"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.