Not So Famous…

It’s possible that he has already passed.  I saw him this Thanksgiving, and he had his ever-present smile on his face when he saw me, though he was already not doing terribly well. Dick was a gracious and kind man, and the world is poorer without him in it.  As always those who remain on this earth have things left unsaid.  This is what I wish I would have said to Dick when I saw him that Friday night.

Dick, that summer I worked with you at Christian Berets was a very pivotal summer in my life.  It was that summer that I met my wife, and you were always very gracious to the both of us.  I don’t think I ever told you this, but the things you said to me that summer in the many conversations we had helped shape the early years of our relationship, and both of us will always think very fondly of you.  I am a better husband and father having received your words of wisdom, and your experience applied to the future. Thank you for your kindness and wisdom, and you will be missed.

Lord, please receive this man who served you faithfully for so many years through many pains and trials. I thank you for your saving work in Dick’s life as evidenced by the many fruits that were continually evident in him.  The grace, kindness, and wisdom that he displayed was your work in his life, and through this your people have been blessed, and you have been glorified. His love for the unlovely showed many of us what is required when we aspire to your Son’s example, and his effect on the lives of many of your servants cannot be overstated.  I thank you for the contact that I had with him, and ask that you be with those who remain on this earth after he passes.  May you comfort them in this time of loss, and help us to be there for them as much as possible.

It has been quite some time since I wrote.  A couple months is not the norm, but I’ve been really busy.  The whole fatherhood thing has its own demands on my time.  Add to that wind-down time and time to spend with my wife, and it doesn’t leave a whole lot of extra to write about all that’s going on.

Having said that, there have been a couple of things that have happened since last I wrote.

I was picked to be on the trial of a jury on the 12th of August.  It was a felony robbery trial, and it was my first experience with jury duty. Much of the experience was very interesting, but deliberating was absolutely maddening. Much of the people on the jury were apparently not understanding what the relevant laws were, even though we’d been given the laws.  Much of the discussions had to be repeated, and it seemed as though when things were said to them, they immediately forgot or ignored what was said.  Then, when we discussed how the law applied, they answered based on their own feelings, rather than based on how the law read.  I’m pretty happy with how the case turned out, but coming to the verdict was absolutely maddening.

When I was discussing this with a friend of mine, he said “If I’m ever on trial, I am promised a jury of my peers, but that is by no means guaranteed with the common jury.”  Based on what I experienced, I’d have to say that a trial by jury can very easily be considered a deterrent to crime. Knowing that your average juror is not going to care enough to be aware of the law and will likely rule entirely on emotion can be a frightening prospect to be sure.

Something else I’ve been doing is riding a motorcycle.  Many of you are wondering if I’ve taken leave of my senses, and while that is certainly a possibility, I don’t think I have. A motorcycle is cheap to insure, cheaper to purchase, and cheaper to fuel than a car.  We only have one car, and that car is Kim’s, since it has Iain’s seat in it.  The motorcycle makes economic sense…once I get it up to 100% percent, that is.  :)

It’s had a high idle problem, and I’ve been working on solving that.  I’m close, but am having difficulty getting the carburetor back on.  However, once I’ve gotten this little thing taken care of, I’m sure I’ll post a couple pictures of me on a bike.  It’s a standard cruiser…nothing uber fancy.

As for whether I like riding a motorcycle, plenty of people have waxed poetic about it.  It’s freeing, it’s fun, it’s exciting…it’s all of those things and more.  Once it takes hold of you, it doesn’t let go, and I’m definitely hooked.  :)

My brother-in-law, Chris, said, “It makes the world round again.  In a car, you’re in a box.  On a bike, the world is round again.”  He’s right, though I can’t really explain why.  You are connected to your environment in ways you’re isolated in a car.  You’re more connected to your fellow riders and drivers…especially the riders. You feel minute changes in humidity and temperature more than you did even with the windows down in a car.

The proof, however, is in the pudding.  The last several weeks, it’s been hot…and hotter when you ride a motorcycle in town.  But I was still happy to get on my bike every morning and ride to jury duty and back…despite the heat.  That’s just how much it has a hold on me.

There have been many times when I’ve sat down, typed out a few sentences, and just said “Hang it all, why bother?”  Canceled the post, and just closed my browser.  I’ve got drafts saved that are good pieces, which I feel are worth reading, but I know I won’t finish them.  Won’t even re-read them.  Am I depressed?  I don’t know. I don’t see how I could be.  Am I angry?  Undoubtedly, but what’s the point?  Fatalistic?  Well, what will be will be, so you be the judge.

There have been a couple incidents recently that have caused me to wonder why in the heck I bother. I’m not even going to go into detail, though I desperately want to.  Suffice it to say at this point that I’m more inclined to just say “Screw it” and go about work, home, sleep, etc. Relatively quietly. There’s still the desire to just freaking let it all out here and now.  Say exactly how I feel and why. Point fingers, pound my fists on the podium.  The whole dictator speech thing is very appealing.  But I won’t. I’ll speak in generalities, instead.

I could talk about honesty, and how people claim to want it…but really, really don’t.  I could talk about fidelity and how people swear up and down that they’ll remain faithful…until they don’t want to be anymore. I could talk about friendship, and what I thought it meant to the people I have been closest to…and how deluded I apparently was. I could talk about parenthood, but I can’t deal with the smug smiles of those who think they know everything about what everyone else is going through.

Ultimately, all of this stuff I could talk about but won’t has brought me to a different understanding of reality, and it’s an ugly one.  It’s one I really don’t want any part of.  I’m sick of the wax nose of social encounters. When it’s melted by honesty, people get offended.  I’m sick of protestations of friendship until they just don’t care anymore. Because I still care, for what it’s worth. I’m supposed to raise Iain to value friendship and honesty, but am I supposed to share with him the truth that almost no one cares about these things?  That, in fact, honesty is offensive to most people, and friendship is only important to most insofar as it’s convenient?  Should I let him figure that out himself, tempering his heart in the forge of reality? Should I just let him experience that pain?

I’m not asking for advice. I tell myself I won’t speak up; won’t be honest. I tell myself I won’t seek friendship. I am privy to the knowledge of reality, and I still inflict myself with wounds that almost heal before they’re ripped open afresh. I can tell Iain about life, and I will.  But if he’s anything like me with regards to his social nature, he’ll stick his hand in the fire again and again.  Maybe because he hopes that he’ll find someone for whom friendship is more than a convenience, to be discarded when it is too much trouble, or when his friends just don’t care anymore.  Maybe he’ll hope to find someone who is refreshed by honesty and not someone who seeks to have their ears tickled so as to avoid the truth. And maybe I will hurt along with my son as he learns about the nature of reality…set him  up a blog so he can write when he doesn’t know what else to do; when he feels he has no human to sit and talk to.

What else can I do, but be honest to him, since I value that?  What else can I do but tell him that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”? However, I fear that his true discoveries of these things will be as painful as mine.

Nothing is as bad as it could be.  It’s not as though I don’t have friends.  It’s not as though I don’t have people I can speak honestly to. My wife is my best friend, and someone with whom I can always be honest, and who is honest with me. I have friends, and you’re probably reading this and wondering what the heck I’m talking about.  Just being a little melancholy is all.  Most of you know something of which I speak. Really, I just needed to write something.  I’ve not NEEDED to write something in a long time, and I don’t know whether I feel better or not…whether I’ll delete this one in the morning as well…

Maybe, though, I’ll keep it up.

Today, I was able to call in to an Internet radio show that I actually helped to start, GenerationWHY.  Skoubah Steve and Blackdog do a regular show called the Canadian Connection, and today, they had a spontaneous show.  Skoubah invited me to call in, and it was a great bit of fun with those guys this evening!  You can go to that website and download the shows.  Skoubah has assured me that he’s going to put up this evening’s show on the web.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun discussing movies and beer.  :)

According to my records, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve updated.  Is that because there’s nothing new in my life?  Because I’m not thinking about anything?  Because nothing is pissing me off?  C’mon, you should know better than that.

There’s plenty annoying me these days, sure. I just don’t have the time to write it all down like I used to.  I’m told it probably has something to do with having a kid, and that’s probable.

• I’m having a discussion with someone I love regarding Mormonism, and whether it’s a sect of Christianity or a cult.
• I’m discussing the animus imponentis of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a fellow member of my church, and listening to the audio of the recent conference on the same topic that our presbytery recently held.
• I’m discussing the fact that social life on the Internet is not the same as it once was with someone who laments the loss of the past.
• I’m preparing to have my son baptized this Lord’s Day.
• I’m watching my son learn to suck his hand and laugh at his daddy.
• I’m working on a proposal to the County of Santa Cruz for work.
• I’m playing Lord of the Rings Online, Mega Man 9, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Worms as I have time on the PC and XBox 360.
• I’m doing random home repair projects such as installing a medicine cabinet, installing a coat-rack, installing 2 ceiling fans, and replacing the door sweep/weatherstripping on my front door!
• I’m keeping up in my daily Bible reading.
• Most importantly, however, I’m trying to maintain my relationship with my wife and foster a relationship with my 2 month old son.

I’m doing a lot.  I don’t feel I’m doing most of it very well, except for the proposal.  (When I’m at work, it’s easier to focus on one thing at a time.) It’s hard to balance all of what I need to do with all of what I want to do, but it’s the subjugation of selfishness that needs to happen when it comes to kids and life.

Kim and I have been discussing how life has changed with an infant in the house.  I’m looking forward to all the teachable moments with little Iain, but as a 2 month old, he’s definitely challenging. I’ve been told before that my life would change when Iain came.  I knew this.  I knew it would be drastic.  But very few people are able to convey the magnitude of the difference, I don’t think.  :)  Even me.  :)

Anyway, I’ll not neglect this blog forever.  I’ve been keeping the software that runs it updated, etc.  I’ve been thinking about it.  :)  And when I have the time and the inclination, I’m sure I’ll write more.

Well, to begin with, I’m not in the best of moods today.  I could point to a couple things that would explain it, but it would be less-than-helpful, and I’m sure I’d get comments about how I’m an evil bastard, blah blah blah.  Don’t much care.  I only tell you that I’m in a bad mood to warn you as to why this post might be snippier than normal.  Seems like I’m in a bad mood a lot of the time these days, so maybe it’ll be normal, I don’t know.

I’m saying that a lot lately, “I don’t know…I just don’t know.”  It’s so often accurate.  lol.  But I digress.

I joined the NRA yesterday.  That’s right, I joined the National Rifle Association.  I’ve already gotten many weird looks when I tell people that.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve never once been hunting.  Maybe I went pheasant hunting with my mom’s boyfriend once, but I don’t really remember it.  (Except that I wanted to collect shotgun shells and they didn’t like that.  I don’t know what the heck I was going to do with empty shotgun shells.  I sure wasn’t going to reload them.)  Anyway, people seem genuinely confused as to why I would join this organization.

It’s quite simple, actually. I joined because they are the single largest organization protecting my 2nd Amendment rights out there.  If I can pay a yearly fee and know that it goes to furthering 2nd Amendment Right protection, then I feel it’s money well-spent.

So that’s it in a nutshell.  I don’t go hunting, though I wouldn’t mind going at least once…especially once I get my .308 Winchester and gun safe installed at my house.  But I want to help an organization whose goal it is to give me the ability to protect my family.

Well worth it in my opinion. Look at all the crimes happening on a daily basis, and people are being denied the ability right and left to protect themselves from criminals who have no problem carrying guns in opposition to the law.  Well, when it comes to my home, I’m going to protect myself and my family.  And that’s all there is to it.

So, as I go through my daily life, I occasionally take pictures of things that interest me. They either make me laugh, are stupid, or are just plain interesting. This post is me cleaning my phone!

Plastic Money? Can I buy stuff with this Plastic Money you speak of?

So one time, I had a birthday. My co-workers know how much I like opening boxes from Amazon, but that somehow translated into opening presents, which led them to individually gift-wrap everything on my desk. It was...hilarious.

Holy Margarita of DOOM, Batman! This is Kim, taking a sip off a margarita I ordered at Red Lobster. Thing was HUGE!

At Uno's Chicago Pizzeria, I happened to notice a slight error in their "Take Out Only" parking space. This IS California, but c'mon. Toke Out Only?

And, up close in case ya' missed it. That's right...TOKE OUT ONLY. lol

At one of my favorite hole-in-the-wall burger joints, they have Onoin Rings on the menu. I've always been scared to try them, since I have no idea what an Onoin is. Imitation Onion, maybe?

Until this point, I really had no idea what a pump does!!! I hope this was as informative for you as it was for me.

One day, I was driving down I-5, which is a tremendously boring drive. It was raining, which made it a little nicer. Then, I crested a hill, and was blessed with this sight.

This was a second pic, in case the first didn't turn out. Considering they were both taken on my phone, I thought they looked quite good.

This was the mother of all Peanut Butter Cups, given to me by a co-worker, who apparently wants to kill me. Sunglasses are in there for scale. The wrapper is about the width of my head, and the actual confection inside wasn't much smaller!

This was the darn thing unwrapped. Seriously was like 1/2" thick! I think my co-worker is trying to kill me, because she knew I'd eat the whole darn thing. I did, too.

I just wanted to drop a semi-quick line letting everyone know that things have been much better the last week or so.  Iain has been feeding well, and has been doing pretty good at night.  You parents out there know that this means that he’s up every 2-3 hours or so, wanting to be fed, comforted, changed, etc.  But that’s a good thing.  He’s eating enough, and he’s hydrated.  (And not yellow.  That’s definitely a good thing.)

Right now, of course, he’s crying and very unhappy for an unknown reason, but babies do these things, too.  It’s much harder to deal with when there appears to be no end in sight.  When Iain wasn’t eating, was always crying, and was obviously not doing so good, that was a little hard to deal with.  :)

Anyway, I wanted to let you, my readers, know that Iain is doing much better, and will be fine.  And we’ll be ok too, I think.  :)

To begin, the Sunday after my last update, the T1 at my work went out.  Functionally, this meant that my office had no Internet.  Now, this has a LOT of ramifications that are not instantly apparent, but suffice it to say, it caused lots of problems, and AT&T was less-than-speedy in getting the problem resolved.  On Monday, they determined the problem was their router installed in our office, which was not delivered until Tuesday, at which time it was determined that there was more than the initially diagnosed problem present, which AT&T so unhelpfully determined was my internal wiring (read: Not AT&T’s problem, so sorry), and inisisted on testing the circuit continually until finally admitting on Wednesday that there was an outage in the circuit and that they had to rewire it.  Oh, and they called me at 5am on Wednesday to let me know that…….everything was still not working.  THANKS A LOT!!!  Anyway, on Wednesday everything was up and running again.

Many of you know that we were hoping that escrow on our house would close on Friday, the 21st.  It didn’t, of course.  I still don’t know what caused the delay, or why it was insisted upon that we rush to sign the Brazilian Rainforest-sized stack of papers just so we could wait almost a week for things to close, but ultimately, the house closed on Wednesday…just before Thanksgiving.  Happily, Kim decided to buy paint on the off-chance that we would close Wednesday, so we had a lot of paint.  Our door shopping was less-than-fruitful, but we went to Home Depot on Wednesday night and bought a door, which we planned to install on Friday.

Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving.  A little quieter this year, which was nice, since the storm approaches with house-preparing, and little Iain coming.

Friday was a tremendous pain in my sizeable butt.  MANY thanks to the people from church who came to help out.  We can’t thank you enough for all the help painting!!!!  And uber-thanks to Gabe, who fumed with me at the stupid door we finally got up by the end of the stinkin’ day.  Also for helping me figure out how to install the toilet-flushing mechanics in the front bathroom.

Saturday was much the same as Friday, with the painting.  The difference was that instead of farting around with a stupid door, we were attempting to repair what has come to be known as “Satan’s Toilet”. Seriously, I cannot believe how much of a pain this stupid toilet was to repair.  Here is a list of what had to be done, and what went wrong:

1. To begin, we knew we needed to replace the wax ring at the base of the toilet.  “No problem”, we were told. “Just buy a nice wax ring with a cone in it, and everything will be fine.”  So we started to take the stupid toilet apart Friday night.  Right bolt of the tank came off just fine.  Left bolt…….not so much.  It was rusted completely immovable. We were already seeing how this toilet was going to behave, so we got dinner and watched The Illusionist to close out the night on a good note.
2. We ended up trying a bunch of different ways to get the stupid toilet bolt undone, and ended up using a grinding drill attachment that we used to finagle the stupid door the day before to actually grind THROUGH the stupid nut.  Yay.  Tank came off.  Now for the wax ring.
3. The wax ring was completely obliterated, along with the mounting collar thing.  We couldn’t even see how the heck the thing was ever attached.  Finding the right collar was about 5-6 trips to the stupid hardware store, where we were sold a collar that was too small, an insert that was too high to set the toilet down, and told that we needed to drill holes in the concrete floor despite there not being any  from the last time.
4. We finally got a mounting ring that would work, and got the toilet put together.
5. We dubbed the toilet Satan’s Toilet, and it took us nearly all day to get the stupid thing done.

We got most of the painting done, got the door mostly up and functioning, and now have two working toilets.

Black Widow death toll: 3

Swearing in front of a member of our church: 1

Sanity Lost: 2 (Gabe and Me)

Still, we got a lot of work done, and all the fussing and arguing with inanimate objects made Kim very happy with me.  Also, I know how to put up a door now…the next one will be much easier.  And toilets hold no mystery for me any longer.

These thoughts are not organized collectively.  They may not even make sense, as they may refer to a subject which has not been defined.  Regardless, I feel like writing them.

What will he look like?  Will he like what I like?  Will I be able to communicate with him effectively? Will he love us?

The considerations of Faster-Than-Light travel with all its relativity paradoxes and theoretical proofs pale in comparison to the day-to-day worries such as, “How am I going to get the washer, dryer, and refrigerator to the new house this weekend when I may not own the house yet?”  I have my own causality violations to deal with.

There is no accounting for Daniel’s taste in movies.

Movement seems to me to be physically impossible.  To cross from point A to point B, you must cross an infinite number of points in a finite period of time. This is why I have a sedentary career. Why fool with physics?

The satisfaction of one’s life is measured in small chunks of contentment. Reaching for the seemingly unattainable is a good way to get places, but if you’re never satisfied with the small things, you will arrive at the end of your life having felt like you have gone nowhere.

I wonder if my inability to retain information about cars and how they work is really a defense mechanism. I don’t bother trying to understand that stuff because I actually would be completely unable to do so. It’s possible, I suppose.  I hope that’s not true of why I am unable to do handiman repairs, as I’ve got a boatload of those coming up soon.

When I was a child, I behaved as a child.  Now that I am a man…I wish I could behave like a child again.