Update At The New Year's "Weekend" was busy. Wednesday night we were late at a friend's house, and the police stop on the way home, while not unexpected, was irritating (I had a headlight out - I hadn't touched alcohol since about 10 pm, and it was 1:15 when we were stopped, whole fam damily in the car). Thursday we mostly lounged around the house, while Friday was taken up with the wife taking children bowling, then... frankly, I don't know that we did anything in the evening. Saturday was a lot of running about (NAPA for a headlight and wiper blades, YMCA for YiG, Home Depot for a new disposal to replace the dead one, National Camera for a working camera battery for the film camera, Unique and Kohls for YiG-compatible clothes, Barnes & Nobles for books - and I think that was about it). Sunday was a slightly shorter than saturday verse (Von Hanson's for meat, Walgreens for drugs, Cub for food, home for dinner). And here we are at Monday again. They made much on the news about the "news" that we've gained almost fifteen minutes of daylight on the back end of our "day" - sunset has moved from 4:31 to 4:47 now, and will be much, much later as time goes on. I'm about as comfortable as a pig on ice skates for the next 30-40 days, of course - come in about two weeks, we get our coldest week of the year, statistically, and then things start to warm. Mind you, I'm only slightly worried - I've got a camping trip planned for one of those weekends, and two weeks later I'll be camping in a cabin for the entire weekend - going to school for Wood Badge. I had someone ask me the other day "what exactly is Wood Badge?" I honestly told them "I can't really say, because I haven't been through it yet." I do think I'm probably one of the better-prepared people to go through it, as I've been hearing about it for about five years now. A very good friend of mine went through it a few years ago, then the program changed quite a bit, and another good friend went through it just after the changeover. My understanding of Wood Badge is that it completes the initial phase of your training as a Boy Scout leader. In Boy Scouts, there is training for all levels. There are introductory courses for the program, courses for training you on a specific job, and courses that train you on what to do in the event of specific events or issues. Wood Badge is a complementary course to the youth leadership training. In my council, the national youth leadership training is called "Gray Wolf" and is offered for up to three members of each troop annually. Our troop puts down three youth each year - the first is usually a leader who has been identified for several years and has risen to the top, the second is usually a leader with great potential we see coming up, and the third is something of a wild card - someone who has leadership potential, but may not have all of the skills yet, and we'd like to see them develop. Mind you, my troop does things a little unusually - the Gray Wolf candidates are selected by the boys in the unit, and are then passed on to council by the adult committee. The Adult Committee has a veto over whomever the youth have selected, but rarely uses it, because the youth consider this pretty responsibly. Last year, the three youth we sent were fairly successful. One of the three hasn't been to many meetings this year, but I'm told there are extenuating circumstances - he changed schools (he's in that age group, as are all of our candidates), had some family issues, and discovered he was good at sports. Nothing wrong with that. This year, I know of one or two candidates from last year's list that will move up, and I know another fellow who is qualified - but far too young - who will probably be added to the list. Anyway - in Gray Wolf, our youth get taught some leadership skills and techniques. The Wood Badge course gives the adults the same vernacular, and allows them to share some common experiences with the youth in developing leadership. I'm doing Wood Badge for three reasons. First of all, is to test myself. From the time I begin Wood Badge, I have eighteen months to complete five mini projects that will help myself, my unit, my district, and my council. I've been doing a lot of thinking about them, because it's important to go into the course prepared for what you're going to face. One of the projects needs to address diversity in Scouting. Diversity is, frankly, a wide-ranging term. It deals with a lot - as our Troop has to deal with a lot. One of our boys has a physical handicap. Another one has hearing issues. Several members have allergies, while others have serious but non-visible health issues that could cause trouble. I'm going to talk to my advisor and find out if my diversity issue can deal with food and menu planning - specifically, for those with allergies or other food issues, such as diabetes. In the troop, we have a shellfish allergy (not overly serious - he breaks out in hives), a peanut allergy (which is life-threatening), and upcoming, we have a youth who is allergic to wheat, dairy, and nuts. Makes it a whole lot of fun at mealtime. My goal is to develop some documentation that the youth may use to educate themselves about meal planning, and do it in a way that will help them in the long run to plan more varied, interesting meals. The second reason I'm doing wood badge is frankly to learn more. The program gives you tools and techniques that work in a business and personal setting, and will be useful for the rest of your life. I'm not one of those people to go to a lot of self-improvement seminars, because I've found that the ones I end up attending are almost always the ones that end up being quite full of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo that I neither believe in or can "get behind". The last reason I'm doing wood badge is for my son's troop. This might seem screwed up in some ways, by putting them last, but let's be honest here - if there is value for me, and if my value is improved, then I bring much more to my son's troop, and in doing so, I can be of more help to the boys. If I don't put some time into improving me, how can I encourage them into putting some time into improving themselves? Anyway. 'Nuff about that. I'm still experimenting with a new "Facebook" page I put up last week. My wife and daughter had one, so I went in search of what the heck the thing does. So far, I'm relatively bored by the whole thing. To me, it seems like one of those "water cooler conversation" things that got entirely out of hand. If you have friends on-line, this is a way to interact with them. That part is interesting. The wholly uninteresting part is the "use mine-mee-too-gimme-gimme" stuff surrounding Facebook - the games, advertisements, and general cruft that encourages you to try it - and then encourages you to sucker your friends in before you can see your own score. This morning I took one of those IQ tests that made no sense. One question: Adjusting for inflation, which is worth more? A. 1908 Pennies B. 1950 Pennies C. 1970 Pennies D. 2008 Pennies E. Unknown. Before you answer that, let me fall back on the other test question. How do you get a giraffe into a refrigerator? Now, how did you answer the second question? 1. Impossible - a refrigerator is too small for a giraffe. 2. Cut him up and put him in. 3. Open the door, put the giraffe in the refrigerator, and close the door. I gave you no specifics about the size of a giraffe. It could be a stuffed giraffe, or it could be a small plastic giraffe - or it could be a full-grown adult male giraffe. We don't know. The simple fact is that you need to open the door, put the giraffe in, and close the door. Second question - how do you put a Rhinocerous in a refrigerator? Potential answers: 1. Open the door, put the rhino in the refrigerator. Close the door. 2. Cut the rhino into pieces and put him in the refrigerator 3. Impossible, the Rhino won't fit. 4. Open the door, remove the giraffe, and then put the rhino in the refrigerator. Then close the door. Again, the last answer is correct. If the Rhino is alive, it will destroy the giraffe - and your refrigerator. If not, then why bother keeping a giraffe in the refrigerator? So, back to the first question - the correct answer is D. Why? Because if I give you 1,908 pennies dated 1908, you would have $19.08. If I give you 1,950 pennies dated 1950, then you would have nearly $20 in change. If I give you $20.08 in pennies, that's going to be the biggest pile - and worth the most. You might be able to take the 1908 pennies into a collector and get more than one cent each for them - or you might not. I don't know. But that's not part of the problem. If I assume a shopkeeper will pay me more money for 1,908 pennies simply because they're older, then I might get lucky - but I can't count on that. However, if I ask you "Adjusting for inflation, which is worth more? A. A 1908 Penny B. A 1950 Penny C. A 1970 Penny D. A 2008 Penny E. Unknown" I'd guess A. I'm assuming that inflation would have made something of a difference between 1908 and 1950. I know that between 1950 and 1970, inflation was bad; it was bad through the early 70s, and seems to be again (put it this way - when I go to the grocery store these days, I can count on spending about $350 every 2 weeks. We're not big eaters, and we're not eating fancy foods. I do have two growing children, yes, but a year ago, we were going through perhaps $275 in groceries - and that's counting what we got from the milkman. Now I'm looking at another $50 a week for milk (our consumption of which has dropped considerably since I've been diagnosed with diabetes, and have cut back from almost a half-gallon a day to maybe 32 ounces a week) and incidentals there, so in my book, that's a real growth of almost $250 a month in expenses. And don't give me any crap about fuel costs - it's dropped by more than 50% from it's highest point here locally.
[Link] People, if your name is on the list and you're willing, please let me know you're still alive. And if you know me and AREN'T on the list, let me know that, too. Tom Janey - we went to Grade School (some), High School, and some college together. I heard you were in the military, becoming a doctor. Yes, you. I didn't believe it either. Jim Kershner - not the one in Seattle, who is rendering my Google alert for you useless - you know who you are. Rob Greene - If you can remember what Agrajag's was, and not the Douglas Adams reference, then you're the one I'm looking for. Dave Gillespie - same thing as Rob's. John Ricketson - I know I irritated you, and I apologize. I would like to make it up to you, somehow... Carlene Yvette Miller - you know who you are. Ann's been looking for you for years. She really misses you, and would love to talk. You wouldn't believe how big the kids are - and we still have your couch from when you moved from Minneapolis (and we took you to the train station to say goodbye). Gary Steenburgh - I've no idea where you've gone, but hey, if you're still around, let me know, OK? I really miss you. There. That should do it until 2010 or so. Now, if I could get the smell out of my house (we got one of those spiral-sliced honey hams in the after-Christmas clearance, and my wife saved the bone for soup - which certainly has put me off food entirely so far today. Which might be the point of the exercise...)
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January 4th, 2009. 1-4-9, right? Look, even I had to think about it for a minute... I didn't come up with it. One of my three regular visitors popped that one into my in-box. Sunday, I just wasn't coherent enough to come up with that on my own...
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Update At Many years ago now, I formed an e-mail/on-line relationship with a man by the name of John H. Ricketson. JHR, or "The Warlock" was quite the character. He lived in San Francisco, was quite tall, quite a bit older, technically very competent, and had spent years as a housing inspector in and around San Francisco. I believe that he lived in a house with a view of the Goldengate Bridge, on of his own remodeling. I know the kitchen counters were several inches taller than your average person, because both he and his wife (I never found out if she left him, they divorced, or she passed away) were taller than average. John and I never spoke on the phone. We never exchanged photographs of ourselves - he saw what pictures of me existed on this site, and pictures of him - rather dated, he admitted - appeared on his now-gone website. We never met in person - but we were still friends of a sort - good, true friends, people who would exchange opinions just as you do with the friend on the back patio, over a beer, late on a warm summer evening. We had that nearly every day. As I got to know John, I found him to be both crusty and cantankerous - a real character. As one would expect from someone who had a number of years on this planet, John's interests were wide-ranging, his experience vast, and his knowledge was something that completely awed me. His opinions - there were many - were strong, well-reasoned, and always always rooted in his experience. There are a number of people who would be surprised at his opinion of them. I was surprised at his opinion of me - but he reassured me many times it was not an error on his part. John and I exchanged many e-mails over the years. We didn't speak on the phone because he said he was hard of hearing and he didn't like to use the phone. I'm not sure if my dislike of the phone arose from my high regard of John, or if my years working as front-line technial support had something to do with it. I suspect both. For a time, John and I lost touch. I learned that he moved from his home in California to a ranch which he purchased in Texas. John was a character whom I learned was a Marine (there are no Ex-Marines. There are Marine recruits, Marines, and Dead Marines. There are no ex-Marines - John taught me that). And that meant certain things. John was very conservative, where I'm certainly more liberal, I'm nowhere near where he viewed the rest of California to be. Some years ago, I lost my job. This was three months after buying my home. Nice timing. For a while, I tried to do consulting things (while still looking for work). Then I found a contract job, which worked - for a while, until I was laid off there). Then I tried to start a business selling home-made pens. I still make them as a hobby, but I'm not yet ready to sell them again, because I don't trust the materials to last as long as I would like them to. Then I went back to work. It was during that time that I started getting money orders - one here, one there. Never more than $250; but they were always perfectly timed to what seemed to be my most desperate need. Kids needed to go to the Doctor and get a prescription - a $100 money order showed up. Groceries were getting a little thin - a $200 money order showed up. I tried to hide some of those hardships from my readership here. Mostly because I've been raised in that stubborn-pride thing, and I figure no matter how bad I have it, I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and a family that loves me. But I will tell you that there were times where it was very, very hard. After a while of this, things changed. The money orders stopped, and checks began. Automatic checks, one a month, from John, to me. Then I knew. He didn't want to be paid back; he didn't want to take any credit for it. For him, it was a "pay it forward" thing. And I could never quite tell him how much those money orders meant to me, or to my family. I tried, but he kept telling me that it was his part in helping me - in the future, I would do the same, if the tables reversed, I would do the same. If things were different... And he was right. I still fantasize about winning the lottery and starting the John H. Ricketson "Bread Upon The Waters" Revolving Character Loan Fund. Loans would be made to people based on need; you pay it back when you can, you don't need to worry about it, because we won't, we know you're good for it. If I was half the judge of character John was, I'd be a heck of a lot better than I am now. But that's me - that's not John's fault. Eventually, things got better. They're still not great, as we're still in debt to a point where if we stacked ourselves one on top of the other, I think Jack could probably see daylight - but that is apparently the American way (for a while, anyway). We're working to get out; it's not as fast or as clean as I would prefer, but we're slowly getting back to what you might call an "even keel". But I would still, occasionally, hear from John. An e-mail here, a message there. John moved to Texas. He had some idea of open a winery - that was one of the things he thought about doing. For a while, he considered retiring to a veteran's home in California that overlooked a winery, or was quite near it - I'm not sure which, and you know how e-mail conversations go - but then he decided, as one would expect of a man like John, not to sit and watch, but to get up and do. He sold his home, packed his belongings, bought a ranch, and started considering himself a part-time gentleman farmer. John got busy. Our e-mails slacked off from a couple a week to a couple a month, and eventually every couple of months. But we remained in contact. John found a tractor, and used that to putter around his property. He "enjoyed" the heat and weather that was part of his new Texas home. In his last "long" e-mail to me, he admitted a number of things that surprised him. His first big news what that, at the age of 75 (in October of 2006, anyway), he had found the "love of his life." She was ten years older than him. He had a wonderful time with her, and even persuaded her to move in with him. At the age of 75, the kids can (and do) talk - happiness at that age, I'm learning, is fleeting at best. His second biggest bit of news was that he now was a proper Texan, as he also owned a "dowg". Luke, who has got to be one of the happier-looking part-yellow-lab-part-something mutts I've seen in a long while (I'd reproduce the picture here, but it's on my PC that no longer has a network connection) was rescued from the pound as a "stay of execution." John, ever that old crusty crankpot, had started to get softer in his old age - and he laughed about it. John's sole complaint about Luke - he needed to be civilised. He was a smart 3-year-old pup with no common sense, according to John. His worst habit (one which I know something of) consisted of leaping up, plaicing his paws on your shoulders, and slobbering you with affection. Nice problem to have, unless you have the habit of bringing guests into your home. He also bragged about a congestion cure he found ("Vicks Casero, honey formulation" - never seen it, but I'm sure it works - John said so). And he shared the joy of spending time with his neighbor across the way - they were two peas in a pod, John said, despite their nearly 40-year age difference. A lot like John and I, I guess. And he closed, as always, with a bit of sage advice. Remember the customer always pays your wages. Always, always good advice. That was John. John mellowed on some things. On others, he was rock-solid in his opinions - opinions I always respected. On February 26, 2007, I posted a bit about James Cameron and the Tomb of Jesus™. John wrote to me:
Dom - (his favorite nickname for me - ed) We exchanged a few more messages, and then, that April, I came home from a customer site to find a huge box on my front step. A giant eight-person tent, which John had found from a nearby outdoors overstock retailer. I was preparing to bring a dozen Webelos Scouts on a camping trip at a State Park near me. Maybe it was a mistake, and maybe it was confusion, but I never quite explained the rules as they now pertain to Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. In Scouting, adults are only allowed to sleep with their own sons in the same tent. If more than one youth are in a tent, there must either be two, or no, adults. If there are two adults in the tent, neither can be related in any way to the other. So an 8-person tent was just absolute overkill for what we had. Combine that with the fact that the previous fall, we had managed to pick up a much-lower-quality 8-man tent for the family at Goodwill (we spent $30 on the tent, which probably sold for $180 new at Target). And combine that with the fact that, some two weeks prior to the tent purchase, we'd stumbled into a deal on a pop-up trailer (which we still have), and the tent was utterly superfluous. The problem is that the tent arrived on Thursday, April 26. The camping trip started Friday, April 27, and being an old Boy Scout, I never, ever, ever take new gear on a camping trip if I can avoid it. There could be issues with waterproofing, missing pieces, or whatever - the last place to figure that out is in the woods, about 7:30 pm, when it's past sunset, you're 70 miles from home, and you're missing a tent pole. So I set the tent aside, sent (or thought I had) a message to John thanking him, and that was that. I came home after the weekend (which went very, very well) and Ann and I talked about what to do. The tent was complete and utter overkill - it would sleep eight, but our new-to-us trailer (it's a 1978, well maintained, though) would sleep eight plus two dogs (granted, all eight would have to be quite friendly, though we could probably get nine or ten if they were all the same size as Jack was when we got the trailer); we had an 8-person tent, along with a six-person, two four-persons, a three-person, and two or three two-person tents - another barn was overkill. So Ann and I discussed, and she won - we would exchange the tent and $50 for a two-burner high-output stand-alone camp stove, which I had been lusting after for some years. Water took 30 minutes to forever to boil on our little coleman stove, and this thing would boil a bucket of dishwasher water in about 10 minutes - just what a growing camping family needed. Off went the tent (after the phone calls back and forth to Sportsman's Guide). And happily I opened the new box when it arrived some two weeks later - a smoker. huh? I called SG back. They immediately admitted their error, and had me return it. I was now looking at less than ten days to our departure to go camping with the family over Memorial Day weekend - I was positive the stove would not arrive on time. Sportsman's Guide outdid themselves, and on the Thursday before we were to depart, on the same day we were going to put down the trailer and get it ready to roll, UPS dropped off my 60-pound stove. Cast-iron burners, sidewalls to protect your match or lighter as you lit the burners, adjustable leg height - the works. I loved it. And I loved it all the more because it was - in part - a gift from a good friend of mine. Unfortunately, when I sent John pictures of the trailer, the stove, and the happy wife and kids, I received no reply. I continued to ping that most recent address and others about once or twice a month. I no longer need to do that. According to the Brownwood Bulletin, the newspaper for John's new home, John passed away December 29th. John was not a religious man, so I shan't offer a prayer for his soul - though I know he's still out there, and giving someone fits just because he can. I will, instead, offer up a few prayerful thoughts for the family he often spoke of, loved dearly, and has now left behind. And also for his friends, of whom I was one, for a little while. Rest in Peace John, you've damned well earned it.
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Update At Other than that, it's slowly creeping to the end of the week.
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Update At I'll tell the market one way to improve consumer confidence - stop selling us this cheap Chinese crap. Back in 1989, my wife received, for Christmas, a microwave. It was a present from my parents for the both of us, but was to her. It was an Emerson Microwave, which we still have. The Microwave itself ran fine, but the thing was just starting to look old. The exterior had that fake wood paneling stuff on it, and the interior was starting to get difficult to clean. So we went shopping this year for a new microwave. My wife did the legwork, because all I tend to use it for is reheating foods and the occasional defrost. She looked at Consumer Reports, looked at Target.com and Amazon.com, read reviews of both the average consumer and technical folks, and decided this time to go with a Panasonic. First, a little background. My first experience with a Microwave was in perhaps 1970 or 1971 - my father was a gadget freak, and enjoyed all of the latest, newest toys (he came home one day with a pocket calculator - LED lights and four functions, ran on a nine-volt battery, and cost him over $100). The Kenmore Microwave that came to the house one day came with a giant of a man who hauled it in, set it on the counter, plugged it in, and then he took a pot of cold water and put it on the electric stove. He turned the burner up to high, then went back to the cupboard, grabbed a glass, filled it with water, set it on a potholder inside the microwave, and turned it on. In about three minutes, we had water boiling in the microwave. On the stove, I could still put my finger in the water in the pot. We kept that Microwave until I was in high school, and then upgraded (again, gadget freak reasons, not "it wore out" reasons) to a new microwave that was a smaller footprint, did more, and I think my parents kept that one until they moved into their new home - with a built-in microwave. So my wife went out and we looked around, I pushing for the cheapest microwave we could get, she countering again and again that features, price, and long-term reliability all leaned towards us getting this particular model of Panasonic. So we did. We brought it home, plugged it in, and let it go to work. Our enjoyment of the new Microwave has not been lessened - however, I'm starting to sense that this one probably will not enjoy a 19-year lifespan. The door lacks a handle (one thing I would have preferred - as technologically-friendly as I am, I also wish to reduce my dependence on moving parts to perform basic functions - such as opening the door. As this was the main flaw that lead to our Emerson's retirement, I'm less than thrilled (to put it mildly) that it's now beginning to exhibit itself in the Panasonic - for which we paid about $120, granted, but I guess I'm old-fashioned. I'm not all that weird, I just want things to work. I've got a three-year-old cell phone - it's got Microsoft Windows Mobile on it, though I prefer the old name - "WinCE" - because I do regularly. I have to reboot the phone every couple of weeks. Why? I don't know. I don't have the ability to fire up the Task Manager and see what Windows process has gone off and horked itself into oblivion. It will also - on fairly rare occasions - completely dump, and anything not stored on the card is toast. Now, I've learned. After the second dump, I store notes and things ONLY on the card. Unfortunately, I can't store my phone numbers, so I did the next best thing - pasted them into a note. Sure, it's a pain, but I'll be damned if, after four dumps, I'm going to go an re-enter ALL of my numbers FOR A FIFTH TIME. I have television sets that are older - one, in my bedroom, was a wedding gift from a friend, nineteen years ago now (this October). I feel pretty safe in saying that it's already 20 years old. Still works, too. I've got another in the living room that is I don't know how old. I don't know, because we bought it from the pawn shop when we moved in; we just wanted something cheap to get by. We put the "big" television, which we got in probably 1998, downstairs. As I remember from childhood, my father bought our first color television when I was maybe 4 or 5. I could remember going over to my grandmother's house on Sunday nights to watch the Ed Sullivan show - in living color, as the saying went. That first color television went into my parent's bedroom after we bought a console TV for the living room - probably about 1976 or 77. I believe it continued to work down there until probably the late 1990s, when it was replaced, probably for a better picture tube, mostly. So, market, build good stuff, not disposable stuff. We might not start buying it tomorrow, but if you're building good stuff, and it's lasting a while, we'll be more inclined to buy it - and we'll probably pay a little more than we would if it was plain crap.
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This is not a Web 4.0 site - nor 3.0, nor 2.0 - hell, it's barely 1.0. It is static HTML code, written and refined by hand using the internet-age equivalent of bone hammers and flint knives - the venerable WordPad under Windows and Firefox (that's at least a 3.0 release, actually). So no, there are no nifty-shifty whiz-bang things here. Frankly, there's only the written word, written (mostly) by me, of things that occur to me, or thoughts I occasionally (and some will say allegedly) have, and when it's fiction, I shall be sure to alert you as such. Other than that, I shall simply inform you that here, content is King. I've been doing this not as long as some, longer than others, and, as some long-time readers will tell you, I regularly and consistently piss people off, irritate them, and expose my ignorances for all the world to see. This is me, this is who I am, and this is why I put myself here - to see if it is possible for me to ... improve mine own self, as it were, since evolution is most assuredly done with me. With that said, on to the more standard verbage - I presume we're all adults - or at least fairly mature beings - here. The opinions contained herein are mine, wholly, and do not represent those of any organization, group, or other collective of other beings / people / things / whatchamacallits to which I belong, am associated, or appear to endorse. Truth is, folks, I am one of those square pegs constantly being smashed into roundish holes. Unfortunately for me - unfortunately, for the holes, as well, as I am often more akin to the granite that comes from where I grew up than something more malleable and ... well, workable. I have sharp edges, which are, regrettably at times, revealed here. Given that I am a unique individual, and that I am a collection of opinions and such, it must be noted that you are hereby legally provided notice that you can't blame those organizations for my thoughts. Unless I'm running such an organization (which, I assure you, is utterly unlikely - I much prefer to organize and work behind the lines), those groups should not be blamed for my jerkisms. However, feel free to take your frustrations with those opinions out on me, and leave the rest of the world alone. If you do e-mail me, I freely reserve the right to publish your e-mail if I choose, ignore it at my peril, or, in certain cases of gross stupidity or clear evidence of serious colo-rectal inversion (that's head in your butt for those of you without bigger dictionaries), add you to my kill file. Please do not take it personally, nor as a sign of your unique value to my world - my kill file is not exactly empty. You would, in fact, be joining a wonderful group (according to them) of people who dislike me and/or my opinions. We differ in that particular. As any sane being would. You have been warned. And Thank You for visiting.