no more bedhead

I am the best husband in the world. Here's what Ellen got for Christmas:

March, 1993. The weekend after St. Patrick's Day – must have been the 19^th or 20^th. I am sitting in the Dubliner. The Dubliner is a pub in Washington DC, just off of Capitol Hill. As you might imagine, it's an Irish Pub. I had been going there for several years, ever since my girlfriend Ellen (no, the other one) had introduced me to its charms. We would go there fairly often, and just about every night when John McGrath was performing. John would come over once or twice a year, and perform at the Dubliner for about three weeks. Accompanying himself on the guitar or the bodhran (purportedly made from the skin of an Englishman), he would sing traditional Irish tunes, Irish rebel songs, and traditional/modern folk songs . The stage was in the bar area, which wasn't very large to begin with, so you had to get there early to get a seat. John was great, he would take requests, and seemed to know just about everyone in the crowd. (He probably did, because I would see people there I never saw any other time of year.) I would always request the Leonard Cohen song “So Long, Marianne”.

The Dubliner is where I first learned to drink Guinness. I would watch the bartender slow-pour this black liquid into a pint glass, then wait while it sat and “fell out”. Only then was it ready for the trip to my table. I was impressed with the solid dark bottom, and the foamy head that presented itself unlike any beer I had ever had. I probably blanched and shuddered at my first ever sip, but pretty soon I came to crave its charms as if it were mother's milk. It is still my beer of choice.

After Ellen and I broke up, I continued to visit the Dubliner. I would meet Pete, from work, his girlfriend Lisa and her friend Alisa, and we would have a great time. The four of us closed the bar on more than one occasion. These nights would often end with us down in the monumental core, visiting the sites. At 2 in the morning. With at least two of us drunk. Yeah, we got kicked out of the Lincoln Memorial.

The funny thing about Irish Pubs is that they are NOT where you want to be on St. Patrick's Day. People come out of the woodwork who would otherwise not set foot in the Dubliner any other day of the year. The Dubliner would clear out all the tables to make room for the influx of people who just wanted to drink, get drunk, and get boisterous. And then spill their beer on me. Let's just say that it is not the sort of place I want to be on St. Patrick's Day. I miss the ambiance.

The weekend after St. Patrick's Day is another story. All the regulars are back, the atmosphere has returned to normal. The wait staff is a little shell-shocked, but that just means that they are in a pretty relaxed mood. Kind of like when a batter swings two bats in the on-deck circle. When he steps up to the plate, the one bat feels even lighter, and easier to swing. It's like that.

Pete and I were sitting in the restaurant portion of the pub on the weekend after St. Patrick's Day, 1993. If you enter the main entrance (on F Street), you go directly into the bar/stage area. Take a left, pass the bar, and step up into the main dining room. We were sitting at a table against the wall on your left. We had a delicious (as always) meal, and our beers were served in special pint glasses. There was a picture of a guy drinking beer from a keg, surrounded by large casks, and around the picture it said “The Dubliner – St. Patrick's Day 1993”. As I had lots of great memories of my times at the Dubliner, I thought it would be cool if I could keep the glass. We waited for the waitress to come back so I could ask her, but I had to use the men's room. When I was “otherwise occupied”, she came and cleared the table and by the time I got back the glass was gone. Pete told me that she had just taken everything away, and he didn't have a chance to ask her about the glass. Of course, he said it with a twinkle in his eye, so I should have suspected something. (Except that Pete said everything with a twinkle in his eye!) A couple minutes later, the waitress showed up with my glass in a brown paper bag, and told me that she had just taken it to be washed before I took it home.

That glass went back to my apartment in Arlington, and survived three moves. I still used it as my primary pint glass, and it has seen it's share of beverages, but there was nothing like drinking a Guinness out of this glass that never failed to spark my memory of good times almost 16 years ago. In fact, just last night that glass faithfully served me a pint of Leinenkugel's Fireside Nut Brown, to end my day. And, in a odd coincidence, I just reconnected yesterday with Pete (via Facebook), after losing touch with him for the last 13 years!

This morning, I am eating breakfast when I hear a “CRASH”. Beenie high-tails it past me through the dining room and I go to the kitchen to investigate. There, in pieces, on the floor, is my Dubliner pint glass.

This is something that I have often thought about. I've considered the fact that the glass will break at some point in my life. I've reached back into the Buddhist in me to remember the philosophy of impermanence. It was actually because of that that I continued to use the glass. I've dropped it in the sink, I've crashed it into other glasses, but nothing seemed to damage it. I suppose that if it could survive in a bar, it could survive in my house. I've got countless other pint glasses that we have collected over the years to choose from. And yet, I feel sad that the glass is gone. It symbolized to me a connection to that particular time in my life. A connection to the memory of friends from long ago, in a city where I spent some significant, formative years.

I'll get over the loss of the glass. I'll keep my perspective on what's important in life. There will be other glassware. It's time to move on.

It's been one year with the dog.

Still don't want a dog.

But it could be worse. (There -don't say I'm not warming up to the idea.)

Please.

The Advent Conspiracy

I didn't see it live, but I wish I had. The ultimate Rickroll!!



For more information about Rickrolling, click here.

Ellen's been complaining that I haven't posted anything lately. So, here you go honey. Enjoy!



(My favorite line: "Even Dick Cheney doesn't want to see his grannie's titties in the breeze!")

Wil Wheaton had a great post yesterday about how he (and I, and I'm sure a lot of progressives) feel about the fallout from the election.

Read it here.

This was in my inbox this morning:

Bill --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing... All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

Now, I originally wasn't going to post it because I know it's just a form email that was sent out to everyone who is registered with the Obama campaign, but one line struck me:

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

The idea that there is this group of committed volunteers, and the President-elect isn't going to let them all slink back into the background. The only way to change this country is to get all of us working together.

I was impressed during the whole campaign at the use of technology to bring people together for a common purpose, and I'm glad to see that it doesn't end here. I will be interested to see if it becomes a reality or if it's just political lip service. I suspect the former.

MSNBC just called the election for Obama!

I am struck most by the comments that things will never be the way they were because the baton has been passed to the "Obama Generation" - my generation. It is no longer politics as usual.

Yes. We. Can.

OHIO GOES FOR OBAMA!!!

At least MSNBC has called it. I think Ohio, combined with a win in Pennsylvania, should pretty much seal it up. Although, you never know. As my sister said, "When I went to bed, Al Gore was my President. When I woke up, it was George Bush."

But the good news either way is that the robocalls will stop! We've averaged 4 per day over the last week (including today) - all from John McCain. His calls have all seemed to try to scare me into not voting for Obama, using a variety of scare tactics and hyperbole.

I did receive two calls from Obama, but he was very calm and polite, and told me why I would want to vote for him.

I dropped Munchkin off at school and walked across the street to my polling place. I was expecting a huge line, but it wasn't bad. Longer than usual, but I was in and out in a half an hour.


Please don't forget to vote.
For Obama.

I hate making telephone calls. The thought of picking up the phone and speaking to someone, especially someone I don't know terrifies me.* (It makes ordering a pizza a true ordeal.) So, when I tell you that I called 40 strangers today to encourage them to vote for Barack Obama, you need to understand that, while it may not be a lot in the grand scheme of things, it was a really big deal for me.

I went to barackobama.com, signed up, and a list of 40 people from the Cincinnati area appeared on my computer. I fired up Skype and started dialing. The first person I spoke with - my first political call ever - was an 89 year old lady who hung up on me. I figured that it must be better than that, and kept going.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) I only ended up speaking to about 5 people, and left messages for everyone else. As I said, it wasn't much, but I feel really good about doing something over and above voting. If Obama loses tomorrow I wouldn't have believed it was my fault, but I would have been upset that there was something I could have done and didn't.

I'm glad I did it.




*Just for the record - work phone calls don't count. I can call parishes all over the place without hesitation and talk with rectors and lay people alike. I guess that when it's part of my job it's different.

A little late, but as yesterday was Halloween, here are a couple of pictures from the neighborhood.

Some people had scary pumpkins on the porch:


Some had scary spiders on the roof:

But, this house had the scariest decoration of all:


All pictures taken with the new camera, by the way.

David Tennant has announced that he will no longer play Dr. Who starting with, what I am assuming is, the next full season of episodes (scheduled to run in 2010). This makes me very sad, as I have fully enjoyed his portrayal of The Doctor.

I did have the same reaction when it was announced that Christopher Eccleston would be leaving the part, so I hope that they (the BBC) can find someone just as good as these two to take over the role.

Oh, since they say "You never forget your first Doctor", I must confess that mine is Tom Baker. And, yes, I had a scarf that dragged the floor when I was a kid.

And I should leave you with this, an 8-minute mini-episode of Doctor Who produced for the charity Children in Need. In this episode, the 10th Doctor meets the 5th Doctor. Enjoy!

Doing the laundry. Checking pants pockets (already learned that lesson the hard way). What do I find in 6 year old Stewie's pants?

Duck sauce.

How pathetic is this?

Don't Vote:



From Craig Ferguson: If you don't vote, you're a moron.

In Season 3 of Project Runway, the judges couldn't decide who would be eliminated from the final challenge, so they sent all 4 designers to Fashion Week. A cheap ploy maybe, but I did like what all four of the designers were doing, and it seemed like a pretty fair solution.

In Season 4 of Project Runway, the judges couldn't decide who would be eliminated from the final challenge, so they had all the designers create a full line, then had a runoff between the two lower scoring designers to decide who would go to Bryant Park. I had a few choice words about that. In a nutshell, I didn't think Rami's collection was as strong as Chris' (or Jillian's or Christian's), and that he should have been eliminated weeks earlier.

So, Season 5 final challenge is on last night. I figure this should be easy because I've never seen a bigger bunch of "all-over the place" designers. I'm not seeing consistency (except with Jerell, and we'll address that in a minute), I'm not seeing risk-taking, I'm not seeing quality. In fact, Tim and Heidi keep stressing that this is the most talented group of designers they've seen. Hmm...saying it ain't gonna make it so.

The final comes down to Jerell, Leanne, Korto, and Kenley. Kenley??!! Please. She needs to get over herself and realize that Tim is on her side. Totally ignoring his advice keeps landing her in the bottom of the group. Well, they did their runway show and Jerell and Leanne have the top scores. Naturally, one would think that either Korto or Kenley would be out. But in another cop-out, the judges "can't decide" (hint: get rid of Kenley. It's a no-brainer.), so they decide once again that no one is eliminated.

Okay, I figure we're in for a "design-off" between Kenley and Korto. At least there is precedent for it. But no, we're now going to have a four way runoff. Which means that Jerell - who won the challenge and has been pretty consistent is his designs throughout the competition - is now competing again for a spot at Bryant Park. So totally not fair.

Do I care who wins? No. Not with this group. Although I predict that it will be Jerell.

The real winner in all this? The PR producers. They've messed with it enough that I'm talking about it. And isn't that the real goal?

I love Nikon. I've had a Nikon SLR in one version or another for the last 24 years. I think the optical quality is amazing, and I've made some really nice photographs with Nikon. My only complaint with Nikon had been the cost. Outside of a Hasselblad (which would make a great Christmas or birthday gift, hint, hint) they are the most expensive gear I have envied.

Man claims penis amputated without consent

This is my computer on crack...


So, I'm sitting on the porch Tuesday. The window is open. I hear a dull thud from inside the house. I go in and find my computer lying open and flat on the floor. The dog is running circles around the table. I look at the computer and it appears that the screen is shattered. F-ing dog.

Note that I say this now calmly. I was not calm at the time.

I was, in fact, a half hour from leaving the house to deliver web conferencing equipment to a church. A church that that particular evening, did not have access to a computer. I had volunteered to bring mine, so we could get everything set up.

Great.

I did quickly discover that I could plug in an external monitor and the hard drive appeared to be working just fine. That helped for the delivery. One of the things I was delivering was a projector. I could plug that in and see what was happening on the computer.

I called Dell the next morning, and was told that it would cost $350 to fix. While that was about half the price of the computer when I bought it, it didn't seem unreasonable. I had done some research and learned that replacement lcd screens were in the $150-250 range. The Dell deal started to fall apart when "Rock" (I don't know where these technicians in Delhi come up with their "American" names- and yes, he spelled it to me R-o-c-k) said that it would take 8 business days from the time they received it before they would ship it back.

I balked. Rock said that he could "expedite" it (but never 'splained what that meant), and that he talked to his manager, and they could knock $50 off the price. (What is this, Priceline?) And, oh, by the way, have you noticed a problem with your battery? The batteries are only designed to be good for a year, and it could fry your motherboard.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Next day, went down to the local computer store. They had the lcd panel that I needed sitting on a shelf. An hour later, and $270 on my credit card, I was back in business. Sweet. (And they've never heard of a battery frying a motherboard.)

The moral here: don't get a dog.

Eric works on The Lion King. Currently his tour is in Columbus.

Getting a call from Eric is not unusual, as we always try to get together whenever the show is within a couple of hours of where we are. We've met up in Cleveland, Toledo, and Boston. We had, in fact, been trying to set up a good time to meet for the Columbus show.

So, when Eric said, "What are you doing tomorrow?", it didn't phase me. Except that he has two shows on Sunday, then Monday off, but I figured maybe he had time off on Sunday. He then said, "How would you like to bring the family down to see the show?"

What!?!?

Yep, Eric had 6 extra tickets, so we went to Columbus yesterday, and saw The Lion King.

It was great! Ellen and Munchkin sat right up front (Row J) center, and the rest of us sat in the rear orchestra, on the aisle. It was a blast, especially watching the reaction of the kids. Keke wasn't too happy when the hyenas came down the aisle, but Stewie loved watching the singers at the beginning of Act Two.

After the show, Eric took us all on a tour backstage. I was a little nervous about taking the kids backstage after their first theatre experience. I wanted the magic to stay there for a while. Still, Beenie was fascinated to find out/figure out how things worked. Munchkin loved the puppets and didn't seem at all phased to see them just sitting there. Because it's a Disney production, we weren't allowed to take pictures backstage, but I managed to sneak a quick one of the kids on the stage.Even from a grown up perspective, it's really fascinating to see how the show is put together - how the puppets work, and the complexity of the costumes.

We finally got to meet Todd. Every time Eric and I try to get together, something happens and I miss Todd. (And they've been together for 6 years, so it's been almost a comedy of errors!) He was working concessions, and made sure that the kids all got a stuffed buddy of their choice.

Hopefully they will be coming up to our place on one of their (few) days off, and we'll burn some meat over an open fire and drink some malt beverages. Hakuna Matata!

The best episode of Project Runway aired last night. The challenge was to design an outfit for a drag queen. It marked the return of my favorite designer from season 4 - Chris March. Although he only got to introduce the challenge then visited the designers to offer advice, he didn't actually get to design. But he did appear in a wonderful, over-the-top viking/opera singer outfit, complete with 4 foot horns and discoball boobs.

The kids stayed up to watch, which produced fewer questions than you might think. Although after all the last model was introduced Keke looked at me and said "She sounds like a boy". Yeah, well.....

A guy walking down the street carrying a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew and a turtle.

In Hyannis, Massachusetts

Is it just a coincidence that former Republican Senator Jesse Helms and Bozo the Clown both died on the same day? Were they in fact....the same person? Arguably.

RIP, Bozo.


Disclaimer: okay, they didn't actually die on the same day. Bozo died 7/3 and bozo died 7/4.

I, like you, get a large amount of spam emails. I don't open them, but I do glance at the subject lines. Some are obnoxious, some are offensive, some are unintelligible. There is another category, though - the ones that make me laugh. Some are word usage/choice, some are kind of naughty, but they all make me crack a smile.

Here are a collection of spam emails currently in my "junk" box. (Subject line only, unless otherwise noted.)

• Super beverage for increasing man birth organ!
• Our fake watches are truly amazing
• Update your penis (what - to version 2.0?)
• No more complains! Only big duck.
• Heavy armor for your organism
• Shizzle my nizzle now
• utter and complete domination now possible (mwah, hah, hah, hah!)
• 4th of July savings on BIG, beautiful cherries! (Is this spam, or legit? It's actually from Harry & David - the fruit by mail people)
• Sperms of endearment

As spam seems destined to continue into eternity, I anticipate this being the beginning of a series, so stay tuned.

Oddly, an error message popped up when I started up my laptop today:


It was shortly followed by this one:


-1 to Microsoft.

Fun error message generator here.

You know what I have to say about the death of George Carlin?

s**t, p**s, f**k, c**t, c********r, m**********r, and t**s, man.

Absofuckinlutely gobsmacked.

Submitted by Limahl from Kajagoogoo.
As in: [when I was kicked out of the band] I was absofuckinlutely gobsmacked!

Taxes are due when?

Crap.

So I'm sitting here listening to Radio Paradise. A song comes on that sounds pretty good, like I'd like to hear more from this group. Turns out it's Porcupine Tree, and the song is Mellotron Scratch. I'd heard another song of theirs a couple of days ago (Heartattack in a Layby) and I had the same reaction to that one. I did a little searching and listened to some samples of their music and kind of liked it, but I'm not convinced enough yet to buy an entire cd. I was thinking that they sound an awful lot like Yes, and perhaps I should dig some Yes out to compare. In the meantime, the next song comes on, and it's Heart of the Sunrise, by Yes! Having now the opportunity to hear them back to back, I just might take a chance on a Porcupine Tree album.

So, listening to Yes, which I haven't done in probably years, reminds me of a story.

[Flashback music and wavy lines play here.]

It was 1991, and Yes is on tour in support of their Union album (not their best by a long shot, but still they were on tour). I got hooked up with tickets from Ed at BMG, and we head out to the Patriot Center with my friend Larry, and one of his other friends, to see the show. Great show! After it's over, we go backstage. My goal is to meet Jon Anderson, whose singing I have really enjoyed for years, both with Yes, solo, and with other artists.

Turns out Jon Anderson is painfully shy. The most I see of him is when he pokes his head in the door of the hospitality suite, then he backs out quickly. I spend the evening talking with Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire, Alan White, and Rick Wakeman. (Yeah, I know. Sucks to be me.) Rick Wakeman is totally cool. We ended up talking for quite a while, and he was asking me questions about what I did, music, and retailing. When he found out I worked for Tower Records, he backed up and bowed at me in that "I am not worthy" way. Pretty funny.

Larry and his friend are not big on schmoozing, so they had made themselves scarce. When it was time to head out and we hooked up again, I asked them where they had been. What had they been doing for the last 45 minutes?

Sitting on the loading dock talking with Jon Anderson.

That's my Yes story.

In the course of doing some website work for a parish, I have talked on the phone with Kate a couple of times. When I was at her parish doing some training I noticed that she had a WMVY sticker on her computer. WMVY is probably my favorite radio station. So now every time we talk we compare good radio stations that we can listen to online. I have suggested to her WAPS, and she has suggested to me KLCC.

On Monday she told me about Radio Paradise. She described it as a station where you can make your own playlist. It's not. (Perhaps she was thinking of Paradise Radio, which seems to be mostly dance music, or Pandora, where you can create your own "station".) I tuned in to Radio Paradise, and I must say it's fantastic!! It's a streaming-only station, and they play a very eclectic mix of music. The best part is that about 50% of it is from artists I've never heard of before. And another 25% is from artists I haven't heard in a long time, or deeper cuts from artists I have heard of.

To give you an idea, here is their playlist for an hour this morning:

9:35 am - Cake - Mahna Mahna
9:32 am - Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hell
9:31 am - Erin McKeown - The Taste of You
9:27 am - Beatles - Two Of Us
9:25 am - The Cure - 2 Late
9:19 am - U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name
9:13 am - Eluvium - Prelude For Time Feelers
9:09 am - Thirteen Senses - Do No Wrong
9:06 am - Guided By Voices - Learning to Hunt
9:03 am - The Wailin' Jennys - Take it Down
8:58 am - A Perfect Circle - The Noose
8:52 am - Blue Man Group - Mandelgroove
8:48 am - Dave Matthews Band - Minarets
8:43 am - Los Lobos - The Town
8:39 am - David Sylvian and Robert Fripp - God's Monkey

So if you have some time, tune in this station. Well worth it!!

Whenever April 4 rolls around, I think about the story I heard several years back on the radio show "This American Life". Originally aired on 6-22-01, I think I heard it on a re-broadcast a few months later. Still it never fails to bring a tear to my eye. Here it is, in short:

A dad and his 4 year old daughter are talking about Christmas, and what it means, how it is a celebration of Jesus' birth. They get a children's Bible, talk about Jesus' life and teachings, and she keeps asking "what was that phrase?" Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

A little while later, they were driving past a church with a big crucifix outside. Daughter asks "Who is that?" Oh, yeah, the rest of the story. After explaining that it was Jesus, daughter asks what happened. Dad says, "He ran afoul of the Roman government. Jesus' message was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorities of the time that they had to kill him. They came to the conclusion that he would have to die. His message was too troublesome."

About a month later, daughter was off school and dad took the day to hang out with her. They see a drawing of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the newspaper and she asks "who is that?"

Dad: It's Martin Luther King, Jr., the reason you are not in school today. Today was his birthday, we are celebrating his life.

Daughter: Who was he?

Dad: He was a preacher.

Daughter: For Jesus!?

Dad: Yeah, he was, but there was another thing he was famous for. He had a message.

Daughter: What was his message?

Dad: He said you should treat everybody the same no matter what they look like.

Daughter: Well that's what Jesus said

Dad: Yeah, I guess so.

Daughter: Did they kill him too?

I came across this great site last night. It is part of the Washington Post, and it allows you to track your (and everyone else's) congressperson and senator. You can learn information like how many votes did that person miss, how often did they vote with their party, and how did they vote on key issues (and every issue as a matter of fact). The more you drill down, the more information is there, including biographies and district demographic data. Fascinating!

Congress Votes Datatbase

ESPN has been showing soccer recently (within the last couple of years - or at least that's when I found it). But not just soccer, football. Real football. They've been showing the UEFA Champions League playoffs and championship. And, Fox Sports has been showing English Premiere League football.

The games are usually shown on Tuesday afternoons, so it's nice to sit down for a while and watch a good match. Today, they were broadcasting the Manchester United v. Roma UEFA match. I was hoping that they would be showing that game.

I am a ManU fan, as much as I can be from the States, where I rarely see them play, and am still trying to figure out the complex league system. I don't know anything about any of the teams, but I like ManU, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal. I kind of suspect that liking ManU is like someone from outside the US having an interest in baseball and deciding to be a Yankees fan. The Yankees are probably the biggest marketed team and therefore have the biggest headlines, and have had (I will grudgingly admit) good teams over the years, and have won the World Series enough so that "everyone" knows their name.

It's probably the same situation with ManU. Still, I'll stick with them until I know better.

Ellen says she will continue to root for the Aberdeen Dons.

Oh, yeah, Manchester United won the match 2-0.

It was a great week this past week. It was Spring Break. Now, normally, I wouldn't be very happy because that means that everyone is home with me. This year, however, was different.

The move of Stewie from one room to the other was pretty good, except we had a lot of prep work (okay, cleaning) to do in Beenie's room. But he worked really hard, and was really excited to have his brother move in. It took a couple of days, but everything got sorted out and we moved Beenie's bed to make room for Stewie. We have decided to build lofts for each of the boys, and we plan to start with Stewie. Unfortunately, I didn't get out to buy the lumber during the week, so it's on hold for a little bit longer. We did manage to buy Stewie a new mattress in preparation for the loft move, so at least he has a nice, comfortable place to sleep (I daresay the most comfortable mattress in the house). Even if it is on the floor right now.

With the icky boys out of their room, the girls were excited to do some reorganizing of their sleeping arrangements. We took down Muchkin's crib, and moved her into the bottom bunk. She has a new sheet set of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so she now calls it "my capiller bed".

Of course, this meant that Keke got moved to the top bunk, a move that she has been begging for for a long time. Never mind the fact that she used to be in the top bunk, and switched at some point with Stewie so he was in the top bunk and she was in the bottom. She certainly has "the grass is greener" syndrome. She is so my kid sometimes.

As much as I enjoyed the cleaning and moving (I did. No sarcasm there. Okay, I wasn't a big fan of the process, but I love the results.), the best day of the week had to be Wednesday. We decided to take the day and drive up to see Ellen's folks. Stew has just recently had a hip replacement (to correct the unsuccessful hip surgery that he had to have after he fell off his bike in October and broke his hip), and this was our first time seeing him since the surgery. He is doing really well, and the doctor wants to try to get him back on his bike by early summer. Jo is doing well, too, considering that her husband has been basically home-bound since October.

This visit by us coincided with a visit from Jo's sister Judy and her husband Art (whom we call Uncle Bunky - I don't know why). They live in Maine, and came out to visit over Easter week. They are great - I love going up to Maine to visit them, although we don't do it very often. That might have something to do with my assertion that the next time I set foot in Maine, I'm not leaving. Anyway it was great to get to see them.

The kids got to play with their cousins, as they usually do on visits to Grammy and Grampy's. Although I'm sure that it wasn't enough time for any of them. One unintended consequence was that it didn't take a big chunk out of our week, so we got to visit with everyone and still got things done around our house. Sometimes we have to make that choice.

My favorite part of Wednesday was that I got to see my old college buddy, Eric. I actually have two old college buddies named Eric. One of them lives in Texas, and one is on the road with The Lion King (he's the Props Master). Well, The Lion King was in Toledo for the last few weeks, and Toledo is only a hop, skip, and jump from Ellen's folks house. I was kind of hoping for a trip of a couple of days so we could go up to Toledo to see Eric and maybe the theatre, but our one day in and out trip precluded that excursion. I offered to ditch the family and drive up myself, but Eric was gracious enough to offer to drive down to us. So, Eric got to experience Ellen's family in one big group! And he still managed to survive!

It was so good to see Eric. We were really good friends in college, in a lot of the same classes together and working on theatre productions and various projects together. We lost track of each other for a while, then (and I can't remember how) re-connected about 5 or 6 years ago. Eric was in Cleveland with the show in 2003, and came down to visit us a couple of times during the run. The last day he visited was the day of the 2003 Northeast Blackout. He had just left to head back to Cleveland when the power went out. We managed to get together the next summer on Cape Cod, when TLK was in Boston. Since then we have sort of lost contact again (except for the occasional email), so it was good to see him again. He'll be in DC for most of the summer, and I'd really like to get there for a couple of days to see him, the show, and our old stomping grounds. If not, he's scheduled to be in Columbus in the fall, so we'll hook up then.

The week ended on a good note, as we went out (at the kid's suggestion) to Olive Garden. I think that is their favorite restaurant (except for McDonald's - or as Stewie says, "Mitnonals") And I'm always up for a good Italian meal and a bottle of San Pelligrino!

So, all in all, a good Spring Break. Now only 9 weeks of school left. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. :)

And, just because...

So, yeah, we got about 20" in our neighborhood due to this blizzard. Great.

At least the kids had fun:

We had already cleared 6" of snow off the driveway before this snow fell:


And, of course, the requisite "art" shot:

Rami? Rami?! Rami?!? Oh, please.

I can't believe that the judges picked Rami in the "run-off" to go to Bryant Park and Fashion Week. Chris' pieces were so much better.


Now, I'll grant you that Rami listened to what the judges have been telling him week after week after week - no. more. draping. But the key here is that they had to tell him that over and over again. He's gotten a free pass the whole series. He got lucky in that each week, someone else went off the deep end and got eliminated. Rami is nothing if not consistent. Consistently the same.

And then Chris got raked over the coals during the last challenge because he had two dresses that were similar. What the hell?!

In tonight's "run(way)-off", I thought Chris' collection was much better than Rami's. I liked his theme, his overall look, and I even liked the human hair (deliciously weird!). Rami's didn't grab me. Yes, they were an improvement over what he had been doing, but they didn't "wow" me. And Nina and Michael said his were more "saleable" while Chris' were "costumey". Have they ever seen the bizarre shit that comes down the runway from established designers!! They said themselves, in the avant-garde challenge, that your runway designs should be outrageous, and then you pull them back to make them saleable.

How hard would it have been to have all four of them go to Bryant Park, if they liked Rami and Chris's work so much? It's not like they didn't do that before (see Season Three).

I like Chris probably more so because he's a costume designer, he's over the top, he's funny, and he reminds me of some people I knew in college. And Rami's not bad, but...

Still, neither of their collections are as strong as Jillian's, IMHO.

Meh.

I was at a meeting last night, and Tracey had some big news. She had to leave early because she had to go to the dress rehearsal for the Democratic Presidential Debate. It seems that she had been asked to deliver the invocation! We were all excited for her, but she was just beaming!! She graciously offered to share with us her draft of the prayer, and it was really good (no surprise there).

I watched the beginning of the debate, hoping that they would televise her, but alas, they did not. Fortunately, Episcopal Cafe posted a copy of the invocation, so I get to add it here:

A Prayer for the Nation
Invocation for the Democratic Presidential Debate
The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, Dean, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Cleveland
February 26, 2008


Shalom, Salaam, Peace be with you. Let us pray.

Gracious and loving God: we call you by many names and come to you by many paths, yet you have brought us together to this time and place. We join our voices in praising you for the majesty and beauty of this land, for the people of our nation, for the state of Ohio and its citizens, and for the city of Cleveland and those who live, work and study here. May we always be mindful stewards of your bountiful creation.

As we come together this evening, we thank you, O God, for the great diversity of our nation and its people who, throughout our history, have embodied the principles and ideals of a democratic society. We pray especially this night for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. We give thanks for their willingness to stand before us and offer themselves to serve as our nation’s president. We pray that as they debate, they will exhibit the courage of their convictions, hunger for the truth, a vision of compassion, justice for all people, and civility toward one another.

And as we, your faithful people, listen, discern and cast our ballots, may we remember that this nation is too important for anything but truth, that this world is too vulnerable for anything but peace, and that your creation is too precious for anything but love.

Amen.

73% Geek

A while back all the kids at the middle school were given a paper and pencil spelling test. The top thirty spellers in each grade level (5-8) were invited to participate in Middle School Grade Level Spelling Bee during school on Tuesday. Beenie was one of those top thirty. When he was invited to participate he got the study guide and everything, but I never saw him do anything other than glance at it once or twice. So the day of the bee arrived and Beenie went off to school to a heartfelt "good luck".

When he came home I asked him how his day was. He said, very casually, "We had the spelling bee today." I said, "How was it?", to which he replied "It was good. [beat] [beat] I won." Yep, he came in first place in the 5th Grade Spelling Bee!

That meant that last night the top eight spellers from each grade level were to compete against each other in the Middle School Spelling Bee. Beenie was very excited (and this time he was showing it)! I thought the bee would last a long time as there were 32 kids from grades 5-8, and they would have to go through them all for each round (like the spelling bee on TV). I was surprised that the first round eliminated 17 kids. By round three it was down to 5. Beenie was one of those five.

One by one kids got tripped up until it was down to two. Beenie was still one of those two. It went back and forth until Beenie got tripped up. That meant:

Beenie placed second place over all in the Middle School Spelling Bee!!! And, that's as a 5th grader!

The kid who won is in 8th grade. Beenie did an amazing job! In the later rounds, he nailed these words:

• filibuster
• ominous
• democracy
• caribou
• pumpernickel

The one that tripped him up: imperative.

So they send one kid on to the regional spelling bee, and the winner of that goes on to compete in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC. Everyone was so amazed and proud of Beenie for getting so close as a fifth grader. He's got three more years to compete - if he wants to. (And his excitement and enthusiasm leads me to believe that he will.)

Congratulations, Beenie!!

Munchkin has a "magic wand" toy from one of the myriad dolls that inhabit our house. She has been running around for the last few weeks waving the wand at people and saying "I wish you a Merry Christmas." Sometimes she'll throw in "and a Happy New Year" for good measure. I thought it was cute, but kind of odd.

Today she crystallized it all for me. She needed to do something, so she handed me the wand and said "Hold my wisher."

The temperature dropped yesterday from 34 degrees to 0 degrees, with predictions that it would be negative teens for the wind chill this morning. At about 10pm, all the schools started calling off for today. Our district did, too. It was all over all the news channels, and we saw it multiple times. We checked the district website, and "no school" was posted there. This morning the stupid "Parent Broadcast" phone call (the subject of another rant at another time) came in at 6:15am saying there was no school. And yet...

Why is it not official in the house until we hear it on the radio in the morning?

Tina Turner blows Beyonce out of the water any day.

Is Jason Bateman drunk?

I once hired Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters). The only interview I ever conducted where the interviewee wanted to walk around the store while we talked.

What the hell kind of song is "I'd like to check you for ticks"?

Aretha Franklin should not be singing backup to anyone. She should be out there front and center, belting it out and letting everyone else catch up!! (And the people say "A-men".)

Alicia Keys Rocks.

Damn, Amy Winehouse can sing.

Herbie Hancock looks the same now as he did 50 years ago. Jazz's answer to Dick Clark. Herbie played "Not My Job" on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" a month or so ago, and was hysterical.

It was like Christmas all over again. Ellen got her long-held wish, and I was along for the ride. We went to see Richard Thompson at the Kent Stage last night. It was an amazing show!! He was performing "1000 Years of Popular Music".

We arrived at the theatre, found our seats, and discovered that we were in the middle of a sea of khaki pants and alpine designed sweaters. On a sea of middle aged couples. We were the youngest people there. Ok, not really. There were a couple of kids that had been dragged there by their parents, and a couple of college students (it is next to Kent State University, after all). But other than that, yep...us.

The crowd was rather annoying. It was made up of old folkies who thought they were being witty when they were yelling things at the performers. Thompson took it in good stride, but his wittiness blew them out of the water. And I suppose the piece de resistance was during several of the songs when we looked over to see these middle aged white guys bobbing their heads in time to the music. Or, not in time to the music as the case may be.

But, enough about the crowd. Richard Thompson was incredible. He came out playing a hurdy gurdy and singing a song from 1290. We jumped forward a few years, then skipped the "black death" ("...nothing musical of note. It's my pustule and I'll cry if I want to."). We ventured forward, heard a madrigal and a carol, and kept moving forward into the 1500's - 1600's - 1700's. We stopped for quite a while in the nineteenth century, and finished the first set with some Gilbert & Sullivan.

On the way, he told a joke (several actually, but this one was a joke rather than witty repartee):

• Heaven: The English greet you at the door, the French do the cooking, the Italians provide the entertainment, and the Germans organize everything.
• Hell: The French greet you at the door, the English do the cooking, the Germans provide the entertainment, and the Italians organize everything.

The second set moved forward to the 1940's and focused on a song or two per decade up to 2006. We heard songs by the Beatles, Abba, Billie Holliday, and others. My favorite was See My Friends, by the Kinks. Thompson's version was abso-freakin'-lutely amazing!! He finished with a Nelly Furtado song. In order to bring the end of the show back full circle to the beginning, they switched in the middle to Latin, and slowed it down like early church music.

For the encore, he played something from the 90's. The 1190's. A song composed by Richard I.

Here is a pretty decent sampling (albeit short) of the 1000 years of music show:


And here is one of my favorite Richard Thompson songs - 1952 Vincent Black Lightning:



All in all, it was a great show. I wish he had performed some of his own music, but that just means we'll have to go to another show!!

Sorry, wrong reference. Actually, it's even better than that. The New York Football Giants just beat the New England Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII. This is exciting because I can't stand the Patriots.

Most people think this is weird as I grew up in New England, but I didn't watch football until I went to college, so I really have no connection to the team. I started watching the Washington Redskins, and I will probably always be a Redskins fan. I became a fan near the end of the real glory days. Joe Theismann and John Riggins staging those minute left in the game, and 80 yards to go, come from behind victories, under the guidance of Joe Gibbs. The years of Art Monk and Darrell Green, who were just elected to join Riggins and Gibbs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

As a Redskins fan, we were in the same division as the Giants, so I had the opportunity to see them twice a year, and even though I always rooted for the 'Skins, I have a soft spot in my heart for all the teams in the NFC East. Except for the Cowboys. Still don't like the Cowboys.

Of course, now I'm a Cleveland Browns fan. We may have to wait a while for the Super Bowl, but we did have a great year this year. (10-6)

So, anyway, I'm very happy that the Patriots lost. They were the dominant team this season, going into the game at 18-0, with a certain smugness. And they came out 18-1. Mwhahaha!! When it became apparent that they would finish 16-0, I was hoping that they would lose in the first round of the playoffs. Although, in retrospect, I think this was even better.

It was a really good game, though.

The dog is back.

I've had four blissful days, sans dog. Ellen took him to the vet on Thursday morning for "the surgery" (he's now half the dog he used to be). It was a glorious weekend, full of peace, laughter, frivolity, and harmony. Unfortunately, he had to come back home today. He's already started peeing in the living room, tearing trash out of the garbage can, jumping on top of us, and causing general mayhem. Not to mention terrorizing the cats (whether by his actions, or in their minds).

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Update: Just to clarify, the surgery didn't put the dog out for four days. He was actually done in a matter of hours. But, we had a diocesan conference from Friday night through Saturday, so the vet kept the dog. We were supposed to pick up the dog on Saturday night, but the vet had a concert to go to, so we agreed that we'd pick him up on Sunday. Still, I got all day Thursday and all day Friday, plus a couple of bonus days!

A collection of Olan Mills photos

From Dave Walker's CartoonChurch.com. Be sure to check out the blog.

Back around Christmas time I noticed weird things happening with my computer. Nothing that I could put my finger on, and nothing that happened regularly. Just the occasional "burp". Then, right after Christmas, I tried to Google something. Instead of going to Google, I got a message that the computer was trying to download an "application/octet". No matter what I did I couldn't get to Google. It was more of an inconvenience than anything else at that point. I tried deleting a couple of recent applications and even did a system restore. That worked for a little while, but then, wham!, back to the "application/octet" download. Eventually I tried going to other search engines, and when I would click on a link I would get redirected to other websites.

Realizing at this point that something was definitely amiss, I began to look for help. I came across a place called www.techsupportforum.com. I followed their instructions, posted some scan logs, and waited for help. I was ultimately helped by tetonbob, who helped me determine that there was a trojan on my machine, and together we ran and analyzed some system reports (ok, I ran, he analyzed). In a couple of days the infection was gone and I was good to go.

Or so I thought. About two hours after our final post, I ended up opening a new thread, as my homepages appeared to be redirecting. Tetonbob got involved again, determined that the malware files were still there and ran some more diagnostics. Over the course of the next week and a half, it seems like all I did was download a diagnostic tool, run it, post the report, and wait for my next instructions.

Ultimately, we determined that the computer was "clean" and I could go about my business. But, it took me two weeks of work that I could have spent doing other things, trying to rid my computer of stuff that shouldn't have been there to begin with. At the end of my first post, tetonbob posted a really good list of things to do to keep your computer secure. Take a look at that post here. (everything after "Now that your system is clean...")

And, keep in mind that I was running Anti-Virus software from my ISP, as well as Ad-Aware. It was Spybot S&D that first caught the infection. So, I wasn't surfing naked. But now it's like I'm wearing one of those turn-of-the-(20th)-century all over bathing outfits. Hopefully I'm better protected now. Thanks, tetonbob!

I had my first experience where I had to catch myself with regard to my New Year's Resolution the other day.

I have been looking at mp3 players, and I wanted to have a hands on look at a couple of them - the Creative Zen, and the Zune. Circuit City carries both, so off I went. I found the mp3 players and started looking them over, only to discover that the two I wanted to look at would not power on. After standing there for 10 minutes, trying out the others on display, a sales associate finally came over to see what I needed. I explained my dilemma, that I wanted to compare players, but the 2 weren't working. Instead of offering to hook them up to an auxiliary source, he said, "Well, it depends on what you're looking for." Then to add insult to injury, another associate came over, stood behind me, and carried on a conversation with the first one as if I wasn't even there. I walked off, and left the store.

When I caught up to Ellen (at another store), I said, "Oh, I hate Circuit City!" I quickly caught myself and restated it: "I find that the customer service at Circuit City is not very good, and their use of rebates rather than discounts isn't very customer friendly. I prefer to shop elsewhere."

And retail management wonders why people like to shop online.

I'm still looking for an mp3 player, though.

A guy driving a hearse, talking on his cell phone.

My first thought was - if he gets in a crash, at least we know where to put him.

My second thought was - just who is he talking to?

I have had my share of websites that I have set up, or helped set up, and I have always used Network Solutions to check the availability of domain names. I've done that because I trust(ed) NetSol as they were the first registrar of domain names, their customer support has been good, and I believed that I wasn't going to get screwed when I visited their site (except for price, which is why I don't register with them anymore).

Well, it turns out that NetSol is registering the domain names that people have been looking up, thereby denying them the opportunity to register the name somewhere else, at a quarter of the cost, in a process called "front-running". Bastards.

Their "official" line is that they are protecting their "customers" - the people who are looking up the availability of a domain name. In reality they are blackmailing people into using their service. If you look up your domain name on NetSol, then go to GoDaddy to try to register it, it will show as "unavailable", and owned by NetSol. The only way you can get that name is to go back to NetSol and register there. NetSol says they hold the name for 5 days, after which it is released. I'm lucky, in that most of my websites are church sites and the pace of permissions in a church is rather slow, so by the time the request has been approved more than 5 days have passed.

Still, it is an unethical practice, and I will stop recommending Network Solutions to my clients as a possible domain name registrar and web host. Better still, I think I will tell them what NetSol is doing, and let them make up their own minds.

Read more about this here, here and here.

Too close to call in New Hampshire!! I love it!! I love races that take it down to the wire. For most of the evening the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been too close to call. Although, in the last couple of minutes the news outlets have given the state to Clinton.

On the Republican side, John McCain is the winner, with Mitt Romney second, and Mike Huckabee third. The good news there is that Romney didn't win again! Let's keep that trend going.

So, the salad course is over. Now a quick sip of wine (Nevada caucus, and South Carolina primary), before we delve into the main course - Super Tuesday, Feb 5.

Today is Iowa Caucus day!! The first actual voting of the 2008 Presidential Campaign. I admit it - I'm an election junkie. I'll stay up until the wee hours on election day, and I love watching the primaries, at least early on when the candidates are still up in the air. So, I'm not to fussed that the Iowa Caucuses got moved up until today.

At 8:00 I turned on the TV to watch with all the talking heads to see what was going to happen. I was watching MSNBC, 'cause I think Keith Olbermann is great. He was joined by Chris Matthews, who speaks in ALL CAPS. Of course, right off the bat there was nothing to report. That didn't stop Norah O'Donnell. She was throwing facts and figures and percentages left and right. Naturally, what she was saying didn't match the graphics that were being shown over her shoulder. I had a vision of a frustrated tech guy in the control room trying to figure out which graphic Norah was going to talk about next, and get that up on the screen. I have a similar experience with one particular person in our diocese when I'm running her powerpoint presentations. She's done it to me two out of two times. But I digress.

So, Mike Huckabee (who?) wins for the Republicans, and Barack Obama wins for the Democrats. The sad part is that it doesn't really matter to me as I will be supporting whoever the Democrats pick. I don't want four more years of this bullshit.

Of course, the Iowa Caucuses don't really mean a whole lot either. It's like the appetizer before the banquet. It starts the meal, but really doesn't have an effect on the main course. Still...

On to New Hampshire (Tuesday)!!

So Ol'Leghumper went to the vet. Doc says he (the dog) might be a Black Lab/Golden Retriever mix. He is currently 30 pounds, and is expected to double in size. And he's 12-16 weeks old. Ellen figures it's closer to 16.

I don't usually do New Year's Resolutions. I don't see the point, as I never keep them, and why wait until January 1 to try to be a better person?

That being said, here are my NYR's.

I want to be more patient. Especially when I am working, my patience starts wearing thin. I want it done, and done now. And heaven forbid you interrupt me when I'm working on something. (Although I do tend to lose my train of thought easily, and it takes me a little while to get back to where I was. But maybe I'm making excuses.)

The other NYR is more internal. In true Buddhapalian (is that a word? - it is now) form, I want to practice right thought. I have been thinking that I use the word "hate" too much. As in, "I hated that movie", or "I hate mornings". It's really just a meaningless phrase, the way I'm using it, but I don't want to practice using it anymore. It would be better for me, and more accurate to say "That was not the best performance from that actor, and I found the plot hard to follow", or "I find it difficult to wake up in the morning." It's going to be a hard change, as it's so ingrained, so I'll allow myself two exceptions - when it's associated with "beets" or "the dog".

Happy New Year.