Thursday, 07 June 2012

I participated in another episode of Atheists Talk this evening. Usually when I do this show, I am the host, but today I was a guest. The topic was a discussion of the forthcoming book, Atheist Voices of Minnesota.

The three guests consisted of me, the head editor (Bill Lehto), and one of the authors. The host, George, asked questions, sometimes toward the group, and sometimes directed at a specific guest.

It was fun to discuss a book with which I’ve been so heavily involved. I’ve been on the show before to discuss books – lots of books. In fact, last year, I interviewed a librarian and she offered ten different books that serve as a great way to introduce young people to religion, and ten other books that are a great way to introduce people to science. I’ve also been on the other side, too: last year, George interviewed me about the book Disproving Christianity, for which I wrote a review.

But I’ve never talked about a book that involved me, before. It was pretty cool, actually, primarily because I knew the book so well. So, when George asked us if there were any essays that stood out as unique, I was able to -without any planning – immediately respond that there were two essays that come to mind, and then I gave the titles of those essays and discussed what I liked about them. (In fact, three essays came to mind, but I didn’t think it would sound fair if I extolled my wife’s essay as superb.)

Owen came with me and sat in the control room playing chess while I was on stage. Afterward, we had to stop to buy gas (because someone often likes to leave the car on empty), and so I bought Owen a treat as a way of saying ‘thanks for coming with me.’ He likes to buy those slushies and mix all the flavors together. I think he does this because it makes an already gross dessert even more nasty and he knows I won’t ask him to share.

Friday, 08 June 2012

Today was Owen’s last day of first grade.

As I’ve done on most Fridays, I picked him up after school. He and I said goodbye to his teacher and thanked her for her work. It might be the last time we see her, as she is switching to a different school this fall.

Usually, Owen and I head over to the corner drug store after school on Fridays, but today we went straight home to pick up Jennifer and Isla. Like last year, Owen got to pick where he wanted to go out for dinner, as kind of a celebration for finishing a year of school. Last year, he picked Chipotle. This year, he picked Buca, which was approximately five times the cost as last year. I hope this doesn’t indicate a trend.

Buca now has these signs that they set at your table. They say something like “Celebrating!” and if you are there to celebrate something, then you get one of these signs. Buca must be the place to celebrate stuff; the host even asks people that as they walk in the door: “And what are we celebrating today?” Owen gleefully announced it was the last day of school, and the host proclaimed this a worthy accomplishment to celebrate.

But they didn’t bring us a sign. So we asked. It was a big hit.

Saturday, 09 June 2012

I keep meaning to take pictures of Owen with the toys he’s made at Lowe’s during their Build and Grow events, and I just never get around to it. So, today, I’m making good on my self-promise.

The thing is, we were planning on going up to the cabin this weekend, but the meteorologist said the air would be hot and humid, and thunderstorms were projected. The cabin has no air conditioning, either, so it might not be comfortable sleeping. So, we stayed home, which is great by me, because we probably saved $50 worth of gas. Oh – and also we did some work on Isla’s room-to-be, our closet, and the downstairs bathroom.

Yeah, in fact, after nine months of relative inaction, Isla’s room has progressed immensely in the past week. Back on Wednesday, we finally sold two-thirds of the closet shelving in her room (hello, twelve hundred bucks, nice to see you!). More importantly, we moved all that shelving out of her room. Today, I took out these metal plates that were installed on the walls (to help stabilize the shelves), and Jennifer progressed on taping our closet. This is important, because our closet has, until this time, been Isla’s room. But now we’ve gotta suck it up and use our room’s original closet, so we need to finish mudding and taping the walls. This will then allow us to install shelving in there (and I plan to use shelving I removed from elsewhere in the house) and then Isla’s room won’t be a closet anymore.

Where was I? I think I got off the subject here. Oh, yes, here’s Owen with his apron on:

Notice the four circular decals he’s sporting from past events. The one in his hand is the latest edition, which hasn’t been ironed-on yet.

And here’s Owen with his five creations. He’s holding a “one” up behind the castle to denote that’s the first toy he constructed, and a “five” to show the latest one. From left to right, there’s a T. rex, an ice cream truck (with the decal in front), a chalkboard, a racecar, and the castle.

Tuesday, 05 June 2012

So, I am once again capable of listening to audiobooks in my car again.

Actually, I never lost the capability. As has happened a dozen times in the past, technology marched triumphantly into the future, while I stood here, in the present, shaking my fist and cursing whoever and whatever passed me by.

In the early days (where “early days” is defined as “approximately 2001-2009”), I rented books on tape from the local libraries. Ah, those were some good times! Driving to college or to work, or from one to the other, getting lost in a great story regardless of what else was going on or how bust I was…

But as those early days progessed, I noticed an unfavorable development: the number of books on tape was dwindling. By 2008, I estimate that 95% of all cassette tape books at the library were on one of three topics:

1) Empower yourself in the business world!

2) Learn this language!

3) An epic tale of romance, romance, and romance!

…Yeah, so not really much that I wanted to listen to.

The libraries were moving towards books on CD.

I wasn’t really excited about this. Primarily because my car does not have a CD player. But also because CDs don’t hold their place. See, when I listen to a cassette, as soon as I eject it, or shut off the car, it stops right where it is. But with CDs, I have to find my location everytime. A few co-workers have told me that they have audio systems in their cars that hold the spot on the CDs for them. I call those co-workers ‘overpaid.’

I used to have a tape adapter, too. It plugged into a Discman, and it allowed me to listen to my music collection (which is mostly CDs). But, eventually, the Discman pooped out on me, and I think the adapter broke, too.

Anyway, I’ve finally caught up with 2012. Well, to the extent necessary. Using an Amazon.com credit – which I received by selling a textbook to them – I bought a new Discman and adapter.

Today I began listening to The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt.

Wednesday, 06 June 2012

This afternoon, I left work early to attend a program put on by Owen’s first grade class. The class recited several poems, then each student presented a brief book report endorsing a book they particularly enjoyed during this year. Then the adults got to look at samples of their kids writing and drawing from the year. There were snacks and beverages, too.

When I got to the school, I joined up with my wife, daughter, and mom-in-law. Owen thus had four guests, which I believe was the most any student had.

In contrast, several students had no guests. This was kind of strange to me: is there no one in those kids’ lives who can find 45 minutes out of their day to show up at the school? As it is, I rearranged some tasks at work, arrived at work early, then left work early, just so I could be there on time. I realize not every parent has a decent supervisor, fleixble hours, the autonomy to come and go as they choose, or oodles of sick and vacation time to squander on whatever suits their family…but, come one – doesn’t anyone in the kids family have some mid-day availability? Isn’t grandpa retired? Or what about an older sibling who’s already done with school for the day?

To paraphrase what I said to my wife and mom-in-law after we left: No one sits on a rocking chair on their porch, thinks back to fifty years earlier when their children were young and says, “You know, I never should have left work early that one day.”

Saturday, 02 June 2012

My sister and her husband came over today. They really love this restaurant that’s about three blocks from our house, so we all walked there. Then afterward, they took some vegetation from our yard.

The previous homeowner, in his infinite foresight, decided that the best way to up the value of his property was to landscape the shit out of the yard. I’m not sure why he didn’t think, “hey, maybe I should rennovate the basement,” or “maybe I should fix the porch so it’s not sliding toward the river,” but, he didn’t. Instead, he thought: “you know what prospective home buyers hate? Yard. So I’ll rip up the grass and do a quarter-ass job of putting in all manner of shrubbery.”

I suppose that is a great idea, if you’re going to sell your place to a couple of senior citizens. But if you’re going to sell to a family, with kids, then they’re gonna want more land, and less oversized bushes. And, yes, I realize this means more area to mow, but I don’t mind telling Owen to do it. Not at all.

So, today, my sister and her husband took five bags full of mulch and at least five bushes with them.

I’d like to say the yard is looking better but, in fact, it’s probably looking worse. But I think that’s just a stage it’s going through on its way toward re-beautification.

Sunday, 03 June 2012

 Today Owen and I drove to the compost heap (which is what we call it, despite the fact that I’m sure it has a better name). I stuffed ten bags – of both the large plastic variety and the tall, leaf sort – into the car, which is quite difficult to do when there are two child car seats in the back taking up space already. I managed to squeeze two into the front passenger spot, and five into the trunk. I squished one right on Isla’s car seat, and another in the middle in the back. I shoved the last one right behind the driver’s seat, which meant Owen used it as a footstool during our drive.

At the heap, I extracted the organic matter from our vehicle, while Owen either dumped out the contents(in the cae of the paper bags) or ripped open the bags (the plastic ones) and let the leaves, sticks, weeds, clippings, and roots splay out onto the ground.

A woman pulled up next to us in her pick-up truck and began shoveling compost off her bed. She was friendly, saying to me: “I see you’ve got your helper with you!” (This is something that everyone says when they see either Owen or Isla standing, walking, squating, interfering, annoying, or genuinely helping either me or Jennifer when we’re doing stuff outside.) I made some comment about Owen enjoying the work, and she said, “That’s a blessing!” I smiled and nodded and mumbled something. I wasn’t sure what she meant – was it a blessing that Owen liked to help? Was she saying God or Jesus or some deity was manipulating my son’s brain so that he enjoyed engaging in physical activity?

Later, the compost heap’s version of a State Trooper came by and said hello, then he moved on to the woman unloading her pick-up truck and said, “Woe, you’ve got quite a lot unload there!” This was especilly funny because the woman, though slightly shorter than me, was approaching 400 pounds. Her arms were easily of greater circumference than my thighs, a fact easily verified by her courtesy to wear a sleeveless shirt.

Anyway, she kept working away and said, “Yes, I’m gettin’ it done with God’s help.”

I was going to say, “Hey, we have something in common! Looks like God helps you as much as he helps me!”

But I didn’t. Instead, I just thought, “I’m gonna blog about this.”

Yeah, I think that a lot.

Monday, 04 June 2012

 Today, Jennifer scored some free sod.

Turns out, someone who lived nearby just piled some near the curb and posted online for would-be sodders to come and get some.

This is good timing because, as I noted above, we are removing large samples of flora and attempting to replace them with lots of small samples.

The funny thing is, this doesn’t appear to be of the same species as the rest of the grass. So, if you come to visit, except to see rectangular-shaped portions of our lawn to be noticeably different than the rest. This is just fine with me, though. I don’t want to promote a monculture; I think the variety helps with the health of all the plants in the yard. I suspect that after a few summers, the foreign grass will meld with the natives and it will seemless fade from one variety to another.

I suspect that, just like the United States, this will take at least 300 summers.

Oh well. No rush.

Friday, 01 June 2012

It’s that time of year again..Jehovah’s Witnesses are gathering en masse for their yearly District Conventions. If you live here in Minnesota and you’re obscenely hard-up for entertainment, you can head down to Rochester on the 29th of this month for the first of three days of peace, love, and music at the Mayo Civic Center.

Of course, the most only interesting thing is: what are the new releases going to be?

You could travel down to Rochester, like I said, but I’ll spare you the cost of a hotel room and a polyester suit: There are three new releases. The first two are brochures.

One is called Good News from God. I mean, Good News from God!

The “good news” is that God wants you to live forever as his eternal servant. If you don’t want to be his eternal servant, he’ll kill you soon. Oh – and he’s gonna kill nearly everyone you know, too. But he doesn’t want to kill you. I repeat: that’s the good news.

The other brochure is Who are Doing Jehovah’s Will Today?

In case any of the convention attendees are not totally sure what the answer to the titular question is, the Watchtower Society made it really easy to find out by putting the answer on the cover at least eight times.

The brochure answers lots of burning questions you probably have about God’s will-doers, like “Why do we dress up for our meetings?” (page 11), “How is our worldwide work financed?” (page 27), and “Why do Witnesses shun their own family members?” (page oh – look at that – they didn’t really put this question in their brochure).

But, for me, the highlight of this year’s convention is the release of a new DVD, titled Listen, Obey, and Be Blessed. It’s for kids. It’s animated. And it teaches them to obey. It also features Sparklock, the Dark Lord of the Elementary School Playground.

Sparlock. No, not Spurlock. Sparlock.

Sparlock is a tool of the Devil, as his goatee clearly indicates. You can explicit proof of Sparlock’s demonism in this still from the movie: Little Caleb’s mom asks him if wants to be disobedient like Adam and Eve, and Caleb immediately begins imagining a serpent descending from the dining room chandelier:

If you want a full synopsis of the children’s video, THEN GO READ THIS. If you want to watch the video, good luck to you – the Watchtower Society (who, ostensibly want to spread their message), have ordered every uploaded version of their masterpiece in technological achievement removed from the internet.

Oh – but here’s a fun clip. It’s from “Lesson #2” on the DVD, titled “Obey Jehovah.” It features Sparlock. Have I mentioned that Sparlock has quickly risen on my list of best fictional characters of all time?

Obey Jehovah, Caleb!

(Clicking on the above link will open another tab. The video will play in that tab.)

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

So, last week, while wrestling with Hamline’s “convenient” on-line bill paying system, I also experienced full system failure of my hardrive at work. This is the third time that’s happened at work and the second time in the last 9 months. The IT guy, who did a great job of reimaging my laptop, attributed the issue to the anti-virus software. I asked the obvious question: “Can you just leave off the anti-virus software?” But he just chuckled at me like I’m some sort of Mac-using computer half-wit (Bingo!).

I lost about ten hours worth of work I had done over the past couple of days, and I lost a lot of non-essential files – for example, most of my Toastmasters speech outlines. Wisely, I back my stuff up regularly on the shared drive, so I was able to get most of my stuff back – even if it wasn’t always the newest version. I was surprised to find I had once dumped my entire iTunes library on there a few months back, so I was able to recover about 99% of my music. I also had a file titled “Favorites.” I didn’t know what this was, so I opened it (always a good policy when it comes to work computers).

Turns out, it was a file from about 4 years ago that I had saved of my favorite online sites. I clicked on each link to see if it was a link I still wanted. In some cases, the link was useful, but I could have figured out how to get there again even without the helpful link. Like, yeah, I think I could have found Wikipedia and YouTube even without the saved link. Other links were really helpful, like the one that took me to where I have to track my time at work, and the one where I can submit medical receipts for pretax dollars. Some of the links were defunct, and others were no longer relevant to my job.

But then, today, I clicked on this one: Jenz Daily Pics.

Wow! Did that bring back memories. I don’t think I’d been to that site in over four years.

It’s a site my wife maintained for one year: from July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007. She took one picture a day and uploaded it to the site. It was fun to see all the different things we did that year, and to see how much Owen grew. In some ways, it was a good year for her to photograph, because, like I said, Owen grew so much, and we had two fun cats, and we did a lot of home improvements. In other ways, it was kind of a downer year – we lost a lot of friends that year (you’ll notice there’s not many in the pictures), and we didn’t go out of town all year (well, there was a trip to Rochester, Minnesota and another to Hudson, Wisconsin, but nothing big).

I scrolled through all the pictures and read all the comments. When I got to the picture for January 14, 2007, I came across her picture titled…

Is there anything cuter than this?

The answer is no…there’s not. Here’s the picture–>

So innocent, so pure. Memories of young boy, a sweater, a dining room chair, a house, and a hard drive that was.

Thursday, 31 May 2012

I am ending this very busy, ambitious, and eventful month on a high note. But first, some back story…

Back in October – or maybe it was September? – Owen and I were at the St. Paul Corner Drug Store for our weekly treat of ice cream. On the shelf to the left of the soda fountain were copies of the 2012 St. Paul Almanac. Intrigued, I grabbed a copy and thumbed through it.

“Hey,” I thought, ” I could write an essay for this thing.”

So I did.

Actually, I first got myself a copy of the 2010 and 2011 Alamanacs. I read some of the essays in those editions and then looked for more information online, and found THIS SITE.

The site’s been updated since then, but back in the fall of 2011, it featured a call for submissions for their 2013 edition. The deadline was December 15th, and the site said that if a submission is accepted for publication, authors will be notified by June 1, 2012.

Well, they waited until (almost) the last minute: at 10:05 this evening, I checked my email and saw that one of my pieces was accepted. This is really cool! These almanacs are really fun, they’re local, and they’re professionally made. Also, I get paid for my submission. That’s really exciting because, up until now, most of my payment has been in the form of free copies, meals, and hearty handshakes.

The only problem is, I submitted two pieces, and the email I received merely congratulated me on getting one accepted. So…I don’t know which piece they liked. Meh. Oh well. I’ll find out soon enough. And I’ll save the other essay and resubmit it later this year.