snow day #3

i shoveled the snow off the driveway and now i can now barely use my right upper appendage.

yogging in a winter wanderland

did i mention it snowed? i haven't taken many good pictures, but here's one that will give you a bit of a feel of the level of the flakes.

i went for a run, and it was of course more like a yog, but that's fine. a day like today is about going outside to play. you can't get serious in conditions like these. and you know i am usually quite serious about all my runningness so it was a great challege to be more casual. heh.

so, i went for a yog and i saw a nice snow family consisting of a mom, dad, and kid. they were all smiling pleasantly despite being comprised of a good bit of sticks and dirt in addition to the snow. right beside them were two other snow beings that didn't have heads which i presume represented unfinished children, pets, or ottomans... er... ottomen. probably they were ottomen because you know what a large part the ottoman plays in most families's lives, so it's easy to see why it would be immortalized in snow.

the traction was pretty good overall - you just have to seek the mushy places and stay away from the sheets of ice. there was this one place where the ice was broken up in such a regular pattern that it looked like someone had thrown ice from their icemaker out in the street. i looked at it pretty closely, and i don't think that's actually what it was, but it got me thinking that maybe throwing ice cubes out would be a good way to establish some tractionable territory. it's just water, so it's environmentally friendly, and when the icey streets melt you don't have to go sweep it up like you would with sand or gravel. i think it's a great idea.

someone else had been out running before me, so i tried following in his footprints. my own personal good king wenceslas. but his footprints were a bit slippery and he had a weird stride where his right step was shorter than his left which was difficult to track. i am guessing he was either limping or a pegleg pirate. but the prints were both shod footprints, so i am guessing again - not the pegleg. the reason i cleverly deduced it was a guy because right where the footprints turned down a driveway, there was a patch of yellow snow. guys are gross.

there were a few spots where asphalt was showing for like 5 to 7 steps, and it really felt weird to step onto the asphalt. it felt soft and springy. i don't know for sure what would cause this, but i suspect it was to do with the traction. that is - the asphalt felt soft because it was providing traction and my step would spring off it. not sure that makes sense but it's all i could come up with to explain why the asphalt felt so soft compared to the slush.

ran in the sleet this morning, and being pelted by ice is not all it's cracked up to be.

no school! no school!

back in the day, when it would snow and they'd close schools, the snowbird report would come on. i could sing you the music - they still use the same theme music - and the snowbird would call out "no school! no school!" and then the weatherman would read an interminable list of counties in this and the neighboring state - counties which had chosen to close schools on account of the snow. a spectacular bonus of snow days was that there was no homework. like say it was tuesday so you had homework for wednesday, but it snowed, and you returned to school on thursday, all that tuesday homework that was due wednesday would now be due friday. yeah, it's wack, but cool if you're a kid. one year, i swear it snowed every wednesday and every sunday all thru janvier and we were out of school the entire month. i went with the shaman and the little boys to the shaman's montessori-before-montessori-was-cool preschool academy where in matching denim pinafores, the shaman and i would lead the children in singing and enable them to explore science and art. i am not shitting you. that is how it went down, complete with matching denim pinafores.

at any rate, that year it snowed continually and we used up all our snow days so that school was scheduled into the summer. when it came time for brigadoon and school was still in session, i left school and went to brigadoon which demonstrates the priorities with which i was raised. that, and i am a genius, so i didn't really knead skool in teh frist place.

where was i? snow days. right.

today was a snow day. every city and county school system within a 200 mi radius of the snowbird is closed. my workplace opened 1 hour late but carpool buddy and i decided to hit the commute at our normal time, and we both got in a good workout before work. then, starting at 9:12AM the weather promptly deteriorated and the streets became a mess. here's the thing - we don't get enough of this weather to make it worth investing in equipment to clear the streets. they become a mess, and in a couple days it's back to 50º and it all melts off, so it's just not worth the govt's money to purchase the plows and so when the snows come it's a mess. any fool can drive on a plowed street. it's this slushy mess that's a challenge.

work finally closed at 1PM so we headed home around 1:30. took us just over an hour to get home, which isn't really bad considering it's normally a 20 minute commute. the street conditions varied wildly - from dry to wet to slushy to packed slush to frozen packed slush covered with a layer of snow. the traffic was light, though, and people were pleasingly patient, leaving plenty of room between cars. we made it down the interstate about halfway home - until we got to where someone's carelessness had turned the interstate into a parking lot and there we exited & took to the surface streets. a long but uneventful commute. the most interesting thing was the differing street conditions. was it due to traffic patterns? weather patterns? both?

and, so here i am at home before i'd normally have left work, sitting at the kitchen table with a cuppa joe and the new computer, in the blue light of the snow-deflected weary sunshine, watching the bright-red cardinals have a snack at the snow-covered birdfeeder, getting an unexpected long weekend off to a solid start.

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

currently reading the youngest templar: keeper of the grail and so far so good. it's got your monks and your castles and your richard the lionheart and your knights and your dusty horsies and your candles and trenchers and attic rooms and purses of coins and one extra shirt and a piece of parchment.

it's written in the 1st person, which is always somewhat of a comfort b/c if someone is telling the story, then they probably came thru the thing okay, you know? except the lovely bones which if i remember correctly was 1st person and in which [SPOILER ALERT] the narrator died like right off the bat. one could argue of course that her death was not what she needed to come through, but rather it was her death she needed to get on with. and then there is the house of sand and fog which if i remember correctly was in 1st person and which is probably the single most terrible book i have actually read all the way through and i'll tell you that at one point there's a 1st person death and i don't care if i just spurled it fer ya there buddy b/c if i can stop one person from reading that piece of crap book then an angel gets its wings. i kept reading that book in hopes that it would be redeemed, but it was not. i am thinking the aim was some sort of faulkneresqueness, but if you'll read faulkner a bit more closely you will see the folks in his tales are redeemed or at least resolved in some way. a 1st person account of honor killing of the persian variety is not a redemptive - it's simply repulsive.

but ANYWAY - 1st person is usually a safe bet for a happy ending, and i can get on board with a happy ending in a book b/c the whole point of reading for entertainment is... uh... entertainment. and i am entertained by happy endings. my old man is a fan of what he'd call "realistic" endings but i contend that happy can be real, too, and anyway, i don't care. i am reading for entertainment. enter.tain.ment. i wish to spend my leisure time in activities that inspire me to happiness.

in a jar of dusty marbles

you don't hold the key
     to my memory.
you don't write the script
     to my dreams.
you don't know the things
     that i long for -
the things i hope
     tomorrow's sunrise brings.

you weren't there
     in the beginning.
you will not be there
     in the end.
all you know is what is
     on the surface.
brushing side-by-side,
     you call me friend.

you don't understand
     the things that drive me.
you don't know the truths
     that fence me in.
you look at me
     and yet you do not see me.
you hear my voice
      but aren't listening.

you weren't there
     in the beginning.
you will not be there
     in the end.
all you know is what is
     on the surface.
brushing side-by-side,
     you call me friend.

you like to say you understand
     my dogma.
you like to parrot back my 
     my point of view.
you pay the empty compliment:
     you mimic.
a dime store mirror'd make
     a fool of you.

you weren't there
     in the beginning.
you will not be there
     in the end.
all you know is what is
     on the surface.
brushing side-by-side,
     you call me friend.

it is what it is.

yeah, about the post right below this one - i had it in my head and so i put it on the page. this is my blog. i don't have to apologize for anything i write, even the things that make me cry. i don't owe you any explanations but i would like to say that this is not something i dwell on or even really ever think about much. i'd venture to say you'd be surprised how little i think about it. it's all i can do to manage the life of the present - i don't need to be lugging out the past. but, i had it in my head, so i put it on the page.

take it or leave it.

it is what it is.

what is, was, and ever shall be. world without end. amen.

so it was just me & the crown prince & the shaman all holding hands in a circle. the crown prince was telling her «you can go on if you want. it's okay.» and i was thinking that was very cool & zen, which i tend to overcredit the cp with being cool & zen, but anyway i was thinking that was very cool & zen so i'd get on board the go-on-if-you-wanna train. but then you know the punchline - the freakin go-on train left the station with the shaman on board and there we were left holding nothing but a handful of heaven. oops. i mean, it is what it is, and i am fairly certain she was beyond listening at that point and also fairly certain she was going perform according to her modus operandi which is to do whatever she damb well pleases -- but i kinda wonder if i should have counterbalanced the go-on-if-you-wanna with a wee bit o' stay-with-me-awhile. you know?

yeah, you think you know, but you don't. on account of you weren't there. you think you know how you'd be or what you'd do or what you'd say, but you have had some time to ponder, now haven't you? you have ruminated over the scenario and drawn it to your specs and come up with how things should have gone down. and you might be thinking you would have done things different than ol' ace but here's the thing - you weren't there, were you? no. you were not. and if there's anything true about that thing - it's this: that's really not the kind of thing you can plan. you can certainly reverse-engineer it, deconstruct it, and think that the next time you're gonna handle it different, but guess what? there is no next time. there is only that one time and you're slammed-out tired cause you ain't slept and you're melting into some twilight zone world of antiseptic smells and damb quiet beeping so loud, so loud, and the crown prince is saying «it's okay. it's okay.» and you can't stand up even one minute longer, and all you can think is man, this is weird, and you know in the end that it is what it is.

so we were there the next day and the day after that and the day after that and the next and the next - packing up a lifetime and hauling it away. and everyone was there but the jewess and tallulah. i didn't know why they left and couldn't muster the focus to be curious. me & the crown prince & elvis & sweet baby james - we gazed at an amazing plethora of paper, and they handed me some stuff and said it was mine. i looked and i saw it was my 2nd grade homework, and i didn't remember it really, and it was just crap really, and it was trash to me really, and i wasn't connected to it at all, really... and all i could think was that there was only person in the whole wide world who would have saved my 2nd grade homework. so i threw it in the trash because i don't need my 2nd grade homework reminding me every day that there's no one left who cares about the 2nd grade me.

because there are people here who care about the now me and i care about the now them and that is nearly too much for me most days - the power of it all. what with one of them being a certain someone in a cowboy hat, with a braid off to the side, with a ghost of a grin on her face - the one whose 2nd grade self i care about.

1-2-3 -- 4-5-6 -- 7-8-9 -- 10-11-12 -- ladybugs came to the ladybug picnic!

our household is being overrun by ladybugs. see a beetle? stomp! spider? splat! centipede? smash! ladybug? aww... isn't it cute... so you pick it up and try to get it outside and back into it's natural habitat. and then you turn around and see another. and, another. and a-freakin-nother. pretty soon you're flicking them at each other and washing them down the drain. drown, little speckled bug, drooowwwwn!!!

evil? eh, perhaps. but if it were an ant or silverfish or - heaven forfend - a cockroach... would it be as evil? are you offended that i am using the ladybug as a projectile to ping off my old man's head b/c a ladybug is innately cute? they're still bugs, and they bite, and they leave little yellow pee-trails, and they causes allergies, and if you don't get them out their little carcasses will start to pile up and get all stinky pewpew. so, all's fair in love & bugs and i am therefore going to warsh the little ladies down the drain.

we do tend to get particular about animals, including bugs, based on their attractiveness. i've read fast food nation in its entirety and enough bits & pieces of other works of that genre to know where food comes from, and i know it's not pretty. but we're willing to sacrifice cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys to the mass masticatable manufactories. why? they're not pretty, either. yeah, yeah - you'll get the occasional singing cheese-commershal cow and there's that chicken at the state fair that can play tic-tac-toe, but on the whole - cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys are not cute and are therefore disposable. ducks, deer, and doves are borderline. i mean, they're sort of cute & all, but we're okay with it if you want to eat them. goats, squirrels, frogs, pheasant, and most fish - all unattractive and all fair game, as it were. horses? woah, there buddy! dogs? cats? ack! no! no way!

you realize there are parts of the world where they eat puppies? mmm... schnauzer stew. pug puffs. labrador lasagna. chihuahua chimichanga. olé!

okay, now i've probably completely grossed you out, and i'm really not sure how to wrap all this up. let's see. in this scenario, ladybugs are puppies. but i am warshing them down the drain anyway. the end.

i am glad that conan's not on the tonight show anymore b/c i never liked him.

finished the last song and it was every bit as lifetime-movie as you'd expect from nicholas sparks. not in a bad way. just lifetimey. chose from the pile the youngest templar which i picked up on my last visit to graceland. i inevitably pick up books there b/c we inevitably go book shopping and i inevitably read little there because there aren't many good reading spots. i could imagine a summertime visit would mean more reading b/c the porch is nice, but inside there are too freakin few lamps.

so, anyway, the youngest templar starts with your typical "baby left on the doorstep of the abbey in midwinter 1191 under mysterious circumstances with clues to a high-born legacy and world-saving destiny." you know, the jesus plot -- from humble beginnings to greatness, shrouded in mystery and compelled by forces beyond comprehension except through the lens of spirituality. plus - cloaks and swords and horses and living in castles and eating from trenchers and writing on parchment. ::sigh:: i realize not bathing for weeks and sharing living quarters with mice sounds better on parchment than in life, but still i heart midieval mysteries.

books 2010

currently:

complete:
the last song
[nicholas sparks]
the magykal papers
[angie sage]
the memory of running
[ron mclarty]

is that lemonade in the toilet?

i don't so much like to clean the house. i do like to have a clean house, but i don't like to clean it. and really, who does? one way to make it more fun is to buy different cleaning potions. for example, i tried this stuff called "kaboom" because it sounds like it would totally blow through the issues, but it turned out to be a poor combination of dangerous chemicals and ineffectiveness. i also tried the scrubbing bubbles, but turns out they are somewhat lazy. when it comes down to it, most cleaning potions aren't really all that effective. the only way to really clean anything is to put a little elbow grease into it. so might as well purchase something that purports to be environmentally friendly. i am currently using nature's source organic product which contains: purified water, plant extracts, and synthetic fragrance.



now, firstly, water. they could have left out the water and provided the concentrated formula. it would put me in a bit of a bind, but i can find some water somewhere and add it. i guess the whole "purified" thing is supposed to speak more highly of the water, but if i am using it to clean the toilet, believe me, regular water will do. in fact... there's some in there already.

secondly, plant extracts. obtuse, much? there are many plants and many potential extracts. do they leave this open so that they can use any plant they wish? maybe they just grab whatever's handy. »hey, joe - hand me that celery. i need to top off this bottle of cleaner. yeah. thanks.« or maybe it's simply lemon juice and they don't want to tell us b/c they know if the ingredients were "water + lemon juice" that is... um... durr... lemonade. who wants to clean their tub with lemonade?

finally, synthetic fragrance. what the? synthetic doesn't sound organic to me. i suppose they need something so that perhaps the stuff will smell clean & fresh. plant extracts + water, if not lemonade, would be soup and would you want your bathroom smelling like celery soup? yeah, me either. so i can see how the frangrance would help out there. but don't you think they could have come up with an organic fragrance? yeah, me too.

PROTECTO!

it's nice to feel that one's company is looking out for one. at my company, management provides the PROTECTO brand dispenser to help protect me from toilet germs. PROTECTO! heehee. sounds like a superhero. NEVER FEAR - PROTECTO'S HERE! or like you wave your wand and say "PROTECTO!" and wahlah you are surrounded by a forcefield.

so the protecto dispenser dispenses toilet seat covers which comprise the all-important forcefield between your butt and the seat. because your butt's probably so pristine that you wouldn't want to put it anywhere potentially germy, eh? yeah.

the seat covers themselves are *imported*. oooo! *imported*! nice. very nice. wonder where they're imported from? france? italy? are they gourmet seat covers? designer seat covers? let's see where they are imported from... hmm... china! they are *imported* from china! ppfahahaha! talk about spin! that's whirley-worthy spin right there, i tell you what. china. sheesh.

happy birthday priscilla!*

well i guess you're wanting to know my opinion on the maine senatorial election, so here you go: things are really getting interesting now.

speaking of circuses... and, you know, elephants....

today when i went out for a run the elephant parade was coming down the street. in case you don't know - the elephant parade is how the elephants get from the circus train to the arena. they do not ride on floats. they walk. i am not sure if their route included other streets, but there weren't really too many folks out watching them go by on this street. of course, the elephant parade is a rather unpredictable affair so maybe that cuts down on the crowds. it was supposed to occur at 10am and then they changed it to 8:30am but i went out at 11am, so i would guess it started maybe closer to 10am.

at any rate, the parade also included: ponies and teenytiny ponies and lots of men holding ropes down the side of the whole kittenkaboodle [no real kittens involved] so that eejits don't try to get too close to the elephants and ponies and teenytiny ponies. the ponies and teenytiny ponies were wearing blankets and looking around at the crowds a lot but the elephants were doing neither. the elephants are [durr] freakin ginormous, but when they are walking down the street it is an oddly quiet thing. their feet are soft-bottomed like people feet, and they don't really pick their feet up too high, so they sort of just shuffle along with a dry swishing sound.

elephants are oddly quiet, do not make eye contact, and eschew jackets. they are so ginormous there is no way you would not notice them yet they always seem to be trying to simply blend into the background. you can't help talking about them but they don't want any attention. they are the elephant in the room of their own lives.


*the wishing of happy birthday to priscilla should in no way be associated with circuses. or, you know, elephants. i mean, unless she wants a circus-themed b'day party or to go to the circus for her b'day - either of which are well within the realm of possible things she can have for her birthday if she so chooses as a full-grown adult person. but what i am mostly not trying to say nor would i ever say is that pregnant priscilla is elephantine. no. that is not what i am saying at all. heh. heh heh. not.

wouldn't it be ironic of the jets knock off the colts?

if you recall, i had a crown implanted in my mouth back in august. that is like 5 months ago. you'd think it would be all settled down by now. well, it's not. it is usually either not hurting at all or is totally killing me and the entire side of my head hurts. nice, huh? that is why i went to another dentist and an endodontist to have it checked out. guess what they said? absolutely nothing is wrong with it. nothing. it's fitted well and has no disease or decay. right. WHY THE HELL IS IT HURTING? c'mon guys - this is your job! i tell you "me hurtie!" and you fix it. simple one-for-one trade: my pain for your gain. you fixee - me payee. gaaa!

in other news, i think the white eggland's best eggs have retarded shells because retarded means moving at a slow rate and these egg shells move at a slooooow rate. they do NOT want to come off the egg, the retards! huge gaping clods of egg get torn off no matter how gentle i am or how careful i try to be. i will not get these retarded eggs again. the publix cage free organic brown eggs are much better behaved. i am fairly certain the cage freeness of their upbringing makes them more settled as adult eggs; ergo, their cooperation factor is higher. they are all very centered - the yokes are never all over on one side of the whites like you'll get with some of your more uncentered eggs - and they are simply more mature, better team players, ready to get on with the task at hand. they are your basic high self-esteem egg.

have you seen that teevee ad for direct auto insurance in which direct auto proclaims they will do your tax return for $99? and give you cash for your refund? i am really at a loss to figure out what is up with that. i looked it up online and i can find nothing on their website to reveal anything about their providing this service. why would an auto insurance company file your tax returns? i believe this is either an odd juxtaposition of services that are poorly supported by the very company that is providing them - OR - a teevee commercial that while attempting to be witty is simply so stupid that it is not even possible to figure out what is the deal. in conclusion, you probably would have had to have seen the commersh to get any of this so you might view having read this as having been a waste of your time but where else would you have been going to be getting your pluperfect verb fix?

dick vitale & the robot

currently watching UT versus bamalama on ESPN and they are really playing up that tomorry night they will have announcer switch - the guys who usually work the college game will work the professional game and vicey-versey. this means dick vitale will be working the spurs game. sorry, elvis. sucks to be a spurs fan tomorry. bwah!

the latest issue of popular mechanics had some truly excellent material including an indepth article on social robots. one of the main robot people is dr cynthia breazeal at MIT. in the MIT personal robots group they're building small social robots and the one that appears to be the main focus right now is called nexi. nexi is a smallish humanoid robot with an expressive face and a penchant for looking into peoples' eyes. dr breazeal was interviewed extensively for the popular mechanics article and had her picture taken, too, and then she was also interviewed for CBS sunday morning. that was sort of weird because i just read about her and then there she was on the teevee. she's really quite attractive and looked great in the popular mechanics picture in black sweater & skirt with black tights and flats and a nice scarf as an accent. interestingly enough, this was the exact same thing that she was wearing on CBS sunday morning. do you think that she did all her interviews in one day or that she wears the same thing every day?

here's nexi. cute, huh? there is the slightly disconcerting issue of her not having any skin on her bod. i wonder if that is b/c she is still under development and dr breazeal et al need to keep an eye on her operational parts or perhaps it's so we don't mistake her for a human. heh. also notice the cyclops eye. yeah, what i am guessing there is that the good dr breazeal et al have not contrived a way to have li'l nexi look out both her eye sockets and formulate a logical combination of the two images. nexi looks at you out of her cyclops eye. what our brains do with two images is kind of amazing and i am quite certain extremely challenging to mimic. i don't think that's something the folks at MIT are focusing on. [focusing... heh.] anyway she's cute enough but from all accounts is currently sort of a glorified furby. eyesight aside, we are a far cry from C-3PO.

victor! victor!! who's on the inside?!

the past couple days i have been wearing the leggings i bought as running tights for regular clothing. you know, regular. like, worn while not running. i realize this puts me in the driver's seat of the delorean headed back in time to 1987, but hell, they are comfy!

i've managed to get about halfway thru the last song by nicholas sparks, and it's pretty good. i mean, durr, mr sparks is a bestselling author so how bad could it be, right? you'd be surprised. i've read plenty of shizzle by bestselling authors. and this one's no pillars of the earth but it's okay. the pacing is a little boggy and the sentiment is poured on with a hammer, but it's got just enough of a touch of the unexpected to keep me hooked in. plus, it was a gift, so i'd like to finish it.

so 24's back on and so woowoo for that. i don't watch lost or simpsons or survivor or idol or dexter or weeds or lots of other shows that are cultural icons. i merrily row my boat down the stream of life missing probably a good 2/3 of the references and innuendo. oh, yeah - i've never read half of shakespeare, nor war & peace, nor pride & prejudice, nor the prime of miss jane brodie, so there goes like another .358827645%. plus, i don't even like bloom county - it's just a stupid confused penguin. give me some get fuzzy any day of the week. and, this concludes "from 24 to the comix page in 100 words or less". thank you for tuning in.

some of the words of the man to whom today is dedicated

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

"pact with the devil" my ass

in case you haven't heard, pat robertson claimed that the earthquake in haiti was a direct result of a pact the haitians made with the devil to win their freedom from the french back in 1791.

pat's words:
You know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti and the people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Ah, you know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' And ah they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by by one thing after the other.

jezz louezz, pat. what the hell is the whatever of "napoleon iii and whatever"? the haitians were cruelly enslaved by the french. is cruel enslavement merely whatever to you?

point dos - pacts with the devil inevitably result in riches & fame on earth, punishment in the afterlife. haiti has experienced poverty and infamy. there's just a disconnect there. answer that, pat.

3) if the devil were on the side of the haitians, then surely god was on the side of the french. the evil, bloodthirsty, empire-building french. god chose them? really?

and this, if the haitians made a pact with the devil in the late 1700s to free themselves from oppression, then what of that other young country stretching its freedom-legs in the late 1700s? did the states of america also make such a lucifer-pact? or are some fights for freedom sponsored by god and some by the devil? eh... i've read the book of job. anything's possible at the supernatural level, i suppose, but these big players do tend towards a bit more consistency than switching sides in the span of a couple dozen years in similar situations geographically so close by.

oh, and pat - what about being compassionate and not judging? let's just say, for the sake of argument, that this earthquake is some sort of direct results of a pact with the devil. wouldn't this be a good time to show that compassion & acceptance christians are so famous for and thereby win countless lost souls back to the side of the light?

true story. heh. what a idot. c'mon pat. what are your sources for this true story? wikipedia?

the TRUTH is that to obtain freedom, the haitians made a pact with the french. a tenet of this pact was that the haitians pay the french 150 million gold francs, the equivalent of $21bill into today's money. in order to pay this debt, which took nearly 100 years, haiti had to borrow money from... france. jezz louezz. who is the "devil" in this scenario?



from a series of articles on the haitian revolution written by bob corbett, a professor retired from webster university and expert on haiti:
The colony of Saint-Domingue, geographically roughly the same land mass that is today Haiti, was the richest colony in the West Indies and probably the richest colony in the history of the world. Driven by slave labor and enabled by fertile soil and ideal climate, Saint-Domingue produced sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, tobacco, cotton, sisal as well as some fruits and vegetables for the motherland, France.

France enforced a system called the "exclusif" on Saint-Domingue. This required that Saint-Domingue sold 100% of her exports to France alone, and purchased 100% of her imports from France alone. The French merchants and crown set the prices for both imports and exports, and the prices were extraordinarily favorable to France and in no way competitive with world markets. It was virtually the same system as that which England had forced on its North American colonies and which finally sparked the independence movement in these colonies.

from the website of haiti action committee, an organization dedicated to the support of haitian democracy, based in san fransisco:
In 1825 France demanded that Haiti pay the French government 150 million gold francs to "compensate" French plantation slave-owners for their "financial losses" and in exchange for France's recognition of Haiti's independence. Years later, the amount was reduced to 90 million gold francs. The Haitian elite who had gained control of the country following independence, caved in to the pressure, seeing this ransom as an inevitable and necessary financial obligation if the country were to be allowed to live in peace and freedom and resume trade with its former colonizers. It took Haiti close to 100 years to pay off this debt and the debt was paid, not out of the money made by the elite through the export of raw goods, but rather on the backs of the Haitian people who continued to work the land.

because you're probably wanting a follow-up report

i went to the thing at the place and it was okay. there were people and all and they did some talking - actually too much talking - and then we went for a run. we did what they call 5-and-1 for the most part and it worked out well for me because my overall time was faster than my average overall time and although i'm a bit tired now i don't feel totally wasted. the thing about the pacing though is that it's difficult to do that alone - to keep up the pace - because of all the mind drifting and lack of focus. i met a few people but it's not like we were exchanging phone numbers or anything. this is not the sort of thing you solve in one morning. it's going to take some time.

speedy replacement plan, phase 1

speedy is gone for good this time. she's not coming back and it's time to move on. time to replace the speedster -- a running buddy, a drinking buddy, a friend. i'd be hard-pressed to replace her with only one person and that's going to be a real problem because i truly don't like people. at. all.

PHASE I - RUNNING BUDDY
speedy made a great running buddy because although she was capable of much greater feats of speed than i, she always ran WITH me. this is really key to a running buddy - the running together part. speedy made a great running buddy because she was always full of stories. she could turn a 5 minute retail transaction into a 30 minute tale of hilarity & woe. we were never at a loss for convo, and this was totally due to her contributions cause i am not that much of a talker. speedy made a great running buddy because she would run where i wanted when i wanted how far i wanted. she didn't care where we went or who else was there, so long as i was there. i could drag her everywhere from 5AM 20 mile training runs to high-noon 5Ks. she just didn't care. speedy made a great running buddy because she agreed the true importance of running as far as possible was to burn as many calories as possible so as to eat whatever we dambed well pleased. speedy made a great running buddy because she didn't like people. at. all. we mercilessly mocked other runners, celebrities, family members, each other. speedy made a great running buddy because she lived close by and her car had heated seats. speedy made a great running buddy because she agreed that going for a run is not a fashion parade and if you end up in a matching outfit, it was probably a colossal mistake. hell, anyone who wears a hat like that hat she wore - that person does not care about fashion! speedy made a great running buddy because she loved me and i loved her.

but speedy lives 800 miles away now and she's not coming back. it's time to get another running buddy. it's not going to be easy but before i can call it hopeless, i have to give it a try so tomorrow morning i am going to some group run thing at a local running store. probably be a bunch of idiots in matching outfits. probably too stupid to carry on a convo. probably all run really fast. probably care more about nutrition than flavour. probably wouldn't know an egg mcmuffin if it bit them on the nose.

::sigh::

it's not going to be easy... and it's only phase 1.

yo - dumbledore! horace has transformed himself into an armchair!

my old man has gone to an event, and i didn't go b/c i am not feeling well. i am not SICK, mind you, just a bit too much running and too little sleeping. not sick. not. my tummy is a bit rumbly & bumbly and i am a bit knackered. but i am not sick! i just want to sit here in my pjs and eat saltines. mmm.... is apple juice good for or bad for a rumblybumbly tummy? i hope good b/c that is what i am drinking.

so my old man went to this event b/c the next-door neighbour is a celebrity from way back in the day though now he's just our ancient neighbour who had toe surgery and needed a ride. i was thinking about going even though i don't really feel good b/c i was thinking maybe i could meet some celebrities. oooo - celebrities! but then i was like, oooo - who cares?

see, the town where i live is kinda jam packed with celebrities. there are a couple professional sports teams with famous athletes & coaches, and there are a couple universities with their contingent of well known athletes & coaches. there is a major entertainment industry comprising mostly music but also film, television, publishing.

point being - i'm simply over it. and from all accounts, the entire rest of the town is over it right along with me. this town is well-known for being a place celebrities say they can relax, just be themselves, go out for dinner, shopping, to the park - they can do whatever and not be pestered for autographs or bothered by the paparazzi. as a population, we're known for being kind enough to leave them alone.

kind? eh, you can think what you want, but the truth is that the kindness is simply a side-effect. the source is that we are not impressed. as a whole, we are a community quite secure in our collective identity. we don't need your glitz to make us whole.

13 january

the past couple weeks i am back to running more than i was over the past few months before that. the ankle's good, hanging in there, so i am putting in the additional miles on the consecutive days and here's the thing i forgot about the mileage buildup - - it freaking wears your arse out. either that or i have a cold.

well, lane kiffin came & went in a hurry. he was u-t's coach for 1 season, and packed his bags and headed back to california. he was an assistant at u-s-c and now their head coach moved on to coach - i believe - the seattle seahawks. so there was an opening at u-s-c and they asked like 3 other people and then asked lane. yeah, so he wasn't their first choice, but as soon as they asked him, off he went. woowoo! go trojans!

we are headed to chick-fil-a. can i bring you something back?

it's queue-pon, not koo-pon.

i am somewhat of a casual coupon clipper. i don't sign up for online coupons or mail away for a lot of rebates or anything, but i'll go thru the sunday newspaper coupons and clip the relevant ones. using what i clipped sunday, i saved like 6 or 8 bucks, and it took about 20 mins to accomplish so that's like $18-24/hr which is the pay rate of like a professional engineer [drawing, not driving]. i used to clip for all sorts of shizzle that looked good but i never bought. i quit that b/c i was tired of giving the freeloading coupons a ride around town. now i only clip for items i am actually thinking of purchasing. and, out of respect for mini-me, i threw away that no-expiry-date cornflakes coupon i had been toting around for like 15 years. [you're welcome.]

i really like terra chips but they're kinda pricey, so i was happy sunday to find a $1 off coupon for those and when i went to use it, the terra chips were in "special 15% bonus" size packages AND they were on sale so it was like a grocery trifecta. woowoo!

i also take my own bags to the grocery, which i have been doing for like 20 years -- way before it was cool. back in the day, i had a pile of wack canvas bags of all shapes and sizes and the baggers thought i was eccentric and amusing -- by which of course i mean dorky. at any rate - by now i've replaced my odd collection with the store-standard bags, which you'd think the baggers would be used to at this point, but which confuse them in a manner which is, well, confusing.

for instance, i'll fold the bags and put them into one of their mates so that the bags are all neatly stowed. when they go to use the bags, the baggers will inevitably dump them all out and use the stowbag first. then, when they get done and there are bags left over, they are so confused about what to do with the bags. if they had used the bags sensibly - by pulling them one-at-a-time from the stowbag - then the leftover bags would be in the stowbag at the end. how can this not be obvious?

also, the cloth bags do nothing to alleviate the baggers' tendency to put the crackers with the OJ with the coffee with the bacon in a way that exhibits no order and makes unpacking the bags a hassle. finally, the cloth bags are mysteriously made much larger than the plastic or paper bags and this encourages overpacking. there is no reason to put all the canned goods into one bag.

thank you for tuning in for grocery chat. happy shopping!

when i got done my chores & sat down to blog, the time was 19:19:19 which is aces + 9s but 9s are upside down 6s so it looks a mite evil boll weevil.

were you ever starting to do the dishes and when you turned on the water you thought maybe you had to pee a little but you were sure it was just a water-reaction so you started to do the dishes and then the more you did the dishes the more you realised guess what you actually DO have to pee, it's not just mental, but now you are halfway finished with the dishes so you are thinking - hey, i can get done the dishes first then i will go pee - so you are washing kind of faster & faster & faster and now you are starting to sort of dance around hoppity-hop in front of the sink and you are splashing water and suds are flying and water and soap and dishes and you're rinsing rinsing rinsing and you fling down the last piece of cheap plastic lunchwear into the drainer and throw down the sponge and you runrunrun to the potty and you just barely almost nearly make it but you peed just a teensy weensy itty bitty wee tiny bit in your pants? um... heh. right. yeah, well me neither and who would be so gross? jezz louezz!


did you hear that jay leno is moving back to 10pm and conan's getting booted back to 11pm and i guess jimmy fallon is moving on down the line from there? only, conan's all like «if that's how you're gonna be, i'm leaving!» to which i say - good riddance! conan is a pandering, unfunny idiot. word on the street is that leno's numbers are good but he's not delivering the audience to the late-night news. how can your numbers be good, but you're not delivering an audience to the news? where are the folks going? i have 2 theories and the first is that the news sux. our local nbc affiliate has sucky news, so extrapolating from my experience to the entire rest of humanity, i conclude everyone else's does, too. and, here's my other theory - people were formerly staying up to watch leno, so they would sit through the news to get there. conan's not worth the wait. ergo - it is not that leno is not leading the folks into the news, it's that conan is not bringing them out the other side.

finally, from the world of sports - mark mcgwire admits to having taken steriods and i don't know why this wasn't obvious to people from the beginning because everyone knows that the correct spelling is "mcguire" and you can see right there in his name that his "u" twice as big as it should be.

The Eagle Has Landed

with assistance from elvis, beavis called yesterday to announce to ol' ace that he had pooped in the toilet. firstly, it is a point of interest that the goals of a 2 year old are and quite rightly should be different than [different from?] the goals of, say, a 12yo. although i am sure there are normal, healthy 12yo's who occassionally poop their pants through no fault of their own, and there are 12yo's of diminished capacity who would be quite pleased to poop in the toilet, what i am trying to say here is that political correctness aside, 12yo's are as a general rule potty trained.

so, beavis called & left a message because of course it was not a good time for me to receive a call. my thought was that elvis had called and upon finding me not available for talking, had encouraged beavis to leave a humorous message. i texted [because who the hell calls anyone?!] elvis later for confirmation of this, and he said that in fact beavis, upon successfully making his deposit, pointed at the phone and mumbled around his reward-lollipop: "ace!" see, according to elvis, it was beavis's own idea to ring up ol' ace and report in on the #2-in-the-loo.

this kid is well on his way to being one of the most hilarious people i know.

these aces brought to you by ace

vandy 95 - florida 87. woowoo!

sometimes i hesitate to use a paper towel because it seems a waste. like say i am peeling a hard-cooked egg in the morning for the breaking of the fast. there will be eggshells. i don't want to just put them on the counter, but to get a nice, clean, unused paper towel just to hold the shells and then to throw it away? this seriously seems a waste. and, i am not talking here about keeping down the levels of trash in the world. that is not the concern that is on my mind in these moments. my concern is that the paper towels cost like 2¢ per each and dos pesos is worth more than eggshells. i want to get the most out of each paper towel. i find myself not wanting to throw away a paper napkin for the same reason. it's not totally used up. i feel like i should be able to use it again but i realise nobody wants to see my paper napkin sitting there waiting to be used again. i need a paper napkin storage recepticle. or i could use cloth napkins like elvis & priscilla do, although i don't believe their usage is for savings of any kind or any other reason than affectation.

books 2010

currently:

complete:
the magykal papers
[angie sage]
the memory of running
[ron mclarty]

that's all right! that's okay! we're gonna work for you one day!! .... .... wait.... what?

where most folks would be happy to yell "dee-FENSE! dee-FENSE!!" i come from the sort of family that finds it amusing to cheer thusly - «impede their progression! impede their progression!» boy howdy. we are witty AND fun to be with. not pretentious at all, at all.

back in the day, i played a bit of two-hand touch football. and by played i mean they let me be all-time center which is basically a lame-ass way of preventing my running & telling on them for not letting me play at all. of course, two-hand touch is precisely that and doesn't involve tackling per se but there will be some instances of getting knocked to the ground. besides the two-hand touch there was plenty of smear the queer in which i would never be the queer b/c i was a mite too easy to smear, so i was generally a smearer, not a smearee. it feels pretty good to jump on the pile when in real life you are one of the weaklings. one place i am not a weakling is on the futbol pitch where i am either a force to be reckoned with or a disaster waiting to happen - neither one a precisely weak - but either one typically landing hard on the ground with shoulder, hip, or knee at least once or so per match. yes, there is usually an opponent involved. i mean, it's not like i spontaneously solo tumble. well, you know, not usually....

the bottom line here is that i know what it feels like to hit the packed earth. i have that context. after i wrecked the corolla [another story for another day] when the dr asked me what i experienced, i remember telling him it wasn't that hard of a hit - it was like being tackled when you're playing football in the backyard.

but i never wore pads, not even play costume pads little boys wear before they are old enough for pop warner. so one thing i don't know what it feels like is to hit the ground with pads on - or to hit someone else like that, hard, on purpose, with the armour on. watching bamalama vs tejas the other night and of course you see it all the time in football - durr - but for some reason just then it really hit me [see what i did there?] how these boys are all shelled-up like beetles. when they hit, sometimes they roll a couple times or something. wonder what that would be like, to fly through the air and then hit the ground and roll a couple times inside your own personal beetle-shell?

i have worn a helmet, for the harley riding, so i know those freakers are heavy and they do make you feel invincible in what is probably a very dangerous way. i'm sure it's the same in football - all shelled up like a beetle and knocking into and off of and around and through the other players in their personal beetle shells. you know they hit harder all suited up like that. i heard somewhere that there are more head injuries in american football than in australian rules football which is played unpadded & unhelmeted.

there's something ironic about being more likely to get hurt when you're better protected. i could brilliantly tie this into the hard-shell suitcase metaphor from yesterday, but then, what fun is it if i give away all the answers, eh?

if we were all the same, would we even realize what sameness is?

back in the day, when my old man was a little man, they didn't so much have the soft-sided luggage. everyone had hard-sided samsonite suitcases except maybe if you were in the service you had a duffle bag. my old man's first suitcase was a small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches which were fitted with those funny little suitcase locks that are all actually keyed the same. back in the day they also didn't have sharpies - they had huge, smelly, black magic markers. so, my old man took a huge, smelly, black magic marker and wrote his name - "little man" - in big kiddie letters on the side of the suitcase. because, you know, it was his. because he was so young, he didn't have much to put in it, so most of the things he put in his first suitcase were things that belonged to his parents. he was very proud of the suitcase and carried it around, although he kept it locked most of the time so that the stuff wouldn't fall out. it can really be a mess when your stuff falls out, you know.

time passed and the little man became a young man and then simply a man, and now he's my old man. along the way he's collected other pieces of luggage and put other things in them. he travels fairly light, but you know how it is, things get kind of stacked up on top of each other and in a sort of ironic way the new soft-sided carry-on is dependent on the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches. my old man is not as proud of his first suitcase as he was when he was a kid. the magic-marker scrawled "little man" looks kind of dumb now, and the suitcase is scratched and scuffed, and the latches are jammed pretty much shut. so, he doesn't like to carry it around and share it, but like i said, it's propping up some of the newer pieces, so it's not like he can just throw it away.

sometimes something will happen - usually something i do - and my old man will take a startled step back with a sort of "oh!" and he'll knock into the luggage cart where the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches is tucked under the young man's duffle and the man's suit bag and the old man's carry-on, beside the footlocker that holds the most-used common gear. and, when he takes this "oh!" startled step back and knocks into the luggage cart, sometimes the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches will shoot out and scoot across the floor.

usually, he can pick it up and shove it back under the pile but worst case scenario - the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches flies out and hits the wall and pops open and his stuff spills out. at this point, this is some really old stuff and it's kind of smelly and moldy. it's just not pretty. and of course the little suitcase itself is no prize, so there's my old man with a mess of his ugly old stuff - most of which belonged to his parents, because when he got it he was too little to have stuff of his own - scattered around his silly childish suitcase. this is embarrassing for him. in order to alleviate his embarrasment he must divert attention away from this mess while he cleans it up. the best diversion is fireworks. so, he will set off some fireworks over THERE while he cleans up over HERE. really the kindest thing you can do is pay attention to the fireworks and be ready with the water bucket in case they get out of hand. he doesn't need help cleaning up - he knows where everything goes and there's really not that much of it anyway and he can handle it.

the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches is one of the most important pieces of luggage my old man has because in it he carries things that are the basis of his self. the things really mean a lot to him because most of them belonged to his parents or were given to him by his parents. sometimes your parents give you some really wack shit, but you have to keep it because, you know, it's part of you. so even though his stuff is now old, outdated, ugly, moldy, and smelly, he cannot get rid of it because without the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches to hold up its part of the pile, the rest of the luggage on the cart would collapse.

sometimes it happens unintended - we back each other into our respective carts! "oh!" -- but we're all better off when we don't purposefully push each other into the baggage.

post #1300

today's adventure in dentaldom included a visit to a dentist and an endodontist. this particular dentist will probably now be "my dentist" although the phrase "my dentist" is a bit imprecise, don't you agree? i mean, it's not like i am carrying him around in my pocket or that he is at my beck & call. it would be more accurate to say - he is the dentist that i see for my dental care needs.

back in the day, we didn't receive much dental care no matter what our needs might have been. it speaks to the natural resiliency of the human body that i have any of my original dental units. on the other hand, elvis has a mouth full of falsies, so mayhaps i am simply lucky.

at any rate, today i saw the third dentist in 5 months.

dentist #1 had been the dentist that i saw for my dental care needs for maybe like 25 years and i liked him. he always made a big deal about my fabulous strong teeth and he didn't make me have novocaine when he filled my cavaties. however, over the past several visits, something has changed. he's all scrunched up and humourless and installed a bunch of closed circuit teevees around the office that run an endless loop of ads for tooth accoutrements - whitening, caps, implants, et cetera. i conclude his accountant embezzled his retirement savings so he's been reduced to peddling tooth enhancements like a tinker with cart. he also charged too much for a crown and would not consider a price reduction, even for a long-time patient such as myself.

dentist #2 offered a reasonably priced crown but after he had already shot my mouth full of novocaine, he announced that i could choose between a crappy crown at price i had been quoted or Good Crown at $100 additional. not only could i not make an educated selection between the two choices, i had to make this uneducated decision immediately. how could i possibly NOT choose the Good Crown? it was obvious i was not the first patient he had backed into this particular corner. i will not bore you with further the details -- i'll just cut to the chase and say he's a bit of a prat.

dentist #3 has so far been gentle, honest, and caring. he actually listened to my rambling Monologue des Dents, but couldn't help and suggested i see the endodontist.

endodontist is from the greek "endo" meaning inside and "odon" meaning tooth. in case you didn't know, there's like a whole world going on inside each tooth. the endodontist kind of specializes in snuffing out the lives of the poor weetle teefees by performing root canals which consist of replacing the living tissue inside the tooth with quick-crete.

endodontists apparently make a great deal of money performing tooth executions. as evidence of this i offer their finely appointed restroom. the pic doesn't reveal the size, but i stepped it off and it's approximately 135sqft. this is in comparison to the bathroom attached to the master suite in my house, which measures approx 72sqft, including the shower.

the good news is that my tooth was given a stay of execution. the bad news is this extension of grace has not lessened it's ceaseless objection to living. despite its pain, it's really quite a healthy tooth. it simply has an unfounded death wish. there's a moral in there somewhere. make like an endodontist and dig it out.

live blogging from the dentist chair

well yeah - the dentist isn't in here yet. like i am going to blog from the supine position. heh. scuse me dr dental while i transmit my thoughts to the slobbering masses. right.

chickened out this morn on running. it was like <10° and so i rode the stat bike which of course i now regret bc i like being that eejit who goes out into blustery cold at the crack of dawn to play in traffic. too bad tho cause you cannot go back but maybe i'll do better next chance i get.

it's 9:45 and my appt was at 9:30 and omg i can hear the freakin drill in another room! ack! ack!

you'll be surprised to hear that project at work is still dragging on. just kidding. i mean - just kidding on the "surprised" part bc it's par for the course, of course. not just kidding on the dragging part. that's for reals, yo.

where's the dentist?! i want to get this over with....

today is 1-5-10 which sounds like the answer to a standardized test "which comes next in the series" question.

my discreet poll revealed that the only one who wanted to go was bossman so of course we all piled into cars & did that panera thing. a mere 30 minutes after trooping through the line, a representative of the group who was seated with bossman came to our necessarily separated group - panera is a crowded place with small tables - and told us that bossman said it was time to get back to work. ppfahahaha! what a... um... bossman. geesh.

i have figured out how to get the desired files off the old pc onto the new pc, so don't you worry your pretty little head over that. all i need is a length of small-guage rubber hose, a funnel, some duct tape, and a plastic bucket.

i saw today that apple computer purchased quattro wireless and i thought that quattro was a wireless company, which i cannot imagine where i got THAT. at any rate, i was all like oh-no b/c i thought that apple was moving the iphone away from at&t, but upon closer examination, i have learned that quattro is an advertising company so i am psyched b/c advertisers support apps so maybe we'll be getting more apps.

10 yrs ago 32 million americans watched network evening news. now, it's 24 mill. i am surprised it is still that many. i would have said like 18mill.

today i learned that some of our troops in afghanistan are farmer-soldiers. they are national guardsmen who are training the afghans to grow crops to feed their families + to sell. apparently the afghans were not doing simple things like pruning the apple trees to encourage more & bigger apples to grow. i really admire these farmer-soldiers because firstly, they are doing that "teach a man to fish" thing which i think that is really great, but also i would think it would be very difficult to teach a knitted blanket to grow anything at all.

still working on moving the files from the old pc to the new pc and getting a bit peeved b/c you'd think that microsoft would make the different versions of windows work together, but no-o-o-o-o. i will have to make the entire other computer the administrator or something. i have to try a few things and see what works. and, really, i don't want to try a few things. i really would like it to just work. i need like a computer-tech-soldier to come teach my knitted blanket self how to make these computers talk to each other.

tomorrow i & the 6 other people in my department are going to have a happy holiday lunch at panera. firstly, i like panera so fine, whatever, but point #2 - i do not particularly wish to spend over an hour socialeating with these people. what i wish to be doing with that time is running. why don't we all go socialexercising? oh, right, some people cannot keep up - some people cannot run as far as i can. well, guess what, i cannot keep up with the sheer amount of food that some people throw down their gullets, but do i complain? hell no! because i am a trooper. even if i can't keep up, that doesn't stop me from participating. that is just the sort of solid, reliable team player i am -- i want everyone to be happy & have a good time. what i am saying is that i would not throw a wet blanket on it.

[see what i did there? do ya? do ya?]

hip dominica honica sonica.... remember when the only place you could get coors was colorado?

around these parts, the high temps this week are not predicted to be above 30º. if you're not an outdoorsy type, you might be surprised to learn that 30º doesn't really feel that cold - when the wind isn't blowing and the sun's shining and you're self-propelling at a reasonably aggressive clip and you're dressed appropriately. for this reason, i am happy to have purchased tights. some runners would go on the theory that your legs are what is moving, so they will naturally be warm, and it's your core that needs to be bundled. there is also a school of thought that if you are a hoss you will wear shorts all winter. i contend that it's more important to keep the legs warm because keeping warm the muscles that are in use goes a long way to preventing injury. i further contend that i will show you who's a hoss when i emerge from the winter uninjured and kick your arse at that springtime 5k. bwah!

it says a lot about our society that we have long, intense, well-funded, well-staffed television programs solely devoted to analyzing the spectator sport of professional football. it says something further that the majority of these shows are totally & completely wack. watch terry & howie on fox, or don't watch at all.

speaking of football, i was fixing to perform some additional analysis on the football spreadsheet i've got going, but it's not on this computer. i made the entire c:\ of the old computer shareable, but apparently this shareability doesn't trickle down to the subfolders so i started going through and making each folder shareable one by freaking one, but this was tedious and made me feel kind of stupid. i could set up a home workgroup, but the new kid is win7 and the other 2 are XP, so making them all talk nicely - while i am sure it's possible - is not immediately obvious and it's precisely this type of puzzle that drove me screaming out of technical support 15 years ago. just because i am smart - no, make that brilliant -- just because i am brilliant plus i have been using computers since that trs-80 with the cassette tape brain -- just because i have the intelligence and the experience to figure these things out doesn't mean i enjoy figuring it out. i enjoy when folks play together as they should, but i don't enjoy talking them into it, and these machines are particularly immune to being sent to bed without supper.

the memory of running

about 3/4 of the way through and enjoying this book. it's a sort of coming of age story of a middle aged man. he's been coasting in a holding pattern for many years and suddenly several events converge to push him onto a new path where he meets an eclectic bunch of quirky characters and learns something about himself or about life at every turn. the situations are characterized by the sort of missed connections and social faux pas that are common in john irving's work, but are overall more uplifting and encouraging. john irving asks us to laugh at things that are sad and he doesn't temper with love. there's a meanness to john irving's work, a bitterness. there is enough bitterness in everyday life to suit me. plus - it's easy to stop at bitterness. the more difficult task is to redeem the bitterness with love. ron mclarty shows us that there is sometimes humor in an odd place, and that although life is not always neat & tidy and although sometimes it can be a bit of work -- everyone can be connected and everyone can have love.

the new computer

finally opened the box and pulled out the new computer. you'd think we'd be like totally freaking excited to open it, but because the old computer still works and the new computer is basically the same thing, well it's simply not that exciting. now, of course, the new computer is totally newer - durr - but otherwise it's the same. if you see what i am saying there.

might use the old one as an itunes jukebox or as a hulu/vudu/whatever video server for the teevee. of course, the teevee is so old it doesn't have any of the appropriate hook ups for a computer. might clean off the old one and format the c:\ and see about trading it in on a netbook. thoughts?

we didn't really need a new computer so i guess it's sort of strange we got one, but we got a combo deal and it just seems like the old computer will not last forever, so we got a backup before the old one went out altogether. it is cool that there are enough computers to go around - everyone in the house can have one.

happy new year!

today i ran 7 miles and now i need a nap.

that's about it from here. you?