Catching Up on the Sleep Debt

How tired I was on the KS trip this last weekend was kind of a wake-up call, so to speak, with respect to my sleep debt. I'm way, way in the red.

I have a tendency to stay up to late. Partly, it's because after Lucy goes to bed is essentially the first time of each day when I have a chance to catch my breath. It's easy to just sit in one place and let thoughts from the day buzz and buzz about in my head. Sometimes I can use that time to get important things done, such as checkbook balancing and doing the dishes. It's a struggle to motivate myself to be productive at that hour and in that "wasted at the end of the day" state. It's even harder to motivate myself to do something constructive, but that requires brain power, such as write & record music (which essentially explains that chryogenically-frozen state of "The Secret of Him" recording). It's even easier to waste time in front of the computer, or aimlessly strumming a guitar.

Perhaps if I can get back on track a little, sleep-wise, I will have an extra 30-minutes to an hour each night in which I have energy and ambition. We shall see. In any event, putting Lucy down last night, I fell asleep right alongside her and didn't really wake up until morning.

A couple of shining moments last night before we fell asleep:
1. She decided (as she sometimes does) that she wanted to read to ME. The book: Wocket in my Pocket. Though of course she can't read, she got a majority of the characters right as she went from page to page, asking me with much inflection, "Is there a Nink in your sink?" and so on.
2. When we got to the part where I refuse to engage in conversation ("I'm not going to talk anymore, Lucy-it's time to be sleeping") she engaged in what has become the norm. A long-winded, whispery stream-of-consciousness monologue in which she covers a great range of her vocabulary and experience, while I silently listen, eyes closed. I don't even remember what the exact subject of the monologue was at the moment I couldn't control myself anymore, but I couldn't help from cracking a smile and starting to chuckle. Lucy, of course, noticed she had an audience. I could hear the moment of her realization: "Ahhh?," followed by a chuckle of her own and, "Do you think I'm----FUNNY, Daddy?" What could I say, but "Yes, Loo, you're funny. You made your Daddy laugh. But it's still time to sleep."

A cold, cold heart I would have, indeed, if I could not always be open to giving some points for great bouts of humour, or creativity.

Food For Thought

“We have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. We have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told. Our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. Our unfortunate troops, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly everyday in lives for the willfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad.”

Lawrence of Arabia, 1920

PrairyErth Country: The Return

The drive down was a little tougher than expected. I guess I underestimated how far in the red I was with respect to my "sleep debt." My drowsy driving was starting to put my family in danger just north of Ames, so we stopped at the Super 8 in Story City for the night. A wonderful sleep it was, but the remaining six hours of driving we had ahead of us from that point on was made a lot more complicated, since it had to take place during Lucy's waking hours.

We managed to roll in just after three on Saturday, and found the whole situation at Council Grove Lake to be bitterly disappointing. Let me start by just taking a major shot at Kansas Parks & Rec. in general. As I understand, Kansas has a smaller percentage of public land than any other state in the union. In our two successful camping experiences in the state, Cimarron National Grassland and Flint Hills Wildlife Refuge, we have pitched our tent within sight of oil rigs and barbed-wire fences, respectfully. Even their "public" land is simply land that is distinguished by some sort of classification, but is still privately owned. Kansas are so intensely distrustful of the government, it is pervasive in how it bears itself out. Hardly any government-owned land, absolute refusal for development of wind-farm infrastructure (in pastures in one of the windiest regions on earth), etc. etc. Anyway, it seems that all their (15 or so) state parks do not exist for preservation of wild, natural, or scenic areas. They exist purely as a result of the need to provide quick, close access to recreational areas for fishing, hunting, or ATV riding.

We thought we had a great plan when we discovered there were "primitive" camping sites around the lake. Not having to pitch a tent in a city of RVs (a rare opportunity in a Kansas campground). The guy at the main office, when I called ahead, told us that they didn't take reservations, nor were they necessary. Unless, as we found out when we pulled in, on Memorial Day weekend. Even those primitive sites were filled to the gills with tents. Trucks that had hauled boats & ATVs. Crappy tents and enormous coolers and loud families. Even had there been a spot, it would have been the farthest thing from what Sharon & I are looking for when we go camping, which is the ABSENCE OF PEOPLE, and the PRESENCE OF NATURE. To make matters worse, we had spent the entire day talking to Lucy about how we were about to go camping. It was really tough on Lucy and really, really tough on Sharon. I was disappointed in not being able to camp, but I was secretly very very thankful there was not an open spot in that midst of that open-air festival of hillbillies. In any event, it was a rough scene as we had to take the act into town and find a room at the Old Trail Motel.

The next morning we had the opportunity to go out to the cemetary (an amazing, peaceful, historical place) and see my grandma's grave, where tears were shed and respects were paid. We then walked on into downtown Council Grove and met our relatives (Lucy's step-Great Grandmother, and my mom's brothers and sister). Like most gatherings of my relatives, it was moderately awkward, but we ended up at a park, where Lucy was quite entertained. For the longest time, we've talked about this mythical road trip all the way down I-35, where we would stop and spend the night at different relatives that live along the way. It was finally this trip when I realized, "Yeah, just what I need-awkward silence and strange feeling of being out of place all the way from Minneapolis to San Antonio."

By the time late afternoon came around, we found ourselves in another park, and by the end of the day, Lucy was quite spent. We ended up electing to take off prior to supper, a little earlier than originally planned and, after a very uneventful drive (of which I was able to swing all but one our of), we got back home at 3:15 am. Yesterday was a lazy day of recouperating, pulling dandelions, and trading off Lucy duty.

All in all, not too many hilights on the trip, other than great conversation during the part of the trip when Lucy was asleep and Sharon was not (reminiscent of some great pre-parenthood road trips) and, of course, seeing the graves, which made the whole thing worthwhile.

PrairyErth Country

We're heading off at midnight tonight for a trip down to Council Grove. We'll be rolling in about 9 am and heading out to a lake near town where we'll be camping for two nights while we attend to some family "business" in town.

It will be my first chance to visit my grandma's grave, which is something I really need to do. In light of there having not been a funeral, and life having been so busy in the past year, I really haven't gotten the closure I've needed. That could be a pretty emotional time for me. On a lighter note (though I am looking forward to visiting the grave), Lucy will have the chance to visit a few relatives that have never gotten the chance to meet her at dinner on Sunday. My mom & dad will be there too, and she gets a big kick out of them.

Other than that, it's going to be the first time I've visited the town without grandparents and, thus, an obligitory sort of adjenda of visiting people. We may really just spend a lot of time kicking down and relaxing in our campsite.

The Show Went On

Wow-what a trip. It was a rush and a blast. Technically, everything went about as well as could have been expected, and I felt great about how I performed.

My character, who has been bounced around throughout the play, actually dies at the end and doesn't stand with the rest of the cast for a bow. However, the whole cast followed the performance with 15 minutes of improv, and at the beginning of that, the director asked me to come forward and take a special bow-I got some whistles and extra cheers, which was immensely gratifying. Later, cast & crew met at a nearby pub for drinks & celebration and I had this amazing feeling of accomplishment, peace, and definitely some relief. A feeling I recall now from my acting of years ago, but that I had forgotten.

The director is hoping to do some organization & fundraising this summer before launching into a full-fledged (full-length, regular practice scheduled) drama this fall: Waiting for Lefty. It would actually involve auditions and have a much more rigorous practice schedule, presumably resulting in a much more polished show with a much larger audience. Man, I had a good time acting again-I think my future artistic involvement may sort of jump from acting venture to musical venture & back & forth, but probably rarely a concerted effort on both fronts at the same time.

On a side note, the performance was videotaped, I believe, if anyone would like a copy.

The Show Must Go On

Well, the big performance day is here: http://www.geocities.com/hylton44/NightmaresPlaybill.pdf
And some of the reality of what we're facing approaches the themes of the productions.

To begin with-we have had a total of 5 scheduled opportunities to get together and work on our plays, averaging about an hour a time for our particular play. About 5 hours of rehearsal. This contrasts to the 100+ odd hours of rehearsal that was standard in any of the plays I did in my youth, including rehearsals where all you did for 5 hours was stand in the right spot in between lines until they got your lighting mapped out, or rehearsals where all you did was "block" (get physical stage directions) certain portions of the play). To put it in perspective, last night (which was our dress rehearsal) was the first time we'd had an opportunity to run through the play from beginning to end. We had an actor drop out of our play about a week and a half ago. In the other play, one of the actors got a call during rehearsal last night that her dad was dying. Our director is having to cram and get ready to take over both roles. Absolute craziness. An Evening of Nightmares, indeed. Last night, lighting & sound effects we'd hoped to include were falling off left and right as it became apparent that we just weren't going to be able to pull them off.

We're the longer of the two plays-ours is a little over 30 minutes, of which I am onstage the whole time. At one point, I have a monologue that lasts about 5 minutes-kind of unbelievable, the amount of lines I've had to learn for this. Another thing I recall from my youth was that most of the memorization that really stuck took place in rehearsal (that way, you could get used to following actual cues, rather than sliding a piece of junk mail down a page, covering up your own lines). No such opporunity this time around, obviously. It has really been a situation of being thrown to the wolves.

As Sharon said last night, the way these plays are going to succeed is if the people in it, "act out of their asses." I intend to.

Flying Under the Radar

It is pretty well documented that I can not, will not shop at WalMart. Maybe 10% of the reason being the crappy merchandise, and 90% of the reason being unethical labor, commerce, and real estate practices.

Somehow, Target has managed to fly under the radar with a relatively squeaky-clean image, but digging in a little reveals that they're little better than their larger, uglier cousin. They are similarly anti-union, pro-import, and pro-superdevelopment.

Factoid to consider:
Annual salary of Target store employee: $13,000
Hourly salary of Target CEO: $19,010
(source: United Food and Commercial Workers Union)

Outside of the glaring irony of my workplace, I consider there to be a relatively good consistency between my values and my consumption. But the age of the all-purpose discount giant is probably here to stay-do I continue to boycott WalMart while ignoring the injustices of the Big Red Beast, in the name of them being the (slight) lesser of two evils? Perhaps I get a Costco membership: http://www.buyblue.org/detail.php?corpId=17

Minneapolis Downtown: 16 Pix in 16 Days

My new bus-trip home has a 15 minute layover in Downtown Minneapolis. After not having worked downtown in the past 6 years (and not heading there all that often for other reasons), the first couple times back in the belly of the beast during rush hour felt a little disconcerting. It did not take too long, however, for me to reacclimate to the pulse and the crowds and the cacauphony of architectural styles.

Funny-and kind of sad-I can get off my first bus and wait for the second right across the street from 5th Street Towers. Were Gibbs to still be employed there, we would undoubtedly convene there for brief mischief on a regular basis. Almost in honor of past good times, I started embarking on Skyway Walkin and Street Walkin, seeing how much of this city I can take in each day during those few minutes. What has really struck me in my walks so far is how visually exciting downtown is. As I gazed around, image after image was composing itself in my head for imaginary photos until it hit me-I need to actually take some shots. So, on days when Lucy is at school (cause when she's at home, Sharon reserves the right to keep the digital camera), I'm walking the streets and skyways looking for the perfect shot, with the goal of one keeper per day/walk. This will result in an my ultimate plan of 16 shots in 16 days that will convey my own interpretation of Minneapolis, visually. I got my first one last night.

Not sure yet what the final "presentation" should be-just emailing them out seems a little lame. Maybe publishing them to the web (though I'd have to dumb down the resolution a lot, which I would rather not do). I'm open to suggestions...

How To Care for that Precious Little Thing: Part 1

Well, I had a post here previously and then, after some reconsideration, I removed it. It's hard (for me, anyway), to try to put down into words what I think about parenting without coming across as an insufferable, holier-than-thou prick of a parent who lets my kid walk all over me.

Child-rearing and the profound impact a parent's behavior has on their child's development is a subject I feel amazingly passionate about-to the point where I may not be distinguishing the line for tactfulness. I would love and welcome a one on one discussion about the subject, but let me simply say here those few simple concepts that I utterly believe will make all the difference in having a child that is creative, independent of thought, confident, and happy:
1. Be consistent.
2. Validate your child's feelings always.
3. Take great interest in everything your child does.
4. Treat your child as in individual capable of understanding, and deserving of the opportunity to contribute.
5. Be silly!
6. No good will ever come hitting, shaming, or scolding your child.

A Taste of Things to Come (as it were)

Went out to La Casita with Sharon & Lucy tonight-had some good food. I also asked if they had any Mexican imports on tap.

"Just Dos Equis Amber," replied the server

"That sounds great-what sizes do you have?" I queried.

"A regular size and then a large."

"How many ounces is the large?"

"Uh-I'm not sure-it's around (gesturing) this big.."

"That sounds just fine. Bring it on."

It was at least 24 oz., but maybe closer to 30. The draft was cool and inviting as it slid down, and I gotta say-for a guy that can put them away when he has to, I sure do settle into a pleasant buzz after just a couple. I realized that I've not had more than a single beer at a sitting since probably when Cory & I shared a pitcher at Christmastime. And prior to that, it was probably my trip out to Massachusetts last summer. And I think I miss it nearly as much as Mixdorf.

Anyway, I was thinking about the impending visit by my good friend from the East Coast this summer, and just reflecting how we may be unleashed in a somewhat debaucherous manner upon the strange brew each evening during our time together, and the potential of strenuous, peak-performance styled physical activities of the daylight hours, when our mission hit me: We shall have such a mixture of athletic, adventurous achievement and alcohol consumption as to put French Adventure Racing teams to shame.

He Loves and Hates the Ring, Like He Loves and Hates Himself

So says Gandalf about Gollum, in Fellowship of the Ring.

I can relate-not with respect to myself, but a number of other things in my life.

My Neighborhood
My Job
The Internet
The NBA
Pizza
Politics
Sleep
Relaxation
Rock and Roll
Spending the Night in a Tent

How about anyone else-what do you simultaneously love and hate?

That's My Girl

I love my little Lucy!

She is getting to an age where she's really exploring fun, creative verbal stuff. We often get in little exchanges where we go back and forth saying the zaniest thing we can; something like:
Daddy: Well, Lucy, blooba blooba bloo!
Lucy: Well, Daddy, zip zaaaaa zoga!
Daddy: Well, Lucy, nibba nibba flapbbbbbb
Lucy: Well, Daddy, ba ba ba ba wooooo!
and so on...We get laughing so hard we almost fall off our chairs.

Other awesome thing-yesterday she told Sharon she has a sister named "Feaky Bender."

Hardware Wars, The Office, and Netflix vs. The Library

So, there was a 2 for 1 Sunday special at Video Universe when I picked up Motorcycle Diaries the other night. I have long wanted to see the little spoof Hardware Wars, and thought it would be a perfect free little supplement to the evening's cinema feature. Unforunately (and chalk it up as a first) I stumped the best movie rental store in the Twin Cities on that one.

What I ended up picking out was Season 1 (from which I knew I'd only have time for one episode) of "The Office," a British comedy, done documentary-style, about the inner-workings of a dysfunctional office. It was absolutely hilarious-and extremely well-done. Sort of "This is Spinal Tap" in the production, acting, and humour, though a little more subtle. Hard to believe they kept up that level of quality through the remainder of the series (which has at least two seasons under its belt), but word is that they did.

Since Mixdorf decided to go with the Netflix membership, I've been thinking about it myself. I did look at the $9.99 option, though that only allows you to keep a single movie out at a time. You have to be really on the ball about getting the thing back if you want to make that membership worth it. I have also considered just doing a better job of reserving movies I want to see from the library. They don't have the stock nor the selection that Netflix does, but it's free and they have enough of a collection to keep me watching new, quality movies as far into the future as I can imagine (they have, for instance, "The Office"). In either case, it seems like it kind of sucks that you only have a limited amount of control over what you are able to watch at any given time-seeing as you get what's available. Then there's the deal that Sharon & I simply don't end up with that much movie-watching time available to us in a month. Must think a little more.

(Weekend Musings) The Motorcycle Diaries, Lindenberries, 15 mph, and Other Things

Though not necesarily in that order.

Saw Phantom Menace Friday night in preparation for the upcoming release of Revenge of the Sith. It was not the best, closest, most uninterrupted viewing I'll ever have, but I'm finally quite certain of this: it is definitely a level (or two) below episodes 4 and 5, for sure.

Sharon went camping with Lucy and her cousins and I had the chance to spend Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon alone at home-my first night home without Lucy and/or Sharon since Lucy's birth. Kind of wild, and unbelievable how much I got done. From finishing off a brick border to our front bush/planting area, transplanting about 30 ft of wild strawberries in front of our house, mowing, sawing up brush for firewood, and a buttload of stuff inside the house. And I still had time to go sleep in till 9:30 Sunday morning (not sure I've slept past 7:00 in the last year) and go to a local coffeeshop for morning coffee, a leisurely read of The Minneapolis Observer, and a breakfast of waffle with lindenberries.

I also managed to go for a run on both days-first time running around my neighborhood without Lucy in quite a while. It was a rare treat, in the course of each run, to take a little winding half-mile trek through the woods down by the river. It's a cool little diversion that is "off-road" in the truest sense of the word-there's two little spring-fed streams to leap, as well as a couple of giant downed logs (one must be 2 1/2 to 3 feet to clear), and one other spot where you must leap atop a log and run along it for about 20 ft. Basically a lot of fun. As I was heading down my street for the final half-block, I did my usual kick into full spring mode. Then, when I stopped, a van pulled up beside me and a guy told me he clocked me at 15 mph. Not too shabby.

Last night, as part of celebration for Mothers' Day, we watching 'The Motorcycle Diaries,' which Sharon had wanted to see for a long time. It was good-possibly very good. Sharon did like it a little more than me, though I think in another time, in another mood I could have been really really taken with it. Basically, the story of Che Ernesto Guevara (a Argentine guy who became a human rights activist) during the part of his life in which he discovers some of the injustices that people in South America face that compel him to this higher calling. But the story itself (as the movie states a couple of times) is not about heroic deeds. Ernesto (who is a semester from graduating medical school) takes off on a road trip with a friend, intending to go all the way down the South American coast from Buenos Aires, up the other side all the way to Caracas, all while riding double on a shitty old motorcycle called "The Mighty One." I will say the authenticity of people they meet along the way is absolutely amazing, as is the scenery. Would definitely recommend going in "the queue," Mixxy & AJ.

The Culture of Loud

This is a subject which I have been interested in discussing for some time (and may have touched on in past conversations with friends), but have only now decided to tackle via blog/brief essay. One reason I have not gotten into it much before now is that my first inclination was that I was treading in some dangerous waters, as far as cultural sensitivity is concerned. But I no longer think that's the case.

I have long considered myself a proponent of diversity; the idea that all of our different backgrounds and worldviews can combine to make a more interesting and, ulimately, better whole. What that presupposes, however, is that we all have a common vision of good. Of course, good-hearted people all DO share values of personal safety, low crime, etc. But I have only recently begin to really realize just how many aspects which I consider part of the "quality of life" equation are not necessarily common at all. In terms of where you actually make your residence, the title of this piece becomes quite an issue.

I suspect I'm not alone in this, but I have a tendency, when hearing a "boom car" (of which there are many in my neighborhood), to visualize the driver as someone "marking a statement." Sort of a "tell me to turn it down, I dare you!" sort of attitude. Maybe some rebellious act by a teenager, or some nose-thumbing by someone who thinks they've been done wrong by society. But I'm not so sure that's the case anymore. People like me (affiliated very loosely as, say, the "Culture of Quiet") may consider these "offenders" as as deviants to this general consensus of societal decorum. But I gotta say-the noise from these cars is so regular that the concept of them representing only a disaffected segment of society is just not one I buy anymore. At what point does a behavior become so prevalent as to become the cultural norm; or, if not the norm, as least an accepted backdrop to everyday life? These people cannot be judged as deviants, or even as people with some purposeful intent to invade my space. I know some of my neighbors personally who fit right in the "loud" category, and they are not particularly bitter or angry about anything (in fact, often quite the opposite) And it's not just the cars. We hear phone conversations through the walls of their house and on in through the walls of our house. Walk out their front walk talking loudly on cell phones. They come home loud, late at night. They leave loudly in the morning. And when their friends come to visit, they stride out into the middle of the street and greet them loudly while blocking traffic in the middle of the street, and revving their engines loudly. This is the city. You wouldn't expect to live without the buzz of people or the constant drone of cars if you lived in a New York City condo. Sure, Minneapolis ain't NYC, but it is a city. I simply live on a urban, residential street. At what point do I actually just up and realize that those sounds ARE the background sounds of life if I choose to live in a neighborhood like this?

Do I have to like it or even learn to live with it? Hell, no! It's the old "if you don't like what's on TV, turn the channel." I can choose to live in a place where others share my values, provided I can find one. In my ideal environment, neighbors know one another, genuinely like & trust one another, and greet each other with a smile. They also have an appreciation of a blessed quiet drifting on the breeze through an open window on a summer evening.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I was a little afraid to tackle this subject-racial overtones or undertones? God knows the white-dominated suburbs have their own "Culture of Loud": blaring gas-powered lawn care devices and the drone of power tools from every garage. I've been reasonably content in my neighborhood for seven years, but I don't think I could last one week in Woodbury without beginning to climb the walls, so great would be the cultural differences. So actually the COL correlation probably has more to do with socio-economic status. In any event, I'd rather chalk it up to lifestyle. People that are content to live like that simply have a different notion of what constitutes quality of life. No longer feeling as though there's a problem that needs fixed, or as though I have a duty to judge what it going on around me has led to a certain peace about this whole subject. I've been saying along that I prefer to move because of what opportunities are there in the new locale, not because I am running away from anything. If I am, indeed, going to take my leave of the city (the direction to which I am now-and perhaps finally-leaning), I wish to do it in peace and without any resentment. I definitely feel as though this is a bold step in that direction.

Sorry for the Couple of Activist Posts

I promise I'll be back to the mundane in short order, but...another issue that I could not ignore.

So, in an "action notice" I received from a progressive political organization with which I am affiliated, I just read this:

On Sunday morning, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson told TV viewers nation-wide that the threat posed by liberal judges is "probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings." When an incredulous George Stephanopoulos asked if Robertson really believed that these judges posed "the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War?," he responded, "George, I really believe that."

So...all this hatred, fear mongering, and activism...all on behalf of what? 2 things: The ability for same-sex couples to marry, and abortion rights. This is what reality-based people in this country are up against-a vociferous and maddeningly effective group of nutcases that are out to impose their morality on the rest of the world, and for whom no tactic is over the line. Boy, I sure like Christianity, such as it was conceived. But for anyone who wonders what has driven me away from the church in recent years, look no further. There's nothing Christian about hate, lies, and bigotry.

If This Doesn't Motivate You Against G.W. Bush, Nothing Will

Plan to log Sequoia National Monument. Jesus Christ, please give to the Sierra Club NOW.

http://www.sierraclub.org/wildlands/wildlandsatrisk/sequoia.asp

Exasperation, Then Levity

Here where I work there's these banks of computers where these guys are working on store interior autocad stuff. Kind of in their own little world, hunkered down there, but I pass by on my way to the fridge/microwave area, so I sort of half-see them on a daily basis.

This one guy has a poster of a Hummer on his cube wall. Nothing else on his walls. Just the poster. Let me repeat: A poster of a Hummer. These guys aren't top brass or anything; I wouldn't think this guy would make anywhere near the amount needed to buy a vehicle like that, so it must be one of two things: Unable to afford it, he simply idolizes it, which is sickness at some level that I can't begin to comprehend. Perhaps every penny he can scrape up is used to pay for it, so keen is his intent on the status and self-esteem boost that it bestows upon its owner. I guess a third possibility is that his significant other's salary is huge. That's almost the sickest case of all-he's a sugar daddy that prefers a picture of goods to a picture of his wife.

This guy is my nemesis, though he doesn't know it. It's not a serious deal-I only really give it a thought when I pass by (or right now as I'm typing), but the issues of environmentalism, commercialism, greed, power-struggle, and status are so embodied by that monstrosity, that my only conclusion of those who choose to buy it is that they are either unbelievably ignorant or unbelievably selfish.

So there it is-that little dark spot in my walk to the common area every day. I started wondering if it was just a little conclave of assholes-my attitude about that whole area started to escalate. Funny, though; a couple days ago, there I am passing along and seeing it once again, staring right back at my from the wall opposite the cube entrance, and then I see it: in the next cube over, in the cube of his neighbor. The guy had apparently just stepped away, as his monitor was still fired up and not in a screensaver mode. His desktop: The Bridge of the NCC-1701.

King Leo and the Vector King?

For the last couple of Saturdays, Sharon & I have gone to the coffee shop down the street to watch this jazz pianist, "King Leo." He is one of those musicians that can't read music, but uses popular music songbooks that have chords literally written above the notation; then he just improvises and fills in the measures how he feels-only very loosely following the original arrangement. He's quite amazing at what he does-very fast, very free, and with an incredible autonomy between his two hands.

Hardly anyone's there to see him-he plays from 4-6 as a "talent show," where neighborhood kids get up and sing along. Then, from 6-8 he plays more of a set. A lot of old-school r&b and Mowtown songs-stuff I really like. We also found out just this last weekend that (unles he's lying) he is one of the original members of the Ohio Players. Whoa! And here he is now, playing for 5-7 people on a Saturday night in a coffee shop.

Anyway, the guy's around 60 years old, recently (about 3 weeks ago) relocated to the Twin Cities, and now he wants to make a go of it in the music business once again. But he doesn't have a clue what he needs to do. And if he has any interest in making it in music, he started a conversation that night with exactly the wrong person. When he found out I was a musician and had played there a couple of times, he started asking me questions. I did tell him to check out clubs in the City Pages, and that a good place to start (especially with his talent and style) would be the Freight House-a place downtown with a semblance of a regular audience.

Then the funny thing happened. The previous week, just to see how good he was, I had asked him if he could play Bill Withers' "Use Me" (one of my favorite songs). It took him only about eight seconds of experimenting around before he had it-then he started trying to get me to sing. I simply didn't know the words, so I declined. But this last Saturday, he kept asking me again to get up there to sing. He was playing "Son of a Preacher Man." I was finally like, "What the hell?" and I went up to try. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that I only knew how the chorus went, so that first attempt went awry. Then he started playing "Unchained Melody," and asked me if I could do that. I felt a little foolish, but launched into it. Apparently, this was his way of staging a tryout. From that point on, he was trying to convince me to join up with him, saying that he can play and play, but what he really needs is a guy that can sing along with him. He said, "a lot of white guys don't sing like that-you've got a lot of soul." Kind of funny-to extract that from my little nervous experiment. The guy is funky and old school, but he might also be completely and certifiably insane.

Still-I must confess being tempted. I've always had this keen, keen desire to sing r&b songs, but the chords are always f*d-up 7ths, 9ths, and diminishes. Crazy stuff that would require bending my guitar fingers in places they can't go. Better for keyboards. But this is also a perfect opportunity for me to fight against one of my greatest weaknesses, which is to have 20 ongoing creative projects, only one or two of which I have time for in actuality. He thinks we'd only need to get together a couple of times to practice, but I think I'm just going to have to say no.

Tell Me More About This "Dark Side"...

One thing that must not be lost in all the discussion about the dark arts and Jedi training and all that is that the Dark Side clearly is more powerful. We see it in the movies, time and again; badly outnumbered Sith kicking Jedi Council asses left and right.

Tell the truth, Yoda! It's easier AND better. It's just that most people approach it in the wrong way. Why couldn't I just give in to my emotions and employ the dark arts, as long as I know I am still in control? It would still be me in there; I'd know right from wrong. I am positive that I would have the strength of will to harness the dark side and use it for good.

So Much for the Breakthrough

So, those running trips that helped put Lucy to sleep? Started working a little more inconsistantly, which resulted in me getting home all sweaty with a girl who was all of a sudden going to bed quite a bit later than I intended.

Another breakthrough, though, came about as I was just too tired to embark on stage three (with stages one & two being a failed run and laying for a few minutes upstairs). Lucy (as I was expecting) popped up in the bed after a couple of minutes and said, "I want to go in the car!"

To which I replied, "You know, Loo, Daddy's just too tired. We're just going to lay down and try to go to sleep here for awhile." It was a longshot, but I was exhausted and just trying to eke out a few minutes of laying down prior to what I saw was the inevitable failure. Lucy protested and then began a little back and forth that will go down in history (and that has transpired in a form very similar to what is below, every night since):

First, understand that my little girl does not hate me-this whole "going down" procedure is preceded by a 15-30 minute ritual of brushing teeth, changing into jammies, holding hands up the stairs, then crawling into the bedroom like lions "bed-a-RRRRooom!" then reading stories and/or a session of "talk about it." All magical, wonderful times. But then, a mere few minutes later, when the lights go out...
Lucy (in tears): "I want momma, I want momma, I want momma, I want momma, I want momma, I want momma..."
Daddy: "Lucy, I know you want momma. But it's daddy's turn."
Lucy: "But it's momma turn!"
Daddy: "No, Loo, I know you want it to be momma's turn, but it's daddy's turn tonight."
Lucy: "But it's momma's turn tonight!" (continues crying-tears are genuine, but the vocalizations are about 50% forced)
Daddy: "I know you're sad Lucy. But daddy's right here and he loves you." Can daddy put his arm here? (try to put arm around her-she flings it off)
Lucy: "I want momma!" (continues crying)
Daddy: "Lucy, I know you're sad. But even if you're sad, and even if you're crying, it's still momma's turn."
and so on & so forth. It usually includes a moment when I am told I'm on momma's pillow and I have to move over to daddy's pillow and be far away from her. She also flops her leg up on a safety bed rail and there's a little testing of boundaries that I indulge until I eventually tell her the foot must come down. Then, after I've apparently been insulted sufficiently, she relaxes a bit. After a few more minutes, she flops her little bottom across the bed and nestles against me and says, "Put a arm around you" (put your arm around me). Then, after a few more minutes, the blessed drift has overtaken her. Gornack has returned to his underground cavern, and flights of angels are carrying May Smallburrow gently off to sleep.

Total procedure once lights go off: 30-45 minutes.

Life is Good!

Thus, continues the dilemma (of Zephyr or Minneapolis). The pendulum swung back a little the other way in the last couple of days, as Sharon & I discussed some of the ways in which we are currently sharing a relatively blessed existence. I may be currently experiencing the best years of my life so far.

We love our little house! We bought at just the right time and are paying less per month than any of our peers. Obviously, we carry that equity forward with us wherever else we may choose to go, but we also face the risk of burning through that equity through bad decisions, etc. Right now it's tied up in the house and we simply face a 5.25% interest rate on a $70,000 mortgage. On top of that, the various little home projects we are interested in doing are pretty much within our means and not too outrageous.

I have recently discovered this theatre opportunity. Sharon has been considering joining the Camden Garden Club (no relation to the album of that name). Those couple of associations, while not compelling enough on their own, are part of a larger sort of realisation we've had concerning our neighborhood. We're discovering, in our own ways, that community is where you find it. Especially in a big city like this-it doesn't necessarily just come to you.

My art renaissance: since not being in school, I've had time to explore more recording, more performing music, and acting. Opportunities for any of these in Zephyr (well, not the recording, I guess) would be a lot tougher to come by.

We just love love LOVE Lucy's new school. Looking back, we were under an enormous amount of stress, when Lucy was in a less-than-ideal situation, daycare-wise. But now, the environment she is in is wholesome, engaging, and constructive; and the head instructor is patient, loving, and wise. BAM-what was previously a huge boner for city living that has gone totally out the window.

One of the biggest detractions remaining is my current work situation. But Sharon & I have vowed:. if we decide to go, we want it to be because Zephyr is compelling enough that it wins out in the end, NOT because we're running away from anything (job for me at the head of that list).

Man-it just gets tougher and tougher. But at least nobody has to pity me-it really looks like we're choosing between the good life and the good life.

The Unholy Alliance

Inexplicably, I turned on the TV last night. I was rearranging the living room and for some reason desired the company of the tube. There was some sort of MTV-ish thing happening on Fox and, for the 2nd inexplicable act, I started half-watching while I worked.

It used to be that I thought the Unholy Alliance was between the corporate fat cats and the religious right. Now, having seen a live duet between Tim McGraw and Nelly, I'm not so sure.

An Open Invitation

Be my guest, be my guest,
Put my magic to the test!

In anticipation of Escalante, I've been sort of banking my vacation hours. Since that's not happening this year, though, I've got a few to burn. And I just checked my paystub-I'm at 102 hours and still accruing (at the rate of 4.9 hours per pay period).

In the past, when I shared the city with Gibbons, I also had to share all out-of-town visitors. Since the Twin Cities are now mine and mine alone, I crave the opportunity to tailor my hosting to each unique visitor, and give you the extended weekend (or however long-hell, I don't care) of a lifetime.

Come, visit me and experience the wealth of nonstop excitement the great city of Minneapolis has to offer. In light of recent developments concerning southeast Minnesota, this may be a limited-time offer...

Well, Now! Look Who Waltzed in and Got the Lead!

So, the Director has landed on a couple of one-act plays for the Camden Civic Theatre's next production. One is a 15-minute Woody Allen piece, and one is a 30-minute play called "The Actor's Nightmare." I have the main part in the 2nd one. There's a ton of lines to memorize, and we really only get together for four rehearsals plus a dress rehearsal before we perform on May 24. Basically a ton of work outside of the official rehearsals to get ready.

Very excited about getting my chops back into the whole thing. We did a read-through last night and I was only into it for a couple minutes before I started getting very comfortable with the whole thing again. I'm not positive the choice of plays was ideal for our neighborhood-just seems that there's a lot of obscure theatrical and literary references that might be lost on a lot of the audience. But they should both also be pretty fast-paced and slapstick, so I think they'll go over well. Theater audiences love comedy. Especially people that don't go to a ton of plays.

Anyway, for those of my readers in the area (what, all one or two of you?), if you could set aside the evening of Tuesday the 24th, I'd love to see you there.

Back from Zephyr Again

Originally thought I'd either post a bunch of pictures here or create a temporary website, but I'm kind of working on life-efficiency, and am trying to cut down on those times when I expend a lot of extra effort for just a little extra impact. Thus, the photo attachments I sent out late Sunday night. Where there I accompanied the photos with some details of the actual visit, here I can maybe say a few words about where we're at in the thought process.

Somehow, there's a kind of magic and peace exuded from the valley-we get a sense of it as we wind our way down the dirt roads to Zephyr, and are really struck by it when we park & get out of the car. It reminds me very much of the feeling you get when you go camping-the last time you were out of the car is either in a city, or at a gas station along some interstate along the way with cars whizzing by. Stepping out of the car at Zephyr, we are struck by the stillness and peacefulness of the setting. Not really silence, since you hear countless insects, frogs, & birds (though the silence must be deafening in the middle of winter); but definitely a different backdrop than in the cities. A very telling sort of contrast-that when we get out of the car there we can just feel stress and pressure slipping away. When we got out of the car after the trip, we could hear sirens in the background and I got to see a Cheet-Os wrapper & some cans that someone had discarded in my front lawn.

Probably the number one hangup at this point is the general uncertainty of unknowns. Stress-free environment only carries you so far, if you have crappy employment. Right now, I'm considering quitting work to finish my masters at a college in Winona, but then what? And what of Sharon? She's got a really, really nice gig in the cities. There' s a few nature centers down there (including Eagle Bluff: where one Cory worked at near Chatfield), but the turnover is amazingly low at such places. We could be here 10 years without a permanent opening occurring. Other uncertainty revolves around the expense of either building or buying an existing structure. We have about $100,000 of equity in our current house, but a huge chunk of that is gone if we rent for a year and/or I'm not working while I go to school. Oh yeah-there's a 15-month waiting period from the time you give Zephyr a letter of intent-to avoid either you or them entering into this arrangement in a foolhardy manner. Sharon is also concerned about the commute. Right now we both commute at least the distance from Zephyr to Winona (and the drive is about 50x less scenic), but in the Twin Cities there is always at least the hope that you could land employment along public transit routes and/or biking/walking distance. At Zephyr, unless something crazy happens like Sharon ends up working on the farm (which may not be quite as crazy as it sounds), you're pretty much locked into a long commute for the rest of your life. And not just commute: for kids' school, for groceries, for coffee. Of course, no pizza delivery and no high-speed internet (though that last one's only a matter of time, I would think).

And leaving Minneapolis: I just started this new theater experiment. Wow-as unlikely as it might seem, in Minneapolis, there's the outside crazy chance that I turn acting into a career. If not that, though, at least I have this opportunity to pursue it regularly as a hobby. Maybe such opportunities exist in Winona. But as with all other amenities: coffee shops, visual art, libraries, etc; all of Winona's offerings are pretty much pale in comparison.

*sigh* Still so much to consider.

Down to Zephyr Again

We're heading down tonight and staying two nights. Might be a bit stormy off and on this weekend, but we're really looking forward to visiting right as Spring is getting in full swing; tromping around in the hills, exploring the farm, and just some good hanging out with some of the people we met last time that we'll be getting to know better.

A couple of other things on the adjenda: Zephyr raises 20% of their own food-tomorrow morning we're being treated to a breakfast that includes farm-fresh eggs. As Mr. Breakfast, I'm definitely looking forward to that. We also want to visit a couple of the closest small towns (Witoka, Rushford) and see what kind of character & amenities there are in what would be the closest towns to us for the rest of our lives. Also maybe explore some of the dirt roads that would be our running routes, and then have a picnic (weather permitting) on that goat prairie on top of the hill to the NE, admiring the view of the valleys surrounding it.

Anyway, as much as we're totally struggling with all these different pros & cons in our minds, we're really hoping that this weekend will make things clearer one way or the other. There will likely be some very important things discussed as Lucy snoozes on the way home Sunday night.

Breaking Down Hylton

Point Guard.

Good points:

• Good ballhandling skills. Can dribble with both hands, through the legs, around the back pretty easily.
• Pretty good at penetrating and getting a shot off. While not blinding fast or able to jump amazingly high, very good at controlling the ball and finding the basket.
• Fair amount in the offensive repertoire: scoops, lay-ins, reverse lay-ins, hook shots.
• Good ability to jump far. Can't jump all that high, but there's hang-time. This allows for some pretty decent & sometimes creative finishes near the basket.
• Knows the game well-where teammates will be/should be. How to run an offense. Positioning. How to shoot for percentage (e.g. close to the basket).
• Good passer.
• Very accurrate on mid-range jumpers.

Challenges:

• For someone this size, surprisingly not all that fast. More specifically, not all that quick, in a first step or reacting to anothers' first step. In terms of the game you like to play (slashing to the basket), this is a major boner.
• Not able to jump all that high. Definitely a hinderance in getting shot off. Would venture to say that with more speed & a better vertical, you'd be very difficult to stop. Of course, I guess who couldn't say that?
• Love of attacking the basket can lead to getting into the lane without any idea of what to do, which leads to getting in trouble and getting blocked a decent amount.
• Flying directly in the face of the infamous "perfect form" comment, jump-shot shooting form is far from it. Jump-shot, most of the time, is a bent-arm sort of flick of the wrist that doesn't look quite right.
• Effort vs. return equation historically way off balance. Much too much needless energy expended in futile actions as a result of some kooky notion it is the "honorable" way to play. Would behoove you to give up the outside shot more often, let the crazy bounces go out of bounds, and not race off after fast breaks on the 15% chance the guy will miss the layup. You probably won't get the rebound, anyway.

The City in my Blood?

Just talking with Mixdorf about a seemingly recent upswing in violent crime in North Minneapolis. On the surface, it definitely seems like just another of the many compelling reasons to high-tail it to Zephyr Valley.

On the other hand, I wonder if despite my oft repeated claim that I am "not a big city person," if I have actually slowly become one through the years. In addition to (and perhaps as a result of) celebrating it's wonderful and diverse offerings, do I actually feel obligated to stand with it through its assorted challenges? There's something that ties me here, and it's not just the opportunities to indulge my newfound cultural elitist fancies. It;s something more under the surface. I must sit and scratch awhile.

Camden Civic Theatre: The Above Broadway Players

I started in on a theatre class last night-a guy here is trying to kick-start theatre for the north side of Minneapolis and is starting to get people involved through this project, which is supported by the Minneapolis School system's community ed program. I've been feeling the ache from being out of acting too long, and interested in finding out if there really is a "use it or lose it" component to the art. I felt like I was a pretty good damned actor at the end of the 80s, but haven't really done it in an official capacity since then.

Last night was a lot of getting to know each other and a few improv warmups, then readthroughs of a couple of possible one-act plays we might take on. It was a lot of fun and felt pretty natural, though character acting is not really done best on a blind read-through. Definitely looking forward to the next meeting/rehearsal though, where we'll figure out what the next performance is going to be.

Breaking Down Gibbs

I'll make sure he gets this.

Power forward, power forward, power forward. Though you does have a pretty good history guarding centers.

Good things:

• Through the years, you have learned to take those areas of the game which are most effective (not necessarily the flashiest) and work them to your best advantage. Your game is really built on your strengths, rather than wasting time on that which you don't do well (unless it all goes out the window-see challenges, below).
• The anti-Mixdorf. You realize the shots fall better when you're closer to the basket, and you're not afraid of working to get the ball in closer, even if there's not much working room. You're not afraid of contact; in fact, meeting a little resistance can fire you up. You have a powerful upper body and you use it, to re-use a word, effectively (though see challenges, below).
• Kind of related-you definitely have a "game-face." You're all about business. You'd rather not chit-chat; you're not on the court to make friends, but to win ball games. It makes you really focused.
• You're hands are amazing on defense. Lightning quick, you are able to wreak havoc on ball-handlers-even guys much smaller than yourself.
• While maybe not to Cory's level, you have a bit of the ability to "smell blood" and take advantage of situations.
• For someone we wouldn't necessarily classify as quick-footed, you'd developed a remarkably quick spin move right next to the basket. Couple that with your penchant for a little contact in there, and it's a pretty tough move to stop.
• Generally-really good stamina. A big part of this is just that you play with a lot of guts (e.g. you're willing to endure a lot of pain).
• On the contact thing, you're really good at bodying up on big men. For big men that don't love contact, it can completely take them out of their game. I've seen you absolutely shut these "gentle giants" down.
• Little turnaround fadaway that, if it's falling-can be very tough to stop.
• I think when a big man is good at catching passes and not bobbling them away, you say their hands are "soft." You have "soft hands."

Challenges (to my recollection):

• Like all of us, you can be streaky. Unlike most of us, you sometimes seem completely unaware when you are on a downturn. As in, continuing to ride a particular shot into the ground as your consecutive misses mount 8, 9, 10, 11...
• Related-when you get down, you tend to think that only the long shot can get you back in the game. Usually, that's the beginning of the end.
• In your intensity and willingness to initiate contact, you will sometimes repeatedly enter a gray area that is probably but not definitely an offensive foul. You create space with your shoulder or elbow right next to the basket. Whether it is actually a charge every time you do it I cannot absolutely say for sure. What I can say is that can make playing basketball with you at those times about as much fun as getting your dick caught in a zipper.
• Those lightning-quick hands sometimes slap. Not a detriment to your game, since we don't foul out, but not all that fun for being on the receiving end.
• You KNOW the pick and roll well. In fact, I've played with you when you've used it. But it seems that very often (especially in 2 on 2) the team concept sort of goes out the window. Not even in being selfish or anything, but in sort of spacing out being active when your teammate has the ball. Kind of just standing around at the top watching, while they get doubleteammed down in the paint. Being more continually active on offense without the ball is something I think you could work on.
• While you protect the ball well, your ballhandling skills seem to be pretty limited. You have no left, I know for sure.
• Your vertical is not very high at all. You can hardly be faulted for that, but it's a challenge. And it results in you not really using much of a jump shot in games. I think that hurts because, in order to not get blocked, almost any shot inside the free throw line has to be a turnaround and/or fadeaway.

Breaking Down Cory

I originally tried to post this right after the Mixdorf one, but the post bombed out on me. Haven't been able to get in at Big Buy since then-hopefully, that's not the new step internet treachery by my workplace. Would certainly be the last straw.

But on the the breakdown...

I've definitely played less with Cory than with either Pat or my brother, but this will be to the best of my experience and, admittedly, not drawing on any changes to your game in the past couple of years. But I do picture you as a 2-guard (shooting guard). Somewhat of a scorer's mentality, relative to a "run the offense" mentality.

Good stuff:

• Able to get "in a zone," where you are nearly unstoppable (though see bad points, below). This happens, in particular, when things are going well and you are in the lead. Actually a very underrated ability-that of being able to step on an opponent's metaphorical throat when you've already got him down. Something Duke does in to 16th seeds. It is human nature for 95% of us to get lazy and let our guard down when we get a big lead. Not so for Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, or Cory Levendusky.
• Very good at playing the "back to the basket" game. Kind of working back and forth until getting good position, then hitting a nice little baby hook or fadeaway, either of which is relatively high percentage and very tough to block.
• Fast, with also a very quick first step. If you get your man beat, you're in for a score. You also have a good ability to finish with a reverse layup.
• Considering that you didn't have much of a background in your three favorite sports growing up, your ability to master the fundamental skills (in basketball, shooting, dribbling) to the extent you have is nothing short of phenomenal. Obviously, your learning curve is a lot less steep in the last number of years, but you didn't really do much of anything until college, and then you really were a natural. If you really think about it-it's amazing.
• Slightly related: considering you don't do much cardivascular exercise, your ability to play for long periods of time is extraordinary. Not something I'm sure I could do. Sure, you bitch a lot, but somehow you keep going.
• Surprisingly good at shot blocking. I don't think you're vertical is all that high, so it must be timing-which would be related to "being a natural" (above).
• You have a good sense of where teammates are and are good at keeping moving in the offense (e.g. moving without the ball), rather than just standing around at the top.

Challenges (in my recollection):

• As the counterpart to getting in a zone, when it rains it pours. Once you're get down, you can begin a tirade-laden, hot-and-sweaty spiral down into despair and failure. You wear your frustration on your sleeve and thus send out perfume-scented invitations for your opponents to enter your head. A very difficult thing to do, when shots aren't falling, is to concentrate on those things that you DO have control over: defense, decision-making, effort, and positioning-all of which can get you back in the game. You have gotten better at this over time (and maybe in your time being a teacher, your patience and frustration tolerance have been elevated to new heights), but it is something I recall you struggling with throughout our history of playing.
• Defensive positioning. Maybe it's too high of a stance, or not cutting off the angles, but for how quick you are, you can be driven around. Sometimes your footspeed helps make up for it somewhat, but you'd do yourself a favor by hitching up your shorts and widening your stance (though it wears you out faster), cutting off the driving lane, and giving people low percentage shots if they want them.
• Rebound positioning. You tend to sort of watch shots go up and run to where you think the ball is going, and then just waiting to jump for it rather than getting a bead on where your opponent is and then driving that ass back at them.
• Those shots you take often are pretty high percentage and work well for you, but overall you seem to have a somewhat limited offensive repertoire (drive to the right, outside shot, back your way in). I think I big part of this is that almost all of your experience has been playing in real games or one-bounce, rather than just sometimes taking a ball out to the nearest hoop and working on different moves, footwork, and shots for countless hours, something the rest of us have done. I think if a couple of moves you really want to do aren't working, this can lead to extra frustration-you don't feel like there's a lot you can fall back on.

Breaking Down Mixdorf (a reprint)

I do picture you as a small forward, though I think your 2nd best position is center (albeit a smaller one).

Good stuff:

• Shot blocking.
• Other defensive "hands" things. One of the reasons why you're a pretty good small forward. You can pretty much keep up with people, and if you can't you have pretty good timing and a good reach for defense.
• Good mid-range shot (though, as with any of us, you can be streaky).
• Pretty good "post" moves.
• The prototypical "good-passing big man." You "know the game"-where you should be, where your teammates are likely to be, and you get the ball to them where they want it.
• You're in good physical shape, endurance-wise.
• You're pretty coordinated, from a basketball standpoint.

Challenges. In my recollection:

• You tendoversell the perimeter fake.
• You tend take outside shots with no teammates in rebounding position.
• You seem to not be that interested in contact. Not necessarily bad for the health of all those playing, but possibly makes you a little less effective in the post. Perhaps another argument as to why you're more of a natural "3" than a "1."

Two Birds with One Stone

Lucy's big issue is going down for naps & for the night. She's had a tradition of nursing to sleep so it's always kind of been Sharon's responsibility, unless she happens to be gone. Well, birthday number two is approaching, and I thought Sharon had borne the burden about long enough, so I offered to start alternating nights with her from now on. With Sharon in the house, it is absolutely impossible for me to get Lucy to go down in the bed. However, just this last weekend (during Daddy-Daughter Day), I hit upon the most amazing of solutions. When it was nearing time for her nap, I told her daddy was going to go for a run and that we'd go in the stroller. She loved the idea and a nice 2 1/2-3 mile run was about perfect for her to zonk out. Came back with her totally asleep and was able to shower up & then get a bunch of other stuff done.

This was a landmark moment, seeing as she has actually been an impediment to going for runs up to this point (through cold weather, darkness in the evenings, etc.). Now, with daylight savings in effect (or out of effect or whatever), this is a tactic I can use in the evenings as well. Last night was my first run at night to get her down and it worked like a dream.

The Most Recent Daddy Daughter Day

From a daddy-daughter day on Saturday. On our walks, we always stop for a bit on this little concrete dam and do a little phenology. Usually this includes looking for birds, looking in the water, and closing our eyes and naming off all the things we hear. In the picture above, Lucy is ready to move along and look in the creek for ducks. She is wearing tiny little hiking pants and a long underwear top with little dogs that glow in the dark.

Still Looking for a Focus (out Boston way)?

Consider the Boston chapter of Architecture for Humanity:

www.architectureforhumanity.org
http://afh.meetup.com/29/about/

"Welcome Back" to an Old Friend

My plans are to have (make?) a little more time for myself over the lunch hour at work, going forward. It is with promise in mind that I felt the urge to do a few headlines.

http://headlinescoalescence.blogspot.com/

I think the golden years really were when there were co-writer comments, and I would propose this:
- The former staff take up the torch again and do some headlines, just like old times.
- Maybe shoot for a couple-times-a-week pace, so the reader(s) doesn't feel that (t)he(y) has to check in amazingly often or fall behind.
- Once again make comments. Just enough so that the writer doesn't feel like he's headlining to the void.

For anyone that was never a regular reader, I recommend jumping on board for a funky, obscure-reference-laden adventure of a lifetime.

Welcome to the World, Little Elsa

Congrats to the Johnsons-definitely looking forward to some future play-dates.

http://ablogofhisown.blogspot.com/2005/03/ladies-and-gentlemen-i-present-to-you.html

Zen Where you can Find It

A few years back, I moved from semi-regular Yoga to regular meditation. I still do a little Yoga from time to time, but a particular writer on the general subject suggested an unnecessary link between contorting your body and freeing your mind. Also that there was this notion in Yoga of clearing your mind. Meditation, he argued, had to do with opening up your mind and welcoming all of what you are into that space. In other words, don't worry about pushing thoughts out of your head. Find a rhythm to them, rejoice in them, and just relax. The type of meditation he talks about we have all experienced just by happenstance, though we have probably just attributed to being spaced out. Just getting lost on a thought, or being taken in by the peacefulness or beauty of something you come across in life.

Anyway, a couple of great moments in recent days:

The first was driving down to Waterloo for the weekend. Lucy sleeping in the back, Sharon half-sleeping in the front. Me driving. Full moon, so bright that it was making the remnants of snow over the countryside glow blue, and actually casting long shadows of telephone poles across the road. u2's Joshua Tree was on the radio and I had just picked up a medium cup of coffee to go. I enjoyed an amazing state of peace & contentment that lasted for basically the length of the album.

The second was yesterday. Got out for my first run of the spring over my lunch hour. It was around 60 degrees and sunny. I've really not been out a whole lot recently, but this was spectacular. The sun was just strong enough to warm my cheeks, and I was surprised to find how comfortable and easy my stride was, even though it had been on the shelf for a few months. Signs of impending spring all around, I took a loop through the Wood Lake Nature Preserve, lost myself in the soft thudding of my feet and my rhythmic runners' breath and emerged a happy man.

The Road To...

The Final Four.

Wonderful, wonderful, and again wonderful.

Hope all my (dozens of? hundreds of??) readers had the chance to check out possibly the best weekend in the history of televised basketball with three overtime games out of four played to send teams to the Final Four.

In my new sports lease on life, where my mood & lifestyle are no longer locked in so fully to a particular team, and I am just plain not watching so much, I have found the sports being much more fun & interesting to watch. Whether taking the opportunity to sit down with a micro-brew and watch Monday Night Football, or happening to tune into a Big 10 regular season basketball matchup while cleaning the house on a weekend, they are much more enjoyable as a spice of life, rather than as bread & butter. Funny how, in a year where I put in less effort to my tournament picks than ever before, I have gotten such a thrill out of the event. Then I was treated to this last weekend. I didn't see every second of every game, but I saw the parts that mattered. For once the drama of the later rounds exceeded that of the early rounds.

Huzzah for the Spartans & Illini, representing the much-maligned Big 10 in fine fashion!

Who'd a Thunk?

Searching for the phrase "placemat cartography" turns up zero results in Google.

NEWS FLASH: T-Clog Deserves Biggest Ass-Kicking of All Time

He's a mixer, he's always been. Don't leave him alone with your wife or your best friends, or there's no telling what mischief the man with the mile-wide mean streak might wreack.

So, I confronted Gibbons with the disturbing news I had gotten from Cory about him going out bar hopping all the time with college kids, only to find out 1) He's been to a bar about 3 or 4 times since being in Terre Haute 2) He has NEVER gone out and done anything with kids that are still in college and thinks (like me) that a guy his age doing that would be kind of creepy. He was like, "Man, why would Cory say that? But that's what Cory does! He's a mixer! Well, since he opened the door, how about this:" And he proceeded to tell me how he left Cory alone for five minutes with Trista and when he came back in the room she was all worried cause Cory had told her I was going away to live in a hippie commune in a house made of straw. Again, why does Cory do this? Forget Boromir. Forget Sam. Don't forget the internal battle of Goodboy and Badboy and remember that, given a chance, NAAASTY things will transpire, and suffering and pain will follow.

Breaking the Code

Finally got around to digging into The DaVinci Code. Friday night I started the book, and couldn't put it down till I forced myself to at 3:30 am the next morning, with only about 40 pages left.

Wow.

Don't want to totally spoil anything if someone (Cory?) thinks he might read it someday, but there's a number of what sort of seem like earth-shattering assertions made about the truth of Christianity as it was intended (pre-Emperor Constantine in A.D. 1011, who made radical changes to the religion in order to appease a Catholic Church that was getting more and more influential). Anyway, it is kind of crazy yet affirming for the that the way Jesus is depicted from accurrate historical records and in many of the other 70-some odd gospels that were eliminated from the Bible is a lot more in line with the great spiritual leader that it SEEMS like he should be to me, rather than the figure he has been made out to be in popular culture for the last few hundred years, a distortion/interpretation that has played a major part in driving me away from the church, both intellectually and in conscience.

I am very interested, when this book is finished, in trying to seek out some academic-oriented reading on the subject.

School for the Liberal Elite

Don't know whether I mentioned this, but the Montessori school called and finally had an opening for Lucy. We went in for another visit and were again really impressed with the facility (little kid-sized everything right down to the toilet) and the staff (all Montessori-trained and really good with the kids from what we can tell). Sharon took Lucy in for a couple of sessions to ease her in, but it looks like we wouldn't even have needed to do that. Lucy is in love with the place-limitless little constructive toys, activities, and crafts to keep her engaged-she doesn't want to leave the place. The more we've learned about it, the more we are psyched up about the Montessori philosophy-letting kids explore at their own pace, where their interests take them. Needless to say, we're really excited about when she starts, which will be Friday the 1st of April.

One funny thing that happened there yesterday. Understand-there's near-limitless funny things that happen with respect to The Girl, almost none of which I ever relate (to my own discredit). Anyway, this is not necessarily any more funny than anything else, but is just something I happen to be thinking of at the moment. The kids had just finished having a snack on their little plates, sitting on their little chairs. Lucy said, "all done!" and got up. Being a good girl, she pushed in her chair and started to walk away. She then noticed a little piece of something on the floor, and picked it up. Not sure exactly what to do with it, she put it on the plate of the little girl next to her, then walked off. Apparently, the instructor and Sharon both got a chuckle from that.

Lousy Smarch Weather...

Alternate title: This will be the death of the hobbits!

Twin Cities expecting 8-12 inches of snow over the next half-day. I came in super early to avoid morning traffic, and will shoot to get out of here around 1:30.

Like usual, the snowfall will be far heavier down in the Rochester (& Zephyr Valley) region.

Hops

Not sure if it's simply not having played basketball much in the last year or the fact that I go up six flights of stairs at least once a day or a combination of both, but yesterday when I was shooting around on my goal I decided to jump for the rim. I grabbed the son of a bitch off a two-footed bound.

Earth Mother with a Twist

Maybe a bit of a step back from all the life-changing blogs and back to more little daily life observations and such.

I was just remembering a conversation I had with PMix about how I thought sometime it would be cool for Sharon to start wearing those long sort of flower-patterned skirts. Seemed kind of consistent with her personality. Mix commented something like, "Yeah, she's kind of the earth-mother sort-that would make sense."

Well, one aspect of 95% of the earth mothers that I didn't consider. There is an aspect of their free-spiriting femininity that still clings to a fashion sense. When I suggested the idea to Sharon, she was all for it, except that somehow the dress would have to match t-shirts and/or a sleeveless REI fleece vest. Kind of funny. It's not that Sharon is opposed to nice clothes, it's just that she approaches it kind of like me-she never thinks about it until times of necessity, and then just gets by on the bare minimum requirement (now a FUNCTIONAL, performance wardrobe-that's an entirely different matter in the Hylton household).

Anyway, one of the many things that endears her to me (perhaps the first part of the "why I love my wife" series).

In My Mind, I'm Already There

Well, possibly one of the most life-changing weekends of my life. As many of my readers might be aware (and ohhhh, do I have readers), Sharon & I have been looking into cohousing for some time-actually, since Sharon brought the notion back from her time in the Peace Corps-but we have only started seriously exploring the subject in the past few months. Coupled with that is the feeling that we have had of "we're not city people." In recent times, we've started to feel like there are certain things (the whole "cultural elite" deal) about the big city that we would really miss, but the fact is that our spirits really do hunger for living in wide, open spaces with nature (or at least the countryside) at our doorstep.

Anyway, this weekend, we went down to visit a place in Southeast Minnesota (about 15-20 miles southwest of Winona), called Zephyr Valley. A group of 7 families that cooperatively own 500 acres, 40 of which are operated as an organic farm and the rest of which are natural areas. Reading I had done on the place made it seem too good to be true-beautiful, rolling, forested hills, and a group of people that seemed, at least philosophically, on a similar page as us. Of course, having fears of the whole thing being a Kool Aid-drinking cult was unavoidable, but upon visiting, we found that, if anything, the stuff we had read had undersold the place.

Our experience there was amazing-almost too much to try to convey in a post like this; but the nuts & bolts are that, upon seeing the valley & meeting the people, we were both having the feeling that this is (as is everyman's dream) the type of place were we would like to have the house that we someday die in. Anyway, they are (through a lengthy-sort of "getting to know you" process) interested in adding a few new families, and seemed excited about Lucy-who would be only one of two kids under nine (one of the very few drawbacks). They'd like to really kind of get a new generation going there. Hopefully, there would be other parents of toddlers that would look into the area as well.

Job? Yeah, reality sets in. More than likely, I'd be working in Winona. I've actually applied for a City Planner position already, but unless that worked out (which is probably not extremely likely), I'd have to get into a position where I'm making a similar amount to what I am now, or else Sharon would have to rethink her part-time work status.

A lot of other things to consider-how much will it cost to construct our "dream home" (which, I can tell you, would be a heckuva lot cheaper than most people's dream home), and how much will our Mpls house's equity help out there. What will it take to live on in that area? Daycare? All sort of things like that. But I do believe that if you follow your heart, things will sort themselves out. Now, if we can just have the guts to walk the walk...

(oh, and for reference)
http://directory.ic.org/records/?action=view&page=view&record_id=2150

Man, Tea Sucks!

Today I am drinking herbal tea, in an attempt to cut down on coffee consumption. The jury is still out somewhat, though my initial leanings are hidden somewhere within this post.

In Celebration of Cory

Just wanted to take the opportunity to honor another friend.

Much ado has been made over Cory's history of overcoming certain obstacles from his youth, and I will not go into that in this forum, except to say I commend not only this whole "first in a line of Levenduskies" set of accomplishments, but also his focus and abililty to lock in and just do something. This is an especially interesting trait, as it runs counter to the main gist of my Celebration, which is as follows:

Philosophers and great writers have had an endless discussion about approaching life with a "childlike perspective." The ability to laugh often, love deeply, and not get bogged down by the devil in the details of life. Some people spend their entire lives in search of it. It seems to me that Cory has this blessing innately, and in abundance. I think it influences nearly everything he does and, like fine wine and some kinds of cheeses, gets better with age. As people I've known have grown and tempered themselves and/or withered while getting older, Cory is Cory. Perhaps not always calling me "in my best venue," but a breath of fresh air, relative to whatever stresses I am facing on any given day.

He is like the Human Cup of Coffee. He'll wake you up, shake you up, and make you feel like cracking jokes. He'll make you forget you're trying to figure out how much to put into your 401K and make you answer who the Vikings should draft. He'll make you forget you're going to your wife's cousin's wedding and make you pretend to get shot by an arrow through the guts. He'll make you pour the Campari out and grab a bottle of beer.

It is the Childlike Perspective and it is great. It was the subject of Gibbons' "Cory Goodboy: The Man," and it makes all the sense in the world. In college, before it was harnessed, it was scary at times. But now it is understood and ridden with skill, like a good horse. It laughs, loves, understands, and shares of itself. Only a man who invites people to look inside him and take a piece will end up with the number of nicknames of Cory: Cory Goodboy, Paco, Johnny Seedcorn, Body Beautiful, The Balleen Bringer, Dog Balls, Butter, The Bear, The Mad Russian...I know I'm forgetting a few. Anyway...rock on, young fella!

Oh, yeah, and let's not forget his basketball skills! Ol' boy has got a MEAN crossover!!!

Auto-Pause Set to Round

So, in pursuit of recreation, I finished up Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter last night. Fun to hear all the guys & their witty vocalizations once again. Anyway, I was having some trouble with the final battle (vs. an ancient dragon plus numerous henchmen), when I went into Game Options and switched to an Auto-Pause at the end of each round. Suddenly, the battle was a breeze!

loki

I have, throughout my life, taken on way WAY too much. Always busy with a number of endeavors, with another number of concepts just "out there" into which I have just not actually launched. Ideas flow easily for me, but follow-through not quite so much so. The process is cyclical-the workload and stress builds up and builds up until it explodes and I have a couple days in a row where I'm depressed and pretty much paralyzed into inaction. Then it starts over again.

Anyway, this last time I think the stresses and pressures built up for longer than ever before-duties to school & Lucy, among other things, not allowing me time for the normal crash. It happened finally, though, not long after pulling out of school. And I've actually been in the funk ever since-at least a month. Finally, Sharon advised me to take a month of pure recreation (beyond the usual rigors of parenting, staying on top of finances, housecleaning & so on). No personal projects. No feelings of obligation. More Baldur's Gate. More movie watching. More noodling around on guitar. More excercise. More sitting around in the Lotus position, sipping hot chocolate and reading the City Pages cover to cover. I'm three days in and so far so good. We'll see if I can come out of the month recharged.

I'm not a Red Football

Well, contrary to perhaps common belief, things are not on autopilot at my job. Not sure if I give much of an impression of my job satisfaction other than this vague notion that I have an uneasy truce with "the man" until I feel I am ready to strike out into a more personally satisfying venture. Truth of the matter is that, in terms of my day-to-day activities, I actually enjoy working with maps & data (regardless of how lame that sounds). I am relatively well-taken care of (certainly in comparison to past jobs), and have about as much job security as one can reasonably expect from a large company in this day and age.

But I just had this incident occur which has pissed me off beyond belief. I've been seeking a promotion over the past year, but constantly getting the runaround from my boss. Meanwhile, two co-workers that are basically in a similar position as me (albeit with a different direct supervisor) just were promoted.

The maddening thing is that not only haven't I gotten a similar promotion, but I have been unable to even get me a concrete answer as to what would be expected of me if I want to get to "the next level," whatever the hell that would be. There's a lot of other little bogus things surrounding the situation, such as the fact that I've taken on most of the work of a guy that left the company a few months ago and have been putting in (for me) a decent amount of overtime, and that I feel a lot of work I do isn't recognized by my higher-ups because it's done in partnerships with other groups-something that others in my team don't really do. But I guess thing I really can't get is how I've been unable to get any kind of straight answer from my boss for such a long time, and then how, suddenly, these two other guys are moved ahead. I would suspect that maybe I'm not doing that great of a job after all, but I've always gotten good reviews and in every review period I make it a point to ask my boss what he thinks I can improve on.

I'm befuddled, but for the first time since working here (especially in light of my recent drop out of grad-school) , I'm seriously re-evaluating whether this is where I should be working, even in the short term. I won't do anything rash or stupid, but the only conclusion I can draw from this whole weird situation is that, somehow, this whole idea that I'm on a different wavelength than everyone else around here has manifested itself as a barrier to my advancement. That would be crazy. Crazy bad.

Anyway, I will be talking to my boss today and raising the issues point-blank. Not sure what he can possibly say that will remedy this situation, other than to promote me on the spot. I'll be sure to follow-up and post what happened, though.

Fill it To the Rim

I was just thinking, on the way into work, that this had to be about the dumbest fucking catchphrase in the history of advertising. What, exactly, were the Brim people trying to say? That other coffees were incapable of filling your mug? Or just that drinking their coffee made you pee an extraordinary amount? Perhaps their nasty, sludgy brew was in no danger of spilling. Sheesh. Plus, the whole thing just screams: "We named our company to rhyme with our slogan."

Any other ill-advised or plain unexplainable ad campaigns out there?

I guess Barq's Bites comes to mind...

The Journey's End?

So, my spiritual journey has gone from Christianity to Deism to now something like a vague sort of Theism while acknowledging I have a Christian heritage (e.g. celebration of Christmas & Easter & so on). With this heritage still having some roots in Sharon & me, we have been struggling with a few notions of church. Still feeling like we should be a part of some sort of larger, "faith"-based community, or experiencing fellowship with a group of similar souls on a regular basis. We also still have this urge to have some sort of formal ceremony of dedication for Lucy.

Anyway, we had been meaning to visit this Minneapolis Unitarian church for some time, and finally got around to it on Sunday. In reading their literature and witnessing the proceedings, it was evident this was very much a group of similar souls. People who wished to come together with a common vision of hope, and explore their spirituality with honesty & reason, seeking justice in the world and an ethically-informed worldview. In fact, upon leaving the place I remarked to Sharon that, from a religion standpoint, all the people there were almost toally in line with me, except for just one thing.

You see, they don't hate going to church.

Another Round, Harv!

As promised (to T-Clog), some details about my own grandparents that I learnt fairly recently & have not related (to him, anyway).

In talking with with dad after the death of my grandma this last summer, I found out some things I had never known before that were pretty wild. My granddad ran afoul of the Southern Methodists in Kansas.

It was post-prohibition, but smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression's dust bowl. My grandparents were so poor at the time that my grandad, who was running a gas station at the time, had to fur-trap all night, driving my dad (who was around 5 at the time) & grandma around and checking the traps one by one, in order to eke out a living. He also applied for and received the first liquor license in Kansas, and began to operate a profitible and popular beer parlor, while running a bookie business on the side. Aside from the "first liquor license" part, all this I knew. But what I didn't know previously was how this business got them shunned, disapproved-of, and basically booted out of the church community. You can imagine how important of a role churches played in the goings-on of various communities in those years, especially in that part of the country. My grandma, who I never thought of as involved in particularly strenuous philosophical examinations of herself, had always been curiously secular in her lifestyle. I had always wondered why, and now all the pieces fit together. My dad explained how she sort of took on an "I don't want to belong to a church that doesn't want me to feed my child" sort of attitude, and she carried it to her death, which (perhaps standing nearly alone amidst 90+year-olds' burials in Kansas), had no funeral service.

Save the Child!!!

Here is a topic to which T-Clog can relate, Aaron WILL be able to relate, and Mixdorf can maybe just understand. It is the topic of falling with your baby in your arms. It has happened only twice that I can really recall, and in both cases Lucy was safe at the expense of my own safety.

The first time, when she was no more than six months, I slipped and fell from a top stair and actually slid on my back, head-first, down half the flight of (wooden) stairs, yet somehow managed to keep the little girl upright and out of harm's way. Sharon heard the crash from the other room and freaked until she found The Precious was unscathed.

The second time was actually yesterday. Sharon & Lucy came down to visit me at work and take me out for a coffee break. We went to Betsy' Back Porch (the site of the Camden Garden release party). While carrying little Loo, I failed to notice a dropoff of three concrete steps. I stepped out into midair, then crashed my knee down into a concrete side rail at the level of the top step. The force of this fall was so great that it tore a God Damned hole in my work pants. Do you understand me? They did not rip from something cutting across sideways or pressure tearing from either side. The simple act of my knee slamming into the concrete ripped these pants open. Lucy unharmed, of course, again. I had to hand Lucy delicately to Sharon while I had the expression on my face that looked like I had a mouth full of Curly-leaf Pondweed (potamogeton crispus). Both were distressed at my condition, but what could I do?

I have often said, when either of them is in any kind of physical discomfort, that I would take the pain for them if I could. Perhaps in these instances, I did.

That's It, I'm Out

Just talked to my advisor and shot a note off to the assistant director of the MGIS program. I am out of grad. school. The reasons to withdraw remained & if anything got more compelling over my two months off. My jets were totally not recharged and I was dreading the prospect of launching into studies again. It's sad, because I put a lot of work into the program to get this far. But mostly sad only for that reason. I guess my ego will miss out on not having that status symbol and, certainly, the grad degree would have made me more employable. But that's with all things being even. I honestly think I can prepare myself with a better and more real-world applicable skill set by spending time working on it OUTSIDE program. So who's to say which makes me more "employable?"

Cry. CRY FOR MICHAEL JACKSON!

I think pretty much everyone I run with knows I am a crier. Such is the way with one who does not stuff his emotions in a bottle. Anyway, I had a funny one this morning. Funny but not funny. I was listening to Michael Jackson from the early to mid 70s. His voice-so amazing, so beautiful. Then, I thought about where he is now & what he's become. Tears.

I'd say, for pure preposterous crying circumstances, that ranks #2 right behind the time I teared up during an episode of "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" where Will tries drugs for the first time. Can't think of too many other things right now. Anyone else care to feel secure enough in their masculinity to add some of their own preposterous circumstances? Can you knock off the reigning #1?

1. Fresh Prince "episode."
2. Early 70s Michael Jackson.
trying to think of more...

My "Signature Themes"

So, about a year ago, I announce my five "Signature Themes," according to a Gallup-devised exercise we did here at my work. Since then, they have unveiled my entire strength-to-weakness spectrum of 34 signature themes. In other words, stuff at the bottom (the higher numbers) are theoretically my weaknesses. There was kind of a weird situation in answering the questions where I wasn't sure whether I should respond as work-Dan or outside work-Dan, but I leaned towards the latter. Any thoughts or comments?


1. Input
2. Connectedness
3. Command
4. Activator
5. Intellection
6. Developer
7. Relator
8. Empathy
9. Ideation
10. Communication
11. Positivity
12. Belief
13. Achiever
14. Responsibility
15. Maximizer
16. Focus
17. Adaptability
18. Self-Assurance
19. Consistency
20. Learner
21. Competition
22. Futuristic
23. Arranger
24. Discipline
25. Context
26. Deliberative
27. Significance
28. Individualization
29. Analytical
30. Harmony
31. Restorative
32. Includer
33. Woo
34. Strategic

McCartpilation.com

http://www.geocities.com/hylton44/mccartpilation.doc for the liner notes, by the way, for anyone who received a copy. Hope you are enjoying it-I would welcome any comments.

Further Evidence of Cultural Elitification, Or am I Just Becoming More Urban?

Tough to say, though it's hard to believe that I'm the same guy that, within the past 5 years, would have said something about not needing to live in a big city because all the things I need in life can be had in an out-state or rural location. While that's techinically true (and, indeed, a lot of my interests: being active, music recording, reading, movie watching, computer-related stuff) are things that can be done pretty much anywhere-especially in the digital age, I have sure found myself assimilating more and more into the urban lifestyle in recent years.

Certainly, I must give Minneapolis credit as just a fantastic big city. So many things to explore, so many things offered, from arts to the parks to dining & entertainment (listen to me, I sound like an article from AAA's Home & Away magazine--but it's true!). In addition to being more comfortable living around loads of people with a political alignment more or less on the same planet as mine, Sharon & I have been taking part in more of these big-city offerings in recent times. It's easy to forget that even some outdoorsy things, such as biking and running, can in some ways be almost better in the big city, if the trail system is nice enough (which it totally is in the Twin Cities). But, if you don't mind spending just a little money, the entertainment you can seek out around town is really only supassed by some of the super-cities (LA, NY, Chicago), and I'll wager the Twin Cities is a lot easier on the pocketbook.

We had the opportunity to go on a date Sat. night (Aaron's already heard this story, more or less, but I'll go on anyway). Lucy was coming off a double-ear infection and we had basically been living in a madhouse for the last week or so. As a result, there was no planning done for this up until about an hour before we headed out. We were actually considering just dragging the TV & DVD player upstairs and doing the date that way, but we were both a bit stir crazy and just wanted to get out, sans-little girl, so we could give each other undivided attention in a public setting for a change.

I happened to remember a Dunn Bros. (local coffee house chain) location in downtown Minneapolis, kind of in the warehouse district, called The Freight House. Pat & Dan had considered doing our release party there-not sure why we eventually decided against it. Anyway, their calendar indicated they had a jazz-trio playing. Now, I've never been a huge jazz guy, but I've always attributed it to me simply not getting it, rather than there being anything flawed with the style. And I've really always sort of wanted to see a jazz trio or quartet play live, thinking that it might be just the thing to kick-start my appreciation of this uniquely American art form. Oh yeah, and since this place was on 3rd Ave, which is bascially just Nordeast's Central Ave once it crosses the river into downtown, we decided we'd eat at a place on Central Ave in this mini-sort of hspanic district.

Eschewing something totally adventuruos, we went to a place we had eaten at before, Chiapas, and the food was outstanding and reasonably-priced (sub $25, which included a huge appetizer and a drink apiece). You can tell really a authentic Mexican place because the food is inexpensive and the decorations are garish and almost campy. Anyway, really good food. The evening was heating up (-10 degree temp aside), and we headed on to The Freight House.

Coming upon the river from the North (northeast) side, a suspicion I have had for some time was totally confirmed. That area, which once upon a time contained a really shitty Red Owl (grocery store) and was the site of gunshots that scared the begeezus out of a certain fresh-faced Iowa kid on his first late-night bus trip home from Greenpeace (let me know if you want that story again), was now all revitalized, dolled up, and happening. Riverfront property, I'll tell you. It is now all condominiums and bistros.

Anyway, we crossed the river and, only about a block from The Freight House, found a bank of empty meters (free after 6 in Minneapolis), and parked. A brisk (and I mean brisk) one-block walk, and we were there. Good coffee and a cookie each, and we headed up to the upper level, where the trio was just getting underway. OK, here's the punchline. It was SMOOTH JAZZ.

We still had a really nice time together and some good conversation, but the crack was made that, rather than listening to live music, our evening was more akin to calling Three Rivers Park District on a speakerphone and getting put on hold.

Monday Luther King (MLK)

Stinkin’ 11 below zero this morning, coming into work. I had the car parked in front of my house last night, rather than in the garage. By the time I scraped the frost off all the windows, my fingers were in pain. For the first half of my drive into work, I pulled my fingers out of their individual glove fingers, and just made a fist, hoping that, like freezing companions in a snowy woods, huddling them together for warmth would do the trick.

Well, I'm Officially in Training

Literary Notables

I think the compilation of Naughty Poems was really the "semenal" moment in Pat Gibbons' writing career. Thoughts?

The Sinking of the Whaleship Essex

Anyone ever read about this (especially anyone out Nantucket way)?

I'm kind of a sucker for human survival stories, and this one is a doozy. The sinking of this whaleboat, about a thousand miles to the northwest of Easter Island, by an enraged sperm whale captivated the Western World in the early 1800s. I just happened across the book (pretty much the definitive version of the story, based on research of two first-hand accounts) at a church's garage sale and decided to give it a shot. Not the most well-written book I've ever gone through, but without a doubt one of the most engaging tales.

I would in particular invite Gibbs to read through this (and any other book in which old mariners go through near-limitless forms of hell on earth), as I've always suspected his love for the sea and sailing was based purely on "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and, to put it mildly, there's definitely a darker side to the subject.

It Was the Best of Times, it Was the Worst of Times....

Message, Spock? None, perhaps, except "Happy Birthday;" surely, the 'best of times.'

Indeed, a birthday today, my 34th. Most of the celebration was actually Sunday night, where Sharon surprised me with Star Trek (the original series) Season 2. My girl is officially hooked: you don't buy someone 27 episodes of Star Trek without wanting to see a few of them yourself. Other nice birthday gifts: $30 in Best Buy gift cards from Sharon's parents (which I intend to spend today on The Simpsons Season 2), and a coffee grinder from Sharon's sister, Amy. Her family is always very kind & generous with me for Christmas and my birthday, which is nice since my own family is downright famous for its disappointing history of gift-giving.

On Sunday, I also got Sharon's stupendous homemade mac n' cheese, although she stoutly refused to replicate last year's menu, when she offered to make me a meal of my choice and I requested the same mac n' cheese, stuffing, and bread pudding. We were walking around with so much starch in us it was stiffening our shirts for a week.