Wednesday, 17 November 2010

First, remember that I posted some new videos about the Watchtower Society’s latest brochure? If not, CLICK HERE. A couple of days after I posted those video, I received an email from a woman who wanted me to “tell my story” so she could put it on the Jehovah’s Witness Blog. I wrote back and said I’ve already told my stories in various other outlets and I gave her a link to one of them. But then she asked if she could use one of those. So I said, “sure,” and I proceeded to half-assedly mash a couple of my autobiographical articles together. She liked what I sent her, and now it’s posted on the home page to the JW Blog (click that link, above).

Second, want to take part in a prayer survey? If so, CLICK HERE.

Third, I received an email in my Hamline account. This account has been practically dormant for several months now, but last Friday, a man named James Scott wrote:

Dear Student,
We are looking for college students for our online market research program.
This is a part-time job position which offers a competitive pay, and allows you to set your own schedule. You will be asked to provide your opinions and feedback on a variety of topics including the quality, packaging, style, usability, and overall appeal of a number of different types of products and services. This in turn will benefit the companies that create or manufacture these items. The program is web-based and can be done from anywhere and at anytime.
If you are interested, please email me back soon, as positions are limited.
Sincerely,
James Scott

So I wrote:

Mr. Scott:
I’d be interested in learning more. If this is a strictly online job, I would probably have plenty of time to do this. However, if I have to invest any money up front, then this is a scam, in which case I do not wish to receive any response at all.

Thanks.
-James

“Woe, woe, woe!” you say. “That’s a pretty confrontational response for someone who claims to dislike arguing.” Yes, yes, very true. But see, this guy has emailed me twice before, and I had checked into his offer. Basically, you have to pay thirty bucks to register, and then (the site claims) you will start making money as you take online surveys. But I’m already signed up with other online survey-taking sites, that I DO get paid for and for which I did NOT have to pay anything up front. Second, why the upfront fee? If I’m gonna make the money back anyway, then why don’t they just set it up so that you don’t get paid for your first two or three surveys? Third, I can’t think of anytime I had to put money down first before making money, unless there was a good chance I wouldn’t make the money back (such as at casinos). So…I say it’s a scam. Mr. Scott is free to correct me.

Anyway, he wrote back:

Hi,

Thank you very much for your interest.

For more information please go to our website: http://www.UniversitySurvey.org

If you have any additional questions please fill in the form on our website or email me at j.scott@UniversitySurvey.org.

I look forward to doing business with you.

Best regards,

James Scott

So, today, I wrote:

Mr. Scott:

In my initial response to your email, I said “if I have to invest any money up front, then this is a scam, in which case I do not wish to receive any response at all.” The link to UniversitySurvey.org that you provided clearly shows that there is a membership fee, meaning I have to invest money up front. Though I appreciate your ability to construct emails in coherent English (something I can’t say for most of the spam I receive), your reading comprehension evidently leaves something to be desired. Thanks for deliberately violating my request.

-James

So he wrote:

[nothing]

Thursday, 18 November 2010

I found a quarter on the floor at work today. I stopped to pick it up. I was walking down the hall with a co-worker, and he said: “Ah, but would you pick it up if had been a penny?”

My quick answer was yes, a decision I made a long time ago. Specifically, it was in the 1990s, when I read the book The Straight Dope. Here’s what that book had to say on the topic: Is it worth it to pick up a penny?

The Straight Dope argues that, since we can pick up pennies at a rate faster than we can earn minimum wage, then it is worth it to pick up pennies. Sounded good to me…for about a day. But then I remembered: I was making more than minimum wage…so would it still be worth it for me? And then I also realized: “Hey, the money I pick up is in addition to the money I am making at my job.” Just like today, I found the quarter while ‘on the clock,’ and therefore made an extra 25 cents (after taxes!) that hour. Had I found the quarter this evening, while running errands, then I still would have made 25 cents more than I was otherwise making (which was zero).

Here’s an article that says much the same thing: More info on picking up a penny. (This article even considers if it’s worth it for Bill Gates to pick up a penny, among other insights.)

And in case that isn’t quit enough on pennies, here’s a more scientific approach (including factoring in the caloric requirements for such a task): Abstract on Pennies.

Tuesday, 16 November 2010

Eleven months ago, I made a list of my ten favorite TV shows from the 2000-2010 decade. If I were to amend that list, it would be to add Community, a comedy on NBC that is now in its 2nd season.

I’ve seen plenty of sitcoms, but most of them are just, well, okay. If you click on the link to my list (above), you’ll see I only have 3 sitcoms listed in my top ten. And one of them – The Office – isn’t even very funny anymore. Perhaps Community will go the way of The Office at some point, but for now, it’s my favorite current sitcom. Modern Warfare, an episode from the end of season 1, has got to be one of my all-time ten favorite TV episodes from any TV show – sitcom or drama – ever. (Here’s the obligatory link discussing the episode, but don’t read about it if you haven’t seen it. And don’t bother to just dig around online and find that one episode, like most TV show episodes, it’s not as rewarding if you haven’t seen everything leading up to it.)

I didn’t start watching Community right away. It wasn’t until mid-season, when a couple people directed me to some funny clips, that I began to watch the show. Jennifer and I watched the episodes together, trying to catch up on them. Somehow, during the spring, we lost track of the show and didn’t see the rest of the season. Two weeks ago, however, a co-worker let me borrow his copy of season 1 on DVD. Jennifer and I quickly watched the ones we hadn’t seen (I think we watched four episodes in a single night) and then we watched the season 2 episodes that are available online. I’m happy to say that I’ve now seen every episode, and I’m gonna make it my aim to keep up with the airing of new episodes.

I know that this doesn’t prove my thesis that Community is the funniest sitcom on television, but I think it’s pretty hilarious/interesting anyway:

In the recent (04 November) episode “Aerodynamics of Gender,” we are shown the point of view of the character Abed. But it’s not just a typical point-of-view, it’s a Terminator-style view wherein Abed merely has to zero in on a person and all sorts of data begin popping up on his ‘screen.’ Here, take a look:

Here we see Abed focusing his attention on a lady in his school. Our attention, meanwhile, is focused mainly on the list of ‘flaws’ this lady possesses; out of style jeans, and heavy mascara, among others. But notice the other info on the screen: on the far right, we see what is called a ‘Current Synopsis.’ And, in fact, it is a synopsis of the episode. More specifically, it is a current synopsis, in that it is exactly how I would’ve described the episode had I stopped watching it at this point (~10 minutes into the episode). Notice, too, that the display on the left indicates Annie (not the woman pictured) is projected to ‘cycle’ on November 11th. And, yes, that means exactly what you think it means. And it’s also what happened: one week later, during the episode “Cooperative Calligraphy,” it is implied that the character Annie has (or is just about to get) her period.

Now check out this still, which I grabbed from ~18 minutes into the episode:

Look! The “Current Synopsis” has been updated, and now it reflects a more refined description of the episode. Meanwhile, we are now privy to Shirley’s “Projected Cycle,” which just happens to be the date the episode aired. This also comes into play in the next episode, in which we learn that Shirley has just picked up a pregnancy test – something a woman could be predicted to do when they are a week ‘late.’

So, I’m going to use these two images to make some predictions: The first image states that Troy’s birthday is in 14 days (18 November). I’ll be curious to see if his birthday is mentioned in the episode “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design,” which is scheduled to air on November 18th. Meanwhile, the second image indicates Abed wishes to “Get Rudolph for Xmas” and make a blanket fort. I’m gonna hold the writers to this and see if both memos come to fruition in the next few episodes.

Monday, 15 November 2010

Today, I tuned into KFAI 90.3 and listened to the oddly-named program Truth to Tell. Today they were having a discussion on the rising popularity and pro-vs-cons of home births. Included in the discussion was one of Jennifer’s midwives, Kim.

Near the beginning of the show, host Andy Driscoll said that listeners were welcome to call in with questions or comments, which is radio short-hand for “you can either listen quietly to our program or you can frustrate yourself trying to get through for the next 60 minutes.” I opted to not call in.

But someone else did call in: an obstetrician named Dr. Jennifer. She’s from Minneapolis. She was pretty much the lone dissenter of home births during the entire show. Driscoll explained that he invited nurses, midwives and doctors who perform hospital births to join in the discussion, but they all either turned him down or refused to answer his calls (hmm…red flag #1).

Anyway, Dr. Jennifer argued that hospital births were preferable by asking a question: she asked if home birth midwives were able to care for birthing mothers who experienced [insert random, unlikely problem here]. I can’t recall the medical jargon she used – so esoteric, in fact, that Driscoll had to ask for a definition – but one of the problems she mentioned had to do with tearing from vagina to anus.

Disregarding the scare and yuck factors, Dr. Jennifer asked a good question – essentially, she was saying that since there exists medical care for a particular problem, then it is prudent for birthing women to position themselves as close to that help as possible. Let’s use Dr. Jennifer’s argument and apply it to another bodily function: eating.

I think the smartest thing a person can do if they eat is to, first, eat at a restaurant. Home meals, after all, aren’t governed by the FDA, and don’t generate as much $$$ for the economy. Second, while at a restaurant, a diner should ensure that they have with them a certified dietitian, someone who knows the Heimlich maneuver, and a doctor who can monitor the condition of the diner throughout the meal.

But of course, people don’t do this. Why don’t they? Is it because it’s cost-prohibitive? Perhaps. But I assure you: even if I inherited $50 billion tomorrow, I would never hire people to attend my meals.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, it is a great idea to have people attending my meals, but I would need some assurance that they’d mind their own business. In fact, if a restaurant forced me to sign a blanket consent form before eating there, giving them the right to shove probes down my esophagus, strap monitors on my stomach, and continually check my heart rate and breathing, I wouldn’t eat there.

I tried calling in to say something like this, but I couldn’t get through. I wanted to ask Dr. Jennifer if there existed a place where I could bring my laboring wife – kind of like a hotel – where she could be in peace to use the bed, the tub, and the toilet as she desired, without nurses and midwifes forcing themselves on her despite her screaming no, but that also had all the equipment and expertise ready to go just in case the baby has a Klingon forehead (or even if my wife just wants their reassurance). Essentially, I wanted to say: “Is there a place where my wife can be within spitting distance of the finest medical care on the planet, but still be guaranteed autonomy over her own body – you know, where no one will bother her until she says, ‘hey, I think I need someone here’?” Because I think a place like that would be a great place to give birth.

Unfortunately, no such place exists. You can give birth in a hospital, where you might luck out with a nurse/midwife/doctor who respects your wishes, or you might wind up at HCMC. Either way, the best your nurse/midwife/doctor can promise you is that they’ll try to respect your wishes. Because when push comes to shove (and push often does come to shove at hospitals), the medical staff are more worried about their jobs and lawsuits than about your birthing experience.

As Kim, the home birth midwife, pointed out during the show, hospital births bring increased risk of pathogen and, in their hurry to medicate and treat labor as a ‘condition,’ nurses/midwives/doctors often cause many of the problems they think they’re saving you from. Dr. Jennifer agreed with this, as she explained that her practice has decided that episiotomies shouldn’t be performed unnecessarily. I don’t think any procedure should be performed unnecessarily, but good job, Dr. Jennifer, and welcome to the 21st Century. It’s good to have you.

Another problem relates to Driscoll’s reading of a statement of the Union of Hospital Lovers and Doctors Who Love to Put Their Fingers in Women’s Vaginas Even When Women Scream No and then Can’t See How That’s Rape But Instead Claim It’s Standard Practice (or something like that, I didn’t catch their actual name as I was too busy hitting ‘redial’ for the 48th time). They stated that birthing women who insist on giving birth at home, crazily blocks away from high-tech care, are forgetting that it’s not about them – it’s about their babies (red flag #2).

As soon as I heard this, I struggled to find the right word for it, and I think I finally found it. The word is Bullshit.

First of all, I love my kids, but they simply had no say in their births. The decision as to how and where they were to be born fell solely with my wife. And any medical practitioner who thinks that women should be drugged, controlled, denied their rights, and treated like a receptacle from which the baby needs to be saved, are sorely mistaken. I think this is another area where we can thank (Warning: redundancy coming up) religious nut jobs for believing pro-life means fighting for the rights of fetuses, but not people who have actually been born.

Second, while it is true that there are high-risk pregnancy and births, not all of them are. Not by a long shot. Just as not all meals are high-risk meals. Our home birth midwives screened my wife for all sorts of stuff, and they gave us paperwork (which I’m too lazy to go retrieve) that listed all sorts of reasons why they would recommend she transfer care to a hospital. Some of those reasons had to do with certain diseases (she had none), others had to do with her age (she was fine), or with gaining oodles of weight with the pregnancy (she didn’t) or having a whole litter in there (she didn’t).

Third, why do doctors think you have to choose one over the other? Can’t both mother and child have a safe, peaceable birth? The staph at HCMC may have tried to ‘save’ Owen from his mother, but in religiously following their ‘standard of care,’ they harmed both. Our home birth midwives, by contrast, were able to respect both mother and child.

I’d write more but I’m trying to be caller #10 for some concert tickets right now.

Thursday, 11 November 2010

Today is Veterans Day. That means it’s been 92 years since the cease-fire ended the War to End All Wars. Damn. 92 years without any wars. It’s been great. Happy Veterans’ Day.

This is one of those holidays that it’s impossible to speak about in anything but reverential tones, but I’ll try to do my best…

Did you know that there is a Librarian Day? If you did know that, do you know when it is (hint: we’ve already past it this year)? Did you know that there is a World Teachers Day, too? Did you know that, like Veterans Day, it’s missing an apostrophe? Do you know when World Teachers Day is (hint: it’s the same day as when Babylonia fell to Persia)?

I appreciate the work so many of our veterans have done, and I applaud them for not getting killed in a war. Even though the United States hasn’t participated in a morally justifiable war since at least my birth, I know that the military does much good, and I am all for protection and preparedness. Still, I think the country would do good to elevate the others who serve us via the government – such as librarians and teachers – to the same level as former military personnel. Does Applebee’s have a free day for Kindergarten teachers? I sure hope they do. Next time there’s a Super Bowl, will the pre-game antics bolster patriotism by having a brass band followed up by a line of librarians waving to the crowd? I hope so, ’cause then I’d watch.

Maybe, instead of singing the first verse of that violent tune of rockets and bombs, we could sing about what an awesome chunk of planet earth we have, and a whole bunch of National Park forest rangers could come out and stand at attention.

Is there a National Park Forest Ranger Day? I don’t even know.

Friday, 12 November 2010

I spent my lunch break at Home Depot today. Wait! Before you stop reading, I assure you, I’m not gonna whine about lousy service. This time. To the contrary, I was helped by Ray (at their Maple Grove location) who was friendly, knowledgeable, and competent – and to his supervisor: give Ray a raise – Home Depot needs to hire more people like him.

I signed up to take a woods class through the local community ed program. It starts tomorrow morning. It’s not so much a “class” as just getting to use the school’s equipment. I was going to build a hutch for our dining room. Just a small one – about 6.5 feet high, and about 18 inches wide. Today, I figured I’d better go buy the wood.

Ray showed me the available stock. I wanted pine, but the planks weren’t tall enough, so I had to decide on either shortening my hutch or combining two pieces. Neither option sounded that appealing. Ray suggested I use some press board, which – despite my prejudices – actually looked pretty decent. But, you know, it’s not authentic. Besides, two pieces of press board would’ve set me back $90, and I’d still need a lot more lumber.

Ray started helping me load my cart and, at one point, he said, “You’re racking up quite a bill here.” He was right. Long story short: it was too expensive. If I could buy a hutch for less money than I can build one, then what’s the point (yes, yes, I know, there are some good arguments for building my own)?

Anyway, despite Ray’s stellar customer service, I left empty-handed. I had Jennifer call and cancel my enrollment in the class.

Oh well.

Saturday, 13 November 2010

Wow! What a great day!

First of all, snow fell. And how! There was a ton of heavy, wet snow everywhere, and since I had nowhere to go (see above) I was just fine with that.

Instead, we all just did a bunch of projects around the house. My wife braved the elements (I’m using the ancient Greek’s definition of ‘elements’ here, not the modern one) and scored us some groceries. Owen, meanwhile, used his art supplies to knock out a couple of coloring books and prepare some artwork for his three out-of-state grandparents. I got three loads of laundry done, organized the files on my computer, and my wife did lots of dishes and made a great soup for dinner.

We polished the night off with an episode of the Muppet Show.

Sunday, 14 November 2010

But wait! There’s more! The inclement weather staycation continued today: I organized the garage by cutting up slices of last year’s Xmas tree and shoving everything I could into the corner. I made room for our car, and driving it into the garage was absolutely the only driving I did all weekend. This is good, because my satisfaction with a day generally drops off the more miles I log in an automobile. There’s an inverse correlation, for all of you smarty-pants out there.

Oh – and in case you’re wondering why I have to cut slices of our Xmas tree, and why it took me ten months to do it, let me explain: We save part of our tree from each year for sentimental reasons, most notably turning one slice into an ornament for future years.  To answer the other half of your question, I just forgot to do it. I cut off all the branches way back in January, but the trunk just sat in the corner of our garage, where the bottom two inches slowly rotted into mush. It was only last week, when I began cleaning the garage that I remembered to do it. So there.

Also, my wife hung up a bunch of new photos of our model-caliper children, Owen cleaned his room, we found a good spot for Isla’s toys, and Jennifer whipped up a batch of pearl onion/potato stew. It was awesome. We spent the better part of the afternoon and evening rocking out (or would that be ‘folking out’?) to Mason Jennings and Jack Johnson.

I hope your weekend was at least half as good as ours.

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Last week, following the 6K, I picked up the shirt I earned for my participation. It’s long sleeved; a little heavier material than a t-shirt. It’s also bright orange. Like the kind of orange you’d wear if you were going to kill deer or work on the highway.

I hung the shirt in my closet and, this morning, I decided to wear it for the first time. And, I’m sorry, but it’s just too bright. By 9:00, three co-workers had commented on the shirt’s radioactive brilliance. Thankfully, I have a plain black t-shirt at work, and so I swapped out my upper-torso wear. It’s been a little cold at work in short sleeves today, especially during the Toastmasters meeting, which took place in a room surrounded on two sides by windows. Still, I think the change was prudent. I’ll keep the if-clothes-could-talk-this-shirt-would-be-shouting shirt for when I workout.

Also today:

It’s the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s demise. Here’s an extremely well-made video that includes archival news media, footage of the ship during its final days, and, of course, that great song that knows how rhyme “Gitche-Gumee” like nothing else: