The Aerie
Well the remodel begins next Monday with the arrival of the cabinets. At the same time, the fellow who is going to paint the boy's bedroom arrives. Thus a merry week of interior crap relocation begins almost immediately.
The contents of the hodgepodge of shelves and cabinets that are currently acting as our "pantry" in the kitchen will need to be unloaded and moved. The boys bedroom will need to be mucked out and whatever does not stink too badly will need to be stored somewhere. So a busy week ahead all around.
But all this is just a warmup for the next part of the process - remodeling the upstairs master bedroom so that we're no longer living in squalor.
When we bought this house nearly fifteen years ago, it was as perfect a "starter home" as I could have wanted ( little did I know that I would be living in it for the rest of my life). The ground floor was very nice, if cozy, but the basement had been beautifully refinished. That was a big plus, because I'm not a basement guy - I know I would never, ever have finished it as nicely as it was done. Something about the dampness and the creepy-crawlys in basements, I don't think I could have ever pictured as nicely a finished set of rooms as were there.
So that was a very nice plus. Then there was the attic. It was NOT finished, although it was sizeable - 30 feet long, with a six-foot-wide strip of seven-foot ceiling down the middle, and a little alcove on the front. For reasons I'm not clear on, I knew that I COULD and WOULD finish the attic. Maybe it was the smaller number of bugs, maybe it was bright dry heat instead of damp coldness, but it was easy to picture myself refinishing the attic.
When our youngest was born circumstances forced me to undertake the project. My wife and I were living in what is now our daughter's room (and looking back I have no idea how we managed), and our twins were sleeping in the smaller 'bedroom' adjacent. We've learned since that it WASN'T a bedroom, since it didn't have a closet, but that was the danger of purchasing by owner.
With one more on the way, we had no idea where we were going to put him, so shortly after his birth I undertook to finish the attic.
I did a passable job for an amateur. I botched the insulation quite thoroughly - I tried putting up this newfangled 'reflectix' insulation. Basically it is bubble wrap with a mirrored surface on one side. It was supposed to proved R19 insulation when properly installed in the 3-1/2" gap provided by stud walls. This was very tempting, compared to getting R21 by using itchy fiberglass, and having to put furring strips up everywhere.
Unfortunately, you really need to know what you're doing with this stuff, and I didn't. You need to make it air- and vapor-tight, and I botched it up real good. The result is probably about R5, making for a cold attic.
Nevertheless the rest of it went well. I had to replace the knee-walls holding up the roof, which were pieced together out of scrapwood. And I ran the electrical and the heating, even installing sail-switch booster fans. Installed inside the venting, the sail-switches were exactly that - little switches with triangular plastic wings attached. As soon as any pressure mounted in the vents, from the furnace turning on, the fans activated to boost the flow of air into the attic. It all worked quite well, except for the time I got in the shower downstairs and my hand adhered to the tap because of electricity grounding into the plumbing. Aside from that, I did an almost competent job.
To wrap the project, we brought in a crew of incompetent women to drywall and mud the space - something I previously considered beyond my meager abilities. After they finished I realized that if I had one of those lift-the-wallboard-into-place racks, I probably could have done at least as incompetent a job as they did. Every join between the wallboard looks like the skeletal remains of a second degree broken bone - big lumpy junctures that make it easy to count the number of sheets of drywall used in the ceiling. I could have done that much.
Anyway it got done and we moved in. No flooring, only subfloor. No trim around the windows, no molding, no wainscoting. Just the bare minimum needed to live in the space, and some neat bookshelves built into the railing around the staircase (here's the trick, kids: just wall up the back, then put in the shelves for three rows of paperback storage).
That was fine for a couple of years, then we expanded the back of the house. by 12 feet. That created a new 20-foot-long wing off the back of the attic, accessable through a doorway cut in the middle, beside the bed. That space is even MORE unfinished - no electricity, no drywall, nothing. I put up a set of bicycle hooks and dowling rods and turned it into a giant closet. With the normal pink insulation puffing out the moisture seal, it's kind of like getting dressed inside the large intestine of an immense beast.
That space is now going to be turned into a master bath and small office. The joists holding up the old roof on either side of the entry are going to be removed, and those spaces turned into linen and clothes closets. Flooring will be put down throughout the attic, and the trim, moldings and wainscoting will be installed. In short, fifteen years after moving in, ten years after fininshing the attic, and five years after expanding the house, we'll finally have actual, livable space in the attic.
And a second bathroom. Oh heavens, a second bathroom. With two teenagers and a pre-teen in the house, a second bathroom is almost a completely necessity. It's never gotten quite that bad, but there have been times I've looked at the sump hole in the basement and wondered if anyone would notice... but no! No, I've resisted that awful urge.
Hopefully a couple of months from now we'll have a totally habitable house... just in time for the Germans to come stay in it for a month. That timing is, of course, totally coincidental. I mean, it's not like we would live in squalor until such time as shame over what strangers would think of our house drove us to drastic action! No, no, not at all...
Logged on this morning to the dismaying news that we have lost one of the finest writers of speculative fiction as well as several other notable people in one depressing weekend.
Octavia Butler was a groundbreaking and excellent author, the first black female author to rise to the top of the science fiction craft. Her writing was creative and insightful, exploring realms of science fiction that the rest of the trade only glosses over. We have all lost years and years and years of brilliant writing.
Other losses this weekend include Rachel MacAulay, whose promising future as an entertainer was cut short by that most loathesome of cancers, brain cancer. I hate brain cancer so much.
Less untimely but no less a loss, both Darrin McGavin, the dad from 'A Christmas Story,' and of course Don Knotts, the Professor Emeritus of Stylin' Nerds, have passed away, both were in their early eighties.
This totally sucks.
No, nobody has died or is dying that I am aware of.
I was riding the train this morning listening to my iPod shuffle (a most excellent device in so many ways) when "Sonic Reducer" (3M mp3) came up in the queue. It's a punk rock song featuring my late friend, Moldy.
I was reminded when I stood there on the crowded train of how I could not believe or accept the idea that Moldy might die. I remember thinking how angry I would be if it happened. And I am.
And I'm angry about my friend Joe, and I'm angry about my Dad, and I'm angry about my birthfather Ralph, and I'm angry about my mentor Dr. J.
And I realize that it's silly and selfish to think that their deaths had anything to do with me, but from my point of view it seems like many of my male friends or mentors have been taken from me. Because my childhood was spent being beaten by boys, I don't have many male friends to begin with, so having them die off like this makes me angry. I know, I know, it's not about me - their deaths were central to their own lives and those of their immediate families. But still.
I've had an e-mail from Joe's widow in my inbox now for months, asking me to send her a copy of an old Super-8 film that Joe and I made as boys. I have been delaying and delaying, but it's about time I got to it. It's silly and blurry and brief, but I owe Joe that much.
Listening to Moldy on my iPod reminded me of that. Listening to him joke with friends of his that I didn't know reminded me of how many friends he had grown to have over the years. Made me think of my own life and how I'm using it, or not.
I hate getting in these moods. Death sucks.
Further evidence of evolution. Natural mutation or 'tweaking' of the chicken gene can result in a chicken growing crocodile-like teeth - evidence of their evolution from toothed lizards called archosaurs into birds. As if Bill O'Reilly weren't evidence enough that we evolved from apes - some of us less successfully than others.
These findings could lead to ways to cause people to re-grow lost teeth. Good news for James Bond.
On other topics...
I purchased a bag of "Gurley's Golden Recipe" salted pumpkin seeds. Like most bagged legumes, an aura of wholesomeness emanted from the rack where it hung, alongside peanuts and sunflower seeds and various granolaesque products. Back at my desk I perused the nutrition information, expecting the lugme-based wholesomeness to be offset by sodium-based awfulness. What did I find? (No nutrition information is available on the web...)
Calories 280
Calories from fat 210
Total Fat 23g 35%
Saturated Fat 4.5 22%
Cholesterol 0
Sodium 15 mg 1%
Total Carbs 6g
Dietary Fiber 2g
Sugars 1g
Protein 14g
Wha-huh? Waitaminute! 4.5g of saturated fat?!? I might as well freebase some butter and inject it straight into my veins! What happened to the wholesomeness? But on the other hand... 15mg of sodium? 1% of the daily value? Huh?
Boy was I confused, this was the opposite of salt-infused wholeness, this was fat-infused saltfreedness. I checked the Serving Size, expecting to see it listed as "single kernel." But no, Serving Size - one package. At least they weren't pulling that four-servings-per-bag nonsense. So what was going on?
Then I noticed the asterisk:
"**Nutrition facts are for the pumpkin seed 'kernal'. Eating the shell would bring the sodium total to 1,600 mg (67% of Daily Value)."
WHAT!? Okay, okay, hang on. Now, I knew this stuff had lots of salt: the fact that the pumpkin seeds are covered with a white shell of salt was my first clue. The idea that it's as much as 1.6g is startling, but not surprising. But to pretend that someone is going to shell the salt-covered pumpking seeds before eating the "kernals" and use that as an excuse to list the salt in a subscript?
WOW! That's not just nervy, that's Bush Administration style nervy!
So the REAL nutritional information for this 'wholesome' snack is:
Total Fat 23g 25%
Saturated Fat 4.5g 22%
Sodium 1600 mg 67%
And here's what a McDonald's Bacon Egg and Cheese McGriddle has:
Total Fat 23g 25%
Saturated Fat 7g 34%
Sodium 1270 mg 53%
Sigh... So much for a bag of pumpkin seeds as a wholesome snack. Maybe I'll go gnaw the fat off a frozen slab of bacon instead. At least I'd get more exercise...
It will be good to be aware of this when I'm working my next job behind the counter at Subway. "Would you like a beverage with your meal, ma'am?"
Interested in following the latest news from Iraq? Too bad. Apparently Google's corporate code of conduct is just for investors.
And don't be upset at the government! Really they're just trying to lull the terrorists into a false sense of security. We'll wait until they slip into the country, and catch them when they phone home!
And two days after the man Dick Cheney shot apologized for getting in the way of his birdshot, a blogger examining the official police report on the incident discovered that the redacting was handled incompetently. Anyone want a few driver's license numbers?
I have rebuilt my laptop, and it is good.
I was really appalled when I booted up my new laptop a couple of weeks ago at the volume of bloatware that came pre installed on the system. It included all sorts of stuff. AOL and Netscape ISP software, for example. Phaugh! Ew! Yuck! I want to scour the hard drive with Brillo and borax after I've had AOL on my system.
Norton Antivirus... trial version. Do you know what Norton Antivirus trial version is? It's like a "trial version" of marriage. Removing Norton Antivirus from your computer is as easy as brain surgery, and much fun as divorce. AOL is hardly different, you can never tell when you've gotten it all out. So I think sending an operating system with these programs installed is akin to selling someone a bird which you have deliberately infected with bird flu.
In addition to these travesties, there was some kind of cheesy spyware remover (I'll take Webroot Spysweeper, thank you), and all sorts of DVD-burning, CD-ripping, shirt-rending software that really made the place look quite violent. Honestly, I don't know what half of it was.
Now, it wasn't so bad that these other programs were on the system, except... they didn't run. Half of them I'd try to run, and the programs would hang. It was clear after a few days I was going to have to rebuild this thing.
And yet... I was reluctant to do so. Not merely because the process itself is so tiresome (and it is - from wipe to full-functionality takes me more than two days although, yes, I do try to be organized and I'm goint to Ghost-backup this installation since I plan to have this laptop a while). No, it wasn't the time so much as it was losing the crap software.
I know, I know, that sounds contradictory or hypocritical or even hypodictory, but... this software was an unknown. For all I knew, it was some of the finest DVD-shredding MP3-disemboweling software ever. I had no idea. It seemed a shame to throw them all away.
So I ghosted the original system (although I had without regret already uninstalled AOL and Netscape) before wiping the machine and starting over.
I also prepared by pre-downloading all of the drivers and software that I would need to get the system up to operation again. Unfortunately, Sony did not make this process very simple. It was easy enough to find all the software, but once it was downloaded it was very hard to tell what was what. For instance, when you click to download the DVD firmware driver, you get a file called "KMFOPD-01120300-US.EXE". Now imagine you've wiped your machine, it's not on the net anymore, you're trying to set it up - what's the name of the DVD firmware file?
So I had to spend an hour downloading all the drivers, then renaming them in some fashion so that I could tell what the heck they were. In the end I copied all thirty webpages from the website so that I would be able to tell what I was installing.
When it came time to reinstall them, I kept track. Of 29 driver files, I used only numbers 2-5, 11-14, 17, 18, and 21-24, or about half of the files in order to get the system running again. That means that about half the files are bloatware (or, if I am wrong and end up needing a few later after all, a quarter).
So that's what I did pretty much all weekend. I was very pleased with the battery power - at one point I spent two hours in a cafe, wirelessly pulling down and installing files, and also installing files from CD. That was two hours of wireless and CD operations, and the battery was down to only 43% when I had to leave. Yah!
Speaking of power, at one point I was so busy I blew the circuit breaker. Examining the situation, I realized that it was carrying four computers (laptop, fileserver, and my boys' computers), two printers (Samsung and HP), five lights, a space heater, and a lava lamp at the time it threw. No wonder! Delightfully, my backup power strip worked and my file server didn't even notice the downtime - and of course the laptop stayed up.
But I wasn't a total recluse. We had the neighbors over for dinner tonight (Theresa made a Jane Brody vegetarian lasagna), and went to church. I skipped the service at the cafe, but I went for coffee afterwards.
Anyway it's about time to start burning the ghost backup of this installation so I don't have to do this again, quite, the next time. Gnight!
Cribbage
My statistics:
Games won 134 134
Skunks 15 13
Points pegged 6254 6075
Total points 27604 27453
This of course are my statistics from the excellent free Palm Cribbage game that occupies my time on the light-rail trips to and from the Lake Street station.
Unfortunately I learned how to cheat at the game. If you switch to phone mode anytime after the cut and before the final card played, the game backs up to the initial six-card deal. It's very hard not to give in to the temptation when you crib yourself a ten and a nine, leaving 5 4 4 2, and then you cut another nine. So now I have reset my statistics and I'm going to try to play without cheating and see how I do.
Promise!
Lifestyle Management
My client asked me to a little research and scope an enterprise-wide data classification project. This is like being asked to spend an afternoon planning to evacuate every person on Earth to the Moon, and is about as likely to be implemented. Nonetheless, I'm happy to educate myself on the topic.
Turns out that while my back was turned "Data classification" has turned into "Information Lifecycle Management," and spawned an entire industry. While relaying this update I mistakenly referred to it as "Information Lifestyle Management," which sent me off into a riff about the lifestyle that information leads. "It's preppy and active! Information is a bad boy with a sensitive side!" My coworkers were simultaneously confused and amused. I need to stick to my meds more closely.
The Cookies Are Here!
Uh oh! The Girl Scout cookies are back!
Every year they set up a table in the Crystal Court. Usually I can resist, but this time I gave in and picked up two boxes.
"They have no trans fats!" the girls piped.
"But they are otherwise comprised entirely of the remaining kinds of fat," I replied.
"And sugar!" one of them responded. I couldn't argue with that.
Brought two boxes (Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties) back to the office and then agressively tried to pawn them off on coworkers. Otherwise I'll end up eating them all! And based on the nutritional information, that would be a bad thing. Half a dozen Peanut Butter Patties would provide as much saturated fat as I'm supposed to eat in a whole day.
I really can't complain about my cubemate. He's very, very quiet. He's very polite. He doesn't smell. I have nothing to complain about.
So of course I'm going to complain.
Actually, I'm not complaining about him. I'm really complaining about my client. You know, the client who is paying me huge bucks to twiddle my thumbs and blog from my desk? Yeah, so really I just about want to stop writing at this point, because there are still people homeless nearly six months after Hurricane Katrina, and here I am whinging about my life.
But never mind all that. The problem is, my cubemate has a cold.
Now, it's certainly not his fault that he has a cold - these things happen. It's not like I've witnessed him licking doorknobs trying to pick up a cold or something. But now he has one, and he does something that drives me crazy.
He snorts his boogers.
You know what I'm talking about. When he gets a stuffy nose, he doesn't blow his nose. He sits in place and inhales really hard, and then glups loudly. >SNiiifffffff< *gurgle* -gulp-
Shudder.
To be fair, my problem with this is not his fault. My problem is that he's giving me flashbacks... flashbacks to 1990...
[cue harp music]
One of my many "in-between" jobs, I took this software development position with a crummy little firm called Eltrax. They were in the business of putting medical information onto credit-style cards, so one could walk into any hospital, pull out the card, and get proper medical treatment.
The owner was a nice guy, good to work for. My boss was a fruity nerd, a nervous overcontrolling fussbudget, the wunderkind programmer who wrote the software. My double-bound job - fix bugs in his software without actually making any changes to the code. But there was another guy in the office - a very nice quiet fellow who was some kind of engineer. The only problem? The quiet engineering fellow had some kind of sinus problem.
This wasn't a cold - this must have been some kind of low-level allergy or something, I don't know. All I know is that for the eight months I worked with him, I was subject to what I called the Phlegm Percolator, eight hours a day, five days a week. *SNIIFF* -gurgle- >gulp< pause *SNIIFF* -gurgle- >gulp< pause.
All. Day. Long.
So my cubemate's current troubles are not so irritating in and of themselves, but they are taking me back to that horrible time in my life, when I was working at a stressful, dead-end job, with a 24-hour snot percolator.
So it's not his fault. And I'm certainly not going to say anything, much less cill my cubemate.
On the other hand, if he doesn't get over this cold soon, I may leap shrieking out of my chair and run off to hide in the supply closet...
Well, Hawai'i is out.
Last year my wife signed our family up with a home-exchange program. This website helps people find other people who are willing to trade residences for a pair of parallel trips: you go live in their home, they go live in yours.
We quickly were contacted by a family in Bavaria. They had lived in Minnesota for a year on a teacher exchange, and were looking for an opportunity to come back and visit for a month this year.
This kind of thing suits me to a T - Randomness! Unexpectedness! Out-of-the-ruttedness!
So we said "Sure!"
So we've been gearing up for our exchange. We've checked out German tapes from the library (including "Mutzi", an animated children's language series that combines "Underdog"-quality animation with quaalude-quality writing. There's a king Lion, a queen pink Hippo, and some kind of green alien wizard.
Also, the decision to lend our home to a family of strangers for a month has shamed us into long-necessary actions around the home. We have undertaken to complete our attic master bedroom (which presently has unfinshed rooms, floors, and windows), add a master bath, and to put pantry cupboards into the kitchen. The hope of course is to have this done before they arrive, so that they visit our home thinking that we're civilized people who live in dignified surroundings.
In the midst of getting this very expensive set of projects lined up, we received another e-mail: would we like to swap homes for a week with a family coming to town for a wedding... from Hawai'i.
I wanted to cry.
Now, it's not that a week in Hawai'i is the equivalent of a month in Bavaria. It's just that I have always wanted a tropical vacation. Granted I usually want this vacation, well, now, during the middle of February. Winter in Minnesota gets me completely down, and January seems like an icy iron maiden from which there is no escape. By mid February I am usually psychotic and ready to exchange my job for a padded cell as long as the padded cell is warm and the straightjacket cozy. This year is no exception.
So during November I was looking into going to Cancun in February, but was talked out of it. With remodeling and Bavaria, adding another trip was going to be too much. I was as heartbroken as Puxatawney Phil: six more weeks of winter!
So then we get this note from Hawai'i, offering us a week of free lodging in exchange for airfare, it was very tempting. Very tempting. I ran the budget numbers, and it looked like we could do it, but only by dipping into the credit cards. Still, I rationlized, it would be worth it to go to Hawai'i...
Unfortunately, I listened to "Marketplace" on my way home from some Sunday errands, and they started aggravating my stuffed-down annoyances regarding not saving enough money last year, and not getting rid of credit card debt. After ten minutes of listening to a rich woman talk about how she scrimped and saved her way from debt to wealthy, I felt too guilty to book the trip anymore. Sure, we'd go to Hawai'i... and then I'd have to work until I was 75 because I had no retirement!
Miserably, I was forced to write back and decline the offer to swap homes... in Hawai'i... >sob<
So we're still going to Bavaria, mit de lederhosen unt ze two feet of snow.
Hopefully by August the snow will have melted...
It happens sometimes. In three months it's happened twice. I'm not trying to steal a ride on the train, but the MTC train ticketing system is so messed up that it has its own Wikipedia entry. The ticket machines do not block entrance to the platform, as they do on the New York Subway for example, and except for the rare train monitor payment is on the honor system. Only in Minneapolis.
Weirdly enough, the only time that I have ever been asked to show my ticket was on the very first day of commuting to work on the train. This was probably very fortunate, and I have been sure to buy a ticket on every ride since then, despite what I consider to be an exorbitant cost for the trip: two dollars each way. And it doesn't hurt that I support the light rail and want it to succeed.
I console myself in the cost of the trip by placing my used-but-still-valid ticket on top of the ticket dispenser at the end of my trip. If it gives someone a treat to find a free ticket, everybody's happy.
But, twice now, the timing has worked out badly. Just as I arrive at the top of the stairs to the platform, the train is pulling in. Now, I don't mean to be a thief, but the train stops for about 30 seconds, and buying a ticket takes about 45 seconds, assuming the dispenser works the first time which isn't always the case.
So today, for only the second time, I ran to jump aboard the train before it left the station... without buying a ticket.
Now, the first time I did this, it was totally accidental: "Agh! Train! Must jump aboard!" followed by "Ooops, hey, I forgot to get a ticket."
But today I paused at the top of the steps: on my left, the ticket dispenser. On my right, the train, already finished unloading passengers. In a moment the door warning would signal, the doors would close, and I would end up getting to work very late, instead of just late.
So I ran, jumped aboard, and took a seat, glancing nervously around for a ticket-taker. Not seeing any, I could afford to relax a little, but only a little: the next stop was 90 seconds away. If I saw a ticket taker getting on, I would have to jump off and settle for being very late to work. I didn't know what happened to people who didn't have tickets, and I didn't want to find out.
But I found out.
As the train began to slowly accellerate out of the station, I saw to my horror TWO officers in jackets labelled "METRO TRANSIT POLICE." They had clearly just gotten off the train, and were leading a well-dressed woman to the station exit, each holding one of her elbows in a most proprietary fashion. She looked humilated and upset.
AAAGH! It was my doom, right before my eyes! They were going to catch me for sure! I am the world's worst crook, because my face is totally bad at revealing my feelings. I suspect that everyone else on the train could tell I had no ticket from the way my jaw dropped, my eyes bugged out, and I went totally white.
The ten-minute trip downtown passed in surreal fashion. At each station I peered ahead, eyes peeled for a ticket-taker. If someone in a windbreaker had boarded the train I probably would have bolted in terror. Instead of a relaxed, comfortable ride playing cribbage on my cell phone, I was trapped in a rattling kafka-esque prison to Hell. When the train finally pulled into the station, I practically threw myself to the ground to kiss the grimy platform.
Due to a lunch appointment, I ended up riding the train three more times today. Each time I obediently bought a ticket. Each time I relaxed with a game of cribbage. Each time I left my ticket on the dispenser.
But I was jumpy, nonetheless. Like a con just released from prison, I scanned my safe surroundings for the approach of the guards, certain that at any moment a guy in a windbreaker was going to ask for my ticket, and all I'd come up with would be a pocket full of holes.
I think it's worth $2 a ticket, just as long as I don't lose it.
Hey! They fixed them!
I wrote to the Twin Cities Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) a few weeks ago regarding the art installations called "Small Kindnesses, Weather Permitting" (SKWP) at the Lake Street light-rail station. These are a series of quirky, utilitarian boxes mounted at various points on the light rail stations including downtown Minneapolis and on Lake Street, where I get on board. Each box is supposed to present one of a large number of audio or audiovisual clips when activated.
When I started riding the light rail to work in mid-November, the installations were only one year old and yet the Lake Street series did not function.
The MTC provides a feedback mechanism, so I posted a message letting them know that the SKWP's at Lake Street were not working. I got a call back fairly promptly from a polite lady at MTC, offering her regrets that the boxes weren't working but explaining that they did not have the budget to fix them.
"That doesn't make sense," I told her. "I'm working with a group that's trying to donate an artwork to the Park Board, and a maintenance fund is one of the necessities before the Park Board will even consider the artwork. You're telling me that the MTC accepted 39 art installations and didn't include a maintenance fund?" After a pause the woman said she would look into it and get back to me.
That was about a month ago, and as of this week the installations were working again. The other day I pushed one of the buttons, only to nearly jump in surprise when sound started coming out of it. I had the chance to listen to a story about a woman who found a mouse outside in weather so cold that when she held out her hand the mouse climbed into it for warmth.
Today I tried out the unit pictured above, with the windshield wiper and the wheel. I sat on the bench and turned the crank, and was treated to a small film about a woman from Oklahoma applying for Minnesotan citizenship. She met the Hot Dish requirement, but unfortunately made an Iowa joke before she learned the applications clerk was from Iowa.
It was fun. Given the frequency with which the trains run, there's only time to watch or listen to one of these presentations before the train comes. Still, I was quite impressed as I sat there waiting for the train.
It's little things like this, like the Cherry Spoon, and the Peanuts Statues that set the Twin Cities apart. That show our whimsy, and our sophistication at the same time.
As I sat there, thinking about our regional sophistamication, I happened to move my foot, and heard a soft "spat" sound. Looking down, I realized that I had just put my shoe in somebody's still-steaming puddle of sick.
So much for sophistication.
Oh, great. It's bad enough that AIDS figures out how to hijack the human immune system, and that Nature has figured out how to kill us in this manner all by Herself.
Now scientists have figured out how to make a virus that bypasses the human immune system. The article touts the advantages this will offer to scientists experimenting on human genetics.
This strikes me as the king's wizard inventing a way for anybody to slip past the castle defenses and suggesting that it's merely a great way for deliverymen to reach the kitchens.
If they can invent (or "evolve") a virus to bypass the immune system, how hard would it be to evolve a lethal virus to bypass the immune system?
Then there's the story that scientists have managed to persuade sperm cells to turn into egg cells. Is this a good idea? If you try this on someone, and you don't get all his sperm cells, then won't he immediately become pregnant?
And then there's this entry from the "Well, DUH" file... "'Parents have more to worry about than other people do—that's the bottom line,' said Florida State University professor Robin Simon." Oh, really? No, you don't say! So you're saying that if I had nobody to worry about by myself and maybe my wife, and if our incomes both were split between saving for retirement and entertainment, that we'd have less worry? You don't say!
Of course, I think this survey is completely invalid because they obviously didn't interview any people in their Seventies and Eighties. I suspect the elderly with kids are less stressed than childless elderly. Of course, it does suggest that one maintain a good relationship with one's children...
Productive day today. At least I hope so.
Started by cleaning my office in preparation for finding my tax information for this year. It was way overdue: papers everywhere, junk and boxes in the corners, wires and cables not put away. The detrius of suddenly NOT working in my home office when I started the latest contract.
In the midst of that I re-set-up my writing desk, which is an attempt to use my office for writing without being distracted by the Internet. Hasn't worked yet, but maybe this time?
Put my new laptop in place, got it hooked up, then decided to Ghost backup the hard drive just in case I decide to put Pointsec disk encryption on it. As delivered, 20% of the hard drive is dedicated to some kind of emergency-backup-and-restore service which I don't really appreciate: I've never needed one. Better to use independent media for backups, then if your drive gets blowed up, you just restore to a new drive.
So I've got Ghost backing up my drive, and while I do that I'm vacuuming the office. In the midst of that, I also got my laundry washed, I'll go upstairs and fold it and put it away soon.
While doing that I will also vacuum my office and the adjacent den, since they need it.
But while I was working on all this, my wife called down to remind me to fix the piston on the back storm door, which tore loose from the lintel during a bad storm last fall. It was dreadful to see what a poor job the contractor did putting the door together: the piston was held down with screws less than an inch in length. Long enough to completely destroy the lintel when they tore loose, too short to hold on in a high wind. Dreadful.
Anwyay the lintel had a huge hole torn out of it the size and shape of, say, one's three middle fingers side by side. So I needed a plate to mount over the lintel before I could mount the storm door piston. I cast around for a while, couldn't think of anything, couldn't find anything. Usually there's some scrap of wood somewhere, but I cleaned out the garage and workroom last year (the workroom needs it again, desperately), and I was out of scrapwood.
Finally I cast my mind up to the attic and voila! I remembered that our old roof is still exposed in the unfinished addition. A few minutes later I'd torn a chunk of old roofing lumber free and had slapped it over the hole in the lintel. A few drill-screws later, and the piston is repaired! At least until we have the contractors out in a month or two to completely redo the doorway.
Now it's back to taxes and vacuuming and stuff, then tonight it's off to the Dakota for Debbie's birthday party.
Local writer Erik Lundegaard has an excellent analysis of 'Brokeback Mountain,' on MSNBC.com , about why a gay-themed movie can be so successful in these homofphobic times. One of his comments is
I have to admit that “Brokeback” didn’t look particularly appealing to me from that September trailer. A hopeless, doomed romance. Yay.
This is why I don't want to see 'Brokeback Mountain.' This is the same reason why I didn't want to see 'Boys Don't Cry,' (and when I finally did watch it I stopped halfway through).
I don't need a movie to convince me of the awfulness of the torture and death that Brandon Teena experienced. I already despair at the plight of those brutalized by society. And I spent too many years as a victim of brutality as a child to feel comfortable viewing it.
I applaud both of these movies, and I find it encouraging that they received cultural acceptance and helped move the social dialogue forward. But I have absolutely no desire to see the second half of 'Boys Don't Cry.' Neither do I wish to watch two tortured men responding to a culture of discrimination and violence.
Last week I took my daughter to see 'Last Holiday,' a movie which I would call "saccharine." I am not giving anything away, I think, by revealing that everything in 'Last Holiday' turns out fine, every bad person becomes a good person, everybody is redeemed. If you didn't know this from the premise, you aren't paying attention.
'Last Holiday' is no 'Boys Don't Cry,' but it said some good things about our culture too. It was a movie in which race was a non-issue (but class certainly was), and where a large-sized woman's size was never an issue. It said that we've come far enough as a culture that these concepts brought no tension at all to a movie intended to be relaxing. It was unrealistic (a department store medical clinic with a cat-scan machine?) but it was at least hopeful.
I am not comparing these movies, and I'm certainly not criticizing anyone who has the fortitude to see something with a richer emotional palette than that offered by 'Last Holiday.' All I'm saying is, I'm not strong enough to want to watch 'Brokeback Mountain' or 'Boys Don't Cry.'
I look forward to the day when these movies are not painful reflections of who we are, but historical documents about a barbaric time in history, now past. Maybe then I'll have the strength to watch them and shake my head and say "I'm glad we survived those times."
I've got a new baby, thanks to everyone who didn't write with suggestions for what to buy.
My sure-to-be-controversial selection is...
The Sony Vaio TX650P. I actually bought it from the silver-painted toga-clad woman at left, just before she died by failing to leave a patch of skin unpainted. A pity, really, but at least the paint made her woozy enough that I could strike a good bargain.
Yes, I decided that I was willing to spend the extra money to have an almost-full-sized keyboard that I can slip into my jacket pocket. The TX650 weighs 2.8 lbs and is only 7.7 inches long, 10.7 inches wide, and 0.83 inches thick. Or to put it another way, if you have a 15" flat-panel monitor, my laptop is about the size of one half of your screen, and thinner, yet the keyboard is still 90% normal size.
I was looking at a couple of strong contenders. In second place was the Vaio VGN, which was slightly larger and heaver at 4.0 lbs. In third was the Averatech 4200, which is a full-sized laptop but was light and inexpensive. All of them included a built-in DVD burner, which considering the size and weight of the TX650 that I finally selected is truly mindboggling. Some laptops try to save weight and power by leaving the DVD player off and making it an external device. Problem with that approach is that if you're trying to save on weight, a separate DVD drive requires that you tote around both its additional weight as well as a bag in which to carry it.
I liked the fact that the screen, while smaller than others at 11.1 inches (diagonal measure) is 1360X768, as compared to 1280X768 for the next largest. That means that while the icons and stuff are small, the actual real-estate on which I can place icons and documents is rather larger than the others. While my eyes are still young enough to handle it, I may as well indulge.
A couple things I don't like about it: first, it comes with a nifty little antenna allowing one to use cell-phone networks in order to get on the Internet. The only way I will ever use this is if I can figure out a way to completely replace my cell phone with this device - and I suppose I can look into this option. Otherwise I have this rubbery little antenna on the right side of the computer, and a bunch of software and icons, which I had to pay for and will not ever use.
And my second complaint, speaking of software and icons... what a botch! Turning this device on, I find myself in Windows XP Pro (some of the other possible laptops only came with XP Home), just stuffed full of crap: an AOL setup package with ain icon lurking in the quick-launch bar, a Netscape setup package, a two-month "trial" verision of Office Small Business, some lame spyware remover, and worst of all, a two month trial version of Norton Security.
Anyone who's ever tried knows that upgrading or uininstalling Norton is like conducting brain surgery. So putting it on the system by default strikes me as reckless and abusive. If I don't want it, I have to spend an evening elbows-deep in the registry, lobotomizing my computer. One colleague at work advised that I back up the drive, wipe it, and start over. I don't think I should need to do that, but it may come down to it - I'm not even 100% sure I don't want to dual-install linux and Windows.
But these are quibbles - I sat last night at a friend's house, boosting an internet connection from her neighbors (on the one side a fraternity, on the other, a halfway house for gay alcoholics: it's like she lives amidst a before-and-after picture), setting up Cygwin with Open SSH in order to do remote X sessions to my home system. After about two hours of disk-intensive wireless Internet, the power was not down below 66%.
This afternoon at lunch I stopped by the local Starbux to see about getting online and working remotely - only to learn that Starbucks has sold its soul to T-Mobile. Despite the fact that I have a T-Mobile cell phone with voice and Internet service, I couldn't get T-Mobile to let me on their Hotspot. Greedy bums.
So I cleaned up icons (swept into a folder labelled "crap") and uninstalled AOL and Earthlink and a bunch of other junk. Tonight I have a roleplaying appointment at Professor Barker's, but this weekend hopefully I can resume work on my novels...
I'm so happy with my new purchase, even this doesn't bother me. (Besides, even if it were released today as advertised, it would be two years until any sensible person bought one while the kinks were worked out of it.)
While I've got a couple of problems with my daily routine, one that I've recognized is that if I listen to too much news or talk radio before I post a blog, my blog wants to turn into a political rant. But I have no desire to post a political blog. Other much more dedicated, educated, and anal-retentive people run political blogs, apparently with outside funding of some source because they don't seem to do anything else all day. I couldn't compete with them even if I wanted to, which I don't. And I really don't want to shoot off my mouth reactionary-style on various political topics because I rarely feel like I really know enough about what's going on to defend my position under close scrutiny. I mean, I might get annoyed at Policy X out of D.C., but I'm aware that inside the Beltway Policy X may be understood to be a straw man, or to really be a compromise between Policies Y and Z, or something that would render my opinions both ignorant and pointless.
On the other hand I have political opinions, strong political opinions, and while I don't want to clog my blog (heh, "Clog my blog" is funny) with them, neither do I want to artificially stuff down my opinions. In which case I have to occasionally post the political entry anyway. In the past, however, I've reserved my Political comments to post on "The Usual Suspects." So maybe I'll post those there, much like Lileks reserves his political screeds for a separate blog he calls The Screed.
The other thing I've noticed about the blogging is that I tend to go on too long, and get too fancy - inline images, 3000-word entries, etc. Maybe I should try more frequent, shorter blog entries. Not sure. Not sure if I can keep it short, that is. I mean, I usually intend entries to be short, but before I know it they're 3000 words long and full of linked images.
Anyway, THIS entry has gone on too long, so I'll leave it be. Maybe I'll do another entry later! Or not!
That's me, Joe Ambivalent. I think.