More Waterloo News, of a Different Sort

Two pretty big things:

One, my dad's health is poor. He's had some type of blood/oxygen thing going on for some time that they've actually had some trouble pinpointing; but his lungs have been quite stressed, and he's not able to catch his breath after even some pretty low key activity. They've finally got him on oxygen 24 hours a day (like, a machine with a tether and a tank and the whole nine yards). I'm not sure where all this is headed, but I don't have a very good feeling about it. You guys have known him personally, to various extents, throughout the years - so, keep him in your thoughts, as you are able.

Two, my parents' house just sold. I'm wondering if the fact they were high & dry through the recent flooding made their neighborhood suddenly seem like a very desireable location or what, but there it is. Mind-blowing, as again - this is the only house I have ever known them in. They still haven't landed on the apartment or condo to which they'll be moving, but that'll be figured out sooner as opposed to later, one would think.

The Incredible Shrinking Newspaper

Obviously, this is good in an environmental/paper waste sense, but other than that – I find the struggles of news organizations to thrive in the world of “new media” one of the great, ominous issues of our age; and one that – due to the lack of a true political motivation one way or the other –one that no one (other than journalists themselves) really gives that much thought to.

Carried Away, As Usual

So, I got so excited about creating intro music for my new podcast, I never got around recording anything else:

http://media.putfile.com/Poliopolis-Bump-Music

Hello, Old Friend!

Tomorrow, 10 am, a bearded Mixdorf will knock on my round, green door.

I will say, "Go away, I do not want any well-wishers, or distant relations."

And he will reply "And how about very old friends?"

and...well, you get the picture.

Actually, I'll be meeting him at the airport. And though the Hilron house in a bit of disarray and maybe with hot water running in only one of four taps (with the one not being the shower), I will receive him and we will have an amazing joyride, nonetheless.

Full report down the line, no doubt.

I Will Not Die Tonight

Quite apropos, I think, this amazing poem I heard yesterday on Garrison Keillor's Writers' Almanac. Especially in light of the subjects covered in Mixdorf's post about China.

"Borrowed Time"
by David Moreau from Sex, Death and Baseball
© Moon Pie Press, 2004

I will not die tonight
I will lie in bed with
my wife beside me,
curled on the right
like an animal burrowing.
I will fit myself against her
and we will keep each other warm.

I will not die tonight.
My son who is seven
will not slide beneath the ice
like the boy on the news.
The divers will not have to look
for him in cold water.
He will call, "Daddy, can I get up now?"
in the morning.

I will not die tonight.
I will balance the checkbook,
wash up the dishes
and sit in front of the TV
drinking one beer.

For the moment I hold a winning ticket.
It's my turn to buy cold cuts
at the grocery store.
I fill my basket carefully.

For like the rain that comes now
to the roof and slides down the gutter
I am headed to the earth.
And like the others, all the lost
and all the lovers, I will follow
an old path not marked on any map.

I'm Actually Not Kidding Here (Well, All That Much, Really)

As I read the report of the robot, ASIMO (who can also recognize faces, walk on uneven terrain, and respond to most basic commands), directing the Detroit Symphony orchestra; I had the recurrence of a long-time and growing fear that I will live to see entire races of sentient, intelligent robots enslaved.

And again, my views on a matter will place me in the category of "fringe element."

As I Mentioned Recently...

There is an additional source of stress, of late.

Happy Mothers' Day!

Ouch

I hope that was just not having my basketball legs under me yet, and not age. It was pretty brutal this morning.

The bad:

• Pretty much every time I tried to drive, I got stuffed. I just had no spring in my step - it was like I knew what I wanted to do, but my body couldn't do it.
• I missed everything in sight. I remember (in the olden days!) being pretty much dependable from just inside the three point line on in. I had a stretch this morning where I am positive I missed more than 10 in a row.

The good:

• When I was not driving, I seemed to be able to get any open look I wanted. That may have had something to do with them not thinking I was worth covering (see the missing, above), but people usually aren't as focused in on your bad day as you are yourself, so I don't know if they were familiar with me enough to make that sort of judgement.

I also got totally gassed. I can go out and run four miles without thinking twice, but Mixx is right - this is a toally different sort of exercise. And all those baskets (actually, not all that many baskets) I've been shooting in the back yard over the past seven years don't do a whole lot to prepare you for a full-court game of four on four.

I really do think a lot of it has to do with re-familiarizing myself with the game - and my limitations. And I do think/hope that whole "getting my b-ball legs under me" thing plays a part, too. I probably won't ever be able to do what I used to, in terms of driving the lane. But I can pick my spots, start hitting shots, and distribute the ball.

We'll see if I can have a better outing next week.

The Full Monty and Back into the Fray

All along, they've been indicating that we will be receiving an Economic Stimulus Check that gives us $600 apiece (Sharon and me), and up to $300 per child. Some scary wording, there: up to. Well, I'm pleased to announce that I just checked the ol' bank statement and it's a full $300. Seeing as our tax lady told us we could claim 10 dependents and still come out even, this should not have been surprising. But you never want to count those chickens till they hatch.

In other news, I tracked down the old wake-up basketball league I last played in 10 years ago and asked them if they'd have need for an occasional sub. Things worked out much better than I'd hoped, as they put me in the "draft" for the summer league. My first game is tomorrow morning, 6 a.m. sharp. I remember how creaky and non-limber I felt playing at that hour when I was 29. I can only imagine what it's going to feel like tomorrow morning.

Relax, He Doesn't Care!

As was touched on in comments to my post yesterday, my father-in-law is redoing our hot water piping. We may not have a family on either side that's going to leave us a whopping inheritance, but in the practical skills and boundlessly generous nature of my father-in-law, we are truly blessed. He's helped us on numerous other home improvement items in the past, but this is the biggest - almost certainly beyond my skills at present; though, even if it wasn't, the chance of me finding the time to do this work is slim to nil. So thanks, Ken.

And so, yet another long-overdue item of home improvement (old hot water pipes were just about rusted through) out of the way; but also yet another non-visible item of home improvement out of the way.

It's a bit of a thorn in my craw that of the thousands and thousands of dollars I've dumped into making my house more up-to-code, energy efficient, and generally livable; we have yet to do any aesthetic improvements to our house since painting Lucy & Rose's room about six years ago. Perhaps we're employing some of the same wisdom that put us in that class of folks who did not take out a aubprime mortage; but it would be nice, for once, to be one of those people that have a newly remodeled kitchen or bathroom to enjoy. As it is, we're living in the same old shithole. But a shithole that's got it where it counts. Ala the Millenium Falcon.

Sharon & I are also in the process of taking on a major feng shui-driven cltuter clearing that's made us evaluate all that we have assumed or held dear about not giving/throwing away for the past 10 years (more on that in a later post), and - as we sit in the midst of this endeavor (don't forget - every household endeavor with two kids under the age of five moves at a glacial pace), the aesthetic condition of our home seems all the more hopeless.

I've actually started getting a bit stressed, with a visit from Mixdorf on the near horizon. I wish the patio was done! I wish we'd just slapped a coat of paint in the hall! I wish we had our new steel roof! (look for that in summer 2009) Etc, etc.

I think I just need to chill out. I'm long past the point of being judged by close friends (e.g. the judgements are long since rendered). Quality times are made by company kept and ephemeral happenings; not by showing off a cork-floor kitchen. I just need to make sure potential hazards are out of the way and rest up for some potential late-night skullduggery. About the appearance of my property? Relax, he doesn't care.

For Joy (sort of)

Easy come, easy go on the battery re-charging.

A buttload of stresses, ranging from our hot water currently being in & out of service to an external source of stress I will undoubtedly be blogging about in the next few days, to some odds & ends around some customer service-related nagging issues we're trying to resolve - but probably mostly related to my chronic condition of being underslept, led to be being near the flipping point last night. Sharon suggested I take a day off.

A call into work this morning, and I was free. As of 11:48 am, I've already biked to Steamworks for a waffle, coffee, and read of the morning paper; and then down to the Theodore Wirth mountain bike trails for a trail run and then bike home. It would have been pure "for joy," but for me rolling my ankle twice; the first one just a tweak, and the second one somewhat more severe. I had to walk it off for about five minutes, then gingerly run/limp back to my bike.

I'm getting around OK now, and I think I'm going to be spending the rest of the day attending to some household maintainence things at a leisurely pace.

Peace out.

Valentine's Day

This past weekend. The first opportunity Sharon & I have had to get away for the evening since before the actual Valentine's Day. In one sense, it's not as bad as it sounds. I've had the opportunity to be away many nights for theatre-related stuff, and once to hang out with a friend. And Sharon has been taking a weekly Pilates class, and just last week attended workshop on rain gardens.

But a chance to get away together - ah, there's the rub. It had all the makings of an evening for which our sights were set way too high...

We'd planned to go down to the West Bank (University of Minnesota West Bank), see eat Indian food, then see a play. We got down there and got Indian food in our bellies all right, but both realized we were so exhausted we were going to be battling sleep if we tried to sit through any sort of two-hour form of passive entertainment. It was sunny & cheery out (still only 6:30 or so by that time), and since we were only a couple of blocks from crossing over 35W (and two blocks south of the historic bridge collapse), I suggested we do a river walk down one side of the Mississippi, cross the Stone Arch Bridge , and back up the other side to check out the reconstruction efforts for the I35W bridge.

It ended up being a glorious two hour walk, with a lot of new redevelopment sights to see with in the Guthrie Theatre area. We were down there last year to go to a nearby farmer's market, but didn't get upstream & downstream quite so far. It's quite an amazing little area of riverfront; something Minneapolis should be quite proud of, and something I'd recommend to visitors to my city. You could definitely spend a whole day just wandering down along one side of the river and up the other, if you really took time to digest the various pieces of history and maybe took in an attraction such as the Mill City Museum.

As it was, the only couple of places we stopped were once on the Stone Arch Bridge (recent days of heavy rainfall had made for a spectacularly powerful St. Anthony Falls, with huge, white, rolling waves and a fine mist drifting down from the falls at least a half mile or so), and on the Cedar Ave Bridge for views of the construction. If you haven't checked up links thus far, do check out the first one, above, to see our proximity to I35W. Literally, you're a hundred or so feet over from all the work, and it was quite a sight to see. This massive concrete columns where shifts of workers are toiling 24 hours a day to create a marvel of first-world civil engineering. They're not going to screw this bridge up.

Anyway - they have actually created a pedestrian & bike lane over Cedar Ave, where I do not believe there was one before - just to accomodate folks wanting to get a look at the work, replete with historic marker-type signs indicating exactly what's going on. Stuff like the fact that this bridge is going to have one arch that spans the entire 504 feet of the river (no columns in the water!), and in the arch during that stretch, there will be 150 row beam segments, each weighing between 150 and 200 tons. Cool, mind-blowing stuff like that.

After the bridge, we headed over to the Freight House for coffee & a treat, where we hung out for a couple of hours. It's worth noting that there was a really cool series of paintings there by a guy named (I think) Alex Pederson. Unfortunately, I can't find anything out about him on the web. But the whole series depicted Sasquatch in various settings in and around Minneapolis, and were all really well done. T-Clog would have loved it.

Anyway - though we remained sleepy at the conclusion of the evening, our batteries were charged.

Exibit A

Subjects characterized by precipitous mood swings, calm and peaceful at one moment, wtih fits of almost psychotic rage the next.

A way to think of a house with a five-year-old and one-and-a-half-year-old in it is something like the British considered their mental institutions in the late 1800's.

So much so, that I've started occasionally referring to Lucy and Rose as "the mental patients." Only in the company of Sharon, of course. And now you.

The New Media

Music composed & performed by yours truly.

Tot-Couteur and My Thoughts Again on the Future

My family went out last night to see Mrs. Pigglewiggle at the Children's Theatre, which is an amazing institution - widely regarded at the premier one of its kind in the country. A special birthday gift for Lucy - we really love the ephemeral kind that ends up taking up shelf space only in your memories.

About a thousand people were in attendance, the production value was sky-high - quite spectacular, really, and a wonderful time was had by all. So here you have it; within a span of 10 days, my family experiencing both ends of the spectrum: the bad (if not the worst) and the good that is Urban Living.

Lucy, through her school and with her family, is getting exposed to such a wide array of experiences - and for that, I am so happy for her. Thus far, there's not any one activity she is particularly hooked on that couldn't be done on the backyard swing, snuggling on the couch, or at the kitchen table. So no ballet classes, soccer camps, or piano lessons for the time being; which is totally fine by us. But she knows there's a larger world out there and that's good enough for now.

On a side note - but related to the Children's Theatre: damn. damn damn damn. I was struck with such an intense feeling of "I should be doing that"/"I belong up there on that stage," that it still had a pretty strong hold on me after the show, while we were driving home with Lucy asleep in the back seat. I was waxing a little regretful at the childless years I didn't spend pursuing this particular field, and having those feelings mix wtih those of a growing restlessness my current "career," and Sharon reminded me that it's never too late. I couldn't pin her down on specifics, but we both tend to believe, quite unscientifically, that things happen for a reason. She wonders if my simultaneous growing unrest and re-inspiration in pursuing a future in the arts aren't totally unrelated. Perhaps more on that later.

Victimized!

I would be remiss if I did not mention that we suffered the assholery of a car break-in last weekend.

Having lived 10 years in my current neighborhood as of this August, this is the first time we have experienced any crime upon our property; and, in the big scheme of things, this may have been as the result of me being a bit lazy. I'd finished doing some work in the garage (building some wood storage hanging units from the rafters), and just elected not to park the car in the garage. I left the stereo face on, and come CDs visible in a compartment between the front seat and in a visor sleeve. All of it added up to be, it seems, too irresistable a target for some ne'er-do-well who must've been out wandering in the dark, early hours of the A.M.

When I woke up last Monday morning and went out to the car, the driver's front window had been bashed in. The fool (for fool it was) had knocked out the vent unit above the stereo, but was unable to get the stereo. They had then ripped off the mirror I use to check on the well-being of my children in their carseats, then wrenched off the visor to get the CDs in it (rather then just unvelcro-ing the thing, which would have been easier and probably faster.

Considering they were hell-bent on doing everything in the most destructive manner possible, I incurred a surprisingly small amount of expense in this all. Actually, nothing at all, so far. Glass was totally covered. Vent console popped right back in. Visor has not been replaced, but that'll be pretty cheap at U-Pull-R-Parts, I would think. The only real "loss" (beyond my sense of innocence), was the CDs. Actually, only one pre-recorded CD, and the rest, home recordings.

If it hadn't been for the irreplaceable nature of the home recordings, it'd have made me smile to think of the look on the guy's face when he checked out his haul: Bird of Minnesota double CD set, a recording of the "Versati Scenes" from The Underpants I had for going through my lines, and at least three CDs of me playing acoustic guitar.

The End of an Era (yay!)

That does it for that.

This is all the more remarkable, since Sharon quit her job 17 months ago, and we've been making due with about $15,000 less in yearly take-home pay ever since. In a nickel-and-dime sense, I could list a few things we've been doing to cut back, but I honestly am at a loss for our ability to have paid off about $6,000 of credit card debt in just over a year.

Chaos Theory

It's late - maybe going to ramble on this, but...

The world is being run by advertisers.

Think a minute about how products are marketed - they are qualitatively defined, the full measure of truth and information about them are strategically sliced down to a brief space of time/space, and they are funded so as to be an ubiquitous reminder of what you should believe. Likely, this has had a lot more to do with our various associations and feelings about the products we buy than we - even we who would consider ourselves skeptics - would like to admit.

But what about what we understand about how the rest of the world works? Like "Directors of Brand Management" in the world of advertising, there are a lot of people pulling the strings in the much bigger and scarier world outside of product placement that stand only lose as a result of a wider dissemination of knowledge. Open up Yahoo! randomly and count the number of news stories suggesting you should be frightened of something (that you actually realize is statistically less of a threat than being hit by lightning), and then the number of "news" stories that are actually recounting events that transpired on a reality TV show from the previous night. What does this say about our appetite for information that puts us in greater touch with the world that affects us and those we should care about? Further, where does this seem to be leading us, as a people?

In a best case scenario (and a sad, sad "best case scenario" this is), this simply suggests that the masses are asses and tend to consume at the lowest common denominator. What I fear is that it's a concerted effort: Knowledge is power, and knowledge by everybody slows things down. When we're out of the loop; when we're kept fearful and frantic, or confounded to the point of apathy; or unable to distinguish between a genuine source of information or a unique selling proposition; that's when bastards could really make hay, couldn't they? That's when one of those qualitative, classic advertising pitches could really catch fire.

Furthermore...

In addition to not being able to abide bottled water, I cannot/will not abide getting hot tea at a coffeeshop.

For whatever reason - I rarely (rarely!) am able to make coffee at home that is as good as coffee in a coffee shop. And I have yet to figure out exactly why (it may be because of the temperature of the water when it is being brewed).

But tea! C'mon! Order a green tea at Caribou and they give you a cup of hot water and a tea bag. And charge you about $2.

I've said all I need to say.