Open letter

Whoops... i forgot i'm supposed to be writing a post. Except i also forgot i'm not writing a post every day anymore. I guess nobody told my brain.

I did write something, which i debated internally, at length, whether to post, and i decided to go ahead. It's not like a ton of people read my weblog. Literally... i bet if we all got together, we wouldn't weigh a ton. As opposed to Linda's weblog, holy cow! All she does is surprise the internet with a little good news, and poof, there's OVER A HUNDRED comments! Yeah yeah, she's smart and funny and a good writer, and her and "A" are awesome people who we really like (and it really is, really good news), but holy cow. She's, like, famous!

Uh... anyway... i went up to the girls' unit where i used to work because they were having a horrible crisis of out of control kids. I had to restrain this one girl who was trying to beat up this other girl, carry her to a locked room on another unit... blah blah, the story has been told a hundred times. But the state of the home is so sad. And the people who work there are such good people. The kids are so valuable too. So the violence got me all in a writing mood, so i wrote to the treatment team of the home, with my thoughts laid out as briefly as i could get them. Because brevity is the soul of wit. Or to steal a Simpson's joke: brevity is ... wit.

You know what? I'll even take out the references to which home it was. To make it less... uh... whatever.
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Mostly because i have a picture

Yes, i'm putting a new post up, mostly because my weblog looks so sad to me without some kind of picture. Sure, the picture kind of sucks... in the book Ender's Game, Ender is really bored in class so he practices drawing a spiral from the center of his tablet to the edge. And he computes squares in his head. I'm not smart enough to get much beyond 2048 with the square thing, but i've got decent drawing skillz, so there you go. Not as impressive as Ender, but i'm not a genius or anything.

So... um... lately i've been watching MotorWorld on Google Video - it's a little outdated at this point, but still a really cool show where Jeremy Clarkson, one the main Top Gear guys travels all over the world to get the automotive personality of the area. Texas? Pickup trucks. Vietnam? Crazy cobbled together 12 seater cars. Totally recommend it.

Church club.

Oh man, still no picture. My camera is having a little visit with Karen's sister so she can take pictures. I hope it's having fun. It hasn't even called me!!!

Yeah. So yesterday i read this article in the GR Press, which, for the uninterested or people from the future who won't know what "Press" means (and for whom the link will certainly be broken) it tells the story of a preacher who invited his neighbor to his church, and six years later, the neighbor said he'd become(d???) a Christian. Their relationship, as described in the article, seemed to revolve primarily around chats while taking the trash out.

Okay, every time someone says they follow Christ i'll be happy. Awesome. Super w00t! and all that. But how come this pastor's first act of evangelism was to invite his neighbor to his church? Maybe i'm just reflecting the often stated goal of my church to get us members OUT THERE, where people are hurting, and not primarily with getting them to come to church.

I'm starting to think of a church building as a kind of clubhouse. If you want people into your club, you invite them to the clubhouse. But being a Christian is not having membership in a club, it's a difference in perspective, a modification of the most foundational substrate of your being. Christianity is not even a lifestyle. It's God's grace, redeeming your soul, smiling on you, working in you. You can't demonstrate your Christianity by wearing Go God t-shirts and spouting scripture and jargon. In fact, there's a couple kids at work who've somehow detected how seriously i take Christianity, and carry their Bibles around, showing me verses. All this while their behavior kind of sucks. One of them i told to shut up until he could treat people right. I was pretty blunt... poor kid.

To continue the clubhouse analogy, to make membership in any club more attractive, you make it plush and fancy, with five thousand dollar spotlights, and delicious coffee and stuff. This appears to me to be a priority of many megachurches, where it's not for Mars Hill Bible Church... but the cynical (which i totally am) would suggest that Mars Hill, with the hard plastic chairs, dirty white "shed" and stained carpet is just engaging in a clever little double bluff.

Family news: Houston ate a whole can of green beans today. I had two forkfuls, but he snarfed the rest down. And he and Katrina were both very surprised to hear that most kids their age don't really like pepper. "WHY???" asked Houston.

Prompted by Keith's blog:

One of my favorite subjects upon which to ponder is what heaven will be like. My favorite idea goes like this:

Our universe is a dream of God - the most substantial reality we can experience is as ephemeral to God as a daydream is to us.

Heaven will be when God lets us see, as much as possible, what really real is like. So rules and laws, like entropy and gravity, will be completely thrown out. The thing i really want to do is race around San Fransisco, particularly the hill which has that famously twisty Lombard Street - in the game Midtown Madness 2 one could race up the... east side of the hill, and then jump all the way to the street a block or so from where the twisty part of Lombard. See, that's what i would LOVE to do.

Obviously, in our current reality, that would involve lots of DANGER and PROPERTY DAMAGE and EXPENSE, things which would cause one or more parties SADNESS and probably DEATH. These things won't be in heaven, however, doing that sounds pretty much the coolest thing ever, and i KNOW heaven will be cooler than the coolest thing i can imagine.

So perhaps God will allow us the capacity to shape our own realities, to revel and celebrate and praise God with our most wildly creative imaginings.

Update!!!

So hey, here's an update as to what it's like not blogging every night. Of course, most everyone knows what it's like not blogging every day, but for me it's a little odd... novel, weird, unusual! Ironic! Literally!!! Earth to readers... i'm not serious about the ironic or literally ones - i was making a joke.

Let's see, the last time i posted was sooo long ago... Wednesday! On Wednesday, i got in the mail from Hong Kong containing my new headphones. They cost $11 shipped. See, i feel the need to justify the expenditure (mostly to myself) since i go on and on about how we're poor and even what we have is so luxurious... But anyway, i really, really like them. They actually go in the very outer part of the ear canal - they don't nestle beneath the tragus and anti-tragus like normal bud type earphones. The soft silicone plug bit forms an excellent seal to keep ambient noise out and the music in. I find that with these phones, i can listen to music at a much lower volume level in all situations, and the sound quality is superb. Maybe not as good as my worn out Sennheisers, but with a tweak from my mp3 player's graphic equalizer (gasp! I never use those!) the treble is back to crisp and, um, flavorful. Plus, the fact that you're not listening to music through the racket of dishes being tossed around or the fans in your overclocked computer makes every sound that much better.

So if you're looking for earphones, and can tolerate little things in your ear canal, get those.

Yesterday i did our taxes. If you qualify (we do, by a sadly large margin) you can do your taxes for free at any of the plethora of companies listed on the government's site. And, if you qualify, you probably will get buckets of money back like we are. Woo hoo.

My desk

My desk is, officially, a total disaster. All the mess which i've let osmose its way from the area of high concentration to lower concentration has crystallized down to the spiky chaos of my localized desk area. Wires, screen, tools, drawings, batteries, empty boxes, random chunks of computer hardware... join me as i panic to get it clean before i have to go to bed. See, Karen needs it clean tomorrow morning for preschool.

So: step one, tell the internet that i'm going to start cleaning.
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Work

Okay, i know i complain about not having enough money, and i've had my share of difficult experiences at work, but please allow me to divulge to you what transpired today. I got to, while at work, on the clock, getting paid, putting in my time for The Man, go....

GO-KART RACING!!!

Yes, that's what i got to do. And i didn't even have to pay for it. And to make myself feel better, on the first heat i started behind every one of the kids, and passed every one, the only person i didn't pass was Mark (Karen and my friend who i happen to work with now). Yes, it totally rocked, and i enjoyed myself so much. So my motivation to quit working for Wedgwood is: bills staring at me getting paid less thoroughly than i'd like. Little envelopes. Oh, and the fact that we can't afford things which we don't really need anyway. The motivation to keep working at WW? Working in a mentally stimulating environment, with people who i really respect and get along with. Plus, three or four weeks of vacation a year. That's nice too.

I guess there are worse dilemmas.
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This is seriously not a post...

It's just a teaser for a conversation Karen started on her blog.

Here's a snippet from my comment:

...But in the inner city, where urban hip-hop culture has saturated the environment with messages of malicious mistrust toward authority, misogyny, glorification of violence, rampant materialism, chemical dependency, pathological sexual impulsivity… this is the environment shaping these kids as they grow up. These kids are taught that cops are out to get them, white people owe them something, girls are sex toys, men are abusive, prison is inevitable...

Go comment on Karen's blog.

This is not a post. I just realized that i didn't mention why i put that picture on there yesterday. I did because that's our new phone with which we can call anyone anywhere using Skype, or some comparable voice chat slash telephone service. I've used voice chat before, but it's weird to talk into a microphone and hear the person talk over your system speakers. The little phone thing's supposed to make that not a problem...? Do you live far away? Do you want to download Skype and use it to call us? Yes? Let me or us know so i can install Skype on my computer and call me! My username will most likely be Ozerik. It's always Ozerik.

Since this isn't a post, i'll go now. Oh, except to say that we didn't go sledding today with our friends Linda and Andrew and their cutie pie twin daughters, but we did invite them over to eat pizza even though our house looked pretty much like it does in that picture up there. Plus our couch was on our sidewalk. Someday i'll probably be embarrassed by that, but not right now.
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Me feeling selfish?

Way back when we were just getting ready to have Houston be born, we spent money on our very first One MegaPixele Digital Camera (gasp, the technology!) and our MiniDV camcorder, and i don't know what else - we could sense the oncoming rush of the end of disposable income. And as our family grew, that's what happened. We are careful to Not Buy Stuff We Can't Afford, but sometimes that Venn diagram circle gets pretty freaking close to the Stuff We Must Buy circle. But that's totally okay. Stuff is just stuff.

Free time is also gone. Sometimes Karen will take the kids and vacate the house for a few hours while i'm home, and that's one of the best gifts she can give me.

Other stuff has dropped down our priority list, like our poor unfortunate dog (sorry, Grammy!) and my computer (at one time, i'm pretty sure i had the fastest PC in Grand Rapids - perhaps in Michigan... it was faster than the fastest computer available from Intel or AMD... because it was cooled to -40 degrees...) and maybe our house.

And you know what? That's all totally okay. It's awesome, in fact, to have a home full of such vibrant, energetic, curious life! It's excellent, amazing, and i really would not trade it for anything. I totally feel like i'm complaining here, sorry. But see, this is mostly a preamble to me saying that i'm going to take a hiatus from posting every single day. Nearly three years of nearly daily posts has left my weblog a pretty huge collection of text and pictures, fodder to easily satisfy anyone's curiosity about my life, and i hope someone even reads it someday and finds it interesting. Hi someone! Zane especially. Right now you're making it very hard to type since you're fascinated by my clicking fingers and keep hitting them and trying to pull my hands away. Unless i lean you back on my chest, and then you kick my keyboard drawer. :)

Lookit me with no picture!

At what point does chronic tiredness peak in the average human life? Well, i think Karen might agree with me (if i even catch her awake - don't expect a post from her today) that it's when the third child is five or six months old? Kay, cause Karen and i are beat. Granted, we're both huge fans of staying up really late, and with me at work at 6:15 this morning, i'm struggling... and Karen couldn't sleep in at all.

So now Zane's whacking his head all over the place on my chest trying to keep himself awake (WHY??? In the name of everything holy, WHY???) and so i'm basically waiting for... jeez, i dunno. Zane to fall asleep?

Oh... more news. Today i got two armchairs from Karen's parents, who got them from the library where Mom works. You know, at work, i like sitting on hard plastic chairs, because some of the boys i work with are champions of gross, and any porous surface is likely trapping years of, well, let's stop thinking about that now. Plus, i really like hard plastic chairs. Seriously. But sitting on the library chairs grosses me out not one bit.

Okay, you know what i should be doing? Sleeping. Sleeping or doing our taxes. Sleeping, doing taxes, or applying for a hospital job. Or any job. I mean, since minimum wage went up, i'm thinking maybe McDonalds pays better than WW at this point. Sigh.

Downtime and downtime and downtempo

I'm really sorry our weblogs have been shaky recently... my little network's been going down a LOT. Of course there's the whole vacation fiasco, and now last night and tonight we've had to hard-reset the router by physically unplugging it and plugging it back in. I'm guessing it's the router at fault. Bummer.

And me? I totally need some down time. Like, lying down sleeping. See, it's the thing where i'll be falling asleep during the day, but when i sit down at my computer, it's as though i get suddenly injected with crystal meth or something, except my teeth are not as soft as ripe fruit (gross - that's how an article described the teeth of chronic meth-heads) and i don't ever say "Shiznit". But i do tend to listen to a LOT of downtempo psychedelic trance music. Mmm, downtempo psychedelic trance.

Fast post?

We played in the snow! It was fun! Graham is psycho - he was snatching icicles from our hands. I was like "what are you doing?" and he was like "snatch crunch crunch run around" and i was like "you're weird' and he was like "snatch snatch sniff sniff". Heh... scratch and sniff.

So anyway, today i went to a training about domestic abuse. One of the things said by one of the ladies was that her church had never made it clear to her that she was allowed to leave her abusive situation. She said she was waiting for that one word. And then tonight at work we watched a Nooma video, and the guy* said straight to the camera "If he's beating you, get out now!" or something. I was like "cool". Oh man, i'm tired. So i hope the controversy will swirl around this post as well... no, probably not.

Sad!

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but a guy named Cheuk Wong, the owner of Karen and my favorite Chinese restaurant died from head injuries he got when a guy punched him in the face and he fell to the ground. Over a parking spot. Here's an article about it.

They closed the restaurant. Forever. This makes me sad because it was a senseless violent act, and not even that major of one - people get punched in pointless fights all the time. The guy was 62, tiny (5'2, 106lbs), really friendly, and he and his wife were pretty much always at that store, he doing the cooking and she answering the phone and serving customers. They'd started that restaurant back in the 80's, moving here from Detroit, and moving to Detroit from Hong Kong. From what i gather, the two of them put their kids through college, and their granddaughters waited tables sometimes in their restaurant. It's a story of hard work and, um... the best kind of stuff immigrants bring to this country.

So, i told one of the kids at work that sad story, and his first question was "What color was the guy who punched the Chinese guy?" I lied and told the kid i didn't know, and the kid, who's black himself, said something like "Man, I bet he was black, cause it always be black people getting in fights over stupid stuff." And, today being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it makes sense to mention race issues... so what's up with that? The assaulter is black. And the first assumption from many Americans would be that he's black. I have huge sympathy for the guy - he was coming out of a bar, probably at least somewhat drunk, and some old man hassled him about where he was parked, and his stupid choice cost the old man his life, and now he's going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter, and for all i know he feels like a murderer.

What choices led to his decision to punch a frail old man (who spoke with a very thick Chinese accent) in the face? What cultural values allow that kind of hot tempered outbursts? I'm looking at you, Lil Jon ("don't start no stuff won't be no stuff") and Snoop ("If a n* get a attitude pop it like it's hot") and George W (dropping bombs on Iraq because terrorists destroyed US property and civilian lives). Martin Luther King Jr. visualized a world where the "separate but equal" ideology was done away with, and from the top his vision has mostly come about. We're no longer divided officially along racial lines, but our values and norms, which tend to follow roughly racial lines, are as inequal as ever. According to popular views of pre-60's black American culture, the kind of rage behind a senseless attack like this would have been fiercely discouraged.

I've heard views (on a radio talk show - i TOTALLY wish i remembered the details) from one non-profit foundation heading African American man who blames much of racism in this country on the black community, and said on his show (to hoots of derision and shocked argument) that people of other races are prohibited from speaking out against the kinds of behavior which reinforce racist thought. The more i think about it, the more i agree. If a white guy swore loudly in earshot of my kids, i know i'd look at him and ask him to stop. But if a black guy did that (which, i'm sad to say has happened) uh... well... i'm probably just going to lead my kids out of earshot.

Oh... and happy birthday Lil' Ones!!! We went to Monday Night at Keith and Karla's House, where we had fun and talked about nothing at all racial or controversial or political.

Hmm... picture post?

Uh, whoops - yesterday was actually the anniversary of the worse day than simply getting my hair pulled out. Ugh, what a nightmare it was. I'll choose instead to remember it as the day when Karen told me we were pregnant with Zane! Wait, no, that was also the day my hair was pulled out. Okay, so the only positive way i can remember the day is by thinking that it was the last day i worked with psycho girls. But holy cow i miss my homie co-workers. I mean, my current staff are all really excellent people, and we've got a healthy team going on. And the Crossroads unit where i currently work is a shining light of therapeutic success in an industry full of, um, feeble flashlights with worn out batteries of therapeutic, um, lack of success. Wow, that was probably the least eloquent thing i've ever written.

Okay, so what i'm gonna do now is bang some pictures together of our trip to Kentucky. It'll be not-as-good as Karen's five post rampage detailing our trip, but it'll at least pay respect to some of the cooler moments. If there's a ___more___ link available, that means i've done the rest of the post. If not... check back tomorrow?
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One Year Later...

One year ago today was the day i got ten dreadlocks yanked out. Ow. And when i read that post, i feel a little queasy. Like, i remember vitally how horrible that whole time was. And the unit is better, but the same stuff that allowed it to become so totally horrible seems to be perpetuating itself.

I really need to get my pictures sorted out and do a proper post of what happened during our whole vacation and trip to . See, the whole internet thing, with chatting to friends and family, and reading about thins like amorphous metal alloys. Plus, i'm rebuilding or fixing three computers... too distracting and interesting.

I can draw!

Yeah! Ain't it great? I finally drew a picture of a girl in ball point pen, my favorite medium, and it looks good! Worthy of... well... something! I'm very proud*. And of course i give God all the credit and stuff - i'm totally happy to be so blessed with all the gifts that God gave me and stuff. I hope i'm using them well...?

*I got the eyes done first, then i got the nose and mouth and some of the hair, and then i was pleased by the way the chin turned out, since that's a common failing point for me. The shape of people's faces is very very important in order for them to look recognizable, or even human-like. I decided to go anime, with the ridiculously large eyes and small pointy chin. Then i got the arms and torso done, and was pleased with the results (drawing, you konw... b- boo- breasts has been difficult for me. Again, the shape is of utmost importance, and while your average boob is of a simpler shape than your average face, admitting that i am aware enough of the necessary shapes to craft proper lines to imply breastage is a big step for me. I'm old enough now, i suppose, to say "World, i know the shape of a boob!" Aaah, so liberating. Just don't make me say "boob" in real life - Karen mocks me for saying bewb) so then i had the legs to go. Well, i was totally convinced i was going to mess it up, but with my blood pressure peaking (one of the kids was like "Hey Juanito, i can see your pulse in your neck!") i dragged the ball point across the paper with intense concentration, and am pleased, very pleased, with the results! The color, by the way, i did with The GIMP.

So anyway, here's a bigger picture of that drawing for your enjoyment. Besides that, we went to Karen's sister's kid's birthday party today, (Eric and Jackie's kid Cheyanne - i wanted to put that many apostrophe'd words in a row) and sat around talking, playing, and rubbing balloons on my head and sticking them to the ceiling.

Which brings me to my final point today. Who decided that the commonly accepted arrangement for the volume and channel keys on a remote control should be configured the way they are? I'd like to kick that person in their shins, please. Okay - on pretty much all remote controls, there's a diamond or circle of buttons, with the volume controls going left to right, west for volume down, east for volume up, if you will. The channels are the up and down buttons, north for up one channel, south for down one channel. That's very much wrong - channels should be left and right, the volume should be up and down. Very much wrong.

When you change channel, you do go up or down in the designated numbers, but nobody says "turn the channel up", we want to change the channel, or go to a specific channel. They're not even necessarily sequential - everybody's got one or more device connected to their system which they can select with the channel buttons - DVD players, VCRs, cable/satellite boxes, front A/V inputs... and which of these is "higher" than any other? NONE!!! So how do we choose the volume? Well, higher and lower, of course. If somebody told me to turn the volume to the right, i'd probably make fun of them for saying something so stupid, but that's because i'm so nice. Normal people would probably poke their eye out with a marshmallow stick. No, we turn the sound to a higher volume level. This is so universal we don't even think about it. Everything which has a selectable amount of whatever is designated as "up" as being more of it. Even when referring to air conditioning, which lowers temperatures, we say "turn the air up" meaning "select a lower temperature". Sure, some dials are turned opposite ways to achieve more or less of something - you often turn water taps counter clockwise, due to the fact that you're unscrewing a valve mechanism to allow more water through. For some taps you pull levers toward you for greater flow... and cooking ranges might twist either way too - but seriously, volume is clearly, obviously supposed to be the up and down, while channel and source selection should be left and right.

This really needs to be addressed. I sure hope it's on Nancy Pelosi's agenda for the first hundred hours of Democratic control of the legislature.

Regular day!

Right, so today was normal! I got up, played with the kids, let Karen sleep for ages (Zane was particularly amenable to long stretches of sleep today, probably because he's AT HOME) and then went to work! And work never ever changes, does it? It's like i've never left.

So... i work tomorrow early, so i don't have time to do any kind of proper picture post or summary of our vacation in Kentucky. Karen's done a really good job explaining the details of what we did, so check out her blog for info of that. I, however, took tons of video footage and am planning on putting it together and putting it up here. Maybe i'll actually leave every video totally intact, but speed up the boring(er) parts instead of editing them out. That might be cool. As soon as i get a few uninterrupted hours...

Back online!

Yes, we got home from our vacation to Kentucky, i'm back at my clicky keyboard, and Zane is the only one in the house wide awake (and acting like he wants to stay that way for, oh i don't know... EVER) Karen and i are exhausted by a long drive and deep conversation. So i'm not even gonna put a picture up, i'm just going to brush my teeth and go to bed.

Oh... and i abjectly apologize for our weblogs being down for... what was it, four days? Hopefully you a) didn't notice, which would be sad because then you don't care about us enough to check our weblogs in four whole days or b) you're surprised and delighted to see that my little webserver next to my desk is functioning again. If you c) checked and found that the server was down and decided never to check again, then i will now contact you by telepathy and subconsciously influence you to come back! I hope i don't pop a capillary in my eyeball from the strain.

Spelunking

We spent most of today on a trip to Mammoth Cave National Park. It was awesome!!! Unfortunately i'm a) sitting here with a purring cat and a sleeping baby on my lap, and b) at a computer with a cramped monitor and slow processor, so i don't feel like getting a bunch of pictures ready to put up for you. Sorry. Tomorrow.

Instead, here's a link to Wikipedia's article about the place, and here's a link to a text-based adventure game (a version of the first adventure game ever) which is based in a cave system modeled after part of the Mammoth Caves.

I really enjoyed the caves. I carried Katrina for a lot of the way, since she kept saying "My so scared!" and would shake convincingly. She was mostly scared of the "yucky water" which dampened many of the cave's surfaces, and to a lesser extent the cave crickets which lounged about in a life of ease on the roof of the caves. Eew. Cave crickets have been known to eat their own extremities if they're starved for long enough. There was one formation in the cave which looked a little like chocolate, so she said "My like chocolate!!!" Her mother's daughter. Houston kind of loved it too, especially the fact that he had a flashlight. Every hole crevice and cranny got lit up. Plus a lot of cave crickets got their fifteen seconds in the spotlight, as it were. I didn't notice any missing limbs. Oh yeah! There's also a pack rat living near where we entered the cave. It had a ticket stub, some food wrappers, and lots of twigs, and it's pretty cute, for a rat.

We also saw a couple deer. They were pretty tame. I got out of our car and approached a doe, trying to exude deer flavored friendliness from every pore, but she ran away. Then we visited a dinosaur store where they had really pretty rocks which Katrina and Houston agonized over, to find the perfect three rocks. And then we went to Bel-Air Diner, i think it was called, where we each ate about a thousand calories worth of grease held in by various types of substrates - potatoes, catfish... mayonnaise... but it was really quite delicious and cheap. The whole area had that inimitable tourist-trash Americana charm. That was around six, and i haven't eaten a thing since. Because i'm still really full, not because i like my extremities to stay not-eaten.

Day One at the 'Rents

It rained for nearly our whole trip here. At times, it was tire-floating, windshield-opaquing deluge action, while a couple times i even turned off the wipers for whole minutes at a time. When it's that wet, driving becomes a task of concentration and inference, much like long term FPS gaming at a LAN party. You need to infer from the various reflective qualities of the rain soaked road where the lines are, and with the reduced visibility and increased sensory input of rain smashing into your vehicle, you can't let your attention wander.

However, we have cruise control. This is the first long trip i've taken in a vehicle with cruise, and it seriously reduces fatigue. It's totally amazing to be able to set your speed and then forget about it! Reach for the pretzels man! Text message your girlfriend! Light up that crack pipe! Oh wait, that's bad advice...

Also, the roads in Kentucky are a lot nicer than Michigan roads. In fact, the roads pretty much everywhere i've been are nicer than Michigan roads. The freeze-thaw cycle needs to accept some responsibility, but really it's the fault of political lobbyists. The big businesses in Michigan have convinced the state government to allow trucks of UNLIMITED weight, as long as there's enough axles per some arbitrary tonnage. So we have, in this state, tractor-trailer rigs with 36 or more wheels. 36 hard rubber tires inflated to 50psi, sometimes more, pounding mercilessly our poor Michigander concrete and asphalt.

Okay... so then we got here, slept (Katrina and Houston seemed to think that it was a new day at 3:40am) and woke up frequently (a sleep-wake cycle, if you will) and finally woke for real. We hung out, went to High Bridge, jumped and walked around on totally crazy spring stilt things called Powerisers, and i helped my father install a new Intel heatsink (stupidest design ever).

Houston seems to be enjoying himself, Katrina said "I love you GrammaMoore." Zane is coughing like a 70 year old chain smoker rock star, and Karen is cute. And she showed the books she made to everybody, who were fascinated by the excellent photography and high quality of the books. And, Karen said just now "Your parents have duct tape in so many places, it's hilarious." True, true.
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Shortest Post Evar!!!

Yo!!! Check it!!! We're going now, later than we were supposed to, thanks to time... so as of 6:33, we'll see you in about eight hours, Parents and Sniggles! Woo Hoo, road trip!

Rush hour

Before i left work today, the kids were all outside waiting to watch the fighter jets fly over on their way to fly over Gerald Ford's memorial service. Here's CNN's article from which you can view a video... if that link doesn't work...

So anyway, i left at four, and didn't get home until ten to six. That drive usually takes me fifteen minutes. Karen was a little worried, and then i dropped the big news on her that i have Friday to next Thursday off, so we can go visit my family in Kentucky... first her husband's not dead, and then she has to pack everything for the kids and her so we can leave tomorrow after i get off work. That was kind of a relationship faux pas.

I did get to join in with my stuck-in-traffic-mates in ogling the undercarriages of twenty one F-15s as they rocketed past. One of the last quatret "went ballistic" as it flew into the distance, and shot straight up, with cones of afterburner thrust roaring from the exhaust. It dwindled rapidly. I, however, continued to drive for five or six more miles even slower than my little KIA could go in first gear. My poor clutch.

I don't really know what to think about this. Something nationally significant, very important to the city of which i'm a citizen, and weighing heavily on the hearts of so many mainly affected me by making me sit in traffic for two hours.
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Rocket Post!

I wanna post super quick, because there's some cleaning up chores i could do and 1) Karen loves it when i clean up, and 2) i get to listen to my mp3 player. There's a couple new albums out by one of my favorite groups, The Egg! If you like electronic/funk, definitely check those dudes out. It's, like, whoah. Here's a video featuring music only a tiny bit like The Egg's

When i was eight, i remember pondering for a long time and coming up with a plan. I was going to find a board, tie some rope loops into the ends of the board, put the loops around my shoulders, and lift myself into the air. So the other day i asked Houston if something like that would work. He thought... and thought and said "No." Why not, i wondered aloud. "Because then we could fly!!!" Houston said with his voice communicating absurdity.

Finally, when i was that age also, i read ads in the back of Popular Mechanics and similar magazines which promised that i'd "Get Rich Quick! Send $5.00 to find out how!" I thought to myself that if you send in your money they'll just send you a letter telling you to put ads in shady magazines promising quick wealth for five bucks. And now that i'm, uh, twenty six years older, i still think that would work. In fact, it would certainly work. The dude who sold a million pixels for a dollar each paid off his student loans, and while that was novel, there's no end to dumb people who'll toss a few spare bucks down a hole for the chance to be rich.

First Post of 2007!!!

The cool sunlight glinted whitely from the class ring on Bryson Spacegard's finger - Class of 2101, Vice Principal's List - as it arced smoothly and rapidly into the spongy, moist face of the twelfth, maybe thirteenth zombie he'd killed by punching in the last hour and twenty seven minutes and he was reminded of what he'd been doing sixteen minutes before that (for a total of one hour and thirty three minutes ago), kneading pizza dough back at the Best Pizza on Mars franchise where he worked and he wondered, as he regretted (because of the ninja zombie outbreak) picking up this extra shift, is my hair still immaculately tousled?

:)

See, 2006 wasn't the best year when it came to first sentences each month. I was kind of disappointed in myself. 2007 is looking pretty awesome so far! That's totally an effort to craft a Horrible First Sentence like those submitted for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Oh my, they're a hoot to read. But perhaps more entertaining are the examples of writing which actually got published.

Having said all that, um... it was a pretty good first day of the year. Katrina feels much better besides "my so sleepy" and Houston gets really shy if you tell him how to be silly. Like "Houston, throw your arms out to your sides and say 'Father dear, I'm hungry. Might i have some food?' like me!" results in him hunching his shoulders and looking down. And i parted his hair today and told him to go show Karen because she'll laugh so much, and he wouldn't. The kid will run full speed into walls and writhe around on the floor just for a small laugh, but tell him what to do? He's Mister Reserved. Zane is asleep on my lap. Aww, cutie!

Last day of, you know.

Happy new year! New year's eve, i mean. Since this is December thirtyfirst's post... um...

Basically, i'm really tired, i want to go graciously let my friends and family know i need to sleep, and bow out of the rest of the festivities. Which will probably involve more eating, and i already brushed my teeth. Because Dove chocolate, for all its amazing qualities - the smooth texture, the toasted caramel like flavor, the perfect melt quality of the cocoa butter - but it sure does leave my teeth feeling fuzzy. Yech. And nobody likes eating Firey Habanero Doritos on a freshly brushed mouth.

And sorry, Diana, for the picture with your tongue sticking out. Um... it's the best i had. Want me to photoshop it out?