Thursday, 03 May 2012

I delivered a short speech for the Day of Reason today. In between the Minnesota director of the ACLU and Representative Phyllis Khan, I spent six minutes speaking. I didn’t really like the venue; I was competing with horrible acoustics and a loud protest just upstairs from the rotunda. This forced me speak ridiculously loud and I spoke fast (just to get it over with). Also, for some odd reason, the microphone was off to the side of the lectern, so I was standing in an odd spot and had to keep turning my head way to the right to see my notes.

People laughed (at the right time), even though humor is very difficult when the sound is bad. It’s all about timing, you know? People applauded after I sat down, and a man even came over to me and informed me he had recorded my speech and would be making it available to the Senate. I guess he’s their media guy , or something, and he wanted to make sure he had my name spelled correctly (since it’s such a weird name).

Anyway, I think it went as well as expected under the circumstance.

A few people asked for a copy of the speech. I’m still working to see if I can get the audio quality good enough on the video to make it worthwhile to post, but in the meantime, here’s a transcript of my speech:

I’d like to take this opportunity to declare my support for the proposed “Religion Amendment” to the state constitution.

You’ve heard about it, right? The amendment is proposed to read: “Religion shall be defined as a union between one deity and one non-Christian theist.”

True, there are many Christians in Minnesota, but this ballot measure is not discriminatory! In fact, I don’t hate Christians at all; I just disapprove of their lifestyle choice. After all, they weren’t born Christian – they chose that lifestyle, and now they’re trying to redefine “religion” to fit their so-called “new testament.”

When religion was founded, by our founding fathers 4 score and 7,000 years ago, it was intended to provide answers to a complex world, comfort people who lost family members in death, and explain suffering.

But Christians have redefined it to mean something else. They want it to mean things like:

-Bowing your head and talking to yourself gains you access to extraterrestrials

-Speaking obnoxiously in a dead language can turn wine into blood

-And members of the LGBT community should not be permitted to marry

How twisted!

But in fact, what’s more deplorable about religion’s intrusion into government and our constitution isn’t their bizarre beliefs, troubling as that it. No, what’s worse – and worrisome –is their hypocrisy.

Consider: The anti-gay marriage ballot measure was approved by 68 Republican Representatives who, ostensibly, ran on a platform of government non-interference, and 2 Democratic Representatives who hypocritically voted against the very platform they were elected on – since the Minnesota DFL platform states:

“We oppose discrimination against any person on the basis of race, creed, sex, sexual or affectional orientation.”

 

Though the hypocrisy of politicians is as old as the Christian belief that Jesus will return tomorrow, consider the hypocrisy of Christians who champion anti-marriage laws:

-Do they support laws against premarital and extramarital sex?

-Do they believe we should amend the constitution to outlaw divorce – after all, god hates a divorcing?

-Do they wish to outlaw eating shellfish, worshipping idols, lending money, and children who talk back to their parents?

If they don’t support all these measures, then they’re hypocrites.

And I would know. After all, I used to be a Christian. Or, at least, I was a Jehovah’s Witness. And, as an obedient sheep, I subscribed whole-heartily to the Watchtower’s stance that homosexuality is – to use their words – detestable, dangerous, wrong, repulsive, vile, and unnatural. I thought it was so unnatural that, when a classmate confronted me on my belief, I replied that it’s obvious that being gay is not natural, as no animals engage in homosexual behavior. She had a fascinating rebuttal that I chose to ignore.

Later, my friend Jeremy came out of the closet. He left the religion. He had to – there was no other option. Like the good Christian sheep that I was, I shunned him – a difficult task as he was not only my friend, but also my co-worker. His presence made me nervous, and I eventually transferred my employment to another location in an effort to more completely avoid him.

For my wife and me, this was a great test of our cognitive dissonance. There didn’t seem any valid reason to shun Jeremy. He was not evil; he was neither picking our pocket nor breaking our leg. He didn’t seem to be redefining marriage.

Ignoring a friend, simply because of his sexual preference, was a wasted opportunity…and, deep down, we knew it. While performing volunteer work for the church, one woman shook her head in dismay at the mention of Jeremy, saying she couldn’t understand why someone would give up God’s love for the love of men. Her comment was the embodiment of Pascal’s observation that “men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” I was so troubled by this woman’s comment; I feigned illness and left early.

Obviously, my wife and I finally saw the light. All of our loving Witness friends and family summarily shunned us like dutiful sheep – and, incidentally, I find it funny that Christians equate themselves with sheep, since the Sept 2003 issue of Endocrinology noted findings that 8% of rams exhibit homosexual behavior.

I was nervous to reconnect with Jeremy – afraid that he would be angry with me for turning my back on him just when he needed my friendship most. Alas, Jeremy and his partner were not as closed-minded as the Christians who were shunning us. They welcomed us into their life with open arms.

I cite my story, because, like me, there are many out there on the capitol steps, with their eyes closed, and their faces buried in the ground. They’re missing out on countless friendships and superb opportunities. In the name of love, many of them are currently shunning loved ones and they are supporting a discriminatory ballot that will only further disenfranchise their life from reality.

Thankfully, though, here in America we can do more than just talk about religious and political hypocrisy. We can give our blood, sweat, and santorum in defense of equality and reason. And while Jehovah’s Witnesses, mercifully, do not go to the polls, members of other heterosexist cults do vote. So those of you who champion reason better vote, too. Otherwise, the sheep win.

Monday, 30 April 2012

Today, I wrapped up the busy month of April by venturing to my University this evening, where the editorial staff of the student literary and arts journal, The Fulcrum, held a release event.

The event, held at the university’s classy Kay Fredericks Ballroom, had food, beverages, and  desserts. There were copies of past editions of The Fulcrum free for the taking. The paintings and photographs in the book were on display in original format on easels and some of the authors read their poems and short stories. I was one of those authors, and so I got to read my short story “The Third.”

Here’s a fun fact: Did you know I wrote three pieces of creative non-fiction last fall, and their titles were “The Third,” “Three,” and “Park Three?” Yeah, of course you didn’t know that. Oh – I also wrote a piece called “Andy,” too. “Andy,” along with “The Third” was accepted for publication in The Fulcrum. When one of the ladies heading up the event came over to me this evening and asked which of my works I would be willing to read, I selected “The Third,” because it’s only about one-third the length of “Andy,” and I didn’t want to stand up there and read a four page story when everyone else (I suspected) would be reading a half-page poem.

My wife couldn’t join me tonight, which was too bad, but we didn’t have a baby-sitter. See, we really only have two baby-sitters, and we used both of them in the past week, so we didn’t want to bug either of them again. I put out a call on Facebook a few days ago seeing if anyone wanted to come and have some free food and support me in my big-shot short-story public reading. Alas, no one seemed to give a rat’s ass (this is consistenly surprising to me since I have often ventured far – and at odd times – in support of friends’ endeavors), except for a former co-worker. In a way, it was odd…I wouldn’t have expected a woman I used to work with to care enough to come to this event…but on the other hand, it was fun to catch up with someone I hadn’t seen in two years. Thanks, Tina!

Oh – and if you’d like a copy of the 2012 edition of The Fulcrum, let me know. I took some extra copies. “Andy” details my friendship with a guy named Andy (yes, I know, my title is very clever) and “The Third” has a sexual subtext.

Monday, 01 May 2012

Today in class, we talked about Gulf War, Part One. Do you remember that? I do. It was back in 1991. I was a teenager living with my parents and sister at the time. Here’s a Wikipedia article about it.

One interesting thing we discussed was President Bush’s (also Part One) strong deisre to ensure this “would not be another Vietnam.” He worked to make sure there were clear objectives, that the fighting would be brief, that other nations would back us, that the UN would be the main flag under which the US fought, and that the US exited once the primary objectives were attained. All in all, I think he met those goals – especially considering that he could have ordered the troops to continue on to Baghdad and get rid of Sadam Hussein, but he didn’t.

Anyway, I stayed up late on January 15, 1991 – that was the date the UN set for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. I laid awake in bed with my headphones on waiting to see what would happen once midnight passed in New York (home of the UN) and Washington (home of Bush). I was nervously excited since, for one thing, if the war dragged on for three or four years, there seemed a very real possibility the government would try to draft me and, second as a Witness, I thought any big development like this portended Armageddon.

Thankfully, neither expectation came to fruition. Two days later, the US began bombing the crap out of Iraqi forces.

Wednesday, 02 May 2012

I had a routine physical today. I showed up over an hour early, because I mixed up the appointment time, and I’m just that stupid sometimes. The lady at the front desk said I was welcome to wait and “there’s a chance you’ll be able to get in early.” Hm…I wanted to ask what that chance was. Was it 0.001%? Because I don’t ever recall anyone, ever, getting in to see a doctor early. Instead, I went home for 45 minutes, then went back.

Turns out, I waited for 20 minutes in the waiting room. This wasn’t really a problem, as I had a book with me. I’ve learned to bring books with me to things like this because the absolutely garrish magazine selection in most waiting rooms just makes me more impatient.

The idea of today’s physical was to make sure I was still healthy enough to live, especially after being so sick about a month ago. Turns out, I’m gonna make it!

Sunday, 29 April 2012

While cleaning out Isla’s room-to-be yesterday, we came upon this:

It’s a green pig. Made out of papier-mâché. It’s a little crooked these days. His nose, which served as the stopper for this piggy bank, is long gone, as is his pipe-cleaner tail. I made him in first grade (and Wikipedia shows a picture HERE regarding the construction of such a pig), and when I flipped the pig over to see the date my father had smartly written on the pig’s belly, I saw this:

It says “4-29-82.” So, there you go. The pig is 30 years old today. Happy birthday, old guy.

I also bottled some beer this evening. Owen helped while Jennifer and Isla did whatever they were doing in the living room. At one point, Owen ran downstairs to use the bathroom, and Jennifer went upstairs to put away some laundry. This left me without a helper and Isla without any supervision. So she toddled into the kitchen and, when I turned my back to use the sink, she muscled her way right in to the project:

As you can see, there isn’t musch left for me to do. I think it’s great I’ve reached that point in fatherhood where my kids make my beer for me. It’s all smooth sailing from here.

Friday, 27 April 2012
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and, since I’ve been writing about stuff I (and Owen) have made lately, I think now is a good time.

What follows are photos of things that I’ve made, or helped make. I am only including things that are made out of wood and that are still in existence. The reason for that second caveat is that if it doesn’t exist anymore, then I didn’t have a way to take a picture of it.

In collecting these photos, I noticed something: the items I’ve made out of wood were made at only two points in my life: While in compulsory school and while a father. Basically, it seems, I only make stuff out of wood if a teacher or a small child compels me to do so.

Anyway, here are the things I made while in school, in chronological order…

 Here’s my oldest wood-working (that I know of). I made this in third grade at Savage Elementary School (yes, that really was the school’s name). There really wasn’t too much “crafting” here – the teacher had a large bin of wooden blocks, we selected the one we liked, sanded it, wrote a message, glued photographs (or magazine pictures) and shellacked the hell out of it. You might look at this creation and think, “Hey, it looks like this was a gift to your parents. Why do you still have it?” The answer is: Because my mom gave it back to me a few years ago. Guess she didn’t like it anymore.

Here’s the backside (brace yourself):

Oh my god (pun intended)! What a dork I was am. And check out that superfont “S.D.” What’s with that? Guess I couldn’t be bothered to sand that off, so I just made a half-assed attempt at crossing it out.

Fast-forward to Junior High School. I took shop classes in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade, but this sanding block -both the first and simplest thing I made in Jr. High – is the only one still in existance. I made a cool wood robot that dispensed gumballs, a big clock that looked like a wrist-watch, and a tool box, but they’re all gone now. But here’s the trusty ol’ sanding block I made at age 12. I still use it, too.

 
To me, this clock represents a big jump forward in craftsmanship. Perhaps that’s because it had been three years since I made that sanding block. Or maybe it was because I actually cared. In fact, besides my film classes, wood shop was the only class where I really cared about what I was doing. I really wanted to do a good job on the assignments. According to a small tag on the inside of this clock, I completed it on April 12, 1991. As of today, 21 years later, it is sitting on a mantle as intended.

Here’s a kid-sized chair I made in the same class. This project was assigned concurrently with the clock (above), but I didn’t complete it until later in the year. According to the tag underneath the seat, I completed this chair on June 4, 1991.
Look closely and you can see, in between the right side of the blue seat and the wood frame, a small strip of tan paint. “What’s that doing there?” you ask. Well, for many years after I moved out of my parents’ house, my mom kept this chair. One day, she decided to paint the seat with tan wall paint. It was rough and scratchy and, coming from a woman who absolutely adores the color blue, was completely unexpected. Anyway, a few years ago my mom gave the chair to me (since I lived with someone who’s butt fit on the seat), and Jennifer succeeded in removed 99% of the paint.

Moving on to 11th grade, here was a quick “find you bearings” project that the teacher assigned to the class right away. I believe I finished it that first month (September 1991). This is one of the few items on the list that I do not own: my mom owns this basket and she took this picture for me.

Wall clock! I’m not sure why the teacher assigned another clock…but that’s high school for ya’. In front of the pendulum you may see an odd looking decal. That was an optional decoration that I purchased from the school. My dad applied it upside-down, and it’s flaking off, so I’ve been lobbying to have the decal removed for, oh, about 20 years now. No luck. Like the basket, this clock was made in the early months of 11th grade and currently resides at my mom’s house. She was kind enough to take this picture, though it does make me wonder: Why isn’t it hanging on one of her walls? My guess is that the man she lives with (a guy she calls “husband”) doesn’t want it hung up because it reminds him of me. This is the same reason why I don’t have an 8×10 portrait of him hanging in my house.

This wood chest took the bulk of my time in 11th grade wood class. According to the tag inside (which smells deliciously of cedar), I completed this project on May 20th, 1992. It currently resides in our living room. We use it to store blankets for those cold winter evenings. We also keep some spare coasters in it. So if you’re ever at our house and you say, “Hey, don’t you Neanderthals have any coasters?” The answer is, yes, smart-aleck, we do.

Finally, here’s a knife rack I made in my final few weeks of high school woods class (I didn’t take a wood shop class in 12th grade). I believe this fell under the heading of “Extra Credit.” At some point in the spring of ’92, when it became apparent that some students would complete their cedar chest several weeks before the semester’s end, the teacher offered this project as an optional assignment (he also began playing episodes of Home Improvement). I was not, by any means, the first student done with his or her cedar chest (and there was one “her” in our class), but in the few weeks of school between that May/June, I made this knife rack. According to the tag on the bottom, I completed it on June 10th, 1992.

Saturday, 28 April 2012
And here’s the stuff I made since emerging from the intellectual wasteland known as Rosemount High School:

Okay, so here’s the one anamoly in this list: I didn’t make this in school, and it has nothing to do with my kids. I just wanted a nice place to display my Star Trek action figures and ships, and my Dad offered to help me build something (he had the tools). So, in the summer of 1997, we built this. As shown in the picture, it sits on my desk at work where it offers itself as a conversation piece to the otherwise painful interactions between me and my co-workers.

Okay, now on to stuff for my kids…

With oodles of assistance from my brother-in-law and his brother, I made this cradle for baby-to-be in January of 2005. Jennifer supplied the instructions, which she found in a book she bought about making things for kids. Here it is from another angle:
Jennifer and her mother made the mattress and sheets to go inside. Underneath the mattress, Jennifer has used an engraver to write our kids’ names and birthdates. Both of our kids used this cradle as a naptime bed when they were infants.
Read more about the cradle, which I finished in January 2005, AT THIS LINK.

At some point in Owen’s very early life, my mother-in-law purchased a set of finger puppets for him. For whatever reason, I decided they would last longer and look better if I designed a holder for them. So I made this. The base, incidentally, is a leftover piece of 2×4 from the basement we were remodeling at the time.

Here’s the holder with some of the puppets removed, so you can better see the design:

I left two of the puppets on there because, well, elephants are heavy. And moving the other one would’ve been a bear.

Here’s the bottom of the puppet holder:

I engraved this little tag with Owen’s name and the date of completion (August 2006) and nailed it to the bottom. I also applied thick felt pads to the corners, mostly to prevent the tag from scratching the shelf it sits on.

In our first house, Owen had a great wood floor in his bedroom for zooming his toy cars around, but he didn’t have any ramps. So, one day, on my way home from work, I came up with the idea of building this ramp out of wood. I knew Jennifer and Owen wouldn’t be home, so I had the place to myself. Using scrap wood and spare paint, I made this in a single evening. It’s pretty ugly, really. And the tunnel was a last minute idea, which I had to add. Why? Because, after gluing and nailing the guard rails, I came up with the idea of included a barricade to hold the car at the top of the ramp until Owen pulls it. Problem was, I couldn’t fit the barricade in, so I had to torque on the guard rails to wedge it in there, and then I couldn’t true them up again. So then I put the tunnel on to keep the rails straight. Yeah, it’s a boring story.

I made this in December 2007 for Owen’s first full-fledged Xmas. The little wooden pieces glued all over were purchased at a store, but otherwise this was custom designed. Jennifer made the three bean bags, too, which are visible sitting on the holes. Oh – and I also helped to make the kid sitting in the foreground. Jennifer did most of the work, though. Anyway, the kid isn’t made out of wood, so she doesn’t belong on this list, anyway.

Card holder! I made this in the summer of 2008 (in our apartment’s dining room, to Jennifer’s chagrin) because Owen – who was old enough to understand and play card games with us – lacked the motor skills to not knock over the stack of cards every goddam time he drew or played a card. We first tried to remedy the problem by spending $20 on a piece of crap plastic card holder from Games by James. I used it once, pronounced it shitty, and declared: “I can make a card holder way better than this!” And so I did. We still pull this thing out every time we play a card game that doesn’t have a card holder (I’m looking at you, Sorry!).

I worked on this car on and off for about two years, constantly setting it aside until I had the right pieces. I even gave it to my brother-in-law and asked him to craft the wheels. He gave it back about 4 months later having purchased cabinet knobs to serve as tires. I finally finished painting this thing in time for Owen’s 4th birthday, in May 2009.

While going out on walks, and participating in nature hikes with Happy Trails, Owen liked to find big sticks and walk with them. “Hey,” I thought, “I could make him a really nice walking stick.” And so I did. This was really created from the ground up: I found a fallen branch at a State Park, stripped away the bark, and sanded it like mad. After applying copious coats of polyurethane, I bought a rubber stopper (intended for a chair) for the bottom of the stick and purchased a length of leather rope from a vendor at the state fair. I completed this project in the fall of 2009. One odd thing about the walking stick, though, is that being forced to hold it for more than thirty seconds instantly brings on severe depression…

Yeah, I’m not sure what made him so miserable, but man, this photo makes me laugh everytime.

Oh – there’s also this picture…

…from early 2010, which I’m including here for no other reason than because it shows how much Owen’s grown (compare his height to the stick), and it’s so stinkin’ cute.

And here is, once again, something I no longer own. I came up with the idea of making Isla a teether for Xmas (back when she was an infant), and my wife said I should make one for our nephew, too (he’s just a wee bit younger than Isla). So, I made this A, since his name starts with A (“Damn,” you say, “Your family must really like names that start with vowels.” “Yes,” I reply, “And the letter L, too”).
I finished my nephew’s teether first, as kind of a practice. Not sure if he still has it, but I’m glad I took a picture of it before giving it away (taking a picture of this, incidentally, is what first gave me the idea of photographing all of these projects).

Finally…

…here’s Isla’s I, shown in it’s current location atop the kids’ chalkboard in the playroom. I should mention that these two teethers were stained using tea, so no harsh chemicals were used on stuff intended for infants’ mouths. So get off my case.

More recently, I helped Owen make this: CLICK HERE.

I also had a small hand in helping my wife make this: CLICK HERE.

Tuesday, 24 April 2011

Today, in class, we watched a documentary on the hostage crisis of 1979-81. I didn’t catch the name of the documentary, and we only watched the first 45 minutes of it (the professor said it was an hour long). Before this documentary, about the only thing I knew about the hostages were from the American Embassy, they were in Iran, most were held captive for 444 days, and they were released just minutes after Ronald Reagan became President.

The professor told us to watch the rest of the documentary on our time but, as you can probably surmise from the first paragraph, I couldn’t locate it. So I read about it on Wikipedia. I think that’s exactly what Universities encourage their students to do.

Here’s the page I read.

Anyway, I think I’ve gotten to that point in the semester where I am no longer interested in the class. I thought things would get more interesting after Vietnam…but no. Now I just sort of internally wrestle with everything I read. Maybe because know we’re covering history that I lived through, and I sort of feel like Pee-Wee Herman in that scene at the end where Dottie asks him if he wants to stay and see the rest of the movie.

Wednesday, 25 April 2011

Today, in Toastmasters, I was the Table Topics Master. This is a great job for me, really, because I hate giving Table Topics speeches and, when I’m in charge, then I don’t have to call on myself.

I wanted to start out by saying that I dislike difficult Table Topics, um, topics, and that I would therefore be keeping it simple for everyone. The word of the day was “Esoteric,” so that fit in perfectly, and I got to begin by saying: “Know what I hate? Esoteric Table Topics.” I then taped a sheet of paper up to the wall that said:

“Tell us about your _______________”

And I explained that the last half of the sentence was in the jar in my hand. I even made the topic easier by telling the group that the next word(s) in the sentence were either “first” or “most recent.”

Since we were actually under time today, I got to call on eight people, then I asked for volunteers (I got one). The seconds halves of the sentence included:

“first day here at work”

“last day of high school”

“first car”

“first date”

“most recent trip to the theater”

and “first time in an airplane.”

Thursday, 26 April 2011

This evening, Jennifer and I joined about 15 of my co-workers (and their significant others) at Toast Wine Bar and Cafe in Minneapolis. We went to support Dining Out for Life, which is a yearly event in which restaurants donate a portion of their night’s proceeds to AIDS research. I volunteered to locate a restaurant and make the reservations, and I selected Toast for its high percentage of donations (they said 50%) and for being centrally located between my company’s three metro-area locations.

And I gotta say, the food was awesome. As was the wine. If you ever have a chance to eat there, do it. Of course, since it’s in Minneapolis, parking is a nightmare. Oh – and the other weird thing is that the restaurant shares a building with an apartment complex, so (not knowing there was a separate entrance around the corner), my wife and I went into the lobby of the apartment building, and asked someone where the restaurant was. They directed us down a hallway, past several residences, and then into what’s pretty much the back door of the restaurant. Oh well. Once we sat down, we had an awesome time.

So, write this down for yourselves:

*Eat at Toast at some point in the near-future.

*Support Dining Out for Life in 2013.