HCaldwell:On . . .

On finding a poem...

2009-04-03T16:43:00.003-04:00

I was cleaning out some old boxes of paper today. I have a friend, who was and is, a very talented writer. She wrote this poem for me many years ago. It is still my favorite.

Man and Cat

The man
And his cat
See things through the same wide eyes
And leap at beautiful things
On impulse.

When he's away
His cat stares at me from across the room
And I know
He's not far away.

-TL 1975

This piece of paper I am keeping...

On a weird moment ...

2007-10-26T23:36:00.001-04:00

Yes, this is a large creepy bug holding a woman's earring. The bug appeared to be very intent on keeping the earring, although it obviously didn't go with its thorax. The woman with the other half of the set was no where to be seen. I've seen this movie before. I moved quickly to my parked car.

On living in Minnesota

2007-02-28T12:11:00.000-05:00

I now have a new favorite saying.

"When you are bad and you die, they send you to Minnesota in the winter."

On pet induced puns

2006-11-16T06:25:00.000-05:00

When I woke up this morning, I searched all over the house for my glasses so that I could peruse the morning paper. I finally found them under the coffee table. Thinking that they must have fallen off the edge of the table, I put them on. I was startled to realize that the tops and backs of my ears were suddenly wet. What!?!!

It seems that the cat has taken a sudden interest in my eyeglasses. This interest has taken the form of gnawing on the plastic earpieces. As a result, I now have drool-covered, tooth-marked spectacles. Ergo, this morning I was transported back to the bygone days of yesteryear when I was still wet behind the ears.

Who says that animals don’t have sense of humor.

On schlepping

2006-11-01T18:45:00.000-05:00

Although I may be culturally challenged in truly understanding the concept of schlepping, I feel that it is the only word that I can come up with that describes my day today. Some words are such a perfect descriptor that they become universal in nature. Just saying the word, schlepping, evokes the sensation of schlepping. That long slurring “schul-eh…” is what does it.

I hauled things from place to place. I burned a lot of gas. I couldn’t seem to do anything right on the first try. My back is sore. My feet hurt.

I spent my entire day schlepping.
Yes, I schlepped today. I was a schlepper. I should be in a schlepper colony.

On, once again, being bested by wind power

2006-10-28T18:21:00.000-04:00

I experienced a moment of déjà vu while clearing leaves from my front yard today. It was another epic confrontation featuring "Me and My Leaf Blower" against the undefeated tag team of "A Humongous Pile of Leaves and A Strong West Wind".

As in our last encounter, the leaf blower and I were soundly trounced. Near the end of our pitched battle, the leaf blower simply quit working. Coward!

It is now official. I have proven myself to be dumber than an inanimate object.

On teaching vs. training

2006-10-23T18:11:00.000-04:00

As I may have mentioned, I spent a number of years in the classroom.

Recently, I had reason to consider the differences between teaching and training. Although the two are often used synonymously, they really are very different processes. Those blessed with the experience of working in the irregular bowels of the fast food industry are trained to flip burgers, drop fries and faux chicken chunks into vats of hot grease, and speak unintelligibly over the drive-through speaker. There is really no teaching involved here.

One does not need to understand the flatten disks of ground up cow in order to flip them. One does not need to know where those fries originated or what they will eventually become in order to fry them to a company specified golden brown color. On does not need to appreciate syntax, style, or elocution in order to mumble the question, “Would you like fries with that?”

Don’t get me wrong; I am not against the idea of training. It is a very efficient way of creating conditioned responses. In many stressful emergency situations, for example, those that may be encountered by public safety or military personnel, it is a great way to guarantee a prompt, predictable, correct reaction. Good training can save lives in emergency situations. It is not, however, the same as good teaching.

Good teaching changes attitudes toward learning. It provides a set of mental tools that can then be applied to wide variety of new situations. It sharpens our ability to apply previously acquired information to face unexpected complications. It heightens our awareness of connections between seemingly unrelated elements: the hallmark of creative problem solving.

We do not learn responses from good teaching. Good teaching teaches us how to learn.

On “how can you tell if a blog posting is funny?”

2006-10-22T06:46:00.000-04:00

In some of my recent blog reading, I have encountered the interesting question of how one decides if a blog posting is funny, or not. Humor is, of course, a highly variable perception. A piece of writing that one person reads as being “falling down laughing funny”, may be viewed by another as being “stand up straight with a disdainful sniff stupid”.

Personally, I am a big fan of the “stupid” school of humor. The more juvenile, puerile, pun-ladened and ridiculous, the better the joke plays in my internal comedy club. I suspect that my sense of humor matured at about the same time that my body reached the age of nine. Then it just stayed there. I like bad knock-knock jokes, elephant jokes, light bulb jokes, and puns that make fart jokes seem overly intellectual and effete.

How can you tell if a blogger is dead? Ghost writing.

I, also, like humor that twists language and/or our perceptions of everyday events. I read in our local newspaper recently about a man who had reported to the police that a burglar had broken into his house during the night, because he woke up and “found a dark hair in his sink.” That started a chain of thought that centered on the fanciful creation of a vast criminal empire run by a pompadour wearing evil genius who leaves single dark hairs in people’s sinks. I get the sinking feeling that his crime may even brush on heresy.

Lastly, I love unintentional humor, the “found art” of the funny world. We drove through a small town recently where the large sign in front of the vet’s clinic read, “GET YOUR DOG SHOT - $5” I laughed so hard that I blew coffee through my nose. I made my wife turn around and go back so that I could take a picture.

Yes, stupid, twisted and accidental; the story of my life.
I don’t make it up. I just write it down.

On my blog failings

2006-10-21T06:48:00.000-04:00

How embarrassing.

It has been a very long time since I last updated my blog. To the three people who regularly read this thing, I apologize. Time has been flying by me like discarded newspapers in a windstorm. It is not that I haven’t had anything to write about, it is that I haven’t had the impetus to sit at the keyboard and punch the appropriate buttons in the correct order.

Part of it is that I really do dislike the autumn. My energy, my enthusiasm, and my ability to get out of bed in the morning is at low ebb during this time of year. I am not really a strong believer in “biorhythms”; it seems like an over simplified label that gets readily pasted onto the unpredictable vagaries of daily life. If I did believe, however, my fall chart would resemble a cross-sectional view of the Grand Canyon.

I am ashamed. I should not fall back on such a flimsy explanation. I have let down my three loyal readers. Forgive me.

I can’t offer any excuses to you, but if I look hard enough I’m sure that I could find some way to blame Congress.

On creativity…

2006-08-23T06:09:00.000-04:00

Creativity is . . .

…squinting your eyes and seeing something that you’ve looked at a million times

…embracing a random thought

…the mess that results when the spool of kite string gets wound around everything else in your junk drawer

…an effect without a cause

…a total lack of friction

…an electric fan’s artful arrangement of dust bunnies in the corner of a hardwood floor

…reckless recollections

…feckless predilections

…tactless abstractions

…the things that you tell yourself when no one else is around

…the product of a hopelessly twisted thought

…anything that you do with a radish

…obviousness rarified

…blood-poor iron

…successfully executing Lather-Rinse-Repeat in reverse order

…fusible obtuse

…equal parts of silk and coarse gravel

…a mental implosion

…the sound of two fingers snapping

…primate playtime

…the willingness to fail

On business travel

2006-07-24T18:15:00.000-04:00

I was recently imprisoned in a cramped metal container with no working air conditioning while the outside temperature neared one hundred degrees. I was assaulted by the overwhelming stench of poorly processed human wastes while my ears were subjects to a punishing barrage of high decibel white noise. My legs, back, and neck were tortured for hours into a variety of awkward angles and contortions. Throughout the entire experience, I was given the distinct impression that I was viewed by those in control as less than human; more like a faceless steer being moved through the chutes and channels of the abattoir to be brought, at last, to a final horrible destination.

On top of all that, three of my four flights were either delayed or cancelled.

On finding a note to myself

2006-07-11T18:44:00.000-04:00

I was going through my dresser drawers this evening. I wanted to throw away some old, no longer wearable clothes so that I could finally put away that basket of clean laundry that had been staring at me in an accusatory manner for several days now.

I found the most interesting things. Strange items that had obviously sifted down through the clothing to the bottom of each drawer. There was a portable chess set, used maybe once. The instruction manual for a long defunct and discarded DVD player. A wallet that was still in its gift box from several Christmases ago. Three cheap watches that had all ceased operating. Some unidentifiable keys. Some buttons. Some business cards.

Among all this debris was a note in my distinctively awful script. It read,“Very important: don’t forget to call Don!”

Hmmmm.

I don’t usually write notes to myself. I have no memory of ever writing this note. Did I remember to call Don? Why was it so very important that I call him?
Who the hell is Don?

Finding things like this really scare me.

On feline entertainment

2006-06-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

We have two long windows next to our front door that go all the way to the floor. The neighbor’s gray and white cat sits on our front step and looks in through these windows at our two cats. Our cats sit on the inside and peer out at the neighbor’s cat. This nose-to-nose through the glass staring contest can go on for hours. It would seem that looking at another cat who is looking back at you through a piece of glass has a great deal of entertainment value in their feline world. The intense concentration that both “sides” exhibit would suggest that some very important communication process must be taking place through that glass. Cat gossip? Mouse and bird reports? Trading hairball recipes?

“How strange”, I thought as I watched them.

Then this evening while I was watching the news on television, I realized that I had been sitting for an hour apparently staring at another person who appeared to be looking back at me through a piece of glass. For all the technological differences, the situation would appear to be remarkably similar to what transpires at the cat’s window peering sessions. Any truly objective outside observers (Space Aliens, perhaps?) would probably be unable to see any real differences in the two activities.

“How strange”, I thought. . .

On walking in the rain

2006-06-12T18:05:00.000-04:00

It rained today. I really do like walking in the rain. I can ignore all the suburban scenery surrounding me and focus on the amazing feeling of water droplets as they strike me after falling thousands of feet from the sky. If those droplets could think, would they be startled that after leaving their cloud and leaping into the air to fall with great speed towards the earth that they would end up landing on the tip of my nose? Would they feel honored or indignant? Do they take bets on who can be the first to hit me right in the eye? Are the losers the ones who end up soaking my underwear?

Being pelted by a spring rain is definitely cathartic for me. Even though I usually end up being physically chilled and miserable by the end of my walk, my mood is usually improved. Since it only takes some dry clothes and a cup of tea to fix the physical discomforts, I am more than willing to pay the price for a few moments of wonder. I am happy to let the rain wash the stink off my day. I am pleased that all the detritus of daily living gets a good sluicing.

I could do without the wet underwear.

On color coding text

2006-05-28T18:48:00.000-04:00

The weather here went from cool and comfortable to hot and miserable seemingly overnight. As soon as I wrote this sentence I realized that it sounded better to write it differently. (Seemingly overnight, the weather here went from cool and comfortable to hot and miserable.) I am not certain which of the two versions is more grammatically correct, but I like the way the latter version sounds when I say it aloud.

This may be one of those gray areas of language where the way that we speak differs from the way that we write. It seems as though there ought to be a convention that allows us to communicate to a reader that we are writing in the way that we speak, rather than writing as we would write writing. I suppose that that is what quotation marks are supposed to do. Using quotation marks, however, makes it seem more like a narrative or dialogue to be actually spoken rather than material that should be read as we meant it be read, not heard. Quotations marks don’t suggest that we meant to write it, not speak it, except that we wrote it so that it sounded right when we spoke it.

No, there needs to be a different sort of clue. Perhaps, since inexpensive color printers are so commonplace, we could use a color code. Classic black text would be written in the way that reads the way it should be written. Blue text would be written in the way that sounds right to us when we speak it aloud, although we intended for it to be read, no spoken.

Text that, as written, is probably indicative of some sort of progressive brain disorder?

Red.

On my limited heartbeats

2006-05-27T06:52:00.000-04:00

I have been reading a book recently that makes the point that with each breath, we are dying a little bit more. This is based on the idea that each person and animal is pre-programmed with a certain number of breaths, a certain number of heartbeats and therefore, a predetermined life span. Essentially, with every heartbeat we use up one of our finite supply.

You could view this as a rather bleak perspective on things. It is definitely a “glass half empty” view of your lifespan. On the other hand, thinking about it does tend to make me appreciate the “live each moment” school of thought. It also makes me wonder how I can readily justify the increased heart rate that rigorous exercise necessitates. I have always held to the philosophy that ”you should only run when you are being chased”, but most medical evidence would seem to encourage me to liberally expend my limited supply of heartbeats in the sweaty and not particularly pleasant, pursuit of an extended lifespan. Added to that is the fact that I have heard many stories of people who died suddenly while engaged in rigorous exercise. I don’t believe that I have ever heard of anyone who died of oversleeping. I don’t know of anyone who has suffered from a fatal recliner overdose. I have never read about any communities plagued by a cluster of deaths caused by a mysterious outbreak of afternoon naps.

Nonetheless, I suppose that for the foreseeable future, I will have to give my doctor the benefit of the doubt and puff away my precious supply of breaths while engaging is regular exercise. After all, he knows all Latin words for all the things that can go wrong with me and I do pay him an outrageous amount of money for his multi-syllabic advice.

Tomorrow, I will indeed fritter away a few of my precious heartbeats during a vigorous walk.

Today, I will live in the moment.
I will take a nap.

On hidden driveways

2006-05-07T18:42:00.000-04:00

I passed a yellow traffic sign recently posted by the side of our road. It read, "Caution: Hidden Driveway". The first thing that entered my mind was the question...

"If it's that well hidden, how did they know where to put the sign?"

On spring yard work

2006-03-30T18:19:00.000-05:00

Well, it was a beautiful day today.

For the first time in a long while, the sun was shining. It was warm. The winds were gentle. It has been such a long winter that I kept looking over my shoulder, sure that a huge blizzard was sneaking up on me. I decided that this was certainly the day to write the obligatory springtime yard work posting.

(Why is clockwork one word, but yard work is two words?)

I spent the late afternoon raking the winter’s detritus off of the flowerbeds and from around the house. I planted some caladiums and summer flowering Asian lilies. I spread out about ten bags of mulch. By the time that I was finished the sun was going down and it was starting to get chilly again. I was a bit dirty, a bit stiff in the lower back, but it was offset/enhanced by a wonderfully cathartic, almost spiritual tiredness. I can understand why people enjoy farming.

I could never be a farmer, of course. I have known several successful farmers. The stresses and abuses of the business side of farming would kill me off in only a few seasons. Plus, modern farming is as much about diesel mechanics, politics, and chemistry as it is about scrounging around in the dirt. No, if my livelihood depended on what I could grow from the soil, it would ruin the experience for me. I would also starve, hence, the ruining part.

I just like the digging in the dirt part.

On the definition of illegal

2006-03-29T06:56:00.000-05:00

I had another “yell the television” moment yesterday. I was watching the news and one of the commenter made the following statement.

“…the worst thing is that they are making illegal immigration a crime...”

Now, I don’t really have much of an opinion on this country’s immigration policy, but I do know how I feel about people who make statements like this one.

Someone really needs to highlight the definition of the word, “illegal” in this man’s dictionary.

On feeling old

2006-03-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

When light passes from air to glass as it does when it enters a magnifying lens, it slows down. This change in speed causes the light to bend, to droop. This is called diffraction. The same thing happens again on the other side of the lens as the light moves from glass back to air.

Today, I decided that I am not getting older; I am in the process of passing through the lens of life.

I am simply diffracting.

On feeling logy

2006-03-20T18:39:00.000-05:00

This morning, I thought to myself, “I’m feeling a bit logy today.”
Then I had to go look up the word, logy.

I knew that I felt logy, but I wasn’t sure that I really knew the definition of the word. The feeling was there that I knew to be indicative of a state of being logy, but I couldn’t pull the word’s denotative meaning out of my brain. Odd.

I once had a client say to me, “I know exactly what I want, but I just don’t know what it is!”

That statement could just about sum up my day. I knew I was feeling logy, I just didn’t know what logy was. I was even less sure about what I wanted to do about it. I was even logy about feeling logy.

At this rate, I suspect that tomorrow may be a flummoxing kind of day for me.

On the Big Bang

2006-03-18T06:02:00.000-05:00

I saw a news item yesterday. Scientists have now discovered astronomical data to support the Big Bang Theory. In addition, they are now certain that the universe will continue to expand forever. This brings to mind a number of unanswered questions.

If the universe continues to expand forever, how will we get our mail forwarded?

Did the universe really start with a “big bang” if there was no one around to hear it?

Was there ever a “little bang”?
Or a “really big bang”?
Were there any duds?

Why are scientist convinced it was a bang?
Why not a bong?
Or a klunk?
Or a resounding thud?
Maybe, it was just an embarrassing fart noise?

If the universe expanded to most of its present size in less than a trillionth of second, why does it still take five days to get your cable fixed?

Now that we apparently know that the universe started with the “Big Bang”, what exactly do we intend to do about it?

On recycling history

2006-03-16T06:15:00.000-05:00

Science fiction writers have been known to base the premise of their stories on a somewhat fuzzy theory that time is circular in nature. The details of each theory in each story vary considerably, but the idea that time (and the universe) is likened to a circle is common.

I was struck today by the apparent recycling of history that I am now experiencing. An “unwinnable”, increasingly unpopular war in a far distant place, an energy crisis, and a presidency in trouble made me realize that I am now reliving the Seventies. My greatest fear may come to pass. I quake at the thought. Terror approaches.

They may try to bring back disco.

(shudder)

On stained glass in the bathroom

2006-03-13T06:05:00.000-05:00

There is something magical about stained glass. We had a house that had an octagonal window installed in the bathroom right over the bathtub. It was a great mystery to as to why the previous owner had put a window there that could be not be opened. Even worse, there was no easy way to curtain a window with that shape. I suppose that they were just very proud of how they looked upon stepping out of the bathtub. They wanted to share their joy with the next-door neighbor. My desire to share was somewhat more constrained. After searching in vain for some reasonably aesthetic and cost effective way to shutter off this window, I happened upon an octagonal stain glass reproduction of a Frank Lloyd Wright design. With a little molding alteration on the window frame, it fit perfectly.

Since the window was on the east side of the house, the morning sun would come through that stain glass and paint the entire bathroom in colored light. It became one of my favorite features in the house. All bathrooms should be built with stained glass windows. It creates the perfect setting for meditating, contemplating, and eliminating.

On haircuts

2006-03-10T18:25:00.000-05:00

Haircuts, like everything else in life, have become very expensive. They are also one of the things that definitely are not a “do-it-yourself” operation for me. If I were limber enough and dexterous enough to make the attempt, I suspect that the results would be aesthetically horrifying. Since I am not limber enough, I would end up dislocating my shoulders. Since I am not dexterous enough, I would end up losing an ear. I could end up as a one-eared hunchback sporting a butt-ugly haircut. I have enough problems; it just isn’t worth the risk.

Since I am too cowardly to even make the attempt, I give my monthly tithe to the hair god while giving thanks that I still have hairs on my head that need cutting. The moral of the story is that of the silver lining in the dark cloud, coincidentally, my hair used to be a dark cloud; now, it is a silver lining.

On spring rains

2006-03-09T18:03:00.000-05:00

It rained all day today.

For a brief time this afternoon, I sat in the garage with the door up and watched the rain falling. Sitting on a lawn chair with a cup of tea watching the world get wet was an incredibly relaxing experience. Spring rains do not seem to induce the mind numbing depression brought on by a fall rainstorm. This may have to do with all that crap about the promise of spring flowers and the rebirth of nature after the long winter nap. I suspect that it is just a case of winter depression fatigue. I am just tired of it. I am ready for “something else”. Spring rain is simply “something else”.

By April, I will probably be complaining about how much I hate spring rainstorms.

Variety is, after all, the spice of complaining.

On sale

2006-03-08T18:27:00.000-05:00

I had to go to the hardware store today. All I needed was a bicycle tube repair kit, about a “buck and a half” item. I ended up buying the repair kit, but also purchased two sets of brass lettering templates. They are for making two-inch letters. I don’t really have any good reason for buying them, but THEY WERE ON SALE.

This is obviously a genetic flaw. My mother once bought twenty pounds of bananas.
Twenty pounds of bananas makes a pretty impressive pile of fruit when gathered together on one kitchen counter. When my dad came home and asked her why we had so many bananas, she replied, “THEY WERE ON SALE.”

I have decided that I want to have two tombstones when I die. The first will have all my biographical infomation like name, birth date, death date, etc. The second gravestone will stand right next to it and simply be engraved with the words, “IT WAS ON SALE.”

On a plethora of prizes

2006-01-25T18:51:00.000-05:00

I got an ad in the mail today for a prize sweepstakes. Usually, this kind of advertising doesn’t even make it to my eyeballs before it is deposited in the trashcan, but the word, plethora, caught my attention. I was surprised that they used the phrase, “a plethora of prizes”. Usually, advertisements are written for someone with an eighth grade education or less. Maybe, plethora has become an eighth grade vocabulary word. If so, then education has definitely improved in this country in recent years.

I started wondering if there was actually a legal definition for plethora. Must one provide proof that the number of prizes comprises a legal plethora? What percentage constitutes a partial plethora? Perhaps, the word “plethora” is like the word “genuine” and has no legal meaning.

The word, genuine, really has no meaning when used in advertising. Thus, we have “genuine faux pearls” and “genuine leatherette covers”. I don’t believe that advertisers need to meet any threshold in order to define something as “genuine”. It has become a non-word. I know that recently there has been some wrangling concerning the definition of the word, organic. I am not sure what was finally decided on, but we will probably have yet another meaningless word when things are finally settled. If we’re not careful, we’re going to run out of words that actually mean something.

If plethora has really gone the way of genuine, then I can genuinely promise a plethora of postings in the near future.

On typos

2006-01-19T18:01:00.000-05:00

”Aargh! I hate typos.”

I have this mental image of typos as tiny little gnomes who hide behind the other words just before your eye passes over them. Once you have looked past them, they jump out and reinsert themselves back into the text. They even fool spell checkers by using fiendishly clever disguises. Faster than you can “blink”, they hide as “blank”. A “meet” quickly spoils as “meat”. Much to your embarrassment and dismay, your “pubic” can become quite “public". They put on little gnomish moustaches and fake glasses to pretend to be other words. Thereby, escaping the notice of even the most vigilant of spell checking programs.

“Clever little devils!”

In some parts of the world, artisans put tiny flaws in their works to avoid offending the spirit world. In trying to make their works too perfect, they fear that they will incur bad luck as the penalty for their hubris.

I like it. This is my new excuse for all typos.
It isn’t sloth. It isn’t haste. It is just an overabundance of spiritual caution.

“I meant to to that.”

On expertise and nonsense

2006-01-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

I enjoy following the discussion threads of “really smart people” who are experts in their fields when they argue over the complex and/or the minute aspects of their disciplines. Whether the topic is in art, law, theology, language, math, physical sciences or the social sciences, I like to try to follow along in the reading without moving my lips too often. I am, by temperament and circumstance, a generalist. Most of my personal and historical heroes have been generalists. I can’t say that I never use bits of specialized geek speak, but I, generally, try to avoid it. I have been known to take advantage of this tendency toward the glorification of unintelligible gibberish (On having to write a senior paper), but I am certainly not qualified to participate in the orgies of entwined syllables and symbols enjoyed by the uber-specialists.

Where have all the generalists gone?

Medical experts like to pepper their writing with short Latin descriptors and study citations. Legal experts prefer entire Latin phrases and abbreviations interspersed with italicized “name vs. name” citations of innumerable precedents. Engineers, mathematician, and physical scientists enjoy a liberal sprinkling of equations artfully bedecked with letters from the Greek alphabet. Heated discussions among social and language scientists seem to degenerate into a playground (locker room?) style of confrontation centering on who has the biggest statistical variance. Into the midst of this specialist enshrined briar patch of entangled verbosity the rabbit of “reality” is tossed.

I have heard that the reason that experts seem to like talking in their own arcane languages is that it gives them a “precision of meaning” that cannot be found in the language of everyday life. Ok, I can buy that. It does seem, however, that the overuse of specialized language and jargon makes it difficult to extract precise concepts that communicate and can be compared across disciplines. Like in those pictures of everyday objects viewed under powerful microscopes, real things become unrecognizable abstractions. Abstraction caused by microscopically precise language obscure meaningful comparisons. Something is lost.

Arthur C. Clarke had a famous quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I would like to propose a corollary to Mr. Clarke’s astute observation.

“Any discussion by sufficiently advanced experts is indistinguishable from utter nonsense.”

On a double triptych

2006-01-17T06:12:00.000-05:00

I made a triptych that hangs on the living room wall. (If I get around to it, I may try to post a picture of it here.) It is a composite rendering of primitive plants on a black background that was inspired by a television show that I saw on prehistoric plants. Since I tend to be contrary, it is actually made up of six individual ceramic panels, rather than three panels. So, I guess that it really can’t be called a triptych.

Is it a di-triptych or a sextych?

Sextych sounds weird. That can’t be right. It’s too hard to pronounce.

On selective exposure

2006-01-14T06:16:00.000-05:00

We resist exposing ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that disagree with our own opinions and viewpoints. I seem to recall discussing this tendency in a political science class. It is one of the reasons why it is so hard to actually change another’s opinion once that opinion has been set.

We tend to seek out and hang around with people who believe the way that we believe. We watch news programs that support our preset views on the issues of the day. We read articles, blogs, and books that reinforce our viewpoint. We avoid being exposed to the opposition.

I believe that it is referred to as “selective exposure”.

I do make a conscious effort to seek out a diversity of opinions in my reading, but I am certainly not immune to this selectivity. There are some stated opinions that just plain piss me off. I can’t help it. The usual problem is that the writing/commentary is filled with a plethora of “ad hominem” attacks. If it is done with wit and humor, I can see the point of it. It is there for entertainment, not education. It is irksome when it disguised as a serious discussion of issues. For some networks, blogs, and commentators: this is their only point. Unfortunately, we have given this style of faux debate several rather “cool” sounding names such as calling it “in your face” journalism. It is time to take away the cool factor and call it what it is: flinging poo.

If political and social spinners were introduced as “poo flingers” rather than “political activists”, perhaps, they could be shamed into cleaning up their act.

Of course, we all know what happens when you fling poo.

No one ever wants to shake your hand.

On simple

2006-01-12T18:58:00.000-05:00

I always cringe when I hear someone say, "Oh, it will be easy. It’s such a simple project."

That word, "simple" is a killer. It can be easy to execute a simple project, but it is more difficult to have it be perceived as a successful project. I have a theory about why this is the case. I could call it the "Splintered Focus is Kinder" theory. It is human nature to be more attuned to tiny flaws when we are asked to critique things that are easy to examine. The more complex the object of our attention, the less aware we are of the minuscule flaws.

Imagine that you are told, before entering a room, that you will have one hour to study the quality of the contents of the room. You enter the room and see one cardboard box. For the next hour, you study the cardboard box. You note each tiny dent, scrape, and irregularity in that box. When you leave the room after one hour, no matter how perfect the box may have been chances are that you will have an extensive list of flaws to present. Your impression of the quality of the box will be colored by the time and effort required to find the tiny flaws. You want to have some criticisms to show for your time.

Now imagine, that you enter a second room with the same set of instructions. This time you find one thousand boxes. You will look over the boxes and although you may notice some of the more obvious flaws, many others will escape your notice in the complex interaction of surfaces that are presented to you. When you leave the room, you may have some generalized misgivings and make note of some of the more glaring defects, but it is doubtful that your report will be replete with the individual deficiencies for every single box.

In the first room, one hundred percent of your focus was on that single box. In the second room is doubtful that any individual box received more than a tiny fraction of your time and attention. Even if we allowed you ten hours to critique the second room, it is still likely that your response would be based on a general impression of quality rather than a detailed inspection of each individual surface. It is possible to hide a lot of flaws and still have a very successful project when the final product is composed of a number of seemingly complex interactions. The overall impression of those who judge your work becomes much more important to their final judgment than their examination of each individual element.

Getting "simple" to be perceived, as being "right" is really quite complex. I would much rather be in charge of an obviously complex project. It is much simpler to do well.

On the 1200th character

2006-01-10T16:07:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have been following my "About me" profile experiment, the 1200th character turned out to be the letter, "j". Who'd have thought it? I was betting on it being a space.

I will leave it up for a day or so. Then I will, probably, delete most of it.
I am so easily amused.

On having no point to make

2006-01-10T06:48:00.000-05:00

I do not follow or attempt to calculate my daily biorhythms. What good would it do me? However, I do know that I have a yearly cycle of ups and downs. I am now on the up slope. My year could be described as a sine wave that peaks in late spring and bottoms out in late fall. I cross over the X-axis in late summer and winter.

My dear wife seems to have a mirror image annual cycle of ups and downs. Perhaps that is why we have been together for such a long time. Over the course of a year, we tend to even each other out.

Is there a point to be made here? No, I don’t think so.
Speaking of having no point.

I recently read a number of blogs that all touted the “Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging”. I won’t mention all of them by name, but you can easily do a Google search and find a whole bunch of them. (Did you know that my Word spell check flags “Google” as being misspelled? Even though I have told it to “learn” the word, it still flags it!)

Generally speaking, this blog tends to be rife with these deadly sins. Except for the ones concerning spamming and adult material, I daily commit enough blogging “sins” to damn me to the blogger’s version of the lake of fire. An eternity of no readers, perhaps? An infinite number of spam comments? Severely dangling participles? Terminal writer’s block? Metaphorical flatulence?

The various “sin sets” differ as to the exact sins that comprise the dreaded seven, but generally they all agree that a blog should have a consistent theme. A “good” blog should deal with timely subject matter. A “good” blog should adopt a definite viewpoint. A “good” blog carefully follows the rules of grammar and punctuation. A “good” blog uses pictures to illustrate the points being made.

There is no theme to be found here. I avoid talking about important issues. There is no viewpoint to be found here. I may contradict myself several times before I even reach the end any given sentence (do not)! Paragraph structure is actually less important to me than how the words end up “looking” on the page. Grammar takes a backseat to how the words sound when I say them aloud. Pictures are too much trouble.

“I’m a bad man.”

This blog is doomed.

None of the articles mention the eighth deadly sin.
Writing stupid articles about the seven deadly sins of blogging.
I guess that my blog will have more than a bit of company in the fiery afterblog.

On stupid solutions

2006-01-09T18:01:00.000-05:00

Have you ever encountered a problem that just did not lend itself to any practical solution? No matter how you looked at it, the only real answers that you could come up with were just plain stupid. I am slowly, but surely coming around to the realization that stupid has a place in the order of things. That doesn't mean that I will vote for it in next election, however.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

On being misconstrued

2006-01-07T06:14:00.000-05:00

There are a group of words that seem to be tainted when one tries to use them in everyday conversation. I knew a gentleman who became quite offended when I noted that he had an “unfortunate predilection” following his comments about his dieting woes. I believe that he thought that I was accusing him of being a pervert. When, in fact, I was only commenting on his consist choice of cream filled pastries during the morning coffee breaks. Words like prediliction are often misconstrued.

Even the word, misconstrued, seems to be in this camp. Rather than simply being another way of describing a misunderstanding, it sounds more like a painful medical procedure that is being performed on one’s nether regions without benefit of anesthesia. News release: “After being misconstrued for nearly eight hours, he is in stable condition. His doctors are confident that he will suffer only minor scarring as a result of the operation.”

I am not sure how I would label this group of words. Perhaps, I could classify them as “words that undeservedly hint of unpleasantness”. (Unpleasantness is another one of those words like dreadful. You need to say these words with an upper crust accent while slightly pursing your lips.) The problem seems to be that most of these words sound like words that have negative definitions. They sound like “bad” words, so they must be “bad” words.

Mellifluous is a word that seems to be affected by it’s “mel” prefix. It sounds like and is misspelled to resemble many of the words in the dreaded “mal” family. Words like malefic, maladroit, malfeasance, malingerer, malign, malaise, malicious, and (for some of you) males all have horrible connotations. Poor, sweet mellifluous is found guilty by association with these brutish brothers.

Speaking of unwarranted guilt by word association, until very recent times, one had to be found guilty in a court of law in order to be labeled as a perpetrator. Now, however, one only needs to be accused of a crime and walked in front of a camera in order to be stained with this verbal taint. Hence, we now have the "perp walk" of the recently accused, but not convicted persons. This would be an instance of a "bad" word being used to unfairly label someone who had not yet been found to be "bad". They are only guilty of sounding "bad" on the evening news.

In the future, I am going to try to be more careful when I use this class of words. I wouldn’t want to be accused of being perpetually malapert.

On Norway

2006-01-06T06:03:00.000-05:00

I would like to spend about a month touring Norway.

You might think that this wish comes from some longstanding interest in the history and culture of Norway. Actually, the opposite is true. I have never met anyone from Norway. I have never read a book or seen a documentary about Norway. I know almost nothing about Norway. What I do know about Norway could be summed in about three sentences.

1. Norway is a country in northern Europe.
2. People who live in the country of Norway are called Norwegians.
3. Norway has fiords. (I have never seen a fiord.)

That’s about it.

This almost complete lack of knowledge is the main reason that I want to visit Norway. I am old enough to have heard something about just about every other place on the planet. Some of what I know may be untrue, but I would still be saddled with my preconceptions if I ever visited any of these places. Norway is a blank slate for me. I could visit and meet the people. I could experience an entire country and culture that is presently a total and complete mystery to me. I could actually write about something in this blog that had an immediate impact on me without it being colored by any earlier life experiences or hearsay.

Who knows, I could fall in love with the beauty that is Norway. Or, I might just find out that Norway is simply the Wisconsin of Europe: cold, bland, snowy, populated by people who talk funny and have an unhealthy preoccupation with cheese.

On fantasy novels

2006-01-05T18:02:00.000-05:00

The local library has run out of new Science Fiction books that I want to read. So, I picked up a couple from the shelves in the Fantasy genre. I don’t usually read Fantasy novels. I prefer the more “hard science” types of Science Fictions novels for my periodic fiction fix.

Fantasy novels have a couple of characteristics that I just don’t find very appealing.

First of all, they seem to take place in some ubiquitous medieval setting. Even if the planet is supposed to be in some distant universe, it still bears a striking resemblance to thirteenth century England. They live in keeps. They wear tunics. They carry swords. Someone will be called “Lord” or “Lady”. They eat a lot of fire-roasted fowl. All the worlds of fantasy are remarkably similar.

Secondly, they all seem to end with the exact same “magic showdown”. The good vs. evil showdown usually takes place at some elevated location such as a stone tower or rocky hillside. It is set against the backdrop of a “real” world battle that involves horses, arrows, gnomes, catapults, and elves. (The elves always have silver or blue hair. The male elves seem to be somewhat effeminate.) This epic battle is fought at the end of the main character’s arduous quest to find his/her magical heritage and/or legendary powers. In the finest “deus ex machina” tradition, the outcome of this supernatural fight instantly resolves all the outstanding character and storyline conflicts in one massive orgy of bright light, mystical blue fire and smoking brimstone. Good, of course, always wins. Evil is instantly banished to some distant “dark” place or cooked to an unrecognizable smoldering cinder.

Lastly, I just can’t keep track of all the names. The characters, of which there are many, and the places, of which there are even more, all have multi-syllabic monikers that I can’t even pronounce in my head. After reading through about three pages, I have to go back several pages in order to figure out if the characters trekking through the endless tracts of forest are discussing a mystical city, a serving wench, or a troll king. After several minutes of searching, I discover that “Phlemhardington” is actually the name of the High Lord Frem Dunsillantonicuis’s beloved horse. Oddly, the main character always seems to have been singularly blessed with a single syllable name in this unfortunately polysyllabic world.

Fantasy novels will never be high on my list of reading material. However, I may try to write one someday. It will be set in the medieval neighborhoods of Cleveland, Ohio. The conflict will involve a set of mysteriously misaligned headlights and perhaps, a sinister grease fire. There will only be one character named, Bob. He will have to walk about three blocks and face many hardships and dangers in order to find his lost truck. His truck will be named, Unostoitcliclkcosinessty. It will be a silver 1970 Plymouth Arrow pick-up with a pink velour interior. Magically, it still runs, uses no oil, and only has a tiny bit of body rust.

Still working on the title.

On belated wishes

2006-01-04T06:41:00.000-05:00

Since my New Year’s resolution was to stop procrastinating, I want to take this opportunity to wish all my regular readers (both of you) a Happy New Years.

My wishes for you in the coming year…

May your polite chuckles be taken as sincere even when the joke is stupid and you don’t get the punch line.

May your windshield washer bottle never run dry.

May your red crayon never break.

On Vlogs

2006-01-03T18:51:00.000-05:00

I have made a preliminary attempt to appreciate the world of Vlogs (video blogs) and podcasts. I have given up. First of all, I am not sure how it is supposed to be pronounced. Is it "Vee log" or "Vuh log"? The latter sound suspiciously like the first name of the original Count Dracula. I think his name was pronounced, vuhlad, as in Vlad, the Impaler (Vuhlog, the E-Mailer?). So, I think that it is probably, “Vee log”. Although, it is "Buh log", not "Bee log".

It is significant that sighted people, myself included, say that we are going to go "see a movie". I don't think that I have ever heard anyone say, "Oh, I think I will listen to Desperate Housewives, tonight". The visual elements will almost always take precedence. So, I think that in the long run, video logs will become more common than the now more numerous, sound only, podcasts.

It is worth noting, however, that videophones and even web cam chatting have not really caught on with the online community. Some experts’ say that it is a bandwidth problem, I disagree. I think that generally some things are just better left unseen. As I noted earlier, we experience things with our sight taking ascendancy, even though the aural elements are equally important to the total experience. A vlogger could be saying the world's most important words, but if he is doing so with snot hanging out of his nose, I will not remember a single word that he has said. Here, on the other hand, I can write this entire blog posting while wearing only this rubber bathmat with little, blue fish imprinted on it. I have completed this ensemble by putting a yellow plastic colander on my head. You would never know it by the words that I written here. It is not something that you would ever really want to see. In this written blog, my wardrobe and deportment should have no effect on your perception of what I am trying to say to you.

Above and beyond the fact that some things are best left to the imagination, the main reason that I am not going to become a vlog aficionado is simply time management. By the time I can plod through the introductory comments of most vlogs (or podcasts), I could have skimmed through half a dozen written blogs postings.

I don’t have the time for vlogs and podcasts.

I still have to wash and press my bathmat for an early meeting in the morning.

On Regrets Brunch

2005-12-31T06:21:00.000-05:00

This is something very similar about how we treat Halloween (Allhallow’s Eve) and how we treat New Year’s Eve. They are both technically twenty-four hour holidays, but we really only observe the occasion in the evening. I think that we miss out on an opportunity when it comes to New Year’s Eve.

There should be a morning observance on December 31st. It could be called Regrets Brunch. It would be a brunch where we look back on the past year and consider all the choices that we did not make, the roads that we chose not to travel down, the people and places that we chose not to visit during the past year and the opportunities that we decided not to pursue. It would be a time of “all the things that I didn’t do” reflection. It would involve eating a lot of fattening foods. We could have omelettes. What more could one ask for in a holiday observance?

I use the word, regrets, in the broadest possible sense. This would not have to be a morose meal. Although, all choices involve some personal costs, the irrevocable loss of the all the other possible choices, for example. It is also true that the other “choices” we might have made might have really sucked when viewed in hindsight. There is certain wisdom in periodically examining the “what if” and “might have been” in our lives. These “unchosen choices” are the dark matter in our personal universes. They are invisible and unseen, but their hidden mass affects every aspect of our daily lives.

There is a drawing exercise where you arrange a complex still life with a number of objects in it. Then you ask the students to draw one of the central objects by “not” drawing it. Instead, you want them to render the object by meticulously drawing all the objects around it. The object in then presented in “negative” space. A complete picture of the place where the object is not present creates a picture of the chosen object.

Regrets Brunch is about seeing ourselves as the product of the choices that we did not make over the past year. We chose to not murder an in-law. We chose to not buy a humongous SUV and spend our kid’s college fund to put gas in it. We chose to not see any movies with Ben Affleck in them. We chose to not paint our house purple with orange shutters. We chose to not send our children away to an Alaskan military academy. All of the options that we did not select over the course of the entire year define who we truly are on the morning of December 31st. We are as rendered by these negative spaces as much as we are by the broad brushstrokes of our past year’s accomplishments.

Even balanced against the bad options that we chose to pass up, there will still be some sad regrets for the choices that we did make. We all make bad choices, but every bad choice is a kind of personal parable. When the clock finally strikes midnight and we are by tradition obligated to make our New Year’s resolutions, we can remember all the dumb choices that we were really, really sorry about at the Regrets Brunch. Perhaps with those regrets fresh in our minds, our resolutions will actually make it past breakfast on January 2nd.

On tax tortures

2005-12-30T06:31:00.000-05:00

I guess that I must like scaring myself. Every year at this time, I sit down and try to estimate how much I will have to pay in income taxes for the past year. The thing is that I don’t even do my own taxes. I haven’t done my own taxes for many years. One April, many years ago, I found myself faced with the prospect of trying to figure out how to file income tax forms in seven different states. I was way out of my league. So, I hired a “tax guy”. He did such a competent job that he has prepared our taxes every year for several decades now.

Still, every year I sit down about now and try to figure them out for myself. Rather than doing this exercise earlier in the year when, perhaps, I could make real changes, I do it during the last week of the year. It is too late to make any changes in my withholding forms; the only thing that I accomplish is that I scare the crap out of myself.

The idea behind this torture is to try and figure out the tax forms so that the numbers that I estimate are roughly the same as the numbers that the “tax guy” eventually calculates. Then, I can save myself some money. I should be able to prepare my own taxes for the following year. I have never even come close. Usually, the difference between our calculations is truly astounding.

I don’t get it. I am not a dumb person (although some may wish to argue this point.) I did well in math classes. I can follow printed instructions. I should be able to do this myself, but I am never even close. Some years, my calculations are way high. Some years, they are way low. I use the wrong forms. I consult the wrong tables. I put my numerator where my denominator is supposed to be. I have never hit it on the mark. So, I continue to not prepare my own taxes.

This year my preliminary numbers were heart-stoppingly, mind-numbingly terrifying. I do so hope that I am still really bad at doing this stuff. Please, don’t let this be the year when I finally get it right!

On end of year lethargy

2005-12-29T06:17:00.000-05:00

For me, there is always a sort of limbo lethargy period from December 26th to December 31st. I wouldn’t call it a letdown so much as retrenchment. It is the beginning of a period of time when I am struggling to put the routines back into my routine. Just like the rest of the year, there are always bills that need paying, rooms that need cleaning, and cars that need washing. Yet, daily life seems to be a bit out-of-focus during this time of year. It takes a lot more effort to get even life’s littlest chores accomplished.

I suspect that it is related to the bicycle-riding phenomenon. Did you ever ride a bike for a long period of time? When you finally get off, it seems like you are not only moving way too slowly, but also that your ability to walk takes more of a conscious effort than usual. It feels like walking through molasses. Actually, I have no idea how it feels to walk through molasses. I have never walked through molasses. I don’t believe that I have ever met anyone who has ever walked through molasses. I can’t recall ever reading about anyone who actually walked through molasses. It would require a lot of molasses and be very messy. Why do we say that?

See, case in point, writing this blog requires a sustained mental effort to even stay on topic.

After cruising along at high speeds on a bike with minimal muscle effort, the mind rebels at the amount of work required to move relative short distance at the relatively slow walking speeds.

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, limbo lethargy time.

From Halloween on, we gear up our lives in order to accomplish all the extra holiday chores and preparations that the season requires of us. Finally, just after Christmas, we start to slow the pace back down again. True, New Years is a major holiday and many people do have celebrations that require extensive preparations, but it is really the very tail end of the holiday dog for many people. We are rapidly returning to our “normal” routines. The routines, however, seem to take a lot more effort right now. Time and we seem to be moving rather slowly. No, I refuse to get stuck in that stupid molasses analogy again.

It usually takes me until about the middle of January to fully acclimatize to the pace of everyday life without the flurry and fury of holiday preparations and anticipations. This is my cool down period. I am winding down. I am lethargic. I feel as though I am in a slow moving limbo world. No molasses involved here, just life.

On holiday visitors

2005-12-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

This is the season of mass mailing, of mass shopping, and of gaining personal mass. It is also the season of mass family visitation. Today, we had only a little notice that soon our home would be invaded by a Mongol horde (relatives).

My wife and I had to spring into action in order to make our house look slightly less like a crime scene. We engaged in what my wife refers to as “fifty-two pick-up” and I call “throw every loose item in sight into the nearest closet, cabinet, or drawer where it will remain until the next time we move when we will unload the closets, cabinets, and drawers into cardboard boxes and say, at least, one hundred times per hour, “I wondered where this had gone!””

Her title is snappier. Mine is more accurate.

On making promises

2005-12-26T18:56:00.000-05:00

The people who know me well would say that, although quirky at times, I am a rational person. I do not subscribe to a belief in “magic”. I walk under ladders all the time. I have broken a number of mirrors, not to tempt the fates, but because I can be clumsy. I would never pay money to have my fortune told. Astrology can be fun to make fun of, but I do not believe it has the ability to foretell my future. I am a firm believer in the ascendancy of reason over superstition.

I believe that the only real “power” in the words that we speak is in how well we speak them and in what are intentions are at the time. Yet, there are some words that I hesitate to utter aloud. I have always felt that these words had a power beyond the rational. These words are almost magical. Uttering these words has a deep and binding effect on the person who speaks them. So, it is extremely rare for me to actually say the words,

“I promise …”.

Weird, huh?

I hesitate to use them, because in doing so, I get the sense that I am obligating myself without conditions to do whatever is necessary to fulfill the promise. I know that fulfilling the promise will transcend convenience, comfort, or self-interest. Regardless of what the future may hold, I know in my heart that a promise, once made, is a debt to a higher cause that cannot be cancelled and must be repaid whatever the cost. I never, ever, ever speak the words (I promise ...) casually. When I do say them it is always the product of careful thought and with a real sense of confidence that I can live up to the terms of the promise.

It is my only real superstition.

On holiday travels

2005-12-25T18:31:00.000-05:00

Having observed the traditional “long drive to the relative’s houses for Christmas visit”, it is good to be back home again. Having observed the traditional “kids opening Christmas presents” this morning, the home is a huge mess again. Having observed the traditional “eat massive amount of things that are really bad for you” over the last several days, my coronary arteries are undoubtedly, equally messy. Ah, well. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

While driving on seeming endless stretches of boring highways, I once again observed the fascinating phenomenon of being “velocitized” It is that feeling that, even though you are traveling at one hundred feet per second, you are moving very slowly. I, often, think about this effect while I am driving down the highway. I ponder whether or not the effect is only a product having grown up in the modern era. Would people from earlier times, before we had vehicles capable of traveling at sixty miles per hour or more, be susceptible to being velocitized? The only way that someone in, say, the sixteenth century, could reach the speed of one hundred feet per second, would be if they fell a great distance. It is doubtful that they would remain at that speed long enough to actually be velocitized. They would also end up very dead before they could communicate their experience to anyone else. I suppose that you could do a study using people who had never ridden in cars before, Amish or maybe, third world residents, to see if they also become velocitized in a car at highway speeds. Boring. My fantasy is go back in time (yes, I know that really smart people say that it is impossible to travel back in time. I am not a really smart person. Therefore, I am allowed to have my fantasy.) and bring someone like Benjamin Franklin back to the modern era. Ben and I would get into the car and go on a road trip. I could see for myself if being velocitized is only a product of having grown-up with the experience of going very fast. He could tell me in some clever homily whether or not he was experiencing the same feeling that he was traveling very slowly.

“You may delay, but time will not”
-Benjamin Franklin
“You are velocitized, but I am not”
-Fantasy Benjamin Franklin

On shoveling snow

2005-12-15T20:15:00.000-05:00

There were about three inches of heavy wet snow on the ground this morning. By this afternoon, that had grown to about six inches and snow was still falling. This definitely darkened my mood today. I was of two minds when I got home. I felt certain that either I was going to start an extended “Blog Break” and stay away from the Blogiverse for awhile or I was going to write a soul searching post. Writers, professional or otherwise, seem to always find a soul-searching article or two in them. I, suppose, that is partly human nature, this urge to share something deep and personal with others. It is also true that readers like to read them. After all, reading the soul-searching words put down by a writer is a way of being let in on a secret. We all like being let in on a secret. It was the highlight of many of our childhood intrigues.

The problem here is that I find most soul searching monologues to be very morose. I am not a fan of morose. The fact that most secrets are from the darker side of our lives just contributes to this tendency toward depressing topics in these pieces. After all, we don’t usually keep the bright moments of our lives a secret. We share good meals, marriages, births, bad jokes, loves, promotions, and accomplishments with our family, friends, neighbors, and anyone else within range. No, our deeply held secrets are not usually those things that we would want to shout out on the street corner. They are kept carefully chained up in our internal dark places for good reason.

Instead of writing some sad piece of tripe that would; surely, trigger an extended leave from any more blog writing, I decided to go out and shove the three point two metric tons of snow off of my driveway instead. (I didn’t really weigh it. I just like the way that “three point two metric tons of snow” sounds when you say it aloud in a game show announcer voice.)

In the movie, Bruce Almighty, there is a great scene where Morgan Freeman and Jim Carey, as God and Bruce, are mopping a large floor together. Bruce Almighty was not my favorite movie. It was a bit too smarmy for my tastes in comedy, but I did really appreciate that scene. I didn’t appreciate it so much for its heavy-handed metaphorical subtext, but simply because I have mopped large floors. If you have never been blessed/cursed with some time in the world of commercial janitorial services, then let me tell you it is not all about the glamour and excitement of picking cigarette butts out of urinals. There are moments of quiet introspection after the building has closed up and almost everyone else has gone home. One of them is the process of mopping a large, open area with an industrial mop either alone or with a partner. Unlike mopping your kitchen or bathroom; in order to do it without exhausting yourself or leaving spots untouched, you have to fall into a kind of whole body rhythm that is like that found in cross-country skiing or ballroom dancing. As you swing the heavy mop back and forth, it lulls you into a very focused introspective mindset. You can get a lot of thinking done while mopping a large floor. Unlike cross-country skiing or ballroom dancing, there is a prize in the bottom of this box of Cracker Jacks. When you are done, you can stand back and take pride in a shining spotless expanse of flooring. You get just a moment to appreciate perfection.

When I shovel snow, I do so in that same very methodical (anal) way. I like to be able to stand back when I am done and see all the shovel tracks in crisscrossed, precise, angular rows. I am sure that this is a symptom of some personality imbalance, but in the hierarchy of gremlins who mess with the machinery of my psyche this one is probably lucky to be a second stringer. I find that there are certain times when your thought processes seem less distracted, clearer. I have written on several occasions about those moments that seem to bring the world into a sharper mental focus: late at night, just before falling asleep, in the shower, and after the birth of your first child. It has almost become a theme here. I guess that I would now have to add the physical exertions of shoveling snow at night to the list. Unlike the eerie quiet of the very early morning hours, the evening quiet of snow shoveling is a harsher regime enforced by the constant scraping of the metal shovel on the concrete and the inhospitable isolation of the cold. I get a lot of thinking done while shoveling snow. Unrelated things fall into recognizable patterns much more easily.

Want to know a secret?

I wrote this entire piece, word per word, in my head while shoveling my driveway. All I did when I came inside was to spend five minutes typing it out. It is a long post. There was a lot of snow.

On missing out on shoe's clues

2005-12-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

I had lunch by myself today. Since I was a “singlet”, the restaurant seated me right next to the serving area so that I could dine while appreciating the sounds of glasses clinking and food debris being scraped from plates. While I was enjoying my coffee, I could not help but overhear two young women who were discussing their involvement in a recent argument. The discussion began with a very detailed rendering of what everyone had said. It sounded like…

“Then she like said, “you shouldn’t like have been in his car to like begin with". Then I like said, “yeah, like well, ….”

Overall, it was a pretty unremarkable exchange. Then a remarkable thing happened. Midway through her dialogue, she suddenly inserted a person-by-person, very detailed description of what shoes every woman who had been present in the room had been wearing.

Wow.

I am not going to comment on the spasmodic use of the word, “like”.

I am not going to comment on the differences between the way men and women perceive interpersonal situations. I have been married long enough to know that I would end up on the wrong end of that discussion. I would be bringing a Chicken McNugget to a gunfight.

No, what I found to be most fascinating was that the shoe descriptions seemed to provide the other young woman with real insights into the personalities and motives of all those who had been present. Where did this come from? When they were teaching the “shoe” theory in interpersonal communications class, I must have been absent. Have I been missing something all these years?

I decided that the next time that I am involved in a lively exchange of differing viewpoints with a group of people, I am going to disengage for a moment and check out everyone’s shoes. Perhaps, there is something more to “the language of leather and laces” than the title of a porn flick. I will report back here with my findings.

On the funniest things

2005-12-13T18:11:00.000-05:00

I recently left a comment on Delenda Est Carthago: The greatest guest star in television history? where I mentioned Jesse Jackson reading “Green Eggs and Ham” on SNL. This was one of the funniest things I have ever seen on television. This started me thinking about the things that I find to be “the funniest”. I think this must be like a fingerprint and is absolutely unique to each person.

I don’t do memes/tagging. It seems uncomfortably close to doing chain letters, but I decided that I would create my own meme and only tag myself. So, here it is.

What is the funniest classic movie of all times?
“Night At The Opera” – Marx Brothers
(Actually, almost any Marx Brothers movie would be a very close second.)

Funniest character in a stage play?
Mrs. Malaprop from Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals
(I love her line: “If I reprehend any thing in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!”)

Funniest moment on television?
Christopher Lloyd as “Jim” on Taxi.
The scene where he is taking his driver’s license test and is answering the question “What does a yellow light mean?” I think it is called the “slow down” scene. I have seen it twenty times and I still roll on the floor laughing. A close second would be a recent episode of “Las Vegas” where the casino owner’s ashes were flushed down the toilet as part of her “funeral”.

Funniest book?
“Without Feathers” by Woody Allen.
(I don’t really care for his movies, but his comic writing is absolutely brilliant.)

Funniest comic strip?
Tie vote here between “Dilbert” and “Opus”

Most unintentionally funny writing?
19th century essay on embalming entitled “To Dispel The Fear of Live Burial”

Funniest stand-up?
I was lucky enough to have been in the audience for one of Steve Martin’s first college circuit appearances. I laughed so hard that I was in pain. More recently, I also really enjoy Rita Rudner.

Five funniest words?
Oddly, phlegm, crenellated, octane, frazzled

Funniest salad ingredient?
Day lily flower buds

On a hidden accomplishment

2005-12-12T18:47:00.000-05:00

When I was in the ninth grade, I was part of pilot program/study to test methods for increasing reading speed and comprehension in high school students. My entire high school was given a reading test. From these tests, a class of volunteers was created that contained one third of the best readers, one third of the worst readers and a mix of “average” readers. Although we lost our study hall period for the year, we were each granted extra credits for participating in a one period per day “reading” class.

I remember that we did a lot of exercises where a word or a random group of letters was flashed onto a projection screen for a fraction of a second. We had to immediately write down what we thought the word had been on the screen. We did what seemed like hundreds of timed tests where we read brief essays on a particular subject. We, then, took a quiz on the subject. A day or so later, we would be given a second quiz to see what we remembered about the essay. Sometimes, we would read lists of randomly placed words and sentences while looking through an eyepiece that supposedly recorded our eye movements. I can recall different groups of adults in suits who would sit in the back of the room each day and “observe”. I developed a real appreciation for the plight of lab rats. Sadly, we were never offered any cheesy rewards for our efforts.

I never heard the results of this study. We were not supposed to know how we were doing during it so as to avoid compromising the final results. I have always been curious about the conclusions. I wonder if they ever did anything with it.

Two years later, the English teacher who had been one of our many reading instructors told me that I had been selected for the study, because I had tested as the best reader in the entire school. She told me this because I had done badly on a “Romeo and Juliet” exam in her Honors English class. I was being scolded for blowing off the test. She said that during the reading class, I had scored something like eleven hundred words per minute with a ninety-six percent comprehension rate. I have always been rather proud of that fact. Although the scores probably had more to do with genetics (my mom and dad were both voracious readers) than any real exertion on my part, I did get to have at least one shining moment at that high school. No one ever knew about it. Too bad I didn’t inherit the gene for throwing a long, spiral pass with a football. That one is never kept secret.

On Brunch

2005-12-11T06:43:00.000-05:00

The family went out for Brunch today. I like Brunch. It is a wonderful combination of my favorite foods at a more humane time of the day. The name is even kind of fun and whimsical. “Leakfast” just doesn’t have the same panache.

When I used to work a lot of nights, I often ate "Brupper" at around midnight. Eating breakfast foods late at night is a real treat. It is almost as much fun as watching the odd assortment of strange people who are eating it with you. Of course, they probably were thinking the same thing about me.

On returning some books to the library

2005-12-10T18:58:00.000-05:00

I had to return some books to the library today. While out on this errand, I became enmeshed in what is a holiday tradition in this area: traffic gridlock. I crept along for about three blocks and after twenty minutes finally turned off onto a side street to get past the automotive tangle ahead. Now, I could creep along in one lane of northbound traffic instead of two. "Oh, joyous season..."

As I barreled along at minus five mph, I saw a yellow sign along the side of the street. It read, “Traffic Calming Ahead”. “What a strange sign”, I thought. However, just as I crept past the sign I was suddenly engulfed in an overwhelming wave of peace and tranquility. Rainbow colored highlights glinted off my windshield. The radio, which had been playing a medley of Rod Zombies Greatest Hits, suddenly retuned itself to the sounds of the “Rain Forest Accompanied by Sitar and Pan-flute.” All was right with the world. I just wanted to stop the car right there and hug my fellow drivers on this grand road of life. Perhaps, we could hold hands and, maybe sing a song. “Kumbi-yah …”

As I turned back onto the main road from the side street, I was startled as the sounds of discordant guitar riffs once more caused my rear view mirror to vibrate violently. My blood pressure started to peak. I couldn’t believer how awful the other drivers had suddenly become. Did they all get their licenses at Sears? “If this #%! in front of me doesn’t take his %^@!* foot off his &@^!!# brake, I’m going to ….”

On why I don't do these quizzes

2005-12-09T18:35:00.000-05:00

I always end up as the weirdest possible choice. I am already aware of this fact. Why do I need to be reminded of it...?

What Character Are You?

A controlled personality with a vast range of skills and behavior, you are often intrigued by the people and places surrounding you.

"In the strictest sense, I did not win -- I busted him up."

Data is a character in the Star Trek universe. A biography is at STARTREK.COM.

On glorifying marginality

2005-12-08T06:59:00.000-05:00

In a world where spelling bees and poker are considered sports, where "life coach" is considered a profession and where reality shows are considered to be entertainment.

Paying five dollars for a bottle of water isn't that out of line.

On when I visit someone

2005-12-07T06:31:00.000-05:00

When I visit someone's blog, I do so using the same set of standards that I would use if I were visiting someone's home. I am the guest. They, as the host or hostess, are offering me the hospitality of their home. They are sharing a part of their life with me. For this gift, I owe them a measure of courtesy. Other than the obvious courtesies of not urinating on their sofa or stealing their television, I also avoid making them feel uncomfortable about their decision to invite me. When I leave, I want to be invited back.

This may mean that sometimes there are moments when I say nothing, because what I might say could be easily misinterpreted as being harsh or hurtful. Rather than taking that risk, I say nothing. This is not dishonesty. This is not cowardice. This is simple courtesy. This is my duty as a guest in this "home". I do not need to see my own words in a comment in order to feel that I have some importance: that I am right and they are wrong. An ungracious comment will not add to my stature as a writer or a person.

I like reading Zen stories and parables. From Zen Lessons (translated by Thomas Cleary), one of my favorites is about the "Vermillion Outhouse". It talks about someone who has not yet reached [understanding], but is always willing to show off his learning by "using eloquence and sharpness of tongue to gain victories. [That person] is like an outhouse painted vermilion-it only increases the odor."

On a very selfish level, I know that ultimately I hold the absolute power when visiting someone's blog on the Web. I never have to return to that blog if something offends me or makes me uncomfortable. With that security, I can afford to be gracious. I never have to be hurtful. I can have better things to do with my time.

On winter

2005-12-06T06:40:00.000-05:00

Well, winter has finally arrived in all its frigid glory.

I realize that technically we are still in the fall, but Autumn is my least favorite season so I like to hurry it along as much as possible. I suppose that I shouldn't be too anxious for the Winter Solstice, since winter is actually my second least favorite season.

The cold, snow, ice, and early darkness make this a very unpleasant time of year around here. I have seriously considered moving to some part of the country where the winters are little more than a momentary dip on the thermometer, but I am not sure if, in the long run, that would really be any better. Emotionally, I need the foulness of winter, so that I can look forward to enjoying the pleasant spring and balmy summer. It is like the saying about banging your head on the wall. It feels so good when you stop. Winter is banging my head on the wall. I need to look forward to it stopping.

On my fruitless search for the perfect platitude: a year's worth of notes to self

2005-12-04T06:56:00.000-05:00

"Someday, I'll find it", (head thrown back, Mad Scientist laugh) "Ah ha ha ha...yes, E-gor, the world most horrendous homily - then I and only I, ha ha, will dominate every embroidered sampler, quotation crawler, and bumper sticker in the universe…”

The Universe is like an SUV. It takes a lot of energy to get it running and it is difficult to park.

My writing process is effortless in much the same way that diarrhea is effortless. The results are also similar.

Life is a polish sausage, tubular and filled with animal by-products.

Cell Phones: God's way of selling car insurance.

The urge for healthy living is powerless in the face of a double chocolate donut.

The main reason that men just don't get "it" is because women just don't want us to know about "it"; hence, their use of the undefined "it" to describe "it".

Note while walking through the department store: Any cologne or perfume that can be sampled from more than twelve feet away is probably a poor choice.

If tomatoes really are a fruit, why do they taste so bad when you put them in Jell-O?

A man has not sexually matured until he can unfasten a bra strap with one hand. If he is wearing the bra at the time, he may be dexterous, but his maturity has indeed taken an "interesting" turn.

"De-regulation" is just nature's way of saying, "Thanks for the campaign contribution!"

First Rule of Picnicking: When you suspect that there may be a direct relationship between the bird in the tree overhead and the amount of mayonnaise on your sandwich, it is best to proceed cautiously.

The pain of downsizing is only felt in the lower extremities.

If you want your restaurant chain to develop a reputation for fine dining, do not name it, "Hooters".

Any typos entered into the address bar of your browser will automatically send you to a porn site.

"Enlightened self-interest" is another name for politics, except without the enlightened part.

Cat Feeding Time is unaffected by the change from Daylight Savings Time.

The chance that your teenager is listening to you is inversely proportional to the importance of what you have to say.

"Last Chance" as it applies to renewing a magazine subscription is the industry code for "This is the first of one hundred and ninety seven pieces of mail that you will receive in the coming weeks."

One of the great mysteries of life: What do you do with a finished coloring book?

I have never met anyone who was named after a mid-sized city.

I can sum up the government's solution for this winter's high heating bills into two words, "Be Cold". And to think that all this time the answer to world hunger was right in front of us, tell all the starving people to just "Be Hungry".

Really smart people don't get elected. Really honest people don't get re-elected.

Newscasters always say, "a frantic call to 911". Is "frantic" the only adjective that one can officially put in front of the phrase "call to 911"?

"Stupid" may be "as stupid does" but "Really stupid usually requires waiting for a lengthy report from an independent commission."

"Breathless" would be good euphemism for "Dead".

Someday they will find a drug to cure people who feel the compulsion to fold up their clean underwear. It will eventually be found to cause heart attacks.

Life is like a video game, except that you only get one life, no special powers, and the bosses are pretty much invincible.

If God really wanted us to exercise, he would have given us all gym memberships.

"Yes, stupid sayings…mine, all mine, ah, ha ha…ha…ha hah...ha. (cough)."

On tribology

2005-12-03T06:59:00.000-05:00

Someone recently introduced me to the word, "tribology". From what I've read, it is the study of friction, lubrication, and things rubbing against each other. Since this is such fertile ground for any number of dirty jokes, I can only imagine that a drunken Tribologists Convention is a real yuck-filled laugh riot.

It is difficult for me to get a number of disgusting images out of my head concerning their possible choice for a secret handshake.

On an unwritten obligation

2005-12-02T06:44:00.000-05:00

I was remiss in not writing a post lamenting the ever-earlier start to the Christmas shopping season. Today while doing some electronic housecleaning, I found a "note to self" in my PDA written on October 5th of this year after a visit to the local mall. It reads,

"Start working on lyrics to a song entitled,
"On the Eighty-First Day of Christmas"."

There, I have now fulfilled my obligation.

On-line Christmas shopping

2005-12-01T06:01:00.000-05:00

When it comes to Christmas shopping, I am the poster child for Christmas shopping avoidance. Since I suffer from an impaired gifting ability anyway, this time of year is acutely painful for me. I don’t like shopping that much, but I particularly dislike shopping at this time of year. With the exception of the hardware store where I can wander in a semi-religious trance for hours, I only enter stores with exactly what I want to purchase already determined well ahead of time. Wandering the aisles of one or several stores looking for indeterminate gifts ranks right up there with chewing on a ball of aluminum foil. I have not done any of my gift shopping yet this year.

If I could describe my ideal Christmas shopping experience, it would start by getting a list from each member of my family detailing the item, address of the store where it can be purchased, and the approximate cost. I would then go through the list to eliminate the items that

a. Would require a second mortgage.
b. Specify muzzle velocity, number of Kilotons, or British Thermal Units.
c. Make any sounds that Dad could discern from a distance of more than two feet.

I would go to the bank and withdraw the appropriate amount of money. Then with my pared down list and cash in hand, I would visit each store in turn. I would walk in, pick up the item, pay for it, and go on to the next store. At the end of the day, I would bring all the items home and hide them behind my suits in the eleven cubic inches that my wife allows me to have in the corner of our closet.

On Christmas Eve, I would take the gifts out and disguise each one as a taped-up crumpled wad of colorful holiday wrapping paper. Then place them under tree to be discovered in a flurry of Christmas morning shouting and paper shredding. Alas, it has never worked out like this.

Last year, the news channels buzzed with the promise that online shopping had, at last, come into its own. I sensed that my salvation was at hand. Around the first of December, I sat down at the computer and started in. I quickly discovered that Web designers had done a masterful job of creating animations, web pages, menus, and ads; all designed expressly to prevent me from completing the task in a timely manner. After an orgy of “this page contains no data”, “sorry, out of stock”, and "picture not available" messages, I finally finished the selection process.

I, of course, then had to pull out my credit card and enter the multiple digits that allowed unfettered access to my entire financial history. As I pressed the Enter key to transmit this information, I couldn’t escape the nagging fear that I was actually beaming it directly into the bedroom of a fifteen year old in Kiev.

Over the next few weeks, my purchases trickled in. Those items that shouldn’t get wet were left on the front sidewalk during a pouring rainstorm. Those that should not be frozen were left out on the porch for eight hours on the coldest day of the year. Those items that I thought would provide the greatest surprise were delivered into eager young hands just after school let out with pictures and full-descriptions plainly visible on the labels.

To complete the joy of the season, I had to look forward to the hemorrhoid inducing experience of getting the credit bill a month later. Online shopping did not make the Christmas shopping experience less painful for me. It just changed it from being an acute pain to being a chronic one.

This year I am going to stick with what I know and shop where I am most comfortable. Every one on my list is going to get the same hand-selected gifts from me. They will each receive one pound of double-hot-dipped galvanized eight-penny nails and two eight-foot sections of schedule forty, inch and a half PVC pipe.

On finding a crop circle in the wheat field of my mind

2005-11-30T06:43:00.000-05:00

Does dealing with controversial topics make a blog more interesting?

Since I read a lot of different types of blogs, I have pondered this particular question. I have not presented my thoughts on the subject here since some might consider my musings to be controversial. This could lead to the mistaken impression that there might be something of interest going on here. That would be misleading, if not paradoxical. Speaking of paradoxes. I have always wanted to write the statement, “Everything written in this blog is a lie.” Now begins the logical spiral of considering whether or not the statement written above is also a lie. In which case, everything written here is not a lie. If that condition is true, the “lie” statement may also be true which puts us back at the beginning. Which brings me back to my original question. Do controversial topics make a blog more interesting?

No.

Blogs, which deal with any topic in an interesting way, are interesting blogs. Writing that parrots a particular set of commercial, political, social, or religious truisms over and over again is not interesting. It is repetitive and insulting to the intelligence of the reader. Only bloggers who can freeze the wisp of an idea into solid words can make a blog interesting enough to read on a regular basis. Some will disagree with me. This might be considered somewhat controversial, I admit. This could lead to the mistaken impression that there might be something of interest going on here. That would be misleading, if not paradoxical…

On a matter of form 4

2005-11-29T12:28:00.000-05:00

PPSPSP You guessed it. I have now posted a post, post scriptum, post scriptum post.
(I’ll quit now)

On a matter of form 3

2005-11-29T09:26:00.000-05:00

PPSP This would be the post post scriptum posting.

On a matter of form 2

2005-11-29T07:25:00.000-05:00

PSP (not to be confused with the video game toy by the same name)
This would be a post scriptum posting.

On a matter of form

2005-11-29T06:58:00.000-05:00

I wrote an e-mail yesterday where I used a PS (post scriptum) and then a PPS (post post scriptum). Then last night while wandering across the Blogiverse, I found where someone had used a PS and then a PSS. I started thinking about it. I was taught that PS/PPS was the correct form, but when I mulled over it for a while (boring evening), either one makes sense.

If post post scriptum is translated as after, after writing, then post scriptum scriptum would be after writing, writing. It can make sense either way.

On life lessons

2005-11-28T06:06:00.000-05:00

Life could be described as a series of serial learning experiences. Every morning when I wake up and do my exercises (one sit-up followed by a lengthy cool-down) life begins preparing the daily lesson plan for me. By the end of that day, the lesson objectives will have been met whether I want to meet them or not. Testing is cumulative. There is no appeal for the final grade. The instructor reserves the right to change the syllabus at any time during the course. (I would do better if life were graded on a curve.)

Fortunately, most life lessons provide us with valuable insights that we can pass on to our children so that they can then ignore them completely. The learning activities necessary for some of life’s lessons, however, are better forgotten. There are some things that I have learned where I would have preferred having been absent that day.

By the time a child says, “Daddy, I’m not feeling so good.” from the backseat, it is already too late.

Spell Check will not flag “Pubic Schools” instead of “Public Schools” when it written on the title page of a critical research report.

If you get asked the “Do I look fat in this?” question, saying “Well, I like the shoes.” is decidedly not a good answer.

Curry powder in hot chocolate does not relieve the symptoms of a hang over.

You can tell if your remote control needs a new battery by viewing the front of it, while pressing the buttons, in the display of a digital camera. Trying to capture a picture of a working camera flash “up close”, however, just ruins the camera.

Camels spit.

The smell of spilled gasoline never really leaves the carpeting in a car trunk.

There is an unbreakable bond between the fibers of white carpeting and the color of cat gak.

Driver’s license examiner don’t get the joke about how many points certain types of pedestrians are worth.

Salt and sugar look very much alike in the canister, but provide very different results when mixed with cinnamon and put on your toast.

If you roll your car over “unbreakable” eyeglass lenses, they will break.

Overnight delivery isn’t.

When you see something floating on the surface of a public pool, don’t investigate.

9-volt batteries really do explode when you apply 120V volts to them.

”Demonic possession” is not considered to be the optimal answer when filling in the question “Why are you applying for this job?” on the application.

That pink dye that they put into children’s medicines cannot be removed from anything that it comes contact with.

Typos only show up after you have printed two thousand copies.

When you slam your fingers in the door racing for the phone, the call will be a pre-recorded message telling you about replacement windows.

No one will appreciate it if you bring a copy of “Roberts’s Rules of Order” to a committee meeting.

Riding in a convertible with the top down during a sudden hailstorm is a painful experience.

If you buy a music CD by William Shatner, you will only listen to it once.

A combination of sand, aquarium gravel, pine bark and potting soil will not go down the garbage disposal.

When they say on the label that you should be careful about getting Super Glue on your fingers, they are right.

When exploring the heights of the Rocky Mountains, ask for a more precise definition of the word when your trail guide tells you that the horse that he has chosen for you is “spirited”.

Your future wife will forgive you when you call her by a former girlfriend’s name, but she will never, ever forget.

On not posting today

2005-11-27T06:22:00.000-05:00

"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact." - George Eliot

On being a spousal unit

2005-11-26T06:31:00.000-05:00

It is during this time of year that I undergo a transformation. My wife’s career path means that she has to attend a number of social/work events. These happen throughout the year, but most often during the holiday season. I become “Spousal Unit”. She let’s me know what I need to wear and what time we will be going to the event. Beyond that, I am generally clueless. It is not that she is unwilling to share the details with me. It is just that the details would be absolutely meaningless to me. So I dress as instructed. I go where I am supposed to go when I am supposed to go there. It is what a Spousal Unit does.

In the greater scheme of marital duties, it is not overly challenging. It is my job to stand at her side, shake hands, and nod my head politely. Occasionally, I will go to fetch her a fresh drink or pull out her chair, but that is about all this required of me. It is not unlike the duties of a trained seal except that I get free drinks before I am thrown my obligatory fish.

The events are not onerous. The food can vary from “not bad” to “oh my god, did this come from a chicken or a cow?” There are an abundance of ridiculously complex snack foods available, if the featured food is truly inedible.

It is just that I have absolutely no connection to anything that is going on at these events. I meet people whose titles mean nothing to me. I listen to speeches that might as well be given in a foreign tongue for all that I get out of them. I chat amiably with people who I have never met before and will never meet again. My orbit will only intersect this particular asteroid belt once in a millennium. My job is not so much to interact, but to simply avoid any catastrophic collisions.

At the end of the evening, my wife will graciously thank me for accompanying her. The thanks are appreciated, but not required. After all, I stood at her side and made the commitment to be there when needed a long time ago.

I avoid giving relationship advice to anyone. I am just not that smart. I have no clue as to what is needed to insure a happy relationship. I suspect that if it could be simply boiled down into a few clever maxims that there would be far fewer divorces. It seems to be a lot more complex than that and I suspect that it is different from couple to couple. There just aren’t any hard and fast rules that one can confidently pass on.

For me at this time of year, I have learned that the most important thing is just to be where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there.

“They also serve who stand and wait’” – John Milton

On Thanksgiving

2005-11-25T06:24:00.000-05:00

A few observations from the holiday…

There is a saying that you can always tell how good a meal is by how silent the people are who are eating it. I noticed that there were very few blog updates yesterday.
Must have been some very good meals out there.

People often talk about the “magic of Christmas”.
What about Thanksgiving?
One of the great mysteries of this holiday is rarely explored.
“Why do Thanksgiving leftovers always taste so good?”

Today is the busiest shopping day of the year.
That, alone, is reason enough for me to stay at home and play on the computer today.

On “take my post…please”

2005-11-23T06:04:00.000-05:00

“What’s black and white and red all over?”
“A really ugly template.”

“I just went to a Blog that was so poorly written…”
“How poorly written was it?”
“It was so poorly written that the “About Me” had been changed to “About I”

“What’s the difference between a Blog and road kill?”
“Fewer hits before it starts stinking.”

“Why did the Blogger cross the road?”
“He clicked on a link to chickens.org.”

“How many Bloggers does it take change a light bulb?”
“That light bulb is not really burned out yet…see only five comments so far and only two of them think that it’s dark in here.”

“How can you tell if monkeys have been visiting your blog?”
“The quality of the comments goes way up.”

“How can you tell if a Blogger is having sex?”
“Frequent updates.”

“How many Bloggers does it take to change a light bulb?”
“Just one, but at least six others have to write lengthy postings about the political ramifications of why we should even have the light bulb in the first place.”

“I just saw a Profile picture that was so ugly…”
“How ugly was it?”
“It was so ugly that every time I clicked to enlarge it, my browser crashed and my virus software said that it had found a worm in my system.”

“How can you tell if an elephant is hiding in your Blog?”
“Gray background, large font size, and lots of comments about peanuts, of course.”

“How can you tell if a Blogger has been drinking heavily?”
“Improved spelling.”

"What’s the difference between starting a blog and going crazy?"
"One is a disorder caused by a severe personality imbalance and the other is a …disorder caused by a severe personality imbalance.”

(I must apologize to everyone in the entire Blogiverse for the contents of this posting. I have been experimenting with a new holiday punch recipe. Notice how good the spelling is though!)

On cleaning out the garage

2005-11-22T06:19:00.000-05:00

In a tradition that dates back to the Stone Age when Early Man had to clear a corner of his cave in order to get his Giant Sloth in before the snows started, I spent this past weekend clearing out the garage. Every year about this time, I have to take a deep breath and plunge into this seemingly overwhelming task. It is a crazy idea. What do I really need the garage for? Except, maybe, oh, I don’t know…parking the car, perhaps. Silly me. This year it was so bad that I considered just calling in a few truckloads of dirt to cover it over and then having it designated as a landfill site.

The task resembles Hercules’ labors in cleaning the Aegean Stables in more ways than I like to think about, but I dive right in. First, I must find a place for all the bicycles, scooters, swim rings, pogo sticks, lawn carts, fertilizer spreaders, and lawn chairs that have sprung up like mushrooms across the garage floor over the summer. For want of a better solution, these items usually end up being hung from the ceiling. Before long, the garage begins to look like a parody of an Alexander Calder exhibit. In order to complete the effect, I festooned the walls with rakes, shovels, hoes, axes, pruning saws and other assorted implements. The garage walls become a sculptural metaphor for both creation and destruction.

I struggle with what to do about the boys' stick collection. During their travels, they have gathered their usual assortment of interesting gnarly sticks and roots. I hesitate to throw them away just yet, since as a boy, I also subscribed to the belief that “you just can’t have too many gnarly sticks”. I find a corner where I can stash the summer collection until they replace it with the trendy late fall collection of pinecones, buckeyes, and dried leaves.

Next, I start in on the mountains of “stuff” that have been shoved into the corners and shelves of the garage over the past year. I find Christmas decorations from last year that never quite made it all the way back to the attic. The telescope that never got put away after August’s meteor shower is found buried in there. Half empty paint buckets from springtime painting jobs are hidden under piles of empty cardboard boxes from recent purchases. One particularly artistic mess is composed of a discarded school science project, the blade from a broken window fan, pieces of wooden molding, and lengths of green gardening wire all tangled together in leftover Halloween spider webbing and orange kite string. A liberal sprinkling of dirt and sawdust provides the unifying theme to this unholy creation. This piece immediately finds a home in my “Bottom Of The Trash Can” collection.

I find boxes of clothes that are still there from the summer’s garage sale and were supposed to have gone to charity. Since I was the one who was supposed to have delivered them, I quietly hide them in the trunk of the car until I can dispose of the evidence at the nearest charitable drop off point.

There are bags of bags inside of a bag sitting on one of the upper shelves. It is a bag fractal. These are probably my wife’s work so I try to bunch them up tighter until she is out of the house and I can unobtrusively dispose of them. I will have to fall back on the coyly rendered, “Oh, did you want those?” excuse, if she notices that they are missing.

Digging through these piles of stuff is really like finding a time capsule. There, written in the piles of clutter, mess, and junk, is the history of my family's whole year. It would be nice to pause for a while and reflect on the memories of the past year, but the winter’s weather won’t wait for wistful moments. There is much to do and “(piles) to go before I sleep.” So I press on. Still, I do take a moment to seriously reconsider my earlier rejection of the landfill idea.

On e-friends

2005-11-21T18:20:00.000-05:00

Yes, I have a new time wasting habit. During lunch, I have been sitting at my laptop and going to the sites of bloggers who leave clever or interesting comments on the blogs that I read regularly.

Some are duds. Apparently, the clever comment was only a one-shot deal.

I recently realized that I have been on the “Net” in one capacity or another for over twenty-five years now. During that time, I have amassed an astounding collection of e-friends. Not a very clever label, I admit. I think that Glory once referred to them as “pickles”.

(Yes, here it is!)

Perhaps, some day, I can host an e-cocktail party and introduce them all to each other. We can play e-party games (e-charades, perhaps), and have some e-snacks. What e-party would be complete without a variety of e-drinks?

We would, of course, need a designated keyboarder.

On impulsive behaviors

2005-11-18T18:43:00.000-05:00

Everyone has heard the expression; “he’s no better than anyone else, he still puts his pants on one leg at a time”. With that expression in mind, this morning I found that, if I sat down, it was quite easy to put my pants onto both legs simultaneously.

Does this then make me better than everyone else?
It doesn’t seem to have done so.

At an earlier time in my life, I perfected the art of putting on my bathrobe by throwing it up into the air in such a way as to have it float down onto me. It is a little hard to describe in writing, but trust me; it is even sillier looking in person. I am not sure what inspired me to perfect this method of donning my bathrobe; I just suddenly wanted to find a different way to put it on.

In restaurants, I have been known to crawl under the table to figure out why it was squeaking (loose bolts). My long-suffering wife long ago resigned herself to the fact that I am prone to moments of oddly spontaneous (mis)behavior. My moments of impulsiveness do not faze her at all. She is no longer surprised by them. She has given up even trying to figure out what exactly I think I am doing.

In public, she just quietly says to me under her breath,
“Stop being weird”.

My former roommate is right. The woman deserves sainthood.

On who first decided

2005-11-17T06:33:00.000-05:00

I am not sure when in my life I first noticed that women’s shirts/blouses, generally, have the buttons on the left side while men’s shirts have the buttons on the right. I would guess that it was some time after puberty.

I do remember embarking on a research mission to find out why. I found a number of possible explanations, but the one that seemed to be most prevalent pointed to the dressmakers of the late 18th /early 19th centuries. Woman of refinement (rich) had maids who helped them dress and it was easier for the right-handed maids if the buttons were on the left. Woman’s clothing manufacturers who wanted their products to be seen as high class (expensive) used the left button signature to give their products and those who wore them a certain status. This became the status (pardon the pun) quo and so, for two centuries now, right-handed women who do not have maids still have to button clothing that is designed for their non-existent right-handed maids. I suppose that left-handed women get a bit of a break here.

Whenever I run across these little items, I always start to wonder about who the first person was that made the fateful decision that started the trend. I usually find that their name is lost to history. They started a trend that has had an effect on millions of people’s daily lives, but we have no idea who they were or what thoughts went into their decision.

There are several trend setting “Adams/Eves” that I am still very curious about.

For example, who first decided…

that tofu was edible (only marginally so, in my opinion)

that “dee”, “duh”, “lah”, “dah”, “nah”, or “dut” were acceptable as lyrics in a song’s chorus

to name their children after a letter of the alphabet

that clocks should run clockwise

to lump a number of unsavory food combinations under the same label “casserole”

that celebrities should have opinions on the issues of the day that anyone should bother to listen to

that putting a fuzzy cover on the toilet seat and tank would enhance the bathroom experience

that North was up and South was down when, in planetary terms, it doesn’t make the slightest difference

that on automobiles, we use (R) Reverse instead of (B) Backwards

that computer operating systems have to be unreliable, inflexible, and awkward.
Oh, wait, I already know this one.
(Sorry, Bill.)

On modeling

2005-11-16T06:33:00.000-05:00

My first job out of grad school was teaching at a small midwestern college. One of my friends and colleagues at the college approached me one day and asked if I could be his “face” model. He was an art professor and had gotten a commission to do a large oil painting. I certainly did not consider myself “model” material, but with my (at the time) long dark hair and beard on a much younger/thinner face; well, he anyway felt that my face and head would fit the subject of his commission. I sat for him on several occasions. For a variety of unrelated reasons, I never got to see the finished work, but he told me later that the clients were quite happy with it.

Ergo, somewhere in rural Missouri, a large oil painting hangs on the wall of a funeral home. My face is on a lone figure wearing a long, white flowing robe standing on a hillside. The figure is holding a crook staff and has sheep gathered at his feet.

I am actually glad that I never saw the finished work.

There are some mental images that one just shouldn't have.
There are some things best left unseen.

On buying a toaster

2005-11-15T06:16:00.000-05:00

As I noted in the earlier post, I had to buy a new toaster yesterday. I got a really nice one. It has a kind of chrome retro styling to it, a sort of PT Cruiser of toasters. Buying the toaster made me think of the physics of heat transference. The physics of heat transference made me think of the end of my sophomore year of college. During the last semester of my sophomore year, I had taken a Physics class on energy theory. This reminded of a surprising man with a toaster under his arm.

(The above paragraph is an example of why my attempts at “stream of consciousness” writing have been so unsuccessful. There are just too many eddies in my mental stream.)

The first day of that physics class, I was a bit disconcerted when a very elderly gentleman entered the room and stated in the most incredibly thick German accent that, “Your usual teacher is at a conference. He will return before the next class. I am here to teach you today.” I was young and very full of the disdain that most youth feel toward both advanced age and substitute teachers. Here was this very frail looking gentleman standing in front of the class. Even now, I can almost hear my internal sneers of youthful derision.

I was, however, perplexed.

This elderly gentleman who had introduced himself as a Professor Emeritus of Physics was carrying a toaster under his arm. It was just a standard silver toaster that he then set down on the table in front of him. In his heavily accented voice, he proceeded to take attendance. Without offering any explanation, he sat down behind the table, produced a small pile of tools from his pockets, and started disassembling the toaster. We all sat there for several uncomfortable moments, looking at each other, unsure of what to do. He seemed oblivious to our presence. After several minutes of removing parts from the toaster, he looked up and announced that when his wife had started their breakfast that morning; their toaster had suddenly stopped operating. He had promised her that he would repair it before the next breakfast. He started talking about how the toaster was made. He held up various components and explained the way each part worked in the way it transferred heat, channeled electrons, or changed forms of energy. Finding the fault in the heating coil, led to a discourse on electrical resistance and the mechanics of electron flow. His removal of the insulation that backed the faulty coil was accompanied by an explanation of the differences between radiant and conducted heat. He suddenly stopped his tinkering, looked up at us and announced that the time had run out and that class was over.

I was actually startled.

Where had the time gone? I had been absolutely mesmerized for an hour and a half!

How had he done that?

In one session with a great teacher and his broken toaster, I had learned more than in many of my semester long courses. I later learned that the “Professor Emeritus of Physics” had escaped from Hitler’s Germany just prior to WWII. He was a very well known scientist who had a model of the atom named after him.

You can find a whole universe in a toaster.
You just need someone who knows where to look.

On a trivial rant

2005-11-13T06:47:00.000-05:00

There needs to be a word to describe a rant about a trivial matter. There are things that are annoying and deserve a rant, but in the grand scheme of things they are about as important as a chipmunk fart (These I would imagine might be important to other chipmunks in the vicinity, but I am speaking in the larger, non-rodent, sense here.) Perhaps, the word “trant” would fit the bill.

If so, I have a trant.

It seems like merchants should be held accountable for how they describe the merchandise that they sell. I had to go to the store to buy a new toaster. On one of the displays, they were selling “Digital Headphones”. These headphones were standard headphones consisting of two small speakers on headgear connected with small wires to a plug. They are about as un-digital (analog) as any device can possibly be. Headphone speakers are simply transducers that change ANALOG electrical signals into ANALOG sound waves. They don’t even have a digital display that one could use to stretch credulity to the point that the “digital” label might be said to apply. Because of the nature of headphones (and ears),I am not even sure if it is possible to make headphones that could legitimately be called “Digital Headphones”.

These were, most assuredly, not digital.

At the nearby home center, they were selling sections of picket fencing. It looked like a pretty standard picket fence except that the tops of the pickets had slightly curved points instead of straight angular points. The sign that was posted above it advertised it as “French Gothic" fencing . . .

Imagine me doing a “Classic Comedy Double-Take” and saying, “What!?!. . .”

Wouldn’t you know it, here I was looking for some “Norwegian Rococo” fencing, but they were fresh out.

On the chipmunk with OCD

2005-11-12T06:08:00.000-05:00

I have a two-foot wide gravel foundation border at the rear of the house. It is about a foot thick and keeps grass from growing up against the house where I would have to trim it. I started noticing a small six-inch deep hole dug right in the middle of the gravel bed. There was nothing in the hole. It didn’t seem to go anywhere. It was just a shallow hole.

I would push the gravel, which was neatly piled around the hole, back into the hole. The next day, the exact same hole would reappear in exactly the same spot. This happened several times.

One day while I was working in the yard, I happened to look over and saw a small chipmunk earnestly excavating the hole that I had just filled in. He dug it down exactly six inches. He did not try to make a tunnel. He didn’t bury any nuts in the hole (Do chipmunks bury nuts or is that only a squirrel thing?). He simply dug the hole. Neatly piled the gravel next to it. Then ran away.

I left the hole as it was, but checked on it every couple of days. No change. Nothing was buried. The hole was not enlarged. It was still just a shallow hole in the middle of the gravel. I pushed the gravel back in. The next day, the hole reappeared.

I mentioned the chipmunk and his hole habit to my neighbor. He suggested that I put out a trap to kill the chipmunk. I decided that capital punishment was a bit harsh even for a rodent that obviously suffered from a personality disorder. If I had access to the psychotropic drugs used to treat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I would have preferred to leave small, chipmunk sized dosages at the site of the hole. I might be able to find a psychiatrist who specialized in chipmunks who suffer from OCD. I could leave his tiny business card by the side of the hole with the words, “Please get help”, handwritten in miniature chipmunkish script on the back. Perhaps, I could get his chipmunk family and friends to organize an intervention. They could put their furry little paws on his fuzzy shoulders, look him in his beady eyes and explain to him how his unseemly behavior could cause him to be ostracized by the rest of chipmunk society. In time, leaving him gray furred, lonely and embittered at the side of his hole surrounded by his pathetic pile of pebbles.

I decided not to fill in the hole this time. Instead, I put the biggest rock that I could carry right on top of it. After all, I wouldn’t want his long-suffering little chipmunk family to accuse me of being his enabler.

On flawed works

2005-11-11T06:59:00.000-05:00

One of my mentors used to say, “If you can’t fix it, feature it.” Basically, when you’re stuck with a flawed piece of work, put it in a really big, fancy picture frame. Then highlight the worst part of the flaw. Make the flaw the centerpiece and people will think that you meant to do it that way all along.

This advice has saved me on a number of occasions.

She was very wise.

On the holes in my socks

2005-11-10T06:56:00.000-05:00

My socks always seem to have holes in them. After being worn only a few times, my toe or heel starts peeking through the fabric. I am at a loss as to why that is so. After all, it is my shoes that bear the brunt of the contact with the ground. The socks just ride around enclosed in a cushy protective shell. Where do the holes come from? Why are they in different places on different socks worn on the same foot? Why do I never get holes in both socks of the same pair? Do sock manufacturers put a hidden flaw in only one out of each pair of socks? Have I discovered a subtle and insidious form of planned obsolescence? Who knows about it? Who have they told? Which reporters have they talked to? Does the VP know?

I smell a cover-up. Smells like feet.

On a boring day

2005-11-09T18:29:00.000-05:00

I was home all day today. I didn’t leave the house once. In truth, it was a remarkably boring day. I had wanted to go outside and work in the yard, but it was raining all day.

Since it was so boring, I got all the way through my “I am hopelessly bored” list.

Today, I . . .

1. Read through my favorite blogs while I drank my coffee

2. Cleaned the dust and cat hair from the coils on the bottom of the refrigerator

3. Changed the oil in the lawn mower

4. Wandered aimlessly through the Blogiverse and left many obnoxious comments

5. Recharged all the rechargeable batteries

6. Moved digital pictures from the camera memory cards to the hard drive on the computer

7. Polished my wife’s winter boots

8. Wandered aimlessly, once again, through the Blogiverse and left many more obnoxious comments

9. Washed and dried a load of bath towels

10. Threw out a bunch of old magazines and catalogs

11. Put all the old newspapers into the recycling bin

12. Played the drum solo from “In A Gadda Da Vida” so loudly on the stereo that things fell off the mantel and the speakers started smelling funny

13. Perversely, wandered aimlessly, even again, through the Blogiverse and wrote this obnoxious post

On the circle with a line through it

2005-11-08T06:24:00.000-05:00

On the main thoroughfare near my house, they were installing a new street sign today. It had a picture of a truck with a red circle around it and a red line through it. The “red circle with a line through it” has become an almost universal symbol for “no”, “not”, “don’t”, or in certain parts of New York City, “foh geduhbot id”. I can't imagine anyone who doesn't recognize it as the symbol for negation. It seems like something that is as well known as this symbol should have a well-known name. It made me curious about whether of not the symbol (circle with a line inside it) even had a name. There is, of course, a symbol in math that I think is called a null, but that has a line that extends beyond the area of the circle. I mean, think about it, we gave the ampersand its own name. (I cannot imagine who gave the umlaut its name.)

I tried several search engines and a couple of encyclopedias and couldn’t find an actual name for the symbol itself. It may have a name already, but I was unable to find one.

Just in case no one has bothered to name it yet, I decided to stake my claim and would like to propose that we call the symbol a circumnegate.

Circumnegate (pronounced: ser kuhm NEH gate) [From the Latin, circum (around) and negāt (to deny, root of the word, negate)] can be used as either a noun for the symbol itself or as a verb in using the symbol as in “to circumnegate”. The process of using it is called circumnegation. The symbol that it is placed over is the circumnegatee and is said to be circumnegated. Someone who uses the symbol casually is a circumnegator. Someone who uses the symbol professionally is a circumnegationist. The place where it is used routinely is a circumnegatorium. If used systemically, the area can be said to be circumnegatized. A scholar who studies them is a circumnegatologist who teaches circumnegatology. (see “On the *ologies” posted here on October 9th, 2005) Someone who proposes a system of government based on the use of the symbol is a circumnegatarianismist. Those who are fond of abbreviations and acronyms have my permission to simply refer to them as CN’s.

If you happen to see the word, circumnegate, in the next edition of Webster’s Dictionary; just remember that you saw it here first.

Hey, it beats the heck out of "umlaut".

On my first library

2005-11-07T06:13:00.000-05:00

I was an early reader. During the summer between kindergarten and first grade, we lived in a small midwestern town. Our house sat on the corner across from a one-block square town park. The park was nothing more than grass, a few trees, and a slightly rickety wooden bandstand that I don’t recall ever being used. Across that park, on the corner opposite from our house was the county library.

It was a great old library. It has broad stone stairs set in a Federalist façade. Inside it had tall ceilings, floor to ceiling multi-paned windows with a worn wooden floor and dark wood shelves. It looked like a library. It smelled like a library. If Norman Rockwell had wanted to paint a library, he would have chosen this one as the model.

At the beginning of that summer, each day I would wake up, brush my teeth, eat breakfast and walk across the park to that library. I, usually, got there before it opened and sat on the front steps until the librarian mysteriously appeared from inside and unlocked the front door. I think at the time, I thought that she just lived there and I was waiting for her to wake up. In retrospect, she probably parked in the back alleyway and came in through a rear entrance.

Even at the time, it was a really old-fashioned library. The “children” section did not have little chairs, tables, or colorful decorations. It was just an alcove off the main entrance that had a lot of windows and shorter than usual shelves. Two long, low shelves of children’s books bound it. For the first few weeks, I would make my selection; take them and my newly acquired library card to the front desk. The librarian would use a rubber stamp to stamp each one after she handwrote my name and book titles into her registry. She would admonish me to, “be careful crossing the street”. As I had been taught and as my parents would expect, I would thank her. Carrying my pile of books, I would journey back across the park to my house where I would read each book cover to cover before the sun had set.

After awhile, I got tired of lugging a pile of books each and every day. I started lying on the wooden floor of the alcove in the sun and would just read them right there. As is my nature, I began at one end of the first shelf and started reading each book in the children’s section in order. It was glorious. I learned to love reading. Time would pass so quickly. The world would shrink to fit onto the page in front of me. I was catatonic until I had reached the back cover and reached for the next one.

This was a very small town. My parents were public figures in the town. Everyone knew them and by extension, me. I can remember the librarian periodically looking in on me. She would occasionally remind me that I should “go home and eat some lunch now”. I am sure that she and my mother were in cahoots and that phone calls were exchanged for my benefit.

Even now, I am saddened by the fact that I was never able to fulfill my goal of finishing all the books on those shelves. We moved away in mid-August of that summer. I did put a pretty good dent in them though. I still remember a lot of the stories that I read there.

Dr Seuss (T.S. Geisel) was my absolute favorite author. I credit him with teaching me to love wordplay and verbal silliness. I used to get myself warmed up for a day’s worth of hard reading by zipping once again through “Hop On Pop” or “If I Ran The Circus.” I liked stories about boys who could fly and/or be invisible. I didn’t like stories about girls, dolls, or bears. Stories based on mythology and the sciences were the best and most interesting ones. Books with too many pictures or about fairy tales seemed too much like “baby” books for my discerning six-year-old palette. I thought that all stories about bunnies were stupid.

When my son, who is now a book-devouring machine, was in the first grade; he really struggled with reading. He and I started a daily half-hour reading session. I would read to him from one page then he would read to me from the next one. By unanimous acclaim, our favorite book to get us warmed up for reading in alternation was “Hop On Pop”.

On daydreaming

2005-11-05T06:27:00.000-05:00

I have developed an unfortunate tendency to daydream. I sometimes find myself on some very strange thoughtscapes while I am driving, walking, or working. Oddly, this wasn’t really that much of a problem when I was a child. In grade school, I used to get in trouble for reading an interesting book under my desk when I was supposed to be listening to the lesson. I once got sent to the principal’s office because I was so engrossed in a sci-fi novel that I didn’t hear the alarm bells during a fire drill. Believe it or not, I used to have to spend time standing with my face into the corner of the classroom for reading in school. The shame of it all. Other than my criminal literary tendencies, I was usually very much “in the moment”.

It has only been in adulthood that my mental focus has started floating away without notice. This cannot be a good thing.

On telephone surveys

2005-11-04T06:23:00.000-05:00

The article was a sad tale of woe about the fact that survey takers can no longer reach people who only have cell phones. This has apparently become a real problem.

Funny, they didn’t mention the fact that these same survey takers often call people during meals or family times to gather their facts. They didn’t mention the fact that even though the opinion takers are paid for those gathered opinions; they never offer to reimburse the opinion makers for their time.

I am more than a little curmudgeonly when it comes to unsolicited evening survey calls. I used to just hang up on these kinds of calls. Somehow that just wasn’t satisfying enough. Now, I stay on the line and make up the most outlandish answers I can come up with off the top of my head. As long as what I tell them is as far from my true feeling as is possible, I get a certain wicked delight in doing my part to skew their results.

I wish I could say that my odiousness was a product of the accumulating years; but, in truth, being difficult is just something that has always come naturally for me. There are those who would maintain that I have an absolute genius for it. During one of my stints in college, I answered a want ad on a bulletin board for a part time job at the Medical School. They needed people to be “pretend patients” to help the med students learn how to gather medical histories from difficult patients and improve the new doctor’s beside manner. It only involved a few hours a week and paid quite well. I did it off and on for about two years.

They would call you up when they needed you. You would go to the med school and you would be given about an hour to study a fictitious medical and personal history. Then the instructor would put you in a room with a video camera. He might tell you a specific quirk that he wanted you to portray in order to flummox that particular med student. The student doctor would then enter and conduct a taped fifteen-minute interview. I played everything from a truck driver with hemorrhoids and a bad temper to a chronically depressed dance instructor suffering from a rash. The med school Profs liked using me, since I was particularly good at flustering their student doctor/interviewers with off-the-cuff off-the-wall off the scale obnoxious answers to the questioning. I think that they enjoyed siccing me on the students who had annoyed them recently.

[Student doctor] “How often do you have a bowel movement?”
[Truck driver] “Every time”

Perhaps, I missed my calling in life.

I wonder if the DMV is hiring.

On wind power

2005-11-03T18:01:00.000-05:00

I kind of enjoy using my leaf blower on piles of autumn leaves. Blasting the leaves into a pile like a modern Zephyr, Greek god the west wind, gives me a real sense of control. I can throw those leaves around as though they were mere, uhm, leaves. It makes me want to throw my head back and give a loud maniacal laugh at the barren trees. I am wind. I have the power. Take that you, leaf, you.

Suddenly, the wind gusts from the direction that I am blowing the leaves.

They all fly back into my face.

Hubris gone.

I am humbled.

Mortal, once more.

On an unshared moment of fashion extremes

2005-11-02T06:20:00.000-05:00

I was sitting at a long red light. Crossing the intersection in front of me was a huge, loud, Old School Harley chopper. A huge (possibly, loud and also possibly, Old School?) man was riding it. He had a shaven head and multiple tattoos that were plainly visible since he was wearing a studded sleeveless leather vest (It was forty some degrees out there!). His ensemble was appropriately anchored by blue jeans and mid-calf lace up work boots.

No other vehicles came through. Then within ten seconds of the chopper’s passing, a tiny little scooter puttered by in front of me. It was bright red with a white wire basket on the back. A small, wizened gentleman (?) wearing a dark blue car coat and a baby blue bubble helmet rode it. I believe he (she?) was wearing brown wingtips. Although it has been so long since I’ve seen wingtips, I’m not sure if I still know what they look like.

It was a horrible moment. I was in the car alone. I desperately wanted to turn to someone and exclaim, “Did you see what I saw? Can you believe that?!? That was so weird.” Instead, as soon as I got home, I sat down and wrote this posting. It was just so I could find some closure by finally saying to someone, “It was so weird”.

On not being very romantic

2005-10-31T06:00:00.000-05:00

I admit to not being a very romantic husband. I tend to forget about anniversaries. As I’ve admitted before, I am an abysmal failure at gift giving. Beyond some occasional spastic twitching, I can’t dance to save my life. I am sometimes oblivious to how she is wearing her hair. When I do finally notice, it is far too long after the fact to score me any points. I think greeting card sentiments are inane. The cat eats any flowers that I bring into the house. My poetry blows chunks. If I were ever to attempt to sing her a love song, she would cover her ears and run screaming from the room in horrible agony.

Still somehow, my wife has managed to tolerate my presence on the other side of her bed for a very long time. On a timeline that would describe our lives, the section where we have been married to each other would be longer than the section where we have not been married to each other. I don’t like to proclaim that I am a “happily married man.” It sounds a bit too pompous, a little too simplistic, a lot too “Seventh Heaven”-ish, for me. I am not even sure that the two of us have ever really fit that sort of classic romantic stereotype of the “happily married couple”. Our life together is most certainly not a springtime shower of wine and roses. More like a daily deluge of diet cola and overdue bills, but it is a life that I could not and would not have with anyone else.

My wife is my trusted partner in all things. She is, without question, the smartest, most capable person I have ever known. I enjoy having a conversation with her more than with anyone else. She can draw the deepest, most honest laughter out of me. My pulse races when she leans against me. When she lays her head on my shoulder, my heart swells beyond what my chest can contain. When she cries, I feel a sudden flash of anger at whatever caused it followed by a sinking feeling of helplessness that I could not have prevented it. When she is sick, I hurt. When she is well again, the world is a brighter place. She can make me more furious than anyone on this planet; but, no matter the reason, I can never stay mad at her. She can shine a piercing light on my most shameful flaws and then forgive them with a sigh. She is the beautiful and gifted reason for our beautiful and gifted children. She is the rule by which I measure my successes and failures. She is my compass when I lose my way. She is the last, the greatest, and the only love of my life.

Unlike the movies, there were no dramatic lightning bolts the first time that I put my arms around her. It was after a Halloween party almost a lifetime ago. I can remember thinking, “I could get used to this”.

I still think that.

On stream of consciousness writing

2005-10-30T06:42:00.000-05:00

I have always admired those who can write in the “stream of consciousness” style.

My attempts at it have varied from “leaky faucet of consciousness” to “drainage ditch after a brief downpour of consciousness”. If I can ever get past the “faulty septic system holding tank of consciousness” stage, I will post the results.

On stray words

2005-10-29T06:06:00.000-04:00

Did you ever wake up in the morning with a phrase stuck in your head? I woke up yesterday and all day long I was bothered by the phrase, “the quality of mercy”. It kept tugging on the sleeve of my thought process at random moments throughtout the day. I couldn’t remember the rest of the quote for the life of me or where I knew it from or even, why I happened to know it. Like a mischievous little neuron that had broken away from its brain parents, it just wandered aimlessly up and down the aisles of my internal Wal-Mart.

Finally, in the evening, I sat down and looked it up. It was Shakespeare. It was from the Merchant of Venice, a play that I had to read in college. From Act IV, Scene 1 from Portia to Shylock: it reads in part.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

(Long anticipatory pause) This knowledge caused no epiphany. No burning bushes. No brilliant insight. No bolts from the blue. No enlightenment. No spiritual homecoming. No prophetic visions. Absolutely nothing. I don’t even like this play.

The wayward child was simply reunited with his anxious family.

On business letters from (Zip Code: 96708)

2005-10-28T06:45:00.000-04:00

To tech support

I cannot believe
That my hard drive is crashing
I hate this machine

To the credit card company

I got the notice
The check is in the mail now
Do you believe me?

To the vet

The damn cat threw up
It was a big stinky mess
And right in my shoe

To the post office

I am out of stamps
Why do I have to buy some
When you are busy?

To the high school

He was sick today
It is probably our flu
That he brought from there

To Microsoft

It takes me three tries
For my system to boot up
What is wrong with you?

To the airlines

I have to travel
So I searched my carryon
To avoid strip search

To my ISP

There is no server
Do you have an outage now?
Or just too busy?

To Blogger

Hey, why are new posts
Found at the top of the blog?
How can I change this?

To my Congressman

Are you guys insane?
I can watch you on C-Span
Wrestling is less dumb

(I must give credit (blame?) to JA and her recent application for a poetic license for inspiring this post. I must also credit (blame?) the Google Search Engine for it's surprising, sometimes Delphian answers to my queries.)

On working with pessimists

2005-10-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

I was talking to someone the other day that was describing a troubled project he was supervising at work. It seems that the consultants who had set the initial parameters had grossly underestimated the time and money needed to actually complete the project. Since the project was not properly budgeted or scheduled, it was a huge mess that he now has to fix.

We started talking about whether we preferred working with optimists or pessimists on large projects. We both agreed. We like working with pessimists. It seems a little counterintuitive since being labeled a “team player” generally implies an optimistic, upbeat attitude. Contrary to the corporate mythos, this can cause more problems than someone who is more skeptical about the good intentions of others and just a tad, paranoid. In the real world, the only way to prepare for the unexpected is to expect it. It is a lot better to be pleasantly surprised when things turn out well, than to be blindsided by unexpected problems.

“Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.” Oscar Wilde

On jumping around like a crazy person

2005-10-26T18:13:00.000-04:00

If one of our neighbors were to peer into the window on certain days at certain time, they would be tempted to call 911. Their poor neighbor would be in the throes of a spastic fit. In reality, I am “dancing”. Sometimes I like to put loud music on the stereo and jump around the house with abandon. You might notice that I put the word “dancing” in quotes. I did so because my actions cannot and should not be used to besmirch the fine art of dance. It is when I swing my arms and butt around while shuffling and jumping around in a semi-rhythmic motion. It resembles the actions of a delusional adult who is leading a spirited session of “Choo Choo Train” with an invisible group of pre-schoolers. It is dancing in only the broadest and poorest sense of that word.

The music accompanying these embarrassing displays is usually, what my kids call Stone Age Rock (ex. Jump In the Fire by Harry Nilsson) or Dinosaur Disco (ex. Wang Dang Doodle by The Pointer Sisters). It can be anything from Commotion by CCR to Rock Lobster by the B-52s or almost anything by the Talking Heads. Songs with a window shaking bass beat are often the culprits. Even some selections by contemporary artists like the Black Eyed Peas and Eminem had been known to bring on a spell of my unfortunate physical contortions.

There are a lot of reasons why I engage in this bizarre activity. It embarrasses my children. It allows me to lie to my doctor as to how often I engage in aerobic exercise. It makes my wife hesitate before she suggests that we go out dancing in public.

The biggest reason is to celebrate the fact that I am able to do so. I had an eighty-seven year old neighbor whose house sat against a steep hillside. Leaving his house by the front door involved walking down and then, up a long, steep flight of stairs. From his back door, which was at ground level, it was a gentle sloping stroll down the driveway. Every morning, he would walk out of his front door and down, then up the stairs several times to retrieve his newspaper and then, his mail. I once asked him why he didn’t take the easier route out of his back door instead of braving that long climb up the front stairs. He said, "I climb these stairs every day, because if I don’t; I won’t be able to. I need to prove to myself that I still can."

I jump around like a crazy person, because I am lucky enough to be able to say, “I can”.

On horror movies

2005-10-25T18:29:00.000-04:00

This is the time of year when I leave the television off. I don’t like horror movies. In particular, I dislike slasher movies. It isn’t so much that I find them to be scary. On the contrary, I see them as a combination of bad special effects combined with stories about stupid people doing predictably stupid things. I am reminded of the evening news.

I was wondering when the producers of horror movies are going run out of scary scenarios for their epics. They have exploited just about every frighteningly, unholy story line imaginable with the possible exception of an IRS audit or anther Britney Spears reality show. What other situation can they come up where normal people remain in abnormal conditions while supernaturally cunning, stealthy, and apparently, unstoppable forces cut them to pieces one at a time? I did see a special on one of the networks that showed some promise. It was called, "The Economic Plight of The Middle Class."

As for the more classic horror movies, I came me up with a really great idea for a remake of Hitchcock’s The Birds. I would set it in Asia. It would involve migratory birds and a cryptically named, H5N1 virus. Now, that’s one you wouldn’t see on the evening news.

On keyboard shortcuts

2005-10-24T18:52:00.000-04:00

Keyboard shortcuts, sometime called MouseKeys, were someone’s really good idea.

I use them all the time. I type fairly fast and find that taking my hands off the keyboard to reach for the mouse in mid-thought is an unwelcome interruption. I have memorized the vast majority of the keyboard shortcuts for most of the software that I use.

The most famous keyboard shortcut is the Microsoft three-finger salute (Ctrl+Alt+Del), which is the Windows version of a “Get Out of Jail” card. The cut/copy/paste sequence is a marvel of efficiency. The use of Ctrl+x for cut and Ctrl+c for copy is intuitive and logical. I have never quite figured out the Ctrl+v for paste. I have thought long and hard in an effort to find a word that starts with v that could be a synonym for paste. So far, I have been unsuccessful.

I am such a fan of keyboard shortcuts that I wish that life came with a set of keyboard shortcuts. It would be so great if you could just use a three or four key combination to help you move quickly and efficiently through life’s complicated operations. In just a few minutes, several possible applications came to mind.

Ctrl+x+b+d deletes bad dinner date

Ctrl+b+p silently teleports you away from a group of people with a pile of baby pictures where the words “cute” and “adorable” have been used at least fifteen times within the past fifteen seconds

Ctrl+x+n+p removes today’s newspaper from surface of your desk just before boss comes within visual range of said desk

Ctrl+m+f makes obscene hand gesture at bad driver on expressway
Ctrl+m+(shift)F adds additional unflattering speculation about his mother’s demeanor

Ctrl+u+g cleans the mysterious sticky stuff out of the bottom of cupholders in car

Ctrl+u+h removes guilty sounding stutters from a husband’s protestation of innocence

Ctrl+e+c applies severe electrical shock to any political commentator who uses the words “compassionate” and “conservative” in the same sentence
Ctrl+e+p applies severe electrical shock to any political commentator who uses the words “partisan” and “politics” in the same sentence
Ctrl+e+* applies severe electrical shock to any political commentator just because they’re annoying and they deserve it

Ctrl+v+t+p pastes new toilet paper onto inconveniently empty toilet paper roll

Ctrl+i+c+k inconspicuously feeds creamed corn with tuna casserole to dog under table

Ctrl+m+i+l sends in-laws to the opposite hemisphere of the planet

Ctrl+m+b+2 moves the decimal point two places to the left on any monthly bill
Ctrl+p+c+2 moves the decimal point two places to the right on paycheck

Ctrl+n+l blows leaves back onto neighbor’s unraked lawn

Ctrl+l+b returns overdue library book
Ctrl+Alt+l+b tells the librarian “the only reason that the book was overdue was that it was picked up by recent hurricane force winds and was just recently recovered from a bean field outside of Cleveland”. She buys the story and waives the fine.

Ctrl+m+c smacks teenage son up side of the head for drinking milk directly from the carton

Ctrl+b+h fixes “pillow head” hair

Ctrl+w+c makes cats realize that they don’t really need to be fed by 6 AM on weekends

Ctrl+v+p pastes an extra inch into the waistband and/or seat of any pair of pants
Ctrl+v+p+2 make that two more inches

Ctrl+f+? makes the sounds coming from speaker at fast food drive-thru intelligible

Ctrl+s+t slows car to speed limit just moments before police radar locks on

Ctrl+m+s cleans mud from child’s shoe just before the shoes come in contact with carpet

Ctrl+w+l instantly creates perfect excuse to explain why you were late for work

Ctrl+c+l+(3) places a limit (3) on the number of lies that your Congressman can tell you in any one ten-minute speech
Ctrl+p+l+(3) places a limit (3) on the number of lies that your President can tell you in any one ten-minute speech
Ctrl+p+l+* creates one-time limit exemption for the State of the Union address

Ctrl+w+p instantly dries soaking wet newspaper

Ctrl+j+m puts “Return To Sender” stamp on all of today’s junk mail

Ctrl+x+c cuts annoying celebrity out of role on television program
Ctrl+v+c pastes favorite cartoon character into that role

Ctrl+a+f makes car run on Sunday’s newspaper ad fliers

Ctrl+g+i reminds of the great idea that you had while driving to work this morning, but had forgotten by the time that you got to your office

Ctrl+Alt+b posts brilliant insights on blog
Ctrl+Alt+(Shift)Del deletes all the stupid stuff
Ctrl+Alt+(Shift)B changes the two sentences that are left after the above operations into bold type

On my 100th posting

2005-10-21T06:00:00.000-04:00

According to Blogger, this is my 100th posting. When I realized that I was close to the century mark, I looked back at my first posting.

Thursday, April 28, 2005
On starting a blog

There was a well-known designer who was asked by an interviewer how he did his best work. His answer, "with an eraser", is one of my favorite quotes.

posted by HCaldwell 11:06 AM 0 comments

Then I went into my hard drive and pulled up the original draft of that initial posting. I remembered that I had taken to heart the advice from the last paragraph of the essay. I had only posted two sentences from the original three paragraphs. For the sake of posterity and just because I want to, here is the entire, uncut and unedited draft of my first posting.

On starting a blog

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was a musty smelling tome found on my father's bookshelf. It was called, A Book About A Thousand Things written by George Stimpson and published in 1946. It was full of wonderfully useless tidbits like "What becomes of the heart of a hollow tree?" and "Why are small places called 'jerkwater' towns?". I had probably read that book twenty times by the time I was twelve. It wasn't so much that the individual items were of particular interest to me. I loved that book because it dealt with so many different seemingly unrelated things. Each page spun you in a new direction. It let you make your own connections between these divergent topics. To borrow from popular culture, it was a book about nothing. So it became a book about anything and everything. This is a blog about nothing.

I have always been a fan of Mark Twain's essays. I prowl around used bookstores looking for collections of his less known essays. He had the ability that few writers and "people who write" ever seem to learn. He never took himself too seriously. Unlike today's celebrities, who feel compelled to tell us what is the best "governance for Tibet" or their solution to the problem of world hunger; he knew he was full of crap. I enjoy his honesty and his lack of misplaced ego. I hope this blog is so full of crap that I can never make the mistake of taking it or myself too seriously.

There was a well-known designer who was asked by an interviewer how he did his best work. His answer, "with an eraser", is one of favorite quotes. I will try to do my most insightful work with the backspace key.

To be posted 4/28/2005

When I get to the 200th posting, I will post the other stuff that I wrote today for my 100th posting, but decided at the last moment to cut.

On buying cheap caulk

2005-10-20T06:56:00.000-04:00

The furnace wasn't working this morning. Luckily, it still has most of a five year warranty. The company will be out this afternoon to fix it. The morning chill started me thinking about a magazine article that I had read on super conductors. The author made a comment about the impossibility of cooling something to absolute zero (approx. minus 460F).

At an earlier time in my life, I would have been tempted to scoff and think, "Nothing is impossible". Moreover, I would feel certain that I would probably live to see that goal attained. My optimism has gradually eroded. I am now much less sure that I will be around to see all the impossibles made possible.

With winter fast approaching, it is time to walk around the house and check the caulking and windows. At this point, I don't even bother to buy caulk that is guaranteed for forty years. According to the actuarial tables, even the cheap stuff has a better than even chance of outlasting me. If they don't get the furnace fixed soon, I may be wrong about reaching absolute zero in my lifetime. Odds are that I should still buy the cheap caulk.

On a sample razor

2005-10-19T06:49:00.000-04:00

I got a freebie sample razor in the mail. It’s not just a razor. It is the ultimate, shiny, multi-colored, multi-bladed high tech facial hair removal and renovation instrument that will “revolutionize male grooming”. It’s advertising literature implies that it has from 6 to 60 blades, is equipped with nimble rack and pinion steering, has a chin hugging sport suspension, and can shave you in under 9.2 seconds. I’m impressed.

All this technology is wasted on me. I use an old-fashioned, somewhat worn out single bladed razor. I have never even bought a can of shaving cream. I use soap. Even with this stone-age approach to male grooming, unwanted facial hair is effectively removed from my face. I don’t recall ever cutting myself while shaving. My dad even taught me how to use a straight razor. You know, one of those razors that are only used by barbers now. They have been popularized in a number of movies and stage plays as instruments of torture, murder, and mayhem. I don’t think that is why he taught me how to use it. They were way out of date even in his day, but he was a firm believer in passing on everything that his father had taught him. On occasion, I still shave with my straight razor. I probably do it for the same reason that men dress up in Civil War uniforms, shoot blanks at each, and then lay on the ground pretending to be dead. It is a tribute to an earlier time. It is likely sort of fun, as well, reminding them of the times when they used to have dirt clod wars with their neighborhood buddies (the falling down and pretending to be dead part, not the shaving.)

These new razors not only have numerous blades and curvaceous handles, but some are also advertised as being battery powered. I haven’t yet figured out what aspect of a wet razor requires voltage. The way electric shavers work is obvious. A battery powered, multi-bladed wet razor is much more of a mystery to me. It apparently doesn’t spin around (ouch) or move across your face by itself. I would guess that it doesn’t heat the water right on your face (equally ouch). I suppose a set of tiny, little blade mounted headlights might be helpful in some circumstances like shaving during a power blackout in a bathroom without windows or outdoors at night or during a total eclipse of the sun. I can’t say that I would keep one of these razors in my medicine cabinet in order to remain clean shaven during such events.

The television commercial for this particular sample razor suggests that when I am through shaving with it, a beautiful model will spontaneously appear in my bathroom. She will run her hands across my clean shaven cheek while moaning ecstatically. I tried my sample razor this morning. The one that they sent me must be broken.

On being a renaissance man

2005-10-18T06:40:00.000-04:00

I do have a wide variety of interests. As I have stated previously, I am an “old guy who knows how to do stuff”. I am blessed with the attention span of a three year old combined with the memory (and coincidentally, wrinkly knees) of an elephant. I read a lot. I make stuffy, pompous sounding statements like, “You did well” instead of “You did good”. These conditions can conspire to create the unlikely situation where someone will actually say to me, “My, you are quite a renaissance man.”

First of all, that is entirely untrue. I fall somewhere between being an antediluvian dilettante and an annoying know-it-all in the mode of characters like “Cliff Clavin from Cheers”.

Secondly, even if I wanted to have a personality transplant to change myself into an overachiever in order to fall into that category, I am not sure how much good it would do me. I have never seen a want ad that stated.

Wanted: Renaissance Man
An exciting opportunity exists for an individual to create and develop a worldwide rebirth of the sciences and arts. We are currently seeking to fill a fulltime position that will open scientific vistas throughout the Western World, excluding Texas and some parts of Canada. Qualified individual must have good communication skills, outstanding mental aptitude, and an unsurpassed artistic genius or any equivalent combination of education and experience. Must be a self-starter with own tools, CDL, insurance, vehicle, and workers comp. Ability to spend several years painting a chapel ceiling considered a plus.

In order to deflect this undeserved categorization, I have several smart-ass replies that I keep close at hand

"Yes, but my wife won’t let me wear my doublet, tights, and tabard in public.”

“No, actually I come from the Medieval Neo-Goth line of southern Illinois.”

“Why yes, I was born just prior to 1453. Does it show?”

And my favorite,

“Really, I always think of myself as more of an Australopithecus kinda guy.”