06 May 2010

For the third month in a row, I accompanied Jennifer to her appointment with her midwife. I first went in March with the idea that I would get to hear the baby’s heartbeat. But, no dice. Neither the midwife nor her apprentice could find the beat. So I went again in April and, still, no detection of a heartbeat. And today, for the third time, I left without getting to hear kid #2’s pulse. I’m beginning to think that maybe this new baby does not have a heartbeat, which would mean that it’s probably a robot. Which, you know, is great. I mean, I wouldn’t be disappointed. It’s just that we already have a robot.

Then there’s the ongoing discussions of what to name the cyborg. We narrow the choices drastically before we even think of names we do like:

-No names of people in our family (Stan, Dan, Diane)

-No names that are too popular (Emma, Ethan, Madison)

-No bible names (Jacob, Mary, Melchizedek)

-No names that form unfortunate semordnilaps (Tara, Natasha, Dennis)

Actually, though I like to think these are established ‘rules,’ we continually waver on these and have considered names in at least three of the above four categories.

A couple of names that have been suggested to me are Luke and Beru, for a boy and a girl, respectively. Luke, of course, violated the anti-bible name policy, above, and Beru is, well, just weird. The upside is that they are both from Star Wars, as is Owen – in fact, they are all names from the same family within the Star Wars universe. But though it appears we glean our names from fictional texts, this isn’t a must. In the case of Owen, actually, it was only after I’d considered the name for a few days that I suddenly realized it was the name of a Star Wars character. Owen’s middle name is likewise from a movie (The Unsinkable Molly Brown), but it’s not as if we named Owen after the character Sheamus in that horrible motion picture. Rather, we were just watching it one evening, I heard the character’s name, and said: “Hey, that’d be good for our kid’s middle name.” Jennifer pointed out that she’d already mentioned that name a few months earlier, but I’d somehow forgotten. And now, once again, it appears that the front-runners for girl’s first and middle name are from movies, as is the front runner for boy’s middle name. Perhaps if we have a boy we will give him the first name Lando.

07 May 2010

Upon hearing a Bob Dylan song on the radio today, I once again returned to this conundrum:

Is there any Bob Dylan song in which he himself performs the best version (apart from songs wherein he has done the ONLY version)? I mean, think about it:

My Back Pages: better by the Ramones

Don’t think Twice, It’s Alright: better by the Four Seasons

Blowin’ in the Wind: better by Peter, Paul and Mary

The Times They are a-Changin’: better by Simon and Garfunkel

Mr. Tambourine Man: better by the Byrds

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door: better by Eric Clapton

All Along the Watchtower: better by U2, but smokingly awesome by Jimi Hendrix.

There. Granted, I’m not well-versed in the tenets of Dylan’s catalog, but in every case where I know the song, and am aware of at least one cover, the cover triumphs.

Also today:

On MPR, in between their protracted, pandering, phony pleas for dollars (an odd thing to ask for after airing news reports on how lousy the economy is), they used the term “six state area.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term “six-state area.” I’ve often heard the term “five-state area,” a reference to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas and which, when I was a kid, presumed was some kind of comradship we had with our neighbors. But as I aged, I realized that such a term varied depending on the context. I mean, sure, those five states seem like a team when you’re living near the center of them, but does someone in, say, Rapid City, South Dakota really feel they’re part of some five-state conglomerate with the folks in Milwaukee?

Last summer, while in Iowa, I saw an add that mentioned the “tri-state” area; a term I immediately took to mean Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. But, looking more closely at the ad, I discovered the reference was to Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Wow, talk about a paradigm shift in the way I looked at the world. Now I’ve come to see the reference to any group of states must be clearly understood in the text, or by obvious geography. For example, I’m sure that anyone in Maine understands the “two-state area” to be Maine and New Hampshire. But, otherwise, define your parameters!

So, today, when I heard “six-state area” without an accompanying definition, I was left to wonder: which six states do they mean? Minnesota, for sure, but what else? My guess is North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. Makes perfect sense.

04 May 2010

Today at my job, while hard at work in my cube, a announcement came over the intercom saying to evacuate the building. “This is not a drill,” this disembodied voice said. So I got up, began walking out, and was soon swept up in a sea of people.

Along with some of my co-workers from my department, I headed towards the rendezvous point in the parking lot. There were five of us from my department and, after standing around for five minutes, we began to wonder where the other members of our department were. Turns out, they were still in the lab, as the intercom system is a little too quiet to be heard in there. Let’s hope that gets corrected. One of my co-workers phoned into the lab and told everyone to get out, but about five minutes later, they called another co-worker to see if the first co-worker was serious. So…um, definitely some room for communication improvement.

Turns out, there was a bomb threat. While security and some bomb-sniffing canines cased the building, we stood up on a hill beyond the parking lot. I gotta say, whoever made the threat pretty much picked the most perfect day ever. It wasn’t too hot or too cold (a serious concern when people are rushing out without grabbing their coats), it wasn’t raining, and the wind was minimal. Had the threat been phoned in yesterday or tomorrow, it would’ve interfered with some time-sensitive sampling I’m doing. Which, of course, doesn’t matter to me in the moment, but would’ve meant a lot more paperwork.

All told, we were out of the building for over three hours, though one of those hours was just our lunch break. Not quite as exciting as the time I showed up for work at Lenscrafters, discovered no one could even get into the store due to a cut power cable, then was sent home for the day with full pay. But a close second.

05 May 2010

I have often contended that my performance in any given class is weakest on the second assignment. Here’s why:

When the first assignment is due, I have little idea what the instructor wants. I mean, I know what he/she instructed us to do, but it’s tough to know what their particular ‘style’ is. The further removed from pure logic (=math) the class subject is, the more it is crucial to know what sort of ‘style’ the instructor wants. But at least the first assignment is the easiest. So, I just sort of fly blind and do the best I can at the first and easiest assignment.

But then it comes assignment #2. If the instructor has returned paper #1 to me, then I now have a partial picture of what they expect (though my sample set is only 1). But if they didn’t, then I’m still lost. Also, assignment #2 is a lot harder; class is in full swing now and there’s no more pussyfooting around.

I could give lots of boring examples of how assignment #1 was spoon-fed to the class, and how assignments #3 – #10 (or whatever) were just exercises in giving the teacher what he/she wants. But I’ll save you the boredom.

So, as you can see, assignment #2 is the trickiest one. And, again, I could give many examples of how my second task in a class represented my worst performance. But I won’t.

As you can imagine, then, in my current class it has been very difficult for me to turn in papers #3, #4, #5 and #6 without having received back paper #2. I mean, I had paper #1 back for over a month, but she really held our hand through that one. Today, finally – more than three months after class began! – I received back paper #2. I eagerly turned to the last page to see my grade.

It’s funny, a couple of weeks ago, while in a small group, one of my classmates asked me what grade I was getting in class. I laughed. “Well,” I said, “I got an A- on the first paper, but that’s all I know so far.” She laughed, too, realizing we didn’t have much to base our performance on, even though we’d completed three months of the semester. I mean, I had somewhat of an idea; part of our grade is based on attendance (mine’s been perfect) and another part of the grade is based on participation, and I feel I’m one of the three or four most vocal students in class. Just wish that guy in front of me would stop commenting so much. He’s really making it difficult to shine. I’m supposed to be the class Hermione – not him! Oh well.

Anyway, A.

02 May 2010

Planning Owen’s birthday party has been uncharacteristically hard work this year. Of course, we’ve known since the start of the year that his birthday would correspond with finals week, so we were already concerned with how we’d adequately fit in both activities. So, several months ago, we thought we’d just go ahead and hold his party at some party room somewhere.

But this isn’t as good as it seems. For one thing, those places are expensive. For another thing, they all have crazy restrictions, like a (stupidly low) limit on number of people, or a restriction on bringing in outside food. One of Owen’s classmates had the celebration part of their party (you know – cake and presents) just at a random table at a community center, then we all went downstairs to a play area. This seemed like a good idea to me, as it gave the kids a fun place to play without having to pay for a party room reservation, but further research led me to conclude this was risky business, as there’s no guarantee we’d be able to find an empty spot to hold the party, and the play area downstairs could be filled to capacity and we could be turned away.

We thought of Choo Choo Bob’s Train Store, which is pretty relaxed in the restrictions department and, mercifully, not crazy expensive. But…they’re booked. We could have held his party there on the 23rd (over a week after his birthday), but it would’ve had to have been in the morning. Yuck.

We tried one of the local city parks, too, but they’re totally booked. It’s tough competing with Mother’s Day and graduation season. The other thing that worries me about booking a pavilion is the weather. It has been known to rain (and snow!) in May.

Why not just have the party at our place, you ask? Two reasons: 1) we only have about 10 square feet of usable space, and since we wanted to invite some of Owen’s classmates this year, we feared our home would be standing room only. And 2) getting back to finals week: it’d be quite tough to clean and decorate during the same week we’re trying to finish up some big projects.

Owen’s party will be held at his grandparents’ home this year.

03 May 2010

So…I don’t normally advocate destroying media…but I made a big exception today.

While cleaning out my car, I came upon a cassette tape I hadn’t seen in years. Back in 2002 and 2003, I worked in Oakdale, which was about a half hour drive from my townhome in Apple Valley. There was this woman in my congregation who listened to the Watchtower and Awake! on tape in her car and, when she heard I had a longer commute, she offered to give me the cassettes she’d finished with. I listened to some of them in the car but (and this probably goes without saying), they were boring. Sometimes the Awake! magazine had some interesting articles related to history or science, but I never listened to the Watchtower. I tossed them in my backseat, and got rid of them sometime later.

Except for the Watchtower from August 15, 2003, which somehow managed to slide itself under the backseat and hide from detection for over six years.

When I brought it in the house today, laughing about what I’d found, Owen said he wanted to listen to it. I told him it wasn’t music, and he said “oh.” I was going to just throw it in our garbage but – not wanting to pass up an opportunity for learning, I instead fished out the spool of tape and handed Owen the cassette.

“Go walk down the hall,” I said, “let’s see how much tape is in one of these cassettes.”

He walked down the hall, laughing. When he got to our bedroom door, I said: “I think you’re gonna have to open the door and keep going.” He did, and then when he got to the far wall, I looped the tape around a chair and walked down the hall to meet him; the tape de-spooling as I went. Then I grabbed his end of the tape, and had him walk back. When he got down to the kitchen, he asked if the tape was done, but I pointed out it wasn’t even half done. Not knowing where else we could go, I just instructed him to run around the kitchen, into the dining room, through the living room, back towards me, then round and round again and again. Though he snagged the tape on some dishes, a chair, and a couple plants, nothing was ruined.

I was pleased to, at last, find some educational value in the Watchtower.

Here, Owen is holding the bulk of the tape that we de-spooled running up and down the hallway. On the left side of the photo, you can see the tape emanating out from from my hand – each line of tape runs at least 12 feet – past the dishwasher, sink, counter, then into the living room in front of the TV. The cassette itself can be seen, still attached, dangling right in front of me.

Look at all that tape! Owen is clearly enamored with this activity.

Owen took this picture, wherein I placed some of the tape on my head like a wig. My first thought upon seeing this photo was “Man, he takes some lousy pictures.” But on further consideration, I think this is how sees the world – in a continuous frenetic blur – and he’s just documenting it as accurately as he can.

29 April 2010

Sick today.

It really didn’t come as a surprise. Ever since last weekend, I’ve been ridiculously tired, even thought I’ve gotten 7+ hours of sleep every night. I still went to work, though. I feel like I suffer more if I stay home and lay around all day than if I get up and get my mind off the illness.

After picking Owen up from his aunt’s place, we stopped at the library. Owen wanted to play at the playground there, but I told him I was too sick, and I just wanted to get home. But Owen argued that he’d be willing to let me just sit on the bench while he played, which was very sporting of him. I told him “5 minutes” which, somehow, has come to = 30 minutes these days.

Owen made friends with a kid at the playground. At first there were a bunch of 8-10 year-olds there, but then they left, so it was just Owen, this other 4 year-old boy, and a girl. Owen and the boy chased each other around and took turns throwing rocks down the slide and then sliding down after them (I’m not sure what the appeal of chase-the-rock is). When I told Owen it was time to go, he came right over and said he was ready; no complaints. He hugged the boy goodbye – robot-style – then told me he liked that boy, but that he never got used to the girl. I told him I never get used to most girls, either.

30 April 2010

The radio was on in the lab today, and during an advertisement, radio personality Terry Traen said that winners will receive a party for themselves and 100 of their closest friends. I didn’t catch what the contest was, but I just thought that was funny: One hundred closest friends? I’d have trouble picking out 100 people I even like. On second thought, there are lots of people I can stand in small doses, so maybe if I knew that someone would be coming to my party with 99 other people, I wouldn’t have to be such a stickler about how well I really liked them.

But, still, I’m not sure how I could get to 100.

First off, I think these “friends” would have to live close by. Can’t imagine my Floridian father, for example, hiking it up here for a simple party. Second, how well would I really have to know them? Let’s see…

First my wife and Owen: 2. Then my wife’s family – including parents, uncles, aunts, siblings, nieces, cousins, grandma and assorted others comes to about 25 people. This even includes some really small children and a few people who may or may not actually be part of the family. Then I suppose I could invite my co-workers, most of whom would have a significant other to bring. Counting even there kids, too, I come up with about 35 people; bringing my total to 62. I have a few people who would be considered primarily “friends,” which I am defining as anyone I chose to spend time with even though I’m not related to them or work with them. This adds 20 people, as long as we include their kids.  Then there’s my family, which, these days, actually means “my sister’s husband’s family,” so there’s another 6 people.

Yeah, so as you can see, the grand prize for this contest would be wasted on me.

01 May 2010

As of about noon today, there were 1,000 more trees in the Como Park area of St. Paul. I’m pleased to say that Owen and I planted about ten of them. We hooked up with Happy Trails Nature Club, which in turn was hooked up with the St. Paul Parks and Recreation division for some Arbor Day madness. We met at 9:00, then we split off into groups headed by someone from the P&R who showed us how to plant trees the proper way.

Owen was very diligent about filling in the holes after the tree was planted. When it was time to get the mulch, he stayed back at the tree – which worked out very well, as I could quickly find where our tree was located again. Owen helped spread out the mulch and water the new trees. He seemed a little disappointed that we were dealing with seedlings and not seeds, but he took solace in have earthworms crawl around in his hands. Also, planting trees is extremely taxing when I’m sick. Ugh.

Then, we took off for Hyland Park in Bloomington. The Raptor Center held their yearly raptor release there today. And man, there were a lot of people there. We had to park in the overflow parking area, which is just a grassy hill. There were booths set up to do activities and learn about the Raptor Center and the birds. There was the largest playground I have ever seen. We got to see many large birds with permanent injuries who are unsuitable for life in the wild, but seem to be doing just fine in captivity. And…I’m not sure how this qualifies as a raptor, but…they also had a Blanding’s turtle there, too, and Owen got to pet it.

But the best part was the release of the birds. There were four rehabilitated birds re-released into the wild today. Each one was brought, one at a time, onto a make-shift stage and introduced. After their story was told, we all counted down from “3” (Owen counted down to zero, even though the rest of us stopped at 1), and then the birds was practically thrown into the air. The winds were strong today, so the birds had to use some power, but they all took off with amazing speed.

One bird had been shot by a hunter in South Dakota. Somehow, it didn’t die – in fact, it was discovered by just the right person who got in touch with the Raptor Center. The bird was flown by Delta airlines (incidentally – how much do you change an eagle for a plane ride? Delta says: “Eagles fly free in America”) to the Twin Cities, where it underwent restorative surgery to its wing to fix broken bones. It wintered here in St. Paul and, today, it was again free. Talk about beating the odds.

I didn’t think it would be that cool but…it was. It felt real invigorating. Some people were even crying they were so happy. Owen, sitting atop my shoulders, clapped each time, and said “yay!” when the kestrel was released (he must have a soft spot for kestrels, but who doesn’t?) and I took some pictures:

This bird is a permanent member of the Raptor Center. He has ambassadorial status.

Here’s another permanent member. Sorry, forgot to ask what kind of bird this is.

This turtle’s definitely got a winning smile…but am I the only one who doesn’t get how this reptile finagled its way into a raptor center? It’s a freakin’ RAPTOR center!

Here we see Owen positively beaming with delight as he pets the turtle. The handler explained to us that turtles swim in the same water they pee in, so it’d be a good idea if we washed our hands later. I remembered this two hours later, after we’d gotten home and Owen had snuggled with mama for about ten minutes.

Vulture.

I know this looks like a bad picture, but actually it shows a few of the other – alright, fine, it’s just a bad picture.

By the time I took this picture, the hawk was already behind this tree. See him?

State Representative Betty McCullum, Dem. (as if any Republicans would attend something like this), prepares to release a non-voter back into her district.

Free at last!

Going…

Gone.