options

Events have timed themselves oddly regarding things in my own life and this particular post and comment session from ye ol' ZeroBoss. From another blogger we get questions concerning options, whether we ever really have a choice or whether we don't accept that certain things are options. That's my simplistic take on the discussion, but, as I mentioned, people's choices have effected me lately, so I can't help but take this discussion my own direction.

I had other thoughts concerning this idea of choices and options. My life has taught me a specific lesson that seems too often to assert itself. We are often given options, do or don't, go or stay, attempt or ignore. But we forget that those decisions often bring with them options that are checked without our having intended.

We can look at it in one way as the settings on your car radio. You can probably bring up the equalizer and set everything yourself. You could also and more easily just scroll through the settings programmed into the device based on the music you're listening to. But when you choose the preset option, you are also picking to have each option, such as treble and bass, set to those prerequisites. You didn't adjust those options specifically, but by making one decision, you also made a number of other decisions.

Many years ago, I made a decision to leave Atlanta, the city I was born in and grew up in. Much of how my life is now, the places I've seen, the jobs I've held, the children I helped produce, hinged on that decision. I can't know what would have happened had I remained in Atlanta. I know of a number of people who've been effected by my decision to leave, but I can't know how different their lives would have been had I not left.

That's the thing about decisions, that we can't know the long term effects. No matter what we do, no matter how simple we think things are, the least breath in passing can have the most intense and unexpected end.

What if I hadn't been at Little Five Points that day that the girl from NC was leaving to go back home? What if I hadn't decided to throw everything up in the air and go to NC? Would that couple have met? Would that child have been born? And that's not even mentioning my own marriage and children. I'm not considering my own direct contributions, just the way my passage has caused ripples that I can't know. And all this because I recognized the dog the girl from NC was watching as belonging to some squatters that I knew.

That's the thing about options and decisions. We only think we are making a single decision. The truth is that each decision we make opens up a world of other options for more people than we can realize. Often, our decisions set the list of options available to other people, as if we were choosing their radio presets.

I don't mean to say that my existence is especially important in the grand scheme of things. I would wager than anyone among us can look into their past and see things that hinged on their presence in some way, though these situations may have seemed most inconsequential at the time. And often the most important decisions we make end up having very little to do with how our lives turn out.

gotta start somewhere

Quoting from a recently viewed commercial.

"Samuel Adams Boston Lager is not a beginner's beer."

And the first thought to flit across my mind in answer is, "The fuck it's not!"

I try to keep a certain appreciation for Sam Adams beer, and there are plenty of times when I've been grateful to find that at least they have Sam Adams, "they" being whichever bar/restaurant/store I happen to be purchasing in that doesn't have actual good beer.

Sam Adams and equally Newcastle Brown Ale were the beers that introduced me to a higher standard and were, for me, a stepping stone to a better appreciation of better beers. As I've come to drink better beer, I find that those beginner beers just don't reach the quality standard I've come to appreciate.

Furthermore, I must point out that I've come to dislike most lagers. Most big American beers are lagers, a style that, at its best, just doesn't stand up to the ales. So even at it's best Sam's Boston lager is nothing more than a really good version of the crappy beer I could have at half the price.

So, yes Mr. Jackass Sam Adam's Brewer, your best beer, your shining example, your pride and joy is a fucking beginner beer. You and your beer are lucky to be a stepping stone. You're like a halfway house between the insipid Bud's and Miller's of too many people, the welcome mat on the gateway to brewers who make really good beer.

more woe

We recently had a bit of a laundry pile up which coincided with the perfect night to actually do the laundry. I had all of it gathered and sorted and loaded the first load into the washing machine. It was especially not unpleasant to do the laundry as I recently finally cleaned the laundry room up a bit.

Have I mentioned that I'm not a plumber? It almost seems as if that's come up lately, and it remains true. Another thing I'm not is an electrical mechanic. I'm not without a very basic understanding of electricable type stuff and things, but . . . yeah, not a mechanic.

I knew I had a problem as I opened the lid. The funny, almost oily smell in the air hadn't immediately clued me to the possibility of a problem, but afterwards, I was able to at least find corollary possibility. The clothes were still soaking wet in the washer indicating that the spin cycle hadn't been quite sufficient for whatever reason. And the smell wasn't a horrid burning smell kind of smell you might expect when something electric doesn't do its thing, so it wasn't like anything too crazy could have happened.

I tried the usual, reset the spin cycle being my first stab. That didn't work so I cussed a little bit. I checked the plug which was where it should have been. This should very likely have been the limit of my checking, looking, working on, maybe checking the fuse.

All of that leads to today, the day I finally got a chance to open it up. I want to be able to fix something like this, and I'm certain that I could. It took enough time, made a lovely mess and gave me reason to actually wonder, how the fuck do you get spiral pasta behind the washing machine?

I really have to wonder why the fuck I did open it. It's not like I have any idea what all the shit inside there is, though I do at least know the difference between water parts and electric parts and to unplug it and turn the water off before fucking with it. I knew going into the back of it that I couldn't do anything with whatever I found unless there was a sign or maybe a note from the broken part explaining what the situation was.

It's all especially amusing when I point out that we have a newer washing machine in the garage. We got an aging washer with the house, so we kept the one we had when we moved in and stuffed it into the garage. I very likely have changed those bitches out a couple of nights ago before I touched the damn tools, but alas, I have no handtruck nor other conveyance.

And with that I remember that I need to finish drying some things. Momma was nice enough to take the most necesary of our piles to her mother's. I will take advantage of that to not write anymore tonight about my appliance issues. Damn suburban hell. Damn goshamighty fuck!

el presidente

As we look to the upcoming presidential election, we are facing new choices in viable options for a president. I don't want to imagine the scenario that sees another republican president the next chance we get to choose a president, so we sensibly look to the left side for our options.

Currently, we have a few democratic offerings, the two most noticeable being Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton. For our two standout candidates we have a black man and a woman. Hillary of course is white, but I'd argue that in America, any black or white woman has a better chance at becoming president than a black man. I wish that it didn't matter, but I'm afraid too many people may still allow race and gender to play some role in their vote, even if they try to pretend that it's subconscious.

I'd personally give my vote to both of them if the election were tomorrow. It's past time for the US to have one or the other. Shit, if Texas can have a woman as a governor, surely we can have someone that isn't a white guy as president.

I'm not saying I have a problem with white guys. I happen to be one. I don't especially care that the president is or isn't one thing or another so much as that it just really is time to get a good president. The democrats need to run the best candidate, not the guy most likely to swing enough votes, but I'm afraid they'll fucking John Kerrey us again, that horse faced fuck.

The sooner we elect a president, that is either black or a woman, people will maybe figure out that it's okay, and soon, maybe we can approach real equality. Satan and turrist didn't come out from under our beds and gay us or kill us with evil, and Mexicans didn't climb our fences in the night to steal our chickens, so maybe people with skin tones in all varieties of shades might get to where they are holding political office.

I suppose I wasn't quite honest before, because chances are Hillary has one secret weapon that no one else can hope to equal. In the end, fuck the other candidates. I want Bill Clinton back. That he'd be the first lady might just make me vote Hillary in the end, above and beyond anything she and any other candidate might have to say.

plumb irritating

I still haven't finished the damn "plumbing job," though I'm finally telling the story. I had a couple of leaky knobs which could actually be kind of fun in the right circumstances, but when it's your bathtub, you worry.

It shouldn't have been anything like a plumbing job. It should have been a simple turn off the water, twist the wrench a couple of times and slide off the o-ring, and shit don't stop being a little dirty.

I ended up making a huge job out of what shouldn't have been nearly as involved. The knobs came off, the faucet came off, the weird ass laminate shit that is a stand in for tile came off, and finally, with the introduction of the vise grips, the plumbing parts that actually were the very simple problem (I'm pretty sure) came out.

The dripping seemed to have stopped when I reassembled the myriad bits and pieces that made up the whole. I'm a little concerned about some things I noticed in the initial testing phase that was giving the boys their baths tonight. I'm not sure if there's a problem or if I just saw one because the job so traumatized me. I'll know tomorrow when I check it out a second time. I ignored it tonight to get the baths taken as it had already grown late.

The worst of this whole deal is the options that I must admit exist. I like to think I know how little or how much I know given various situations. I would have readily admitted that I didn't know shit about plumbing sorts of issues had I not been faced with one. As it turns out, I really don't, and I was.

I wouldn't have pulled the chunk of wall off if I hadn't found more water than ought to have been there. I never figured out where it came from, and I'd like to think, regardless of my knob fixing acumen, I can find wet. I've actually done that a few times, if you know what I mean. And if I'd come up with the idea of using the damn vise grips I'd have saved myself a couple of swears and some nearly rounded off edges. I could easily have done the job any number of ways and likely done it quicker. I haven't even brought up the silicon sealant that I got to squeeze into some cracks, which isn't dirty even though I did say "cracks." I think it may have dried finally, though I did fill some pretty big gaps.

The issue of concern involves the actual shower itself. Our shower is a handheld kind of thing that attaches to the underside of the tub faucet. It's not the greatest deal I've ever run across, but it's worked well enough, so . . .

The true beauty of the hand held shower thingy is that you can more easily rinse the tub when you have to wash it. Okay, the real true beauty is a little light spray on the undercarriage, but again, this post isn't getting that dirty, no matter what you bunch of pervs think. It is also nice to make sure that the crack gets a good final rinse as well.

In the end, I'm still certain that I most likely fucked something up. I don't want to have of course, but no way could any normal person have distended the job as I did. I'm sure I missed putting something back or the glue holding up the wall won't hold or the sealant is quite all the way in a little part of the crack (heheh, crack) and it will grow into a huge pit of mold just under the fake tile laminate stuff.

amber ale

Rules were meant to be broken, and I've broken one of my own by purchasing, not once, but twice recently, an amber ale. I believe that brewers generally make ambers as an easy couple of extra bucks to people who won't drink their good beers but want to drink something cool. I know, in that situation, my presumptions make me the asshole, but I'm not much concerned with that. Me and being an asshole go together like beans and cornbread.

Truthfully, I would imagine that an amber seems less than to me mostly because my taste in beer runs to different extremes. I love an American pale ale that's completely overhopped, especially the more floral and aromatic varieties. I want my stouts and porters to be part meal. Shit, I've even almost given up on brown ales as being lacking. A good amber should really be nothing more or less than an honest beer, and a good brewer should be able to make a good one.

The one word printed across a bottle that can always make me stop and consider is Rogue. They just keep making good beer, and they like to make it interesting once in a while as well. If you can find it try their chipotle ale.

The Rogue amber is a good beer. I really can't complain about it in any way. Maybe it's not the one I'd steer toward more often, but that doesn't make it a bad beer. It's what beer should be at it's basic, a little malty, a little hoppy, a little cold, wet, intoxificating.

That isn't the only beer I'm enjoying tonight. I had a Rogue Dead Guy earlier. Following that was a Pyramid hefeweizen, and now the amber. I'm certainly dancing all around the beerological world tonight.

ssssooooo . . .

Yeah, not a lot happening around here. I'm not done with the plumbing job, and I refuse to write a horrid little story about that near calamity till the glue is mostly dry. But rest assured that within a couple more days, I've got a great post brewing, and with pictures.

While most of the work of the bathroom was done today, the actual finally nearly fixing the problem, I've refused all day to be concerned about it. I've felt like shit all day, and I have payed a rather smallish price for my indiscretion of last night.

I went out last night. "Went out" isn't nearly quite explanatory in that most people would assume more than actually happened. What actually happened was I should just as well have stayed home and saved the damn money.

As I mentioned yesterday, The Boy and I missed a show that the family had planned on seeing, so as a conciliatory gesture, Momma suggested I go out for a bit. I'm not out of this house without kids nearly often enough. Sometimes, that means that I go out and drink a few more beers than maybe I ought.

It wasn't the amount of beer I poured into me but the rapidity of the pouring in. General maintenance suggests a drink an hour. That's roughly the amount of time your body needs to process the beverage. I don't generally care to follow that rule, but I also tend toward some small amount of responsible thoughts if not actual action.

Going out, this time, meant standing at one bar for a couple of beers, then going somewhere else to be just as bored. It was a mostly sucky night, considering it was basically a wasted going out. I should have stayed home and actually made a point of doing something not sucky on a different night. But that whole wish in one hand and shit in the other thing seems a little timely here.

Today, when I finally did bother to wake all the way up, I didn't really feel to bad. I've been kind of tired and sluggish all day, but how much of that is just my general nature? For a good portion of the early part of my day I kept getting dizzy when I stood up too quickly. That can happen anytime one stands up too quickly, but this was different and special.

I accept that being a drunkard, I'll occasionally have to pay the price for my sinful ways. Considering how much worse I could have had it, I will admit that my spinny head was getting off pretty damn lightly. My liver is getting to where I have to whack it with a broom handle once in a while, like the starter on an old Cutlass, to make it start working, but they've got scientists growing livers in a damn organ farm, so I'll just buy a new one one day.

And there you go, a crappy story being pooped out as a blog post so that I can feel good when I see all the excrementary ponderings I've come up with.

Readamus T. Bookington

Never one to pass up a good quiz, or even a not so good quiz as I've learned, I present this one. Because it's about reading, I knew immediately that I had to take the quiz so that I could then tell the world how wonderful I am because I read books. Yea me! We live in a house almost full of books. The only surface unlikely to contain books is the computer desk, and this is only because there isn't room next to the cd's, the piles of mail/bills, the other pile of crap, the pile of shit or the stack of junk. There are books on tables, chairs, the floor, even next to the sink in the bathroom. I caught The Boy sitting on the potty with a book yesterday and it warmed my cold, gray heart just a wee bit.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Book Snob
Dedicated Reader
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Ron has been in my bloglines and is responsible for directing me to Carrie who not only gets credit for being the blogger that clued me in to this quiz but may also find herself in my bloglines.

just won't eat

There lives in this house a little boy who often just won't eat. He grows hungry like any other little boy would, and he's growing well, as any other boy would. But I often wonder how he fuels this growth as well as the activity that results from being a little boy.

When I say he won't eat, I don't mean that he never eats. He's also not the bland food kid that orders plain noodles at the Asian restaurant. He'll eat peanut butter graham crackers all day sometimes. He'll eat granola bars and yogurt. He'll eat fish roe and octopus. What he won't eat is pretty much anything that I cook and call supper.

Tonight is a great example of his eating style. I made a casserole of Italian sausage in a tomato sauce and polenta. It of course has lots of cheese in it as well, and one would think it's a great kind of thing to get kids to eat.

He sat staring into his bowl for a couple of minutes while Momma and I both tried to get him to eat. We were a little pressed for time as we needed to eat and get ready to attend a puppet show, an outing that we'd planned for some time and were excited about. Eventually he admitted that the onions were bothering him and that he didn't like them. Never mind that they are cooked and that he's eaten and enjoyed them plenty of times, he wasn't having it tonight. Momma picked the onions out and gave him back his bowl. By this time she'd finished eating, so he and I were left at the table, me eating and wishing he would do the same while he poked and poked and poked at his food.

Now Big Brother and Momma are on their way downtown to attend the puppet show while The Boy and I sit at home. I was looking forward to the puppet show, but someone's inability to eat a decent amount of food has disallowed that.

We aren't the parents that make you clean your plate and/or eat food that you truly don't like, but we aren't the kind of parents that intend to ever dance around the pantry trying to placate an overly picky child. I'd love for us to have been able to go out tonight, but knowing that The Boy didn't and wouldn't eat supper, we also knew how our night would likely have ended had we all attended. He'd have decided he was hungry, probably on the car ride downtown. He would grow increasingly hungry and disruptive through as much of the performance as we could manage to see. In the end, either Momma or I would have to leave the theater with him in order to not ruin the evening of the rest of the families, and most likely would have had to all, as a family, leave and return back home.

There is a happy note to all this. Shortly before Momma and Big Brother left, we received a call from a homeschooling friend who was able to use the tickets of ours that had so recently become extra. It helps to know that we didn't waste the money on the tickets.

critter pile

What is this? Big Brother is carefully crafting a pile of critters.













It looks like a simple critter pile to me.


But wait! What's this? Is there a live monkey in there somewhere?

Feel free to ignore the carpet's pitiful stain dotted self. The camera can never do justice to the true speckling of stains. We could, over the course of the carpet's ruination, have been more diligent at spill removal and stain prevention, but so many of these spots are mystery stains.

When Momma's grandparents lived here, this same carpet was a lovely light gray, or so it always appeared to me. It was never intended to be a carpet that children grew up on and shows what a few short years can do to a once respectable textile.

And there's today's lesson, how to turn an innocent and delightful foray into childhood into a quarter cup of self hate and carpet degeneration. I'm putting off the self hating foray into minor plumbing repair until that job is done, but believe me, it's coming.

it's actually discord

All the cool kids are talking about noodley some shit found over at the Gookins. They, like so many baby Jesus and mother Mary finders before them, have seen evidence of their belief and faith in the happenstance of an everyday item seeming not unlike their own pastawful being of godhoodedness.

I hate to break it to them, and moreso I hate to ruin a good surprise, but I also can't pass up a chance to breath a small word of the truth. Grim times are these we live in, but grimmer still may they become if none of us dare, at least once in a while, speak that truth.

The facts are really simple, and you may choose to disbelieve at your own peril. What all these faithful are seeing is in fact yet more proof of the Golden Apple. That which Eris, fairest and brightest among us, first brought to bear to answer for her shame still resonates today. Eris, she over whom wars were fought and heroes vanquished, still rules the planet with her mighty hand. The Golden Apple falls through the years be it in the stigmata I keep getting in my butt or a virgin in toast or a noodly pancake.

And that's the story there. Don't let pancakes that happen to be funkily formed lead you away from her trueness. The truth won't set you free though, and it never will. Truth only leads to more unknowns no matter how many mysteries you think you've solved.

Witness all ye the true power behind the mask! Hail ERIS! All hail DISCORDIA!!!

Now, lick the bottom of your screen and wait for good things to rain down upon you.

mmmmmmm beer

I seem to remember once having had a Leinenkugel's red something or other years ago. Nowadays, I don't tend to drink things that are reds or ambers. They've always seemed like the concessionary beer, the one you sold to yuppies who didn't get beer but wanted to be seen drinking a microbrew. I only drink them because I'm an expensive lush, but I've got an air to keep up with all the hep cats and shit.

Our local grocery store hasn't always carried the best selection of the finer beers, but over the last couple of years, we've been getting more and more choices in better beers. We stopped this afternoon to stock up on beer, and I found a few new varieties awaiting me. I don't remember the other new options, but Leinenkugel's Summer Wheat was the one that came home with me. I've read Chris and Don discussing the beers lately, and they've both mentioned the Leinenkugel's brewery, though looking through their archives earlier, I don't seem to find this particular beer mentioned.

I refused to drink wheat beers for a long time. Early in my beer snobbery I drank some funky German shit that honestly tasted like I was drinking an extra bready loaf of bread. That one beer made me extremely leery around any number of beers for several years. That damn beer was so much like bread that it made you want a shot of ham, cheese and mayo vodka.

Years passed before, working at the pizza place, I finally tried a locally made hefeweizen. The first one just didn't appeal to me, but over a couple of years, for various reasons, I came to drink enough that either they grew on me or I finally began to get it. I'd hate to think so many brewers would continue making a shitty beer, so the problem had to be me. This doesn't hold true with Guinness however as that's just a shitty beer. I don't know why they keep making that shit. There's more to a good beer than head dammit!

As I slowly figured out the wheat beers that were available to me, I feel I've come to be a fair judge, though I have to admit there very few in my li'l neck of the woods, so without the experience, what the fuck do I really know?

Checking the website tells me that the beer is brewed with "select wheat and pale malts, cluster hops and natural coriander." What the fuck they mean by "natural coriander" is left for you to decide. Are they suggesting that other brewers are so ill intentioned as to use synthetic coriander? And why the fuck does it taste like someone squeezed an orange into it? I don't want an orange squeezed in my beer. I'm not against it if you like it, but the one beer I can get offered with orange slices at bars is, in my opinion, better without. The orange hides the spicy notes of the beer.

But don't take tonight's rant too seriously. I certainly won't drink it all tonight, mostly because I also got a six pack of a beer I do like, a tried and true favorite. Tomorrow night will see a return to this beer I'm quite certain, and tomorrow's taste buds may get this beer.

It might be a good spring afternoon beer, one of those afternoons where it's so perfect that you don't mind scooping dog shit out of the yard. And it's really not as if I don't like the beer but that it came as such a shock, the near vibrant orangeyness of it. I was really just expecting a different beer, and it's kind of like the feeling when you try to pick up something that turns out to be heavier than you expect and instead of lifting it you fart a little bit.

dirt, dirt, dirt, and sleazy politicos

So, what happens in your town/county, when voters decide they want term limits? Term limits of course mean that elected politicians may only serve for a limited number of terms. Perhaps you have a bunch of good ol' boys running things poorly, hooking their friends up, spending money that isn't theirs to spend. The people, long grown tired of this shit, decide to limit the good ol' boys who of course fight tooth and nail to forgo the wishes of the people who they claim to serve. Um, when you pull some of the shit I'm about to quote, it's obvious that the only people you are concerned about are the ones who can most serve you and your own selfish interests.

Credit for this story is given to rocketsquirrel of KnoxViews

So, from the Wikipedia entry for my home county, I give the Hall of Shame '07 edition, alternately titled, East TN is starting to smell like a pile of rotten shit.

• Outgoing commissioner Diane Jordan nominated her son, Josh, who mows lawns, to replace her, and even voted for him. Two days after the appointment, it was revealed that Josh Jordan was an admitted drug dealer.
  
• Commissioner Mark Cawood succeeded in getting other commissioners to vote for his wife to replace him.
  
• Commissioner Billy Tindell was immediately appointed to the position of County Clerk.
  
• Commissioner Craig Leuthold's father, Frank, was appointed to represent the same district.
  
• Commission chairman scott "Scoobie" Moore nominated and successfully pushed through his campaign treasurer for a seat that was not even in his district.
  
• Outgoing sheriff Tim Hutchison nominated his chief deputy, J. J. Jones, to replace him who then hired Hutchison back as his chief deputy.
  
• When the commissioners were deadlocked, they recessed out of view of voters in violation of the Tennessee Open Meetings Law, where they proceeded to strong-arm commissioners to change their votes.
  
• The commissioners swore in one of the newly appointed commissioners, but not the other six newly appointed commissioners, to break a deadlock vote.
  
• 2nd District nominee Jonathan Wimmer said later that Commissioner Greg "Lumpy" Lambert asked him to vote for 4th District nominee Lee Tramel in exchange for a seat. ^[2]
  

which is worse?

WARNING: possible cringe inducing material!!!

As I mentioned in a recent post, I was recently afflicted with a bit of a stomach churning sort of sickness. Both my fuel entrance and solid waste exit were exits for most of a day as I sent plumes of mostly liquid material gushing out of my body. There is nothing but downsides to this kind of illness, but as a bright side one must remember that it only really lasted most of a twenty four hour period, give or take a few hours.

That was a shitty day, but for the most part, upon realizing what I was in for, I negotiated with myself to ingest as little food or drink as possible in order to minimize the volume that I had to give back. I seemed somehow to will my body into not feeling too poorly by giving my poor widdle stomach as little as possible to play with.

The next day, the day I was no longer sick, was certainly no picnic. Due to some recognition in one stomach emptying bathroom visit, I was none too eager to eat any peanut butter that day, though oddly, the ginger ale was all right. My stomach and general constitution were both weakened enough that very little was appetizing to me throughout the day.

And here we wonder which is really worse. I'm certain that the actual body voiding hell is and will always be worst, but even today, two days later, I'm still fighting some of the issues that developed from being sick. I have muscles throughout my torso that only get this sort of workout when I'm as sick as I was. Though my stomach was empty most of the day, there were a few times that it continued to attempt to expel those nonexistent contents. Those muscles are still sore today. I keep finding myself worried that perhaps I'm going to find that same river once more flowing from my face into the toilet, and those feelings are often couple with a sort of ghost nausea.

I'm quite positive that the actual sick day was the worst, but the following days of weakness and sore muscles is only slightly nicer. I'm sure that this is part of our human ability to forget life's pains, simple creatures that we are. Either way, I'm ready for the whole thing to fade into a distant memory.

monkey seen, monkey done

Let's add this to the things we blame Doc for. I've actually seen this before, but I didn't blog it then for whatever reason. This time, I'm all kinds of about this shit. How many people share my first and last name?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 78 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

And now for the fun part. While there are, according to the site, 78 people who share my name, my children's names are much less common. Only 11 people share Big Brother's name, while there are only 2 with The Boy's name. While there really is only one Momma, she shares her name with at least 55 people.

And now for the really fun part. Do you have a hairy bush? Well there are 136 people named Harry Bush. Apparently no one is named Ophelia Fanny, though both names, apart from each other, do occur throughout the US. There are 64 Wanda Hardins, though I imagine those wanting a hard one are a greater number than that.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks it's fun to insert ridiculous names into that thing. I'm also sure that I'm done with it for today. Try it yourself. It's fun.

worse than the last

Last week ended with some of our homeschool friends missing a couple of meetings due to some sort of stomach thing. This week began with the boys at great grandma's house so that Momma and I could go to a derby party. Monday began with a phone call saying that Big Brother was sick and throwing up. I'm not blaming the hs friends, but this stomach thing is slowly taking us all down . . . for a bit.

Big Brother seemed to be over it by Tuesday, and no one else got sick, so we assumed we were okay. We didn't really assume that because we have had kids for a few years now and know better.

Yesterday began fairly normally. I didn't think I was sick and assumed the light nausea was because I was hungry. That happens to me sometimes. We took Momma to work so that we'd have the car to go do some needed shopping, underwear and socks kind of deal.

Soon enough the nausea grew to the point that I realized I must have whatever Big Brother had had, and kneeling in front of the toilet proved that. It was actually sort of a dual blast day. Neither of my ends ever forced me to run to the bathroom, which was slightly nice, but I did spend a portion of the day deciding which end to void from next.

I also didn't really feel especially sick most of the day. Once I realized I couldn't really eat or drink anything I didn't want to see again later, browner and more liquidy, I was mostly all right. What really made me feel bad was the thirst. I spent most of the day huddled on the couch with a slight chill wishing like hell I could just down a huge, cold cup of water.

Today is much better other than the fact that I still am leery of food. I tried a saltine first thing, after I was up long enough to realize that the water wasn't coming back, but it just tasted gummy and made me sad. After the boys got up, we all had cereal, Kix, which they ate, but to me it was like the saltine, just . . . too something, but at least it stayed down. I finally fixed myself some ramen noodles for lunch and was able to eat half of them.

Oddly enough, this would be a great time to quit smoking as neither of the two cigs I had today were very pleasant. Part of me wishes that things would stay like that enough that I could quit, but part of me really fucking wants a cigarette. Fucking addiction!

blurgh

For me, part of blogging is that it's writing practice for me. Many years ago, I wrote a good bit, but I didn't then see my life as any sort of living, so I wrote stories through some internal filter that had watched too much crappy television.

As the years passed, I came to write less and less till I didn't even really do any writing more than a very few times a year. Even then it was generally just bitching, often about the fact that I didn't write any more.

Why do some people feel driven or drawn to writing? What is it that makes people do this and so often hate doing it at the same time that they feel compelled to do so? It isn't really like other endeavors in that you're so much more likely while writing to bare your soul in a way that people can really get at. I'm sure people involved in other mediums would argue that last statement, but fuck them.

Seems like I've found myself here plenty of times before, and every time I expend some price in stressful moments due to the situation, and every time, at the very least, I come up with some crazy rant from deep in my anus. And it's usually a rant that has no reason to suddenly be topical, but I really don't want to be the guy that gets his blog posts from someone else, though I'm never above that if the story is good enough.

And that's where I am for now. The only thing I can think of to write about is not being able to think of anything to write about. And if that keeps me from going too many days without posting, at least I can feel like I've finally written something just not crappy enough for now.

blunk drogging

I don't give a shit. I'm having another beer. My feet and my fingers are cold from having just recently been outside enjoying a cigarette.

Here is where I add my own two cents to the drunken mommy thing. If you don't know what this is about, then just go where I heard about it, Zero Boss. Apparently, some moms are starting a huge trend where they have a drink with friends while their children play. Also, it's bad for parents to drink alcohol if their kids are alive, or so the bitch from The View would have us believe.

What I'd like to say is different from what I really mean to say, or damn you all who think I can't parent drunk. I'll parent your fucking ass off, beer in one hand and cigarette in the other. I will parent so well that your parents will come out of their graves to compare your lacking ass style to mine in a derogatory fashion. This is an example of what I'd like to say.

Okay, I'm not a mommy, but as my children's primary ignorer, I get to see them every waking hour. I love them very much and am more than willing to sacrifice for them. I'm also a grown ass man, if not because of the whole age thing then because I've sired offspring and have an associates degree or something. Either way, I'm a seasoned drinker of alcoholic beverages, a caring father and if I want to have a beverage I'm damn well going to.

For what it's worth, Americans are really hung up about too much shit. I'm sure I've got my own hang ups, though I try to be cool. A lot of our issues have to do with people's ideas of what is and isn't moral, and they don't accept gray areas. Drinking is equal to drunk is a big one in that we view every person who drinks as basically drunk the moment they take the first sip.

Finally, people were having kids before they started drinking alcohol. But think of how many drinks kids have caused since we figured out the ancient secrets of extracting soul restoring alcohol from our grains and grapes. But for this palliative, how many parents would have been lost to a screaming void of incoherency and no return due entirely to the spawn they should rightly have devoured at birth?

weird . . .not oooh creepy . . . I hope

Doc has asked for six weird things that no one knows, but I'm not quite sure what to do with this. I accept that I've been tagged, and I'd love to comply with the request. The problem lies in what to share.

I don't doubt that I could come up with a list of things I don't share casually, but I'm afraid I'm afraid that's the kind of thing I'm not quite prepared to write about. So how do we go about this?

1. Doc mentioned collecting, and I'm not not a collecter of beerabilia. I'm currently storing a lot of beer related crap that I kind of wish I had room for, but I don't. I also haven't gone out of my way lately to collect stuff. It's sort of part of a budget that children came along and changed, but something I could see becoming more of a hobby one day.

2. I love comic books. This is another hobby that new children sort of rearranged. We've not bought comics in ages. And for what it's worth, I was reading Frank Miller way before that movie came out, although the new one isn't one I was able to pick up before the whole family thing. I also really love Paul Pope whose work is seriously worth checking out.

3. I was once nearly not quite a cowboy . . . sort of. Through I teacher where I went to school I was able to take a job one summer as a junior counselor at a christian camp in Wyoming. Each week was a different age group, and as a junior counselor my job changed week to week to some small extent. There was another junior counselor about my age as well as the older (not junior) counselors. Each weekend we spent in town with local families, two of us to a family and the same family for the duration. I was asigned to a ranch family, and at the end of the summer I spent a couple of extra days following them around on horseback. I really didn't do any real work to speak of. I rode a horse and once tied a gate closed poorly and some calves pushed their way out, but in my defense, no one really told me how to tie it properly, and I'm from Atlanta fucker!

4. I also learned to drive a stick shift up and down the long driveway of the ranch family in number three. It was a seriously long driveway full of potholes and paved in god's brown dirt. Nothing like trying to figure out the purpose of the clutch with the engine revved way too high and hitting your head on the roof at the same time.

5. And now that we are on the subject, something I never told anyone, but the doughnuts on the town's golf course the summer I was there were thanks to one of the sons of the ranch family.

6. Someday I'm going to start a band, rock the shit out of this town for a while and then disappear back into anonymity.

That wasn't really so hard I suppose. I got on that Wyoming kick and this son of a bitch just about wrote itself. I did try to reign that in bit, but those are things that I don't think I've ever really told anyone.

screeeeeeeeech

From the videos I've posted one might get the impression that I only like good music. I have to point out right now that I also like great music. This video is an example of that. The band Screeching Weasel may well be one of the greatest things to happen to punk music in the last couple of decades. It may even be argued that they were one of the last punk bands to really be worth a shit. I'm sure there are some decent new bands out there, but there's a point in history that the last really great band finally showed up leaving nothing new for the next generation of bands. Anyway, I could ramble incoherently for a while, but I'll save that for my next rant.

Anyway, as mentioned, the band is Screeching Weasel, the song is Science of Myth. The lyrics are HERE and worth a quick peruse.

anti/pro/life/death

I didn't jump on last week's delurking meme, and I was safely sailing along not going to worry with this week's cause du Monday because enough people are going to discuss abortion that my point of view wasn't going to matter two shits.

"Ooooh, look! Another conflicted dude with no uterus actively attached to him. His opinion drives the masses. Let's read his blog for enlightenment."

I seriously wasn't going to bother. Hell, I didn't even know it was have-an-abortion-day until I read it at Zero Boss. But then I went back later, after a couple of comments had built up, and I read the two words. There are two words that bring me to life, that cause me to empreachify to the masses.

I don't remember the exact story from the commenter, but it involved some amount of teen girls worried that they were late, you know . . . like . . . late, yeah. One girl was sure she was okay because her boyfriend pulled out.

It's those last two words that are part of my life's work, pull out. Pulling out is not birth control.

There's only one way to get pregnant, but there are lots of ways to have sex. Sometimes people have sex and don't want to, and sometimes people would prefer to use birth control but aren't afforded the option. Some people really don't want a baby, and some people really don't need a baby. Some people, especially the younger ones, do things without the amount of knowledge they might need to make the decisions that they might face.

Of all the situations mentioned above, any one could end up with someone pregnant. Sometimes we make decisions, and sometimes we have decisions forced on us. Sometimes, no matter what we feel about certain decisions, as people, we are obliged to make sure that those decisions are best left to those who must bear the consequences.

And that's why I'm pro choice, because those of us voting can't vote away all those random things that may make abortion an option for a single particular person. Many of us have the luxury of not having to worry about it. Many of us are not so lucky.

Seems like we could have found a way to teach these things by now. It's sad that the people so vehemently against abortion are also so vehemently against teaching girls and women about their bodies.

givin' 'em what for

Yes, I did it. Walking away from Big Brother after turning the radio on I heard him ask, "What's this?" I answered without looking back or even stopping, "A song."

I was in the kitchen doing something mildly dish related though I'm actually leaving the mess for later. The radio in the kitchen is permanently set to NPR. If I could get the college station in the kitchen I'd probably go back and forth between the two, but alas such is not to be mine. Bolero was playing and I'd gone to the living room to turn the song on which was why he asked about it. I did come back moments later, after getting the beer I was after, to inform him what he was hearing. I really only turned it on at all because it was at the end of the song, the final build up that can really be too loud if you messed too much with the volume during the early part of the song. My original intent was just to annoy the boys with loud music.

Listening to Bolero got me thinking though. I'm not a huge classical music kind of guy. I know a few songs that I like, most of the instruments, a couple of composers. I am quite familiar with poor Maurice Ravel's classic. I think it's almost like God Save the Queen at this point, a song that so many people hear and feel they know. "Ooh wow, they're playing this song. I've heard this," said the random person who isn't really even a fan. I certainly couldn't tell you off the top of my head what else Ravel may have composed, though I'm certain I've heard something.

Do real fans of classical music roll their eyes when they hear Bolero? Do they shudder a little with a bit of, "Egad, this old mare being trotted out again?" Do they mutter a snide little something at the DJ who dared play that song? Because I almost get a little of that when I hear the Sex Pistols screeching their old saw, but now it makes me wonder if it was Pepsi or Cadillac that got the rights until I realize that it's NOT a commercial.

I remember the first time I heard God Save the Queen, or something like it. It wasn't the first time I'd heard punk, so it wasn't that particular birth-of-new-world moment, but to me at the time it still had a little rawness left. I'm sure that by this time the still living Sex Pistols were certainly alive but not yet ready to regroup and tour and sing the exact same songs yet again, though time will bring all bands back together for a reunion should death stay her cold, cold hand.

Bolero left a similar impression when I first heard it. I wasn't then a fan of the punk or classical and was more likely to listen to (be forced to hear) gospel (the white people kind) or similarly religious music. Of course it's a much older song, but the limitlessness of the orchestra that it lays out, that plodding building of instruments building up to that final blare of, "Godalmighty fuck are they going off!" You can almost see the conductor, hair in a frenzy, shirt front rolled up like in an old cartoon.

So that's my story. I like to give the kids a little lip once in a while. They don't attend school where they'd get mouthed off to, so I give them a little shit now and again so they don't miss the experience. It was actually kind of funny.

"What's this?"

"A song."

Dear ESPN

Maybe some people don't know, but the US Women's National Team has a couple of games coming up. You might have heard about the Four Nation's Tournament, you know, being a sports broadcasting network and all.

Anyway, the women just recently landed in China so they can start training, get used to China, deal with jet lag, gawk. Germany and England will also be there. The whole thing is basically leading up to the FIFA Women's World Cup later this year. So with you guys being a sports broadcasting network, I just thought you might like to know that you aren't showing the games, at all.

Okay, concession time here. The games are being played at four in China which means for us three in the morning, and it's really doubtful that you could stop showing the poker superstars invitational. I know that since poker is now a sport instead of just being a card game that you are duty bound to show it. However, I'd wager that you might get a few people that would be willing to watch the game anyway. I've heard of devices that can record things from the television. I wouldn't be surprised if people would watch a rebroadcast later in the day. Again, I have to remind myself that the poker players also need plenty of television time, because as we all know it is NOT just a card game but a real sport, like soccer.

I know that many people like soccer. I do and would love to watch some of these games and certainly all of those the US team play, and I would even watch them the next day fully aware of who had won, and I'd even watch it if I'd already seen clips already. I would watch them in a box, with a fox even.

The US men's games were not the best games in the World Cup last summer, to put it mildly. Some of us would now like to see the women play because we're pretty sure that they'll do well. They'll certainly average better than one goal in 270 minutes of play.

I know this is a lot to ask since you only have three different channels that you can show sports on. There's a lot of mediocre boxing from the late '90's that has to be watched, plus the growing rise in popularity of bowling, so the classic one is used up. And we know that 2 will probably decide to show a bunch of heavy northern European men racing to have a hernia first. Soccer on the main ESPN is such a rarity that we really hate to ask too much of you. So anyway, whatever you can do.

Thanks for your time ESPN. I know that airing a game played by the National Team should be something you could show. The US always seems to field one of the top women's teams in the world, and they always play a great game. There are lots of new players on the team that many of us haven't had a chance to see play yet. I was sort of hoping you might could squeeze it in somewhere.

Thanks,
me

p.s. I'll call you later about the Women's World Cup. It's also in China, so that whole time thing might fuck us up then too, but it is kind of big, so let's work something out.

fancy booty

I needed one picture of the book cover, but the picture isn't the story here. While that is Momma peaking around the corner, there's more going on.

The Boy usually picks books that might be considered more appropriate for bedtime reading, but if we've gotten him ready for bed early enough he can increase his bedtime reading at will.

We generally let both boys choose their reading material. It isn't always as easy with The Boy since by reading material I do mean whatever book he wants me or Momma to read to him.


The book is titled "Wall Chart of Human Anatomy," as you can likely see, but I doubt it will ever make it onto a wall. It doesn't really have pages but is instead one long strip of paper folded accordion style to fit between the covers. It is also printed front and back.

The Boy has shown some past interest in this book as well as in other books having to do with anatomy and skeletal structures. This book has great drawings of the different layers of anatomy, for example muscles, nerves and skeleton. It's fairly exhaustive, at least to my non medically trained self.

We've actually laid the entire book out before, stretched to its fullest. I'd guess it's about ten feet long, though I haven't actually measured it.

I don't know what he's learning from this book. He did inform us that "gluteus maximus is a fancy way of saying booty." So I'd like to think he's learning something.

questionaire

Apparently I'm going to turn back to writing an assload of homeschooling posts, and it's all my fault. I should have not gone offense minded quite as quickly as I did. I got a comment and ran around acting crazy one night, and then I got another comment. Neither comment was especially insulting nor should either of them have been particularly upsetting. Really they weren't, but I assumed I knew what I was talking about, I had some really good post fodder after a couple of dry days and I did that verbal vomiting thing.

If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, click back in my archives a day or two, and you can't miss. I am of course talking about The Pissed Off Housewife who I previously mischaracterized. Her most recent post actually deserves a read and I've lifted a list of questions she asks. I'll try to answer them here and would encourage others to do the same. Consider it a meme, and assume you've been tagged.

There are actually more questions below this list, but this is the initial list. Her other questions are also good, thought provoking questions, and after mulling them over a bit, I might answer, though they're questions to which I may not yet have an answer for me and my family.

So, on with the list:
1. Every child is entitled to a peer relationship.
I don't see peers as age mates as seems to be accepted for children. Certainly there is an average age at which kids tend often to reach certain milestones, but that doesn't mean that they have to be the same age to be peers or friends. My sons fairly often interact with children their age as well as children and adults of various ages.

2. Every child is entitled to more than one opinion
I couldn't agree more, but school is no guarantee of that. I will accept that schools can provide a variety of opinion, but even with that option, kids end up forced into roles that they accept to the exclusion of others, i.e. goths, jocks, geeks, etc. A home that follows any sort of religious belief would tend in general to promote that religion to the exclusion of others. My atheist home tends to promote an atheistic view of the world. I can tell my children about the gods and goddesses of others, but given that I disbelieve, should I alert my children to the belief of others? Or should I go farther and actively make them search those religions just in case they find one they like?

3. People need to learn both patience and structure
Homeschoolers learn these very well I would think. There need not be a structured education to learn about structure. Do we think of structure as the base of the block tower that a child learns must be built a certain way to achieve the tallest possible tower? Or is it the structure one builds out of flour, yeast, water and salt when baking bread?

4. It's important to be part of a community
We are a part of a variety of communities. The people at the grocery store and the library know us. We have friends at Momma's roller derby, both children and adult friends. We have our homeschool group. We have soccer. As the kids get older our community will only expand further as their interests/hobbies also expand.

5. More than one viewpoint is required to educate a child
Here I have a problem with the phrase "educate a child." I just don't see childhood learning as that difficult a process. It's completely natural for kids to learn what they need to know, and especially today, it's so easy to find any information you or your child may need. I don't see what I'm doing as educating as much as I see a responsibility to my kids to see that they continue to grow and learn and always have what they need.

6. More than one method is required to educate a child
See number five! This also approaches the same answer I will give for number seven. Anyone can figure out the basics. I can easily teach my kids the basic math that I do in a day, and when he starts to want/need to learn more, we'll find a way to do that. People unhampered by a fear of learning can pick up (pick back up) math, often as parents much more easily than we ever did in school because we finally have a reason to learn it. My own foray into the associates degree proves this as in my youth I loathed math and took very little knowledge into college in my late twenties. I actually enjoyed learning, even when it was difficult, because I had a real reason to learn and wanted to learn. That's when we all, especially our children, learn best.

7. What if your child is smarter than you are?
I fully expect my child to know more earlier than I would have known depending on their age. Many homeschooled teens are entering community colleges at fairly young ages and picking advanced subjects that are difficult to find other places, much to the relief of their parents leafing through the trigonometry book. Given the technological leaps that characterize our world today, I think we honestly have no idea quite what our kids are going to face in the future. In a hundred years we went from the telegraph to GPS enabled web phones, from Kitty Hawk to the Mars rover.

8. Every child is entitled to a bad teacher. It will help them down the road, they will have coping skills when they have a terrible boss.
I have to disagree. You can change a job if a boss is really bad, but kids are generally stuck with a bad teacher. Bad teachers can truly harm kids and often do.

9. Sex, drugs and rock and roll are really kinda fun. I'm headed out to the local high school this afternoon to score a bag of weed.
I'd prefer not to buy my weed from high school kids. I support the complete legalization of many drugs if for no other reason than to be able to tax them and pull their sales and use out of the black market. I don't think that high school kids should be messing with their brains when they haven't completed their development, so I'd prefer that we sensibly educate our young into the reality of drugs and drug use and addiction. DARE is a lying bastard and one reason not to give our kids to the system.

are my nuts out?

I recently created a speck of drama following a comment from a nice blogger. It wasn't really drama much less a whole speck, but the rant was fun if perhaps not entirely based in reality.

As a homeschooling parent, I spend lots of time online looking for things to drown out the sounds of the kids going crazy. I tried to teach them how to sit down and shut up, and seeing that not work, I'm now teaching them how to be ignored for hours at a time.

The vast majority of people have no idea what it is that we do in an average day. Many people will claim to know a homeschooler or two and use those people as their example of homeschooling. That's a really useless way to make assumptions, but it's also human nature. Most of us homeschoolers learn pretty quickly to ignore most of these people when possible, and it's never easier than when we meet them online.

People don't often approach homeschooling from a place that is accepting of the facts, and they don't often seek real learning about homeschooling before forming their opinions. Those opinions sadly are too often basic, broad generalizations based on something they heard/read/saw on tv or based on that one family they knew that just didn't quite seem right to them.

Though I haven't seen it lately, often someone will post on their blog about homeschooling and use all the same tired old arguments about socially inept kids whose parents didn't teach them science and couldn't teach them math. These nice folks will assume that all publicly schooled children are getting some great education in the mysteries and vagaries of life. Homeschooled children are of course relegated to cultural backwater towns with the lunacy of overly religious, anti-science parenting and the education that goes with that.

The blogger type mentioned above, assuming they are writing for no more than a core of friends and families, suddenly finds that they've become the topic of another blogger as the flood of irate homeschoolers descends upon the comment section with the fire of god and lists of how great we are compared to the lowly heathen public schooler. In turn, some of us tend to fight fire with fire, using our verbal acumen to jump on the doubters as soon as we catch them doubting loud enough for others to hear, throwing a link a maybe even a quote into a post with some hopefully witty repartee.

I did the same thing in my most recent post. I created a character and tried to push a blogger into my description. Perhaps that was not right, but I stand by my characterization as a caricature that I feel is not inaccurate in describing some of the attitudes we homeschoolers too often have to deal with though I have no way of knowing how closely described the blogger in question was.

One problem that we often face when answering the doubters is that they will offer their opinion as concern for the children. The hand wringing and the wails of "who will help the poor baby children?" are often part of the denigration of homeschooling, but again we have to accept that these people, for all their concern, just don't know what they are talking about. It comes from complete acceptance of something (childhood education) that one will not allow to be questioned. It's why the school system can't be fixed and likely won't ever be fixed.

I don't believe that most kids benefit from being taught school subjects. I believe that kids learn, and the best way for kids to learn is to want to. I believe that kids want to learn from the moment their slimy little bodies exit their mothers and that they will learn unless something gets in the way. There is nothing as successful as school at making kids loathe learning. Allowing our kids to learn is the best way to insure that they will, allowing them to learn what they truly need to when they need to while simultaneously giving them every possible tool as well as the understanding that there is nothing they can't learn and that everything they will ever need is available to them if they are willing to work for it.

nuts are out

I got a lovely comment to a post I wrote concerning unschooling and the recent Dorktor Phil dust up. Apparently Angry Mom, because she has a master's degree in education is now completely knowledgeable about homeschooling, and she's willing to troll the internet to some extent and whip barbs at at least a couple of us.

Of course after publishing her comment I went to her blog and found a post that insulted another homeschooling family because the mother dared publish her daily schedule. Ms. Angry had commented to that mother as well and had even been complemented by a commenter of her own. Such a brazen act to comment to a blogger when you don't have a clue.

Anyway, Ms. Angry has very little to say. What arguments she does have against homeschooling are things that have been said before by much smarter people than she, and those statements were just as wrong and proven so by us, those homeschoolers she doesn't have even the tiniest clue about.

I almost posted a second comment at her blog, but that would just get me stuck in a war with idiots that use words they don't understand, people who view assumptions and vague notions as fact. I'd love to hear her point of view, but I know that she is only fighting from a position of fear, one that we've all dealt with. I have a feeling that it's her degree. She's upset at homeschoolers because we actually understand childhood education without every having attended years of classes to do so. She's still paying off the college loans, is probably not a very successful teacher, and is frightened that we do with no degree what miles of certification aren't doing for her.

I could be wrong. Perhaps she's an outstanding person and educator. I'm sure she loves her children very much as parents are want to do. Maybe she wants to know more about homeschooling but is afraid to ask. However, it's been my experience that those who are most willing to throw their credentials in your face are generally the least likely to have benefited from the attainment of those credentials and degrees.

And finally, I will answer Ms. Angry's question. She asked in her comment, "What qualifies you to be a teacher?" This kind of question can only come from someone so married to the current educational system that they don't recognize or even trust the ways in which children actually learn. I'm qualified to teach because I am able to learn. The problem with that question is assuming that children can't learn without being taught.

And so we end for now leaving to our imaginations what is to come from all this. Anyone willing to actually learn the truth about homeschooling could easily do so making it doubly sad and frustrating that so many dumbasses still assume knowledge they don't actually have.

that god guy

A website I found earlier tonight has had me immersed in stories of gods for the majority of the evening. One thing it's done it cause me to consider another of my reasons for disbelief. Godchecker.com has a lovely database of gods one can choose from should one be in the market, but more than that it demonstrates the vast number of one-true-faiths.

Why should I believe any more in the holy trinity I was raised on than I should the Chinese people's monkey god, Sun Wukong? Truth be told, I like monkey a lot more than the others. It's not just his hip irreverence in the face of all the real gods who hadn't tricked their way to the top, but there's a certain something about him.

Christianity grew out of the religions around at the time, and it grew a couple of different directions assuming we only discuss catholics and protestants. The muslims have their very own version, and when we finally inhabit the new world we get Joseph Smith and more, starting new versions of the old.

In the end, we end up with a bunch of crazy myths. They all have the same amount of validity when viewed from a removed point of view. Deep in their depths they can have a certain hold on a random human while equally equal random other human believes something else entirely. And everyone clings their one-true-faith viewing those believers otherwise as somehow misguided, wrong or possibly even evil. All the while they forget that what makes other people's beliefs look odd/skewed/weird/crazy can also be applied to their own system.

Really, the end part, don't get so high and mighty or monkey might come down on his cloud and smite you with his iron rod. Seriously smite your ass sideways.

the boy picks the jams

Earlier in the day, The Boy set off to find the Thomas the Tank Engine music cd, but what he ended up bringing me to play was Man...or Astroman? a band that really defies explanation. They came to earth when their space ship crash landed, and I believe they are searching for the lost parts of their ship. Will they ever make it back home? We may not ever find out, but we do know that they rock.

I was so proud that the boy asked to listen to Man...or Astroman? even if he only asked because there are robots on the cover. He seemed to enjoy it, further proving my theory that kid's music sucks and that there exists plenty of good music that both kids and adults can enjoy without having to dumb down good music. That's a fairly recent post if you want to check the archives for that rant a few times.

So call your kids around the computer. Especially you homeschoolers come in close because this counts as history. One day, when we can actually take that rocket to the moon, we'll look back at Man...or Astroman? and what they taught us all.

the fam'

Being a raging atheist is not something I generally discuss with my family. I don't generally think about this sort of thing THAT much. Part of it is that I so seldom see my family I'm sure. The part of Momma's family who are the family that we see most often is differently religious that my own family, and I'm sure it has something to do with them being Methodist and just not doing it right.

I often realize though that I'm not really sure what my family even suspects about me and the wife and kids. We all get along great at the holidays when we get together, but there's always the fact that it's been so long and the kids are all so much bigger, and for the most part, I'm not really willing to get into that discussion with my family. I'm not going to change their minds, and I can accept that. I don't give a shit what people believe. And while most of my family would still be cool to us and treat us well, I don't know that I want to affect the family dynamic in that way. Maybe I just don't want to be preached to every time we travel south.

And then I think about the kids. You never know what's going to come out of a kid's mouth, and when your kids are like my kids, and you got family like I got family, it often seems like a house of cards that's mostly staying up alright, for now.

The thing about it all is the disdain I've come to have for all types of religious belief. I can't argue if you find something that helps you or makes you act better to people. But as a moral code, I can't accept that I need to be told how to be cool. The whole rest of it, when we're praying for instance at any family functions that involve praying, saying the blessing for food generally, almost makes me feel like I'm in an episode of Star Trek and we've stumbled into some crazy shit on a planet. We'll bow to your customs to save our asses, but once we get back to the Enterprise it's back to business as usual.

And the kids. We forgot to teach them what to do when someone suggests prayer. Be quiet and don't stare at anyone because they might open their eyes and catch you. Also, when dining out, my kids are the ones that start right in eating because they so seldom have to wait for . . .what's that? a prayer? and that would be? while all the other kids are waiting. At least we don't hold hands like some families. That's the worst, holding hands and praying.

Either way, I look forward to whatever comes up in the spring, some family thing with potato salad and mosquito spray. There may be another granddaughter by then depending on the timing. I'll drive south much more quickly than perhaps I ought. I'll love that the kids are all playing together. The Boy doesn't have another boy his age to play with. And we'll drive back north much quicker than perhaps I ought.

supper on the table

Todays was homeschool playdate/coop day which I usually enjoy along with the boys. Today however, I had the greatest idea and stayed home. Momma took the boys giving me a couple of hours of time to get a couple of jobs done.

The main job I wanted done I could easily have done with the kids, but it was nice not to have to. Momma and I finally got the Christmas tree undecorated late last night. It was extra sappy this year as well as full of some sort of bug. We didn't see bugs till after we got back from Atlanta. We know the bugs must have come from the tree, but we aren't sure how they could have been on the tree this whole time, about three weeks, maybe four, without our having noticed them before. One of us has to climb under once a day to check the water, so it's not like we don't get ample time to notice bugs.

My other job was to be a secret, a little surprise for Momma who had to be at work at 5:00. I was going to cook the beef and mushroom pie that I'd planned for supper, but I'd planned to have it done shortly after she and the boys came home from playing with other homeschoolers. She was going to have time to eat before having to leave for work. Nothing quite worked out as planned, and supper still isn't quite done yet.

This is a recipe I haven't cooked before. I'd scanned the Joy of Cooking a few days ago, needing to get together a grocery list with a couple of meals worth of ingredients. I'd never quite paid attention to this recipe, but this time it jumped out at me. I scanned it quickly seeing that it was not unlike a basic pot pie recipe or casserole, things I'm infinitely familiar with. I assumed I had plenty of time.

Soon after getting the tree out and vacuuming the effected areas I was in the kitchen prepping to cook. After getting the meat browned, the mushrooms browned and then getting the sauce thickened, I put it into the oven for an initial baking after which I planned to add the crust for the final baking. What I didn't notice till this point was that it needed to cool completely before the addition of the crust and the final baking.

That single step was the downfall of my wonderful plan. I'd assumed that the dish baked for the first hour and then finished immediately afterward. During that first hour I'd have time to put a crust dough together. I knew I'd be pushing the time limit, but it was doable. And here we come back to that unread step, the completely cool part. There was no way I could get this finished in time for Momma to eat any.

As it turns out, it wasn't so bad. Momma and the boys came home, and of course the boys were both hungry, never mind that they both had as many healthyish snacks as they could have wanted. Momma however wasn't hungry. In fact she was feeling a little not so nice from the snacks she had eaten. The Boy, as he will often do, claimed to want any number of snacks. He would eat a bit or two and then be done. Not one to waste food, Momma ate what he left.

The beef and mushroom mix should be about cool, or at least close enough that I can go make a crust and finish it. The boys are of course hungry again and not likely to want to wait another hour while I mix dough and bake the thing. So, off to the kitchen, fix them yet another healthyish snack and hope that they eat the supper I'm making. Big Brother will most likely eat it, though the mushrooms may get to be too much for him. He's eaten plenty of mushrooms in his life, but sometimes he'd prefer not to. I understand because I'm the same with some foods.

The Boy will most likely decide he's not hungry . . . for that. We never know what he's going to eat, and most days seem like a struggle to get him to eat well. He's eaten so poorly before that he spent the next day vomiting only to finish and want more candy or whatever he ate the day before that wasn't healthy. I wish he'd learn the lesson, but he just doesn't get that how he eats effects how he feels, and I refuse to feed him poorly just so he'll get sick and understand that he really can't just eat crap all day. I've tried, hoping that if he figured it out we'd have less stress over getting him to eat well. He is the king of healthyish snacks though, so we can usually get him fed. If he could have sushi every day he'd probably be happy.

sanctity of life

People on the right, when they give in to the need for research into embryonic stem cell research, always worry about preserving the sanctity of life. Their concern is for all those babies killed in order to harvest the stem cells, as if we are impregnating women solely to suck out their babies and create human clones.

That couldn't be farther from the truth, and I will admit that I'm being a bit insincere with my description of their position. The problem here is with their ideas of what's really happening.

Where's the sanctity of life in a freezer full of embryos? Where is the sanctity of life in throwing away embryos that could be used for purposes of attempting to save lives or cure people of debilitating injuries and/or illnesses?

Why do so many people on the "right" side of so much in America vomit such bullshit out of their mouths? Sanctimonious fucks that would deny certain people their rights and willingly give more rights to a pin prick sized glob of cells.

beckham and dempsey

It's been ages since the beautiful game graced any of my posts. I haven't really had a lot to post about even considering the tumult that is US soccer. We lost Bruce Arena as coach for the US men's national team, screwed up the chance to get German Juergen Klinsmann and gave the job to a good coach but not really. Bob Bradley is a good coach, so the "not really" part refers to his seeming impermanence in the job. He's basically keeping the seat warm till a replacement can be found. Who know what will happen though as the US starts playing international games. Maybe he'll do a great job and get to keep the job. However, none of this is the point.

Soccer in the US isn't nearly as big or as popular as it is throughout the rest of (the entire rest of) the world. I can watch more high school football games on television it seems than professional soccer games, and that's really sad. It almost seems at times as if there are some powers in charge of sports in the US that are afraid soccer is going to steal something from the big three if they actually show too many games on television. Soccer is more popular than many people realize, and if more people had an understanding of the game, it could take its rightful place next to the big three. That's getting closer to my point here, though we aren't quite there yet.

Earlier on NPR news, I caught the very end of a story about English and Real Madrid has been David Beckham. He's turned down a deal with Madrid in order to take a job playing for a different team. The rumors of this move have swirled about for some time. Beckham has been spotted in L.A. and even has a youth soccer academy in California. The rumors are true. Beckham will earn almost a million dollars a week to play for L.A.'s MLS team the Galaxy. That story wouldn't really bother me, and it almost doesn't. Want to know why it almost does?

As soon as I heard that tidbit of news I immediately sat down at the computer to learn more. I have several feeds from different soccer news sites as my Google home page, though they seldom mention US soccer, and I don't really get into other leagues. Perhaps if there were more games viewable in my little corner of the country . . .

Before I even found the Beckham story I saw truly sad news for fans of US soccer. Clint Dempsey, one of the few bright spots of last summer's US World Cup attempt, is leaving his team, the New England Revolution, and will be playing in England for Fulham. They already have a few other US players, and that Clint has been offered the job says a lot for his talents and skills as well as a little about the upcoming talents of US soccer in general.

Dempsey is leaving for a mere fraction of what Beckham will be earning, and for the price Beckham costs, I think we could easily have kept Dempsey here. I'd personally love to have kept Dempsey here and hope that he will at least be able to play on the men's national team.

So what do we get? An aging superstar that hasn't done much lately but may very well be good for the game in the US. His name is certainly more well known to the average American than that of Clint Dempsey, and perhaps that alone will be good for the profile of soccer in the US. He will hopefully have drawing power, pulling people into soccer that were marginally interested before. Many people prefer the cult of fame over any sort of substance, and Beckham has buckets of fame and star power. As I mentioned, he hasn't really done much in the way of soccer lately and has been missing games due to injuries. He's still a hell of a player when he's well.

What do we lose? To soccer fans, the name Clint Dempsey is enough to know what we are losing. He's a damn fine player, and he's young, arguably not nearly as good as he's going to be with a bit more experience. He'll get that experience at Fulham.

I hope that David Beckham's name is enough to draw more interest to the game in the US. Soccer is growing in popularity here as never before, and Dempsey isn't the first US player deemed good enough to leave the states to play at a higher level. I'm glad for him and hope that the combination of his leaving and Beckham's arrival does push US soccer to a higher level. I'd hope that in years to come we can start pulling more top players into the MLS, and I'd love for our teams to become competitive on the world stage. That's my hope for this, though I'm sad to see Clint go.

the bro's

Here's a lovely picture of my brother's and me. I'm sure it'll be hard to pick me out, even if you weren't just guessing based solely on coolest shirt. That shirt is sweet and looks even better with a pair of black and white wing tips. Fucking sweet, seriously. And by that I mean the good looking guy on the left.

Anyway, I'm number five in order of birth, which I'm certain adds its own little spice to the stew. I got four brothers worth of class ring stones to the top of the head. My parents almost seem to have had us two at a time up till the last brother. The four oldest brothers almost seemed to leave home in pairs, then suddenly I was the oldest brother at home for a while. At some point I was gone, and soon after it seemed that number six was out of the house. Number seven had his very own experience I imagine getting to be almost an only child after years of being the baby, and now he's having a baby, with his wife of course, who will also be doing the hardest part, but anyway.

Assuming that they do bear the girl child they expect and it's not just hiding some features, I'll will be the one brother with no daughters. So we can add that to the differences between me and them. There are two other boy child grand children including my own. There are two new girls just in the last year bringing the number of girls in a family that was heavily male for many years to dwarf somewhat the number of guys. It would almost make me believe in karma for the sake of my mother.

Sadly, I don't think the picture as it appears in this post really does justice to the amount of red eye in that picture. It gives a real demonic coming-at-you sort of thing. That was going to be half the point of this post, but what are ya' gonna do?

word to whomever

Oh the things you can learn when you not only have a word of the day show up in Bloglines but you are also willing to do a little searching in the interest of the blog! This did indeed start out with a word of the day which I happen to get from wordsmith.org.

Today's word is speculum. Of course we all know it as that thing that looks like pure hell to those of us that haven't had one inserted, and to those others, we'll call them women. But there are other kinds of speculums, the fear of which we can all feel even if we never really feel the real specimen. Speculums are generally understood to be used to open up the gals to give the doctor a peek into the undercarriage, but they also come in rectal varieties, an orifice we all share. And what about the eyes, because they aren't getting out so easy.

But why restrict the speculum to such unpleasantness? Can there be other kinds of speculums that aren't so . . .so . . .ohmygodareyouserious?

Here's a pretty speculum, the legousia speculum. Isn't it pretty?



Would you like another? Did you know that the bright spot on a duck's wing is also called a speculum? Now what's prettier than a duck? Well, shit, honestly, that's an easy question, but a duck is prettier than a medical orifice-opener not matter how you look at it, unless you like medical devices.



Okay, we'll end with the mushroom. Yes, the following is an entoloma speculum. Mushrooms can be pretty even if we shouldn't eat them. There's a special something behind any mushrooms, but I'm not going into that. Okay, I imagine fairy families living inside of or underneath whenever it's been a little moist out and the crazy mushrooms start showing up.


And look, I give you all this without an actual picture of any of the uncomfortable kind. You really should thank me for this. Seriously!

time to rock out

Anyone familiar with the devil that is Myspace is most likely also familiar with those stupid surveys that sometimes get to float around. They're usually obnoxious, a list of the most inane questions ever devised by the ninth grade mind. I won't attempt here to replicate the inanity of the questions, but most of us can well imagine, I'm quite sure, without ever having to see them.

A friend of mine often fills them out, answering some questions seriously, and answering many with snark such as, "smash you in your face" for a question like, "what did you do this morning" or "satan" as an answer to "who did you talk to last."

This same friend was nice enough to answer a question today with "Too Young to Fall in Love," that great Motley Crue song that I'm quite certain we all love AND adore. Since he was nice enough to get that song playing nonstop through my head today, I decided that everyone needs that song playing through their head today. When I say "everyone" I certainly don't mean to suggest I have that many readers, but both of you reading this will have to do.

I search YouTube so you don't have to. So without further ado, Motley Crue . . .

Mr. Happy Pants

Every year I put jeans on my Christmas list. Perhaps everyone in my family thinks I'm joking, but I'm not now nor have I ever. My side of the family, because there are so many of us, draws names for Christmas gifts, and very often we will include big ticket items that we know better than to expect and sometimes silly and/or frivolous items. So there is a chance that no one took my jeans request seriously.

On a side note, I switched from briefs to boxers due to a joking addition to a Christmas list many years ago. Brother number two added boxers to my list, and someone included a pair in that year's gifts. I immediately fell in love with the semi-free swing that the boxers provided. I flirted briefly with going commando, but the seam in the seat of my pants tended to chafe the area above my butt crack, so that ended quickly.

This was the year that my jeans wish was answered. I got two pair of jeans for Christmas making me the proud owner of four whole pairs of jeans, possibly more pants than I've ever owned in my life.

As a final addition to a story that sucked before ever being turned into electrons I will discuss quickly the laundering-the-new-jeans incident. When I washed my new jeans I included a pair of khaki corduroys that The Boy's ankles stick out of. They are still khaki but with a decidely bluish tint. One would think I'd have known better than to wash those with my new extremely dark jeans. One would think that.