On Wisconsin!

As some of you know, I started a new job this month, and it involves a little bit of traveling. I'll try to keep you updated on my journeys and where they take me.

This week, I went to Wisconsin for a research trip. It was one I was looking forward to, chiefly because I had never been to the land of Weezer, "Happy Days" and Mike Nelson. Yet, on MLK Day, there I was - flying on a direct voyage to Milwaukee.

My partner got to MKE and immediately got a rental car to complete our voyage to Madison. It was snowing when we started and kept going harder and harder as we made our way down I-94. As with any snowy situation, it seemed the harder it snowed, the worse the traffic became. Homestly, I think it was more risky to be on that interstate at night than it was for us to fly in.

We finally got into Madison around 9:30 that evening (10:30 Eastern) and went to our hotel. I believe this was the first time I had been in a hotel room without the wife or boy in about seven years, and it was definitely thei first time I had been in a hotel room alone in about 13. It was a bit lonely, but as compensation I did have cable and wifi. A small compense, perhaps, but it would have to do for the next few days.

During those days, my partner and I scanned a wide variety of images and took photos of artifacts for a book we're working on. It's about the history of the University of Wisconsin's football program. Interesting program, and I have to say that their sports information department really has a well-organized archives. Of course it wasn't until we left that I realized that the reason for that is they just moved into that building less than two years ago. I'm sure they took that time to get their historical house in order.

A few observations from the trip:

1. If you get comped tickets for a basketball game (or other sporting event) in Wisconsin, be prepared to leave early for the arena. REAL early.

2. Bratwurst on the UW campus = full of win. Bratwurst at the airport = teh suxxor.

3. Walking on a frozen lake at 7:30 in the morning will remind you of what it's like to be alive - just watch out for ice fishing holes.

4. The Heisman Trophy is one heavy SOB.

Anyways, that's my story, as I sit here writing in my "Nothing tips like a cow" t-shirt. I almost came home with a cheesehead, but I resisted the urge. Pics to come. Soon.

Meh, I'd've guessed higher

83% Geek

Chicago Dating

Does Anyone Know Where The Love Of God Goes

When the waves turn the minutes to hours?

In memory of the crew of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald

iPod Shuffle!

Laugh if you must... cry if you want to:

The Way-Clay Aiken
The Severed Garden (Adagio)-The Doors
Midnight Star-Weird Al Yankovic
Black Beauty-Duke Ellington
Original Faubus Fables-Charles Mingus
New World-Björk
Gypsy Eyes-The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Operation Spirit-Līve
Operation: Mindcrime-Queensrÿche
Highway 61 Revisited-pj harvey
'Round Midnight-John Coltrane
Overblown-Mudhoney
My Last Words-Megadeth
Candy's Room-Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Sure Know Something-KISS

Hmmm... I can explain the Clay Aiken. Wait, nevermind... let's just call it a spur of the moment thing. I certainly got my share of umlauts and diacriticals up there, eh? Especially with Op Spirit rolling onto Op: Mindcrime. I'm pleased that my jazz fetish is beginning to show up on the shuffle, as is a track from my favorite live (as opposed to Līve)album: BS&TESB: 1975-85.

Diwali

Today, Kathy, Ian, my mom and I went to Agnes Scott to attend a Diwali dinner sponsored by the campus South Asian society. It was okay, although I had to deal with Ian's diminishing temperament when the food was late in coming to the hall.

While we were sitting there, eating our meal and bopping along to the Bollywood videos they played during the meal, I was struck with a thought. When I was about Ian's age, I had none of the cultural exposure that he has had in his life. There were no South Asians around us, nor were there any Hispanics in our neighborhood that I was aware of. The neighborhoods were almost entirely white.

I didn't get much in the way of cultural enlightenment in those early days; it wasn't until I was in high school that I had much exposure to any "other" culture aside from African-Americans. After I moved to Florida, however, I truly got a sense of the diversity of the world's people. I learned about them, spent time with them, and learned to appreciate them. I grew up on the trailing edge of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and I'm grateful that I have learned to love my fellow man regardless of where they come from.

I hope and pray that Ian can continue that trend and see the world as something other than a racial battlefield. I think he's off to a good start, though. Have a beautiful Diwali, and love all around you.

Just a One-Sentence Blog Post

Whatever happened to Crystal Harley?

A Story I Shouldn't Tell, But Must

This is a story that I have been meaning to tell for almost a week. WARNING! This may contain some unsettling imagery, but you're big enough to handle it, methinks.

Halloween, Ian and I had gone to Decatur to meet up with Kathy and celebrate the day with the students on campus. We had started home, and Kat decided to take the boy back home in her car. I gave her his necessities bag (his rapidly becoming former diaper bag) and said I'd meet them back at the house.

When I got home, I noticed that it was taking longer than usual for her to make it in from ASC. When she finally got here, I asked what had taken so long. This is what she told me.

Kat was making her way from Decatur to I-20 and availing herself of some of Ian's Halloween chocolate. For some reason, she had grabbed onto a chocolate bar that had partially melted in the sun, and it smeared all over her hands. Wanting to get things clean ASAP, she pulled over off of Candler Street, which runs through some pretty rough areas in East Atlanta.

She rummaged through Ian's bag for a wipe, only to find that we had run out. Desperate to clean up the chocolate, she reached for the next best thing - one of Ian's pull-ups. She grabbed the chocolate, wiped her hands, then got out of the van to toss it in the garbage.

For whatever reason, Kat decided to not let the rest of the chocolate go to waste, so she began to eat the remains of the chocolate bar out of the pull-up. Around that time, she looked up to see a woman staring open-mouthed at her... eating something brown... out of a diaper-like object.

Kat then said she very sheepishly placed the pull-up in the trash, calmly got back in the van and walked away. She felt embarrassed about it, but said that it might have saved her life if she ever breaks down in that part of the town. "Anyone crazy enough to eat something out of a diaper ain't worth messin' with," she imagined the conversation the woman might have had with anyone who might have been listening.

Indeed, my sweet, indeed.

Mondays... I could never get the hang of Mondays

Actually, it wasn't too bad today, considering. The worst thing that happened was that the daycare that we thought had an opening available didn't, although they did take our paperwork should an opening present itself.

Ian got to play in his sandbox today for the first time, and even as I grumbled over having to sweep up the outflow after him, I felt good that he was able to go and play outside on the deck. I got a couple of interesting job-related calls as well; keep your fingers crossed.

In The Midst of Life, We Are In Death

Today was All Saints' Sunday at our church - a time to reflect and remember the friends and loved ones we have lost over the past year. As part of the service, our choir performed John Rutter's Requiem. If you've never heard it, find a copy and listen. It's a stunning piece of work.

As we sang though the oratorio this morning, I couldn't help but think of the people I've known, and the people that my own friends have known, who have passed on in the past 12 months. I thought of them, smiled a little, came near to tears at more than one point, and said prayers for their souls.

Bob Hankins
David McLaughlin
Helen Apperson
Suzanne Messick

I remember.

Filling Up My Closet

This morning I was doing my laundry and putting my clothes in my new closet when I took a look at what was in there.

Shirts. Specifically, dress shirts. Shirts that I could be wearing to a job, or at least a job interview. Shirts that would look pretty darn spiffy in the fluorescent glow of your typical high-rise cubicle. Shirts begging for a stain from some sloppily-eaten Chinese food. White shirts. Green shirts. Blue shirts. Yellow shirts. Even a pink shirt.

Alas, it seems that my shirt collection is destined to be worn only for church, reunion and family portrait occasions. It has been over a month since we moved here, and I've only had one bite on my resume. It's as if I'm invisible here. I need to find a job soon or else we may very well lose our house. Having to foreclose on your house two months after you move in? That would not be a very good thing, especially at Christmas.

Hopefully, something good will happen soon, and I can start taking my dress shirts out of the closet on a daily basis.

iPod Shuffle-NaBloPoMo edition

I realize this may seem like fudging on the NaBloPoMo event, but I feel I need to do this before I go on to more important issues.

1) Revelation (Mother Earth)-Ozzy Osbourne
2) I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man-Prince
3) She Loves You-The Beatles
4) Every Night-Paul McCartney
5) Parker's Mood-Charlie Parker
6) Lakini's Juice-Līve
7) The Odd Ball-Henry Rollins
8) Stone Free-The Jimi Hendrix Experience
9) I Can't Watch This-Weird Al Yankovic
10) Gingerbread Boy-Miles Davis
11) Never Enough (Big Mix)-The Cure
12) Goodbye Pork Pie Hat-Charles Mingus
13) Take The Long Way Home-Supertramp
14) Snake-pj harvey
15) Got The Time-Anthrax

Hmmm... I gotta ruminate on that shuffle. More later.

NaBloPoMo-Yr Tw

As I see, it is once again National Blog Posting Month. And again, I shall endeavor to entertain the mass(es) by posting once a day for November. The trick this time is that I shall be posting different content to both this blog and to my MySpace blog thingie.

I can't promise it'll be exciting, or even worth a minute of reading, but I promise there'll be something for at least thirty days.

Cheers!

Flippin' Cats!

I know that I have had my share of embarrasing moments in my life. Heck, you ALL know I have had a special gravitational attraction to catastrophe. But yesterday morning just beat it all out.
I had been up 'til about 3 Friday night/Saturday morning trying to get Ian to bed. He just refused to go to sleep, and frankly I can't remember if he passed out first or if I did. In any case, I didn't wake up 'til about 9 Saturday AM. To make things more interesting, I had forgotten to herd the cats into our garage for the night.

Kathy was already up and rehearsing music for a requiem we're doing at our church in a few weeks. I had passed out in our guest room after unsuccessfully coaxing Ian to come sleep with Daddy, or just to sleep, period! When I woke up, I decided I needed at least a few minutes in my own bed and I went to the master bedroom.

For whatever reason, I decided to crawl into bed on Kathy's side. I don't know what made me do it; I attribute it to Murphy's law. In any case, I had just crawled into the sheets and pulled the quilt over me when I rolled on my side and felt a distinctive "squish" on my bare leg.

In an instant, I decided it had to be one of three things:
1) a washcloth Kathy had been using and discarded on the bed for some odd reason.
2) a hairball horked up by one of our cats
3) "Oh dear God, no."

I lifted up the quilt and top sheet and looked down at my leg. Sure enough...

A cat had pooped in our bed.

I don't know why I didn't smell it when I walked in the room. I don't know why I had to think of other possibilities. I just know that when I realized what it was, I jumped out and bundled up all of the bed linens to take to the washer for immediate processing.

The offending cat (we know who it was since she's done this kind of thing before, but not to this degree) has been banished from the living area, and may be headed to a rescue shelter before the week is out. It sucks because this cat is Ian's favorite. She snuggled him in his crib back when he was a newborn, and she has basically been by his side ever since. She's also a very sweet cat, which makes it that much harder. With the bed poop incident, however, it may be time for Lovecat to find a new home.

I'm taking offers.

Moving On

We've moved. Outside of Atlanta. More later.

Ipod Shuffles for Peace

Or something like that. Actually, I needed to put one of these up, 'case it's been a while:

1. Once-Pearl Jam
2. The Best Of Times-Styx
3. When The Levee Breaks-Led Zeppelin
4. I'm Not In Love-10CC
5. She Hates My Job-Local H
6. Hand Of Doom-Black Sabbath
7. Many Meetings-Howard Shore (from LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring)
8. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)-Metallica
9. Scandalous-Prince
10. Nothing Else Matters (live)-Metallica
11. The End-The Doors
12. U Got the Look-Prince
13. Nookie-Limp Bizkit
14. Hedwig's Lament-Hedwig and the Angry Inch
15. Y'all Want A Single-Korn

Hmmm... I was afraid it was going to be all old, OLLLLLD stuff, and then Local came along with the Hand Of God and livened things up. Two Princes, two Metallicas, and an instrumental break from Lord of the Rings. Y'all wanna single? Fark that!