anyway, tomorrow morning will be only lightly seasoned with blogginess--but stick around until later and I'll throw some more of this stuff out.
Yes, that’s right
Maybe it was all the freelance electroshock therapy I gave myself, but I never really had the idea of being an architect, despite all the time spent building with my building blocks, and despite the fact that when I wasn’t trying to figure out electrons, I also was a pretty darned talented artist. I suppose I just figured that engineering was more cool or something, but no matter, after graduation, I enrolled at UAB with the intent of becoming a mechanical engineer. That intent lasted exactly as long as it took to reach calculus. My high school (and everything further down the line, for that matter) always had a very weak math program, and although I did fine in things like geometry, the algebraic side suffered a lot of abuse. It became obvious that my struggles with higher math were NOT going to stand me in good stead, and I certainly didn’t have the motivation to actually try harder to figure it all out. So, I started trying to figure something else out. My sister mentioned in passing the idea of architecture, which seemed to be a pretty good alternative. No thermodynamics, you know. So, I did my research and managed to get accepted (provisionally, due to my poor showing in math) at Auburn. Where, after TWO MORE failed calculus courses, I finally managed to pass one with a B! (Can’t remember his name—he was a little smart-mouthed Yankee teaching assistant, but doggone it, he managed to explain it all enough for me to finally pass it!) And then there was Summer Option. Since I got a late start, I decided to try to make up a year’s worth of work in one quarter. It was called Summer Option, and it was a vast weedpatch of slackers and morons and brilliant kids and confused sorts like me. The work was grinding, with all the first year’s worth of learning about color and composition and history and theory and presentation and proportion and hubris, all compacted down into a three month space. Lots of long nights, lots of befuddlement. In the end, more than half the ones who started left. The leftover half itself wound up with maybe a quarter of its original complement by the time we graduated. And to make it even more worse, three weeks before the end of the quarter I had gone back to the trailer after a particularly long evening, then was woken up by the stupid telephone before I had even gotten close to getting enough sleep. It was my sister, telling me that my dad had died. Two and a half hours later, I was home. I stayed for two weeks, then went back down and finished my classes. I can’t remember what I made, a B or a C, but I was glad to get it. 90% of architecture school is mental toughness. The coursework in most colleges is heavily geared toward the subjective side. It takes a while, but slowly you learn that architecture is a sort of language, and it doesn’t always translate to or from English. Those horrible moments of standing in front of a jury, your heart and soul and countless long nights poured into a project, and you say the one wrong thing, the one thing that sounded so good in your mind, but came out so wrong, and your whole project goes down the crapper because of your inapt, stupid remark. Later, you do start to realize that your project was actually not that bad; you could have just explained it better. And you realize that the people criticizing you weren’t really interested in whether or not you could be successful in the real world, but were only playing an advanced game of gotcha. You begin to realize that no matter what they say, your ideas DO matter, and you come back, and you do it all again. Finally, you get to the point where you can tap dance pretty good, and manage to justify about anything from an artistic point of view. Thankfully, somewhere in the back of my mind, I also realized that you have to be able to put food on the table—the idea of being a starving artist had no appeal. And being a child of parents who grew up during the Depression, I also felt it wouldn’t hurt to have something to fall back on, so I added on a dual-degree track in Building Science. This is the place where guys went who wanted to be contractors, and although heavy on the flannel and blue jeans, it was refreshingly free of artifice and college-boy philosophizing. And I actually learned about putting a building together—soils and formwork and concrete and estimating and all sorts of fun things—all of which turned out to be of great benefit after I got a job. So, anyway, in the five years I was at Auburn, I managed to get two degrees, with a minor in Business, and enough hours between UAB and Auburn to have a minor in history, too, and even got to spend a whole quarter studying in Europe (Ahh, the spring of ’86—bombing Libya, attendant loathing of Americans, Chernobyl, rock bottom dollar, poisoned wine—those were the days, my friend). You can learn a lot about stuff if you try hard enough.
How you get to be one
First, don’t. Now then, having dispensed with the most valuable advice I can give, I will give you my own history. [insert dreamy music and sniff some glue so that everything’s all swirly like you’re imagining stuff] A small boy is happily playing in the floor of a small frame house on the outskirts of a large Southern city, with a pile of Lego blocks and a Tinker Toy set and a Lincoln Log set all around him. He builds and stacks and watches TV and wonders where the pictures come from. Obviously, out of those white plastic things on the walls with the slots. Those have lectricity, and the lectricity makes pitchers and lectricity is dangerous so you don’t poke your fingers in there or it’ll bite. Build, play, make truck sounds. You know, it wouldn’t be like poking your finger in there, if you use something else. Hmm. Look around, and spy a stray bobby pin on the floor by the couch, conveniently close to another one of those things with the holes. This is dangerous so the boy holds the bobby pin ever so gently as it is inserted into the slot. Fast forward one or two years. Another set of building blocks has been received as a gift, as well as a big Erector Set and a goodly-sized bundle of Hot Wheels track. The boy, now somewhat bigger and more wise to the ways of the world, intently works on a towering tower with assorted sturdy blocks of buildings and a whirling motor lifting and spinning as fast as its little D-cells will spin it. Cars zoom around below, and the television provides a soothing background noise of cartoon mayhem. Hmm. Batteries are electric. The house has electricity. But it’s dangerous. The small blue battery case and motor spins a bit slower as the charge goes down. The switch is turned off, and the case is deftly opened with a small, yellow-handled screwdriver. Hmm. Wires go from the battery to the motor. The motor is taken out, the wires are gently held in the boy’s hands as he carefully places the ends into the slots in the wall. Yet more years swing past, and the boy is now a youth, happily engaged in taking apart old clocks and radios and belt sanders and exploring the level of combustibility of things like gasoline and hair spray. He remembers with a smile the times of his early life as he built and tinkered with his toy blocks, and those episodes with electricity. “Silly little kid,” he thinks to himself. In his hands at the moment is a screwdriver and a telephone—actually, the telephone—for this is still in the days when a house had one phone, and it was large, and black, and heavy and had a rotary dial. All fascinating things to the curious mind, and even more so after all the pieces are arrayed across the kitchen table. Confident in his ability to restore the device before the arrival of his mother and father home from work, the lad absent-mindedly examines the intricate machinery of the telephone, the clicking, whirling, bell-ringingness of it. It uses low voltage power, not high voltage like the wall outlets. He examines the screwdrive—long, thin, with a sturdy wooden handle. An insulator. Nothing should happen if that were poked in a wall socket, because the handle is insulated. Hmm. The young man gingerly approaches an empty wall outlet, gently holding the screwdriver in front of him. The young man enters adolescence, comforted in the knowledge of how the world’s machinery operates. He loses interest in blocks and clocks, and becomes more interested in REAL machines—cars, and REAL danger—girls. He reads all the books about both, becoming as conversant with points and condensers as he is with the glories of Debra Jo Fondren. We see him now in the garage, rebuilding an old muscle car with his dad. The coil is in place, and he is just about to connect the center wire to the distributor, but just before he does, for some reason he motions for his father to bump the ignition switch, forgetting that he is holding the wire. His father does his bidding, and the near-miraculous properties of copper windings work their alchemy in converting a mere 12 volts of direct current electricity into 30,000 volts. Throughout school, the young man does well, and with all his experience and love of constructing and building and making things work, he decides that upon his matriculation, he will become… an engineer.
Next Up—What is it?
The dictionary has been pretty consistent in its definitions over the years—generally, architecture is defined as the art and/or science of building, and an architect is supposedly someone who has the skills or specialized knowledge required to construct or design a building. The sprag in the wheel is the art-science part of the definition—art is much more subjective, science much more objective, and when you start trying to cobble them all together you run into all sorts of philosophical arguments and slapfights and gunplay. One man’s architecture is another man’s flaming paper bag of dog droppings. Success in the field is often a matter of who can do a better tap dance and say the right thing. It’s a powerful feeling—the ability to bluff your way into your client’s mind not with your work but with your description of it—emperor’s new clothes and all. And I admit I’ve done it myself. I was doing a job of renovating the administrative offices of small college, and the top fellow wanted some way to separate his waiting area from the assistant admin guy who dealt with students and commoners. There wasn’t enough room to swing a dead cat in there, and full-height walls would have further compressed the space so that it would have looked like a Saddam-grade hidey hole. My solution was simply to break up the two required waiting areas (his and his underling’s) with a low wall and a couple of secretary’s desks. Absolutely NOTHING of any artistic merit. However, the description I placed on the drawing had the area outside his office labeled as “Executive Waiting Area” and the other as “Student Waiting Area”. We reviewed the drawings and he came across his area—“Ahh. Executive Waiting Area. That’s EXACTLY what I wanted!” Same size as the other guy’s, separated by the thinnest of air and bricabrac, yet he convinced himself of the value of the design based entirely on his perceived needs and station in life. (And another shining example of the use the word “Executive.”) It suited his needs, it satisfied his wants, it fulfilled the program, it was within budget, it was simple and all that other stuff, but not really architecture. For the most part, I think of real architecture as the small gestures within the bigger composition that may only be seen by a few folks, but when they do, they stop for a moment and wonder, or they have that “Hmm, clever,” thought, or they look around for the wires and mirrors trying to figure out how you did that. The idea of even the smallest part having been paid just a little bit of attention, of seeing the architect’s hand in even the most mundane places, it what separates the act of mere brick-stacking from art. Thoughtful intent throughout—the small spark that separates “man, y’know, life really sucks” from “To be, or not to be”—is the same thing that can make an inanimate pile of junk become a living thing. It’s a rare thing, though, and why so much of what passes for architecture today relies on voluminous explanations and rationalizations and jargon and frippery and incantations. In the end, greatness is self-explanatory, and self-evident.
The architect thing
I can’t quite understand the interest in the subject, but as I have promised Jim Smith over at Unfreezing, I will now undertake to talk about what I went to school to learn to do (besides ordering pizza), namely, architecture. This is a complex sort of topic, I think primarily because everyone thinks they know what an architect does. I know this, because whenever I tell someone I’m an architect, they always say, “OOOooooo!” If you really knew, your reaction would be much closer to, “That’s nice. I think I hear someone calling me—I really must go now.” Obviously, that’s not a bad thing, and I think a lot of it is the result of the somewhat skewed image architects have in peoples’ minds, based, of course, on what they see on television. Ask the average group of folks to name an architect, and after they name the first one that pops to mind, you can usually count on everyone to remember groovy Mike Brady, then Elyse Keaton if they a bit younger, or Wilbur Post if they are a bit older. (There are some others out there of the buildy-type as well, but they’re a bit more obscure.) That’s not necessarily bad, but it just points out how little folks know about the profession, even though you experience its products every time you go into your office, or your doctor’s office, or your place of worship, or maybe even your house. Add to that the fact that the building profession is a big wide field, and some of it is insanely specialized, and that some of the highest profile practitioners of the artistic side are complete jackasses, and that it comes with its very own pedantic institutionalized orthodoxy, and you find that you have a big honking mess to try to explain. Sometimes it’s just easier to let everyone say “oooo” than it is to explain it all. But easy don’t write a blog, my friend, so let’s wade through this swamp together. While I cobble together the next installment (in which I will attempt to define what architecture is while diving into a tiny pool of water from a 100 foot high tower), it might be helpful for you to read what inspired me to follow this calling.
You got trouble,
Trouble with a capital "T" And that rhymes with "P" And that stands for...not what you might think.
Okay, I have a confession to make.
Some will mock me, some will be revulsed, some will simply shake their heads and think to themselves, "Well, it just figures, doesn't it." I like fruitcake. There. I said it. The stuff of comedy for generations, a food which has come to be reviled and ridiculed along with those who give them as gifts, the embarrassing fruitcake. But I like them. Now, this is not a request for all of you to pack up your old fruitcakes (or new ones, for that matter) and slap an address label on them and ship them to me. I just wanted to come clean. Monday, December 15, 2003
And finally, Why I Will Never Darken the Doorway of the Leeds Ruby Tuesday Ever Again, Unless I Am Quite Dead and am Dropped There By Accident, In Which Case I Will Momentarily Come Back to Life so as to Drag My Moldering Corpse Some Other Place
Now, to refresh all of our memories, we usually eat at Ruby Tuesday in Leeds at least two or three times a month. It’s convenient, since it’s right on the way to and from church, and the food’s not really that bad, and until recently, they had a pretty decent wait staff, including Jennifer, The Perfect Waitress, whose has a cheerfully welcoming perkiness that has covered myriad food snafus, and who is sweetly attractive in a way that is alluring, yet not the least bit aggressive, and thus not at all threatening to Miss Reba, which means that I have permission to say she’s cute without fear of waking up in a pool of my own blood. Anyway, it has the benefit of comfortable familiarity and occasional cosmopolitan interest, such as when there are car races in town (either at Talladega or at Barber). So, over the past six or so years, we have eaten there a lot. OF LATE, however, Jennifer The Perfect Waitress has moved on up to kitchen management, and the entire sweet-tea-and-chicken-finger-fetching crew has completely turned over. New people, and not very good people, who are almost as rude and surly toward each other as they are to the customers. Our last few times have not been all that great, and then, there was last night. Last evening, yet ANOTHER completely new crew, possibly several of whom might have actually worked in a restaurant before. There were only about seven tables working, and about eight waiters, yet it seemed like everyone was just in a huge tizzy about all the WORK they were having to do. All sorts of mumbled complaints and snotty remarks to each other does not a fine dining experience make. We had no silverware, our order took FOREVER to come out, and when it did, EVERY SINGLE THING WAS WRONG. Now, I’m not one of those people who screams and hollers and throws a fit and starts begging for free food. I figure if the management is serious about keeping customers, they know what it takes to make things right, and they do it and ask if it will be sufficient, without having to bargain. Apparently, no one like me works there anymore. So, a sad good-bye to Jennifer, and good riddance to Ruby Tuesday in Leeds.
Okay, yes, it's my fault.
But I only know about three potty jokes, and I'm saving them for use here.
On with Saturday!
The party went off pretty well, although a grand total of about ten kids of the target age showed up—the other twenty or so folks were parental units or older kids. Well, whatever—it was fun anyway, and there was a special visit by everyone’s jolly fat guy, Santa. Played by our youth minister. Dressed in my Santa suit. He wanted to play Santa, and I suppose it never quite occurred to him that there are at least a few guys in our congregation who weigh more than 120 pounds. Like, oh, maybeeeee…the guy who owns the suit. But that’s okay—he wanted to do it, and by gum, anyone who wants to be Santa oughta be able to do it. Pack up, clean up, take out the trash and back to the house for more clothes washing and kid cleaning, and then to nice warm bed. And what seemed like only five minutes later, time to get up again. Ungh. I clicked off the alarm and turned around on the bed to doze and listen to Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford and B. Smith with Style. I do this early every Sunday morning before dragging my lazy carcass out of bed and taking my shower. It’s almost like I’m up and awake and getting ready, but not quite. And yes, I know it’s an odd combination of programming—but I like catching up on all the latest food and fashion and home improvements info. And both are on the local NBC station, so I can just leave it there and eventually the Today show comes on. I fumbled for the remote and laid back down and for some reason, Danny Lipford had Tom Brokaw on. Huh? Wait a minute—Tom’s sonorous voice said something about a rumor and a press conference and a hole and WHOA Nellie—we got that illegitimate son of a catamitic donkey! Well, good. I was wide awake for sure now, and sat up in amazement at what had transpired. What a fitting way to find the old butcher—cowering in a hole looking like a cross between Ted Kaczynski and a dung beetle. Lion of Baghdad, indeed. As I said this morning, I hope he is bestowed with all the things he so richly deserves. The first interview, aside from the usual assortment of talking heads, was good old Joe Lieberman. Bless his heart, he managed to prove that being a Democrat doesn’t mean you can’t be glad this sad sack of crap has been humbled and deserves whatever fate befalls him. Which I suppose is not the way to get elected nowadays if you’re a Democrat, but by golly, I bet he can look himself in the eye every morning. I finally had to get up and get ready—sometime later in the morning, the “what if” and “yes, but” crowd had finally been reached for comment. Predictably, they exhibited the sort of timorous hand-wringing that would greatly please the glorious former head of the Ba’ath party. And to think, some of the folks reached for comment actually want me to vote for them! I laugh at them, and hit them with my shoe, and curse their mustaches. Tony Blair came on to chat for a bit from #10—bless him, too, for being a stand-up guy in the face of withering criticism throughout this long ordeal. He’s a good guy. On to church, then back home for lunch and to pick up the cookies I had forgotten to bring with us, and then back for Bible Bowl where the previous day’s preparation must have done something good, as one of our senior teams and our junior team both won the event. The only thing that spoiled it was three boys sitting in front of me, who decided it was a good idea to start grabbing all the visitor cards from the pew, wad them up, and start throwing them at people. You know, at one time it was perfectly acceptable for adults to chastise someone else’s kid for misbehaving. Rightly or wrongly, there is still at least one person alive who doesn’t have a problem with that, so the second time one of the little brats threw something, I stood up and placed my hand on his shoulder and my mouth right by his ear—he started to whisper, “I didn’t throw anythin---“ “Do you make a habit of doing that whenever you go anyplace?” “No, sir.” “Then you really shouldn’t be doing it NOW, should you?” “No, sir.” “And I’m not going to see you do it anymore, am I?” “No, sir.” “Good.” I patted him on the shoulder and sat back down. Later on, I noticed that he and his little compatriots had gotten at the front of the food line and loaded their plates down with as much food as the styrofoam plates would hold. Later still, they came by with about half of their piles of food eaten and blithely dropped the plates the garbage can. ::sigh:: Can’t really blame them, they’re just kids, after all. Their parents, on the other hand… Clean up, take out the trash, and after all our visitors were gone, it was time for MORE tests. I had no idea what this was all about, but it didn’t matter. I sat there at the table and read my newspaper and read Cat the comics and drew several rilly kewl Bionicles for Jonathan and a squirrel for Catherine. They seemed pleased. Finally time for evening worship, which prompted yet another excursion by Oldest to go sit with her putative beau, and then it was time to hit the road toward home, with a brief stopover to get some supper from our usual place, Ruby Tuesday in Leeds. MORE TO COME!!
Oh. My.
Yes, it seems one of the young men at church has taken a shine to Oldest. Oh, it’s not like there haven’t been other rumblings of her nascent feminine power—there’s the kid who rides the bus, there’s the kid who plays the sax in the band, there’s whispered talk of this one or that one who might want to talk to her—so it’s not a total surprise. And she is going to turn out to be quite a stunning looking young lady—the thought of which, as well as the act of actually setting it down in word form, just managed to make a couple hundred more hairs on my head turn snow white with an audible pinging sound. I’ve had my “touch my daughter and you’ll never draw another easy breath for the rest of your life” speech pretty well memorized for a while; the exact spot in the den marked where I intend to lovingly wipe down the Bushmaster and seethe about “the one that got away” as her nervous caller shifts nervously on a tiny, uncomfortable chair; the exact moment when I, as her chauffeur to some movie or other event, will lean over and release one of my weapons of pants destruction and forbid them to roll down the windows while cackling loudly…you know, the stuff all dads do to simultaneously embarrass their own children while striking fear and terror into the hearts of the children of others. But this, THIS I did not anticipate—she actually managed to allow herself to be smitten by a nice young man who doesn’t have a shaggy mop of Leif Garrett hair, whose pants actually come all the way up to his natural waist, who says “Yes, sir” and “no, sir”, whose brain works overtime, and who is just a doggone decent kid. Ashley has never felt like part of the teenaged group at church—part of what she sees as their cliquishness is a result of her own insecurity about being around anyone who might make fun of her, as well as some honest-to-goodness cliquishness, compounded further by her occasional inability to take the high road herself and not return petty invective for petty invective—but this young man even managed to coax her into sitting with them yesterday. I don’t know if he would ever find this little corner of the blogworld, but if he ever does, I’ll just say be the good, kind, kid you know to be. Or I’ll crush your trachea.
We interrupt this recitation of my weekend to bring you this graphic reminder of why men's soccer will never be popular in the United States.
Let there be Saturday!
Rolled out of bed again early, but not as early as I had originally dreaded. Originally, we were all going to have to get up and go up to the church building so that Ashley and Rebecca and Mom could study their Bible Bowl questions in advance of the big competitive shindig Sunday afternoon. This would then lead into the gift box assembly time, scheduled for noon, which would then subsequently run into the time allotted for the Christmas party planned for the little kids. Quite the day, eh? Thank goodness someone named Mrs. Oglesby suggested that maybe she should just go up to the building with the older two kids, then I could take the younger two on their promised shopping trip to buy gifts for Mommy. When it got time to go to the building, I could then swap them out for Oldest, and take her to buy stuff since she didn’t want to be caught DEAD at a little kid’s party. I at first demurred, then started whacking myself with my internal brainhammer—“But, I guess it would be good for one of us to stay here and get some laundry done…” We had a huge pile, and if it didn’t get done Saturday, it would have to get done Saturday NIGHT, with the attendant lack of sleep later on in the night from having to fold it and put away. And, if I got the laundry done, I might actually have time to do some shopping, which would be a good thing. So, that being settled, we had a quick breakfast of instant paste (your choice of cinnamon and spice oatmeal or cheese grits) and then she was off. I set to work sorting and loading. And baking more cookies. The other 3-pound tub was beckoning, and we needed something to take with us to church on Sunday for snacks, so back out with the metal trinkets and into the oven with more little therapeutic dough balls. Also had to make room for more dirty dishes, requiring the unloading of the dishwasher then reloading it. Let’s review—washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, and oven. We were probably using half the power in Trussville. Finished up the cookies with only about an hour and a half to spare before time to leave. Which meant that something was going to get left undone, and it looked like it was going to be shopping. (It will get done, though. I promise.) In the mean time, I got Cat and Jonathan to get themselves ready and grabbed up the stack of Christmas cards and the box to be mailed to my brother- and sister-in-law and niece and off we went on our long journey across the county—first stop, the post office at the foot of the hill. What a line. Of course, length is a relative concept in this case—there were probably only about ten people in front of us, but it sure LOOKED like a long line. It snaked past the two empty clerk stations, past the countdown clock from a past promotion (it has now been stripped of its original cardboard graphics so that it’s just a big black plastic LED clock on a tattered cardboard backer), past the rack of packing material, turning back at the somewhat bedraggled nylon barrier posts, on past the form-filling-out table, out the service lobby door into the box lobby. I stood the box up on the floor and tried to keep Boy and Tiny Girl from being too rambunctious, which they managed to do pretty well. We discussed the slots for the letters, and what “metered” meant—“Well, you see kids, the postal service is in the process of going metric, and so all the metric-sized envelopes go in that slot.” (I didn’t really tell them that. But it is a pretty good lie.) We talked about Santa Claus, and snow, and New Jersey, and boxes, all the while as they tightly clutched their respective stacks of envelopes. We would move up, I would slide the box, they would chatter, and we would wait. We finally got to the head of the line, and Catherine started asking about something—I can’t even remember what it was now, other than the fact that she was being deliberately intransigent. “No. Because we have to go get Mom. No. No, you can’t. NO, Catherine. Because I said so, that’s wh…” “Sir? SIR?” Grr. I was one of THOSE people—the line-holder-uppers. I had gotten so wrapped up in philosophizing with a tiny someone that I had not noticed that it was my turn. Sorry folks. On up the counter, plopped the big box up there, paid for some insurance, and asked for a hundred Christmas stamps. “We only have four books of 20 left.” Wow—they must be made by the same folks making the flu vaccine. I got what she had and then another 20 “Love” stamps. I know it’s irrational, but I just can’t stand those Love stamps. In fairness, I suppose “odium” stamps wouldn’t sell very well at all. Thus unencumbered both of money and our package, we went out to the lobby to start sticking stamps. I gave them both a stack of letters and some for myself, and we set to work. Not a SINGLE stamp out of place, folks! A minor miracle, considering how fidgety and whiney I can get. The dropbox in the lobby was full to the brim, so back into the van and off to the curbside box, and then it was time to go get some lunch for everyone. (As I suspected, no time for shopping.) We stopped by our favorite purveyor of Scottish delicacies, then went on up to the building where the kids had already made good headway in packing boxes. Stopped for a lunch break and then it was time to finish up the box packing. While they did that, I ran stuff off for my class, which would make it the first time all quarter I’ve actually been prepared ahead of time. Boxing gave way to decorating for the party, which was going to be pretty small, seeing as how we don’t have a huge gob of small kids to begin with, and made smaller still by the fact that it had begun to sleet, and even more smallerer still by the fact that two different sets of kids suddenly had other things to do and would not be attending. Fair enough, but you would think that the ones who were complaining about not having anything to do would try extra hard to show up. But whadda I know? It got time to kick off the festivities—I had sat down at one of the tables and started stringing clear and red plastic beads onto a pipe cleaner to make candy canes, much to the amazement of all. There were other activities, too, variations on the pipe cleaner/bead meme, but it was time for me to abscond with Oldest so as not to emburden her with having to be around CHILDREN! Finally found her sitting in a rocking chair in the nursery talking to one of the few other older kids who had shown up, all of whom had been tasked with playing games with the little kids. ”Do you still want to go on and get Christmas presents for Mom?” “Mm-no.” Suddenly, having to endure being around little kids wasn’t so bad. Suddenly, going SHOPPING didn’t seem to be so important. Suddenly, one of the boys in the ninth grade is talking to you...
Man, how I hate going shopping
Got home and Reba was still not back from dropping the kinder off at her mom and dad’s house, so I puttered around for a bit until I heard the garage door open. We grabbed the multitude of lists made out for Santa and headed out. First stop, food. Went to Monterrey, the new Mexican place between Wallyworld and the newly occupied cell phone store. Reba has been very good about staying away from the spicy stuff in order to keep her internal workings from paining her, but at some point in there I believe it just became too much to bear. SO, we dropped in to see what they had. Pretty much your standard stuff, and the décor was themey without having to rely on fluorescent portraits of sad-eyed waifs. And the waiter was very…attentive. To a fault. Every time he passed by, he gently laid a hand upon my shoulder to enquire about the quality of the meal and service. As you all know, I am not really the touchy type, unless you are my wife, my mother, one of my kids, or, in keeping with the Mexican theme, I would not be averse to my shoulder being touched by Mara Croato, star of Telemundo’s novella Amor Descarado, (but only if she just happened to be waiting tables that particular evening). Anyone else kinda creeps me out. The food was good, though, and reasonably priced—Reba got a taco salad and I had a plate full of enchilada, stuffed poblano (which was really, REALLY hot), and rice and beans. Off then to pollute the crowded aisles of Wal-Mart with my excess methane production. I don’t know if I have ever mentioned this, but I would rather not go Christmas shopping during Christmas time. At Wal-Mart. On a Friday night. It was crowded, although not with a particularly surly bunch. Lots of unsupervised kids, lots of people wandering around gawking like tourists in New York City, stockers moving gigantic pallets of consumer goods around, everyone on cell phones checking with Meemaw and Aunt Whiz down at the Wal-Mart in Irondale to see if they got that there little thingamabob like that, and if so, then to be sure and get it because it’s a dime cheaper there, and us. We made pretty quick work of the list. I kept thinking how much cheaper (as well as more humorous) it would be if I could write that I just tore up all their lists and got them stuff like boxes of toothpicks, drawer pulls, paper clips, engine degreaser, self-stick felt pads, a two-pack of plastic buttons, aluminum foil, antibiotic ointment, two-strand doorbell wire, and a potato apiece. Alas, ‘twas not to be, as we made short work of our bank account with a few of the things they wanted. “Look, just because it’s on your list, DOESN’T mean Santa’s gonna bring it to you!” I’m telling you, that Santa Claus guy is going to send me to the poorhouse. Finally wound ourselves down, and it was off to get the little anim…dears. Picked them up, threw them into the van, headed home, sent them to bed, and then start with My Long Evening, Part II. Reba had bought 9 pounds of band booster fundraising cookie dough, and we were supposed to make some cookies for the gift boxes for church. So, in a fit of domesticity, I did what Hillary Clinton refused to do and got out a couple of cookie sheets and the wire racks and started in to bake cookies. At 9 o’clock at night. It was very therapeutic. There was none of the mess of actually having to mix the dough, and it contained pasteurized eggs, so I managed to indulge in several bits of dough without fear of burying myself with salmonella, and then there was the soothing, mind-numbing effect of rolling spoonsful of goo between my palms. Managed to get 6 pounds of dough cooked up into about 160 or so cookies by the time Conan went off, which I figure was pretty good. Then I went upstairs and collapsed. Next—Tales of Saturday!!
Well, hello!
Been a busy morning so far, which explains why this is the first thing up. Lots of interesting stuff this weekend--come back in a bit and read all about Holiday Shopping (Ewww), Baking Cookies, Baking More Cookies, Arts and Crafts, Romance Fills the Air (As Daddy Contemplates Which Provides the Greatest Level of Intimidation to a 14 Year Old Boy--Schizophrenic Rambling or Firearm Fondling), Bible Bowling, and Why I Will Never Darken the Doorway of the Leeds Ruby Tuesday Ever Again, Unless I Am Quite Dead and am Dropped There By Accident, In Which Case I Will Momentarily Come Back to Life so as to Drag My Moldering Corpse Some Other Place. Oh, and Saddam got a much needed shave and a hair cut. Here's hoping he get's everything else he needs. Anyway, be back in a bit with lots of stuff you may or may not want to read--AND, sometime this week will be the fulfilment of a special request by Unfreezing writer Jim Smith for what the world looks like through the eyes of an architect. I promise to make up LOTS of interesting stuff for that one! Jim has asked for me to talk more about architecture before, and I have had great intentions of doing just that, but I have always got stuck on the idea that no one wants to hear me spout shop talk. Then I remembered that this is a weblog, and therefore is quite the proper venue for information no one wants to hear, so as I said, I promise to work on something right quick. But first, Tales of Shopping!
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