Wednesday, 01 June 2011

So, I had to update two of my lists this morning: “Books I’ve Read” and “Motion Pictures I’ve Seen.” To the first list, I added the book Born to Be Giants, a book I read to Owen the other day in preparation for a TV show program I will be hosting tomorrow (see below). The the latter list, I added the films Bartleby and Black Swan. In both cases, I noticed something.

It turns out that the 87 of the 789 books on my list have titles that begin with the letter S. This is to be expected, I suppose, as more English words begin with S than any other letter (although T wins out if we consider word frequency). Guess what letter is second place on my list? No, it’s not P. Or C. Or D, M, or A, which fall second to sixth place according to Michael Quinon’s program. It’s the letter B, with 54 books. Huh. I never would have guessed that.

Now onto the motion pictures list: S again comes out first, with 136 out of 1,290 films. Second place…once again…is B, with 96 entries. Why is this? Can anyone explain? In both cases, B is in a comfortable position – at least 5% ahead of third place. Weird. According to THIS LINK, B is the eighth most popular letter for starting words. T and A are, respectively, first and second in popularity. I suppose we could argue that they often get ‘chopped’ off the alphabetical listings (due to the words “the,” “a,” and “an”), but I bet they’re still pretty popular letters even without those articles and, even if we ignore those letters, B is still sixth place.

The movie Babel is currently #3 on our Netflix queue, and sometime this month I’m gonna have to read Brokeback Mountain for my college class, so B is in no trouble of losing its position anytime soon.

Thursday, 02 June 2011

Today was a full, but great day. First, I took the day off of work. This is the second Thursday in a row that I’ve done that and, I gotta say, a person could get used to that pretty quickly.

This morning, I volunteered as a chaperone for my son’s Kindergarten class on their field trip to the Ordway. I’ve wanted to be a chaperone on one of his field trips all year, but last fall I just kept putting it off, then I missed out on a couple of opportunities, then I declined one opportunity when the teacher wrote back and said they already had the required number of chaperones. I could’ve gone with them, but I decided to save my chaperoning skills for another occasion.

Anyway, today – nine months into the school year – I got to be with Owen’s class during their trip. Another boy’s mother was there (I had met her before), and the two of us sat in the back of the class during morning circle time. The teacher assigned each of us some friends to sit next to during the show, and then we boarded the bus.

At the Ordway, we sat in the second row (great seats!) and watched a presentation of Corbian the Dinosaur. It was amazing! The theater was very dark the entire time, and all we could see on stage were these animals made out of lights – like those Yuletide rope lights. In fact, click here to see images of the play, because that will give you a better idea of what I’m talking about (you can even watch a short video about it). Oddly, the creators’ homepage titles the play Darwin the Dinosaur, while the staff at the Ordway introduced it as Corbian the Dinosaur (and, in fact, that’s what they call it at their site). Not sure why the difference. I wrote to the Ordway to ask them but, as of yet, no response.

After the play, I returned to Owen’s school with him. I was invited to stay for lunch, which was likewise a fun event. During the three hours I was with his class, I was referred to as “Owen’s Dad” about 20 times, given a ‘snake bite,’ had to let five kids try on my sunglasses, had to tie one boy’s shoelace and another girl’s shawl, told I had something on my shirt, played the see-if-you-can-slap-my-hand game, and informed that I was white. That’s the sort of stuff that just doesn’t happen if I go to work on a Thursday.

This evening, as mentioned above, I hosted another episode of Atheists Talk. I interviewed (or maybe “headed up a discussion with,” is a better choice of words) local librarian Mindy Rhiger on her suggestions for:

1) Great books to read to your children about religion/belief/death (without indoctrinating them)

2) Great books to read to your children about science/exploration (without boring them)

For each part, she discussed her top ten books. Nearly all of the books were designed for 3-8 eight year olds – you know, the kind of 32- to 40-page books with beautiful illustrations that you read to your young kids before bedtime.

The episode appears to be quite a hit – already I’ve received requests for Mindy’s book lists, and everyone involved with the show agreed it was one of the best in quite a while. I’ll post a link to the program once it appears on the WWW.

Monday, 30 May 2011

Today we walked to Mississippi Market for dinner. They have a dining area there and we seem to able to eat quite healthy and cheaply. This is a great combination, only exceeded, in fact, by the combination of great tasting + free.

The wind was particularly obnoxious today, though during the time of our walk it had abated somewhat. The real problem, though, was the ticks who decided to hitch a ride on us.

Owen noticed the first tick right as he took off his knee pads in the garage (he rode his bike). He immediately set to panicking, claiming there was a bug on his knee. At first, I thought it was just his temporary tattoo, but it turned out it was actually a tick. All told, I think he had three ticks. I had one as well, and so did Jennifer. Isla appeared to come out of the event unscathed.

Next time we go for a walk, I’m gonna suggest we walk down the middle of the road so as to maximize our distance from foliage.

Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Last night, Jennifer and I watched the Little House on the Prairie episode “He Was Only Twelve, part one.” This evening, we watched part two. I realize that 2 out of my 3 readers here probably don’t care one bit for that show, but if you just stick with me here, I think you’ll find I have something interesting to say. For once.

I had seen this two-part episode before. In fact, just seeing the episode title on the Netflix sleeve brought back the memories. The two parts form the final two episodes of season eight which is, arguably, the final season of the show.

Here’s the thing: these are two really strange episodes. I’m not sure exactly when Little House jumped the shark, but surely if it hadn’t already, then this is the moment when it did. (And you really should click on the “shark” link above and let me know if you can spot the connection between that clip and this Little House episode I’m discussing.)

Now for the basic story (SPOILER ALERT!): While on a business trip to Sleepy Eye with his father Charles Ingalls, young James enters a bank to deposit money he just received for his birthday. (Guess how old he turned?) Alas, a bank robbery was in progress, and James became part of the collateral damage. The bullet lodged near his spine, causing massive blood loss and a grim prognosis. This sets in motion two threads of the story:

1) Those robbers need to be brought to justice!

2) Will James survive his injury?

The two parts answer the two questions, respectively. In part two, Charles and his wife Caroline care for their invalid son (he’s now in a coma – ’cause that’s what happens when you have a spinal cord injury), they carefully feed him broth via a pipette, and periodically bathe him. Charles continually tells himself that James is getting better, and even lashes out at Dr. Baker when he says that there’s no change in James’ condition. Later, Charles has a crisis of faith – he wonders why God doesn’t either heal James or let him die so he can be in heaven. Charles becomes convinced that God will perform a miracle and heal his son, provided he bring James near a mountain and pray like the dickens. The local reverend tries to reason with Charles, and even admits that, in his 30+ years of being a preacher, he has never witnessed a miracle. Even a psychiatrist pays Charles a visit and tries to politely explain that he’s going crazy (therapy was still in its infancy in the 1880s).

All of this is pretty standard fair for Little House, really. The main characters are devoutly religious and, even though I am not, I can sympathize with them. The grief, the denial, the desire to try even the most far-fetched idea all make sense in the context of a dying child. I can’t fault Charles for his emotions of his subsequent actions – especially considering that his god actually does perform miracles. Miracles, incidentally, had been implied before on the show: Laura requested her brother be resurrected (God said no), Adam was saved from certain death by a fortuitous fire, and Almanzo’s paralysis went away once he stopped being an asshole. However, this episode marked the first time I can recall a miracle being explicitly, unequivocally performed for a character.

But, you might be asking, what happened in part one? Ah, yes, there’s the oddness. What would you do if you were hours from home and your child lie dying? Well, if it was me, I would first ensure they had the best medical help I could find. Then, I would stay by their side. Charles does the first item, but not the second. Almost immediately after the doctor provides Charles with a prognosis, he decides the best thing he can do is bring the criminals to justice. He leaves his older son Albert some cash and tells him to get a hotel room (!), then rounds up some of the local citizens in an attempt to form a posse (!!). When Charles becomes exasperated that no one will help him, the local lawman speaks up and says that the sheriff has jurisdiction over the area and that Charles should defer to him. Charles ignores this and continues to plead with the crowd, who all turn away, explaining that they do not wish to go up against armed professional criminals.

So Charles heads out (with no clues) in search of the four men. His best friend Isaiah accompanies him even though he has made it clear he does not agree with Charles.

The episode devolves from there. In what is usually touted as a family show, we see a dead body being carelessly dumped into a grave, then dug back up later when Isaiah rifles through his pockets. One of the criminals goes half-insane claiming that the dead man is staring at him. Yikes! Brutal stuff for a family show.

Later, Charles holds a gun point blank towards one bandit, then gets his hands (literally) on the lead bandit and chokes him with his bare hands. Charles – the same devout Christian who only a few minutes later will be fervently praying to God for a miracle – has every intention of killing this unarmed man and is only stopped when Isaiah (an alcoholic with anger management issues) screams at him to stop. Did I mention Charles does this in front of his teenage son Albert?

The whole time I was wondering: Why don’t you just let the law handle this? More importantly, why don’t you go be with your dying son? Or at least get him and your other son back home to mom before you go out vigilante-ing all over Hero Township.

Funny thing, despite Charles’ uncharacteristic behavior, tv.com users give part one a rating of 7.0, while they assign part two an aggregate score of  3.5 – the lowest ranked episode of the season by a margin of 0.4 points. In fact, I could only find five episode from the entire series (of 10 seasons!) that ranked lower than Part Two.

Saturday, 28 May 2011

We own a charcoal chimney. When I first began using this device to assist in firing up the grill, I didn’t know what to do with the chimney once I was done with it. A few times, I set it on the deck, but the heat of the chimney burned holes in our all-weather carpeting. Later, I tried setting it on the table and on the deck’s ledge, but this just burned the wood. Finally, I decided the best thing to do with the super-hot chimney was to set it atop the air conditioning unit that juts out from our living room and overhangs onto the deck area.

It turns out that an empty charcoal chimney, high above the ground, yet protected by the roof of the apartment building, and within five feet of a never-ending supply of food, is an absolutely perfect place to start a family. If you’re a small bird, that is.

A pair of birds nested in the chimney last summer, too, but I’m not sure they successfully reproduced, as I never heard the chirps of baby birds and the nest appeared to be vacated too soon to raise the next generation from egg to fledgling.

Here’s the male bird, working real hard to bring food to his children:

And here is the loving couple dining together:

Here is the best shot I can get of the nest, without disturbing the goings-on inside. Notice the sticks jutting out – they birds have created a long, narrow nest, about 6 inches in diameter and 14 inches deep. I’m not sure if they feel these are the ideal dimensions for their summer home, or if they are just “making due” (what with the housing market the way it is).

Today I managed to record the baby bird doing what they do best: crying for mom or dad. Here’s the audio: Chirping like crazy.

Sunday, 29 May 2011

Unable to make it to Owen’s birthday party a couple weeks ago (thereby breaking their perfect attendance record), my sister and her husband stopped by for a couple of hours today to give Owen their gift.

I asked my sister where and when we planned to meet for the Gay Pride Festival on the 26th of next month. She expressed surprise that I planned to join up with her and her husband, but I told her, “Well, you told our dad we were going, right?” She laughed and said she had.

Here are the details: ten days ago, when my Uncle died, my sister decided it would be a good time to engage in a lengthy theological debate with my father. At one point during the conversation, in what was evidently and attempt to show my dad how “wicked” his children had become, my sister pointed out that she was going to Gay Pride this year and that “James and Jennifer are coming, too.” This is a marked difference between my sister and me: for while I try to avoid mention of anything I know will upset my Witness parents (i.e., pretty much everything but my job and the weather), my sister will go out of her way to talk about such stuff. This makes it all the more funny to me that my family shuns me but not my sister but, as my wife has noted on several occasions, my logical refutation of their worldview surely scares the shit out of them, while my sister’s citation of recent nights bar-hopping and getting tattoos simply makes them think, “Man, see what happens when we leave Jehovah?” Of course, my dad replied that he doesn’t hate gay people, he just hates their actions.

Anyway…

So we’re gonna hook up with my sister and brother-in-law to attend the Pride Parade and then scope out the festivities (such festivities are, similar to the State Fair, like walking around a mall, only worse). My sister said she was considering joining in with the Dykes on Bikes group in the parade. She said she declined, though, as she is too scared to take her bike on the highway (another pointed difference from her brother: I think I’d be more scared to drive around those Minnecrapolis streets than a wide, spacious interstate). I told her we could all hop in my car and join up with the Queers in Cavaliers, but none of us were certain there was such a group.

Thursday, 26 May 2011

For the second time this month, I took the day off work and, once again, had a very full day. Allow me to blitz through it:

While Jennifer drove Owen to school, I breakfasted and showered and tried to keep Isla from eating toilet paper (I failed). Then the three of us took off to first drop off four bags of stuff-we-don’t-want at the Goodwill. When I pulled up to the drop-off zone, there was a woman idling her car in front of me. The sign clearly says, “pull up to line to alert attendant,” but this lady either couldn’t read or thought that pulling up to a line meant parking 5 feet from it. So I spun around to the front of the store, dropped Jennifer off, then came back to see someone else had told the woman to pull forward.

We next plopped down $200 at CostCo to buy paper towels, zip-loc bags, and more toilet paper for Isla to eat. One employee was passing out samples of Coke (which seems as necessary as offering pamphlets entitled “Have you heard of Disney?”). The Coke was advertised as having “real cane sugar,” like the original formula. Unlike the original, however, there was no hint of cocaine. I took the sample, which probably marks the first time in about 10 years that I’ve drunk straight-up Coke. It tasted better than I remember Coke tasting, but still only marginally better than THAT CRAP FROM KARA’S PARTY, so I declined to buy any.

After stopping home to drop off our groceries and eat lunch, we drove to the chiropractor’s office. Jennifer went in to get some body work, and I stayed in the waiting area with Isla and read The Age of Reason (told ya’ I was going to). When a lady there saw Isla playing with my wife’s check card she said, “Oh, she’s gonna love shopping one day,” ’cause, you know, all girls looove to shop. Jennifer quickly retorted, “No, she doesn’t like shopping.” And that’s one of my favorite qualities in my wife: she never turns down the opportunity to argue. I, on the other hand, resemble this animal:

Then, with a half hour to burn, we decided to just go for a walk right there. A few blocks away, we came upon a bunch of boxes in someone’s front lawn. There was a lot of slightly interesting items, and I took an old newspaper from the day Kennedy was killed (John, not Bobby). Jennifer grabbed some old magazines. Then we walked over to Snuffy’s Diner. The owner said Snuffy’s was closed due to computer failure (yikes – talk about addicted to the computer – couldn’t they just take cash or checks only?), but he did allow us to use his restroom. This worked out great, because that’s all we wanted to do. The restroom was through the kitchen, down some nasty stairs, and in a dungeon that would make an excellent house of torture.

Next, we walked across the street to Owen’s school where his class, and all the other Kindergarten classes, put on a patriotic program in celebration of Memorial Day. Owen’s class gave details on Mt. Rushmore and the men whose faces are enshrined there. Owen said, “There are four famous Presidents on the mountain.” Then his class sang This Land is Your Land, which I told Owen later is absolutely my favorite up-with-America song. Later, all four classes sang a song in closing.

After the program, we enjoyed the fruit snacks (with whipped cream!) provided, then bolted down to Burnsville to get our hair “done.” There, my sister regaled us with tales about my family during my Uncle’s death and funeral last week (let’s just say nothing was that surprising), and then we walked to another store to buy Owen new shoes. Another customer at the store, noticing Owen running around in his new shoes, said: “He’s got a lot of energy.” I agreed, then she looked at her two daughters and said, “I don’t have a son, so I guess I don’t know what that’s like.” That’s right, you don’t have a son, just two pretty, pretty princesses.

We ate dinner, cleaned up a little bit and then – just when I thought the day was over – I realized I had lost our garage door opener somewhere. This is a bigger deal than you might think because 1) the other garage door opener is broken, and 2) there is no way to get into the garage apart from the car door. I managed to fix the broken opener and then the manager, responding to a call I’d made earlier, said that someone from another apartment had found our opener on the ground. So I walked over and retrieved it. Problem solved.

Jennifer and I concluded the day by watching three episodes of The Big Bang Theory, which we are currently receiving from Netflix.

Friday, 27 May 2011

So, I wrote to Representative Tim Kelly a couple of weeks ago. He’s a Republican from Goodhue County. I wrote to thank him for voting against bringing the anti-marriage amendment bill to the House floor. I told him I appreciated that he let common sense and his conscience trump his party’s policy.

He wrote back thanking me and gave me the link to the testimony he provided and asked that, if I liked it, to share it with others. So, here it is:

Second, I mentioned a while back that a video we posted on Youtube that employed fair-use snippets of Star Wars‘ music had been removed. Well, I guess it’s been reinstated. Have a look:

Third, grades from the semester were posted yesterday. As I indicated above, I was too busy to look at them yesterday (or, when I had a few minutes, I forgot). Anyway, in what may be the least-surprising news I’ve offered at this blog…I got an A. Yay, me!

Also – vegetarians may have lower rates of cataracts.

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

A recent discussion made me realize that there are some things that I’ve managed to never, ever purchase. Of course, there are thousands (millions?) of things that I’ve never purchased but listed here are six things that you would think someone like me would have bought at sometime, but, for whatever reason, I never have:

1. A couch

So, when I first moved out of my parents’ home, they generously gave me their downstairs couch. Later, after getting married, I brought the couch to my new apartment where it shared a living room with my new wife’s futon. Later, we trashed that old couch, but we used her futon for the next 10+ years. Her parents gave us an old couch to use for our basement and, later, my mom gave us her old living room set. At the moment, our futon is at my in-laws’ place, but we still have my mom’s love seat. There really has never been a moment in my life when I’ve thought, “you know, I need a couch.”

2. A new car

Sure, I’ve bought a few cars during my driving career, but never a brand new one. The closest I came was in 2000, when Jennifer and I purchased a 1997 Cavalier. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: brand new cars are such atrocious wastes of money that I would have to be quite rich before I would feel justified in buying a new car. In fact, even if I was a billionaire, I would still feel that buying a new car was a waste of money, but such a purchase would be such a tiny percentage of my funds that I really wouldn’t mind – much as I don’t mind spending a quarter in those candy machines now.

3. A dining room table

As with the couches, Jennifer and I have just seemed to fallen into possession of dining room tables as time goes on. For a couple years, in fact, we even had two dining room tables in our dining room. For the last three years, we’ve used an office desk as our dining room table. We did buy this table from IKEA back in 2004, however, it was sold as a desk (not a table) and we used it as such for a few years.

4. A tool box

When I moved out of my parents’ house, my dad presented me with a refurbished tool box. He worked at a machine shop, so he was able to remove the rust, replace the handle, and repaint it. He even stocked it with some tools. It’s a big, heavy box that has served me well. Of course, a small tool box for carrying tools for smaller jobs is also handy…and Jennifer and I received one at one of our engagement parties prior to our wedding.

5. A snow blower

So, during my adult life, I’ve either been living in an apartment or been the owner of a townhome. In both cases, other people were paid to clear my driveway. The only exception is the three and a half years I was the owner of an actual house. Having only a one-car garage about 25 feet from the roadside meant that my driveway was not very large. Shoveling has always seemed like a great (if unwelcome) way to get some exercise. I don’t think I could justify a snow blower unless I ever own an enormous driveway. And, if I ever do, then I’ll probably be wealthy enough to hire the neighbor kid to come over with his blower.

6. Baby formula

We’ve never purchased baby formula, and the small amount of it that we have possessed we have given to others. When Jennifer was pregnant with Owen, three different baby formula companies sent us samples of their products. Jennifer told me to just give it to a food shelf, but I encouraged her to keep it on hand “just in case.” Thankfully, there was no need for the stuff so, when Owen was about three months old, I brought the formula into work and set it on a counter at my job. I then sent out an email to a few co-workers who also had babies and told them to take it if they wanted to. One co-worker came over to my cube and said, “Don’t you need it for Owen?”

I said, “No. It turns out, my wife has boobs, and they produce food for him. How awesome is that?”

We recently received another unsolicited canister of formula. I brought it to work again and, again, a co-worker asked if I was sure Isla didn’t need it. “Nope,” I said, “we give her better food than this.”

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

Today during the Toastmasters’ meeting, we had our annual election of the board members. Since I only joined Toastmasters six months ago, this was my first time participating in a full election, though I was present during the mid-term election of a new president when the previous president resigned due to a job change.

All seemed to be going well until the announcement was made for the sergeant-at-arms. Only one member was on the ballot, but when the secretary called for any other last-minute names, someone shouted out, “I nominate James.” Then, before I could even react, someone else shouted, “I second that motion.” I gave a “What the fuck?” look but it was too late: my name was on the ballot and, as there were now two candidates, we each had to get up and give a quick campaign speech.

The other guy got up first and spent his 60 seconds on stage detailing why I would be the best man for the job. I then got up and basically said that the other guy should have the job, since he asked to be put on the ballot and was not a last-minute addition. It’s not, of course, that I am adverse to being on the Toastmasters’ board, it’s just that I’m busy with other things. Already, I have requested to not be assigned any speeches in June due to a college class I will be taking that month. So…you know…what I am doing in the club is pretty much the maximum I can do without overloading.

I voted against myself.