Sunday, 29 July 2012

Way back in 2006, we had a hard drive that was failing. In fact, it did fail. We tried lots of things at home to get it to work, including placing it in the freezer for an hour, and then plugging it in right away. That didn’t work. Nothing worked.

Many of the files on the hard drive were simply back ups, so we didn’t lose as much as we could have. However, my wife had scanned in, cropped, and edited hundreds of photos from yesteryear that belonged to her grandmother. Of course, she could have scanned all of them in again, but that would involve re-acquiring them from grandma, having grandma again provide her best guess for the date and event (and people!) in the photos, and then editing and organizing them all just right again. Hours and hours of work. Jennifer never did that. And we never fixed the hard drive. It just sat around, in our closet or in our office, for years.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, Jennifer took it to a local tech genius who charged a surprisingly low cost to extract all the data from the defunct drive. Jennifer, of course, was pleased to have all the photos once again accessible to her. She pointed out that the recovered files were somewhat of a time capsule: there was a file of things we wanted to buy for our house (a house we don’t even live in anymore), and old finance and budget files from bills and expenses in the past.

There was also a folder of my files; many of them were now either obsolete or outdated, so I just got rid of them. But there was one file I was happy to find because, in fact, I had just asked about it earlier this month.

See, back in the 2002-2006 era, we had a different looking website with different blogs and information on it. Among other things, there was a page that listed off everything I was glad to have done in my life, and everything I wanted to to with my life. Then we transferred our site to this location, and we made some changes to it and we didn’t include that list because, well…I don’t know why. We just didn’t.

So the other day, I decided I wanted to re-include it on our website. I couldn’t find the file anywhere on my computer or on our external hard drives. I asked Jennifer if it was on her computer, and she said no. Alas! It was on the inoperative hard drive! So, in scrolling through the recently recovered files, I found one titled “Glad-Wish.” Bingo! I knew that was it right away.

So here’s the thing: I’m gonna add another tab to the top of this page that includes these lists. They need to be updated – some of the items need to move from one list to other – and expanded, and I need to tweak the formatting, so it’ll be a few days or weeks until those tabs appear above. In the meantime, I am hereby pasting in the lists as they appeared in mid-2006, the last time I had access to them.

Monday, 30 July 2012

Okay, so here’s the first half: Things I Would Like to Do. Crossed out items are ones that I have, in the intervening six years, accomplished. Where appropriate, I inserted explanatory text…

Attend a Star Trek Convention
Milk a cow/goat
Surprisingly, I still haven’t done this, despite the fact that my sister owns goats. She’s got a total live-and-let-live humane society going on there, though, so I don’t think milking them is an option. I drove past some cows on my way to perform a wedding ceremony a couple of weeks ago. I was gonna stop and carpe diem, but I was in a freshly dry-cleaned suit, and I figured I’d better show up in time for the ceremony.
Be a member of a TV audience
Be a tour guide
Ride a unicycle
Bowl higher than 150
I’ve come within 15 points of this. the thing is, I don’t care to practice. Basically, I just go bowling whenever people invite me to go and I’m steadily getting better. Maybe I’ll get that half-perfect game by the time I’m 50.
Brew my own beer
Buy something to drink from a children’s stand
Go whale watching
Have a letter published in a magazine or newspaper
I sent a letter to The Monticello Times, and a reporter called back and asked to interview me. Plus, I’ve had entire articles published in newsletters, magazines, and books, so even though I don’t think I’ve accomplished this task per se, I’ve kind of trumped it.
Go on a hot air balloon ride
Learn German
Ja, mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut.
Learn ventriloquism
Here’s a link I listed next to this entry: CLICK THIS!
Plant a tree
Read 1,000 books
Well, even though I’ve since tightened my criterion for books (>40 pages instead of >32), I’m still gettin’ pretty close. I’m at 877 as of today.
Visit Alaska
Own goats/sheep
Participate in Audobon’s CBC
Perform karaoke
I had a couple of opportunities to do this, but I’ve always been too sober.
See every episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
See every episode of Star Trek: Voyager
See every episode of Northern Exposure
See every episode of The Addams Family
See every television show directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Jeez, talk about low-balling my life goals. Yes, I’ve seen all of these TV shows’ episodes. And then some.
See every film directed by Alfred Hitchcock
See Uranus
See Neptune
See Pluto
Take a ballroom dance class
Make a toast
Despite being in Toastmasters, I don’t see how I’ll ever accomplish this unless I’m the Best Man in someone’s wedding. I’ve never been a Best Man in a wedding. This is probably because I would first have to have friends. Unmarried male friends, to be exact. And anyone I have known that fits that description used to say, “Hey, James, why don’t you videotape the nuptuals for us?” And now they say, “Hey, James, why don’t you just officiate this thing for us?”
Attend a movie with only people I know in the audience
Done! September 14, 2005: Jennifer and I were the only two people at a theatrical showing of March of the Penguins.
Visit Washington, D.C.
Go skinny-dipping
How come no one ever invites me to do this? Oh, wait, do hot tubs count? Because, then, yes, I have done this. A few times. Anyway, please let me know if you own a swimming pool or have property that butts up to a lake.
Visit Angle Inlet
Visit Fort Snelling
Visit the Raptor Center
Visit Voyageur’s National Park
Step foot in every state
Own my own boat
Make something out of pottery
Wait – does this even make sense? Can I make something out of pottery? Or do I make something out of clay and that thing becomes pottery? Does that even make sense?
Rescue an abandoned animal
Run in a race
See the Grand Canyon
Attend a drive-in movie
Learn a musical instrument
If “limited, shitty guitar-playing ability” counts then, yes, I have accomplished this.
Paint a picture

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

And here’s the second half: Things I Am Glad I Did. As before, I inserted explanatory text whever I felt there was an opportunity for a witty aside…

Attend a Billy Joel Concert
Attend a Mason Jennings Concert
Yes, thrice.
Attend a Paul Simon Concert
Attend a U2 concert
I’d love to do this again, but I’d rather use the money for two weeks worth of groceries.
Toured a vineyard
Yep: On May 27th, 2002, my wife and I (along with her brother and his wife) toured Wollersheim Winery in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin.
Toured caves
Be on a TV show
Did this on January 28, 1998 (it aired on February 2nd):

Drive on the Autobahn
Graduate from college with a 4.0
One of these days, I should really get serious about my idea of making a list titled “10 Reasons Why I Kick Ass.” This would be in the top five, definitely.
Give a public speech
Grow a garden
See Niagara Falls
See the Ocean
The only “ocean” I’ve ever seen is the Atlantic. But it’s all one big ocean anyway, so I guess I’m good.
Read every canonical Sherlock Holmes Story
Collaborated on a song
Inhaled helium and then talked funny
See the Northern Lights
Have a letter read on the radio
Learn to juggle
Read every Dr. Seuss book
This should go back up to the “Things I Want to Do” list. At the time I made this list, I had, indeed, read every book authored by Theodor Geisel, including not only the ones written as “Dr. Seuss,” but also the ones written as Theo LeSieg and the single book he wrote as Rosetta Stone. However, in the years since (and despite his death 20+  years ago), the book The Bippolo Seed has been published, and I haven’t read it.
See every episode of Star Trek: The Original Series
See every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
See every film that has won the Oscar for best picture
As I recently pontificated, this is an item that toggles between this list and the the one above. At the moment, it’s properly listed here as something I have accomplished, but that will probably change in February of next year, and then I’ll have to set about rectifying the situation yet again.
Sit on a jury
Reproduced
My word choice here strikes me as quite humorous. I’m not sure why I said “reproduced” and not “be a father,” since that’s clearly what mattered to me. I mean, I could have donated a few million of my strongest swimmers to the local sperm bank and reproduced a dozen times over, yet that wouldn’t have the same goal-accomplishing fulfillment as being a father. Conversely, I could have adopted a child, in which case I technically would not have reproduced, but still would have become a father, and that’s what matters. Okay, now I’m just rambling.
Build a snowman
Slept in a tent
Visit the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary
Visit NASA
Yep. Did this twice.
Went virtual skydiving
Go to Wolf Ridge
Stood on line for the Star Wars premier
Yep. Did this twice.
Sledded/tubed/skied down a snow covered hill
Lead a standing ovation
Visit Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Visit the World Trade Center in New York City
Did this on June 24, 1993. I enjoyed my visit, but didn’t think it was that significant of an experience at the time. In retrospect, however, I think it’s pretty awesome that I got to be there when it was still there.
Win an award for one of my films
This bad boy won first place in Century College’s student film contest back in 2002:

Get paid to create a film
Raised baby birds
Have a website
Yes. And yes.
Gone snorkeling
Yes, but sadly, not while skinny dipping. Does it count as skinny dipping if I’m wearing a snorkle? Is snorkling more fun while naked? Does anyone else think the word snorkle is hilarious? There’s gotta be a great double entendre here, but I can’t seem to grab onto it.

Saturday, 28 July 2012

Today was Isla’s birthday party; or, as she calls it, her “Happy Birthday Party.”

This was a larger affair than her party last year, when she turned one. This time, she had her aunts, uncles, and cousins in attendance. She also knew exactly what was going on. I tried reinforcing it over the past few weeks by regularly asking her how old she was. She’d say “one,” and then I’d explain how on her birthday she would be two, and I displayed the appropriate number of fingers to demonstrate the change in number.

Also during the past week, Isla kept asking me, Jennifer, and Owen if we were coming to her party. We always said that yes, we would be there. She explained that she wanted cake, pizza, juice, M&Ms, and ice cream at her party.

She loved opening the gifts today, and gently opened up each envelope first, requesting that my wife read the card to her. I don’t think I’ve ever observed a child – especially one of pre-reading age – so interested in the cards that accompany gift. Yet she wanted to see the contents of each one. She loves books, and I think, to her, birthday cards are just really truncated books.

She had a big grin on her face as we sung “Happy Birthday To You” to her, and she knew to blow out the candles, too. She succeeded in blowing them out after a couple tries.

Owen left with his grandparents this evening, so Isla had a quiet evening playing with her toys and looking at her new books. We measured Isla on our 2×4 that we keep for just such a purpose. I set Owen’s 2×4 next to hers just for the heck of it, and it’s true: Isla is a little kid: her height measured exactly the same as Owen’s did when he was 18 months old. Jennifer said that there’s probably no reason for the 2×4 to be seven feet long; I can probably trim off at least 18 inches (thereby making it more manageable on days like today) to no ill effect. I told Jennifer I’m trying to give Isla something to reach for – but the reality is I don’t wish for my daughter to be 7 feet tall.

Thursday, 26 July 2012

If you’re tired of hearing or reading stuff about the Witnesses, then you should probably just ignore this blog post altogether. If not, here we go…

First, the Humanists of Minnesota just uploaded their June episode to YouTube. That, as you may recall, was the episode in which I was the guest. Here it is:

Don’t be freaked out by the unfortunate still image. Mr. Lohman’s hands are not, in reality, smeary blurs.

Second, my wife pointed me to THIS WEBSITE TODAY. Until this morning, I’d never heard of this website, or the woman who maintains it. She’s an author, so that’s cool (wink). The blog post I link to here is her argument that the Watchtower Society is having a bad year. I agree. The first two items she discusses are nothing new. First is a well-written rehash of the Sparlock idiocy. I wrote about Sparlock back in June. However, I hadn’t realized the extent to which loyal Witnesses were proclaiming that Sparlock was merely a fake to make the Watchtower Society look bad. For examples of loyal Witnesses denying thevalidity of Sparlock, check out the screen shots at Atheist Geek News. When the Witnesses learned it was real, the cognitive dissonance, as the blog says, “was deafening.  Many rank-and-file JWs had declared the video to be a fake full of lies about their faith…and then it turned out that it was OFFICIAL JW TRAINING MATERIAL, and they didn’t know how to reverse gears and defend it without making themselves look absolutely asinine. ”

Ha. Pretty funny. For those who don’t know, the Watchtower Society generally releases two or three new books, brochures, or videos every year. They release them at their conventions, which take place worldwide over the course of a year. The conventions are held first in the US and Canada, beginning in May. Here in Minnesota, the conventions are held in mid-summer. The Witnesses don’t share the info even with fellow Witnesses. So, what happens is, a new book, brochure, or video is released at one of the first conventions, then some closet non-believer posts it online, making it available to everyone…but Witnesses (who, of course, refuse to look at such things). So, the Sparlock video has been available and talked about since mid-May, but most American Witnesses are only finding out about it now.

Friday, 27 July 2012

My wife and I finally know the answer to the question: “How long does it take for Witnesses in our area to come around and knock on our door?”

The answer is: 11 months and 1 day.

They came a-knocking this morning. I of course, was busy multi-tasking and otherwise kicking butt at work. My wife was home; she answered the door and discovered they were offering the brochure “Was Life Created?”

Oh man, I wish I had been home. That is pretty much the exact brochure I was hoping they’d offer me. My wife took the brochure…so now we have two. I, in fact, have owned a copy longer than probably anyone else in the state, having been sent a copy back in May 2010, about two months before the local-JWs got their very own (see above for an explanation on that). In fact, I even made a video about it:

Oh – wait! I actually made THREE videos about it. Here are the other two:

and…

When Jennifer told them she doesn’t beleive in creationism, they said, “Oh, well you might not want to show this brochure to your kids, then.” This, of course, is hilarious for two very excellent reasons, and I’ll break them down for you…

1) What sort of seriously inept Jehovah’s Witness succeeds in placing a brochure with someone, but then suggests they not share it with the others in their home? Ha!

2) Um…don’t they know we’re not Witnesses? So we don’t have this terrifying fear of exposing our kids to differing opinions and belief systems. In fact, while my wife was on the phone speaking with me about her visitors, Owen was in the other room reading the brochure. Oh my god! He’s going to become a Witness now! Aaaaaaaaaaagh!

I won’t provide an entire transcript of the conversation. I’ll leave that too my wife, if she’d like to. But I will mention one other thing: My wife asked the two Witnesses how long they thought humans had been on the earth. They two women pussyfooted around, dodging the question, and didn’t really give an answer (they said something about the “six creative days” of Genesis, which doesn’t answer the question at all).

Why didn’t they answer my wife like good Witnesses? I suppose it’s possible that, when faced with a non-believer, stating the answer would be too embarrassing. Or, it could be that they don’t agree with their religion’s doctrines on this point, in which case they should confess their “sin” of dissenting to the elders. Or maybe they just didn’t know the answer.

Here, let me help you Witnesses out with that: You believe – or at least you better say you believe – that humans have been on the earth for 6,036 years. And I’ll go ahead and back that up for you with documentation from your literature:

“According to reliable Bible chronology Adam was created in the year 4026 B.C.E., likely in the autumn of the year, at the end of the sixth day of creation.” (that’s from the April 1, 1968, Watchtower).

Anyway, congratulations to my wife on being a return visit now. I hope her friends come back and show us the truth some more. I mean, if there’s time. I know Armageddon will be here any minute.

In other Witness news, while searching for something completely different, I discovered that my acquaintance and fellow ex-Witness Anthony Mathenia is releasing a romance novel online. I’ve read exactly zero e-books, and I don’t expect that total to change anytime soon, but if it tickles your fancy, go ahead and read Happiness – How to Find It.

Wednesday, 25 July 2012

I love, love, LOVE when I’m reading a book that’s so awesome, I look for every opportunity I can to sneak in just one more paragraph before I have to go to work, or to bed, or whereever.

Ready Player One is such a book. I should mention, however, that I didn’t read the book, I listened to it on CD. After two ho-hum books, it was great to have a book that left me excited to make my daily commute. The audio book is read by Wil Weaton, who performed remarkably well. His reading was especially fun because he – the real Wil Weaton – is a minor character in the book.

The science fiction tale takes place in the 2040s, by which time humans have used up most of their cheap fuel, meaning that things like airplanes and cars are prohibitively expensive for most people. Online gaming has surged in popularity, with a game called The Oasis taking up the day for many disenchanted earthlings. The Oasis is kind of a glorified version of The Sims, if you can imagine actually being one of the avatars. The online world is so vast and so big, that many people go to school, work, and create long-term relationships with people they’ve never even met all online. And why not? The world sucks. The virtual schools are pristine, well-maintained “facilities,” so they’ve far superior to the crumbling, underfunded physical schools. And why stay in your own world when you can design your avatar to look like whatever you want – there’s no need to be fat, old, or handicapped online. Heck, you can even change your ethnicity or gender, if that’s your sort of thing. This leads to the weird situation where your best friend might be someone you’ve never actually met and don’t know what they really look like.

Many reviews online refer to the book as “nostalgia porm.” That’s true, it is. The designers of The Oasis grew up in the 1980s, and loved all the music, movies, TV show and – especially – the video games of that era. This led to other people complaining two things:

1) The book ties in all sorts of stuff from the 80s, often for no reason.

2) It’s unbelieveable that people in the 2040s would care that much about the 1980s and act as if there was no pop culture between then and “now.”

Both of these complaints are wrong.

For one thing, the book ties in all sorts of stuff from the videogame designers’ childhoods and young adulthoods. That’s because those guys made the game, and that’s the era they liked. The book isn’t slavish about the decade – Rush’s album 2112 features heavily in the story, and that’s from the 1970s. And there are several references to the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which both arrived about a decade after the 1980s were over. And, yes, it’s true, one character does fly around the Oasis in his x-wing fighter and his Delorean, but, again, the game was designed by people who loved the 80s, so they incorporated those items into the game.

Oh – and that brings up another point – just like with the Sims, users are free to wander around, go to school, chat with others players, whatever they like. But the main point of the game is to find a hidden treasure. This leads the characters on all sorts of quests, deciphering puzzles, and participating in interactive games. The clues are all based on pop culture from around the 1980s, so the users who are hardcore about finding the treasure have made it their aim to learn as much as they can about the 1980s. So, when one character says that he’s seen every episode of Family Ties, and another character admits to having War Games memorized, it’s not because they don’t think any thing worth their time has been created in the past 50 years, it’s because they are trying to put themselves in a better position to play and win the game.

Anyway, I loved this book. I often laughed out loud at the developments and even smiled with delight as certain events unfolded. I remember Entertainment Weekly once described the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Descent, part I” as “orgasmic Trekking.” Ready Player One is orgasmic geekdom. I easily grant this book an A on my list. In fact, as I told my wife this evening after listening to the final chapters in the book, Ready Player Onebelongs on my list of Top Ten Best Novel Ever. Go read it. Or listen to it.

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

After mulling over the thoughts of my last post (see: MY LAST POST), I realized there must be more mini-series on my motion pictures list besides just Roots. So I opened up my list of every motion picture I’ve seen, and sorted them by catergory. This collected all the made-for-TV movies together, allowing me to scan through that relatively short selection and see which ones are mini-series.

Turns out, I had forgotten about V, both the original series, and The Final Battle. So I deleted those from my list, too. Then there was Tin Man, a mini-series my wife and I just watched a couple of years ago. It stars Zooey Deschanel, too, so shame on me for forgetting about it. Also in the mini-series catergory was Alice in Wonderland, a 1985 series I watched as a kid and, pretty much have completely forgotten about.

Besides these mini-series, the only other possible contender on my list was Anne of Green Gables. But then I looked it up at IMDb, and realized that both it and the sequel were not mini-series but were, in fact, really long movies. So Anne stays.

Naturally, I figured I now needed to have a separate list of mini-series that I’ve seen, so I whipped me up a new list. Then I thought, hey – if I’m gonna have a list of mini-series I’ve seen, then I also need a list of maxi-series…you know, regular TV shows? So I made that list, too.

Here they are:

 You may be surprised to note that Survivor and The Amazing Race are not on this list. That’s because there are a few seasons I have not watched, and everyonce in a while, I miss an episode. I’m currently ploughing through Better Off Ted, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, and Modern Family, so I’ll be adding those soon, too. If I was to expand this list to “Series I’ve seen loads of,” then I’d have to add in all sorts of embarrassing stuff I watched as a kid, such as Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, Golden Girls, Happy Days, Family Ties, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitch, I Dream of Jeannie, Macgyver, as well as some long-standing shows I couldn’t possibly catch in their entirety, like The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live.