Making Snowflakes

It has certainly be awhile since we've met. Nearly a month. So you might be thinking that I have many marvelous stories to share with you. No. I had hoped to have all sorts of good things to share, but now I think I'm going to call this year the year of stand ups. There are two ways I define being stood up. The first is when someone extends an invitation to another and that other person acknowledges the invitation and does not say no but then offers no further response. So if the invited person says yes and both neither shows up nor calls to cancel that is being stood up. If that person says I'd like to but I'll have to see, and does not call with a final confirmation one way or the other, that in my book is being stood up. If the person just gives a non-commital response then I don't consider it being stood up if that person doesn't call with a final confirmation, but I do think it's rude.

The second way to stand up someone is by offering an invitation and not following through. So if someone invites another to partake in an activity, but then does not show up to that activity and also do not call to say it is canceled, that is standing up the invited person.

So going by those two definitions, in just the past four days I was stood up 6 times. Twice Sunday, once Saturday, once Friday, and twice Thursday. 6 times I had plans with people who agreed to partake in an activity with me, either by my invitation or their own, and then both did not show up at the planned time and did not call saying not to expect them. In fact not only did they not call, but in all cases I never even got a call after the fact. I know these things shouldn't be taken personally, because far more important things do come up that can distract our attention. Still this was all in just the past four days, and it's no fun being completely forgetable. But yesterday, Sunday, while I was trying to come up with new plans when it became apparanet that my two activities were canceled I had a laugh. Here I was upset about being bailed by a couple people when probably earlier that day Jesus had millions of people not say "Hi". So I guess I have nothing to complain about.

Nevertheless I do have one story to share. After watching a little bit of "Elf" and seeing that scene where he decorates the store overnight, I wanted to revisit the craft of making paper snowflakes. It had been years since I had made a paper snowflake, particularly because I was never any good at it, and I wanted to add some Christmas-time decorations to my apartment. So about two Saturdays ago, I spent a few hours figuring out how to properly fold the paper and create a snowflake. I'm still not any good at creating something geometrically pleasing but I can create scenes, like of snowmen. Eventually I came up with a design that I snapped a photo of on my phone and sent home. Dad said it was the most impressive thing I've done all year and Mom said it was so beautiful I should sign it and frame it. Well I don't know about all of that, but I was impressed about how nice it came out. It's one of those things, where minimal effort can create something that looks amazing. I would attach a picture but I don't have a camera at the moment. But yes, paper snowflakes do look impressive and they aren't too hard to make.

Now that Saturday evening I had a date. Yes, I had a date. I had been talking with a girl on one of these dating websites. She is Catholic, in medical school, lives in town, and, as I soon discovered on the date, is quite attractive. But the date itself wasn't too great. It just never felt at any point in time that we clicked. Things felt almost a little tense. So after the date, I told her that I would like to hear from her again, but she never got back in touch. I thought about calling her again but decided against it. It turns out that she is only in town until June, then she is going to Ohio for the last two years of medical school and she wants to permanently live there. Also she works until 9 PM Monday through Friday. So I didn't see a relationship coming out of this and decided not to pursue the matter any more. But it's not like she called me back either. For my part, I tried to be charming and pleasant on the date. But maybe she didn't like my responses to some of the questions she asked me. For example, this is how one of the questions went. Her: "So what did you do today?" Me: "This afternoon I spent a few hours making paper snowflakes."

Another Outing Amongst Friends

Last weekend I got to visit WAM. Like last time the ride was amazing. It just goes by so fast once you get into the hills. And once I got there it was nice to find that WAM is still very good at making people feel welcome.

I think we may have done even more during this trip than the last time I was there. We hiked up a mountain, went to an apple orchard, shopped the campus town, went book hunting at the library, saw an OWS encampment, had a taco and sausage breakfast from the local farmers, and saw a Basset Hound calendar.

Being a very giving person, WAM offered a generous portion of advice on everything I need to do to acquire a girlfriend. Unfortunately I forgot to bring a notebook.

As before the food was amazing. This time I had probably the best meatloaf I've ever had. This trip WAM was eager to have me try several of her favorite foods. She even made me breakfast, which further confirmed to me how lucky her future husband and children will be.

But despite having written several Tasteful Thursday articles since the last trip, her taste in movies is still quite horrible. Just awful. She should feel shame. Unfortunately I could really do no better since everything I wanted to watch was unavailable. Apparently WAM's poor taste in movies extends to the entire citizenry of Charlottesville.

Nevertheless, an awful cinematic experience couldn't stop the smiles, and we tried our best to capture these happy moments on film.

Celebrating All Those Who Have Their Halos

Proper children do not have to be told to go outside. No matter what the season or weather, children love to play outside. Or they should. Sometimes they do not want to go outside no matter how beautiful the day. During the most exceptionally nice days, if the child does not want to go outside, sometimes the parents get involved and say something like, "get outside and go have fun". They understand that on days that marvelous it is not time to be inside watching tv or doing whatever. On those days it's time to be outside and enjoying it.

Today is All Saint's Day and it is a Holy Day of Obligation. Today is when we celebrate all those who have gone on to Heaven before us, and also ask them for their prayers of support. Now some people may not like being obliged to go to Church. However, in reality these are like the improperly ordered children who would rather be inside on a beautiful day. This day is so wonderful that we are obliged to celebrate. The Church has said you need to go have a good time.

I like that. Again, the Church tends to get serious about having a good time, and today is one of those days. So have an extra scoop of ice-cream tonight, and be sure to send up some prayers to your favorite saints. And with today being All Saints Day and tomorrow being All Souls Day, here is a song that I think helps us remind us that today and tomorrow are supposed to be celebrations rather than sorrowful memorials.

Up For Sale

Yesterday I decided to put up my Jaguar for sale. After having it for about two and a half years I couldn't keep up with the repairs. They were just too expensive and there were far too many of them that were needed. Which is unfortunate because fundamentally the car is still tip top, it just has a bunch of aesthetic problems.

The poor thing has so many problems I don't want to list them all, but I'm going to try anyway. The cup holder is broken, apparently that's a problem on all jaguars of my era. The apolstry up top is coming down. The radio antenna no longer goes up and down, it is stuck in up but at least the radio still works. The chrome finish on the hub caps is peeling due to corrosion from driving it in the winter on salty streets. The back bumper is all scratched up and was likely in an accident before I got it. The left back brake light has a crack in the glass. The trunk has a most unfortunate dent in it. By the gas tank there is an odd coloration on the paint as though a chemical was spilled there, possibly gas I suppose. In the tank itself there is a good deal of rust, although the rust itself is not on the structure of the car. The front grill is a little loose. The inside dash is a little loose. The front right leather seat is cracking. The front right leather seat has a hole. The electrical wiring has gone bad and now the car always thinks the coolant is low and that ABS and traction control are off. The sun roof is broken because you are not supposed to try using the sun roof when it is covered in ice. There is a large stain on the back left carpet. The brake light in the back window has come off the back window and is now sitting on the dash. There are two small scratches to the back left window's tint. There is a small dent in the back right door. After driving for about 15 minutes, the oil pressure starts to sink and you will be warned about low pressure while sitting in idle.

But other than that, the car is tip top.

Homemade Masquerade

The annual costume and chili contest was held today where I work. Last year I went as the Joker and won the costume contest. But by not voting for myself in the chili competition I placed second. Well this year I won the chili competition but I lost the costume competition.

Winning the chili competition was a given because my Mom makes the best everything, and since I used her recipe, and this year executed it correctly, no one had a chance.

Losing the costume contest was a surprise. But that was because I constantly forget just how little taste and appreciation others have for fine arts and anything that requires even a modicum of skill and time. But I'm trying to be a good sport about it all and not have a fit. While I would have upended my chili in a fit of rage over losing the competition, it was completely depleted by my co-workers. I think next year I will make it exceptionally spicy. At any rate, even though I lost, I was very pleased with how my costume turned out and knew I couldn't really have done much better.

Having always like Venetian masks, this year I decided to try and make one. I'm actually not sure why I like them, because that scene in Labyrinth where I first saw them always seemed a little creepy to me as a little kid. But I got some paper mache and paint and went at it. Below are some photos of me in the final product.

Birthday Response

Having recieved her evening presents, Sarah called me up around 9:30. She wanted to say that she loved them and was really happy to get them. Then we talked for a short while to play a bit of catch up. She said that during the past week or so her life had gotten even busier. She had been thinking things would wind down some, but instead they picked up. And as a result she had little time for anything, and her parents were coming in that weekend too.

I mentioned that I wasn't even in town because I was home celebrating my 10 year high school reunion. That surprised her, because she hadn't realized yet that I hadn't delivered the presents.

Despite being told she was busier than ever, I was still elated. Sarah had both called me up and was really happy about the gifts. We didn't have any official dates planned, but at least I knew I was on solid ground. I would have asked if we could have tried to do another lunch on Tuesday, but I knew that week and this coming week I would be teaching so I wasn't going to bring it up. I had hoped she might, but that didn't happen. Still I have found her to be much more talkative, by text that is, since following her birthday. The only problem is that we have discovered that not only does she not receive all my texts, but I haven't received at least one of hers. I suppose that just means I will be calling her more often. She is busier than ever, but the texts she sends are nice enough to indicate that we do have some chance.

Double Surprise

What a busy month it has been. Let's just get right to it. A couple weeks ago Sarah had her birthday, which I was unable to be in town for. Nevertheless I was still able to get her some presents.

Prior to her birthday I hadn't heard much from her. Gurney had been right texting her an invitation to something and that would give me an idea on where we stood. But other than that one text message she responded to me with, that had really been it. So her birthday was my chance to shine a bit. And I treated it as a "if this doesn't work nothing will" sort of event. The whole time I was up in the air as to how she'd react. My plan was to leave her a gift bright and early in the morning before she headed out, and another later that night that she'd receive after coming home from her evening class. That night gift I wouldn't be able to deliver. And I wanted to leave them at her door as a surprise rather than give them to her personally. The reason being that it would take away any potential awkwardness.

As the morning wore on and I still hadn't heard from her I was on pins and needles. I was so consumed with wondering how she was going to react, I tried to do things to take my mind off it. Ha ha, I actually did some work for once. Around 10:30 I finally heard from her. She said she loved the gift and even commented on some of the particulars, which to me was great to hear because doing that made her sound genuine. It was a text message but it was still nice to get.

So that night I had my other friend who lives where I do deliver the other gifts, while I headed out of town. Again I was getting worked up on how she'd respond because this time the gifts were a little more involved. They were inexpensive but clearly required a bit of effort to get together. And later that evening she called.

Lunch Thursday Not Tuesday

Yesterday was particularly tasteful, because I was treated to an afternoon of lunch and relaxation with Gurney. Now while I'd be happy to talk about her and what she's been up to, she has informed me that all she does is skip to whatever I have to say about Sarah. So since her birthday was on Wednesday, I will humor her and give an update.

The past week has had me on pins and needles. If you haven't noticed I've been due for a fiasco for a little while now. After all I believe it had been fully over a week since my last one and that is just much too long, so I knew a good whopper of a horrible situation was just itching to come.

As I mentioned, last week had no major issues. In fact it was quite fantastic because towards the end of it Sarah made plans to join me for lunch this Tuesday past. I got put in her calander and even though she had a meeting at noon, she said she would leave early if she had to. On Sunday, while working out with her, I told her my plans on where we were going to go. And on Monday I found out that she would be unable to go.

Now she is a very busy student, so I wasn't surprised but I was a little bummed out by this. Later that Monday evening I decided that if she couldn't go with me to lunch then I wanted a hug in payment. So I walked over there and knocked on her door. She answered it, but to my surprise her Dad was there. She invited me in to meet him, and I said "hello", and excused myself saying I didn't want to interupt them, but that I did want to speak quickly with Sarah. She came out with me and when I told her I wanted a hug she said no and went back in looking none too happy.

Since then I've been gathering opinions on how to handle the situation. I've had two people say, just let her be and if she wants to talk she'll contact me. Two others said I should call her and ask if she's mad at me, and just get it all out in the open. And Gurney said I should act as though nothing bad happened and invite her to another event.

The first two people had good advice, based on Sarah's past behavior. She is very busy, but when she is free and wants to meet she will call. The next two people took a more proactive approach. This is generally how I behave but I believe it also makes me look overly sensitive and dramatic, that I overthink and worry about every little thing. This is completely true, but I can least attempt to fake that I'm not by not bringing up the subject myself. If she does that's something entirely else. And then there's Gurney's point of view. I think everyone agreed that I hadn't done anything too terribly wrong, at least the way I described it, so she probably wasn't as mad at me as she seemed if at all. So if I didn't act like anything happened, or at least that I hadn't done anything wrong, then if nothing really did happen all would be well. And that's the approach I took. I felt that even if she really was mad I hadn't done anything too terrible and didn't deserve a long silent treament. Note that typically I take her silence as a treatment when in reality she is just busy. I texted her and asked if she'd like to meet Gurney. And she responded with a sorry she can't, which was the happiest outcome I was hoping for. In this case I was just thrilled that she responded.

Today I called her and she picked up, and even though it lasted maybe twenty seconds, I think it went well, she picked up. The quickness of the call was due to her expecting out of town visitors any minute and just didn't want to be on the phone.

All of that sounded rather desperate, or maybe a little pitiful. None of that now. While I would like to hear from her, I am keeping my eyes open. But if there were anything, or I suppose in my case anyone else to mention of I would. And besides, with this beautiful weather we've been having of blue skies and warm days it is difficult to really be all that downcast about anything.

Happy Birthday Gurney.

Pastime of the Past

Two incidents in only a day has brought me to the conclusion that collecting is either a lost or dying pastime. Which makes this a perfect subject for Tasteful Thursday. I have made good progress on obtaining all the Garbage Pail Kids cards. There is still a long way to go with them but I am happy to say I now have more than half of them. It's tricky. I have been trying to get the sets through online auctions and have found I am not the only one out there trying to get them. But it's been fun trying to find the best deals and it is a joy when they finally come in the mail. I've been putting them into card holders and feeling like a proper dork doing so. But it is fun looking at them and sharing them with others who can appreciate them, which for the most part are only guys who fall between the ages of 26 and 30.

It's this whole business of collecting cards has sparked some interesting reflections on today's youth. When I was purchasing the card holders, the young clerk asked "Do you have baseball cards or something?" "These are for a collection of Garbage Pail Kids." "Is that like a card game?" "No, they are just collectible cards, like baseball cards but fun and enjoyable to look at." "Oh I see, so these are an investment." "No, I don't want to sell them." "Then what do you do with them?" "I enjoy them. They're just something fun to look at and collect. Like a hobby. No games, no money, just something to enjoy and maybe share with a future son or friends." At this point I literally got a stare, so I told him to have a good night and he broke out of the stare and wished me the same and I left.

Then I showed them to Sarah, who likewise was having difficulties. In this case she never experienced collecting. Her older brothers never collected anything. And she never had a doll collection or anything like that. I pointed out that while I also did not have any collections as a child, there were many things I enjoyed and this happened to be one of them. Like I didn't have a comic book collection but I enjoyed reading them. But collecting can be enjoyable and relaxing. And I think that's lost on many people nowadays. With everything going electronic, it's hard to find many physical objects that people would think of collecting. People don't need to collect the albums of their favorite singer when they can just purchase everything in a digital format. And some people will say that's great, because it saves space, and most of those collections just collect dust. Well that's true, but in moderation having a few special items to share with others is nice. No one wants to go to a home where there is nothing of interest to be seen. So I have my cards. Put them on a coffee table and you've got a great accenting piece.

Now this is Tasteful Thursday, not Terribly Cluttered Thursday. There is a good taste limit to how large a collection can be. In my opinion I think that limit is when you can no longer appreciate the individual aspects of the collection. For example, take a comic book series. If you have 1,000 issues in that series, it would be very difficult to enjoy them as individuals. It has likely gotten to the point where you are collecting the comics for the sake of collecting the comics. The enjoyment of them as individuals is gone, because there are too many to enjoy. It's the point where to basically everyone else the collection has become too big but the collector can't come to realize this. My cards are going to fit into one manageable binder. They aren't going to fill 100 of them.

If you noticed I mentioned Sarah saw the cards. Yep, we are still hanging out. In fact we even hung out a few times since she saw them, so they didn't chase her away! And I happily think she liked looking at the cards I had to show. The idea of collecting was foreign to her, but I think she was able to come to an appreciation of the enjoyable nature of it.

Cuddly Canines and Ferocious Felines

Recently I have been learning how not to talk to girls. Sarah has been my primary tutor in this very difficult subject area. A little research for this post, has taught me she prefers to use operant conditioning. Respondant conditioning is used to modify a reflexive behavior. Whereas operant conditioning is when the stimulus is applied to modify a voluntary behavior.

There's an important difference between voluntary and involuntary behavior. Both for the person exhibiting the behavior and the person observing the behavior. For the person exhibiting the behavior he could be easily mis-diagnosed if the person observing the behavior is not professionally trained. And it is entirely possible the observer may be the exhibitor. Like a person who scratches a mosquito bite so much that it breaks open. That may be an involuntary or a voluntary behavior depending on the situation. And so a mis-diagnosis could lead to greater frustration if little progress is made at modifying the behavior.

And then for the observer the two types of behavior can lead to different emotions. For example, it is easy to have patience with someone who involuntarily has difficulties with a behavior. Like no decent person is going to scream at someone with someone who has tourettes and has trouble finding the will to keep fighting it (if that is even an acceptable treatment which it probably isn't). But it is easy to get frustrated with someone who voluntarily behaves a certain way and decides to stop trying to change.

Finally all of this can be terribly frustrating for the person who is mis-diagnosed and doesn't know it. For example, pretend a person with an involuntary behavior is said to voluntarily exhibit that behavior. And then the exhibitor gets weary of trying to change that behavior. The observer will likely get frustrated, and the exhibitor may be reduced to shame, when in actuality the exhibitor has nothing to be ashamed of and the observer may have nearly infinite patience if it was known the exhibitor was only involuntarily acting.

So when Sarah tries to help my speech towards ladies we first must determine if my behavior is voluntary or involuntary. What I'm doing here is trying to turn this around. And for some reason I do not think I'm winning this argument. And I admit I have learned some lessons. In particular, I have learned you must not poke fun at girls. Not directly or indirectly. Now they will say that this is nonsense. You just have to not tease them in an offensive manner or about a sensitive subject. However, I have found girls to find all things sensitive and touchy. So it is best to just not tease them in any manner whatsoever. You would fare better teasing a pit bull with a steak.

As for Sarah, she is using operant conditioning, and so far she has continued to stick with me. Now a rule of the universe seems to be that a man will find no end to the ways in which he can test a woman's patience. And so far Sarah's has held out. Let us pray it continues to stay strong.

Card Collecting

After getting that marvelous book, I've been thinking about what things I consider treasures. These don't have to be monetarily worth much. Instead I'm basing my decision on things that don't get old. And I am purposely leaving living things and food out of this.

So far my list is rather small. But in some ways I think that may be a good thing. If I took great joy from a ton of objects it could mean several things. First off, it could mean I'm overly sensitive. I would rather not shed tears of joy everytime I see something I like. We can call this the double rainbow mentality.

Second it could mean I'm just way to attached to material objects. If I everything I have would be lost in a fire, hopefully the only things I would be upset about losing are things that relate to my family or friends like photos or letters. Now I actually fall into this second category a bit. Because I would be upset at losing my book, and the other few treasures I have. But I think so long as I don't mind losing something like my TV (although I do sort of consider that a treasure due to it's rarity), that is pretty good.

Third it could mean I don't have enough friends. I once went to a house that held a number of college students. One of them lived in the basement of the house. I never met him but for some reason I had to go in the basement, and I saw many of his belongings. It was a little boy's dream come true. I about fainted. It was full of all my favorite video games, and legos. I remember actually gaping in awe at the site. Then I got sad, and I told my friend, whoever this person is, he doesn't get out much does he. And my friend said yes. The owner of all those amazing things had very few friends.

But I'm sensational and those three categories don't apply to me. So let's get to the fun stuff, at least for me. I thought about listing all the things I have that I consider to be treasures, but thought that might bore you. Then I thought about making it general in scope, like what I consider to be the things that others should treasure. But that seemed like it would take to long and this also isn't Tasteful Thursday. And then I came to my decision. Since I've already talked about the book, I decided to share one more new treasure that I'm currently working on obtaining.

As a small child my Aunt introduced me to my older cousin's card collection. And I thought it was about the most wonderful thing I ever saw at that young point in my life. And since then I've always thought it would be wonderful to make a complete collection of that particular type of collectible cards. The art design is top notch, with creatively short clever titles. For example here is a picture of the card entitled 'Babbling Brooke'.

I think there is no disagreeing how incredible those cards are. Unfortunately there were 15 original sets, with about 88 cards each, and getting all of them will be challenging. But I'm trying.

Swans Are Hard To Name

Growing up, my friends and I had a favorite book.



I think we enjoyed it so much because we really didn't want to read much and this book has fantastic illustrations that contain clues to a mystery. The puzzles are straight forward to solve, but require a good bit of time to both figure them out and even find them since they are hidden on the pages. When we were in the fourth grade, and discovered this book for the first time, it was really fun for us all. There are other books that use the same formula. But the puzzles are meant for adults and are much harder. So hard the fun aspect is sort of removed due to the sheer difficulty.

Despite liking it so much, I never owned a copy. Well the other day I was in a book store and I noticed my childhood page turner on display and was curious to see why this book out of all the others in the store was on a special display. I noticed right away it looked like an old copy, and when I flipped to the beginning I saw that it had been signed. It was a first edition signed copy! For me this was like finding a treasure.

Later I found out that maybe it's not very rare. But nevertheless I am still really happy to have it.

A Whale of a Story

A few weeks ago I purchased a bottle opener. I've never had one before and had a hard time finding one in the stores that I was pleased with. But eventually I found the one I know have. It's a whale whose mouth and tail can be used to open bottles. After purchasing it I discovered this whale was more about form than function, but it can be used, with a little effort, to open my pop bottles so I guess I'm okay with it. Part of the reason I got it was because I think it's really cool looking. Like if you were to just put it on a table you might not know right away that it is supposed to be used to open bottles.

I brought it home and hung it on my wall by putting two nails in the wall that the whale's tail can hang from. And there it sat, occasionally taken down when I needed it for my pop, or when I showed it to others. The last time I had it down was two weeks ago when I showed it to Sarah when she stopped by for that piece of apple pie.

So two weeks later, last night, I am in my apartment waiting for my stories to start, and just flipping through channels to see if anything interesting happens to already be on, when I come across a show on exorcisms. I never watch those paranormal shows, but for some reason I decided to flip this on and see what it had to say. And I was pleased with it, mainly because they were only interviewing Catholic or Greek Orthodox preists, and despite all the bad press I still trust them more than pretty much anyone else I see on TV. So I figured this could be a legitmate show on exorcisms. And I recalled reading a few months back that the Church had been working with Discovery on such a show and I thought this might be it.

After one particularly creepy segment I called home to tell my parents they might want to turn it on. I find myself a little skeptical, especially of anything on TV, but as I was sitting there in my apartment, alone at night, the show was sufficiently creeping me out. And I wanted to share the experience with others. So I call home, and my Dad picks up. As I start discussing the show with him, I hear a loud bang in the kitchen and then a couple seconds worth of loud constant noise, followed by silence. It was loud enough that my Dad heard it too.

As I've previously mentioned, lately I've been working out. I attribute my running to the fact that I did not have a heart attack last night. Because when I heard that terrible noise, in an already creeped out state, my heart started pumping a mile a minute and I broke out in a sweat. To me it sounded like my ice-maker had decided to drop a ton of ice into the bucket, and that bucket then fell through the freezer down into the refrigerator where it crashed into my food and shelves. But then I thought of two things. One, my ice-maker was turned off. Two, that was a completely insane idea.

Heart racing, I decided to peek into my kitchen. Doing this I noticed something black and small on my floor by the laundry doors. My laundry room happens to be directly attached to my kitchen. Think of my kitchen as a long skinny rectangle with three openings. You have one of the smaller sides as an entrance, the laundry doors make up the other smaller sides, and then on one of the longer sides by the laundry room doors you have another entrance.

It turned out that small black object on the floor, against my laundry room doors was my whale. The thing is that I have it hanging on that little piece of wall on the next to the opening on the other side of the rectangle. So it had managed to fall off the wall, and then slide across my entire kitchen floor until it hit the doors and stopped.

Now it is entirely possible that I did a poor hanging job and that due to the vibrations that occur on the wall do to doors slamming and people walking that the whale naturally fell off. That is what Dad said and that is what I said in order that I might go to sleep. But still, I find it is a noteworthy coincidence, that after hanging there for two weeks, the whale happened to fall vertically straight down in such a way that it generated enough momentum to then slide horizontally across the length of my kitchen, all while I happened to be watching for really the first time ever a show on exorcisms.

Rationally I think this really could be explained away by simple physics and odd timing, and I simply hung it back up. Nevertheless I also took a bottle of Holy Water, yes I have some, and squirted a whole bunch on that whale. Then thinking about it I poured some on my hand and made the sign of the cross just for good measure.

Dead Mouse Technique

It's been over two months since I gave you all my relationships update. The reason it has been over two months is because not much has changed. But let's see if I can come up with anything interesting.

During this summer, Sarah and I didn't get to hang out much. As I last mentioned, when she was in town I tended to be out of town, and when she was gone I was here. When we were both here, she typically had visiting friends. So we didn't get to meet very often. And we also weren't talking much either. This of course caused me to freak out and led me to texting a bit more than usual and trying to come up with outlandish ways to get her attention. I found the best way to get her attention is to leave her things at her front door. While I realize this has made me somewhere around the level of a cat or dog who leaves "presents", nevertheless it works. Any sort of backed goods or food in general will win her over. For example, one time I made pralines and gave her some, and later that day I got to see her. And like on last Thursday my Mom decided to tell me all her opinions about apple pie and that led me to craving it. So even though it was rather late to start making an apple pie I proceeded to, from scratch I might add, and asked her if she'd want some. She did, and even though it was 10:00 and she had 130 pages to read the next day, she still came over for an hour. The chief problem for us is that she is very busy, and also isn't looking to be in a relationship right now. However, to my optimism, she has told several other guys to back off when they ask her out or pursue her but she has never said that to me. And occasionally she does call me up first wanting to do stuff. Typically it's to work out, or walk around the pond, but she has gotten in touch about taco Tuesday.

Well that's lovely, I've made a new friend but this is could be a dead end. So while trying to see where things go with her, I have gotten back on the dating sites. Ugh. That's all I feel like saying about those.

Flora Friday

This article caught my attention. The reason being that since lately I am in exercise mode I was curious about the amount of protein I need. I am curious to know how much protein I get in my typical diet. I don't eat too much meat, except maybe for supper. But, as this article points out, there are many other ways to get meat. Although there is clearly a second motivation to this article which is really about helping out the environment, and it did make a few interesting claims.

What really caught my eye was this mention of "Meatless Monday's" at the bottom. Apparently there is now a growing trend of people abstaining from meat on Mondays. I will grant that this appears to be more of an environmental movement than anything else, but I find it absurd that the Catholic Church which is rather well known for promoting this practice (not just during Lent) since at most the 12th century, was completely left out from both the article and the "Meatless Monday" website. Yes the reasoning behind the abstinence is different, but come on seculars, at least give a shout out.

Dropping Stuff

This past Saturday while at Mass a little boy and his father sat next to me. The boy, probably between 10 and 12, came in first and sat to my left. He was well mannered enough saying "excuse me" before just barging into what was otherwise my entire half of a pew.

At the end of Mass, as we are all singing the final song, I saw from the corner of my eye him reach into his right pocket, pull out a large piece of lint, and drop it on the floor. So for the next few seconds I stared at him with a bit of a scowl as I continued to sing. Eventually he looked at me, at which point I looked at him, then at the ground, then I went back to the book I was singing from. He sort of shuffled his right foot a bit, I thought he was trying to cover up the lint with it, as though that might make me forget I ever saw it in the first place, but eventually he bent down, picked it up, and put it back into his pocket. Then he looked back at me, and I turned to him, broadly smiled and mouthed "thank you", and then I finished the rest of the song.

The lesson here is that we do not throw our lint onto the ground in Jesus' house. In fact we ought not throw our lint down in anyone's house.

I was very happy he picked it up. I think he'll remember that for a long time. I can still recall when older kids corrected my behavior or taught me things. But while that was a critique I prefer to give praise. Whenever children go out of their way showing exemplary manners I always try to tell their parents if they are around. Once a small boy ran ahead of me as I was going into Mass to hold the door for me. His parents got a good compliment. The other day as I was walking around on a small sidewalk I heard a young boy coming up behind me while riding his bike. I stepped off the sidewalk and onto the grass so that he could ride on through. And as he passed he said "thank you". His parents also got compliments. In this case I was impressed that the small boy was able to piece together that I could hear him coming, got out of his way, rather than he out of mine, and thought to show some gratitude for it. The reason I do this is because I think, for the most part, the only time parents hear about their children from strangers, is because of something negative. Ha ha, or at least that's all my parents heard about me! So I like to think they appreciate it, and I'm hoping their children definitely appreciate it come Christmas time.

Finally I will comment on this title because I'm nearly positive no one will get it. My memory here is a little vague on the actual details but when I was in middle school, probably 8th grade, I made some comment about "stuff". And my teacher got angry at me for not being more specific in my speech. Her argument was that pocket lint is stuff. I think I was trying to appear cool and non-nonchalant about something as though it was no big deal, and she wasn't having any of that. And interestingly nowadays I can't stand that sort of attitude. Anyway that year our class got to have a time capsule, to be opened at the end of high school. And in that time capsule I put in an envelope marked "stuff" and inside was a bit of blue jean lint. I wish I could say that since then either my maturity, or at least my sense of humor has noticeably improved.

Irresistabullish

Watching some videos this morning on a slow internet connection I made a discovery. On youtube videos during the loading there is a little circle of dots that goes around and around. But if you click one of your arrows keys it takes off and all of a sudden your playing a game of worms where you are a worm and you have to eat the pellets! It moves pretty quick too so it's challenging for me. You can try it yourself on the below video.

Sunny Annoyance

Window washing is a tricky chore. Even before getting started a cleaner needs to be chosen and there are a lot of cleaners to choose from. For example there are window cleaners for house windows and window cleaners for car windows. To me it's all glass, so I would think only one cleaner ought to be needed. The other tricky problem is that the cleaner I use to wash my mirrors is not the same as my window cleaner. It seems to me like they should be doing very similar actions, but apparently they are differently formulated. So just going to the store and picking out a good window cleaner can be quite the challenge.

Recently I washed my windows, and, running low on my old cleaner, I had to go and make the decision of what product to get. In the end I sided with the original one I had been using because it has ammonia in it. I have been told by Mom's, the world's largest authority on cleaning, that ammonia is great for chasing away bugs. Where I live I have a ton of spiders. I bat down their webs and the next day it will look like I was never even there. Fortunately they stay outside for the most part, but nevertheless I don't like being hit in the face with a web everytime I venture outside.

After selecting a cleaner you then have to select a fabric. Long ago I heard newspaper is the way to go. In fact I'm told the best way to wash car windows is to use Diet Coke and newspapers. Apparently the acid in the coke will eat through all your grim on the windows. Don't use regular Coke though because the natural sugar will make a syrupy mess. Anyhow, I wasn't about to use any pop whatsoever on my windows, considering I already have a bug problem. I don't think ants are going to take the Pepsi challenge on the fact that I used Diet rather than regular. The newspaper however is intriguing. I've never used that before but imagine it would be difficult to work with. It's not exactly as free flowing as a towel and it doesn't seem like it would be very absorptive. But unlike towels it probably wouldn't leave fuzz everywhere. Rags can work, but I find I need a lot of them because once they get soaked through you can't use them for drying. So I used paper towels. Not very environmental I know. The other option is to use a squeegee but my windows are in small panes, and I can't one of them inside the boundaries of the pane.

Okay cleaner check, fabric check. Now I'm ready to clean. And what a breeze it was. I sprayed my cleaner, wiped it off, and that section of window looked great. Next section, same process, it too now looks great. Then I step back to take a look at my work so far. But uh-oh, even though just one minute ago my first section looked great now I'm seeing streaks. So now I have to go back and really push hard with a fresh paper towel to get rid of them. But their presence seems odd. After all just a minute ago I had no streak. And now I see them on the second section I worked. And all this hard rubbing is starting to make this chore suddenly much more difficult and frustrating. Plus you can't always see the streaks. Sometimes you have to orient yourself in odd positions. Like you finally get the windows done, go back in, put everything away, and then see from the inside looking out that it appears all you've done is simply spread a foggy film over all your windows.

Finally I had all the streaks under control and was ready to call it quits. At this point I called my Mom because I knew she'd be so proud I washed my windows. When I told her about the streaks she said the problem was that I washed them in the sun. That was something I didn't know. So on this tutorial Thursday let us all learn that windows should not be washed in direct sunlight because otherwise you will get streaks. There are other chores you would be best served by not doing in direct sunlight. Applying car wax is one such chore. You should always park your car in the shade when applying car wax.

Even though the simple chore turned into a rather laborious process, the results were worth it. If you haven't washed your windows in awhile and if they have grim on them you might be used to looking through them as they are. But at least for me the difference between my now clean ones and the grimy version is incredibly large. In fact a few years back I gave a speech for a retreat and used this process of cleaning windows as an analogy for cleaning our souls. Anyway, the difference was spectacular and now I'm very happy everytime I look out of them.

The cleaning took place during the middle of my afternoon. The very next morning, I had brand new spider webs up over my doorway. The ammonia did not run them off.

Keep on Running

Over the past five or so weeks I've taken to jogging. I've been doing it fairly regularly and get out a few times a week. The first time I did this I wanted to do two laps around my apartment complex. This is right around two miles. I remember getting through the first lap okay, but I needed to walk for parts of the second. I tried to keep the walking at a bare minimum. Just enough to ensure I wouldn't have a heart attack. The next morning my legs were in a good deal of pain. But what surprised me was when I tried it again about a week later. This time I was able to get through the two laps much easier and didn't have to stop to walk. The amount of improvement between those two times was enough to make me want to see how far this could go.

For the most part I still do two laps, and I try to get them in at around 20 minutes. So ten minute miles. I have no idea how this compares to others, but it's what I shoot for. Just yesterday I was able to do three laps and got them in at around 29 minutes. And that was with stopping to tie my shoes during the first lap. So I'm still improving which is good. That was one of the reasons why I started. I wanted to get my stamina up so that when I play tennis I can go strong for a much longer time period. The time it takes me is not my primary concern, but it is fun trying to sprint just a little longer or set a slightly faster pace. I would have prefered to get this exercise from tennis itself, but unfortunately I do not play often or long enough to get much improvement.

When I started jogging I would throw on whatever old shoes I had lying around. This caused blisters and my legs hurt a lot. The blisters I assumed were from using improper shoes but the leg pain was more troublesome. I think I felt more confident of my leg strength and assumed the shoes were causing the pain. But in reality I believe I just hadn't as much leg muscle as I thought and I needed to build it up. So then I started adding much more protein to my diet. Now, after yesterday's three laps, my legs don't hurt nearly as much anymore. Even when I do a sprint at the end I can't get them hurting as much.

Last week I decided that maybe I am making a habit of this and that I should get a proper pair of shoes. So I went to a local running store with my old walking shoes. I brought my old shoes so the clerk could look at the wear on them and get an idea of how I walk and run and then know what sort of running shoe would best suit me. It was a pretty simple process and before I knew it I had a pair of shoes. There was a guy next to me getting shoes too. His clerk asked him if he was running for a cause. The guy said he was running for St. Jude's and that he was doing 30 miles. It sounded like he meant that in one day, but I've since been told it is probably 15 miles spread over two days. Either way, at the time I couldn't jog for 30 minutes, so 30 miles seemed and still seems mighty impressive.

The new shoes have prevented the blisters but my legs still get weak so that's why I feel I need to get them stronger.

I've been using the jogging to improve my tennis but there is another reason why I've been jogging. Basically it has to do with balance. I don't exercise that much, and have a rather sedinatary job. So jogging regularly has been one concrete way I could bring exercise into my life. I feel there are a number of things people need to have a balanced lifestyle. Work, hobbies/relaxation time, spiritual growth, exercise, socialness/friends/ and volunteering. Right now my two areas in need of greatest improvement are exercise and volunteering. And those two lacking areas have been bothering me for sometime now. The jogging helps, but I want to add more strengthing, so the other area of exercise I want to add is rock climbing. First off rock climbing rocks. It is a ton of fun. Also rock climbers have the body of David so that's pretty cool too. As for volunteering, well that's coming.

Finally, and in a most fitting way, let us all wish WAM a good run later this week. She's going to be in a 5K.

What You Say to Strangers

'Vehicle' by Ides of March is an amazing song. That beat is incredible and you just want to sing along. The other day as I was listening to the lyrics I was a little shocked.



"Hey, well, I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan,
Won't you hop inside my car?
I got pictures, got candy,
I'm a lovable man, and I can take you to the nearest star.
...
That I love you. I need you.
I want you, got to have you child. Great God in Heaven , you know I love you."

Let's start at the beginning. He's a friendly stranger going up to you on the street asking you to jump into his car, and he's got pictures. I can't help but wonder what sort of pictures these are. But they must be very impressive. For example, no one has ever enticed me to do anything by saying, "Hey, how about coming over here and saying 'Hello'". "Ummm, no thanks I'm fine." "I've got some nice pictures to show you." "Oh well in that case, yes, please let me in." And he's got candy too. That should be enough. But apparently not, some people won't be lured by candy, but they just can't resist the temptation of pictures.

Next. He's a lovable man. Oh my. I just can't imagine this sort of pick up line working for me. "Hi, I'm friendly." "Go away." "But I have pictures and candy to share. And I'm lovable." Okay, that's sort of cute. But let's keep going.

"Got to have you child." Oh my. Maybe with people his own age this would be fine, but he's singing to children!

I've always wondered why this doesn't get more air time on the radio. And now I think I know.

Bewildering Children

The other day Mom called me out of the blue. She had an “important message” for me. Growing up I had a few Mercer Mayer books. They are children’s picture books with short stories revolving around these little critters. The stories are cute and I liked looking at the pictures because there was usually a spider or mouse somewhere on the page that was fun to find. Those little touches really make books worth opening. The prime example of this is the classic “Eleventh Hour” by Graeme Base. If you have never had the joyful experience this book provides, stop reading this and go pick it up immediately. Then come back and finish this.

Mom called telling me about one particular scene in the Critter books. The scene is in the grocery store. Momma steps away for a moment with the baby critter, maybe to change a diaper or something, and the little brother and sister wander to the candy aisle. When Momma finds them, the little girl says she wants candy. “You can have candy tomorrow but not today.” “But I want candy now.” “You want a time out now?” “No time out.” That is how the, at least of 2006, revised edition of the book goes. Mom noticed this change. When I was a child it went like this, after the little girl back talked, “You want a spanking?” “No spanking.”

I am not a parent. So at first I may seem grossly inexperienced to comment on parenting. But the way I see it, other than age, there are pretty much no qualifications or experience necessary to become a parent, so my opinion is just as good as any. If you feel there is a hole in this line of thinking, then let me point out that I am sensational, so you need no other reason than that to read on.

I actually have no idea how I will raise my children. For a long time, a hands on approach seemed to be the way to go. Nowadays, it seems to be frowned upon more so than it used to be. But it’s not so much the approach that I think is important as it is where the approach is coming from. Maybe the approach is based on anger, frustration, or even joy and happiness. After all just as one may overly discipline a child, that child could be overly rewarded. I think the approach used must come from one based entirely out of love for the child. How we feel at that particular moment with the child is irrelevant. This is important because this culture of ours has us make essentially every decision and life choice out of how we feel about it rather than based on any morality or objectiveness. That means that if the child messes up on Tuesday, he might receive a different punishment than if he messed up on Wednesday, for no other reason than because his parent was more irritated on Wednesday. And that is inconsistent parenting. Punishments and rewards should be consistent and have to based upon so many different case by cases that adding in something as variable as our emotion is unfair to the child.

All of this got me thinking about other parenting issues. Like setting examples, and what makes for a good parent. The following example is meant to sound practical, I have no idea if it actually has occurred, but it seems plausible enough. Think of the smoking Dad (just thought I’d point out that my Dad doesn’t smoke) who tells his children not to smoke. I can understand the reasoning behind this. He doesn’t want his children to make his same mistakes and become addicted like he is. But what bothers me is if that Dad doesn’t do everything he can to stop smoking. That sets a bad example. I believe children learn more from the example of our behavior than by our words. That means if our actions contradict our speech, then the children are going to side with our actions and not the words. So it isn't enough to simply tell children not to smoke. The smoker must actually try not to smoke. At least I find fighting that temptation would be better than for him to essentially say to his own children, “I am a weakling who has become complacent to my bonds.” What a defeatist attitude to portray to our young ones. Okay fine. You’re weak and have no desire to change yourself. It’s not the weak part that angers me but the lack of any desire to put up a fight. I can get behind someone who constantly strives to be better even if he constantly falls. Maybe the smoker never can get over it, but at least he kept trying. That’s all anyone can ask. If you are addicted to something to the point where you feel you cannot do without it then you are a slave and should fight those bonds. Now years later that parent’s addiction causes him to suffer from severe health. Now he is ready to put up that fight. This is disgusting. He wasn’t willing to fight to set a good example for his children, but now that his personal health is endanger, now he is willing to fight. He just put a higher value on his own health than on his children’s upbringing. He cared nothing for setting a good example, but cared everything for saving his own life. The child should be more important. The love for his children should compel him to fight to stop smoking so that he can ensure he can be in the best of health which will help him be able to provide for all of his children’s needs.

Then there’s the lighter form of inconsistent parenting. Such as making chicken soup. My Mom actually had a light argument with me when I told her how I was going to make it for Sarah when she was sick. The thing was that I was going to make it exactly how Mom made it for me all my life. But she said she wouldn’t make it that way for anyone other than me and my sister. See when Mom makes it for us, she doesn't change out the vegetables. So when she cooks those carrots and celery she doesn't throw them out and add new ones once it's done. She says that when I make it for others I need to cook it with carrots and celery and onion, and when it's done I need to throw those out and add fresh vegetables. For example, she likes to add those frozen waffle cut carrots. But she never in all my life made it that way for us kids. And that’s inconsistent parenting. I can’t make a proper bowl of chicken soup because my Mom wasn’t consistent with my upbringing on this subject area. Nevertheless I can't feel too slighted by Mom, afterall my Mom's chicken soup, as she prepares it for me, is the best chicken soup in the world. Even without waffle cut carrots.

I have no idea how I’m going to raise my children. I can’t even manage to get a girlfriend. My feeling is that proper parenting can only come from love for the children. Proper parenting can never come from that day’s ups or downs. But that makes it more objective, and that runs counter to how our current culture believes we should live our lives. So I guess being a parent isn’t exactly an easy undertaking. The level of self-denial required is pretty much beyond my comprehension, but hopefully so is the love that comes with having a child. And at that I have no experience.

Backwards

After dinner out tonight, I drove by a man walking to only he knows where with his thumb out. He was scraggly with dirty clothes. I thought about picking him up, but the problem was I wasn't familiar with the area, and I didn't want him to know that. Nevertheless I was a little displeased that here was a clear opportunity to help someone and I was purposely passing it up. While he was scraggly I find it's not the ones who approach you frowning who take your money but the ones who approach you smiling. And it didn't help that just prior to this at dinner I had another swell opportunity for interaction.

See at dinner, at a burger joint, as I was getting ready to go, a girl walked by who sat down at a table by herself. This was the type of girl guys are warned about looking at in magazines or movies because we're told they don't exist in real life and we're going to start expecting a fantasy. My mind raced with what to say to her. I decided that being right next to an amazing ice-cream stand, that I should ask her out for ice-cream when she finished dinner. I also thought about just introducing myself and asking her if I could join her to chat. But in the end I didn't ask her anything and simply left. Of course as soon as I walked out the door I thought about walking right back in, but decided that might be creepy. So I thought it would be less creepy to sit near by on a post, partially hidden from the door and when she left I could get up really quick and pretend I just happened to be walking by. And I did that. But after a few minutes of that I decided I should just get on and I left. Nevertheless it made me think about what would have happened it just prior to dinner I hadn't gotten myself into a very long talking to.

I was walking through the streets of Dayton trying to find the burger joint I was looking to eat dinner at, when I happened upon two guys walking in my direction. I asked them if they knew where it was at and they said I passed it up. So I turned around and walked with them. At this point one of them asked if I could now do him a favor. Not liking this I said yes and he asked if I believed in second chances. Very much not liking this I said yes. And then they proceeded to tell me about how they were trying to get their acts together by working good jobs and earning money to go to college and improve their lives. They said they could not accept donations but were wondering if I could buy a magazine from them. They are part of a group that apparently awards them for selling magazines. Apparently the proof they need that they can interact well with people, and thereby get more help from the organization, is by selling magazines to people they encounter. I can't remember the name of the organization they were representing, but they said it was like Big Brother or Sister except for older people. One of the guys gave me his list of magazines, which even if I didn't want I could donate to, and I looked at it, but wasn't about to buy anything. For one I had no cash on me, and I wasn't giving a stranger my credit card information. For another I don't like charming strangers who are seeking something from me. They are off putting reminding me of that smiling thief I just mentioned. And I didn't like that I couldn't simply go to their website and make a donation in their name if I was interested. But even though they handed me the list they didn't actually ask if I wanted to buy one. In fact after a few minutes the guy who handed the list to me asked for it back.

For most of this time we were standing at the corner where I needed to cross the street to go to the burger joint. And at this corner was a bench where an older lady were sitting and listening to us. Towards the end she started talking. One of the guy's started sharing his back story which was very sad but a little over the top. For example his 15 year brother was just arrested for 15 years for dealing heroin. There are so many problems with this claim that even if true it is just too horrible to believe by a complete stranger. And he himself had a checkered past but was trying hard to ammend his ways. Hence his question about second chances. And the lady sitting nearby wanted to talk about her Uncle who while in prison earned his high school dipolma and wrote a book. But despite his attempts at ammending his life he suffered from a heart attack and died while still in prison. But she was very proud he was able to write a book that you can get at any library. I can't remember his name but it went something like Marvin Fuenke.

While I was happy that I did not actually have to say "no I do not wish to purchase a magazine", I was getting frustrated about my inability to say anything other than yes or no. Notice above where I said I was talked to. I was simply unable to get in any words in edge wise. When I tried everyone just talked over me. Maybe these three just really needed to talk but it wasn't a conversation. Like this blog, but going by my lack of comments in most posts, it's clear there is little to add to anything I say. Whereas these three had all sorts of things that could be added. But finally they talked themselves out and needed to move on with their day and gave me their farewells.

At the end it was just me and the lady sitting on the bench. She wanted to talk about how after listening to those guys she was happy they were trying to get their lives in order and make a positive difference. And she talked more about her Uncle and how happy she was that he wrote a book. And that she wished more people would take the time like I did to just listen to others. That she didn't know anything about those guys and neither did I, but that I took the three minutes out of my day to listen to them. And that more people need to take just a few minutes to listen to others. And that God will always listen, and no matter how busy we are He will listen. And that everyone can turn their lives around, like her Uncle, no matter what situation they are in, and make a difference. Even if they are in prison. And hopefully those boys will hold onto their hope and they will stay strong and continue making positive changes in their lives despite all the previous mistakes they made. But eventually even she winded down and I got to speak. And I said, "every Saint has a past, and every sinner has a future" (thank you Oscar Wilde), and then, much delayed, crossed the street to the burger joint for dinner.

A Smattering of Color

A while back I posted a few very old family pictures that I was given at a family reunion. Interestingly, I had a cousin who I've never spoken to find those pictures through google images. What a small world. I tried to repeat her search but was unable to find the image, so I have no idea what keywords she used but I met a cousin out of it.

Those old photos are really cool. They mean more when they're your own family, but even not it's still neat to look at them and see the different styles of dress, hair cuts, and what people did for fun. I always get a kick out of seeing the men dressed impeccably. You still see girls my age out in summer dresses from time-to-time, but it's very rare to see guys dress up in suits. And if they do we think they're just putting on a show. Although, unforutnately its becoming rare to see even the girls dress up anymore. Still to be fair this was probably taken on a special occassion, like maybe on a Sunday. While men did dress up back then, it wasn't uncommon to see them in just a regular white tee-shirt tucked into their pants. Nevertheless, even that screams manly, whereas nowadays we have guys walking around in hideously ugly capris.

The problem with the photos is they're in black and white. Sure black and white photos can be really artsy, and there's nothing quite like the old black and white films. But God let us see in color, so for fun I've tried adding color to two photos.

This first one was my first attempt. It's a picture of my great Grandparents on my Mom's Dad's side.


I actually met them both. My great Grandpa died when I was still young, but I remember trying to get that cane away from him, and then getting yelled at by my parents for bothering him. I knew better though, he was purposely teasing me with that cane, and this was my Mom's Grandfather so she and probably Dad too had to behave. You know, like how us kids always tell our parents they have to be do what their parents say. It's the one time we get to see our parents be the kids. To my dissatifcation however great Grandpa never told my parents to be quiet. But he didn't stop playing with me either. Great Grandma I mostly remember being in bed. I knew her when she wasn't stuck in her bed, but she lived for a longer time than my great Grandfather and she spent a good portion of that in her bed. The story of how they met is for movies.

They were both came over to the States when they were just young teenagers, like 16. They both came alone without their family, and wound up living very close to each other and that's how they met, and eventually married and here I am today.

The next picture is one I just finished up last night. This one was particularly tedious and so I was happy to actually have started and finished this project. I'm one of those people who starts things but rarely completes them, so this was like an exercise in discipline. This one is of my Dad's Mom's siblings.


I think it was taken in the late 30s or 40s. I think the lady in the blue dress was great Aunt Ann, my partner in water balloon tosses at family reunions. I'm not sure on the others. The men are all dead now. But I think the other two ladies are still with us.

Plumbers on a Sunday

It's time for a tutorial on outdoor drainage systems. This weekend past I went to my sister’s to help my Dad with this outdoor drainage system he’s been installing. There’s been a lot of water entering her basement and he’s been trying to stop that from happening. When I got there I saw that he had dug out a very long trench along the side of the house and well into into her front yard. Saturday morning when we got started Dad gave me his explanation of how things were working.

Essentially he wanted to install a new drainage system for the two water spouts on the right side of the house, and a French drainage system for water that flowed down a nearby hill and might collect by the side of the house, as well as the water that just naturally falls there. At the moment he had the trench wide enough for one tube’s worth of drainage. He needed the trench wide enough for two tubes. The way the French drainage system works is that you lay a piece of fabric in the trench, then you take a PVC type pipe that has finger thick holes drilled into it like a woofle ball, and place it in the trench with the holes facing down. On top of that you put gravel, and on top of that you grow grass. When it rains the water soaks into the ground like it normally would, but as it collects it starts to rise up into the holes and when enough is collected it travels down the PVC pipe and away from the house. The spout drainage system originally went into large copper pipes that went very deep into the ground and went somewhere. We don’t know where the copper pipes lead because they go down so deep. The problem is that over the years the copper can crack and when that happens the water can leak out and start causing problems. Dad thought maybe the copper pipes had cracked somewhere along the basement wall and was causing water to leak into the house.

So when I got there he had an initial one tube wide trench dug. That in itself was quite a feat. It was a long trench and had to be back breaking work. Right away I, who always try to avoid demanding labor, convinced him that we didn’t need to double the size of the entire trench. Rather once we got past the side of the house and into the front yard where leakage wasn’t a problem, we could take the two tubes and feed them into one. That way we would only have to double the part of the trench that went along the side of the house. He liked that idea, and for the rest of the weekend we worked on just the drainage for the spouts. That was quite the project. For two days we cut, glued, and laid PVC pipe. This was a massive geometry problem. I learned early on that Dad should have bought the pipe first, put it together without the glue, got it the way he wanted on the yard, made markings on the grass, and then dug his trench. But since the trench was already dug, we were trying to fit the PVC tubes into Dad’s trench which wasn’t always straight or cut at nice angles like 22.5, 45, or 90 degrees which are the three angles PVC connectors come in. This became a huge challenge for us. But in the end, we managed to get the drainage system for the spouts completely put together and we doubled the size of the trench along the house for the French drainage system.

Saturday and Sunday it was sunny. But on Monday, when we had just a little bit more to finish up, it started drizzling. And just, like to the minute, as we got the last piece in place, essentially connecting the first half of the drainage with the last half, it began to pour. The contraption was a success and the water gushed out of our new drainage system. Next weekend Dad has to install the French drainage system to account for the water that falls into the yard and nearby hill side, but it should be much easier for him, because of this weekend’s experience and that tubing despite also being PVC based, is much more flexible. And now you know all about outdoor drainage.

Fine Way to Start the Day

This is a good way to start any day. I'd say wait until you just wake up to watch this, it'll be better.



I wish I could have this much energy at 1:30 in the morning!

H20 Plus Nothing Please

Polls can give an interesting insight into the habits and thoughts of many people. Being that it's summer I had a troublesome question pop into my head earlier today. I was curious about how many people urinate outside of toilets. In particular I was curious about showers, pools, and beaches. The numbers are horrifying.

Let's start with our showers. According to a 2004 survey by VertiSpa, 42% of Americans urinate in the shower. When you're that close to the toliet this is just laziness.

In the ocean, a 2009 study by TripAdvisor found that 53% think it's fine. As if it weren't already polluted enough by the rest of the animals in there.

In the pool, a 2009 study by CNN found that 17% have done it!

I find that 17% number rather startling. So about 1 in 6 people do this. I am positive I have at least 5 friends. After all I think I have at least 3 readers. But me plus the five means that one of us almost assurdedly urinates in the pool. I do not. So I've narrowed my search down to five people. Out of everyone, WAM hopefully you contain yourself. After all you're supposed to be writing a book on these types of matters, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. That leaves four. Eew, I get sick feeling just thinking about that.

Horse Play

This weekend I was invited to a going away party. The girl who invited me on that retreat is heading off to France to become a nun. While there she will be spending several years studying Philosophy and Theology all in French, a language she doesn’t know yet. That is going to be really hard. They are already difficult subjects, particularly because you have to be very precise in your language. Imprecise language can lead people to draw wrong conclusions. I remember on my exams getting a lot red marks when I was being too general in my language and I wound up saying things that could easily be taken in ways I didn’t mean. So she has to learn all this from classes taught entirely in French. Also she probably has to learn Latin and Greek. It’s hard enough to learn a foreign language, but try learning one being taught to you in a language you haven’t learned yet. It’d be like learning trying to learn Norwegian over in China. That on top of the cultural changes, and the fact that she is thinking about becoming a nun, are enough to have us keep her in our prayers.

At this party I only knew a few of the people. Fortunately some of those people are very old and dear friends so I had a few folks to talk to. But they had friends and family visiting and it was a large party and it wasn’t like they were going to be babysit me the entire time so occasionally I had to keep myself entertained. Fortunately there were a ton of little kids running around. At one point I was by a swing hanging from a tree which is for little babies, because they can be strapped into it, when one little three year old came running up and asked me to make her fly. That seemed safe enough so I picked her up as quick as I could and took her as high as my arms would go. I was shocked about how easy this was. I thought she’d be a lot heavier. I did it again and this time I got her into the leaves of the tree which I thought was pretty neat, but one nearby Mommy, Sarge, told me to be careful. So I put her down and she ran off.

Not a moment later she was back, this time asking me to swing her by the arms. While I understood the mechanics of her request, it seemed like a horrific idea. I was already a stranger to most of these people, and I didn’t know if they’d be very pleased seeing me swinging one of the young ones around by her arms. I imagine most people would not like strangers flailing their children about by the arms. Also, I was concerned that during this swinging about that her arms might rip off her body. I felt that this would almost certainly guarantee my being asked to leave. So I asked Sarge if this would be alright, and she said the little girl would be fine. We already know I have a lot to learn about child raising, and just because I think something is odd, doesn’t mean it isn’t the entirely appropriate thing to do, and so Sarge’s approval on the matter was enough for me. I grabbed her by the hands and we started slow and gradually built up speed to the point where she could no longer keep up and she started flying in the air. All I could think about, as I started getting tired, was that she was not a discus and I couldn’t just let go. Most fortunately I did not let go and we both came to stop and wobbled around a bit from the dizziness. She wanted to go again, but I said I couldn’t so she ran off to whatever new thing had grabbed her attention.

And just a second later she was back asking me to put her on her shoulders. I asked her if we shouldn’t get better acquainted first, but she was insistent. I knelt down with my back to her to let her climb up but she didn’t get very far, and told me she couldn’t climb on. I asked her how to get her on my shoulders if she couldn’t climb on and she told me I had to lift her on. At first I couldn’t understand how I was supposed to lift her up and on. I can’t lift her from behind me, but after a little thought I finally puzzled through the physics. You’re supposed to pick them up from their behind and lift them up and over your head. And that worked fine.

Her six year old brother saw this and decided he wanted to play too. But he didn’t want on my shoulder, he wanted to play pirates and he started attacking me with his sword. Fortunately he didn’t swing it hard. Instead he was more like a fly. Yeah, they won’t hurt you but you can’t but help swatting it away. I grabbed it and started trying to pull it away, but he held on tight. So I started lifting and turning, essentially causing him to lift off the ground much like his sister before. Then he let go, but his hand got hurt in this process, I think it got a little pinched, and he was sort of crying. But I knew that while it must have hurt some, it couldn’t have hurt as much as his theatrics were trying to convey. I told him I knew he was faking and I wasn’t giving back the sword, and after trying a little bit more, he realized he was caught and ran over to the swing. I felt like I was in American Gladiators as he started swinging it at me like a big ball on a rope. Now I realize I could have simply walked away, or done any number of things here, but what I felt was a good idea was to kick it. I noticed it was at about a perfect height for me to kick it right back at him and hard. I thought it might hit him hard, but he had his hands up as he was pushing and they would stop it just fine. On the next push I kicked it back at him and hard. Oh my. It went a lot faster than I thought and for whatever the reason he had put his hands down, so it hit him right in the side of the face. And now he screamed for real. Realizing I was about to be thrown out of the party I prepared myself for the oncoming onslaught of furious mothers and generally everyone else at the party. But apparently no one saw because no one got up or even looked until after the screams occurred. They saw me go over to him and wrongly figured that this grown man must have some experience consoling children so I guess they considered the matter resolved and went back to their conversations. He was just hollering up a storm and even though I bent down and hugged him telling him he would be okay, it wasn’t working. Cutely his sister, still on my shoulders, patted him on the shoulders and told him he would be alright. I even offered him the sword. He reached out to grab it, but I said he still wasn’t getting it and pulled it away. That didn’t stop him from hollering any but I got a laugh out of it. At this point I realized he was going to be fine, despite the very real pain he had to be suffering through. Eventually Momma came over and did what they do best, and got him to settle down a bit. She asked, “what happened.” “The swing just hit him right in the head.” “Oh yes, these things happen.”

Knowing he was in good hands I left him be with his Mom and his sister started directing me around. But soon enough we were back by the swing, and not three minutes after I kicked that swing he was back again ready to go. He said that this time I was supposed to kick it as hard as I could and he would get out of the way really fast. I said no let’s not do this. He tried to insist, but being 3 minutes wiser I walked away. And with no sword he decided to try shooting fake laser beams at me. All’s well that ends well.

Served Without Maple Syrup

The other day my friend and I were talking about the loaded nachos that you can get at the club house where I live. They are pretty good. Actually most of the food there is excellent. For example their tacos, burgers, and fries are some of the best in town. Their fries in particular are quite good. They're waffle cut and made to order. Although now I feel the fries from Penn Station could possibly be better.

So we were talking about the nachos when all of a sudden he had a stroke of genius. Let's order the nachos but replace the chips with the waffle fries.


Amazing, I know. I did not know at the time but others have thought this up before my friend. This dish is called Irish Nachos, probably because it is made with potatos, and it is a triumph.

Nothing to do with Star Wars

Apparently Gurney is too hard at work to answer her phone. So I have decided to tell the entire world what would have been just my conversation with her. I was at the grocery store today getting the essentials when I noticed a boy walk by. That's when I realized it was Lucas.

Now Gurney knows who Lucas is but most of you probably do not. Lucas is blind or very close to it. As far as I understand his story, and Gurney it's your fault for not picking up the phone if I get the details wrong, his Mom died of cancer when he was very young. As a result he was sent to live with his Aunts. His Aunts took him in, but were not ever planning on having children let alone one with special needs. So they had to make some very rapid and drastic changes to their lifestyle. Where Gurney comes in is that she would occasionally take Lucas out for a day of fun to give his Aunts a break. And where I come in is that I joined in a couple times.

Lucas is an exceptionally sweet child. He just needs some extra care. When I was with him I found that this could particularly challenging. For me the difficulty lied with his desire to be physically close to others. So when he talked to me, he liked to be only a few inches, if not centimeters, away from my face. Now despite his trouble with vision, Lucas is much like other proper boys. By that I mean he is germy and dirty. If you are a young boy and are not germy and dirty in the summer time this is sorrowful. And once we took him out for pizza, a rather messy dish for a blind child. When he would talk to me he liked to have his mouth inches from my face. I suppose it was very cute, but I had comfort issues. Other people who do not mind this sort of close physical proximity would just have had a ball, but it was difficult for me.

So I ran into him at the grocery store and wanted an update on his life for Gurney. The problem was I couldn't remember his name. It had been a couple years since I had seen him or heard about him. I didn't know a tactful way to handle the situation so I just asked his Aunt and she told me his name. He's now in the 8th grade, when I last saw him he was in the 5th, and is much taller now. When I saw him in the store I nearly didn't recognize him. But some things do not change, he still was all about being close to others. His Aunt said he is doing very well. I wanted to try and ask him some questions but found myself failing to come up with any good ones. Like I nearly asked him if he has gotten into any sports, after all he was wearing a very atheltic outfit, or if he's played any good video games lately, but then I realized those might not be the best questions to ask.

And that's the update on Lucas. Going into the 8th grade and has grown maybe as many inches.

Lipsticking Cars

Today is Monday, but I want it to be Tasteful Thursday because I can't think of a good name for Monday to go with this article. Lately I've noticed water building up in the driver and passenger floors of my Pilot. In fact, Kelly noticed on the passenger side how her feet were essentially in puddles. During the winter I noticed on some mornings the insides of the windows would be frosted over, so I thought all this water was the winter frost unfreezing. And I thought all that frost was from the water vapor in my breath. Let us forget the fact that this has never happened in any car I have ever owned prior to this occasion. So I figured all this water build up will simply go away once the days heat up and it can evaporate.

But spring time came around and we had some hot days and the water didn't go away. In fact it seemed to get worse. About this time I needed new brakes, so I took it in to get those replaced and asked them to look for a clog because maybe my air conditioning wasn't properly draining water. Not that I had used it very much up to this point, but since I felt that water vapor could create puddles let us not be surprised that I felt that running my air conditioning a couple times could cause floods. Also I noticed that when I did use it, water wasn't coming out of the tail pipe like it sometimes does on other cars.

Sure enough they found a clog, and I was happy. But after driving it for a few weeks after that the puddles were back. I also noticed the water wasn't draining out of the tail pipes like I thought it should be. So I took it back to the car folks and asked them to recheck that they got all the clogs. They did and were certain my water build up was not from the air conditioning. Well that was odd to me because any other leaks in the car should certainly get other things wet than just the underside of my floor boards. At this point I had determined that the water appeared to be coming from the bottom up rather than from the top down. For example, my puddles did not appear to be coming from leaks around my windows that dripped down onto the carpet, but rather they seemed to be coming from under the carpet and coming up like a spring.

This oddity perplexed them too and they decided for a handsome fee to remove the carpet altogether to have a better look. Pay attention to that. They removed the carpet and if they found nothing they could still charge me because this way they could be sure when they put the carpet back in it would be nice and dry and that way I wouldn't have to smell mold. For $450 I can roll down the windows and put an air-freshener in. But it is what it is.
Today I got a call from them.
It went a little like this:
"Hi, did you have a sun roof installed?"
"No, it came with the car."
"I see, well that is the cause of the leak. See sun roofs have a built in drainage system so that water doesn't get into your car. But this drainage system wasn't properly installed and now it is draining under your passenger side floorboards and has a caused a lot of rust and if it were allowed to continue you would have had major structural damage not to mention the mold and spores. So it is great that you took it in."
"This all makes sense I suppose. (Actually it made no sense. I thought that's what seals were for. I didn't see why my sun roof needed internal drainage if it had weather sealers. It's not like our car doors have internal drainage systems. But I'm not mechanical engineer). But the first question you asked was if I had the sun roof installed. I did not. In fact I got the car from my grandparents and I am positive they would not have had one installed. Are we sure it didn't come with it so that we can bill this to the manufacturer?"
"We checked the VIN number and sure enough your car didn't come with a sun roof. That means the dealership installed it."
"How horrible. What will this repair run me?"
"A little over $900."

Not having much experience at buying new cars I didn't know this sort of thing occurs. By that I mean I didn't know that dealerships will augment cars to make them more attractive to purchasers if the manufacturer defaults don't appear to be enough. So the dealership added a sun roof to make the car more attractive to potential buyers. I guess a lot of products have this happen to them. We go from painting oranges orange to photoshoping magazine photos. So a dealership adding a sun roof shouldn't be surprising. Especially since this has happened to me before. Last year I had a crack in the front window of kitty-cat and I had a new window installed. I asked for a window with the wires in it, because my current window had the wires in it that allowed it to defrost. I thought that was so cool, that I could defrost both my rear and front windows. Not that I had ever figured out how to defrost the front windows. I noticed my owner's manaual didn't quite agree with the button layout I had in my car. So the repair man came and took out my front window, but as he was getting ready to install the new one it broke on him and he had to get a new one. During this process he noticed something. While my old window did have those wires, he noticed that the two main wires, to which the smaller ones plug in which then plugs into the car, were cut. So the person who installed this window simply put it in for show. There was no where to plug the wires into, so they cut the wires and simply made it look like the car could defrost the front window. Now I do not know for certain if this was a dealership move, but I am fairly positive given the history of the car that it was.

So to end this Tasteful Thursday on a Monday article always check your cars from a dealership to see what if anything they did to it after they received it from the manufacturer or previous owner, and if they offer any warranties on their work. Let's keep it classy.

Update. Okay this isn't really an update since I haven't posted yet, but I was trying to think of a title and I started thinking about lipstick. I was clearly naive and thought dealerships wouldn't change a car to make it look better. I also thought that if they did change a car that the work they did would be top notch because they'd have qualified people do the work. Then I realized this is like me thinking that all girls can apply makeup in a manner that will enhancement their appearance. If you are confused it is likened to the idea that anyone from Asia is a master at martial arts. So I often today I find the skill young woman have at applying makeup is a travesty. All Mom's should teach their daughters how to wear makeup. And if you don't have a Mom to teach you then you watch one of those style-based networks that are so addictive, or go to a department store at a mall and ask. There is an art to it, and while the art of an inexperienced 4 year old is exceptionally cute it is upsetting when that same art is produced by any one older and made out to be a masterpiece. Clowns belong in the circus.

Hello Goodbye

This past week I have been on travel back to where I was last month. I didn't have ice-cream this time from the nice stop though. Instead I decided to try new brands from the grocery store, although I feel a little bad about not supporting the local businesses. The brands I tried were interesting, I got a blackberry flavored brand and another that is like carrot cake.

The last time I was here, Sarah was back where we live just hanging out. It was her first time all year where she didn't have to worry about school and was in town. That made me being here particularly aggravating. Shortly after I got back she went home to visit her family and receive her friend from Scotland. Her friend is Chinese by descent and actually lived there for a number of years before moving to Scotland. But she doesn't have a Chinese accent, she has an English accent, so she's pretty amazing to talk to. I know this because after being home for about a week they both came back to where I live for a week. And their last night in we all got to hang out. Other than that, Sarah and I mostly just got to talk when we happened to run into each other around the apartment complex.

So she went back home to spend the last few days with her friend and I went off on my business trip and here we are. Tomorrow I go back, but she is going to be staying at home for awhile longer because she is helping her parents around their house.

So it seems like Sarah and I get to meet to say goodbye. The first date has still yet to occur. But the few times we do get to meet up things go about as well as could ever be hoped for. Like for example, the night I came back into town last time I got in around 11. But Sarah and I still met up to go on a walk around the complex and spent a little over an hour together outside by the pond. The next day we were supposed to go on a picnic but she got sick, possibly from food poisioning, so I made her homemade chicken soup and took it to her. I had never made chicken soup but it came out really well and she ate all of it. Unfortunately that didn't help her stomach any and she was sick for the rest of the evening and we didn't get to meet that night. But we did get to spend the day time together outside again by the pond. Nevertheless, with all this spearation coupled with very little communication, I suppose it should be easy to start to grow concerned about our situation, which is not likely to improve for the next week or even longer due to another out of country friend of hers, this time from Australia, possibly coming in to visit. But I have carrot cake ice-cream and it's hard to be worried when you have carrot cake ice-cream to help pull you through.