Thursday, 08 November 2012

My class this semester is now two-thirds done.

As happens in nearly every class at Hamline, the syllabus schedule has gotten messed up, and the professor is now, as they say, “playing cath-up. I have five arrows on my syllabus showing where certain essays and books are to be relocated to other dates, and it’s quite confusing.

Today, everyone showed up for class not having read the two essays were we supposedly to have read. Only one student read the essays (not me), and when the professor asked for an explanation, I pointed out my arrows, which I drew at her direction about three weeks ago. She acquiesced after that, rearranged the next couple of days, and then moved ahead with class.

This is the point in the semester – and it happens every semester – when I begin to count down the days until it’s over.

In other news: We may have a 51st state soon.

In still other news: Isla is twenty-seven months old.

Friday, 09 November 2012

 After picking up Owen from school this afternoon, we first went to the corner drug store. We do this every Friday after school. There’s a parking lot on the opposite side of the street from the store, and I pull right in there and get a spot everytime.

The first time I took him to that store after school (in early 2011), I had no idea where to park. I turned left to be by the store’s front door, but there is only on-street parking there, and all three spots were taken. So then I drove around the block, first by trying to cut down an alley (which was blocked), then by going all the way around the block and trying to find a spot. Again, I couldn’t. So then I went around two blocks, and tried to find a spot. That time, I succeeded, but I had to wedge in to a tight spot and then, since it was winter, I had to help Owen get out on a busy street and up over a snow mound.

But now I know right where to go.

After going to the drug store, we drove to Ace Hardware. This is another place on a busy street with limited parking. The way it’s set up, I first drive past the store. About fifty feet beyond the store, I can almost always find on-street parking. If not, I go around the block, cut down an alley, and use Ace’s tiny parking lot, which usually has one or two spaces available.

Anyway, I just want to say that I think it’s great that, after over four years in this city, I am finally able to secure good parking at my frequent haunts with little difficulty.

Don’t ask me about Grand Ol’ Day, though. I’m not going there.

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Today we began, in ernest, to get Isla’s room ready for her to live in. Her crib has been in the room for months, but her room is still more of a closet than a room, and we hardly ever go in there except to lay her down to sleep at night.

Today we moved almost everythign out of the room. My clothes, which hang on the closet unit in the room, we covered with a blanket. Then we started sanding all the wood on the window frames. I removed all the molding and sanded that, too.

Thankfully, it was an unseasonably warm day (over 65 degrees), so we had the windows open and a box fan pointing out, blowing out all the dust from sanding.

In fact, it was such a nice day that I took the kids to the park – sans jakcets! – while Jennifer completed the sanding work. Our plan is to paint the trim and molding tomorrow.

Sunday, 11 November 2012

…But, unfortunately, it’s too cold to paint today. There’s about a 30 degree temperature drop today. Jennifer painted approximately 5% of one window fixture and then called it quits. The air was too cold with the windows open, and we can’t paint with them closed.

Of course, we try to get low-VOC paint, but that wasn’t an option for the windows. A look at the forecast shows the weather will warm up a bit again in the last half of this upcoming week, so we’re gonna try our darnest to get the VOC stuff on the wood by then.

I did make some progress on Isla’s room today (besides the tiny bit of painting): I installed an electrical outlet. Until today, there was just a box with wires sitting inside it. The previous owner had palstered that entire wall with closets and drawers, so it made sense for him to remove the outlet. But we sold that section of closet and, yesterday, I bought a new outlet cover.

I ran into the basement, shut off the two fuses labeled “Bedrooms,” then set to work installing the new outlet. It really was no trouble, and everything proceeded quite smoothly. As I was finishing up and screwing the outlet to the wall, Jennifer came in and flipped on the light switch. I stopped what I was doing and said, “Hm… it’s a little disconcerting that I shut off the power in this room and you just turned on the light.” She asked if I had checked to see if the power was dead before proceeding. I said no (or something like that). I then reached over and grabbed the box fan’s cord, and plugged it into the new outlet. It worked! Yay! And I didn’t electrocute myself in the process! I’m so proud of me!

Wednesday, 07 November 2012

Here’s a fact relating to yesterday’s elections that I haven’t seen reported anywhere else: President Obama has now become the third consecutive president to win reelection.

Has that ever happened before?

Yes. It happened once before. Or maybe twice. Or maybe thrice. Let me explain…

Way, way back in 1820, President James Monroe won reelection. He had been president since 1817, and he would continue to serve in that role until 1825. He succeeded James Madison to the Presidency. Madison, likewise, won – and served – two terms. And for those of you old enough to remember, Madison had succeeded Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson served two terms: from 1801 to 1809.

So here we have an unambiguous case of three Presidents in a row winning reelection: Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.

Now let’s move forward in time to 1892.

In that election, Grover Cleveland won the election over incumbent Benjamin Harrison, and he thus became our 24th President. But…he was also our 22nd President. So he was reelected, even though his two terms were not consecutive. 

In 1897, Cleveland stepped aside for William McKinley to become Commander-in-Chief. McKinley was reelected in 1900. About a year later, McKinley died from an asssassin’s bullets (well, he probably died from gross medical incompetance, but that’s another story), and Theodore Roosevelt became President. In 1904, Roosevelt was reelected. Well, sort of. McKinley, left, discusses with Rosevelt his preference for not crossing his legs.

He had not won election to the Presidency before, but he was the President, and the electorate of 1904 put him back in the White House.

So here we have Cleveland-McKinley-Roosevelt: three consecutive Presidents who all won a Presidential election after having already been President. Does this count as three consecutive Presidents winning reelection? I don’t think so…but you can see why the situation is muddied.

We have a similar, but more clear-cut case in 1956. Franklin Roosevelt won reelection in 1944, then Harry Truman (who succeeded to the Presidency following Roosevelt’s death) won the election in 1948, and then Dwight Eisenhower secured reelection in 1956. So here we have three consecutive Presidents who all served more than one term…even thought Truman wasn’t really reelected.

“Sure,” says President Truman, left, to Dwight Eisenhower, “everyone likes you…but what about your choice for Vice President?”

So, there you have it: Clinton-Bush-Obama. The first bona fide reelection triumvirate since 1825. Sort of.

Tuesday, 06 November 2012

So, last night, I posted on Facebook reminding people to vote No on the marriage amendment proposal. I said that if anyone planned to vote Yes, then please provide me with a good reason why you are doing so, otherwise please delete me as your “friend.”

I’m not sure why I do this stuff. This might be tough to believe, but I really hate confrontation, and I go to great lengths to avoid it. It’s true. Just ask my wife. I get physically ill when I have a confrontation with someone – whether it’s a close friend or even just a cashier at a gas station.

This morning, when I checked my comment, I was surprised to find that 12 people had “liked” it (and that number has climbed since), and one friend copied it nearly verbatim and posted it on her wall.

But some commenters and made a few points:

-How they vote is none of my business

-Do I think it’s impossible to be friends with someone who holds a different opinion?

-What does a person’s religious and political viewpoints have to do with being their friend?

-Look at the hyprocrisy in belonging to a party that claims to be tolerant, yet unfriends people who don’t agree with them.

These comments made me nervous and upset all day, and I was preoccupied with responding and, ulitmately, smoothing over these ruptures.

I did respond – and very effectively, I feel. My response noted that, yes, of course your voting choices are your own affair and you are under no compulsion to ever divulge any of it to me. And not only do I think it’s possible to be friends with people who hold differing opinions, I think it makes for a richer life. However, religious and political viewpoints have a lot to do with relationships; those views were not created in a vacuum and are part and parcel of a person’s persona. And this is not a political party thing – don’t equate me with Democrats. I have never been a member of any political party, I do not vote solid Democrat, and there are many good reasons for not voting for or against candidates of all stripes. Also, I don’t like the word “tolerate.” If you only tolerate the GLBT community, then you’ve got a long way to go.

Next time I say something inflmmatory, I will do it differently. For example, there’s no need to be confrontational and say to remove me as your friend; I could have just asked what anyone’s reasons were for voting Yes. Also, as was pointed out to me, not everyone holds such a strict definition of “friend.” Some people may consider nearly everyone they know to be their friend, or maybe they accumulate “friends” on Facebook in an effort to garner support for their music or other artistic endeavor.

I think I’m quite different in that way. I “tolerate” everyone I know, but I am not friends with most of them. A few of my co-workers are my Facebook friends, but most are not. The same is true of my relatives. You know how many politicians and preachers begin by saying “Hello friends!” or something like that? Yeah, I would never do that. The reason I would never do that is because most people in the audience – though they may be great people – are simply not my friends. When I spent the day with six Jehovah’s Witnesses who I knew would begin shunning me in less than a week, I concluded my day with them by saying, “Thank you guys for being my friends,” and I sincerely meant it. Those six people were my friends, and though they were probably weirded out by the seemingly unwarranted gravity of my word choice, I wanted to leave them with the thought that, of the 6 billion people on the planet, they ranked among the hundred or so individuals that I have ever considered my friends.

So, though my Facebook comment was worded poorly, was confrontational, and appeared to be controlling by appointing myself final arbitor of what is good and friend-worthy…the underlying motive is true: I really don’t want to be your friend if you are not only heterosexist, but actively work against GLBT rights by voting against them. I don’t want to be your friend if you think black people should not be citizens, either, or if you think wives should be the disenfranchised property of their husbands. In the cases of who my freinds are, I am the final arbitor. If you already are my friend, and hold a different opinion on any matter, great! Let’s talk about it. As someone who used to be a non-voting, sexist, anti-gay, meat-eating, foreign film-despising, current music-loathing Christian who loved the suburbs and didn’t want to go to college or have kids…you just may change my mind. It’s happened before.

In the meantime, I’ll try harder to avoid confrontation. Even though I know I will continue to fail supremely.

Saturday, 03 November 2012

Earlier this week, I wrote out a list of projects Jennifer and I have around the house that are half done. I’m kind of sick of so many partially completed projects languishing in our basement, garage, and (frustratingly) on the shelves in our dining room. So I made a list of all of them.

Now, these aren’t lists that have anything to do with the house…they’re just side projects that we began, and never finished. After making the list, I started asking Jennifer what was stopping us from moving forward with each of these projects. The reasons varied. Soemtimes, we were missing a certain tool or supply. In other cases, we need several hours to dedicate to the project, and that just doesn’t readily happen with kids around.

Anyway, today we made headway on a few of the projects. Jennifer ran to a couple stores and acquired a few supplies. I took our little rocking chair – the one I’ve had since I was a wee thing – and brought it out to the garage and sanded away.

Sunday, 04 November 2012

More progress today.

Jennifer made headway on an art project concernign our kids’ table, and she worked on her whittling for a spell, too.

We have a couple of videos we are working on that are both being held up for want of appropriate music, so I made a thorough search and selected a couple of tunes.

We ventured to Michael’s this evening in search of both a piece of glass (to replace the broken on in one frame) and some clay.

They didn’t have the right kind of clay…just an empty box where the clay should be.

The glass, meanwhile, was available for $26. Yikes! That’s an insane price for a piece of glass to insert into a 3×5 frame. Has anyone ever paid that? How do they justify that? Instead, I’m gonna go to the Goodwill one day soon and buy any old stupid 3×5 frame, then throw away the frame and keep the glass. That should set me back about 89 cents.

We left Michael’s empty-handed. Sadly, this is typical.

Monday, 05 November 2012

Jennifer completed work on the kids’ table today. Sort of. She discovered things didn’t work quite according to plan and now she’s contemplating various work arounds.

That’s always frustrating. Just when you think a project is done…it turns out not to be.

We had far more luck with our project concerning the Rubbermaid totes. We had seven of them in the garage. Most are filled with clothes from when our kids were littler, but there’s also one for camping supplies, and another for Jennifer’s doll collection.

For the past several months, the totes have been full. Overfull, actually. 

So, several weeks ago, Jennifer bought two new totes. And here’s why I wanted to finish the project: I don’t like two large, empty totes taking up space in our kitchen.

This weekend, I brought all the totes (except for the camping supply one) into the house and Jennifer reorganized them all, dispersing the contents amongst the nine totes. I brought some of them back out to the garage, but we needed better labels for a few of them, so four of them are still sitting in our living room.

And that’s the fun part: I draped a huge blanket over the two double-stacked sets of totes, and now Isla has a little hiding spot. She brought some toy dinosaurs in their with her today. She sat in there quietly for about a half hour, which makes this count as a “win” in my books.

Also, if you want more details on Owen’s broken bone, HERE YOU GO.

Thursday, 01 November 2012

Okay, so remember a couple of days ago, when I briefly mentioned my mild unhappiness with our home’s original chandelier? My wife says that I should show you the new chendelier, as a means of bringing closure to that earlier post. Here it is:

Due to my phone’s lack of quality-picture-taking ability, that’s the best your gonna get. I assure you, that ethereal glow is not inherent in the chandelier’s illumination.

And while I’m posting random pictures from my phone, here’s another one I gotta share with you…

I stopped into a small store today and, amidst the gift wrapping section, I saw copies of The St. Paul Almanac for sale. See them? They’re in the bottom left and right corners. Damn, I love how awesome it feels to see stuff I wrote for sale like that.

Friday, 02 November 2012

For the eighth time in as many Novembers, I participated in my company’s annual 6 kilometer run/walk today.

Last year, I tried. I went out and ran around the lake probably 20 times between July and November. On days that I didn’t do that, I often went for long walks. And on other days I visited the YMCA with my family and worked out there.

And it paid off. I finished the race last year with my best time ever, setting a new record a full two minutes shorter than my previous record. I also, for the first time, finished in the top third, by being #118 of 410 runners.

This year, I didn’t try. I haven’t run the course since last year, and I haven’t been on a treadmill in over a year. I did participate in a workout class sponsored by my employer, and I’ve been to the YMCA a couple of times…but that’s it. In fact, a co-worker from my previous department invited all of us former co-workers to dine together today, and I even joined them for lunch, overeating on a fish sandwich and fries.

My goal, then, for today, was pretty much just to make sure I didn’t do my worst ever.

The results aren’t in yet, but judging from the big clock I glanced at as I came down to the finish line, my time was somewhere in the middle compared to previous years. I’ll let you know when the results are published.