Soaring

Writing Group

2009-12-16T03:28:34Z

Today's story was inspired by the cards "An old man," "A classified or personal's ad," and "In the dark."

Remember by continuing you're agreeing to read but not copy or transmit the following story. Just enjoy!

I tried to walk slowly but the treasure of condensed milk and tinned ham in my string bag clanked together with every step with a noise that said âœRob me!â I had been lucky when the government truck pulled up, the crowd in front of the aid store was so thick the soldiers had stopped half a block back, right where I stood, to avoid the crowd.

The uniformed man, boy really, who swung down from the tail flashed me a woflish smile and gave me the once-over, and I, hardly daring to believe my luck, was not going to risk it all by objecting. Instead I put on my most charming smile and handed him my ration book. By the time the hungry, impatient crowd, some of whom had been waiting since before dawn, some of whom I knew from the neighborhood, had moved down to surround the truck, I was already hurrying away.

Despite my fears I got home safely, the chill April snow swirling around my bare ankles as I closed the lobby door and headed up to our apartment. Mother met me at the door, her face red and irritated, pulling it open as I fumbled with the keys.

âœWhy are you back, what did you forget? You didn't miss the truck, did you?â

âœNo!â I exclaimed defensively, needlessly. If I'd missed the truck we would have been very hungry until Saturday. âœIt stopped right in front of me, I got first pick!â

Mother drew the bag open and gave a surprised grunt at the contents.

âœYou got too many milk. How did you get extra...â she drew an angry breath and I flinched, âœWho is this?â she cried triumphantly, holding up a card with the green camouflage back of the state militia. âœCorporal Peter Norman, who is this?â

âœWhat? I don't...â I started, and then I realized what had happened, but my mother was already underway.

âœYou, what did you trade for this, hah?â she cried, swatting me painfully in the shoulder with the heavy hand that clutched a black and white government milk container. âœAre you having sex for food? What did you do for this?â

Mother was obsessed with my life beyond these walls, my sex life most of all. I wondered what it must have been like, back before the Emergency, back when the computers were all hooked together and there were two hundred channels on the TV instead of the five government stations. Everyone must have had sex all the time, because that's what mother thinks goes on when I leave the apartment block, despite the fact that no boy has more than looked at me in my life.

âœNo!â I objected, âœI didn't do anything, he just, he must be trying to be nice to me, that's all!â

âœSlut!â she cried, snapping her fingers in my face, âœYou think I want to drink this milk you got by whoring?â She carried it over to the sink as if to pour it out, and I lunged for the can opener held to the fridge with a magnet, before she could do something stupid.

âœMom I didn't do ANYTHING, okay!â I cried. âœLook, Mom, you don't have to drink it! Trade it! Trade it to Mrs. Peterson for vegetables!â Mrs. Peterson had a south-facing apartment, and did a booming business growing a truck garden on trays in her living room. It was strictly illegal, black market stuff, but so were sanitary napkins.

Mother stopped, gave another grunt, and put the can aside. I knew I'd convinced her when she changed the subject.

âœHere, I found this on the bulletin board in the lobby,â she said, âœYou should go see about it. He lives upstairs.â

The torn off tag of paper read âœEvening assistance, partially disabled, Clement, 17B, GOOD REFERENCESâ

That was fifteen flights overhead, but it would get me out from mother's nose while she calmed down. I went up to see him right away, but I kept the can opener in my pocket just in case she got any stupid ideas while I was gone.

Clement was an egg-man, oval, bald and stooped. He answered the door and I showed him the paper my mother had given me. After discussing my references â“ beginning with Mrs. Peterson, who knew everyone in the building, and ending with Mr. Latimer in 15L who I had helped out last year when he was injured in a protest â“ he asked me to come back in the evening. âœI don't eat too much anymore,â he said, âœSo I can pay you seven ration coupons a week, on Fridays after the agency boy comes.â

I related this to Mother, who was in a much better mood when I returned, chopping pale carrots and shredding tiny lettuce for a salad.

âœHe just needs help getting into bed. He's VERY old!â I added quickly, forestalling her next accusation.

Helping Clement was easy work, and he was very nice. He was very old, he had just been a boy when the towers were blown up, he had watched it on TV as it happened. âœMy father swore when the second plane hit,â he said. âœI'd heard him swear before, but not often, and never like that,â he told me. "It all went downhill from there, really.â

By Friday evening we had gotten into a routine. I made a small meal of farina porridge for him, with a little butter I'd snuck up from the kitchen, hoping mother wouldn't notice. He was in a dingy old bathrobe that he flattered with the label âœdressing gown.â Afterwards I would help him into the orthopedic bed that the government gave him due, he told me, to the radiation burns he'd gotten in Pakistan when he was young.

Clement was a little crippled, but I realized that really he was more lonely than anything. He got about with his walker and the bed was a little high for him, but I could tell from the non-stop way he talked that he just wanted some company. He was nice, polite in a way that had gone out of fashion a long time ago, and I was happy to help him.

I had gotten him into bed and I was looking in Clement's hutch, at an old photograph of a pretty woman I assumed had been his wife, when the first of the explosions sounded, away across the city.

âœAre they shelling again?â he called from the bedroom.

I was turning out the lights according to regulations. âœI'll check,â I called, and moved to the window.

The city looked like a field of dying embers, as lights were blinking out everywhere in response to the deep rumble of explosions. As I watched there was a bright flash, much closer this time, and a fountain of smoke before the darkness engulfed it again. âœYes,â I called back, turning away from the window, âœbut it's nothing to worry about it's way over by...â

Suddenly everything whirled and spun, and I found myself sprawled across something soft. There was a whining sound, as if a timer were going off, and when I tried to move I felt glass crunch underneath my hands. Feeling carefully about, I realized that I was sprawled across an overturned couch, which was lying on some broken glass.

âœClement?â I called, but my voice came out weird and muffled. Feeling about, I realized that I could feel the broken glass move under my hand, but it made no noise. I was deaf.

No, I wasn't completely deaf, I could still hear that whining sound. Was it my ears ringing? I'd read the phrase many time in old books, but it was weird to experience.

âœSandra,â I said, my name the only word that came to mind. Muffled, I heard myself dimly, but inside my head. Then I coughed, the air was thick with dust and that too was muffled.

My hearing would have to sort itself out, I realized, and I focused on getting up. I was sore all over but I didn't feel any severe pains, and crawled slowly backwards off the couch, feeling only carpet under my knees. I peered about, but it was completely dark, and I wondered if I was blind, too. It didn't feel like it, but what did blindness feel like?

âœClement?â I called again, and it sounded a little better. The ringing was definitely fading, I thought. I groped around in the darkness, disoriented. The couch had been to my right as I faced Clement's room. A mortar must have struck quite near, and thrown me and the couch against the hutch where Clement kept his mementos, so that would put him about to my right, now.

I groped forward, the carpet felt warm and it was gritty with debris. Suddenly I heard Clement, quite clearly.

âœNot that way, missy,â he said.

âœWhat?â I replied and coughed on the bad air. My voice still sounded strange, but Clement's voice was clear.

âœTurn around, back up,â Clement said.

Obediently I crawled backwards till my feet hit the overturned couch.

âœTip that right and climb over it,â he said.

I did so, stepping carefully on the remains of the hutch.

âœWait now, stop. Just at your feet, take that, please?â

I bent, groping carefully, and quickly found the scrolled metal edge of a picture frame.

âœHer name was Sarah. I've missed her. Take that with you.â

Clement directed me forward, through the kitchenette, to the door to the hall. Just as I got there he said, âœYou'll be fine, nowâ and then a light appeared under the door.

My heart surged as I realized that I could see! I wasn't blind. I pulled the door open, and could hear it now, faint under the ringing but my hearing was definitely returning.

âœHello?â I called.

âœThere's one here!â a voice responded, âœHello, are you okay?â

âœI think so,â I replied, and a flashlight beam caught me in the face. I turned my head against the glare and looked back into the apartment.

Dust and smoke filled the room, but was being sucked out the gaping hole where the far wall was missing. Wreckage was everywhere.

An arm wrapped itself around me, and light played over my face. âœAre you okay?â The man's voice was shaken.

âœYes, I think so, my hearing is coming back,â I said. I looked down at myself, and realized that I was filthy, covered in soot, my dress shredded, exposing my bulky government bra and panties. I struggled to cover myself, suddenly ashamed. The cold glass of the tiny portrait pressed against my chest, and I looked down at the face of Clement's wife.â

âœIt's amazing you're alive. The shell hit the roof!â the man said. The building was only 18 stories tall, I knew it had struck close to me, but I didn't feel scared, not then.

âœHere, take this,â He wrapped his coat around me and lifted me up.

âœIs anyone else in there?â he asked, playing his light over Clement's apartment. âœThere's nobody else alive on this floor, I think.â

âœYes, Clement, he's at the back,â I said, pointing to where the dust was thickest. Now that it was clearing I could see fires in the city beyond. I looked down the hall, briefly, and realized that I could see the city there, too, where much of the building was gone.

The man went into the room, pushing the couch aside, and stopped.

âœThere's nothing back here,â he said.

I stepped forward, reluctant to go further in. âœNo, he's right in the bedroom, he helped me get out.â

The flashlight came back towards me, and I ducked my head against the glare.

âœNo, you don't understand. There's nothing there, the apartment is gone.â

But I was looking down at the jacket he had given me. At the name stitched, âœNorman, P. Corporal.â on his breast.

And I looked up, and it was... it was the boy from the food truck.

Cleaning Up the Joint

2009-11-30T17:04:18Z

In preparation for the Tenth Anniversary of my blog, I'm preparing to do a little housecleaning. Yes, it's been TEN YEARS of blogging here at the Aerie, which would be impressive except that there are people like Asia Carrera (first entry in the Wayback Machine is 3/5/1997 and unsurprisingly NSFW) and James Lileks (12/4/1998 and unsurprisingly SFW) whose blogs are in driver's training class. Both of them have blogs so ancient that the Wayback Machine can't even go back to their beginnings: I hope that they have archived their own early postings for posterity. Okay, I'm SURE Lileks has them organized on color-coded index cards.

So to celebrate my tenth anniversary of blogging I'll be starting when my finals finish mid-month to set up new blogging software, redo the layout, and possibly even put some advertising on here so that my vast readership can help keep me in decaffeinated coffee and Uncle Hugo's paperbacks.

However for the next couple of weeks I'm going to be quite busy wrapping up the college semester. I'm undecided as to whether I want to register for any classes next semester. Part of that will be determined by whether my current employment contract ends on the 10th or not - there's a big Board decision that will either bring me two years of work or 0 days of work. If I end up on the street again, I'll probably register for classes since that worked this semester (I'm shooting for an 'A'). However if I have work then I might skip a semester since work plus college makes me grumpy, and I have a bunch of my own projects that I'd like to complete.

Anyway if over Christmas break you see some downtime, or the page jumps up and one of the crossbeams has gone out askew on the treadle, it's probably me hacking away at the layout.

Meanwhile we just finished Thanksgiving, which was very nice. My mother, sister and brother came over with my nieces and nephew. Theresa's friend Serena also joined us.

During the days that followed it was wonderful having the twins at home. Dinnertime conversation goes rocketing off into complete silliness.

I also had a ton of work to do over the weekend, and some of it got done. I had to put in four hours a day of paying work, which ate severely into my homework time. I also suffered a bout of insomnia on Saturday night, and Sunday ended up being rather a wash as I was addled with fatigue. But I got my ears lowered and my laundry washed and ironed and put away, so it wasn't a completely useless day.

So that's the latest. Back to work!

Homework? Oh, blogging!

2009-11-04T16:25:22Z

You can tell Ihave homework to do when alluvasudden I start blogging.

Today I have a homework assignment to complete, then I have to start working, hard, on next week's huge 30-point homework project (the final is worth 20 points). Also I have my Mitlanyal paper that I should be much farther along on. So of course I'm blogging.

Sitting here at the Brueggers in Eagan where I go with Theresa on Wednesday mornings. She goes off to a class at the Aslan Institute and I sit here and try to make myself work on homework. And end up browsing Facebook and blogging!

Had a job interview yesterday that went quite well, and moments ago got a call regarding negotiating rates. If I get the rate proposed I will be quite happy, and starting Monday-after-next. I will begin griping about my job around three days later, because that's just the kind of whiny shmuck I am.

That of course will add urgency to the use of my time for scholastic purposes. I was ALREADY panicking over the next six weeks of schoolwork, hopefully I'll have the chance to completely freak out when work is added to the mix. Crossing fingers, waiting for the trigger to be pulled, etc.

Okay, okay, enough procrastinating, enough speculation about the downside of really good news, off to work on homework!! SRIOUSLY!

Writing Exercise

2009-10-01T03:37:01Z

Did a writing exercise tonight, the first free writing I've done despite being out of work for a month. You'd think I could get more done, but classwork and job hunting eat up my time.

For those of you who don't know, and why should you, my wife (the actual writer in the family) made three big piles of cards: Characters, Places, and Stories. The exercise is to pick one card at random from each pile and write whatever story comes to mind inside of half an hour. Tonight I got "The Belle of the Ball," "A Phone Booth," and "Food Fight."

Anyway, the story is after the jump, which when you click "Continue reading 'Writing Exercise'" means you agree to follow copyright law and conventions and not to copy or transmit my story anyplace in any form, but you're welcome to link people here...

Bedtime Story

Are you going to stay in bed this time? No? Really. Do you know when I was your age if we said âœNoâ to our elders, we went to bed with our bottoms red and our stomachs empty? Oh you have never been hungry a day in your life don't tell me you wouldn't care. All right, if it will get you to lie down. What do you want to hear?

Why do you care how I met your grandfather, hm? You're knee-high to a cricket, romance ought to be the farthest thing from your mind. Don't boys have cooties anymore? Well, good, at least some things don't change.

All right, well, where to begin. Yes, there was a dance. What you don't understand is, there was ALWAYS a dance. Because in those days we didn't HAVE television. Well, most of us didn't and those that did had nothing to watch. Great Aunt Nelly says that was the âœGolden age of television,â yes, but it was as stuffy and boring then as it is now, just like her. You will NOT tell her I said that. Remember about the red bottoms?

No, most of us had nothing to do and our parents would no more let us watch television all night than yours will let you play video games all night, so we had to amuse ourselves. So we had dances.

Now back then I was the belle of the ball. I did not RING, that means I was pretty. Of course that's why you're pretty. You are! Well that's the biggest pile of nonsense I ever heard. Didn't you just tell me boys have cooties? Do you know what that means? That means that when they tell you you're ugly they really mean you're pretty, that's what cooties do, they make your brains work backwards. Yes it does explain a lot, doesn't it?

Now where was I? The way you keep interrupting you'll be awake until your parents get home and then what kind of trouble will I be in? Of course I can! Well, no, they can't punish me, but your mother can give me the Evil Eye like she always has since she was your age and smaller.

SO (I'm ignoring you now you'll notice) I was the belle of the ball, and before you ask a ball is a DANCE. Oh you do? Well you're very clever with your Cinderella. Very well. And I was a young lady, all of seventeen and ready to go to college. Well, along comes your grandfather, and he sits at our table!

It was your Great Aunt Nelly and I and a girl named, oh, I don't remember anything but her big buck teeth. Well your grandfather sits at our table, next to Clara, oh, that was her name, Clara. And that put him across from me, you see, since I was sitting next to Nelly. I used to tease him that if Nelly and I had switched places that night he would have ended up married to her, oh he hated that idea!

No your Great Aunt Nelly is VERY nice, it's her liniment that smells that way young lady, and that's no way to speak of your elders.

Well anyway your grandfather, oh he was so young and charming, tall and slender, in a white sport coat with his hair combed up. Well my heart was all a flutter. And he asked me to dance and back then we danced real DANCES, not this jumping nonsense your cousins call dancing.

Now back then if you danced once with a boy, you were being polite, and if you danced twice you were a couple, but if you danced three times with the same boy, well, let's just say people would whisper. So we danced and I thanked him and went back to my table.

Well your grandfather was persistent, and the next week we danced again. And this time I was hoping he would ask me again, but he didn't.

The following week was an Ice Cream Social. It's kind of like dessert and dancing both. Yes, it's my favorite too. And there was your grandfather who had gotten quite regular in his habits, so of course he asked me to dance. And then, when I was going to return to the table, I felt him take my hand, this hand right here, except it was much smoother then, without all the spots, and he asked me to dance again.

No, we didn't get married right then, don't rush ahead! We were dancing our second dance, and I was hoping that afterwards he would give me his class ring to show that I was his girl, and I could hardly think straight the whole time, when what do you think happened next?

That's right, I've told you this before, haven't I, and only about a million times. Yes, GLOP, a big ball of ice cream hit him in the face. No, he didn't have glasses then, he got those later. Well, I was so surprised I didn't know what was happening.

And do you know what he did then? Yes, that's right. As all those boys and their cootie-brains started throwing ice-cream all over the room, your grandfather bent over to shield me from the mess. He hurried me off that floor as quick as he could, but it was crowded with young hooligans and my dress was silk and taffeta and one drop of ice cream would ruin it forever.

Yes, that's right, your grandfather wanted to protect me, and he hustled me into the safest thing he could think of at the moment, a phone booth, and crowded in after me. Normally that would have been quite scandalous but at the time everyone was busy with those boys throwing ice cream.

Now don't you jump ahead, and lay down. Get under the blanket, because when I stop talking you're supposed to be asleep, remember? Okay.

So yes, then he turned around, and he looked so funny with his face sticky with ice cream, but I didn't DARE laugh. You will learn young lady that you could shoot a boy with a gun and not hurt him half as badly as if you laugh at him. Don't you dare, I'm telling you this woman-to-woman, you have to keep that to yourself, it's part of growing up. You'll understand... yes, that's right, when you're older.

Where was I? So he turned around and looked so funny, but I kept a straight face and I said âœOh, dear, you're a mess. And I took my kerchief and I tried to wipe off the ice cream. And do you know what happened next? Of course you do.

Yes, he did. Oh, and it was wonderful. Yes, because it tasted like ice cream, did I tell you that already? I did, did I? Well an old woman forgets. But yes, boy's kisses usually don't taste like ice cream, they taste like whatever dreadful thing a boy has been eating, and let me tell you that can take some getting used to. But he kissed me, right there in the phone booth, while young hooligans all around were throwing food and whooping up a storm. We stood there in our tiny little phone booth, and we could have been on the moon for all I cared.

And that was how I knew I loved him, because when you kiss someone you love, no matter what they've been eating, they always taste sweet.

Well after that of course we got married. Yes,well, back then a boy didn't kiss you if he wasn't set on marrying you. No, not right away, a few months later before he went away in the War. Yes, I can, but that's another story for another night.

Sh, do you hear that? It's your mother and father home, and you still awake. Now you lie down and pretend you're asleep or your old granny is gonna get the Evil Eye. Yes, good night.

Well of course you taste like ice cream. You get it from your grandfather.

Voices from the Past

2009-09-13T04:41:09Z

Yesterday was even more tiring than those preceding it. In part that was my own fault.

I hadn't gotten to the gym on Thursday, so on Friday I thought I'd bike to a distant cafe and do some work there, with the bike ride serving as exercise. I rode to my destination, and was typing merrily away on my laptop when my phone rang and my wife informed me I had forgotten something. I forgot I had promised to help my mother pull up the carpeting in her bedroom.

Whee.

Since I had biked about 1/3rd of the way to her house, I called her and had her just pick me up at the cafe, and left my bike locked to a pole. I moved furniture, took apart her headboard, tore up carpeting and padding, and levered up all the stupid carpet-strips around the border of the room. While I was doing that, I also booted her computer and applied all the patches and updates it was clamoring for, then ran a virus scan.

Hours later she dropped me off, and I still had to complete my bike ride home. So I got in my exercise yesterday.

Today I went over Bob and Debbie's and set up their computers, wiring up their network and wireless hubs and configuring her SSID to be unannounced and connecting her laptop with WPA2 and TKIP. I also updated his virus scanner and applied patches, etc and got his e-mail working.

I got home pretty tired (especially having been kept up til 4:00 am with insomnia over joblessness), but I received a very nice treat when I read my e-mail....

Hello, It was nice to see this in your post. It is from my mother's grave. My sister found it on Google and sent me the link.

I had no idea what these comments posted to my blog meant, but they were in reference to entry #34, and this my dear friends is entry #654. Whose grave? What was being commented? Only a blog entry from the year 2000... Go read the post and the comments...

What a blast from the past, eh? I thought their comments were very kind and much more thoughtful than I deserve.

I of course remember NOTHING described in the blog entry. I have a terrible memory. But it was wild to read about those ancient days of wandering around a cemetary with the kids. And it was also amazing to me, as I dug around the archives, to realize that in a few short months this blog will celebrate its tenth anniversary. Wow...

Tonight we went to Movie Night, which featured a documentary by a fellow named Barry Kimm (who was in attendance) describing how his three siblings tried to salvage belongings and memories from the abandoned Iowa farmhouse where they had been raised. It was quite moving and very well done. Hopefully he'll put it on the Internet sometime.

Health Care Reform Screed

2009-08-18T00:52:51Z

A British acquaintance wrote to complain that Britain's public health service was being libelled by U. S. media, such as the Investors Business Daily article claiming that if Stephen Hawking had to depend on the British Health Service he would have died long ago. (Apparently unknown to the journalistic stawlarts at IBD is that Hawking is a British citizen, and has survived all these years on that exact care.) Here's my reply:

Economic nationalism and bigotry are being used by American corporate media in their all-out propaganda offensive to prevent any reform to health insurance in the United States. In such an environment, complaints that the British Health Service is being slandered will never be aired, much less elicit any empathy.

While more than two-thirds of Americans desire such reform, much more than two thirds of our Congress has been bribed, I'm sorry, "lobbied" by the health care industry to ensure no such thing occurs. The population knows it. We know that the supposedly brilliant Obama has somehow managed to repeat the first term gaffes of the Clinton administration by recklessly and naively attempting to tackle the health care industry without laying sufficient Congressional groundwork. In other words, we're quite aware that we are being lied to and that our representatives have been bought, so your average American is rather more concerned about how to pay their medical bills (and, incidentally, the destruction of our representative democracy) than about the hurt feelings of our British and Canadian neighbors.

In February of this year my daughter cut her thumb, requiring five stitches - the cost to us was $1100, or Â£672. My mother waited too long to go to the hospital because she had no health insurance (and of course wouldn't burden her children with her problems). She finally went in the hospital on a Friday in March, and died on Sunday night: I got the call at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning.

The health care industry has billions of dollars with which to bribe Congress, broadcast lies on U.S. public airways, and organize fake "grassroots movements" against health care reform, all of which they've done. Half the Democrats are already bought, to say nothing of the Republicans who offer bulk discounts. Most of the major media is heavily sponsored by health care marketing, which tortures viewers with schmaltzy commercials describing novel diseases and then tells us to ask our doctors for the cure (then followed by a lengthy, graphic description of the horrid side effects). Terry Gilliam could not dream up a more dystopian and denial-laced nightmare for representative democracy.

What we need in America more than health care reform is public financing of electoral campaigns. It is by bribing politicians with electoral funding that American corporations have managed to undermine democracy, ensuring the perpetuation not only of the wildly profitable health care industry, but the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the continuing fraud that is our banking and investment system. Unfortunately what little organization there is among American populists is presently focused on the unlikely goal of health care reform, so I don't expect anything in America to improve any time soon. Without campaign finance reform, corporations will continue to control, and fleece, America.

As far as Britain or Canada goes, I wouldn't suggest holding your breath for a U.S. apology. You might pass out and end up in the hospital, which at least you could afford. I fractured several ribs in a bike accident in May, but refused an ambulance and sought no treatment. Because I have twins starting at public Universities in a couple of weeks and, like health care, a college education is extremely expensive over here too.

Schneier Movie-Plot Threat Contest

2009-04-20T15:30:57Z

April is the month for Bruce Schneier's annual Movie Plot Threat Contest, this year focused on incidents in developed nations which can be plausibly blamed on terrorism. I've made couple of entries already, carefully word-counted to avoid losing on overage like I did last year, but my favorite is today's entry, which I think really captures the essence of the contest. Find it, along with links to supporting documentation, after the jump.

Madonnaâ™s Terror Dance Wreaks Vengeance on Horses

Florida (CNN) â“ In retaliation for being thrown from a horse last week, terrorist diva Madonna and her brutal backup dancers have lashed out at the equine-American community. Homeland Security officials fear the deaths of nearly two dozen thoroughbred horses at a Wellington polo club may re-ignite the longstanding feud between horses and celebrities that has simmered since the death of Christopher Reeve in 2004. Accompanied by backup henchmen known by the codenames âœCloud,â âœHypnosis,â and âœNorman,â security cameras caught pop-terrorist Madonna performing her classic âœVogueâ within plain view of the stables. Veterinarians theorize that the horses spontaneously died, rather than endure the spectacle. Asked if the sectarian equine-celebrity conflict, which began with the 521 B.C. death of King Cambyses II, and includes victims Catherine the Great and Genghis Kahn, will likely end anytime soon, an anonymous source in the equine-American community said, âœNeigh.â

Another Strib Letter

2009-02-22T00:26:18Z

Taking an irresponsible break from my studying, I caught an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "RNC charges fall by the wayside: only about 15 percent of 800 arrests will be charged"

There's a lot wrong with that article. First, "only" 15 percent of 800 people is 120 people. That's not "only."

Second, the online article does not allow comments. Mind you, comments are allowed for 99% of the articles on the Star Tribune. A teen is mauled by a tiger, comments are allowed. A man kills himself for no apparent reason during a traffic stop: comments are allowed. But the First Amendment is methodically and systematically violated right in our own streets? Comments not allowed.

So I turned to a letter to the editor, in order that maybe one comment, somewhere, might be permitted.

We'll see if they publish it. Yet another letter describing Obama as a "socialist" might sell more ad space.

With distressing predictability, the Star Tribune soft-pedals the story that almost no one arrested during the RNC convention last fall will be charged. No online comments are permitted to discuss how our civil rights were methodically violated. No court case will allow a public airing of the systematic abuse of police power that turns America into Soviet Russia every four years. The last eight years have seen the greatest erosion of our civil rights in a generation, and the Star Tribune is cooperating fully. As your editors struggle with bankruptcy, they might want to consider how abandoning the traditional role and tenets of journalism has gone hand in hand with declining readership and relevance. If the Star Tribune cannot bring itself to defend the First Amendment out of a sense of patriotism or journalistic integrity, then at least consider how it might help sales.

Why Congress is stalled on the 'bail out'

2008-09-26T21:56:15Z

As you know, the Democrats have committee controls, but don't have enough votes to overcome a filibuster. So if the Republicans don't like it, it won't happen, so it can't be "rammed through." And remember, even a good solution can get scuttled because it makes the Democrats look too sensible or intelligent to suit Republican tastes.

The Democrats are less organized that the Republicans, who have hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate-funded "think tanks" coordinating their efforts, and a corporate propaganda empire (Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC) for communications. Remember during the six years that the Republicans controlled Congress, the way any Democratic resistance was met with a propaganda blizzard about how every bill deserved an "up 'r down vote." The corporate propaganda machine shamed Democrats from exercising their filibuster powers. The Democrats have no similar propaganda machine with which to shame Republicans, because the same corporations that control the media and fund the think-tanks also control the Republicans. And a lot of the Democrats. So the filibuster, which they once decried as an anti-democratic anti-American tool of troop haters, is now such a central plank of Republican strategy that they don't have to use it: just the threat of the filibuster scuttles Democratic legislation.

Many leading Democrats, such as Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, and of course non-Democrat, the independent Lieberman, are "Republican lite" Democrats. Much of the chaos in the Democratic party is due to actual progressives such as Dean, Feingold and Kucinich being sharply at odds with more conservative Democratic colleagues.

The Congress, particularly the Senate, is populated by the extraordinarily wealthy, meaning that they have a conflict of interest in this case, serving the public good versus serving their own financial interests. If the "best" answer were 'let the market collapse and self correct,' but that would slash half of Nancy Pelosi's personal wealth, would she push for that solution? Would anyone?

Congress is populated by Beltway Insiders, a ruling aristocracy that is far removed from the concerns of day-to-day citizenry, and does not identify with the citizenry. Therefore their interests are in protecting their own "tribe," (the wealthy and powerful) over serving the average citizen (who they see as rednecks or rabble). That means that not only is Pelosi watching her own bottom line, but those of all her friends and relatives, while paying scant attention to what you or I might be experiencing.

These are of course generalizations. The House has a greater spectrum of financial backgrounds and political philosophies, while the Senate is much more conservative and much more wealthy.

In this case, the average citizen is angry enough that they are actually having some small influence on Congress (unlike in the case of the FISA amendment, which went ahead despite substantial political outcry from the population whose rights were being disposed of). This isn't just some abstract right to privacy that's at risk, the retirement money for millions of aging Boomers is in peril, and Congressional phone lines are swamped.

The Democrats cannot come to a swift conclusion right now because repairing this artificially triggered crisis requires lengthy thoughtful analysis by experts, not some extravagant and expensive stunt. This expert analysis is required simply to protect the financial interests of the Congresspeople, to say nothing of the long-term interests of this nation. In seeking to protect their own pocketbooks, the Congress is taking more time than, say, when being asked whether to send working-class soldiers off to die overseas in a war based on neoconservative imperial fantasies and the president's Oedipal complex. The Congress does not want to risk taking hasty action and impacting their own personal wealth.

It's important to realize that we've been through all this before. Adjusted for inflation, this is hardly more expensive than the Savings and Loan collapse in the Eighties (you remember that, when John McCain was part of the Keating Five, who sought to shelter one of the worst abusers from justice in the S&L collapse).

I'm actually quite pleased that progress is slow. The longer this takes, the more of a chance that an actual solution will be developed, rather than some flashy slight of hand that once again dumps hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the upper 1/10 of 1% of the wealthiest people in the world.

The real question I have is, why now? This crisis has been ready to go for months, yet it was set off in the heart of the final stretch towards the election. Unless it is meant to distract from foreign policy blunders (did you know we're nearly at war with Pakistan?) I cannot understand what advantage the White House was seeking in promoting this crisis now. Unless the Right has so given up on McCain's chances that they want to rob the Treasury now and leave Obama's administration completely impoverished.

CBS News Standards

2008-07-23T22:05:30Z

Bloggers are complaining about the editing of Katie Couric's interview with Senator John McCain, during which the answer to a different question was edited into place make McCain look better, and an embarassing gaffe was omitted entirely.

However, these bloggers with complaints are referencing an out-of-date set of standards. Since I has mad investigative skillz, I have unearthed a copy of the current journalistic standards that CBS employs. It is clear upon reviewing these standards that CBS did nothing wrong whatsoever.

CBS EDITING STANDARDS
As CBS journalists, you represent the interest of Viacom, the corporation that owns your news bureau. You have two tasks: support the goals of the corporation, and present the truth in a manner that presents the corporation in the best light.

EDITING: When presenting opposing viewpoints, keep in mind which viewpoint best supports the goals of the corporation. Sometimes corporate spokespeople, such as Administration personnel or members of Congress, may have trouble clearly and succinctly expressing the corporation's goals. If you hear an obvious error, offer the spokesperson the chance to correct their statement by re-filming the response.

However, you won't always be able to catch errors in the field. That's where editing comes in. As a journalistic editor, you can enhance the corporation's message by clarifying those statements with your editing tools. Remove hesitations, pauses, and "um"s to make the message more succinct. If the answer to another question is clearer, rearrange the answer to support your spokesperson.

Contrariwise, you will frequently be forced to add "tension" and "controversy" to your interviews, in order to infotain your audience. You may find yourself interviewing persons whose interests are contrary to the corporation's goals, such as environmentalists, Federal regulators, or Liberals. These people are very concerned that their messages be conveyed in full, and are very sensitive to editing; therefore, do not correct their statements, and do not edit their answers. If this means that you leave in footage of the subject picking their nose, or muttering obscenities and threats when they believe they are off camera, so be it.

It is as important to maintain the viewers' interest as it is to convey the entire message that these subjects wish to convey. If a subject's statements are boring, try adding a little whimsy by using post-production techniques to enhance the subject's features. A boring interview can be salvaged by enlarging ears and noses, erasing lapel pins, or adding a "Yakkety Sax" soundtrack.

Remember, as a journalist, your job is to convey the truth from Viacom's point of view in an informative and entertaining fashion. Editing is your tool to help you maintain the high journalistic standards that Viacom and the Administration have come to expect.

Another poster

2008-07-16T16:04:49Z

I am under an incredible amount of pressure at work, so much so that I almost had to cancel our vacation to the Black Hills this weekend. Almost.

So of course when I'm under all of this pressure, I focus like a laser on the tasks at hand, I dedicate my self to the unrelenting pursuit of quality, I invest all my...

...Okay, I get distracted and create de-motivational posters.

Here's the latest.

The poster is emblematic of what I deal with in the information security field. This morning a pen-tester was showing our group that he'd discovered a hole in a newly developed, not yet released application so large that it allowed him to intercept all communications between a customer and the server. He could step into the middle of the communication and take over completely: if a product was sold on the server for $10, he could change the price to $12. The customer wouldn't know the price wasn't $12, that what he'd see and he'd pay it - the server wouldn't know the customer had paid $12, because the pentester could take out the $2 for himself, and send the $10 along to the server.

Everyone would be happy - the customer would get the product, the server would make the sale, and the pentester would walk away $2 richer.

Meanwhile the majority of effort in the organization is to squelch the findings, remove the ability of the pentesters to examine the application, and assign blame to other parties.

Hence the poster. I took me fifteen minutes to find the image and create the poster. Time well spent, I say!

Addendum and poster

2008-06-10T13:53:38Z

Apparently I was too quick to post, yesterday. It took til this morning, but KSTP has posted the article along with the video of the crazy St. Francis councilman which caught my attention while flipping channels. So now you can watch and judge for yourself, although as I mentioned in a discussion with my friend Tim, you CAN count on the media to edit the interview in order to get 100% pure uncut China White craziness.

Still, it doesn't appear that it took a lot of editing.

Also, rebounding from my crushing defeat on a technicality in Bruce Schneier's Third Annual Movie Plot contest (Pfft! "150 words or less"... it's a guideline!) my caption for the Bruce Schneier motivational poster has received wide acclaim. So that motivational poster is available by clicking on the thumbnail at left...

And WHY am I focusing my life on entering various contests on the Bruce Schneier blog? Because it's about the only blog I can actually justify reading while I'm at work!

Well, that, and I have no life.

180 Hours

2008-05-08T14:59:04Z

Hey y'all. I know and understand that you've stopped checking for updates here. I get it. Haven't updated in forever for two reasons. First, I started writing a big entry about online cameras, and it has stood in the way of subsequent posts. I'll finish it eventually, but I have to stop letting it clog up my other posts.

Second reason is that I'm in the middle of my third consecutive 60 hour work-week. Things at work have gotten totally crazy, so I simply haven't had time to post (or to bathe, for that matter - I'm pretty ripe!)

HOWEVER.... I wanted to post really quick to announce that I'm one of the finalists in noted security expert Bruce Schneier's Third Annual Movie Plot Threat Contest.

Most government security programs are focused on what Schneier calls "movie plot threats," unlikely but flamboyant possible attacks. For example, ever since 9/11 we've been taking off our shoes and discarding our liquids at the airport in order to prevent another shoe bomber or liquid bomb attempt. Never mind that neither of those attempts worked, and one of them wasn't even real. The inconvenient and expensive measures aimed at preventing this very small group of possible attacks are usually unlikely to prevent them, to say nothing of preventing much more mundane and likely attacks (such as a bomb slipped onto the plane by cleaning crew).

Anyway my entry this year was the DNA Adulteratometer, a small device that detects if someone has spit in your soup. It's meant to address the fear that someone has peed in the company coffee pot. More broadly, the fallacious entry addresses the insecurity and fear inherent in the growing class and ethnic divide between the (mostly white) ultra-rich and the (frequently ethnic) workers and servants upon whom they depend for their lifestyle.

Be sure you visit Bruce Schneier's website, review all the entries, and then vote for mine! Everyone who does so receives a FREE DNA Adulteratometer, as soon as they are invented and manufactured...

And be sure to purchase one of Bruce Schneier's fine security books while you're there. They make great Mother's Day gifts!

The Old Man Still Has It

2008-04-08T20:52:09Z

I gave up being a programmer over fifteen years ago. After about fifteen years spent programming, I realized that programmers are the 21st-century bricklayers, and that they will always be underfunded, overscheduled, and uncredited. Rather than building houses, I'd rather be the architect designing them.

Plus I just couldn't wrap my head around object-oriented programming. Or if it was possible, I was by then so finished with programming that I couldn't get up the energy or interest to do it.

But that doesn't mean I don't ever code. It just means I don't code very much.

Whenever I do write code, any accomplishments, however minor, are extra-special since I'm no longer a coder. Back in the mid-Nineties I wrote a piece of C-language code that would import all-capital-letters information from a mainframe, and translate it into appropriately capitalized-and-lower-case information. I remember how pleased I was when it worked.

Likewise, I modified a perl script that I found on the internet to turn it into a fairly robust image slideshow viewer.

So today's accomplishment was minor, but pleasing. Put simply, I've been re-creating the ability to build Visio diagrams with Layer buttons. This allows for parts of a diagram to be displayed and hidden - for example, a diagram of a street could have one button for "Cars", one for "People", and another for "Both," and each button would show what's on its label and hide what isn't.

Building each button takes a block of Visual Basic code that looks like this:

Dim LayerObj As Visio.Layer
Dim LayerName As String
Dim LayerCellObj As Visio.Cell
Set LayersObj = ActivePage.Layers
For Each LayerObj In LayersObj
  If LayerObj.Name = "Cars" Then
    Set LayerCellObj = LayerObj.CellsC(visLayerVisible)
    LayerCellObj.Formula = True
  Else
    Set LayerCellObj = LayerObj.CellsC(visLayerVisible)
    LayerCellObj.Formula = False
  End If
Next

The problem I was running into was that if you have a lot of buttons, you repeat that block of code very time. For instance, if I wanted "Cars" and "People" buttons, I'd have to duplicate that entire block of code, changing the word "Cars' to "People."

Then I started to create additional sheets in Visio, and I discovered that each button on EVERY sheet would have one of these entries in the same code file. Now the code block would go on for pages, with a big different block for each button on every sheet, and all the layer names extended across every sheet. This was going to be terribly clumsy.

Finally, if one wanted to show ALL layers again, or contrariwise show NO layers, then one needs those buttons on each sheet, an each of those buttons on every sheet would have an associated big block of code. This was going to be a mess.

What I needed to do was figure out a way to re-use the same block of code over again, with different label names - what's called a "subroutine" in coding language. Problem was, I had no idea how to specify such a thing in the Visual Basic coding language.

I started fooling around with it, but I didn't have a lot of time. I tried a few intuitive guesses, but when I started to find myself using Google looking for instructions, I figured I ought to give up. I didn't have the time to fool around digging in Google.

So I finished what I was doing, closed my quotations and parentheses, and saved my work. Then, more out of habit than anything else, I clicked the button.

It worked!

I didn't even know what I'd done to get it right. I'd simply closed quotes and parenthesis in a way that seemed reasonable, and amazingly I got the function correctly formatted, almost by accident.

Private Sub ShowLayer(ThisLayer)
Dim LayersObj As Visio.Layers
Dim LayerObj As Visio.Layer
Dim LayerName As String
Dim LayerCellObj As Visio.Cell
Set LayersObj = ActivePage.Layers
For Each LayerObj In LayersObj
LayerName = LayerObj.Name
' Debug.Print LayerName
  If LayerName = ThisLayer Then
    Set LayerCellObj = LayerObj.CellsC(visLayerVisible)
    LayerCellObj.Formula = True
  Else
    Set LayerCellObj = LayerObj.CellsC(visLayerVisible)
    LayerCellObj.Formula = False
  End If
Next
End Sub

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()

'Example page Layer1 button

Call ShowLayer("Layer1")

End Sub

So now I have a handy little set of buttons and subroutines to let me set up more buttons. Instead of reproducing a big block of code, all I do is call the ShowLayer subroutine with the name of the layer to activate, or the AllLayers subroutine to turn all layers on or off.

If you're a Visio user who wants to learn how to make buttons, take a look at my example file and hopefully it will be helpful for you!

Weekend Oof

2008-04-06T16:57:44Z

Well, this is my first weekend off in a while. It's rather nice not having to work seven days a week for a change, although who knows how long it will last. At the beginning of March my boss asked me to put in more time at work. We had one of these conversations over electronic chat (meaning that I captured it for posterity):

"how many hours are you burning per week?"

"Well, I'm burning about 45."

"is there anything preventing going up a little more? I am averaging 60"

So I took the hint and started putting in more hours. Certainly there was plenty of work that needed doing. Still is.

Fortunately this week some of my responsibilities were offloaded to another person. I could tell that in some senses this was viewed as some kind of "loss" for me, some kind of "win" for her. And within the corporate context of career employees, that's possibly true.

Whenever I've been part of such "wins," however, they are usually transient and meaningless. For one week you might be celebrated as an exceptional employee, but I have never seen long-term accruing benefits from such endeavors. Instead one's manager leaves or the business reorganizes, or one changes jobs, and then one might as well have sat quietly in a corner as worked like a fool, the end result is the same.

So I was happy to "lose" and hand some unwantd and unasked-for responsibilities off to the crazy person who stepped up for the job! What this change means, in addition to being able to relax on a weekend, or maybe even blog, is that I get to focus on the type of work I actually like doing and am skilled at. I'll probably still be called upon to work crazy hours, but at least I won't spend it, like I did last Sunday, fiddling with Microsoft Project and impossible milestones.

Yesterday I had the usual Saturday intentions of getting a million things accomplished. But in the afternoon I went biking with a friend (one of the planned things) and she suggested a different route. We headed out, and the next thing I knew I was a zillion miles from home on my bike, and a long way to go to return. I pedaled along diligently behind her for two and a half hours, but I am dreadfully out of shape and weigh twice what she does, so she was forced to wait up for me several times. I arrived home dog tired and sore in places I'd rather not discuss from too long on a bike. Towards the end I was even starting to get numb in my wrists from holding the handlebars, an attack of the carpal tunnel to which my wife is usually victim, not me.

So that was my weekend "oof" (I bet you thought I'd mistyped the title). Despite resting, I was useless for the remainder of the evening. I couldn't concentrate, and ended up getting little else done that I had planned. Today is taken up with church, and then family birthday party obligations.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to get some chores done tonight. But we'll see.

And then, weather and time permitting, I'll hop on my bike on Monday morning and pedal the twelve miles to work. Because I gotta do SOMETHING to get in shape. (Although I am proud of myself, I've been here at the cafe for more than an hour, and only eaten a yogurt and a sandwich, avoiding the tempting chocolate croissant.)

Hopefully my reduced workload will permit me a little more time for recreation.

Great ex-Spectacle-ations

2008-03-24T22:23:13Z

For the first time in a month I did not work over the weekend. Oh, I worked, but I didn't work on work-work, billing work. I just didn't have time.

Friday night we went bowling with our friend Terry and his two sons, and one son's charming and outgoing girlfriend. It was my delight to bowl a 134 on the second game (after not having bowled for a zillion years). This was using a nicked up house bowling ball, so it was quite an accomplishment for me.

At first I ran around in an annoying fashion trying to give my family members bowling tips. My spouse was challenged by the weight of the ball (you don't want to stand too close behind her) and my younger son has a remarkable delivery that involves a series of breakdance moves. My older boy got quite exasperated with my advice very quickly. So I stopped giving him any advice and he bowled a bunch of gutterballs, Now, I'm not one to indulge in schadenfreude, but he wins at everything. Halo, Fluxx, Elixir, all sorts of games, we play, he wins... so it was fun for his old man to thoroughly out-bowl him.

Not that I'd ever SAY that out loud... :-)

Saturday was spent cleaning house for Easter, since my wife was having her family over - well some of it. Only her parents, her sister's family, and her sister's father-in-law attended, but given the size of our house that was just fine. Anyway Saturday was spent cleaning, and then dyeing eggs. Afterwards I did my monthly business expenses and went through some financial and other documents related to my small company.

By the time that finished it was about 7:00 p.m., so I spent some time watching my copy of "Enchanted" that I picked up after work on Friday. The scene where Giselle leans out the window of the Manhattan apartment building in order to sing up the wildlife to help her clean house always makes me laugh.

The next morning was a nice relaxing combination of egg-hunting and breakfast, marred only by the destruction of my eyeglasses. The Boy was not well pleased when I snapped a photograph of him lying on the floor in his sleepwear, and wrestled the camera away from me quite vigorously. After the issue was resolved I realized that I had no glasses on. After a brief search (during which we discovered some lost eggs from last year) the glasses were found in the couch cushions - in two pieces. Somehow the left stem of my glasses had been torn completely off! I hadn't even realized they weren't on my face!

Easter went well, the smaller crowd of guests made the experience much more tolerable than some past family gatherings. After everyone left we watched the rest of 'Enchanted' that we had started the night before, then watched all the extras. After that break my wife and I washed the fine china (not leaving THAT to the teenagers!) and then it was time for bed...

This morning I phoned the Vision World near work, and got prompt service, including an eye exam. They had a cheap pair of plastic tortoiseshell frames that fit my existing lenses, which I can wear until my new glasses come in. They had a "any pair of frames for $59" sale, so I got a $250 set of frames for $59.

And, thinking ahead, I got a pair of twisty, flexible frames that can be wrapped around a stick and spring back into place. So next time The Boy decides to take on his old man in wrestling, all I have to worry about is having him pull my arms out of their sockets...

Hangin' wit my Pepys

2008-02-27T19:14:17Z

Garrison Keillor turned me on to the diary of Samuel Pepys. Actually, let me take that back. The first five words of this blog should never be written or uttered anywhere in any context, and I apologize.

Anyway I subscribed to the MPR "Writer's Almanac" podcast in the hopes that I would be inspired to remember my writing on a more regular basis (and lookit, I'm blogging!) And earlier this week he reported on the birthday of Samuel Pepys (pronounced "peeps" for some reason).

It turns out that Pepys was a blogger! Granted, his blog was written on paper in a quaint format called a "diary," had an uncertain audience called "posterity," and racked up even fewer page-views than MY blog for its first few decades. Nevertheless, it has many of the characteristics of a blog. It's as much fun as The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon.

However, much of that has been rectified! Having been translated from its native code several times, some enterprising fellow has converted the daily diary entries of this Seventeenth Century clerk into blog entries! So every morning over a cup of tea I travel back in time 243 years to check in on the life and career of my friend Sam Pepys.

I'm tempted to begin all my own blog entries henceforth with "Up, and to the office." However, I won't start tracking my many affairs in my blog (as Pepys did) until I can come up with some kind of code that my spouse won't be able to translate. Pepys had some kind of code that he used for his liaison, which might have worked to conceal them if his wife hadn't actually walked in on him boffing the maid at least once. But what shall I use? Maybe pig-Latin?

"Oday-tay I offed-bay my istress-may" That will work! Now all I need is a mistress... er, istress-may.

I also yell at the TV

2008-02-27T03:42:20Z

I was reading an article entitled Earth's Final Sunset Predicted when I stumbled across this sentence...

"like all previous hominids and more than 99 percent of all species that have lived on Earth, humans will probably go extinct, and it will likely happen sooner than a billion years"

This sentence really jumped out at me, making as it did a billion-year long-jump off of a couple of extremely shaky assumptions. So, of course, being an opinionated bastard, I promptly wrote to the article's author...

Now I recognize that this person is just reporting the news, and is probably not entirely responsible for the sentence in question. Maybe it was assembled following discussions with a number of astronomers - or maybe it was her own, who knows.

Anyway, here's my reply... enjoy!

Unlike more than 99 percent of all species that have lived on Earth, we're self-aware, and arguably intelligent. So one really can't draw a conclusion from the behavior of the other 99% of life.

Additionally, one of the ways in which humans could "go extinct" would be to evolve into something else. So while whatever is around in a billion years might not be "human," it might call us its parents. So that sentence struck me as kind of a reach.

You want an interesting article? Here's my layman's theory of evolution. Life has had various waves of evolution: fish to land, cold to warm blooded, for example. I think the next wave of evolution will be self-awareness and intelligence.

Basically, I think that a couple million years from now, about as many species of animal will be evolved from human as the ratio of furred, warm-blooded creatures to lizards right now. In other words, as civilizations rise and fall, as human existence extends into geological and evolutionary time, humans and their posterity will evolve to fill different ecological niches. As we have seen with ostriches and whales, evolutionarily expensive but un-needed attributes (flight, legs) will evolve away, but traces will remain (whale finger-bones in the fins).

So what kind of creature would evolve from human and fill the evolutionary niche of a squirrel, a pig, or a hedgehog? Will self-awareness, opposable thumbs, or problem solving ability remain or devolve away?

Wish I could live to see it!

So "humans" may not be around in a billion years - probably won't. But I'm fairly confident some kind of self-aware creature evolved from us will still be here. And, if they truly are evolved from humans, they'll probably be desperately trying to shift the planet's orbit, having waited til the last minute to start...

Sometimes Stuff Works Out

2008-02-25T17:02:24Z

I'm 'way overloaded. My job usually calls for ten-hour days or more, then there are household chores, obligations, etc. It does make the time pass quickly, but it's exhausting. A couple of weeks ago I left for work on Tuesday morning, and didn't get a break in my schedule until Friday morning - every hour in-between was me doing something somewhere...

This weekend was no different. My Biology course called for two lengthy lab exercises to be carried out - lab exercises that required days of preparation beforehand, and days of execution thereafter (one of the labs is a fermentation lab). The only problem was, I needed to work on my job over the weekend.

So I spent the weekend conducting my multi-part lab. I cooked spit and crackers with blue solution, and boiled eggs so I could dissolve them in pineapple juice. Then I tried making yogurt, but despite scalding the milk perfectly, I apparently killed the yogurt by pouring the hot milk directly into the jar - although that's what the instructions said to do. By the time I fininshed cleaning up after my kimchee preparations, it was Sunday at 4:00. After a nap and dinner I spent the evening ironing clothes in front of the Academy awards. I needed the clothes ironed - I was out of shirts that didn't look like dried up washcloths - and I appreciated having something endless and mindless to do while ironing. It takes about 30% of my brain to watch the Academy awards, and about 30% of my brain to iron, so 40% of my brain was able to take a nap.

That's how busy i am, my brain is taking naps in shifts.

So I came into work today with none of my preparations ready for my 9:30 meeting. Oh well, I thought, I'd fake it.

Then my boss pulled both of us off any project related activities, because of internal billing problems...

So here I sit, my schedule cleared, able to blog, with none of my preparations necessary, at least till this afternoon when the billing issues have been worked out...

Not that I'll be ready then, either! Still, every hour that passes is one hour closer to my three-day weekend writing retreat... yay!

Well Worth a Little Coughing...

2008-02-19T20:26:55Z

Oh yeah, I wanted to mention this when I was talking about my recent cold...

It's Saturday, and I'm lying in bed in the afternoon feeling miserable. My spouse is off at a writing class. My chest feels like I'm gargling hot glass, and my head feels like a kernel of popcorn about to pop. I make the mistake of breathing, and erupt in phlegmy hacking.

When I can hear again, The Boy calls up from the steps up to the attic bedroom.

"Dad, are you okay?"

"Grawwwk" I reply, "Just this dreadful cold."

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

Would I like a cup of tea?

You know, it's funny. When I tell people that I'm the dad of three teenagers, eyes roll, and knowing glances are offered. "How's THAT going for ya?" are the questions. Teens, the consensus seems to be, are SO hard to raise.

I keep slient. It seems cruel to tell people with screaming, door-slamming relationships with their teens that I like all my kids - that we all seem to get along.

Sixteen years old is stereotypically a selfish, demanding angry age. Teens humiliated by their parents sneak out to drink and smoke and who knows what else.

So here I am, lying miserable in bed, and my "selfish," "angry," "uncommunicative" sixteen-year old says "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Yes, please, that would be wonderful." I croaked.

A few minutes of happy anticipation later he brought up my cup of tea.

"Thank you," I said gratefully, "I really appreciate it."

I laid there, carefully sipping my tea, thinking that it was well worth a couple of ground-glass coughing fits to discover what a fine young man I'm raising...

Not Lost

2008-02-18T17:05:46Z

I was at the O'Hare airport when I noticed a very weird thing. It was a set of outdated brochures for my own company, in a display on a counter in one of the stores. Since they were outdated I thought I'd better collect them up, all the while wondering how they had managed to remain on display all this time. And also that they had, as far as I knew, generated absolutely no business.

Well I carried them back to the seat where I had left my computer bag, and discovered my bag was missing.

This was a disaster. Both my heavy, bulky work laptop AND my personal lightweight Vaio laptop were in that bag! My mind started racing: what was on those laptops that I hadn't backed up? How was I going to explain losing my work laptop to my boss? How was I going to explain losing my personal laptop to my spouse?

I wandered around O'Hare airport with my outdated brochures in my arms, trying to fathom some means by which to locate my computer bag, or some person to help me find it. Finally I wandered down a wing of the airport that was under construction, feeling very lonely and anxious...

...and then I woke up.

ZOMG! I have NEVER been so relieved to wake up from a dream, even if it was to discover that my fever had not yet broken.

Yes, it was literally a fever dream which I had on Saturday morning, as I woke up with my throat full of yellow-hot broken glass and my sinuses trying to expand into my brainpan.

From the point of view of timing, it was either perfect or completely wrong - I got sick very quickly on Friday afternoon, and Monday morning here I am back at work. In the middle was a weekend that felt like being fast-agitated in a hot-water washing machine

Along the way I was bound and determined to get some work done for work - which I did finally on Sunday evening. So basically when I wasn't hallucinating under the covers or staring glass-eyed at the TV machine, I was down in my office trying to manage the security for a multi-billion-dollar retail enterprise.

Sounds about right.

What else is new? Well, my spouse bought new window shades to replace the dessicated vinyl Target blinds that needed replacing - and then ~~our~~ her cat bit right through the drawstrings on two sets of them.

I haven't blogged because I've been THAT busy, BTW. Days and days on end where I'm booked from waking til sleeping, stressing over my job and people demanding results and the banshee sound of deadlines dopplering past. Gosh, I wonder why I've gotten sick?

But I'm actually HAPPY that I'm sick right now. Why? Because that means I likely WON'T be sick two weeks from now, when my writing group heads of for a retreat a the cabin of an acquaintance of mine! Yep, our writing group alum from San Francisco is flying in, and we're all heading to the woods of northern Wisconsin for two nights of intense writing exercises and moderate drinking.

Well, I've got work waiting for me, so I'd better get back to it. Just remember to keep your luggage near you in O'Hare...

In the Slog

2008-01-14T20:21:57Z

I've been thoroughly depressed lately, which I attribute to being in the midst of The Slog, the long relentless slate-gray days of January and February. Fortunately while my mood has been glum, circumstances have been good, so I've had the freedom to indulge in a massive funk without ending up spending the day curled up in a corner.

Saturday when I was casting about looking for ways to procrastinate on my obligations I was reminded that there was matinee for Avenue Q at the State Theater. My daughter had expressed an interest in seeing it, so I threw her into the trunk of the car and we headed off to see if we could score Student Rush tickets.

Success!

Avenue Q was hilarious and sick: imagine the most perverted parody of Sesame Street, and that's basically Avenue Q. Bert and Ernie, pardon, Rod and Nikky, have a plotline in which Bert throws Ernie out of the apartment for suggesting that Bert is gay. And the Cookie Monster - called "Trekkie Monster" - chimes in that "the Internet is for p orn." The play features puppet sex and a stern old lady named Mrs. Thistletwat, and is most defintely NOT for kids...

After Avenue Q we picked up my spouse and went to Midori's for a sushi dinner that was a Christmas present to our daughter. She's very interested in all things Japanese, and entertained us with Japanese words and trying to read ideograms on the menu. We all had a great time sharing octopus appetizers and roasted eel sushi and the like.

Then we dropped off my wife and I took my daughter along on a computer service housecall, where she passed the time drawing a self-portrait. No, not that one, that's just the one she has on line.

(Unfortunately I got called back to that same house today to further fix their computer - apparently their e-mail was provided by some stupid Start Menu widget that linked them to MSN Mail. Removing the spyware and viruses they had installed on their computer broke the widget, and since I wasn't familiar with that means of reading e-mail I hadn't known to fix it on Saturday. This morning they call me (they couldn't call yesterday?) at 8:00 a.m. to fix it. So I did, but then they objected to paying for my time despite at first offering to do so, and despite my having taken time off from work to address their problem. So I think I'm done working with them.)

After the computer stop we hung out at the Blue Moon for a bit.

Sunday was a long morning at church, where I worked on my laptop, then home where the laundry room light had broken the day before. I started to replace the pull-chain fixture, but then recognizing an opportunity to further procrastinate, I spent $50 at the hardware store and set about replacing the pull-chain fixture with a light switch. We've lived in this house for over sixteen years, so this is a long-desired modification. The light switch works great.

Then it was off to a party for our friend D's new boyfriend. We're thrilled for her finally finding someone who seems to suit her, so it was nice to visit his party. Unfortunately for me I started getting very anxious and jumpy at the party, due on the one hand to the crowding (I'm a bit of an introvert) and on the other hand to my successful weekend-long exercise in procrastination. So after a short hour I made my excuses and walked home, leaving my family to enjoy the celebration.

It took me till 1:00 a.m. to do it, but I finally got my University of Minnesota begging letter finished for delivery this morning, Hopefully the professor will grant me an extension of my class, but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't...

Now it's 2:30 in the afternoon at work, and I've successfully avoided getting anything accomplished, so I guess it's time to declare the weekend officially OVER and set about getting to work...

Oh. Hi!

2008-01-03T16:38:27Z

Oh, hi there. Yeah, almost a month this time. Actually I did have a couple blog entries I started, but then time got hold of me and off I went. I included the half-written one after the jump just as proof, it's from 12/17.

The Holiday madness is over, now, and we have entered The Slog - the long, grim, nine-week campaign across the featureless Arctic desert of January and February. The only consolation is the goal - the sultry slushy days of March, and the hysterical greenery of April.

Christmas went pretty well. No major family catastrophes to report. Christmas Eve we spent at my sister-in-law's. Despite her husband hiding upstairs with stomach flu, none of us contracted it across the next week, so his self-imposed quarantine must have worked.

Christmas Day we got to my family's place early. I endured the usual avalanche of gifts under my mother's tree by spending much of my time updating and fixing the laptop I gave her last Christmas. Applying security patches and program updates took hours.

And we had the Best New Year's Eve Ever. Our friend Z threw a party in her new and absolutely gorgeous house, and T and I actually stayed out dancing til 2:30 in the morning! Amazing!

As far as Resolutions go, this year's is a little unusual. I make resolutions some years, and some years I don't. In 2000 my resolution was to Not Give In To Fear, which had to do with being given a challenging new role at my last job. This year's resolution is similar: this year I've decided to Go Towards the Fear. In other words, not stuff it down, not avoid it, not act in spite of it, but to actually examine the things that make me afraid and try to understand them.

Meanwhile I have to pick up the rubble of my 2007 attempts at returning to college, to say nothing of my financial picture, and maybe even improving my health!

So welcome to 2008. Hopefully the Presidential elections won't drive us all insane, and by this time next year the whole world will be a better place. Meanwhile if you want to read a half-written entry from December 17th, it's below...

------12/17/2008-----
Ah full-time employment, it makes the weeks pass so quickly. 'Course that's what drives me crazy about it - yes I need to make money to support the family, but time accelerates so quickly that I start to get motion-sickness. Any chore that i put off never gets done - heck if i don't fill the car when it's a quarter down from full, the tank is suddenly empty.

I suddenly have a few minutes to blog because a meeting at work cancelled, otherwise I'd go from meeting to meeting to the car to another meeting to home to dinner to bed.

This weekend passed quickly. On Friday I took my daughter for Dad 'n Kid day, we did some Christmas shopping and went to see Enchanted. That was a fun film, I about laughed my head off, particularly during the apartment-cleaning scene. Saturday I took my youngest out and he picked up a couple of presents.

And Sunday went zoom-zoom-zoom from home to church to piano recital to the Christmas tree farm. We got a fresh tree, too - it was sucking up water like a camel within minutes of being put in the stand.

Things are gearing up for Christmas, I ...

T-t-t-t-twenty??

2007-12-10T21:13:08Z

Life continues to slog along.

The big news is that my boss left for his vacation more than a week early. He's a nice guy, but a visionary - meaning that every time I'd talk to him he'd load me up with a dozen new things to do, many of which seemingly at odds with things he had given me previously. And of course everything had to be done immediately. I was steeling my nerve to have a conversation with him about the inherent inefficiencies in this system of management, so it was with mixed feelings that I arrived at work last Tuesday to learn that he was gone. He was scheduled to have a month-long vacation starting December 15th, but apparently his grandmother died and he was leaving early. Ya...er, um, that's too bad, I'm very sorry to hear that.

The other news is that they moved my cube, again. I've been here just under ten weeks, and this is my fourth cube. It's definitely a step down from the last one, insofar as the last cube afforded me a nice view out the window. My only view here are autumn-gold walls and taupe cubicle. It's also noisy here, with lots of people talking about Michael Vick and other nonsense in loud laughing groups.

On the other hand, this is an "official" cube. I'm SUPPOSED to be here, and my phone even works. Yay! Not that anyone calls, but IF THEY DID...

The weekend was nice, very uneventful. I stopped by Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore and picked up a couple of books, so I spent much of the weekend reading "Dzur" by Steven Brust. Unfortunately I could not remember ANYTHING about the prior book in the series, so I spent Saturday reading Issola, and then Sunday reading Dzur. I have several friends who know the author quite well, and despite what they have to say about him he remanis on my list of "immediate grab" authors: doesn't matter what the book says on the cover, if it's by Brust (or Bull, or either Vinge, or Wolfe or Tepper or MacAvoy...) I simply snatch it off the New Arrivals rack at Uncle Hugo's.

Tonight is going to be a Very Special Occasion According to my spouse (who used to blog during the 1980's using a pencil and paper - something called a "diary"?) tonight is the

(Pausing to breathe in and out of a paper bag for a minute)

Twentieth Anniversary of the Day we Met

Think back to where YOU were twenty years ago. (Those of you too young to remember can just STFU now, I can hear you laughing.) Well, twenty years ago my spouse and I met at an Applebee's in Brooklyn Park, and despite that we're still together today. I am one of those fortunate people who can remember the first instant I saw my spouse. I was in the Applebee's waiting area, and she peeked in the door, her head curiously canted to one side.

It was a blind date arranged through a personals newspaper (a prehistoric Craig's List called "Di's Meet People", for you youngsters), and my first thought on seeing her was, "No, that's not her: too pretty." Seriously, who expects to meet someone gorgeous through a personal's ad? I mean, look at what SHE ended up with!

But it was her. We had both been recently dumped, and spent a delightful evening complaining about our exes. When it came time to leave, I asked her if we were going Dutch or if I was paying - she looked at me as if I were insane. (She hadn't spent as much time as I had dating aggressively feminist college women. Actually none, come to think of it.) So I paid the bill with, honest to goodness, the last seven dollars in my bank account.

It says something about how long it's been that two people could spend several hours at Applebee's and pay only seven dollars. Or it says something about my memory, which could have that number totally wrong. The only number I'm sure of is the zero in the bank account at the end of it.

Still, it proved to be a good investment! And that's such a romantic way to describe our relationship - a good fiscal investment!

Anyway we're going to go to Solera tonight and celebrate twenty years of togetherness. But we'll wrap up early, 'cause we're old and I have to work in the morning...

Best-Laid Plans

2007-12-03T04:40:33Z

Well THAT didn't work out.

My last entry was of course all about how busy this weekend was going to be. Then this little snowstorm blew in (and I mean, little - 4 inches? A dusting!)

Next thing you know the Saturday afternoon nephew party is cancelled (poor kid).

I spent that time trying fruitlessly to upgrade my installation of Movable Type. The instructions ~~leave something to be desired~~ seem to be deliberately incorrect, and my knowledge of MySQL and some of the other new technologies involved meant that by about 2:00 p.m. I was ready to hurl my computer out the window. Which, since I've only got a little basement transom, would have been just too much effort. Only reason you're reading this now.

As I mentioned I was feeling exhausted... so Saturday night rolls around and at 7:00 p.m. I completely passed out in my armchair. Ended up NOT going to the party at the friend's house that I'd been looking forward to all week. As I dragged my sorry butt up the stairs to bed around 9:00 p.m. I was really upset and disappointed, but aside from that brief period of consciousness I ended up sleeping for about fourteen straight hours, so I guess it was better that I didn't go. I would have made myself and other people sicker.

The part of me that hates going to work every day was annoyed that I wasted a sick day on a weekend. On the other hand the part of me that gets paid by the hour was quite delighted to not waste a day's pay lying about in bed wondering why sick days aren't as much fun to experience as they seem like they'd be when you're working.

I did go and speak as the "guest atheist" at the church. The kids were very low-energy, but some of them had some pretty sharp comments, including one seventh-grade girl who knew that "under God" was a late addition to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Then instead of playing D&D at our house, my friend hosted the kids at his house, meaning I could have gotten a bunch of stuff done this afternoon. But my friend called to go walking, so I decided to take the walk - it's about the only exercise I got this week.

Tomorrow I'll go back to the gym, he promised himself uselessly.

Anyway the weekend is done, and now comes another week of work. Which is better than another week of unemployment, but only just.

I wish working didn't seem like a tremendous waste of time, but part of me just can't get over resenting being a wage-slave.

Maybe I'll feel better once the first paycheck actually clears the bank.