Our steps!

After years of putting up with hideously ugly walls upstairs, finally we painted. What a relief! It's not finished -- we were up late last night painting, and today's Sunday... we'll finish it mañana. I like the way it looks, but it is certainly... orange. We think maybe another color for the front of the steps would be nice... like black?... but then, as somebody pointed out at Sunday Dinner, "Halloween???"

Today, we had the Sunday Dinner thing, where we discussed last Friday's presidential debate. As a staunch Obama supporter (and therefore unwelcome ever again to visit my in-law's house), i felt that he did very well, but agreed with analysts that neither debater had won anyone over to his side. But the consensus at Karen's parents' house was that Obama had prevailed. Now, her family aren't necessarily McCain supporters, but they're always of a different opinion than either Karen or me. So we had a moment or two of conflict, which Karen and i tried to avoid, by not saying anything or developing a sudden fascination with the Walgreens sale paper, but finally Karen sat them down, one at a time, to take this test. Fascinating. It led to some more reasonable political discussion than normal.

So, after the ___more___ is my results.
___more___

First debate!

That's a squished die cast car body embedded in the asphalt near our house. It's barely a landmark. On the last walk we took, Houston started scrutinizing the street, saying "I want to find that squished car." Weirdly enough, i knew right where it was. Memory is awesome.

Tonight, Karen and i watched the first televised debate twixt McCain and Obama. The commentators followed up by saying that nobody's minds are going to have been changed by this debate. But for the people who are feeling put off, somehow, by Obama's vibes or whatever, will be able to get some time looking at the guy. He presents as a credible leader, confident in conflict, and able to think on his feet. I think the people who consider themselves completely non-racist, but whose subconscious minds are nudging them (human nature, after all) "stranger danger" might be impressed that Obama is somebody they'd welcome into their neighborhood.

And i'm glad neither of them said "Trust me", or "Make no mistake". I hate it when politicians say that. "Trust me, the smoke is totally normal for the AMC Gremlin." "Look" is only a little bit annoying. I wish Obama had addressed McCain's language about Victory and Defeat in Iraq. To simplify such a complex situation as we've got going on over there as the binary choice of victory or defeat strikes me as insulting. Somewhere i read that either we won that war when Hussein was ousted, or it's not the kind of war you CAN win. Karen pointed out that McCain did the church handshake, but one-upped it by never even making eye contact with Obama. He didn't look at his opponent, not even once. That was weird. And Obama seemed more gracious, giving McCain props for stuff like his stand against torture, while McCain couldn't quite saying how Senator Obama doesn't understand several issues. Oh man, i hope B. Hussein Obama wins.

Two things i heard...

In the grocery store parking lot:

"So now he can't even come home, or the cops will come by and lock him up!"
"Ridiculous."
"I KNOW!"

I love our neighborhood.


At school, we were having a discussion about crime, robbery, home invasions, and firearms. This is, mind you, in front of at-risk teens in residential homes.
Teacher -- "So if they're running away from your house, even if they have your possessions, you can't kill 'em!"
Me -- blink blink, reach for Palm Pilot to write it down, verbatim.
Kids, rolling eyes and sighing -- "Wow. That's crazy. Can i have some candy?"

This is the same teacher who told kids today that omniscient and ubiquitous are synonyms.

But then i got to spend time with the family. Karen made the best goulash i've EVER tasted. Just the right mix of garlic and spiciness, with perfectly browned beef. Awesome. Then, for the third night in a row, i left her by herself to do bedtime routine, to do our first Young Life club. The kids actually sang! It was cool!

Carrots and scooters

We ate some dwarvish carrots today. We have sandy soil, which is supposed to be more friable (if that really is a word -- Firefox seems to think it is, but so is palimpsest, and that might make just as much sense) than clay-ey or rocky soil. So carrots grown in our hood, so to speak, should be long and slender, like society's accepted ideal for the profile of a carrot. But ours end up shaped like slightly tall radishes. Or miniature turnips. But they're tasty.

I bet you need more organic material and a lot less of pounding rain compressing the soil.

I was going to also cook properly for the kids, but didn't, leaving Karen graciously holding those reins, while i ran off to the bar. Well, to the scooter club ride, and we ended up at Founders, where i ate a sandwich.

Aaaah, the scooter club. I like trading scooters for parts of the rides, which doesn't seem to be bad manners, per say, but nobody does it. Besides me. But while i did trade with two guys, i did hear one of the other guys ask to swap and the other (other) guy said no... probably because the asker was an insane driver. But Brad and Kevin know how to ride safely. Brad's on my scooter in this picture, because i'm riding his Honda Elite, which is flat black, loud, and monstrously powerful (for a 50cc scooter). And very light. And, frankly, far more my style than my pristine, shiny, never-been-dropped Aprilia. When we got to Founders and i was telling this story, illustrating my points with my horribly scraped up camera, and my well worn Palm Pilot (which was rapidly repocketed), somebody spilled beer on my camera. Which adds to the list of astonishing things my little Sony DSC-S40 has survived. I'm so proud.

...

No time to post! Watching The Office!

And yeah, i know i look very scary in that picture. Sorry. It's for some Young Life characters. And that's Sara, my Young Life fearless (head) leader! She's great. This year, we're going to be Nu Skool (or New School), a desperate pair of "artists" or whatever, who're convinced that everybody is hopelessly behind in fashion and music, and need to get caught up. Like, old school is so totally not cool. It's the new school which is the stuff. That old school was so old, they condemned it. It was demolished last month.

Monday Usually Rocks.

It's my day off. Karen let me have a proper sleep in. I woke in the early double digits, and proceeded to have a nice quiet day. We went shopping, and i made linguine with Alfredo sauce. I'm proud of the Alfredo sauce -- it turned out really good. And the chicken we ate with it was good too. Mmm, food.

Food is good.

It works again!

Awesome. All i did was take it apart and fiddle with nearly microscopic gears and stuff. I mean my camera, the one i ran over with my scooter and then (this is when it actually broke) took it to a park.

Besides that fascinating story, i worked, and we went to the church we go to at work. Which isn't JDD, but is, in the tradition of HAL. The theme there this month is "Are You Letting the Bible Be Your Guide As You Vote?" I was extremely prepared to be disgusted, but wasn't disgusted at all. I was actually impressed. They are talking about the most important issues affecting our country, and by extension, for whom we should vote. There was no "God is a Republican", or "No Christian could ever vote for a Pro-Choice candidate!" In fact, my intuition seemed to detect a vague Obama preference. The pastor said we shouldn't vote because of "momentum" or "skin color" or "only one issue". Being a mostly suburban white church, one might expect momentum to refer to Republican, that it's kind of okay to vote for a black guy, and i know at least three Christians who've already (blindly, in my opinion) thrown in with McCain because the dude claims to be "Pro-Life".

Anyway... today Karen was attacked by a possessed cup lid. It jumped out of the sink, crept menacingly across the floor, and then leaped at her. Seriously. She told me the story, and i laughed and laughed. She writes about it over at her blog.

Mmmmm, apples!

Yesterday we went apple picking! Oh, the Honeycrisp! This apple is definitely not a flavor winner -- it's pleasantly sweet and mildly apple-like, but it's a fairly shallow flavor -- but the crispness! The juiciness! Absolutely amazing. You gotta go apple picking if your latitude and climate favor such species, and at least try one. The only downside is that they're expensive. And i've never bought them from the store, but i don't imagine that they keep well.

And if you eat more than six, you might get a wee tummyache.

Another owie kitty

I crack myself up.

Thanks, Inkscape! And now, to bed!

I made some pants

Several months ago, i bought a painter's dropcloth and sewed some pants. They were a little weird, but i thought they'd fit okay. So i washed them, and they shrunk hideously, and turned into the silliest, most ridiculous pants in the history of the multiverse. So a while later i bought another dropcloth, because i really liked the minimally processed canvas feel of the cloth after it was washed. This time, i washed the cloth first, and THEN made pants. That order worked a lot better. I really like these pants. And they're cheap -- a dropcloth is, like, twelve bucks. And i'll be able to get another pair out of it.

If anyone wants a pair, i'll make you some if you pay for material. Unless you want pockets. Then, i'll charge for my time, because pockets are a pain in the -heh- butt.

I started sewing last night because Karen is making a quilt! It is fixing to be my favorite quilt in the history of everything quiltesque, and i can't wait to see it finished. Plus, she's using two layers of (guess...) dropcloth for the batting. Stronger, natural cotton, way cheaper, and heavy. I like my quilts long on the heavy, short on the fluffy.

We're RICH!!!

Karen and i frequently mutter amongst ourselves about how we have so little money, but we also mutter self-congratulatiorily that we're not in debt (besides house and (a little bit of) car). So we're poor, but we're doing okay.

But then we get the news that AIG is a wreck, banks are going belly up like goldfish in Mountain Dew, and even GM, which isn't in immediate danger of disappearing, is losing dinosaurian amounts of money. So, since our family didn't go into debt $3,300,000,000.00, we're actually richer than one of the largest automakers in the world. That's awesome. I'm going to go buy a factory in Cambodia!!!

And look! Hello Kitty with a head bandage and a crutch! I have long wanted to get a Hello Kitty sticker or drawing for my helmet. Maybe i'll draw this one on with a Sharpie.

GRSC

I was going to post last Sunday about the weird handshake thing people do when you're saying hi to them in church, but i forgot.

But what's up with that?

Our church is hideously gigantic. We know dozens of people who go there, but that's still less than one percent of the people who attend. So unless we purposely sit near a friend or two, we're shaking hands with anonymous strangers. And almost without fail, as soon as the anonymous strangers touch your hand to shake it, they've broken eye contact and are looking around for the next person to shake hands with.

This is a little weird. If you do that, please stop. Now, don't maintain creepy levels of eye contact, especially not if you choose to stroke the anonymous stranger's hand with your thumb -- that would be weirder. But please if you ever shake my hand, don't break eye contact.

Oh yeah. That's a picture for the GRSC: the Grand Rapids Scooter Club. There's a guy, Greg, who got a windshield for his scooter, and the self-important jerks on some other forum said it looked retarded. So another guy on the GRSC forum photoshopped a, um, retarded guy's face onto Greg's windshield. So now we tease each other about that. And my and Eric's "reen reen" handshake is a big joke too, so we just might name our scooter club the GRSC ReenTodds. Which would be funny, but a little awkward when Houston says "Daddy, what's a reentodd, and why do you have a sticker on your scooter that says that?"

It's better than some of the names suggested. Not Safe For Work or those sensitive to swear words: check out the name suggestions.

Rainy Two Days!

You know the days where you do absolutely nothing? You sit around reading books or watching TV or whatever? Well, yesterday we had one of those. At least, Katrina and Houston and Zane did, while i followed them around cleaning up messes. I've come to believe that a house is not full until all areas of it degenerate into mess unless you can somehow devote reasonable attention to every area. This has happened with Katrina's room and the basement, but the other rooms have stayed mostly tidy with my effortfull presence. As it was, i still got a couple chapters read.

The reason for all this laziness? RAIN! It has been raining here for about two and a half days straight. I think it tapered off these last couple hours, but seriously, there's been so much rain! It doesn't rain like this in Michigan. This is Oregonian weather! Mmmmm, gray rainy days!

At least it's Friday.

Okay, let me sketch a scenario for you. Imagine all the inner city school movies you've seen, like Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver, and..... uh... that one with capoeira. With a young Andy Garcia with razor sharp waxed eyebrows... i think that was the one. Anyway, allow me to erase the bad sketch marks i just made and continue with:

Take the kids who would get expelled from schools like those. The kinds of kids who sell weed in the classroom. The kids who assault their teachers. The kids who got kicked out of inner city schools. Right, so take all the most troubled of the troubled kids, and send them all to one school, with maybe ten teachers and three non-teachers who're supposed to manage behaviors in the classroom and halls. Oh, and let's make the between-class time FIVE WHOLE MINUTES. In one nicely compact building.

Well, that's where i worked today. It was simply exhausting, partially because of that whole losing time to Ebay thing that happened last night, but also because all the kids were just so naughty! So much swearing, dress code violations, physical boundary problems... and i felt like i was the only one holding anyone accountable. Just me, with about four classrooms to watch.

On the other hand, i got to lecture kids on politics, current events, racism, community values. Ever heard "Snitches get stitches"? And i don't mean to sound cocky, but i got some of the most obnoxious kids to actually engage with me in a polite discussion about peripherally school-related subjects. This was during the half hour when the teacher was getting a drink of water. Actually, i think she was having herself a good cry. I don't blame her. Four of the teachers looked absolutely traumatized -- startle response, hypervigilance, mood swings... I hope they work it out. And i'm so glad i don't work there.

My camera broke!

Yeah... i bought this camera on Ebay, broken. Then, i used and abused it heavily, but it soldiered on. Then i kind of ran over it with my scooter. But it still worked. But then after taking it to the park with Katrina, it broke. Now the lens won't extend. Sad.

But happy: Travis and Brooke visited! While we disagree about many things, especially in writing, we agree heartily (or at least i agree) that we like each otherses, and the foundations of our love for God is the same, and runs deep.

Whoops, i just lost half an hour to browsing Ebay. Stupid internet. Must Go To Bed NOW.

Just some pictures

Hey! I haven't posted a picture of me in about a million thousandths of a second, so since i have nothing to say, here's one! It's from Katrina and my trip to the park Monday. Tuesday night i slept at work, on a therapist's couch. Literally. I dreamed about my mother, but not really. Not that i remember, at least. I woke up one time because i was hot.

Okay, so here's some other pictures of the park: Here's the puppet show stage i made, with the soft focus effect probably thanks to Zane and peanut butter. Katrina's beautiful. She took a lot of pictures, like those of her dolls, or this one of our puppet show with a random stranger as our audience, and of course a toad the strangers found. A good day. Better than a day that ends with me sleeping in a therapist's office.

Upon reviewing this before hitting "Post Entry" (i almost never do that) it occurs to me that some might wonder why i'm not going home at night. Well, i was scheduled to work until midnight, and was scheduled to work the next morning at six thirty. Maximum theoretical sleep time: six point five hours. Every moment i spent doing something else was time snatched away from that 6.5 hours. Driving seemed like a foolish way to spend some forty or sixty minutes, so Karen my Wonderful let me have a slumber party by myself.

Drill here! Drill now!

Okay, i just thought i understood politics some. Like, i recognize that campaigns are mostly run on lies on both sides, and the candidates' -- indeed the main parties' -- positions are virtually identical in the grand scheme... my preference for Obama is all about appearance and eloquence. Okay, and his organizational strengths and persuasive speaking skill. But still, he's a politician.

But yesterday i saw a bumper sticker "Drill Here! Drill Now!" and then maybe "Save Now!" or whatever. I couldn't believe it. My head figuratively exploded. People are passionate about offshore drilling? Seriously? Drilling for oil??? I remember that was one of the biggest applause lines at one of the speeches at the Republican National Convention. So now i'm back to seriously not getting it. Oh wait -- people are passionate about Coke vs. Pepsi. Chevy vs. Ford. Magnetic bracelets. So i do get it. Sigh.

Allergies

Yay! A picture! I ripped it off from Karen's uncle. That's why Zane has his stranger-danger face on.

On Friday night right before bedtime, Katrina randomly started picking up building blocks and putting them away. I was impressed, and decided to do a jackpot reward, and told her that we could go do something special on Monday. So today we built a little puppet show box out of cardboard and took it to the park, where Katrina put on a half hour puppet show for me, mostly consisting of a doll writing a message: "Dear God, I love you very much. You can keep this message forever." That, or stuffed animals falling out of the puppet show box.

But my allergies, holy cow! I'm a sneezy, tired mess. I've been intentionally avoiding medications, because... i do... but the sneezing is wearing me out, and the itchy eyes are driving me bonkers. So on Karen's advise, i took one benadryl. I was tired already, but now i'm either actively moving and feeling sleepy, or i'm sitting still while my eyes are deciding to go ahead and start REM. Or take five seconds to actually focus on the same thing. So i'm going to bed now.

Funny stuff

Hmm, tomorrow i gotta take a picture of somebody besides Katrina. Today it was "Daddy! Take a picture of me!" while i was on my way out of the house to go to work. So obviously i did, who could resist?

Beth was over here tonight, and she talked some about house centipedes. So i looked up "house centipede" on YouTube, and sure enough, there's plenty of video. I highly recommend not watching the videos, thought, since they really are one of the freakiest horrible sights one can imagine. I mean, their legs are feathery thin at the ends, but all you see moving are the thicker bits, so they move with a sort of hideous speed -- they look like their floating ominously like... a vampire from a bad horror movie. Or something much much worse. And one of the videos had a centipede moving its legs in opposite directions on opposing sides of their body! Okay, that simply looks unnatural to me. Yuck.

However, that's not the funny thing. The funny thing is reading the comments. I will leave you to see how much video you can tolerate, and how much you enjoy the comments. Shudder... hahaha... shudder... hahaha. That's what i did.

Also funny, and clever; xkcd. I lost about two hours one time to xkcd archives.

National Debt vs. Entitlements...

I worked today, picked the kids up from school, priced garage sale stuff, played with the kids, gave them a couple scooter rides, put them to bed, and am now sitting here smelling Graham farts creep greasily through the air. Do not envy me that last one. Gross.

And it occurred to me yesterday that as two of the greatest expenditures of our government -- the interest on the national debt and entitlements -- are kind of the same thing, just that one is for the rich, and one is for the poor. According to this page of statistics, which appears to be politically biased and might be wrong, but who knows... defense spending is between those two. People and other entities (like countries and investment firms) can buy bonds, and sell them back later to the US for more money, and that "more money" part is a flabbergastingly large number of dollars. That's the "interest on the debt" part. Entitlements are like food stamps, paying for kids to live at Wedgwood... stuff like that.

So maybe when people wealthy enough to afford bonds complain about welfare, they should sell their bonds back to the government interest free.

Only a little bit of politics

There's, finally, a new picture of one of my kids! Katrina went outside in the rain to play, and it was very cute. She drove Zane and i to the bagel and pizza restaurant, thrilled that the lights and windshield wipers still work when the van's hooked up to a battery charger. Then we ate rice with chicken, which Zane devoured. Then he went to bed, and Katrina showed me the favorite parts of The Wiggles, which is really a weirdly funny show. The guys look... like normal late twenties men, with absolutely no business being the stars of a kids' TV show. Besides the fact that they're goofballs. I guess that's enough.

But politics: we're listening to the Republican National Convention -- it's McCain talking. And the crowd is changing "U S A, U S A" -- i thought people only did that ironically, Homer Simpson style. But they're earnest. And there's these COUNTRY FIRST banners everywhere, and a whole tone that i find, at worst, ominous. I thought "Nazi Germany", and wasn't going to mention that, because as soon as you bring up Hitler or Nazis, you sound really desperate, but then Karen totally said the same thing. Oh boy. I've got a sinking feeling that he's gonna win. We'll see. But country first? How about people first? Humans? Is "U S A" a person? Is "U S A" made in the image of God? How many souls, image-bearing, valuable souls, have been sacrificed to our country?

I'm still an Obama supporter, even though i'm realizing that he's inevitably a politician. He's a good -- excellent -- politician and a decent guy, he's still a politician. But he knows what it's like to be disadvantaged. He's lived outside of the US, he knows what it's like to be a minority. He would be a friendly face for a world living in fear of our giant country's desperate fight to stay the dominant world power. I'm worried too -- the US is arguably no longer the most powerful country on earth, and i think that might make us increasingly hostile and aggressive, especially with someone at the helm who has condemned effort by our politicians to simply sit down and talk with Iran, and who said tonight that he'd quit sending some giant sum of money in aid to "people who don't like us very much". McCain got a big ovation for that one. So how are our enemies going to feel about us then? Probably... warm and fuzzy? Or maybe they'll recognize tough love when they see it? I hope?

Another day with the kids!

There's one of the dancepads i'm working on. They'll be awesome.

Besides that, and far more interesting, i took the kids out today for my first real, long term interaction with them since they got back Monday night. They're awesome. We went to the mall where the giant food play area used to be -- it's gone now, leaving a sadly empty area, with heavily worn carpet with a peeled-banana shaped spot of fluffy new looking carpet. And a waffle, and a splotch of the two sunny-side up eggs... sausages... All gone. Gone.

So we went to the other play area right across the street, where the kids played until my bladder almost exploded. They're such good kids. Zane was really huggy to his older siblings, Houston played excellently with others, and Katrina was a treasure. I love them so-ho-ho-ho mu-hu-hu-ch. Holly Hunter. From Raising Arizona. Good movie. Important. Okay, sorry, i'm doing a modified quote from The Office...

Time for bed.

All was well with the world

My family is back. It's so awesome. The kids... Karen... the house is warm and lively again.

And today is totally Houston's first day of school. He's growing up, bless the boy. And i had to work, so i didn't even get to see him after he left for school. Snif! Yesterday he said "We were in Iowa a week, but it seemed like such a long time!" "Mmph," i said, as parents so often do when they're doing five other tasks while also listening to their kids. "We were in Pennsylvania for a week too, but it seemed like we were in Iowa for longer! All weeks are the same," continued Houston, "but the week in Iowa seemed much longer!"

I agreed with Houston that time is weird like that, but isn't that cute for him to observe? I love all my kids.

But no pictures. Manana. But today, you should totally check out Google Chrome. I wrote this on it. :)

I miss them so much

But they're coming back today! They're probably leaving right now!

And me? I woke up at eight... which has been happening all week. Yesterday i even went to the 9:00 AM church service, and was early! I have tried to sleep in, but there's something waking me up at a kind of responsible, adult time. I hope it's not... responsible adulthood. I'd better go out and jump railroad tracks in the KIA. Or download FREE SCREENSAVERS LOL!!1! That'll show them.

Oh... and yesterday i only did cleaning and edited a video of Thursday's scooter rally. I hope it shows how much fun scooter rallies are. Here it is:

Scooter Movie
Uploaded by ozerik