Regimen

Maybe a better word is "routine."

I want to get into one this summer. I want to write, then work, then be off for the family -- daily. I hope to clear this with all parties involved, so that I might work outside when it's cool, then be free to fish, play, nap, etc for the remainder of the day, every day! Is that too much to shoot for? I know I have a GREAT DEAL TO DO regarding work, but then, I also have a great responsibility at home, especially with the new baby to be released this Friday. And, I have a good amount of duties stacked up just keeping the grounds and garden and house all in order. Still, I'd like to get back into the swing of writing (like I did in Ulysses, 1-2000 words daily). I'd like to work with my circadian rhythm and my "smart time" and coordinate all that with the optimum weather patterns per day...is that too much to ask? (Of course, some where in there, I'll need my power nap, too!)

Kids and pets and plants and (I have finally come to agree) people -- we all work better when things are in a rhythm, a cycle, a predictable pace.

Thaaaat's it...I'll call it a "rhythm," for that does not sound constricting at all...it sounds fun!

I'm already hearing that Johnny Cash lyric, "C'mon and get rhythm..."

Hey, get rhythm when you get the blues
Come on, get rhythm when you get the blues
Get a rock 'n' roll feelin' in your bones
Put taps on your toes and get gone
Get rhythm when you get the blues

A Little shoeshine boy never gets low down
But he's got the dirtiest job in town
Bendin' low at the peoples' feet
On the windy corner of the dirty street
Well, I asked him while he shined my shoes
How'd he keep from gettin' the blues
He grinned as he raised his little head
Popped a shoeshine rag and then he said

Get rhythm when you get the blues
Come on, get rhythm when you get the blues
A jumpy rhythm makes you feel so fine
It'll shake all the trouble from your worried mind
Get rhythm when you get the blues

Get rhythm when you get the blues
Come on , get rhythm when you get the blues
Get a rock 'n' roll feelin' in your bones
Put taps on your toes and get gone
Get rhythm when you get the blues

Well, I sat down to listen to the shoeshine boy
And I thought I was gonna jump for joy
Slapped on the shoe polish left and right
He took a shoeshine rag and he held it tight
He stopped once to wipe the sweat away
I said you're a mighty little boy to be-a workin' that way
He said I like it with a big wide grin
Kept on a poppin' and he said again

Get rhythm when you get the blues
Come on, get rhythm when you get the blues
It only costs a dime, just a nickel a shoe
Does a million dollars worth of good for you
Get rhythm when you get the blues

Two Shats to the Wind

Confession: I've been a Star Trek fan since the original series. I've been to the Trek museum in Vegas. I have gear (not so much) and I collected some space junk (very little). I can, of course, do the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper." ...and yesterday, in spite of my workload, I did go to the new movie.

The Blogosphere has been buzzing about Chris Pine vs Bill Shatner for a long while, since the cast was first announced. Could he live up to the role? Could he fill the captain's seat? How could anyone have the bravado, the smirk, the style of Shat? I had low expectations, and I was wowed. This new kid in the 'verse is okay. He doesn't really have to live up to the role of the original James T. Kirk because the two JTK's have alternate realities, but that's for viewers to wrestle with. For my money, Pine is a diamond in the rough, and in this role, he rocks (to mix metaphors and cliche's about as much as possible).

I have thoughts of the film and issues to settle, but I do not want to blow the movie for anyone who may accidentally stumble across my blog. I can only, then, babble at random w/o spoiling anything.

This film has adequate bad guy-age. Not since that Borg queen have I been so wary of a villain, and like all great antagonists, his backstory justifies his badness, for we can empathize with his motives and actions. The non-Terran culture of the Romulans was conveyed well in the otherworldly interior of their ship. (The facial tats may have been a bit hokey, like some urban street culture bad guy punks, but what are you to do? Long black coats and big boots are only so foreboding.)

Star Trek had ample brain (and reason) twisting, totally flying in the face of time continuum theories--but that's all I can say about that, right now.

I was impressed with the stellar warfare, for in the Void it was largely void of those cinematic impossibilities in the vacuum of space (fire, explosions); they made up for it with an awesome soundtrack. Next time I see it, I'll attend to that even more.

The new cast, all the major figures from the original series, are good. Chekov was funny, but otherwise not that impressive. Scotty and Bones were excellent casting choices, but the very best was Spock, played by Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes).



All that aside, I still have a better casting decision for Captain James T. Kirk, a guy who I always associated with the Captain, my Captain, my dad! He was always my hero, was always a leader, and had that same swashbuckling bravado (even on a farm) as Kirk, himself!

Well-grounded

I come in from shoveling, hoeing, raking, digging--gardening! My hands are like stumps and I find it hard to even grasp the facet handle to scrub up. I find the dirt has made its way into every crack, callous, cuticle. Dust to dust. As I wash it away, I mourn the loss of this crusty exterior that has been me for the afternoon. I have been a warrior against the weeds. I have been the cultivator, the creator. As I come clean, absolved of my imaginings, I am again what I am, just a bag of water, just another guy.

Morning comes and creaks, my every bone and joint arguing in favor of stasis, but I must move. I must go about becoming. I must make myself by day by words, but when evening comes again, when I pick up my shovel, I will be one with the earth and One to reckon with, at least for a while.

Meanwhile, I relish the dirt remaining beneath my nails. As I sit in this cultured environ, void of all remnant of our earthy life, tickling a keyboard to tease from it some semblance of thought, I am happy to note that dirt, humble and dark, hiding under my talons.

Talking to Myself

I've been working up a piece of science fiction in which the lead character is visited by a familiar face--his own. It is a version of himself about 20 years his senior, who has found a way back through time to visit him(self) and give some advice/insight. (Or so it seems on the surface--but I'm not going to spoil it here....that'd be the whole story you'd want to read, sometime.) Here, I'm just mentioning that as a springboard to this entry...

If I could go back and talk to myself at different intervals, would I choose to do so? Knowing it might result in me changing direction and ending up with a different life than I now lead, I'd have to say NO I would not. I might like to visit my younger self and just watch, or maybe provide some encouragement, but I would not say, "Hey, don't drink the water here--really!"

If, however, I could end up with the fantastic wife, family, job and life I now have, I might just revisit my past with a few bits of advice...

1976 No matter what, if your peers think debate and cross country and vocal are "for fags," you go right ahead and do them. If it's what you'd like to participate in, then don't let anyone dissuade you.

1980 So your farm's going under. That will only open new doors. Do not look at it as the end of the world, and don't feel obligated to stick around after high school--get on with your life.

1987 Love your grandparents more. They are a vanishing commodity. Get their life stories now, this year. Record them.

1990 You are not going to believe how great this job change is going to be for you! Get in that truck and roll with confidence. The town you are about to move to his hicks-ville, but they will love you and you will love living there!

1992 Dope! Don't even think of getting rid of that Ranchero that was your grandfather's. Especially not in trade for a good car stereo. That thing is crap. In a few years, there's going to be Synch, CD's in cars, I-Pods...hold on to that truck. Oh, and what's with the silly hair?

1997 Watch out who your friends, neighbors and housemates may be. Enjoy Pathfinders. "For the Dogs." This is a pivotal year--soak it up.

1999 Good Grief--you are faaaar to obsessed with your work. It is NOT your mission. It is NOT your life's blood. It's a job...J-O-B. There are more important things in life, like fishing with Wayne, reading books with the club, maybe even (blasphemy) saving some money.

2001 May--you lucky fellow! Getting hitched to your soul mate and best friend. Spend more time with your father. He means well, he has a lot to say and offer, and he will be gone before you know it.

2003 Fatherhood looks good on you--realize what all it is, and live it to the max. MAJOR changes are afoot for you, but they are part of a storm you must weather to see the other side. Keep your chin up, knowing that it is always darkest just before the dawn. Believe it or not, you will survive even this!

2005 Again, you lucky dog. Landing on your feet. Fecal matter is now congealing. If only you were smart enough to have been saving money from your second job...

2006 You are about to find your dream home. Put on an adult diaper and get giddy!

2008 Are you NUTS? Blending households? Actually, even this will work out for the best. Crazy as it seems and hard as it is at times, giving up privacy and control--it is the best for all parties involved. You have done the right thing...now get some sleep.

This was challenging. I think I'll work on one that might reflect a Future me coming to visit the 2009 me--wonder what he'd say of my current situations?

Trying to Please Everyone

Here's an old lesson, rebooted...YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYONE.

I'm writing this more for myself than public review, but it bears repetition, anyway.

YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYONE.

(There, I repeated it.)

See, I thought class was swell today, but there were two (2) of twenty (20) who went away disgruntled, for they don't like my delivery, the pacing, the (sometimes admittedly too-) goofy delivery. They did not like the rushed group quiz (it was a GROUP quiz, for crying out loud, over content they'd been assigned to read in advance, that we'd just gone over in class). I even gave everyone the chance to go solo if they did not like the group guesses...AND these displeased people left EARLY, when they would have had another five minutes or so to revise/do on their own, etc...

But the point is, I remind myself, that I should get over those two and their petty snarkiness. I should brush it off. I should move on. It's not like I did not have technical difficulties today. It's not like I wasn't trying to cover weeks and weeks of content in one session...ENOUGH already. I should not be justifying this for any audience.

I should not fuss over it. I should take the good days and the bad. I should take the pleased students AND the impossible ones and throw them out the window about now, for it's time for me to punch the clock and go be a family man.

...so that's what I'm going to do.

...so there.

(ugh...it still bugs me.)

9 years ago...

Zacatecas, Mexico

Gadzooks--has it been that long?

I was awarded the opportunity to tour a Rotary district in Mexico. I was part of a GSE team, and the five of us had a whirlwind month-long tour of the northern states of Mx.

I guess I am thinking of the trip for several reasons...1)that nasty swine flu, 2)I keep gazing at my favorite pictures of the Rafael Coronel Museum of Masks, Zacatecas, and 3)it was just about this time 9 years ago that I was sick (literally) and tired of my tour, ready to come home.

Outside, the place is drop-dead stunning! If I could visit somewhere on earth again, that would be one of my stops, along with Victoria Falls and Petra.

It was wonderful...I'd toured ruins in England, and of course, I want to again, but the convent ruins-restored-into-museum...well, it was over-the-top. Inside, the facility is truly a museum of masks: See Pro pic of masks and Someone's flickr pic of masks ...and I found those engaging enough by themselves.

...man, I'd sure like to be wandering the grounds again, knowing that come evening, I was going to visit a mine-turned-disco (truly, 300 ft underground, in a cave--cRaZy!!) all over again.

Good times. I'm glad I still have something of a memory.

Obama on Education

In his 1st 100 days address, Obama just said, "The most important ingredient in education is the quality of our teachers. " He claims his administration will dedicate more resources toward "Training, professional development, recruitment of teachers..." He says we need to appoint master teachers, that we need to keep drawing from professional fields to classroom... (I like this next part, though it does not really apply to me) He says there must be an increase in teacher pay so more people will go into teaching...we must pay excellent teachers more. He went on to state that the single biggest ingredient in an education is the parent. The government cannot tell parents to shut off television and help kids do their homework. Parents must instill a thirst for knowledge and excellence.

I have my issues with trillion-dollar deficit spending. I am not one to be bribed, like so many who clamor for their piece of this stimulus package or that recovery plan...but I have to admit, I continue to like what he (at least) says about my field, education. Even more so, he acknowledges that you can have the best of everything at school, but if it's not reinforced at home, it ain't gonna fly. I continue, then, to like most of what he preaches, but I am not sold on how he puts it all into practice....at least not when it comes to spending money out of thin air.

Some of my colleagues have issue with merit pay, concern that those who compromise the system (like by teaching to the test) will be the ones who get the cookies. I have noticed a correlation between those who grouse around and those who are not too eager to work up a sweat in the classroom. I wander the halls of my college and see profs kicked back, feet on the desk, doing "lecture." Some instructors let class out so early it's hardly time for the tardy students to get there. Others claim it's okay to grade an essay after just skimming the first page! These are the same folks who usually gnash their teeth about merit pay, for I believe they know they would be smoked out. Those who do their best, who always strive to do even better--well, we never get weepy over merit pay.

I have always argued that the system is on its head, that celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc. all get paid too much. I've always argued against the entire concept of the career politician, even paid representation. Instead, homemakers (of either sex), teachers, and all manner of mentors to youth--they are founding our future. Instead of blowing so much money on bombs (or with this current administration...on EVERYTHING) we should concentrate our investments on tomorrow, that is, our youth, our homes.

So...from this one snippet of Big O's presentation today, he's headed in the right direction. I love to listen to him. I am wooed by his charm and rhetoric. Afterwards, I shake it off and begin questioning things, but I have to hand it to him, he has the best presence of an political figure I can recall. Dashing!

Under-prepared

...which is to say, NOT READY.

Driving to work today, I had to ford a wash over the county road I drive. The water was over the road for the length of a football field, and it appeared about 4 inches deep...well, that was a bit of an under-guesstimate, for it surged in under my doors as I crossed. Once on the other side, over the next hill, I discovered an utterly impassible wash that sent me backtracking, taking an alternate route (that was also partially submerged).

It reminded me that I live on the edge.

Not the edge of civilization, really. My whole route (even the alternate route) to work is paved.

I am referring to the edge of my seat, my pants, my sanity. I am on the cusp of something, the brink of something, the very lip of this chasm--

I am under-prepared for Hardship. If my car were to have stalled out, there I was in my dress shoes. If I run low on gas and there's been a raid on the stations, I'm running on empty. I did not eat breakfast this morning, so likewise, if civilization crashed right now, I'd go hungry. If the Internet were to blow a gasket, where would I be then? Unable to get this out!

More realistically, I have no provisions stored up. We have no fresh water in reserve. We have no goods to barter. I don't even own a generator (as last night's power outage reminded me, yet again.)

Even more realistically, there's this pandemic scare, and my household could not go into isolation if we wanted to. People in my house depend on their daily newspaper, their daily runs to the market, and god forbid a cell phone infrastructure collapse!

And last night, as winds raged and tornadoes threatened, I realized how very under-prepared we are even for tornado or fire. We have flashlights and a battery-powered radio, but that's it, and it took 1/2 an hour to get that stuff rounded up.

My grandmother used to make me pack blankets, candles, food, warm clothes--just to traverse Kansas in the winter--heck, even to go the 12 miles to our farm some winter days! She was always prepared for any eventuality. She had weathered the 30's, and she was one tough customer.

Mennonites and Mormons are always prepared. Some of those folks have told me a tenet of their faith is to have 2 months-worth of supplies and resources at hand, always. They are always among the first responders and disaster relief teams, too. You have to respect them for that--not only are they prepared, they help mop up for all us dopes who were not-so-at-the-ready.

Getting Prepared is a good goal. Being self-sustainable may be a long, long way off, but at least this early step seems achievable--and vitally important!

GUILTY--I made too many footprints

Well, it seems I have come full circle. Twenty years ago, I was of the camp that insisted on zero population growth. I read Future Shock and all the prognostications of too much breeding. I knew in my heart it was the responsible thing to do for the good of the planet--I was going to adopt children of developing nations, never bear my own. To reproduce was simply wrong, in my head at that time. Why make more babies when there are so many already here who are not being cared for, bursting the doors of orphanages and refugee camps? What gave me the right to put more pressure on the planet by making more and more carbon foot prints? Shame on anyone who even thought of such a thing.

Well, in about two weeks, I will be the father of four (4) children. That's quite the about-face, eh?

The whole issue was brought to my attention (of course) by the upcoming arrival of our #4. It has been also resurrected by a radio broadcast I heard on the subject. In that broadcast, the expert claimed that having only one or two children was the only patriotic thing to do. More would burden the system, our nation, and thus the world. It would make the good ol' USA seem gluttonous and inconsiderate of the plight of the planet. So, for ma, apple pie, and Chevrolet, get fixed today! I had not entertained the idea of reproduction in any political light prior to that drive-time broadcast.

Since then, I've been worried what might come of such talk. Will we be breeding for the State before long? Will we offer up our brood for the VolksLand? Will larger families be ostracized for their excess?

I realize that there are some (televised, I'm told) LARGE families that boggle the minds of many. Once one gets over a dozen (there are movies to this effect, like Cheaper by the Dozen) even I find it harder to explain or justify. I've heard all I ever want to hear about the infamous Octo-mom and related cases.

Here's the thing: I'm not one of those families. Yes, we have more than replaced ourselves. Yes, we are consuming more resources than we need to be. On the other hand, my kids, even at the age of two, are learning self-sufficiency. They are learning how food is made and how much work goes into it. They are also being exposed to the harsher realities of an uncomfortable planet where inequities in the food supply are hard to forgive. (When I was a kid, we had some mystical paradigm that suggested that if I cleaned my plate, it was better for starving kids in China.)

Is my larger-than-necessary family leaving a bigger carbon footprint than those who abide by the recommendations? Sure. I would argue, however, that they will tread lightly on the planet, maybe even contribute to the greater good of the planet, than many who have been carefully and more-conscientiously born and bred.

Rain

So, it's raining here in KS. It's now monsoon season, spring. Forecast says it's to rain virtually every day this week.

Some people dislike the rain, the mud...flooding. It inconveniences some folk; musses up the hair.

For me, however, there's nothing quite like it.
I grew up in Western Kansas, where all precipitation comes from the side, usually the north, not from the clouds. Rain was rare; when it did come, it was revered. There's nothing quite as exhilarating as the fresh smell of rain. My grandma told the story how that during the '30's they would sometimes pour a pitcher of water on the dusty driveway, then bend over and inhale that sweet smell they'd been so-long separated from.

There's a lot to be said for growing up in a desolate, barren place like SW KS. It makes me appreciate the little things, like, say: other people, trees, and especially rain! I'm always more happy when it's cloudy, raining, soggy. To me, rain means life, liveliness, and (as a wanna be farmer) livelihood.

I have been known to go for a walk in the rain. I've ran naked in the rain. I like to catch rain drops in my mouth. What's more pure, more quenching, than fresh rain?

Alas, it escapes me...
Out at my mom's place there's a 500 gallon tank that once held well water (in my grandfather's day). The tank is still sound, though I'd have it professionally rehabbed and cleansed before using it. I'd like to have that to pump full of well water AND to capture rainwater. I could easily water my whole property (and future livestock) from that tank, if only she'd let it go.

Meanwhile...
I like the sound of rain. I like to watch it rain. I like the patter and patterns of rain on a window. (I wish I had a window in my office!) I like songs about rain. Rain, like food, is an old, powerful word...

rain
O.E. regn, from P.Gmc. *regna- (cf. O.S. regan, O.N. regn, O.Fris. rein, M.Du. reghen, Ger. regen, Goth. rign "rain"), with no certain cognates outside Gmc., unless it is from a presumed PIE *reg- "moist, wet," which may be the source of L. rigare "to wet, moisten" (cf. irrigate). The verb is O.E. regnian, usually contracted to rinan. Transf. and fig. use of other things that fall as rain (blessings, tears, etc.) is recorded from c.1200. Rainbow is O.E. renboga (common Gmc. compound, cf. O.N. regnbogi, Du. regenboog, see bow (n.)). Raindrop is O.E. rendropa; first record of raincheck is from 1884, originally of tickets to rained-out baseball games. Raincoat attested from 1830. Rainmaker first recorded 1775, in ref. to tribal magicians. Phrase to rain cats and dogs is attested from 1738 (variation rain dogs and polecats is from 1652), of unknown origin, despite intense speculation. One of the more idiotic assertions is that it refers to pets sliding off sod roofs when the sod got too wet during a rainstorm. Ever see a cat react to a rainstorm by climbing up on an exposed roof? To rain on (someone's) parade is attested from 1941.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

Rainmaker is one of my favorite words/concepts, from the very sound of it to every connotative meaning it may pack.

Listening to: "Have you ever seen the rain" by CCR.

Stranger than Fiction

I've now watched this film something like 17 times (sometimes not too attentively) through class, etc. Repetition does not make me an expert, but it does likely make me fairly familiar with the film.

What strikes me is that I am still affected emotionally by it. I know it's a bit hammy and heavy handed. I know that Will Ferell is an unlikely actor to carry a romantic comedy. I know the message is Hollywood drivel. Regardless, it still gets me.

Likely this is because I'm such a sucker for high concept movies. While others poo poo them out of the blocks, I default to being their champion until proven otherwise. I like a movie with a premise that surprises me. (Yes, I am aware that STF does not offer a premise that has never been proposed before. Like thrift store clothing, though, it was new to me.) I like a movie that makes me pause to consider, especially if that pause is right in the wake of the initial surprise of circumstance/premise.

If I can just ride the tide of a film, then I am typically bored by it. SOMETHING has to jump out at me via acting, characters, plot, even the setting/situation can stir me...but if I leave the theatre or couch w/o being affected, I never recommend the film to anyone.

"Being affected" is a nebulous criteria, I realize. Something happens across my synapses, some "wow" response is stimulated. I am (at the least) led to say 'hmmmmmm' and at the most immediately evangelizing the film to all I know.

Sometimes I enjoy a toe-to-toe slugfest with someone who may criticize a film I like. This is something I really relish when it's a film I am really behind: Serenity, Pirates of the C...., and now, more and more, Stranger than Fiction.

At the very least, I recommend it. Give it a view.

Humor

I'm a founder of the campus creative writing club, and we generate new assignments weekly...last week I was tasked w/historical fiction. This week we are to craft something humorous.

Comedy has always evaded me. Next to poetry, I find it about the hardest thing in the world to write. Part of the problem is that humor is relative. Fart jokes work in middle school (and on sophomoric radio talk shows) and knock-knock jokes work on my kindergartener...

...and then I try to think of a timeless bit of humor, something that might still get a chuckle one hundred years from now. THAT's really challenging!

I am taking ideas, if anyone has any.

April Fool's Day

Why do I like this "holiday" anyhow? Maybe it's empowering, I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that I get to let my fun side out some, I guess.

Today's jests included:
shut off hot water heater
turned up house thermostat
advanced clocks 2 hrs
toilet seat goo
hid the newspaper
keyboard retardation trick
turned several optical mice blind
punked my entire class, twice
and more to come.

I'm going to think up some for my little boys yet today, to get them in the spirit of things. I'm sure my family is cooking up something for me, too.

I used this in class today as a hoax website example. Fun. Fun. Fun.

What's so Funny?

Kid gush, again--skip on if you have low tolerance...

So, my 6 year old has been struggling with humor for some time now. He laughs (and always has) at bodily functions, situational humor, slapstick--but word games, puns, etc...he's reasoning his way through.

I find this absolutely amazing.

It reminds me of Star Trek: TNG when Data (an android, in case you did not know) was sometimes striving to be more human. He would attempt jokes, jazz, emotions, etc...

My son is great because, unlike a self-conscious adult, when he does not get the joke, he will ask outright: "What makes that funny, dad?" Sometimes, anticipating he won't get a joke, I'll tell the punchline and immediately go into explication of it. He will interrupt me, "I get it, already." Other times, even if every word in the joke is w/n his vocabulary, he may still wrestle with the joke for days or weeks. Almost always, whenever he does finally get it, he dredges it up again from some fantastic memory bank, verbatim.

I imagine similar issues are afoot for people studying a second language. Since many puns and word-related jokes are on the fringes, border crossings of slang and such, I would bet they are not commonly covered in classes on language. I think it would be a super course, however, to have a capstone course on jokes in the language..."Humor in Klingon," for example.

A) What do you call a truckload of Bison?

B) What kind of spell turns you into a dinosaur?

C) Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Olive.
Olive who?


These are the kind of jokes he's now logged into his repertoire and fully understands. They're just the kind of stuff I like to use in class, too!

A) Buffaload
B) T-hex
C) Olive you!

40 years of M.E.N.

At last, after years of begging for this for Christmas, now the 8000 articles of Mother Earth News, a 4 CDROM set, is mine! This is all the stuff you can't always get on the net, complete w/pictures, how-to illustrations, the works.

Now I am fully equipped, in the head at least, without excuse, when it comes to all-things-on-the-farm. That's right, it's allllll in there. Now, if only it were all in my head! Oh well, I'll absorb it all over these last colder / wet days and sleepless nights leading up to summer.

Eventually, maybe this fall, I'll offer a review of the discs and articles, but I'm just now digging in. I can say that the early MEN was ever-more earthy, grassroots, less commercial, it seems.

Well, enough of this, I'm going to go read some before the sun comes up.

Here it comes....

Yes. I like this video a great deal both as a parent and educator.

I really included it for the song, today, "La Breeze" by Simian.

What's coming? Can't you feel it in the air tonight? Hold on...it's Spring Break! Why does that matter? If you are asking, you are not in academia. Spring Break is just a week in the midst of things, but what a welcome relief if offers! Whew!

Real-world workin' folk don't relate. "Geez, teachers, you only work 30 weeks a year anyway, so how's it that you need a week off after only running 8 into the new year?"

Well, aren't you Ho-diddily-o-lier than thou, asking that!

For me, like the song, pressures are building, tensions rising, everything is building to that moment, this term, this Friday! Then it's pandemonium, but it's all pleasure. I won't crack a book, may not even log into my classes. I'm going to garden, travel, fix stuff, farm--everything I couldn't do in the last entry of lamentation!

What I'd rather be doing...

1. anything
2. hanging w/family
3. wandering my property
4. going to the garden show
5. writing
6. reading
7. napping
8. taking a road trip
9. going out to the movies
10. de-cluttering home, office, car, garage, universe
11. visiting friends in person
12. downloading music
13. building something
14. fixing something
15. surfing the web

...instead, I'm grading.

Poop.

Shooter Drill

In two hours, this campus will be chaos.

We're having a demo/drill for the worst-case-scenario, a gunman on campus. There will be live shots fired (blanks, of course, but indoors it's dramatic). There will likely be fire alarms, screaming and yelling, policia in full-on bravado.

I understand the purpose of the drills, and I know they help ferret out problems in our security and response systems. I am fully aware that the scenario has been a reality at far too many schools, and I know it could happen here as well as anywhere else.

We have tornado drills here. Fire drills, too. Now school shooting drills. It's hard to find enough time to get our jobs done amidst all this drilling. Speaking of which, at another building I may head for to avoid this shooter drill, there is a good deal of drilling going on, too. In this case, it's jackhammers and cement saws and such, for that place is getting a facelift. Thank goodness I have headphones and music to retreat to when I'm grading!

Maybe we should have drills "in the event of" other things:

• everyone shows up for class on time (less likely than a tornado)
• everyone submits all work on time (even less likely than a gunman)
• people stop to help one another out (a giant comet is more likely to hit the earth)
• commuters intentionally park as far away as possible, for exercise and to be kind to others (c'mon!)

In the same way the calamity drills help us become sensitized, prepared, and teach us to anticipate the worst, maybe my drills would have the same effect on the lighter side, and as we drilled, so we might become punctual, efficient, and kind.

We often need to go beyond merely expecting something; we have to practice as-if scenarios. I propose we do this for the bad (of course) but also to anticipate the best.

ANGER

The only broken bone I've ever had was in my hand due to punching walls. I destroyed a wall of an out-building with a big hammer once in a rage. I used to have anger management issues, to say the least.

My son, only six, sometimes gets mad beyond words. It looks silly on him.

I remarked recently in conversation that I'd not been truly angry, yelling-type angry, in years. Most people, especially those who know only this recent manifestation of myself, have no idea that I have this tendency to blow my stack. Every time it has come up, people just laugh and say, "You?"

Yesterday, however, I revisited my anger in such an excruciating, full-on outburst that I have aching muscles and a woeful heart today. At least I took it outside, away from everyone and every thing, burning off my angry energy by tearing down a corral w/a sledge hammer.

I wish I could get angry at someone other than myself, but that is the center of my s*storm. For me, it is very painful to be mad at me...but I guess it's better than burning bridges, hurting others, or owing anyone but myself an apology.

Now I'm mad at myself for getting so mad at myself.

GRRRRR!

Honestly, anger is right down there with guilt as an emotion that has no redeeming value. I guess there is a "righteous anger," but my vein-popping version is anything-but-that. Anger is silly, immature, and a waste of emotion. Actually, I guess I'm writing of RAGE...just being mad/angry has its place. I seem to just perk along, merrily, then skip from bliss to rage.

There's something to work on!

Library Litany

Today my classes are going to the library.

When I was young, going to the library was a real treat. We visited the scriptorium, filled to the ceiling with rolls of papyrus just waiting to be read. If we were on our best behavior, the librarian would dust off stone tablets for us to read!

Well, it was a treat, though not quite so old-fashioned.

I grew up in an era and area in which going to the library was almost like going to college. Few people went, fewer still learned from the visit. I, oddly enough for a farm boy, was among the few who would bury my nose in the books and come up educated. Trips to the library were reward for good behavior. Whenever we went to town, I was able to con my way into a library visit. (I still have my original library card, from almost 40 years ago!) I still have the four or five books I owned as a kid, but hundreds more went through my hands via the library!

When I was a child, I read everything I could get my hands on. I think this was due to my father's model behavior--he read a novel a day (very strange for a farmer) and had a den lined floor to ceiling with books. I can still remember giving my parents a book report on a biography of Ulysses Grant (I was scheduled to do this at school and was wigging out, so they had me practice with them.) It was that kind of modeling and support that kept me deep in the books.

When I went to college, my first job was...in the university library! This place was unfathomably huge, literally containing millions of books. While my hometown library was only one floor, this library was eight floors! One of my first observations, duly recorded in my journal from my first college experience, was that the libraries both smelled the same! I have since come to learn that virtually all libraries smell the same--some bookish smell that is a mix of musty paper and book binding glues, maybe.

Over the years, I have been a "Friend of" several libraries, been on library committees, and built up (and let go of) an impressive library of my own. Oh, I know what they say about libraries going away due to the Internet, but they said television would go away, too, and it has not. I recall the claim that movies would surrender to the home video, but that never happened, either. No, I think libraries are going to be with us a long, long time. They are evolving, becoming more multi-media and hip, but they are not going away.

During wars, libraries are special targets, either to be preserved, sacked, or burned--depending on the sentiment of the warring faction. Benjamin Franklin was a promoter of the modern American lending library, and we all owe him, in my opinion, a debt of gratitude greater than any owed to a president or political leader, statesmen or inventor.

I love libraries!

Really?

From time to time I'm asked by students, "What should we call you?" I know all the answers from teacher training, how a degree of distance is appropriate, how getting too chummy is certain ruination, etc. I pause and think of what I call people I should respect, say, like my doctor . I use his title, sure, but not "Dr. Boris Smartgui, MD. sir" when addressing him.

Their question always throws me into a tailspin, considering all the ramifications of the education system established as it is, with the Imparting of Knowledge in exchange for a Degree, a Rite of Passage into a Career rather than a Job. That whole thing.

Yes, I am in this line of business (and yes, Pollyanna, it is a business), and yet I question its validity. I know that in some small way I am helping people better express themselves and think more critically and all that. I know other classes advance students a bit here/there...but really, is it the best format in this day and age?

I am leaning ever-more toward what we call "blended" classes at my college. In this delivery format, the content is online; students are to read their texts and online content, then come to class to wrestle with it for comprehension, clarification, and generally get the face-to-face time that many still benefit from. I lean toward this, for it is how I learn. I don't wait around for people to tell me something in a lecture; instead I go find it online and soak it up, then return to someone local w/questions. It works for me.

In this age of aliases, avatars and alternate identities, I realize that one could become quite the poser online, even in education. Is this any different from a guy in a tie behind a podium? That is no more me than the text "me" of my online instruction. It's a uniform, a standard of performance and delivery that is expected and sometimes needed to convey content and build confidence.

Last summer I had a couple of college guys come work on my place. After a few days, one of them said, "You know, you're like a different person out here." I pressed, he added, "I mean, you don't even wear a tie." Regardless of how impractical a tie might be in any circumstance, it is just not the fashion accessory to accompany jeans, boots, and a t-shirt, to say nothing of the inherent dangers of getting it snagged in a PTO or weed-eater. His comment resonated throughout the summer, as he continued to marvel that I ate, slept, drank, spoke--like anyone else.

I wonder, as I am sure others do, just who I really am. What would I really like to be called? What's my true name? All other expectations and utilitarian standards aside, what would I really wear. Really.

I don't know the words...

My oldest son has a vast vocabulary. He's only 6, but he speaks well and knows even more than he can say (and trust me, he can say A LOT!).

Once in a while, however, he will be without the right words. Usually this is when he's in some extreme emotional state, most typically anger or sadness. He'll be crying or growling or throwing things in a tantrum, but when prodded, he can only apologize with, "Daddy, I don't have the words. I don't know enough words to tell you how I feel."

Now, we may say this when the words are slow-coming, or when we'd rather not articulate things...sometimes even grown ups have a hard time putting something into words, granted.

But when he says this, he means it. We've talked about it many times. "How come there are not good words for how you feel?" he will ask me, or "What is a word for when you want to [typically graphic violence] someone?"

I find it interesting that he has so many words and ideas, yet this is the limit of his language. For being such an expressive young man, he still struggles with verbalizing his emotion. Sometimes I wonder if kids have emotions that are off our charts, beyond our words. Maybe we all tend to pull down our person to fit societal norms, including our emotions? Maybe there truly are no words to articulate what he's experiencing, and for me to name it something mundane would be to rob it of its originality.

I know, some may read this and say, spank him and get it over with, he's throwing a fit. I may go there, but I likely take these many side roads along the way.

No ZIPPERS?

Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act = Utter Insanity



In this litigious world, I sometimes wonder just how safe we're going to have to get. I just learned from family that Goodwill and other thrift stores cannot sell clothing with zippers any more. Some law went into effect on Feb 1 that leaves vendors of zippered clothing liable for injury that might result from the deadly devices.



The CPSIA covers primarily lead paint issues, other related safety hazards. There are a great number of items to be pulled from the shelves unless they can be proven safe. Second hand stores cannot afford testing, processing, and propping themselves up legally like a mega-giant-big box retailer may. From everything I've read, it might just lead to the ruination of a great deal of small businesses resellers. Even if the CPS has let resellers off the hook, as I read allusions to, the word is not getting around locally.



Thrift stores in the Wichita area are taking wholesale safeguards. To prevent fines and litigation, they are ditching materials that even might be hazardous. (And this we have on good authority from a local thrift shop manager.) Thus pallets of perfectly good clothing is to be destroyed. Not given away. Not shipped to developing nations where people would enjoy the zippered clothes and have the good sense not to zip one's organ in the grinder. (And if they did, they would not sue someone for their own stupidity.)



Will there someday be a time when we are all wearing clothes fastened by velcro? Is there, perhaps, some inherent danger even in velcro?



Where does natural selection come in here, people? If someone is stupid enough to injure themselves with a zipper, do they not deserve it? Why should they be able to sue the manufacturer or vendor for a zipper catastrophe? How bad could it be, anyway? Have people died from zipper malfunction?



I know, I know, most of the hubbub is around lead that might be used in bangles, buttons and zippers...it's crazy that this even extends to children's books printed before 1985 which might have lead in their composition. Even libraries are affected!! I find this to be at the top of my 2009 list of STUPIDITY. I am a parent, and I'm all for the safety of my children. My kids aren't dumb enough to chew on zippers, buttons and books so very much they're getting lead poisoning. I'm sure I've even eaten my share of lead paint as a child, and ut dowuknd't uuufict mie yaaanni!



We should all just wear government-issue "safe" clothing and read only government-issued safe books.



Zippers were always too erotic anyway.

It took a long time to legislate them out!

What hurts a 3 year old...

(parental blathering, again)

I am protective of my kids, as most parents likely are...and when a bully gets to them or a television show scares them or...well, I'm there for them. Now sometimes my temper gets the best of me, and then I am the source of pain for my kids--that sends me into a tailspin of regret and gnashing of teeth.

The only time I get more angry is when some corporation (McDonalds, Wal-Mart, etc.) hurts my kids. They manipulate my kids all the time through ads, commercials, target marketing at knee-height, and so on. That, at least, I have learned to tolerate.

The other day, however, a large corporation that tours with Bob The Builder really chapped my hide. They were promoting Bob's big Wichita appearance, and that very day my wife liquidated my life insurance and bought us all tickets on row 2! Now, Carson, my 3 year old, loves Bob the Builder beyond measure. I think sometimes he patterns too much of his life around Bob, like those times when I find tools in bed with us...or times when he "fixes" things that do not need toddlers hammering on them. Bob, to Carson, is the icon of all things good and right with the world, and the chance to see Him Live--well, even Carson was speechless.

Alas, the corporate villains cancelled the show only a week later (thus, a week before the show) and my wife broke the news to Carson over supper. I have not seen him sob and weep like that EVER. (I don't think the other boys have ever been so distraught, either, for that matter.) It was terribly painful for us all.

So, what hurts a 3 year old? Broken promises. Cancelled appearances. Retracted offers. You should read my wife's blog to see just what the boys offered as their (violent) reactions and what they suggested for the show's promoters! This blog is too tame to list such things.

Dirt

I have found that I know next-to-nothing about dirt.

Every farmer/gardener worth his green thumb should know all about dirt. Even every-day folk who just have a flower pot on the porch ought to know a little something. Here I am, however, on a warm day in February and ready to get gardening--and I must admit I know nada.

Now, this is especially embarrassing as I did grow up on a farm. We had a large spread, however, over 3000 irrigated acres, and we tilled and fertilized Big Picture. I am not on that scale, and I do not want to use chemicals (herbicides and pesticides and fertilizers) unless I have to.

Thank goodness for the Internet.

I need to find an "ask stupid gardening questions" website. I have so many to pose...

For instance, yesterday my 3 year old and I discovered some very nice dirt, to my way of thinking. It was under leaves and decomposed branches and rot, altogether an area about the size of an average yard, I'd guess. The soil was black and what I'd call loamy (?). It resembled the stuff you buy in a bag, potting soil. I'm pretty sure it's The Good Stuff. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

We raked up a mighty pile of debris covering the Black Dirt. It seems like it would be good to help make my raised beds not so compacted. I'm thinking about doing a lasagna effect and alternating layers of the leafy decomposed stuff, the black dirt, some real bagged stuff, some top soil (I'm thinking to have a truckload delivered for multiple purposes) and maybe some of the grass clippings from the last 2 years...but I have no idea what order or how thick or if I'm making a bad mix...

...but I CAN read, and I WILL find out.

To me, this phase, the dirt, is the most essential. I really want to get it right.

I know real gardeners work on things year-around, but at least I've burned off an area in January and am now getting my dirt together in February...building raised beds in March (and likely starting to plant something maybe).

I cannot wait to get home and get raking/shoveling again today!

Virtual Victrola

...my internal iPod...

It annoys my spouse, I'm sure, and perhaps anyone else who's close enough to me to notice. I suppose I just Jones out once in a while, expressionless, maybe smiling. Sometimes I'm sure I hum...

Here's the thing. I always have music going in my head.

It's not like a voice in my head (though there are vocalists, so I guess...). It's not like I'm making things up, though I can take a tune, even a very complicated one, and twist and turn it around to recombobulate it, change the syncopation or the dynamics or the words or the instruments or...you get the idea.

At times I can get just a snippet of a tune I know, then I'm good for hours. Unlike my brother, the Rainman, I cannot tell you about artists, albums, eras--he can accurately recount all that for you. I cannot always recall lyrics with any shade of assurance. I can, most of the time, pull enough of a tune out that it keeps me occupied for a long while.

This is complicated by Jingles, which have more power over me than any other form of advertising, obviously. I can hear a Jingle once, and then be stuck with it all day. I can "accidentally" hear some song over a store's speakers, even elevator music, then find myself replaying it over and over, like it or not. I have to consciously rethink the tunes, change the mental playlist consciously, to over-ride the tune of the moment.

My music is also complicated by radio/channel changing friends/family. It hearkens back to Max Headroom's BlipVert issue. If someone is scanning through channels and I get just a clip of this, then that, then the other--eeesh. I may end up with a mash-up of it all going in my head. I can sometimes pick which one gets pulled to the front, or I can sometimes shut them all out with something more "popular" or well-known in my head, but other times I am simply overwhelmed.

Fortunately, that does not happen often. If I can attune myself to something else when the channel flipping is happening, then I'm okay.

I actually enjoy this bizarre "gift" of mine, most of the time. It allows me to wile away the hours and never be without a song in my heart. I worry, however, about getting older and losing more control of my head. I worry that songs may crowd out essentials (unless, perhaps, there is nothing more essential than a song in one's heart?). I agonize that I may get stuck on a Jingle, indefinitely. I wonder, more and more, if it's obvious to others that I'm listening to some soundtrack at the same time they are talking to me, that I'm having to consciously attend to them or let them be drown out my my music.

I worry, perhaps most of all, that I'm alone in this whole musical madness.

Clone my dog?

Headline on radio show today related a yellow lab was cloned in Korea for $150,000.

This is not the first instance of a pet being immortalized by being cloned. Apparently, this cloning generates a puppy that looks exactly like the original, even though it will grow up with a personality of its own. It truly IS the original, right down to the genetic makeup, but honestly folks, is there any being that's worth dubbing for $150,000? At my most arrogant, I would not want to be immortalized at any price.

I've been fond of some pets, sure, but I'd rather just go to the pound and save one from certain death. I'd rather just return to the kennel/breeder that brought me Roger , our beagle, than go to all the money, time and effort of having him cloned.

What's it say about our world when we're willing to sink that much cash into cloning a dog rather than feeding starving people or investing that money in education?

Jeepers!

Frank and Earnest

Before I was a parent, I would easily tire of proud parents yammering about their "special" children and gosh-darn cute things they'd say/do.

Now my wife and I grieve that we cannot capture everything. We want helmet cams to wear, and we'd like to wire the kids for 24/7 capture of those things they say, too. (Yes, even in their sleep.)

Something happened last Monday that inspired this entry: at the end of HomeSchool Group--a loose association of parents and kids who homeschool, getting together monthly for crafts and socializing--my son was saying bye to a buddy. The other guy hugged and kissed my son on the cheek. In that moment of embrace, when they were both so sincerely friends who'd miss each other, without a smidge of homophobia or reservations of public displays of affection, without any of the hands-off clutter that most of us in the USA are blocked by--they hugged and kissed.

Now, I could not do that with just anyone, no matter how much they meant to me, be they same sex/students, etc...there are Conditions on being old.

But for them, at that moment, being so frank in their friendship and feelings--beautiful.

Likewise, my boys are inclined to shout "Oh, Baby!" about the prospect of a bath or a walk on our trails...they are so excited, so earnest to live and move and Be...

...I've written in repeatedly, but we should all be more childlike.

I am utterly in Awe

In the course of this week, two folks sent me videos that astound me. Both of these give me cause to pause and marvel. The first is a floor routine that is like juggling, gymnastics, dance, and a whole lot of talent! At first I thought she was doing all this with a bowling ball!




This second video is exactly what I'd be doing with my time if I did not have any children depending on me for their future. What a trip it must be to "fly" like these folk! They are so very radical/crazy in what they do here! (I wonder if there is a military application for these suits, prolly so.)


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Altogether, I am inspired. About all I can do is walk and chew gum at the same time.

Random holiday reflections

So, I've been offline a week or two. It's now xmas eve and not what I'd like to have happening. Instead, it's loud and chaotic, last minute shopping and wrapping, hectic house cleaning (hopefully yet to come)...

...I wish it were a commercial free holiday. Lots of family reminiscing over something significant, something like a Rockwellian holiday, seen through a filter that blurs the edges, candle-lit charm, xmas music in the background, sipping cider...but it will be nothing of the sort all through the holiday.

Yesterday, for a brief interlude, I was in a store I loved, a health food store that was connected to an independent bookstore via a non-Starbucks coffee shop. It was just the kind of place consistent with my true core values and beliefs. It was what I really saw my life being like, going to poetry readings, writing short stories, rapping with peers over weighty subjects. I always wanted to buy things from developing nations, like from 10,0000 villages, the store. I figured I'd have cultivated friendships globally, perhaps served a term or two abroad myself, known hundreds of kindred spirits through Volunteers through Peace, Peace Corps, etc.

I guess, rather than getting sad over it, I should instead realize life takes turns, and that somehow this must be the turn for the best. It reminds me of "It's a Wonderful Life," and more recently, "Click" or "The Family Man" (or whatever it is, with Nicholas Cage). Their lives went west of center, not south, and they had come not to value what they had. It was not what they intended, and thus, it was deemed mediocre. They learned through the movie, what was truly of value.

I know that my family and what we're working on here is truly of value and consistent with my lifelong goals. It has very little semblance to what I visualized it being, but I guess that's okay. In essence, this is it, even if it's in disguise.

Curious.

I hope in the next year to really get into my Mother Earth News and start gardening and building with gusto. I want to cultivate comfortably w/n my means and values, from crops to friends. I want to begin into livestock, but I'm still wondering about living more conscientiously with the animal world (becoming vegetarian?), and I don't like thinking of what it would be like to raise a calf or pig to just slaughter. It's not that I don't acknowledge that it happens daily on my behalf for shoes, belts, and tons of meat right now, but at least I'm not doing it, directly. Maybe being that involved in what we eat will make us more appreciative of it (see slow food movement and related posts). I hope to find my niche in my head that embraces who I wanted to be more comfortably with who I am (it seems) left to be now. I want to see how I can make it all work out together. I am likely to have to work more and more this next year, especially if we are to ever build on or build outbuildings--all these things take money. Then again, more work is not consistent with more family, friends, farming, etc...but I'll work it out.

I hope everyone has a happy holiday and gets to reflect over the year, plan ahead for 2009. I may not get too worked up about these next three years until I see what happens to 2012, the next year prognosticated as the End of the World. After that, well, then maybe I'll start saving money. :)

Viral Video Highlights

There's little I can add to this, other than to restate how wonderful the world is with the Internet!

Enjoy...

It comes

Building, like the pressure and the silence when I dive deep in a pool, that feeling I get is coming again. Like the tangle of too much bedding and a night sweat to boot, I feel it enveloping me, early this year. It comes without regard, without reservation. It looms large, like a pressure system change, like a massive thunderhead. I have known weightlessness, having been bungee jumping, and I know that I will feel that, too, so very soon. The weightlessness of gloom, the darkness that follows the lightening storm. The End of the Semester Blues is creeping up on me like a high tide acid bath.

At least I know it is there, behind every door, waiting behind this monitor for when I send in the last grade. I can steel myself up against it this time, maybe, and avoid the funk, but it will still get on my shoes, in my hair, and stuck in the corners of my eyes. I'll be blowing it out of my sinuses for weeks, shaking it out of my shorts and shoes, too. About the time I shed that skin, a new semester will begin, and then...and THEN! Ahhhhh....it all begins again!




I could use a smoke!

On the eve of "knowing..."

...I'm not sure I want to. Tomorrow, through the marvels of modern medicine, we will come to learn a small bit of information. About noon tomorrow, another life will come into a clearer focus as we learn if that peanut in my wife's belly is to be a boy or girl. While my boys at home think this only matters as to whether she will sit or he will stand to pee, the +/- of it all is everything at once.

Having never had a daughter, I find it daunting.



Just considering the sex of the child is so very vast, so epic to me. I am so very glad that genetic engineering is still in its infancy, for I would not ever feel confident-enough to determine someone's destiny by what to predetermine they pack in their pants.

I think even if I were an old hand at fatherhood, if I'd birthed a brood of boys AND girls, myself--I don't think that even then I'd have the nerve to pin the tail on the donkey. To hang a penis on one or carve a niche for another--that's the stuff of God.

About as close as I dare imagine is to have a role in naming new beings that are my responsibility. My wife and I spend hours, days, years planning something so seemingly simple as a name. Sometimes I don't care, so far as even to let our firstborn name our third-born...knowing all the while that the kid can always have a name change down the road. Besides, they're likely to get stuck with some nickname, Skippy or Sparky or something, so perhaps the Power of Names is highly over-rated.

I was noodling around about this very issue early this morning, worrying that if we were to have a daughter, just how very challenging it is to come up with her first and middle names, irregardless of how well they may sound with our last name, since she would be likely to take the name of her husband in just a couple decades. So in naming her, one must think up something that goes well with everything, yet is not inconsistent with the naming conventions already established in our clan. Oh, the agony! So very tricky to even entertain! (So, on this note, I hope the newbie will be a boy, again.)

Once we do Know, it seems a whole chain reaction takes place, from wardrobe to sleeping arrangements. Even now, well, tomorrow, I will begin to assemble a world for him/her that is in his/her best interests. I will align the planets, set the galaxies in orbit around that child...and oddly, to me, so very, very much of what is to be established is indeed related to what's between the legs.

That's a crass way of saying it, but really--men and women are as different as species, at times. This news tomorrow will be the catalyst of a lifetime of sexism and typecasting, like it or not. The pink or the blue? The dolly or the gun? Though we have always encouraged our boys to be themselves (yeah, they have dolls and nurture them, so eat THAT)....I must admit, even now, that no matter how fairly I intend to operate things, there will be assumptions, accommodations, etc. that will be less-than-equitable, should peanut be a princess. I guess all I can do is try my best.

...but maybe all this angst is just for nothing. There is no knowing until the sonogram, and unfortunately, I'll be in class issuing a final when my newest creation issues his/her barbaric yawlp into the embryonic fluid and the ear of the sonographer.

*sigh*

So...Snow!

Don't I have anything better to write about than the weather? Not today. It's the first true snowfall of the year here, and I'm giddy. While I welcome every season change (that's why I stay here) I seem to be especially nostalgic when it comes to winter snow. I suppose it's got something to do with all the holiday clap-trap. I'm sure there's more being made of it all in my mind and memory than ever in reality...

I can remember scaling a snow drift that allowed easy access to the roof of our shop. I can still recall watching the weather man (on a black and white television) moving felt stick-on's that represented fronts, high and low pressure--all very technical sounding stuff by today's standards--and waiting for him to even hint at a snow day. I've been in my share of snow ball fights, built many-a snow fort, made a few snow angels. Having grown up in the country, we also were known to ride old pickup truck hoods as sleds behind the tractor. We used to come in from the cold to stand (on one foot, then the other), dripping, shivering over a floor furnace--warmth never felt so good!

I've been fascinated with what wind can do to snow. I'm sure it can sculpt sand and even stone over time--but snow drifting is glistening, sparkly and temporal. In eastern Kansas, where the wind is wimpy, I've been amazed at how snow can pile six inches high on a fence post.

I'm documenting all these warm-fuzzies, for I know there will be days this winter when I will curse the cold and snow. Today, however, while it's all fresh in my mind and new for the season, I rejoice!

Health is Wealth

Last week I had to go to a medical specialist for an *ahem* issue. Since it was my first visit, I had reams of paperwork to complete. As I am not one to go to doctors, it is rare that I fill all this out.

After something like 40 potential ailments and more family history--all checked off duly as "no" "no" "no" I began to feel better already! I may not even have needed to see the specialist, for after it was clarified that I was not hurting from x, y, z...I felt downright healthy!

I think many of us need to acknowledge just how healthy we are. I know that I take it for granted far too much. I've never had a surgery, never a broken bone (save knuckles). I've not been hospitalized, ever...until my kids were born, I'd never even spent the night in one, other than my own birth.

My three boys are all models of health. Every time one gets the sniffles or a belly ache, however, I become a worry-wort for them. My in-laws dealt with losing a boy at the age of 13 to lukemia--I do not think I could handle that. I just need to continue to be thankful and aware of the good health given to us. I need to celebrate it daily! It's so great to be healthy (even if pathetically out of shape) that it should be a national holiday! Health happiness should get its own day of the week, like the sabbath.

Yee-haw for Health!

The Road

I just finished a James Patterson novel in about two days, and while it was fun and engaging, it's gone. On the other hand, I read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy just last week before Thanksgiving, and it continues to resonate.

Set in a grizzly post-nuclear war wasteland, the novel can be read as a father and son travel tale. "The man" never is named, we never know his former profession, height, appearance--the story seems void of most of the conventional trappings of character development. "The boy" likewise is universally undefined; not even his age is clear. It's hard to tease out exactly how long ago the world was torched, but I'm guessing about six or seven years. Throughout the book, the two encounter a few other people, a lot of corpses, bones and skulls.

They are on a march south, to somewhere that may be warm and not overcast (from what I interpret to be Nuclear Winter). Everything seems hopeless, except the goal, and even that seems more of a mindset than a reality. They seem to be gritty survivors more than victims, but the man's wife argues they are not even that:

We're survivors he told her across the flame of the lamp.
Survivors? she said.
Yes.
What in God's name are you talking about? We're not survivors. We're the walking dead in a horror film.

The wife's description sums up everyone they meet. No one is well, suggesting that radiation, ash, no health care--all the above--is wearing everyone left on down to the bone. Description and imagery like made the book so seizing to me: Wearing masks and goggles , sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators.

I've read many post-apocalyptic yarns, but this one is getting a place on my shelf next to Jonathan Schnell's non-fiction nuclear war scare book The Fate of the Earth. It has a degree of credibility and sensation to it like few I've read before, and yet it's speculative fiction, describing a world I hope we never come to know. McCarthy's depth of detail and creativity astound me.

This was most evident to me in the way the man and boy value things that we take for granted: a shopping cart, a blanket, a tarp, a Kool-aid pack. Little details of their lives take on seismic significance, like when the boy accidentally leaves the gas turned on a propane lamp, a recent find they treasured for its heat and light. They find a smattering of cornmeal in a cabinet and carefully sift the mouse feces and dirt from it before making little corn cakes which they savor. The attention to scarcity, the MacGuyver-like resourcefulness, and the unique approach to survival--all incredibly imaginative.

Had I read this book seven years ago, before I started down the path of fatherhood, I would have missed a great deal of the novel's potency. I might have offered something like the blurb on the cover, that The Road "is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best of what we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation."

Now, however, I find the book is truly all about fatherhood, in the absolute most challenging situation one might imagine. The man wakes at night to put his hand on his son's chest to feel his heart and breathing. Sometimes he does this when the boy is terribly ill or cold, times when life would seem to be fragile. Other times he does this in reverence. The man, I gather, has taught this boy everything he knows, and I believe the boy knew no other life before the bomb (sad as that is, the boy, under his father's leadership, has values and a good spirit). Still, the boy comes up with phrases and ideas that surprise his father (just like my boys do, but they are surrounded by inputs). Their relationship is the heart of the book, and it's a must-read for any dad.

In fact, for anyone who's needing a hero, I suggest reading The Road. While the man may not act like Mad Max or that Kostner character from Waterworld, his small acts, like giving a last morsel of food to his son, make him a hero. He tells his son they are the good guys, the keepers of the flame, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Now I find, while looking for a book jacket image, that this novel has been made into (what appears to be a respectable) film. It is scheduled for release in 2009!

Tough Guys have Big Hair

see famous look-a-like faces

I need bigger hair to look really tough! Now I have a goal I can reach. What's it take to grow hair?

Actually, I was just sharing this as a great time-wasting site to check out: Totally Looks Like

King me

I don't know why this iconic character has such an effect on me. I read a study on BK's King, and the gist of it was that it conveyed a sassy and bold, humorous and vivid image that appealed across demographics.









There are some of these commercials that just wig me out, like Waking up with the King. Others are mildly amusing and do not traumatize me psychologically.






The King is so popular that Halloween masks have been made in his likeness. Websites adore him and sell his merchandise. I have reported sightings of him on billboards, buses, television, etc...

I even have a bobble head of him in my office.

I wonder what it says about our culture that we find this character so... so... interesting? curiously engaging? off-beat and hip? What IS it about the King?

I don't know that I've referenced this site here at MPark, but I've shared it with many people through the years. I find it more-than-amazing, whatever that might be. It's so very boggling to me just how many bizarre things are submitted for patent. Take a tour through the site--you will NOT believe it!
Patently Silly - The Humor of Invention - presented by Daniel Wright

Sleep Calculus

I am of the belief that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours after. That sure holds true in my lifestyle. If I sleep 9-midnight, I'm energized for the day--really! Typically I'll stay in bed and rest longer, but sometimes (about this time of year with hellish grading expectations) I sleep less and less.

When I was in college, I would visit my best friend in Hays, and he would not entertain the idea of sleep until nearly dawn (about when I typically get up). He would not let me sleep, either, until he was good and ready. Those visits about killed me.

Chalk it up to Ben Franklin (or whomever truly said it): Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. (I'd agree with healthy, anyway!)

Toward a more perfect Union

So I've been at this institution for about four years now. In this course of time I've been lucky enough to participate in the planning of this new student union, which had a ribbon cutting/grand opening today! My role was tiny, just conducting surveys in classes and offering input and doing a few walk throughs along the way...but actually being inside it today, full of folk--priceless!

I was reflecting with a colleague on how some of our finest memories of our college years were spent at the Union. It was a time to really get to know a professor as a person, to sometimes dive deep, sometimes go off the charts entirely. It was a place of fellowship and (for me, all too often) intense study.

I also must confess I spent my entire student loan there on pinball.

Today, I am feeling all warm and fuzzy, happy from head to toe, for I think this facility is just what this college needed at this site. I am going to hold a number of my office hours over there, and I hope to have some moments with my students like I once had with my profs.

Oh, and for the grand opening, they had some great finger food, too! I never missed any college function serving food, back in the day, and I've never been disappointed at the food served at this college, ever!

Well? Tell me!

I truly enjoy answering the "why" questions that my 3 sons throw at me constantly. I find it challenging to offer answers (and fun to make up answers, too). I looked forward to it from the time the oldest first began (and has never-since stopped) talking, and I will relish it as the last installment (due out in May) offers his questions, too.

Lately, however, the eldest has been asking real puzzlers. He has evolved to a new, very interesting, level of thinking.

Just this month he has asked me, while watching a video on firefighting, "Daddy, what happens if a firehouse catches on fire?" When I returned from the doctor the other day, "Daddy, what if the doctor gets sick?"

Soon he'll be posing really challenging conundrums. I'd better brace myself!

What's it all Mean?

I find teaching poetry in Intro to Lit to be liberating, for I am of the mind that most good poetry is more about experiencing the work than walking away with a single meaning. This, of course, drives some students mad. What does it matter, what it's all about?

I've long wondered why the Hokey Pokey espoused such self-importance.

What was the answer to the meaning of life in Monty Python?

Damning Recreation

This illustrates what NOT to do if you are a public figure.

The oldest man in the boat is my former Dean. I'll call him "Dean", here, to preserve whatever may be left of his reputation.

Once Dean had sat me down and lectured me forwards and back on how it was improper to have young college girls over to my house at all hours of the night. He made this claim after having observed my home through a privacy fence and about 100 yards that separated our properties. He said he was just looking out for me, but that I should not ever be seen w/students off the clock, especially at odd hours, especially at night, etc. It was quite the sermon. (At the time, I was just taken aback that he would be "spying" on me so much, that I was even a person of interest.)

Dean went on from my humble school to become President at another. His school became embroiled in the workstudy/college athlete scandal, but eventually after much gray hair and wrinkling, he emerged from that debacle okay.

Then, in August, this photo of him emerged, was published, and eventually led to his resignation. I wonder what happened to Dean's common sense, dignity, and sense of impropriety? I wonder what happens now to him, sans six-figure income?

That must have been one hell of a fun time to have cost him so very much.

Then again, why did it?

And for that matter, what was so improper about me having young ladies to my house back in the day? Maybe we were grant writing.

We are not clergy, not really of any office that should demand some kind of holier-than-thou lifestyle, right? Was pouring a drink for some young lass, off the clock, on the lake, such a crime? I would not have fired him for such an action, even if the whole crew of said boat were underage (which, in all likelihood, they were). So he wasn't a model of clean living at that moment. Maybe he wasn't living by his own advice...but so what?!

In this age, where cameras are ubiquitous, how can anyone expect to always be captured in a Norman Rockwellian moment? Who among us may occasionally sigh, "Whew, glad that wasn't on camera!"

I'm not proud of Dean getting caught with his shirt off there. I'm sure worse pictures of me are floating around (photoshopped, of course!)...and I know there are many moments of my life I'm not proud of, overall.

But really, morality police, get over it!

Fax me an iPod, will ya?

Rapid Prototyping has intrigued me for some time. I think I first saw a fictional version of it in action in the movie "Small Soldiers." In the film, Chip Hazard and other characters are formed with a laser-looking thing that squirts their image into 3-D.


I saw similar technology employed in Mission Impossible, when Tom Cruise has a mask made so he can infiltrate the bad guys' camp. Basically, it's a technology that builds up layer after layer of goop into a shape designed by a computer aided drafting/drawing (CAD) system. It's called "additive fabrication," for it builds by building on itself, one tiny layer at a time. Primitive versions of this actually use old ink jet printer technology, so renaming Rapid Prototyping "3-D printing" seems to be a good idea to me.

I've seen footage of an iPod case being manufactured via rapid prototyping. It reminded me of a monster-making kit I had when I was a kid, a "fright factory!"



I've read that in short order parts can be ordered via computer over long distances and then just "printed" at your location. This will require one to have the hardware, of course, but imagine if this were to catch on!? It could reduce transportation costs, eliminate the middle men, and generally speaking be pretty darn cool! From what I understand, as this technology evolves and is coupled with nanotechnology, even computer components will be "manufactured" by pouring substances as per advanced CAD directives. One may actually, someday, be able to order something like an iPod to be built on site, on demand!

I believe in Anxiety

I believe in anxiety, that is, I believe it is okay to be anxious, to embrace anxiety and squeeze the power from it. I have learned that painful uneasiness pushes me to perform. For all manner of things even remotely within my sphere of influence, anxiety has proven to be rocket fuel for my soul.

I was once self conscious of my anxiety. I would rarely confess it to anyone else, for I thought to be at all troubled was to be weak. The first time I learned that performance anxiety was not my own issue was when I shared my fear with a preacher. He sat me down on the edge of the stage and patted my shoulder. “Mark, if I were ever to take that pulpit and not be a little queasy, I’d flop.” It was a revelation to me. This man seemed so very charismatic, so large and in charge, so natural from the microphone (authentic, just like at that moment on the steps). He seemed strong and courageous, like there was nothing he could not talk about intelligently and forcefully.

I began to watch him closely. I started to notice the fidgeting leg as he sat waiting to take the pulpit after the choir. I watched him in his rituals, just like a major league ball player. First he would lay his bible on the pulpit, then smile at the crowd, then stroke the cover with an open palm. Every week he would do this same thing, and I could tell that somewhere in that ritual, he was finding his energy to combat his anxieties.

In college, it took me a while to harness the power of anxiety. I would flit from class to class, assignment to assignment, willy-nilly. I would never grapple with a calendar, what was due when…instead; I would constantly be surprised by deadlines, overwhelmed with homework. I would pull all-nighters and turn work in late. (This did, I suppose, help me with creativity, for I was able to manufacture some of the best excuses for late work I have ever heard!)

Finally, in my fifth year of college, I became an adrenaline junkie. I was doing my “teaching block” in a public school, and I had to ride the wave of anxiety daily. It would crest when I went into the classroom, and like my preacher, I had to grab it and pin it down for myself. I was able to learn to turn anxiousness to enthusiasm. Sure, I never knew how a class period would work out, and yes, some flopped. What happened, though, was that I was able to convert dread into power, failure into motive to do better.

Overtime, I became Mr. J, a persona of wild passion and caustic wit. I excised my anxiety by moving and by channeling it into charismatic delivery. I really have been able to burn white hot in class, and that’s likely why every day after class, I am exhausted.

Fly Naked

This image is from here which recently ran an article on Virtual Strip Search (backscatter) technology. A student brought this to my attention in a research paper, though x-ray searches have gone on since 9/11 in airports and even longer, so the articles say, in prisons.

The controversies surrounding this range from invasion of privacy to invasive technology, from kiddie "porn" to physical side effects. I've seen this in sci-fi movies for decades, and until I really thought about it, the whole thing seemed pretty cool.

My biology buddy even tells me the technology can detect drug running mules, seeing actually inside the body! Talk about invasive! I might not want my breast implants, colostomy bag, penile extensions, dirty laundry, etc. to be viewed by anyone w/o my express, immediate and intimate interest in them. I might not want my kids' neked images bandied about.

Thanks to terrorism scares, the Patriot Act, and the sheep that bleat consent at every legislative gesture, these days the technology is coming into the common place. My kids won't even balk at it, much like I don't think twice about being known by my social security number (something my father thought was a mark of the beast!)

I never knew I was so conservative until I started paying attention to just how many things are legislated for us, taken for granted. Privacy is no longer good form.

I think next time I fly I will cover myself in aluminum foil before going to the airport, you know, under my clothes, just to see what happens.

Hitler Youth to Brownshirts; Painted Babies to Beauty Queens

TLC premiered the pageant documentaries Painted Babies at 17 and Toddlers & Tiaras in September. I don't watch much TV, so I missed them.
I did, however, just watch this clip, and it makes me shudder. Kids are so very responsive to parent/guardian praise and punishment. They are so very eager to earn praise and to do good. I don't know if any other beastie in the animal kingdom is so hardwired for positive reinforcement. I do know that this kind of behavior on the part of a parent is deplorable.

Boys are far from immune, either. I've witnessed hapless youth manipulated into daddy's little (fill in the blank--mini-me). It was nationalized by the Germans when the Hitler Youth came into being, but it is widespread everywhere, even here in Kansas, today. Sporting events are the most obvious. I've seen parents at ballgames behaving in ways that would make even the Fuhrer embarrassed! I know of one daddy who drives his kids so very hard with insults that I have come close to intervening. It reminds me of an article I read last year about some parents pitting their kids against one another in a street fight, just to "toughen them up." I wouldn't be surprised if those same parents may have been taking side bets on the victor.

To me, it all goes back to letting kids be kids. Let them be little. Give them time to grow into whomever they are inclined to become. I hope I do not put too much of my direction on the shoulders of my little ones!