Friday, 22 June 2012

I never ever heard of the suburb of Schaumburg until a few months ago when I signed up for the class that I completed there today. But, now I can say I’ve been – because I am only now leaving the city (village, actually) after having spent just over 48 hours here. I thought a visual diary would do best. I took some of these photos yesterday, and some today.

Here’s the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel where I stayed. It kind of has that “outside courtyard in the evening” look. Notice some of the rooms overlook this lobby. Another bunch of rooms overlook a real outside courtyard, and another bunch overlook the pool. Not mine; my room overlooked the wonderful parking lot.

Here’s the inside of my room, as seen from the couch right in front of the window. Hey – look! Those are my shoes! Cool.

Okay, here is the coolest thing about my room: a bathroom counter made of rocks. Look at that! And the counter is so smooth. Look at the lower left corner of the sink, and you can see how they even cut into a rock to get the sink to fit right. Amazing! How did they do that? I don’t know.

Here’s the weirdest thing about my room – the shower stall has a fixed pane of glass that extends midway from the wall. The other half of the stall has nothing; no door, no curtain – nothing. I got lots of water on the bathroom floor both mornings. Oh well.

And here’s the most disgusting thing about my room. This is an air vent near the window. Notice all the chunks of dust. I point out that this is after I wiped the vents once with my sock (that I had just taken off for the day). This would take, like, 30 seconds to clean. Maybe somebody should get on that before a guest posts pictures like this on the WWW.

I snapped this photo near the hotel’s secondary entrance. The sign on this rock says “Fresh 1800 Herb Garden.” That’s because the restaurant at the hotel is called “Fresh 1800,” so I guess they’re not kidding: they really do use fresh ingredients. I’ll never know, ’cause the only thing I ever bought from that restaurant was a Long Island iced tea.

During the afternoon session on Wednesday and Thursday (yesterday), the hotel staff brought in some snacks for us. Yesterday, they set out this spread: mixed nuts, dried fruit, M&Ms, chocolate chips….mmmmm! All the toppings you could ever want for your ice cream. Except…they didn’t bring any ice cream. How odd. It was especially odd, too, that today, during lunch, they brought out vanilla ice cream and offered absolutely zero toppings. Everyone else set all of those above toppings on the little plates provided (see top left). I grabbed a glass and dumped my snacks in that. Everyone thought I was so smart for thinking of that. Yeah, about once a week, I really nail this whole “living on planet Earth with the humans” thing.

I took an aimless wander though the hotel yesterday evening. (Man, it’s hard to avoid eye contact while doing that.) Here’s a skyway I stumbled upon. It connects the hotel with the office building you can see in the background there. I decided to walk through it, which was a dumb idea, because the skyway is not climate controlled, and so it was about 110 degrees inside this thing.

I decided to temporarily kick the antisocial binge I was on, and meet up with some classmates for dinner. About seven of us met in the hotel lobby, but only three of us ended up going out to eat (I’m not sure how that happened). We ate at Weber Grill, a restaurant you can spot from some distance due to this enormous grill on their property. They cook everything on grills. Weber brand, I bet.

I thought I was going to stand out like a weirdo by not ordering any red meat at a place called “Weber Grill,” but guess what? The one lady I was with got the shrimp salad, and the other lady got the tilapia. Me, I got the veggie burger. It was good. They also served pretzel buns. I never had those before, but I saw them again today during lunch, and then later at the airport. Must be a Chicago thing. I like them. I’m gonna see about getting me some more.

Okay, so I was at the airport earlier today, and I noticed the guy walking in front of me. He was a pilot. Or, at least, he was dressed like one. He was pulling three bags behind him, and there was this one suitcase he had that I just had to take a picture of. There’s a fancy metal plate on the top that says “In memory of Jesus.” I fucking kid you not. The side of the bag had one of those fish on it that says “ixoye,” which, of course, is Latin for “I believe in zombies.” I was a little concerned that he walked right up to the very same gate that I was going to. On the good side, it allowed me to take this picture. The down side was, I started freaking out that this guy was going to be my pilot. I don’t think a guy like this should be a pilot. I mean, what if the rapture occurs mid-flight? Before I get my beer and pretzels? Alas, he was just hitching a ride on the plane. Maybe to get closer to Jesus one more time before going to bed. Oh crap, I just realized something: if he was hitching a ride on the plane, that probably means he lives in Minnesota.

And here’s the view over Lake Michigan at approximately 6:30 this evening. Have I mentioned I hate flying? Here I am, on the 32nd plane ride of my life. And look at what an idiot I am: I picked the seat that overlooks the wing. It’s like I thought, “How can I increase my anxiety even more on this flight? Oh, I know, I’ll select the seat that looks out over the wobbly wing. Yes, that will be splendid.”

Wednesday, 20 June 2012

Well, I was on an airplane today. Yuck. At least it was a short flight. In fact, it might have been the shortest flight of my life: Twin Cities to Chicago. The pilot warned of turbulance during take-off and landing due to both places being very windy.

As I walked down the hallway to my hotel room, a man pushing a cart for cleaning the rooms nodded at me and said, “Good morning!” I nodded in kind and said, “Hello.” Then I pulled my cellular telephone out of my pocket and looked at the time…He can’t possibly be right – it’s not STILL morning, is it? I thought.

But, in fact, it was still morning – it was only 11:32. But it had already been a long day.

After never falling asleep last night – a short night punctuated with Owen’s appearance by my bedside to request water – I got out of bed at 4:15. I left the house about a half hour later, walked three blocks, and then waited for the bus.

The bus arrived a minute late, and drove to the airport. Just after 5 AM, I boarded a tram to ferry me from the bust stop to the airport proper.

Despite a no-show flight attendant, our plane took off as scheduled right at 7:00. We landed in Chicago about an hour and a half later. I called the taxi company, who then sent a taxi to the wrong airport. So I called them again. This time, they sent someone to the correct airport, but I had to wait nearly an hour for him to arrive. The taxi ride to the hotel lasted nearly another hour. (I gotta lotta book reading done this morning.)

After paying the cab, a concierge assisted me with my bags, and showed me to the front desk. I checked in, the front desk lady gave me my room key while explaining, “Your room is just up those stairs, there’s no elevator, I hope that’s okay.” I took a quick look at the daunting 10 stairs and deemed it okay. “It’s okay,” I said. Then I went up the stairs, rounded the corner, and met up with the cleaning staff guy who wished me a good morning.

Thursday, 21 June 2012

The email that I received that gave me all the information I needed to know about the class I am in yesterday, today, and tomorrow, said to bring a calculator. As soon as I read that email, I reached into my desk drawer, pulled out my scientific calculator, and set it on my desk where I wouldn’t forget it.

Do you think I remembered it?

Actually, I did remember it.

The only problem was, last night, when I was unpacking my bag, I pulled out the calculator and suddenly it hit me: This thing isn’t as heavy as it usually is. I opened up the back panel and, sure enough, there were no batteries. No problem, I thought, I’ll just walk over to that mall I can see out my window and buy a pack of batteries.

So, in 90 degree heat, high humidity, and strong winds, I walked the five blocks (or so) to the mall. As I passed by all the stores, it occurred to me that almost no place in a mall sells batteries. Oh sure, I’m sure some stores do, but I couldn’t find anything like a toy store or Radio Shack that would have the needed supplies. I did locate the Sears, but I am loathe to spend money there, so I kept hunting. Finally, I asked a man working at guest services, and he directed me to some store called Street Corner News, or something like that. It was really tucked away in some dark arm of this sprawling shopping center, and it only took up about 50 square feet. There was hardly any room to turn around in there, but I spotted a small selection of batteries behind the counter. “Can I get a pack of those double-A batteries?” I said to the cashier. She obliged and I took off with my merchandise.

So, this morning, before heading off to class, I opened the pack of batteries, then picked up my calculator, opened up the back panel, and saw that my calculator takes triple-A batteries.

Monday, 18 June 2012

So, I don’t know if anyone out there ever checks out the Books I’ve Read This Year tab on my site here (you can click to it above), but let me share a few things about it with you…

First: Go me! I’ve successfully kept up with it for over five months now.

Second: If you sort by “Grade” (the rightmost column), you will see I have now given at least one book every letter grade available. Way to celebrate diversity!

Third: I added a new “Reason” option. Before, there were only four reasons listed for why I read any book…

1. Class. This means the book was assigned to me in a class at work or at my university, and I had to read it.

2. Kids. This means I read the book to my son (and possibly) my daughter.

3. Review. This means the book’s publisher (or, possibly, author) sent me a free copy of the book with the understanding that I read it and write a review of it to appear in The Minnesota Atheist newsletter and website.

4. FTHOI. This stands for “For the Hell of It,” because, let’s face it, every once in a while I do read a book simply for my own enjoyment or to learn how to improve on something in my own personal life.

But now I added this reason:

Editor. This indicates I was an editor for the book, and thus read it carefully several times.

…and I think that’s a plenty cool reason to add, don’t you?

Fourth: If you sort by author, you’ll notice that Owen and I have read a heap of Ron Roy offerings. If you look carefully, you’ll notice we’ve read the A to Z Mystery books from H through U. Except T. “Hey!” you shout unneccessarily loudly, “Where’s the ‘T’ book?”

Well, the thing is, Owen and I read it last year. In fact, that book – The Talking T-Rex was the first A to Z Mystery book we read. I didn’t even know if was a series of books back then. But, while reading it, I realized the book was part of a series, and so Owen and I commenced reading the books, beginning with the letter A. We read A through G back in 2011, and we’ve been reading from H on this year. After reading the S book (The School Skeleton) I asked him if he wanted to reread the T book, just so that we could read them in order. He didn’t want to, even though I told him he was wrong (just kidding). Even if we hd reread it, though, I wouldn’t list it here, since, as the introduction points out, I am only listing books that I read for the first time this year.

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

 So, today was the big forum thingy that I first talked about HERE.

Since I was scheduled to present at 2:50 this afternoon, I spent the first 8 hours of the day nervous. After a while, I got to feeling that maybe I was just nervous about being nervous, if that makes any sense. So then I calmed down somewhat.

I was pleased to see that my boss’ boss left the auditorium about an hour before my speech. I was hoping he’d be a no-show but – wouldn’t you know it? – he decided to re-attend the forum about ten miunutes before I was set to go on stage. I think he timed his arrival to coincide with the ice cream, which the catering staff brought in a few minutes before my speech. I considered delivering my speech while chomping down on a Choco Taco, but then came to my senses.

For me, the highlight of the day was when one engineer made the case that there is such a thing as a perfect package. He claimed the best packaging for a product is…can you guess it?

PEZ dispensers!

Yep. He noted that they are functional, attractive, and easy to operate. He displayed a photo of a portion of his collection of some 200 disoensers. While he did, I realized that he’s probably right. After all, how often do we care more about the packaging than the product itself? People just eat the forgettable candy right away. But the dispensers? Those are collectors’ items.

Friday, 15 June 2012

 So, a guy who goes by the name “Ministry” emailed me today. He used the email address that I keep solely for correspondance related to MY OTHER WEBSITE. Here’s what he had to say:

First, I am NOT a JW, nor have I ever been, nor has any member of my family or any friends been JWs. I don’t support the  JWs, or maintain they are perfect in their beliefs, and have serious disagreements with them on a number of important matters of biblical interpretation, BUT I have to admit they do have a lot of valid points that it pleases me and God to point toward, and praise them for. Their teaching on Birthdays, is to that point an example. 

On the other hand, I have read your whole site, and I find not one single thing you are right on. You come off as an ignorant bigoted hater that uses illogical arguments to make non-existent points. In short you are a disgusting creep deserving of no respect at all. You make me ashamed to be a human being. Clean up your own stupidity before you attack any others. Someone like you make the JWs look like brilliant angels by comparison. Are you sure you are not a JW plant who is a secret shill for them. The way you talk, it only helps them. Curious. Now, if you have any excuse or defense I would be glad to hear it. 

“Life And Life More Abundantly” 

Google “FounderChurch” for Teachings 

So…here’s a few things that came to my mind when I was reading this:

First, do you know that about 90% of the negative email I receive from that website begins with the writers distancing themselves from the Witnesses? This guy is no exception; his whol first paragraph is letting me know that he’s not a Witness, even though (yawn) he thinks they’re pretty cool cats. Whatever.

Second, I absolutely hate vague criticisms. I mean, off-handedly, I suppose it’s okay. Like, say we go see a movie together and, on the way out, I say, “So what did ya think?” And you say, “It was alright, I guess.” But if you’re going to take the time to write an email, why not address some issue with the site? Instead, he just bemoans my personality which A) he doesn’t know at all and B) is irrelevent. I mean, for the sake of argument, let’s just say I totally agree with his assessment that I am an “ignorant bigoted hate.” Fine. So what? How does that alter the information on the site?

Third, what’s with closing with a call for me to Google his site? Can’t he just embed the link or, at the very least, just type out the URL?

Anyway, here’s what I wrote to him yesterday:

Hello!

Thank you for your email. It is good to know that people are visiting my site!
Your email exemplifies a major reason why I left Christianity. To wit, Christians often claim to excel in love, yet are quick to demonize dissenting opinions and slander arguments that make them uncomfortable, frequently using hyperbole and accusing the person of being amoral or even immoral. I am unsure how people can, on the one hand, claim to belong to a loving religion and follow a loving god, yet construct emails of such a vitriolic nature. It’s strong evidence against Christinity’s central moral claim.
Regarding you final sentence, I do not believe an excuse is warranted. If you require a defense of any of the points I raised, please respond with a specific issue you have with a specific point, fact, or argument on my website. As it is, I am unsure how to respond to overarching, baseless accusations concerning my character, particularly when it is irrelevant with respect the information on the website. In short, respond with specific issues, in coherently constructed sentences, and leave out the hateful, unnecessary ad hominem attacks, or I will not respond at all.

Thank you again.

And today, he wrote this in response:

Problem with you is you are very thin skinned and take offense easily. I am wary of people who are like that. I can say I have lived a long time and I have NEVER in my life ever been insulted by anyone, because I take nothing as an insult. You clearly do, and that is not good at all. I have clearly divided those I have known into those who get insulted and those who never do. 

OK, now for what you wrote. Well at least I guess we now know you are not a JW plant. How does it make you feel to be suspected of such? Don’t answer. 

As for the merit of what you say. I looked very hard and I couldn’t find any merit at all. You seemed to just be gratuitously biting and snapping at the church, and being wrong on top of it. So intellectually your statements are worthy little respect. You may be surprised to know that I have copied your site, NOT for anything you say, which I discard but to hear the very informed justifications of the JW to your ranting. So I have benefited from your site, but totally not in the way you intended. 

I think you need to rethink everything you think and get off of your nasty blame game against God, and the churches and church people, and get into improving yourself. You sound very young and immature. You are smart and fast, but you have little on your hard drive to use to make good judgments. 

 

If you are teachable I am able to teach you, but you seem so full of God hating Democrat Liberalism that likely nothing can save you. In short none of the churches are perfect, far from it, but you are worse than all of them, or any of them at this time. Thanks for putting up your site though. It has served me fine, and I thank you for that. 

My favorite part is where he asked me a question, then immediately followed it up with “Don’t answer.” Way to encourage dialog there, Ministry.

Saturday, 16 June 2012

 This morning, I responded to Ministry thusly:

Hello!

Requesting you refrain from ad hominem attacks is not thin-skinned, it is asking that you discuss the real issues and facts brought up on the website rather than just name-calling and making irrelevent guesses regarding my age and personaility. And I don’t think I’ve been offended by anything. Ever.

I am glad to hear you are sharing my website with Jehovah’s Witnesses! Most of them would immediately shun such information, and some have even been disciiplined for sharing the contents of the site with other members of their congregation. So, if you’ve been able to find a way to share the information with them, that’s excellent. Thank you! I plan to copy these emails and put them on my blog as an example of the responses my site generates from Christians.

In my previous response, I requested you desist from character attacks if you wish any future replies. As evident from your most recent email, you do not wish to comply with this request. This, therefore, is my final response to you, and I will add your email address to my spam filter.

And he then replied this afternoon:

Fine, you can’t take criticism though you can dish it out aplenty. Your reading is as careless as your writing. I NEVER said I ever shared a single world of yours with any JW, ever. I don’t even know any JWs. 

All I know of them is what I read in their literature which is all over place, and on the web. They seem to me to be no worse, or better, than any of the other hundreds of religious denominations of all faiths. 

You are just self-puffed-up, and on a bigoted hate trip due to your break-up with your first love, The Jehovah’s Witnesses. She did you wrong, now you hate her. You look ridiculous. 

All religious bodies of every sort have censorship and rules and persecutions laid out for those who disagree with them both inside and outside their organizations. What is new in that? So-called secular organizations have the same set of punitive punishments for their “heretics,” Secular organizations are all quasi religious churches who just construct, and conduct themselves differently, so as to hide that fact for their own benefit. 

 

Secularism is a religious movement with all the characteristics and attributes that openly religious organizations have. Wake up and smell the coffee before you think you are standing for anything new. And stop hating. It make you look shrill, ignorant and bigoted. 

So, I guess I misunderstood him because I thought he’d shown my site to some Witnesses. I guess I was wrong, but his writing doesn’t exactly merit an A for style. Regardless, I’m done with him. He had three chances to point out a specific issue with the site and, instead, just wants to attack my personality (and youth! …how flattering). When I tried to steer him away from that, he accused me of being thin-skinned. It’s kind of sad, really, but it makes me glad that I’ve distanced myself from the need to apologize for a fragile faith. It makes a person write weird emails, like Minstry’s.

Sunday, 17 June 2012

And while we’re on the topic of the Witnesses, I want to point out this article:

 California Jury Awards $28M in Jehovah’s Sex Abuse Case

The first thing I want to point out is that this is a hilarious title for an article; notice: it’s Jehovah’s Sex Abuse Scandal. I love it!

The second thing I want to point out is, this is an enormous sum! Of course, Conti’s not getting most of this, because the perpetrator has no cash to cough up, but this must scare the Watchtower Society. I see that they plan to appeal it. Here’s another idea for their legal team: Change the name of your religion! First, it’s a cumbersome, clumsy name – what with that apostropher an all. Second – and more importantly – I was always taught that we don’t want to do anything that brings reproach on Jehovah’s name. The article title, above, seems plenty reproachful to me.

I bet Sparlock is behind this.

Tuesday, 12 June 2012
So, I have kind of this Janus-faced approach to tasks at my job. A few weeks ago, in a moment of forward-looking caffeine-enhanced vigor, I volunteered to give a speech at an upcoming forum.

It’s a week away now, and I’ve spent a good chunk of today preparing for it. A couple co-workers have epxressed that I’m a good fit for giving this presentation, since, you know I am in Toastmasters. “Well, yes,” I respond, “but see, in Toastmasters, I get to speak on topics that I’m an authority on, and the audience is made up of people who know I am there to craft my speaking skills. At the upcoming forum, by contrast, I will be speaking in front of people with greater education, experience, and positions than me – so I’m clearly not the authority. Also – in contrast to Toastmasters – they’re rightly expecting a good presentation.”

I’m actually co-presenting, which offers its own benefits and challenges. On the one hand, it means I only need prepare about 8 minutes of material (instead of 15, which most other speakers will have). It also means that, during the Q and A session, I can just gesture toward my co-worker as if to say, “Ask him. He knows.” But the downside is, it’s tough to finalize what I’m gonna say without my co-worker there with me, so we keep having to get together.

Anyway, my supervisor thinks it’s great that I offered to speak. So, I guess that’s good. I’ll see if he feels the same way next Tuesday. Thankfully, I’m splitting for a class in Chicago right after the forum, so hopefully by the time I see my co-workers again, they’ll have forgotten about whatever may or may not happen.

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

Did you know that right now our Congress is so unpopular, they have an approval rating of only 17%. Part of me wonders: who are these 17 people out of every 100? But the other part of me thinks this is what they should expect.

I don’t feel like getting into a political discussion right now, but some sites I visit feel this bodes poorly both for freshmen (who were supposed to get in there and fix things) and for the more senior members (who, come on, still don’t have their crap together).

But instead of talking about all that, just visit the Washington Post. They put together a hilarious slide show presentation of other things in recent history that have been more or less popular than our current congress. Included among this presentation is a comparison between the current congress and Nixon during his final week in office. Which one do you think was more popular? Go here and find out: Washington post article.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

I keep forgetting to talk about this here, but I signed up for a workout class at my job. It’s every Wednesday at 4:00 for eight weeks. It started in early May – actually, the day before my final exam in my last class – and it goes through the month of June.

It’s a great way to end the day! The exercises cover the whole body (or, at least, it feels that way) and almost everything the instructor shows us can be modified. For example, let’s say she’s having us hold our arms out and raise them up and down. Well, she suggests holding weights in our hands, and I usually hold the ten-pounders. But there are weights of varying amounts and, as she points out, you can opt to not use any weights at all or, if you need to, just alternate arms during each rep.

I also like that the class is such a mixed group. There are some co-workers there who are younger, fitter, and trimmer than me. There are also many who are older – including some who I would estimate are in their 60s – and several who need to lose quite a bit of weight. To them, I say: good for you for for joining the class!

Anyway, yesterday, the instrucor focused (moreso than usual) on the muscles around the shoulders. So, today I’m sore there. It’s like I’m even weaker than I was the day before. Even holding Isla makes my upper arms shake. And if anyone asks me lift something heavy, forget it! I won’t be able to assist.