Thursday, 01 March 2012

Well, we have now completed 60 days in the year they call “2012.” Here are some things I’ve done so far…

*Officiated a wedding

*Took Owen to three “Build and Grow” events at Lowe’s

*Continued in my internship as an editor with Freethought House

*Gave speech #8 (the one with the standing ovation) and #9 in Toastmasters

*Took a business trip to Janesville, Wisconsin

*Completed editing two issues of The Minnesota Atheist

*Hosted two episodes of Atheist Talk

*Began a history class at Hamline University

*Went to the movies twice

*Insulated and installed a ceiling in our workshop, signed the lease with our renter to begin renting it today

*Read 10 books, not counting the book I reread.

No wonder I’m tired!

Oh – in other news, CHECK OUT MY WIFE’S REVIEW of the book Secrets and Wives. I was glutted with a backlog of books to read for reviews and class, so she offered to read this book and write a review. Go wife!

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Happy Leap Day!

Leap Day, of course, is one of several days during the whose name I dispute. After all, today is the one day we are not leaping over February 29th. When you think about it, this shouldn’t even be called a Leap Year, since we are not leaping over anything this year; we are planting ourselves firmly in February for an additional 24 hours.

As is true with every February 29th, Jennifer and I celebrated our anniversary.

“What?” you say, “I didn’t know you guys were married on Leap Day!”

“Oops,” I say, “Let me clarify.” We were not married on Leap Day. In fact, our wedding annivsersary – occurring as it does on August 24th – is about as far from Leap Day as one can get.

However, it was on Leap Day in 1996 that Jennifer and I officially became engaged. We – or, as Jennifer likes to not, I – purposely planned it this way. In doing so, we were adding a certain uniqueness to our impending nuptuals, and I was enshrining yet another event to celebrate.

Yes, yes, I know we could have gotten engaged on any calendar day and subsequently celebrated each anniversay. However, let’s face it: who wants to celebrate something as pedantic as an engagement every year? Especially since Jennifer and I already planned to marry and had talked openly of it for months; really, nothing changed on February 29, 1996, except that Jennifer and I now both wore engagement rings.

The key here is to watch your phraseology. In 2004, after going out to eat for our anniversary, Jennifer and I returned to our townhome and a couple of friends came over. My friend Ryan, on learning it was our “anniversary” said: “Wow, so you guys have been married for over seven years, but you’ve only been engaged for two!”

No – he wasn’t quite right, and I had to correct him. Obviously we’d been engaged longer than we’d been married, just as a baby born on February 29, 1996 would currently be 16 years old despite the passage of only four Leap Days.

So here’s how we have to phrase it: “Today is the 4th anniversary of our engagment.”

See? That way it works.

Anyway, we went to Buca for dinner. As was apprpriate for our 4th anniversary, there were four of us in attendance. When the waitress sked if we were celebrating anything, Jennifer said no, but I spoke up and explained that my wife had just lied. Jennifer rolled her eyes. I told her I didn’t like that. She said she was embarressed. I said something like, “Who cares what the waitress thinks? Besides, this is Buca – they have a placemat listing off all the crazy shit you can come and celebrate with them.”

Yeah – it’s true. There was a placemat sitting in front of me that offered Groundhog’s Day and Daylight Saving Time as two of about 20 events to celebrate this month and next.

Anyway, happy anniversary to us. We’re already making plans for our next anniversary.

Monday, 27 February 2012

I keep meaning to talk about this, and I guess now is as good a time as any.

Adele’s album, 21, has now spent (drum roll, please)… 21 weeks at number one on the Billboard charts. The fact that the album title and the number of weeks it’s spent at number is amazing enough (maybe as amazing as when Bare Naked Ladies’ “One Week” spent one week at number one). But what’s more amazing is that this is the longest that any album has sat atop the top position since the century began.

Don’t judge an album by its (boring) cover: the music will not make you fall asleep.

Actually, you’d have to go all the way back to 1984 to find an album that’s spent more time in the top slot.

As much as I like this singer and her music, and as much as I feel she deserves the top spot for as long as the buying public will give it to her, I can’t help but feel she’s wrecked something: For the past 19 years the ten albums that have spent the most time at number one could be broken down thusly:

Two from the 1950s

Two from the 1960s

Two from the 1970s

Two from the 1980s

Two from the 1990s

…And now Adele has gone and skunked that up.

“Hey,” you say, “What are those ten albums that have spent the most time at #1?”

“Good question,” I said, “Don’t bother guessing. You’ll never figure it out.”

“Really?” you say, “‘Cause I thought Thriller was, like, a monstrous best-seller.”

“Okay,” I say, “So it appears you will be able to guess one of them. But don’t bother with the other nine. They’re not what you’d think they should be.”

Okay, enough with the cuteness. Until Adele steamrolled onto this list, here were the ten albums that spent the most time in the #1 position:

• (54 weeks) West Side Story – Soundtrack (1962–63)
• (37 weeks) Thriller – Michael Jackson (1983–84)
• (31 weeks) Calypso – Harry Belafonte (1956–57)
• (31 weeks) South Pacific – Soundtrack (1958–59)
• (31 weeks) Rumours – Fleetwood Mac (1977–78)
• (24 weeks) Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track – Bee Gees (1978)
• (24 weeks) Purple Rain – Prince and the Revolution (1984–85)
• (21 weeks) Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em – MC Hammer (1990)
• (20 weeks) The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album – Whitney Houston/Soundtrack (1992–93)
• (20 weeks) Blue Hawaii – Elvis Presley (1961–62)

So now that 21 has spent the same amount of time at #1 as (*choke*) Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em, it is now tied for seventh place in the Billboard pantheon of longest-running best sellers.

My wish for the upcoming week is that Adele can one-up Stanley Burrell and last 22 weeks at #1.

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

This morning, as the professor entered class, I overheard her talking with a fellow student, and she said something akin to: “Stefanie emailed me this morning to say she wasn’t coming to class because she didn’t finish the reading. Not a good excuse, to me.”

Yeah, I agree, that’s a miserable excuse.

In fact, in an effort to find some kind of rationale behind this, I broached the topic with a friend later in the day. Specifically, I wondered why a student, already behind on the reading, wouldn’t just come to class and try to learn something about the pages she didn’t read by listening to the lecture. “Maybe she was afraid she’d be called on,” my friend suggested. I disagreed, primarily because the girl would be under no compulsion to raise her hand. I also pointed out that class meets on Tuesday and Thursday, and last Thursday the professor said she would be spending the 28th lecturing about the Great Depression.

Is this a great depression, or what?

Our assigned reading, by contrast, begins with the 1940s, and so there was no reason to even expect we would be touching on the reading. And, in fact, we didn’t.

Maybe the student just felt guilty. Or hungover. Who knows.

The professor wandered around the classroom, saying hello to the students, before the class began. She sauntered over to me, and asked: “James, did you work?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Full time?”

“Yes.”

“And do you have a family?”

“Yeah, I have a wife and two kids.”

“Did you do the reading for today?”

“Yes.”

She began to walk away. As she did, she shook her head and said, “I don’t know why these other students claim they don’t have time for the readings.”

I was going to say, “They must not be awesome, like me.” But I caught myself and, instead, said, “They maybe are taking more credits.”

The professor then asked how many credits I was shooting for this semester, and I told her I was just taking this one class (it’s tough to fit in more credits when I have a goal of dropping classes every semester).

The professor nodded and seemed to feel this satisfied the current conundrum.

“Conundrum.” God, I love that word.

Friday, 24 February 2012

 Today, while sitting at the ice cream counter at the local soda shop (as Owen and I often do on Friday afternoons), he asked what we’d be doing tomorrow.

“Well,” I said, “I think you should guess.”

He just kind of looked off into space with a glazed six year-old look on his face. Predictably, he said he had no idea what we’d be doing.

“It’s something that we’ve done before on Saturday mornings,” I said.

He scratched the side of his face, but was still stumped.

“Do you want me to give you a clue?”

He jumped at this offer.

I thought for a second. “Goggles,” I said.

He looked me in the eyes as if to say, “I’m sorry but that’s just too cryptic.” He tried to think of an answer, but still came up empty-handed.

“Want another clue?”

He did.

“Apron,” I said.

He thought for a second, then said, “we’re gonna make pancakes!”

I laughed. “When have I ever made pancakes with you?” I told him I didn’t even know how to make pancakes, and then added, “And what in the world would we need goggles for?”

Owen realized the humor in this, and he laughed, too.

Then I gave him a final clue. “Lowe’s.”

That time, he got it.

Saturday, 25 February 2012

Before participating in the above activity this morning, Owen and I ran around the store collecting goods: a space heater, a circular saw, door hinges, and seven bolts of insulation. I planned to also purchase a humidifier, but they didn’t have the one we wanted.

So then, about an hour later, I needed to shove all of that stuff into my two-door Cavalier, while still allowing room for Owen and I to fit inside and drive safely.

Well, thanks to help from a friend who – along with his two sons – joined us at Lowe’s, I managed to squeeze everything in. This meant barely giving Owen the room he needed to shoehorn into the back seat, sitting on the trunk to get it closed, and foregoing any sort of ability to see out the left side of the vehicle. Fortunately, I routed a way home that necessitated only one non-controlled intersection left-hand turn.

In what was probably the most surprising moment of the weekend, Owen and I arrived home safely. I spent the next six hours cutting wood pieces for the ceiling in our workshop and subsequently installing insulation.

Man, that sucked.

Thankfully, the space heated performed excellently, so I wasn’t cold. Otherwise, though, I was miserable. Turns out, it’s best to have three hands when installing heavy wood sheets above my head. But I only have two. My in-laws suggested placing the wood pieces about the studs, but that only worked for a small portion of the garage, then the crossbeams got in the way. There was saw dust all over my face and clothing, and I had to recut a couple of pieces. Even worse, I sometimes had to remove a piece after installing it because I discovered I had nailed it in at a bad angle (and it’s tough to judge this while balancing it on my head and doing the nailing). Later, I rolled out the insulation, and this meant that nasty crap was bothering my eyes, nostrils, and hands all evening. I even tore open a three day-old wound in my left hand, so that was a nice touch.

Owen stayed out in the workshop with me most of the time. He kept me company and “helped.”

Sunday, 26 February 2012

Yeah, more of the same today.

At about 9:00 this morning, I drove to Home Depot to pick up the rest of the wood sheets I needed. I loaded them into my Cavalier and, while doing so, some lady woman walked by and laughed at me. She must’ve been thinking, “You’ll never fit those wood sheets in your little car.” Ha! Boy, if she only knew.

From 10:00 – 5:30 I was in the workshop. Owen again kept me company for most of the time. In the afternoon, Jennifer brought out a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich + a bottle of water. I brushed off the sawdust and fiberglass and gobbled up the comestibles. Jennifer also took a couple of BEFORE and AFTER pictures, to show how bad I am at installing a wood ceiling.

Sore and bruised, I hobbled into the house and took a shower, then gorged on dinner, and sat down to watch the Oscars.  As I predicted, The Tree of Life didn’t win anything, so that’s good.

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Man, I totally missed a golden opportunity today.

So there I was, in my supervisor’s office this afternoon. And he casually notes his need for new spectacles. I made some comment in reply, then we carried on with the rest of our meeting. After talking about work-y stuff, I brought the conversation back to eyewear; using his earlier comments as a springboard, I gave him tips regarding flixible hinges, anti-reflective coating, how to minimize eye magnification, and how to keep his lenses as thin as possible.

So after offering these helpful tidbits, my supervisor asks: “So, did you work in the eyeglass industry at one time?”

I said: “Yes.”

Dammit! Sometimes I’m so stupid. What a missed opportunity. I should have responded with something better.

What I should have said: “No, I’m just THAT knowledgeable about nearly every aspect of humanity. Aren’t you glad you hired me?”

I’ll be kicking myself about this for a long time.

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

I delivered speech #9 in Toastmasters today.

As you may recall (if not, read HERE), I had considerable difficulty coming up with and deciding upon a topic that met the requirement of the speech. The only criterion was that it be persuasive…but I just couldn’t find anything that worked well with my knowledge set and the audience.

Anyway, for a while I considered doing something completely absurd, such as “Why Hall and Oates are the Greatest Band in the History of Rock and Roll,” but I kept struggling with how I would prepare 5-7 minutes worth of information on such a lousy topic. Then I changed ‘er up and decided to go with a speech on being left-handed, but as my wife deftly noted: What exactly would I be persuading people to do?

So then, this past weekend, I was conveying to my wife some of the fascinating information I learned while reading Greg Laden’s blog, specifically, THIS POST. In the midst of my staccatic rant, Jennifer said, “Hey, you should use this topic for your speech on Wednesday, you sexy hunk of masculinity” (I’m paraphrasing).

Huh. Thought I. That’s not a bad idea.

As luck would have it, I had a chance to speak with Greg on Sunday. He gave a lecture on evolution at the Roseville Library. Or, wait – that sounds confusing. What I should say is: At the Roseville Library, Greg gave a lecture on evolution.

Anyway, I told him of my plans to purloin his information and use it to further my goal of achieving the Competant Communicator Certificate from Toastmasters. He was more than happy to supply me with additional information, and even passed my name on to a couple of other biologists, who then wrote to me with a gallon of other web posts I might find helpful. (I did!)

So, I gave my speech today. It wasn’t as good as my backwards speech, but I was still pleased with my performance. Of the eight speeches delivered today, I won the “Best Overall Speech” award – it’s kind of like winning an Oscar only it’s made of Hershey’s chocolate, not gold, and only, like 30 people were watching, not 997 million.

Thursday, 23 February 2012

As long as I’m talking about nerdy science things, let’s switch from Biology to Physics.

Okay, back in 2003, when my wife and I were loyal subscribers to Discover Magazine (yeah – isn’t that funny? Jehovah’s Witnesses who subscribed to Discover. Talk about cognitive dissonance), there came an issue with an article asking:

What if Einstein was wrong?

Of course, Einstein was wrong a number of times, most notable in his choice of hair stylist. As a human, he was error-prone just like the rest of us you, but the article tried (and succeeded) in teasing readers with the thought that maybe, just maybe, the greatest genius in the history of the Solar System has now been proven wrong.

This is a fascinating line of thought for a number of reasons. For one thing, it shows that science continually progresses. For two thing, Einstein’s theories and discoveries were so far ahead of their time, it would be amazing if we had now – finally – 100 years later, been able to one-up Mr. Smarty-pants. For three thing, the scientist or engineer or technician who does succeed in proving Einstein wrong is sure to become famous in her own right.

The article, though, pretty much ends by saying, “Well, if Einstein is wrong about A, B, or C, we haven’t proven it yet.”

I wasn’t surprised.

Late last year, the scientific community was abuzz with the announcement that some uppity European scientists observered faster-than-light (FTL) particles. Of course this was front page news. What’s funny is that the big news wasn’t so much the discovery of FTLs, but the fact that such a discovery proved Einstein was wrong about his fundamental assumptions.

I didn’t buy it.

When my wife asked, some six months ago, why I didn’t believe it, I said, “‘Cause Eisntein wasn’t wrong…these guys are just jumping the gun.”

In fact, I was even editing an essay (as part of an internship I am engaged in right now) recently, and the writer, in trying to show that no facts are immutable, noted that even Einstein has now been proven wrong. I kicked back on this; I made a note in the margin to the head editor saying that I didn’t think this was accurate. I said: “I like XXXXX’s idea of showing that science can change and be refined, but this is not a good example.” So, that part of the essay was altered.

Anyway, I’m writing about this now, because it appears all is once again right with the world. Labeling their story as “Breaking News,” Science Insider says that Einstein’s theories are still in tact. It turns out, the scientists at CERN – not Albert Einstein – were the ones who made an error in their calculations.

Huh. That’s funny. I wouldn’t have guessed that. I mean, whenever I perform a calculation that disagrees with Einstein, my first thought is: “Hey, look! I just proved Einstein wrong! I better take this to the press!”

I hope it’s obvious I’m being facetious here – if I, or you, or anyone else is ever in a situation where it looks like our math is at odds with Einstein’s…we better check our calculations…’cause I assure you: the error does not lie with the person who was so intelligent, their last name has become synonymous with genius.

This is Albert Einstein. He knows more than you do. Deal with it.