Highly recommended

Find a kid you can escort as an excuse, then head to your local PumpItUp.

We recently took our kids, finding the place to be total pneumatic pandemonium, a good time was had by all.

I initially intended to read a book, sit on the sidelines--but once I got bouncing, there was no turning fuddy-duddy. It's a great workout, too.

Closure

Lately, the words "the end" have been more than I can bear. "Closed" and "Good-bye" are on the list, too. For some reason I've yet to cog, I cannot easily accept closures.




I am now turning the last 50 pages of the Harry Potter saga, and each leaf turned leaves an emptiness in the pit of my stomach.


Just last Friday, I took my boys to the auction of the Prairie Rose enterprise. For those who are unfamiliar, there once was a chuckwagon supper club, complete with true cowboy/wild west sing-alongs, etc...set in the countryside, featuring the Prairie Rose Wranglers (akin to Riders in the Sky). Unfortunately the PR was yet another casualty of the over-extension of one Mr. Thomas Etheridge, who put all his money, faith, credit, etc... into what was (for a month or two) Wild West World. Now, we bought the season pass to WWW, and we talked others into it, thinking it would be good to show our support for the state's premiere and one of the nation's only western themed theme parks. Alas, it went belly up.



Attending the auction only reminded me of one of my deepest scars--my own family farm auction, circa 1981. That event was more sorrowful for me than most funerals I've attended.



The closures don't end! The Palace on the east side of Wichita, the one which played small release, debut, independent films--closed this summer. Cowley College's Southside Center is to close next semester. Half of the food court at the Hutchinson Mall is vacant. I don't know why these things stick with me, but they do, like a burr in my saddle, and they chafe.

I am already anticipating that hollow feel of the end of a semester, and it's only week 2.

Weekend's here!

I don't know if I've ever been so relieved. I do say, "Yahoo! and all that." It's only the first week of work, but it's been lengthy, at times agonizing...not the workload or the student interface or even being boxed up in an industrial grade office full of florescent lighting. The hard part has been, as I predicted, being away from my farm and family. I want to go home, sit on the porch, pick ticks off my beagle until the rest of the family wakes up for the day.

*sigh*

On a related note--this weekend I am literally going home, to southwest Kansas. We're to attend a balloon festival in Garden City. I'm even bringing my mom.

Internet Confession

Recently at an instructor's meeting I confessed (as part of an ice breaking activity) that my secret passion was for the boundless world wide web. While not openly scoffed or scorned, I could feel others' evil eyes upon me. I could almost hear them plotting to have me removed from the room.

Maybe it wasn't the best venue to make such a confession. Others were passionate about Jane Austin or tagging butterflies.

Truly, I do find the Internet to be fascinating. I never tire of it. As it has evolved over the last ten years or so, I've been drawn in further and further, to the point I now feel lost without it. The latest discovery I have made which only enables my addiction is: google bookmarks. I had favorites and bookmarks on four different PC's, plus I'd saved them as a html file from other PC's that had crashed, etc... The bookmark tool allows me to compile them all in one handy spot, right on my igoogle page. (I'm sure this is not a new invention, that there are others on the market that may even be better, but it works very well for me!) Now I have full access to all my favorite sites.

I think one reason I like the web is that it is arranged something like I think. I know we all think by association, that there are linear connections and constructs, but folks claim I have this odd way of riding several tangents at a time. This is, similarly, how I poke around the Internet. Thank goodness for Firefox (and now IE) tabs, too, for I can have two or so browsers going, with several tabs each, and flip back/forth. These explorations of the Internet are beyond surfing, which seems so much like a surface sport; they are more like riding dividing torpedoes in the deep sea. I lose all track of time, and when I do surface, I get the bends.

Back in the Saddle Again

'Tis the first day of school for the term for me. To sum up in a word: uncomfortable. I've not worn shoes regularly, and now I'm back to the full-on suit. Classes don't start for me for another hour yet, and I find myself chomping at the bit.

In the past, I would watch inspirational "teacher movies" before the term started. I would wander the school supplies aisle and revel. If possible, I would visit a grade school classroom (under the pretense of supervising a volunteer) just so I could whiff the floor wax, the plastic painting aprons, the crayons...olfactory nostalgia is potent!

I am over all that, but I remain a person who likes to mark an occasion. I like to celebrate the end of one thing, the start of another. This tendency has amplified with children, from cutting teeth to using the toilet, from outgrowing clothes to dispensing with baby-talk....This need to launch fireworks, to dance naked in a ticker-tape parade...it seems it's getting more prominent as I age. Celebrating, or at least noting, the turn of semesters and seasons is likely understandable...but having a ceremony for the end of USA network's summer season, hosting a party to mourn the last Harry Potter book...really!

It's not that events, epochs, turns of every thing are not noted in reflective writings. It's not that they go unnoticed by my wife's scrapbooking camera. Heck, I even voice my huzzahs and laments, constantly. (Ask my wife!)

It's so commonly a part of me now that even my 4yr old models it. He was hanging down his head recently, and when I asked him why, he sighed that he was getting too old for some toy. He was already cognizant of his age and of how he is on a continuum.

So, anyway, smack some champagne on my hull and let's get on with it.

Greensburg

The town that always had "A great big well-come for you."

The town was on my route home; it was my rest stop of choice. I spent many-an-hour in Davis Park, resting, smoking, eating, playing on the playground, changing diapers...I wonder if the park is still there?

Unlike ratings-starved media freaks, I'm not going to poke around Greensburg for a while. Someday yet this month, I'll pass through (or around, if it's still an issue) and I'll rubberneck like everyone else. For now, however, I'm going to leave those folk alone. Later, like I did after Andover and Hoisington, I'll rally up some student volunteers and we'll help where needed. For now, people need to find their own way a little.

Sure, the logistics of power, water, and policing are important. I know the government support and the well-meaning (though still rubbernecking, on volunteer vacation, disaster tourism) will be there to pick up and clean up and overall, provide. I know this because a tornado grazed our farmstead when I was a kid. A flood forced me to evacuate (though only for a day or two) when I lived in Arkansas City. Help will come. It is needed and even...well-come.

However, people need their space, too. Grieving over loss of one's home is not that different from grieving the loss of a family member. People appreciate the acquaintances and well-wishers from the community-at-large, but the first need family and friends. They will need to sort among the scattered waste with their own neighbors, sometimes chuckling over the fence that once separated what was once their respective properties. Homeowners will find their lots, and local folk (not national guardsmen with bulldozers) will return the barbecue grill the tornado 'borrowed' and did not return from 'cross town. People need to touch the remains of the foundation of the house their grandpa built. They need space and time to find their own stuff (artifacts, tokens, talismans, touchstones). They need to hold that horseshoe that hung over the back porch door, knock some mud off it, and pocket it for later.

I heard they're taking odds inVegas on whether or not Greensburg will rebuild. Here's an inside scoop for you gamblers: rebuild is a sure bet. The people of Greensburg are KANSANS. Tornado alley is populated with hearty folk.

Worms and Suds

Maybe it's due to end-of-term grading loads...maybe I'm really losing my mind and just finally starting to notice...but lately the world around me has offered some startling new degree of Presence, if not Insight. It's as if, suddenly, seeing a tree bud up close is somehow bringing me full circle from, "Oh, it's Spring." to the botanical comprehension of it all, then again through some cycle-of-life insight, and back again to just marveling at nature. (Likely this makes no sense to anyone but myself; that's why I'm sharing it.)

Example: this very morning, about 5am...it was STILL raining when I came in to work. Like always, I stopped at the back door of the building, fished out my key, and then--I noticed an earthworm. Yes, they come out when it's raining (something I'm now inspired to really grasp), but this particular worm had 'wormed' its way to the doormat of the college. (It is finals week, remember, and maybe I was lost in thought there about the mental state of worms and students, how this very worm (eager beaver) was waiting at the gates of higher learning, "First one here!"--but that did not last long.) That fleeting thought fled when I noticed something much more interesting...

The doormat is of the variety that features many, many little rubber 'nubbies' or thick hairs. They are about the diameter of a pencil lead, and they are less-than a 1/2 inch tall. The worm was working its way across the doormat, shimmying through these nubbies. Most of its body, then, was in a perfectly straight line; however, sometime prior to my arrival, something had compelled the worm to make a right hand turn, continue an inch or so, then a left turn, and it was in the process of another right. (I had never seen a worm do such a thing, something that seemed strikingly symetrical for a worm. If you can imagine, it created something of a question mark by design.)

Of course, the nubbies had guided the worm in forming such straight lines, but I will always wonder if the worm was raising a question. Was it just making its way through an unnecessarily complicated route? (It could have shot straight across the mat, after all, or just never bothered to go there in the first place!) Was it sending me a sign? Did the nubbies feel good, rubbing along its sides, or did the worm find them laborious and bothersome? Do I sometimes, like this worm, get so confounded by the nubbies that I cannot take my naturally wormy course?

Previously, maybe a week ago, I was driving across Wichita early one morning when I spied a white blob ahead, just over the hill. As I approached, it was becoming clear to me the blob was not simply a trash bag, as I had first assumed. Since I was going 45 or so, I closed on it rapidly. The few other vehicles on this same course had either stopped or swerved or taken some other detour when their drivers realized the blob was as big as a freight car...however, I did not waiver. In the instant I knew it to be suds, bubbles, what-have-you...I forged on through. (I drive a pickup, and thus, my untoward mentality.) It was great fun to plow through the foam, to look in my rear view mirror at how the blob had scattered in my wake. (The source of the blob, I also came to note, was some prankster dumping detergent in the waterfall element outside some swank housing development.)

The blob of bubbles, the wall of suds, gained almost metaphysical proportion to me. I had persisted. I had burst through...when others had been wary, I was bold. Of course, this is silly, but then, charging through an opaque obstruction is also both silly and dangerous...I am just noting that such a thing had never crossed my path before, in nigh 40 years of driving. It still strikes me as something beyond peculiar, something...meaningful...but I've not yet figured it out. Like the lifespan of a bubble, whatever I should have taken with me from that instant just seems to have popped. Thus, I have had an epiphany with no piff. Something happened, but I do not know what it was (?)

These are but two of somewhere near a dozen "twilight zone" observations I've had in the last two weeks. Am I losing my mind? Opening my mind?...or am I just dazed and overworked?

We'll see.

Innocence

BILL MOYERS: Have you lost your innocence?
JON STEWART: What? Well, it was in 1981, it was at a frat party. Oh, I'm sorry. You know, I think this is gonna sound incredibly pat, but I think you lose your innocence when you have kids, because the world suddenly becomes a much more dangerous place. And you become much more — there are two things that happen. You recognize how fragile individuals are, and you recognize the strength of the general overall group, but you don't care anymore. You're just fighting for the one thing. See and then, you also recognize that everybody, then, is also somebody's child. It's I'm yeah, I mean it's-- tumultuous.

For the full transcript or video of the initial (brilliant!) episode of Bill Moyers Journal, go here.

Harsh Realities

I've written many times how utterly admirable I consider the innocence, humor and honesty of children. I've related my moments of concern, a decade early, for when my boys become teens, etc.

Yesterday, I was musing over how harsh the world is...and how hard it would be to cope with a sudden exposure to all this harshness, all at once. Fortunately (I guess) bliss fades slowly as children become acclimated to reality. I am of the camp that wishes a)there was no reality, b)that acclimation might come as slowly as possible and c)I did not have to be the lead teacher in all-things-harsh-and-real.

Not so long ago, my son learned that adults fall down (when I tripped on a hike with him). He has since learned that we don't always keep our word (I fell asleep once instead of telling him his bedtime story, as promised). He is now learning the value(?) of money, being rewarded by people with change for various little tasks. All-too-soon, he will be exposed to the pains of love.

This all came to me when sitting in the bathroom. I discovered we had no conventional paper product to complete the mission...so I used baby wipes. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Lanolin enriched, smooth, cool baby wipes! That's when I was moved to epiphany: my boys have never felt the roughness of toilet paper, let alone the sandpaper found in public bathrooms or the strange waxpaper squares we had in school bathrooms...so very much harshness ahead.

I have a friend who suffered an aneurysm. She had to learn everything again, from walking and talking to her family and friends. She expressed to me that re-learning the hard, cruel nature of the world was the worst of her recovery.

At times when I've been impatient with my slow learning I long for some microchip implant or epiphany that will lead me to complete enlightenment. I wish I were, you know, smart! Reflecting on my friend's recovery and my boys' gradual exposure...I guess it's probably for the best that our brains are on simmer rather than microwave-enlightenment. I guess I'll just slow cook and bask in it all, day by day...and hopefully I'll be there (and be supportive) when my kids are exposed to some of the more harsh realities they'll face.

Inconvenient....Truth(?)

I finally had a chance to see Gore's Inconvenient Truth last week at the 89th Annual Phi Theta Kappa convention. Afterward, a forum (of sorts) aired ideas from the crowd. I was astonished that a bunch of honor students seemed to take Gore's word for everything. The few dissenting voices (including one moderator) were scorned. It could have been a byproduct of Gore's personal appearance and presentation earlier in the day (star power drives the masses). It could have been that the film has a very ominous tone and fair credibility.

Whatever the case, I became only more disconcerted. In my opinion, mass hysteria spawned from the film's screening did not make it beyond the doors of the room in which it was screened. Informal follow-up discussions were even more disconcerting. The students were proud of their recycling, highway clean up projects, and of Phi Theta Kappa's Operation Green--but they did not seem to get the point. Should the flaming prophets of global warming truly be correct, world culture would need much more reform than hybrid cars.

Those idealistic students are to be admired, for at least they are somewhat sensitized and they do at least make a token effort towards cleaning up the environment. Young people are not so jaded; they are more receptive to a message (if not downright gullible at times). Social change can and has at times been driven by youth.

However, to affect change, we must go deeper than band-aid service and pats on the back.

I probed for student opinion on the following, but my queries were considered comical:

1. So, what percentage of emissions are individually based versus industrially based?
2. Ice core records clock 1/2 million years of C02, what of the millions of years prior to that?
3. Would you give up cars, planes, plastic or air conditioning?
4. Other than sweat equity service projects, what can you do to address core problems?

No one seemed to notice the disparities...they claimed to be converts to Gore's environmental army, yet they were staying at a resort hotel that must have one hell of a power bill. They were all flying or driving to/from the conference; their very transport would be burning a great deal of fossil fuel. They spent over $1000 a head on their conference when the funds could have been directed toward affecting change through an advocacy group, etc...

I am not much different. I know and own my disparities, so do I think that makes me any better? Nah. At least it allows me to amuse myself. If I ever hop on the environmental bandwagon, I'll make sure it's not propelled by petroleum. I'll be wearing hand-crafted natural fibers, too. I'll be living in an intentional community that's self-sustaining. Above all, and with every issue, I'll be questioning 'authorities' like Al Gore.

If the Honorable (former) vice-president and one time 'next future president' had his heart in the right place, he would not charge for his presentation. True prophets are not interested in profits, after all. Instead, rumor has it he charged our academic honorary an honorarium of $175,000 for his 1/2 hr rap. In the film, he stated that he had given the speech worldwide well-over 1,000 times...what a lucrative sermon!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when money's involved, sniff for sincerity.

Thoughts from the Play Place

I'm not uncomfortable getting on the floor and crawling around with my boys, pretending to be a horse or dragon or 'wrestling king.' I've been on many-a kiddie ride and playground, too, and I can find fun in all of it (with or without the kids, I admit).

Enter the Play Place

From the road, the only intelligent vantage point, a play place seems something like an aquarium. It looks a bit like a new-in-the-box hamster maze, maybe. At this distance, it is only a quiet glass room tacked onto a tacky restaurant. This is the safe and sane distance I kept from such places for forty years. I did not have to go into one to know what was inside, for every time the door would open to the play place, I could hear the chaos, the screaming, the noise, noise, noise! I used to wonder what would lead a parent to subject their child to such a place.

I have since been able to confirm, on all counts, that these places are loud. On top of that, they may not be so sanitary, either. Once I saw a kid with a bulging diaper leave a brown streak down the slide. Another time, our son reported a pool of vomit. Sometimes kids crawl from the tunnels red-faced, panting, bleeding, crying...

...but most always, they emerge laughing. What I mistook for noise is the shrill laughter of crazed kids having a good time. While it might seem demeaning to put a child in this environment, I've witnessed some great play ground ethics and values in practice. Children are not generally just bumbling through the tunnels like rats; they are instead exploring, forming teams, playing hide and seek, racing...in short, they are playing.

Just yesterday (and not for the first time) I kicked off my shoes and followed my son inside. I studied his fascination with every turn and contour. I reveled with him over our ascension to the heights of the maze. I watched his face as he zipped down the slide on this belly, myself right behind him. Though he does not yet say much, he was loving every minute of it, and his laughter said it all.

I also was an intruder. Sure parents (myself included, once in a while) invade the play place to retrieve a child now and then. A rare few, like myself, might be found inside actually playing, but we are so rare that the kids don't quite know what to make of us.

Initially, I feel like Jane Goodall. I'm not sure if it's okay to make eye contact. I don't know their social norms. I cannot fit in, no matter how playful I become, for I am three times their size. Sometimes, due to my bulk, I cannot navigate the tubes as quickly as they do, and so I worry they will become annoyed with me. The squealing and laughter is amplified within the plastic tunnels, and it seems as if it is now an alarm sounding my presence. The constant thundering of knees and feet are now the beat of war drums in my ears.

Here's the interesting part: it's obvious that they are surprised to find me in their world. At first, they don't quite know what to say. It's only a moment, however, and then they are inviting me to chase them, asking me what's up ahead, wallowing past me...in general, accepting me. Like little ambassadors, they show me old french fries and holes in the walls of their den. They tell me all about their experiences at a variety of play places. A boy apologizes for not wearing socks.

Like all my encounters with children, I am again impressed by their civility and acceptance. I suppose someone on the street would see it as a herd of kids crawling over some hapless grownup trapped in the bowels of a hamster maze. From the street, or even in the restaurant proper, or even from the floor below--from any distance--one misses the whole thing. Being accepted and loved by them may involve a little slobber and sweat (and later, some aching muscles) but it is a whole and complete acceptance into their wacky world.

We could learn something from them.

We, the sissies...

Okay, time for my conservative side.

Recess without dodge-ball? Red Rover? 'Tis true, some schools have regulations on recess (something of a paradox, governed/regulated free time), prohibiting activities that might be hurtful to a child's self image. If they've not already, I'm sure picking-of-teams is on the list of activities to be cut soon.

Extra-curricular activities reflect this cultural sensitivity, this hyperactive Politically Correct movement...just last week on the news I heard of little league teams which have outlawed all 'chatter' (unless it's positive). No more, "we need a pitcher, not a belly itcher," or anything so damning to the soul and tender self image. This is the same school of thought which brings us a trophy for every kid on the team, regardless of their performance or standing. Everyone is treated the same; no one is a loser.

What forced my hand, however, was the story I heard about rope-less jump rope for Physical Education class. Some students who were challenged by coordination, others who were overly taxed by gravity due to unavoidable girth (read: fat), others who stood out as awkward--complained enough that now even jumping rope is a hurdle too high. Some schools are now having children pretend to jump rope in P.E. I suppose this saves money on gym equipment, too.

This, to say nothing of grade inflation, academic negligence/malpractice suits, etc.

Anyone who regularly reads Musement Park knows I value my children above all, and the last thing I would want (in fact, something that I dread so very much I am considering homeschooling) would be for them to be bruised, beaten, belittled or in any way emotionally injured. Guess what? That's life. That's what I've learned and how I've been working through all my reservations and uber-parenting problems. We have all grown through the school of hard knocks. I was last to be picked for years. I was the target in dodgeball. I was pummeled in Red Rover, field hockey, etc...but I survived.

Boy in a Bubble--the future?
There seems no end to the regulatory, prophylactic measures our current culture deploys. If my child is to ride the bus to school, he may have to stand in a little out-house-like shelter until the bus arrives. On the bus, he may be enveloped in a protective shell around his individual assigned seat--wouldn't want unfavorable audibles to damage his sensitivities (to say nothing of spitballs). At school, he would have to march lockstep with his peers, all in uniform (so no one would feel left out or weird). School work would be play, and everyone would get a gold star every day...no scratch that, for gold stars are emblems of war...better give everyone a Wal-mart smiley face sticker. School is no longer a place for sports, music, forensics, debate or anything else that would distinguish a person as good/poor. After school, it's the same safe, secure transport back to the safe and secure hermetically sealed home.

How does this make sense?
While on the one hand, good-intentioned people are going to extremes to protect the delicate ego of the child. On the other, industry and commerce are working overtime to lure egos of all ages by any medium and by every variation of content (objectionable? maybe a generation ago--get with the times, bub!). Standards of decency, even of respect, are being recoded for our culture. So, it seems quite the quandary: protect children from any harm, but allow them to become omnivorous consumers without conscience.

Going south...
I'm digressing, and thus, I'll shut 'er down. I am just so very amazed at how things change! I don't have any answers, but I am alarmed and aware. I don't want my kids to be hurt, but neither do I want my boys to be a bunch of sissies!

Dogpaddling

How do they do it? Those single-parent, two-job, full-time students out there who also keep a clean house and feed their kids decent homecooked meals and still have time for friends, hobbies, and a life--they amaze me.

I am barely (just barely) keeping my head above water, and I can only do that by coming in to work at 5am or earlier. Even so, I cannot manage time well-enough for friends, housework, hobbies, etc... I'm not accomplishing much. I'm not working on my novel, my future plans, my home businesses, etc. I'm about the worst friend one can imagine!

GEEZ!

Great Odin's raven! Son of a bee sting! By the beard of Zeus!

I've done time studies on myself before, cumbersome yet revealing documenting of my every mintue of every day for a week--all in an attempt to find where the time goes and how to get more of the wasted moments. I've read of how many hours we spend over a lifetime opening mail, waiting at stoplights, etc... I know I am burning my clock right now, blogging instead of something others might find more constructive...but I just do not get it! I marvel at you, busy and productive people of the good life. I could learn a great deal from you.

I've written about time many times in this blog, mostly lamenting the inability to capture it, preserve it, rewind it a-la "Click." I've expressed concern that my boys are growing too fast and that mortality is sneaking up on me in cleated hiking boots. None of this has changed much of anything in my favor, however. I guess at the very least, I'm somewhat aware of what's happening, and as with most problems, awareness is a first step toward changing things.

It's not that I'm ambitious. I'd just like to be average.

Other folks have a job, family, clean home, life, friends, hobbies, etc. I want it, too!

Trimmed

The entire family visited the barber/hairdressers this week...but that's not the topic of this post. Thanks to two hard-working college laborers and two very-cooperative implements: the entire homestead is trimmed and fit.

By Wednesday, we'd mowed 8 acres, moved 5 pickup loads of downed limbs, and generally just picked up the place some. Thursday, after 7 hours, we were rained out, but only after another 5 pickup loads of limbs and about that many of 'space junk' and general debris left behind by former property owners. Things look pretty spiffy, and I'm ahead of the curve this year!

I know this is not a stimulating entry, but I wanted to document progress somewhere!

Spring Break Rain

The local weatherman was apologizing to the "kiddies" for the wet spring break. I was shouting to the television, "Why, back when I was young, we had a 1/4 inch of ice in a late winter storm once...they've nothing to whine about." (My grandmother used to do just that, argue aloud with the 'picture set' all the time. She also did not watch television, she would 'look' at TV now and then...but if I follow this one out, I'll be on another rant about television, so %&%$#@)

In all truth, spring rain is rejuvenating to me (and plant life). I grew up in the desert southwest of Kansas, and even after 25 years in this climate, I find it novel that it actually rains now and then. Sometimes I marvel at just how very much it can rain around here. Tuesday we had rain and showers all day, over an inch of rain! Today, it's supposed to fall again after noon.

I most enjoy this all O U T S I D E where I'm wandering around my property finding everything in bloom. In ways I feel like a child first discovering things, and in ways I am. (Where I'm from, there were no crocus, few fruit trees, etc...) It's especially fun, for as I'm learning, I'm also teaching my boys. I think, like a naturalist, I should start a hard copy, offline, illustrated study of 'things growing here.'

I keep looking things up on the Internet and in my gardening books, but I intend to beg the extension agent to visit soon. Maybe the agent will be like Mr. Kimball, of Green Acres...Kimball is the one on the far left, a humble and good natured fellow who couldn't identify anything!

I also have a cadre of acquaintances who know more about the outdoors than I do. Maybe I'll have them out all at once, sort of a field day, to see what mother nature's cookin' out here. I do know that I don't want to spray everything, if I can help it...for one, it just seems wrong, and for another, I've a well here I don't want to contaminate.

We'll see what may come of it all. Today it's to be dry enough I can get out there again, so I'm signing off.

All is not lost

So, my hard-drive crashed and burned. It was extracted from my work PC and today I held it in my hand...a small brick of a thing not much bigger than a PopTart. I liken it to holding a beating heart or brain in my hand...a metaphysical encounter...and so very sad. "Alas, poor Woolery, I knew him well." (I name all my computers after game show hosts: Wink, Sajak, Vanna, etc...).

...and NO, I did not back things up well. I lost somewhere around 200 bookmarked sites I so loved. I lost all my creative writing (secretly done on company time, so 'serves me right!). I lost virtually every handout, lesson plan, submitted/graded assignment, etc...two years' worth of content/materials I'll be challenged to recreate.

*sigh*

The good news: we can rebuild him. (From the 6 million $ man)

Stronger, faster, more organized...that will be my new PC (at the moment, un-named). Already I've been constructing more logical folder names, improvements on "odd stuff" or "old" or "omniscience found here." I'm reloading the gadgets and gizmos and shortcuts and programs that have been helpful over the years, like Trillian and Impatica, Softchalk and a gradebook tool...I'm clamping down security and uploading (right now) every spyware/adware/virus protection gizmo I've come to trust. I've even figured out a way to automatically tack the file/path name to every document I generate from now on, so I won't waste time poking around in my PC hunting for a file.

Maybe this will even revolutionize my cyberself, altogether. Maybe, since my template for blogger has been lost, I'll revamp even this blog's look, sometime soon.

So, I've cycled through all the stages of grieving now. Yesterday wasn't pretty, but I'm coming around. Yesterday, for just an instant, I was so angry I wanted to destroy my PC, a la "Office Space." I came to depression over just how much I've lost, how many links I may never retrace...that's still resurfacing...I returned from a break in denial, though fleeting--and I'm camping somewhere on acceptance.

Gameshow host names are coveted, if any reader has a recommendation...

In the Garden

Why does it take someone 50 years to get back to their roots? I mean really, literal roots. Actually, I guess it was more like 30 years ago, when I was growing up, we raised a mighty-big garden for a few years...then, ever-after, nothing but a house plant now and then.

Underneath it all, behind the suit, tie and designer glasses, I'm just a country boy at heart. My values are much more consistent with Mother Earth News than Mother Jones. I have deep respect for sustainability and independence and all-things-natural...so why have I been so dreadfully disconnected?

This summer will mark my return to the earth. I will plant my feet in the soil and see what sprouts (maybe more hair...someone told me mine's getting thin). I've been amassing gardening books and tools. I've been plotting and planning all over my acreage. Soon I will break ground, then all hell will break loose. I really look forward to getting back to the earth!

My wife is worried, I think...readers of this blog know this too: I tend to go too far with such enterprises. I may likely plow the whole property and get very ambitious, then wither on the vine, so to speak, burning out before I get too far. She's also likely worried on another count...she's been with me to 100's of garage and estate sales, marveled at "little old people's gardening obsessions" and now her ol' man's about to pick up his plow.

Surely it's a sign of old age if not maturity.

Blah Blog Frog

Just a thought: couldn't someone have come up with a more attractive name for blogs? I know it is a blend of "web log" but it is just ugly. I realize that lots of folks are already engaged in "blogging," but it just falls on the ear as crass, something like "nose picking." (In July 2006 the Pew Internet & American Life Project estimated that the US "blog population has grown to about 12 million American adults", some 8% of US adult internet users. The number of US blog readers was estimated as 57 million adults (39% of the US online population), although few of those people read widely or read often.)

In a world where new words are coined daily, see the Double-Tongued Dictionary, some very engaging words like spincerity and shack-wacky....couldn't we have come up with a better word than "blog?" It's handy as a single syllable, sure, and it can easily be converted into other forms due to its structure, but it's just so...blucky. Is there any word in English that starts with a "bl" that is a winner, outside of colors? Okay, and "blossom" ...and I guess "blink" is at least a palatable, if not a particularly colorful word.

Consider this list:
blimp, blight, blemish, blister, blood, blurry, blubber, bludgeon...and blog.

Unfortunately, there's likely no turning back time, no reinventing the image of blogging by changing its name, ephemizing it. I just don't particularly like saying, "I have a blog." It sounds like I'm admitting to some horrible disfigurement. "I read blogs," sounds like reading something into/from a belch.

I guess it could be worse. Check out what this very ugly word, "snog" means!

Snake Oil

Chalk it up to my spiritual unmoorings, general gullibility, or optimism...I am someone who's always hoping one of these miracle cures will be all-that. Thanks to the Internet and other research venues--and I guess I'd thank my dark side, that lingering doubt that leads me to do the research in the first place--for I can debunk humbug like a blonde cutting through bad pick up lines.

Swinging back the other way, however, it's hurtful to my spirit to always find the cure-alls do not perform. Newsflash, to my soft spirit: INFOMERCIALS LIE. Sometimes, even more painful to admit, gurus, shaman, ministers of all cloths, etc. are underneath it all (and ohhh I feel so jaded even writing this) hucksters.

"Oh, the pain! the pain!" As the good Dr. Smith so often cried, on "Lost in Space."

I've not invested my fortunes nor my life energy in too many shams, scams or thank-you-ma'ams. I've been bit by the bug more than once, however, and I am very susceptible. It's good to know you're gullible (isn't that a paradox?) and that you are just the type cult groups hunt for: one who dives deep. That is to say, whenever I am so moved, I throw off every reservation along with my towel, suit and common sense and run screaming mad off the high dive....and THAT is to say, I have a problem with wholeheartedness. It has happened to me in work, love, and religion, and I know I am not alone in this weakness.

But enough personal disclosure. This likely reads like reprehensible porn to anyone who balks at public reflection.

Here's my sieve for the snake oil:
Are they trying to sell me something? That is, somewhere in this journey, cleansing, life-altering yahoo they're promoting--is there a dollar sign? ...even as a footnote?

That is now my universal bullshit meter.
Thus, I can dismiss all infomercials, car dealers, etc. straight-away.

It is not so very effective with all-things-spiritual, and I am constantly refining it.

Pointers welcome.

Let's Go for a Power Walk, HAL...

Okay, so the story broke last June...I heard of this today on Paul Harvey (dating myself by listening interests)...

As early as 2008, Hybrid Assistive Limb, HAL 5, a robotic exoskeleton will be on the market, available to the consuming public.

According to Prof. Sankai, Univ. of Tsukuba: "HAL has the hybrid control systems which consist of the autonomous controller such as posture control and the comfortable power assist controller based on biological feedback and predictive feedforward."

Generally speaking, the Japanese are more forward thinking and concerned about the elderly, for Japan’s population is aging faster than any other developed country while its birthrate is decreasing.

HAL 5 will increase mobility for that aging population. Here, we have the Hoveround.

For my money (currently estimated to lease for $500 mo next year) I'd rather be hopping around wearing this snazzy 47lb exoskeleton. Like the advanced robotics currently used in industry, this little number can increase one's strength, too.

Looks amazingly like a Storm Trooper's outfit, doesn't it?

I can't help but consider the possibilities. It is being developed in Japan under altruistic rationale...it will mobilize the elderly. It will help caregivers better lift and manage the disabled they serve. I would like to think that as research continues, it might some day help those who have never walked to someday tapdance. (Presently, it is somewhat dependent on motor functions and electrical impulses that the paralyzed do not generate.)

Heck, I'd like to have one just to buck bales, chop down trees, even just to sport around in to flex my mechanical muscles. I'd like robotic assists to keep up with my children as they will surely outpace me, all-too-soon.

Of course, the technology is being similarly developed for frightening military applications...but I will leave that to the imagination.