Senseless

- UPDATE -

Apparently, both children were wearing seatbelts, so the news article was incorrect. It is always a quick thing to judge when trying to make sense of a tragedy.

- UPDATE -

I recently received a news link talking about the circumstances of the crash:


http://www.nbc4.com/news/8291984/detail.html?taf=dc


To quote from a section of the article:

Police said the children inside the station wagon were not properly restrained.

"One of the children was a 4-year-old child and it was in the front seat of the station wagon and it should have been in the middle seat, and it was in a booster seat but it should have been in a child safety seat properly installed in the middle row of the vehicle," said Lt. Randy Stephens.

Stephens said the 6-year-old boy was either in the middle row or the back of the station wagon and was not wearing a seat belt.

I can only imagine the temptation to not buckle up, especially when just going down the road in the morning. Or the temptation to not fight with a son who maybe doesn't want to wear a seatbelt. I can only imagine why these children were not properly restrained, but to not wear your seatbelt, and to not restrain your children, is senseless. Plain senseless.

I can only image a less dire consequence had such basic safety been observed.

Senseless.

-Ed

Danny Boy

My father was a mixture of Irish and German but he had a heart of pure green. A lawyer by day and an unmatched Irish tenor by night, his voice could fill a room without a microphone and he would "belt out" a pure note on a moment's notice. He was as proud of his voice as I was of my videography. He should have been prouder -- growing up, that voice got us free dinners in more than one Irish pub while I've yet to film anything that gets me free food.

Several years ago my love of videography and his love of singing came together at the wedding of my cousin Mark to his bride Paula. They asked dad to sing through the ceremony and, joined by my sister Kathy, he did so with aplomb. As videographer, I recorded his entire performance.

Microphones? Who needs microphones?

After the ceremony, and once the reception was in full swing, dad was asked to get the party started with a few Irish ballads. A request he would never, could never, refuse. The set started with Danny Boy, his signature piece and one that he had sung from Irish pubs to the senate floor. Thirty feet away I had to shield the shotgun microphone from clipping as his voice rippled through the crowd. The man could sing this song in his sleep (I think, at times, he did) and for the occaision he hit every customization: every held note and every crescendo. He put everything he had into that musical set.

It wasn't long after, in retrospect, that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

When the wedding video was finished I arranged a small screening to solicit comments before the final product was shipped to the bride and groom. Dad, recovering from surgery, was intensely focussed on the singing... interrupting every few minutes to rewind a piece of song, turn up the volume, and to be hushedly silent throughout.

It did not occur to us then what occurs to me now. Mark and Paula's wedding was his swan song. As we looked to find glitches in the editing, he looked to see how he would be musically remembered. You see, dad's diagnosis preceeded his passing by exactly six months. At his funeral, as we left the church, his rendition of "Danny Boy" from Mark and Paula's wedding was played on CD with no eye left dry.

Danny Boy is an Irish ballad about a father who sees his son go off to war. The father is old and knows that he is dying. He knows that, in all probability, by the time his son returns he will be dead. As such, this song is an Irish farewell and its recording has become my father's farewell.

---

This evening Paula and her two children were involved in a car accident. It was an accident that neither Paula nor her 3 year old daughter could survive. Her 6 year old son is in critical condition with, we believe, non-life-threatening injuries.

So as I scan through the wedding video I made for this bride several years ago, and as I have always remained thankful to the event that chronicaled my father's last public performance, I bade her and her sweet, sweet daughter farewell.

It has been some time since I have seen them. Perhaps if I had heard their farewell it would have gone something like this:


Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

Be Still My Beating Heart

No, really...

ABout four times a week I jog three miles and then bike 14 kilometers. I have no idea what a kilometer is, but I alo have no idea how to set my stationary bike's distance measurements to miles. The whole process taken about 80 minutes and it's pretty much the only time I let myself watch television -- two birds with one stone and all that...

To keep me from keeling over, I've purchased a heart monitor (harkening back to the day almost a year ago when my doctor thought I might have had a heart attack -- which I hadn't). My "target" zone is, apparently, somewhere between 123 and 162 beats per minute. Anything more than 162 and the watch starts beeping something akin to "call 911" in morse code.

Now, I've been doing this routine since January. I'm not sure that I have seen a physical difference, but I have watched that heart rate number drop steadily. After just a 10 minute jog in January my heart would be a pounding 180, my heart monitor practically pushing me into the car for a trip to the ER. These days I only break 162 after 45 minutes if I am listening to angry music on my i-pod.

So, I was quite surprised when, during my warm-up, my heart rate spiked to 165 for no reason. Walk downstairs. Turn on the treadmill. Get on the treadmill going 3mph. 10 seconds later my heart is pumping like mad. What else is there to do? I figured this was "the big one" and that at least I would "go out" while watching the season finale of "The Shield". A few seconds later and my heart stopped beating -- well, at least according to the monitor. Apparently, these things get a little funky when they are low on battery.

So, I turned the thing off, did a little maintenance, and wah-la... my heart rate was down to 105bpm, right where it should be towards the middle of my warm-up. Still, it was quite the experience to see one's heart-rate shoot through the ceiling for no reason... 8)

-Ed

Living in the Limelight

I developed, in my youth, a theory about how one could most successfully fit into the world: keep your head low and try to not draw attention to yourself. I'll spare this blog entry the life experiences that I'd had, to that point, to develop such a concept at such an age. Suffice it to say that, for a chunk of my childhood, I shunned attention.

I have no better illustrative story than a football game played one day at summer camp. In universal child-touch-football fashion, our team would huddle together and the adult would trace some football play on his chest with his finger. My job? Generally to run around in circles -- think Calvin and Hobbes and you've got the idea.

At some point during this football game -- a game which I was enjoying not participating in -- the adult came up with the devlish idea that I was not getting enough "ball time". So, unbeknownst to me, he whispered to the quarterback something akin to: "Ed is always open. Throw the ball to him."

So, the ball was snapped, people were running, and I was using my knowledge of the current play to put me as far from the action as possible, enjoying my position as sports-voyuer-in-the-midst when suddenly, inexplicably, the dork with the ball threw it at me.

Clearly, something had gone wrong. I must have run into the middle of the "action". The football, spiraling like a javelin, would hit my body long before it reached the intended target whom, I surmised, was somewhere behind me wondering why the chubby red-headed kid was in the way. So, I did what any self-respecting team-player would do:

I threw my arms up in the air and did a limbo-esque back-lunge to ensure that no part of my body touched the pursuing pigskin. To this day I'm not sure if the ball or my behind hit the ground first. I do know that the rest of the players, friend and foe, were unsure what to stare at more... the ball rolling to a rest or.. well.. me rolling to a rest. The adult's reaction? This generous man who wanted to ensure that I got enough "ball time" looked at me with disgust and muttered "we won't be trying that again."

Brushing dirt off of my shorts, I came back to the huddle indignant. To every question of "what were you doing" I shot back "what were you thinking?" There is a distinct hierarchy at the age and I had not yet climbed high enough to be on the "ball receiving" tier.

I was thinking of this campy.. (er, camping...) story as I drove home from work today wondering... what happened? I have come to not only be on the "critical path" for a few projects at work but to actively seek out such paths and insert myself into them. I'm juggling no less than five discrete efforts at work and, as is sometimes the case, management is taken to negotiating for my time.

And I work with my fair share of "ball-avoiding-limbo-dancers", some younger, some older than I. As such, I am at a complete loss as to what mechinations transformed that pudgy red-headed kid into this pudgy red-headed adult. And, unfortunately, I have been too busy to find out.

-Ed

ps. A few ol' friends have e-mailed me recently, and I have been a complete dork and not responded. I've gotten the e-mails, they have brightened my day, and you all know who you are. I'll write when I can write something of substance.a

Impending Dadness

As we put our first trimester behind us, Linda and I are starting to recognize the increasingly probability that we will, indeed, become parents. We have begun facing all implied prospects, both exciting and terrifying. As in everything else I do, I have started the process of preparation. How do I become a good father? Lots of books... Many of which start with the word "Idiot".

So, let me quote a little bit from "The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Being a New Dad". Yup... a guide I can carry in my pocket...

A little wisdom from p. 24...

The odds that a child will grow up healthier and more resilient improve when dad is integral to his upbringing. If a dad actively raises his child during her first six months, she will achieve higher physical and intellectual progress. Social science research suggests that a kid with an actively involved father is also more likely to:

- Learn to read sooner and better
- Be more comfortable with physicality and physical risk
- Be more sociable
- Develop a higher preschool IQ
- Have a stronger sense of humor
- Cope better with stress and frustration
- If female, have higher preschool math competence and be more willing to try new things
- If female, reach puberty at a later age
- Be better at problem solving
- Act out less
- Be more comfortable with and accepting of people who disagree with her
- Graduate high school and attend college

Several studies indicate that when their fathers read to their children, the kids develop higher verbal skills than when their mothers alone read to them. Particularly during the first year of life, avid father participation in childrearing strengthens the infant's cognitive function.

That's all part of the lengthy chapter on why being a good father matters early in the child's development. All of which can be a little terrifying when you look at just how much responsibility a dad has in the first months of a child's life. It makes sense that that is when the bonds are made (and is much cheaper than spending the rest of your life trying to re-make them).

And it makes me feel good that, if I do a good job in the first year, I can then coast for the next 60! 8)

-Ed

The Art of the Backhanded Complement

Years ago, my friend Rich and I were riding the metro home from a baseball game in Baltimore. The two of us, on our own, are generally extroverted. Together, we are extremely extroverted and, so, we started up a conversation with everyone nearby.

One fellow extrovert was a woman, perhaps in her early 30's, who told us that she lived in California but decided that each year, on her birthday, she would spend time seeing a different state. In fact, this particular weekend was the weekend of her birthday and she had come to Maryland for just that occaision: she had given herself the gift of Baltimore.

As she recounted a few other stories of states visited, I remember thinking what a terrific tradition this woman had created for herself. I then started thinking how I would implement such an endeavor. The problem? I'm an engineer. I would start out with all of the states near my home state, branching out as I went. Delaware... Viginia... North Carolina.... by the time I got all the way to the left coast, I would, by algorithm, be near the end of the list.

As we all got off the metro together, we exchanged pleasantries, and I gave this traveler some parting congratulations:

I hope you have a wonderful birthday, and I think your tradition is very creative. It must be exciting to be so close to finishing!

The nanosecond after I uttered this, of course, I realized that this inferred that the 30-ish woman in front of me looked to be at least 50 years old and, quite likely, a great deal older. About a nano-second after that, the backhanded nature of the complement dawned on our conversing companion.

There are lots of ways to write about awkward silence, but very few are good enough to convey just how awkward awkward silence can be. Let it suffice to say that after a pause, we went our seperate ways.

This is, of course, why I don't complement people -- I have a history of getting it wrong. Rarely has this been intentional.

I have told blind people to "drive safely".
I have told someone, earnestly, that their dress resembled a favorite tablecloth.
Upon finding out that a new friend was the same age I was, I exclaimed to her "oh, I didn't realize you were so old too."
And the phrase "ooh, I like xxxxx a little burnt" never quite relays the same gratitude that it should.

So, I think it perhaps best to take a small hiatus from the compliment game, as I seem to generate more good feeling without them. 8)

-Ed

Happy Birthday To Her

Linda turned 29 today! Go Linda!

We celebrated by going out to the Charleston in Baltimore. It's a very nice "country French" restaurant that we had not been to in a while. Afterwards, it was off to see "Movin' Out" at the Hippodrome.

I'll have to blog about this tomorrow, it was a fun evening and I like theatre. Hopefully, time will be permitting as work has been crazy, which is something else I've wanted to blog about.

Lacking the time necessary to reflect on event sin my life, I'm forced to just list the actions that made up my day. I apologize for that -- it lacks all sorts of substance. Bear with me, mid-terms are over, a break is coming up, we'll see what we can do.

-Ed

Happy Birthday To Her

Linda turned 29 today! Go Linda!

We celebrated by going out to the Charleston in Baltimore. It's a very nice "country French" restaurant that we had not been to in a while. Afterwards, it was off to see "Movin' Out" at the Hippodrome.

I'll have to blog about this tomorrow, it was a fun evening and I like theatre. Hopefully, time will be permitting as work has been crazy, which is something else I've wanted to blog about.

Lacking the time necessary to reflect on event sin my life, I'm forced to just list the actions that made up my day. I apologize for that -- it lacks all sorts of substance. Bear with me, mid-terms are over, a break is coming up, we'll see what we can do.

-Ed

The Now That Was

Many times I write down a topic that I want to blog about. Just as many times, I am distracted by some life event which keeps me from powering up the ol' laptop and pushing my thoughts into this log. So, I have a backlog (my backblog).

The problem? These items which seemed so topical, so interesting, just a few days before, now seem downright pedestrian. I am constantly left with the question: what happened? Did the topic magically become less interesting? Was I so off in my original assessments of a topic's entertainment value? In essence.... what gives?

I think the issue is centered around my desire to not "repeat" work. While writing down my "great ideas" I do some reflection on them. After all, just because I can't blog about something hardly means it is absent from my mind. To then revisit this topic from the standpoint of a blank page would involve going back and redoing all of that initial thinking.

Often times, I'm amazed I can think of the things I do just once. Trying to think of them twice is just pushing it. So, my news tickers will remain vaporware. I will have ample time to dispense parenting advice into the ether in the years to come.

-Ed

Melodrama in the Rear View Mirror

Thanks for the bender. Sorry, all the good stuff I was going to write about got postponed.

It's 12:50am and I've a midterm tomorrow at 8am, so it's off to bed now.

Thanks to all who sent nice comments my way. I was and am fine, but it never hurts to hear that people like you. 8)

Comments on this blog are moderated, just in case, so please bear with me if there is a delay in getting them posted in the future. Also, please don't let the fact that they are moderated make you not want to post comments, even if I don't know you.

I promise I am a liberal censor. 8)

-Ed

Stalker update

I got a new e-mail from a new e-mail address. I did something uncharacteristic of me... I deleted it without really reading it. It was long, and it started with some cuss words. I added the new e-mail address to my list of banned e-mail addresses.

In my 31 years of age, I have come to understand that the more we try and convince someone else of something (especially unsolicited and out of the blue) the more we are really trying to convince ourselves of that same thing.

God only knows the torture this poor person is going through that they need to seek me out after a year and send me vomitous e-mail. To what end I can only guess because, as far as I can tell, I am not insane.

-Ed

Nice Guys Finish Last

Why? Because they have people clinging to them. Have you ever tried to finish a race with people clinging to you?





I belong to a very small, selective club. What club? The club of men who have had more fiances than wives. That's right: 1 wife. 2 fiances.

Well, fiance number 1 is back, and I'm going to write a blog entry about it. Why? Perhaps the melodrama will help readership. More probably, I want to remember these feelings when future-Ed goes back over these blogs when he's 40. But, by all means, join me for some drama...





I dated a girl for 6 years. To preserve her identity, and for the remainder of this post, I will simply refer to her as duh. Duh and I did not have a happy breakup, and it capped an unhappy year. I learned many things those several years ago, the least of which being that trying to plan a wedding with someone who is having an affair is, at best, difficult.

So we broke up about 7 years ago. I tried to take the high road... I probably failed. I stayed her RCIA sponsor for a while. I let her continue to live at my sister's house (with help from my sister) so she wouldn't be out in the street. I took her to the mall when she threw a college graduation party and no-one came. I asked my friends to be nice to her -- most of then refused.

I paid my dues. My life moved on.

About a year ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from duh, who apparently wanted to reconnect. My reply was not pleasant. Her reply was worse. I restrained myself, and e-mailed no more -- end of story....take one for the team...or so I thought.

Today, I get another e-mail from duh wanting to know if I was "still afraid to e-mail her". I responded truthfully with the single word: terrified. That was followed in quick succession by two very nasty e-mails.

So, I wrote an electronic good-bye to this person:

------------------------------------------------

Duh, the subtle humor of my reply referred to the fear that I have failed, apparently, to communicate to you that I have no desire to have anything to do with you. Well, that and the fear that your continual pestering of me might mean that you are actually insane.

When I said "thank you for leaving my life" I did not mean "e-mail me again in a few months". I'm not sure how my message got garbled, but it must have, because here you are. Let me try this again:

I'm not *afraid* of you, I just dont like you anymore. I'm sure you have many people who *do* like you, and you should spend your time with *them*. Live a happy and productive life -- I am. Get married. Have some kids. Travel the world. Hate your parents. Lash out at whoever disagrees with you. Do whatever it is that gives you happiness.

Do it all without feeling the need to contact me. You don't need me in your life to be happy, so stop pursuing me.

If I have set up my Microsoft Outlook rules correctly, e-mails from your address should be auto-deleted. This childishness doesn't belong at my work. If you have some pressing need for something and can be an adult about it, feel free to route yourself through your parents.

-Ed, the "terrified".

------------------------------------------------

I find it hard to be overly rude to a person, but, believe me, I paid my dues. My karma should be well scrubbed as far as duh is concerned.

So, we'll see if my outlook rule holds up, and I'll keep y'all posted on the status of my crazy stalker who likes to send me hatemail every year.





-Ed

ps. Yes, this is a self-serving and just a little bit mean post. But I've retained all anonymity except my own, and I appreciate the ability to blow off a little steam. Thanks for bearing with me on this one.

The Ethics of MythTv

I often talk about my beloved, home-built MythTv PVR. Sometimes fondly, sometimes with a grudging acceptance of the difficulties of a custom-made solution. Many times, in my attempts at self-deprecating humor, I probably give a different and unfairly burdensome representation of things. I am reminded of last week when I was lamenting to my 63 year old office mate about being old at 31...

The holy grail of entertainment, to me, is not a super cool, sleek device that you attach to each television in your house. Super cool means small, stylish, and quiet. That also means expensive and I'm not paying for art in my A/V rack. A big, honkin' ugly server sitting in my concrete-walled basement closet is just fine for me, thank you.

To me the holy grail of entertainment is a single house computer that services my audio-visual needs as cheaply as possible giving me as much control over media as possible. It pushes audio to my yet-to-be-installed speakers. It modulates video over all of the cable running through my house. It is a computer with a terabyte, maybe, of storage that lets me do whatever the heck I want to.

Alot of people say: Just get a tivo. The idea of a device used only for tv viewing is limiting and, to me, absurd given the pricing involved. But I am a technophile and I am good at building things well. I built a home computer for $532 that would have cost me $1400 from Dell at the time. That was 2 years ago and this computer (which I am using to type this blog) runs 24/7 with no complaints. I am also a hobbyist. And I am also a strong believer in owning what I buy.

Now, few people want to own much of the mind-sucking crud that passes for television these days. I have no need to keep DVD's of Will and Grace for the next 30 years. But a long time ago (relatively) people fought pretty hard to give us fair use to record things and if my VHS VCR can do it, I'd like my PVR to do it too. Anything less is... less. Coupled with charging more for the privilege of doing less is insulting. Being happy about it is inanity.

So I chose to not purchase a tivo for each television in my house. I know people who own 2 tivos. I've read online where people have, over the years, bought up to 6 tivos for their homes (including upgrades). I assume this means an additional 6 lifetime service agreements -- which makes no sense to me. Fortunately, this confusion is going away because tivo is no longer going to offer lifetime service agreements. But, forgetting that for a moment, the new business model is "you lease the equipment, you lease the content".

No. And this is the ethic of mythtv. If I pay for something, I want to own it. I do not want to pay for the same show twice.

As such, I love the MythTv project. I love having a Linux box in my home where I can story my music and pictures. I love having a home web server. I love scheduling things over the web. I love being able to add recorders at $50 a pop to record 2, 3, 4 shows at once. I love being able to upgrade to any sized harddrive. I love being able to stream videos using mms. I love being able to watch content on my wireless laptop. I really love the built-in commercial skip features. I love the now-painless DVD burning. I love that my shows are in any format I desire. I love that I decide when my shows are deleted. I love that this is all legal under fair use.

I love that as people are buying new series 2 ans 3 tivos, and incurring more monthly fees, my "series 1 PVR" has been upgraded for free to perform the same functionality.





Tivo has come a long way... it is starting to try and be a computer that happens to record video. This is a good thing, especially for the non-technical. There are things you can't do on Tivo that you can do in mythtv, such as customizing remote control buttons in the application, upgrading hardware, writing your own programs to work on your recorded videos, getting scrolling messages across the screen, video editing and transcoding, mame game playing, voip support, etc... etc... But these things aren't hard to put in a computer, it is just outside of the tivo market. No harm, no foul.

But I will not pay $300 or a monthly fee for a computer in my home that I do not even own.

And yet, there has been a tremendous backlash against open PVRs. Often, this backlash has been by the largely uninformed, or the fear mongers. Why? No one wants to feel that a cheaper solution is technically superior. No one wants to believe that more money buys you less ability.

So, some FUD...

1. These things are really hard to install

If you are not a hobbyist, you probably shouldn't try this one at home. I might also say if you are not a hobby woodworker, don't try and build a small planter. Does that make a small planter hard to build? No. A fully functional myth installation takes about 2 hours if you are familiar with Linux. Up to 2 days if you are not familiar with Linux. My installation took a week about a year ago, and I have been fiddling with it and poking it ever since. I will probably fiddle and poke with it forever, but I was recording shows almost immediately.

2. A "free" PVR costs more.

Well, maybe. I spent about $500 to build a pretty fast computer (faster than the one I am typing this blog on). When recording TV shows, I am using about 5% of the CPU. When playing back a TV show, I use about 5% of the CPU. I can record 2 shows and play back a third show all at once with less than 50% CPU usage. It's overkill. But I want a general purpose computer for my home. So, it's pretty cheap. I submit it is cheaper than buying more than 1 tivo and whatever monthly service fees are attached. In fact, I don't know anybody who has just 1 tivo. They have at least 2. Why? They want to upgrade. When I wanted to be able to record an extra channel, it cost me $50 for another video card and $5 for a cable splitter.

3. You will not be able to record high definition

Yes, you will. Are you playing a DVD on a linux box? Do you own a modified x-box? Have you ever downloaded a song for free? Have you ever played a MAME ROM that you shouldn't have? Welcome to breaking the law...

No one wants to break the law. And, I am optimistic no one will ever have to.

We have a right to record analog shows. Once hd-tv comes along, set-top boxes, by law, must allow (at least) local channels in HD through a firewire port. My guess is cable companies will also allow basic cable through too. The mechanism by which all of this will work is up in the air, and there are too many doomsayers. Cablecards may fizzle. (v1.0 is a dud. v2.0 is just coming out, but others are already gunning to replace it). I'd gladly pay an extra $5 a month on my cable bill to have basic cable sent to me unencrypted.

It is too early to tell how this will work out, but it is foolish to cry that it will not. Many will remember cries of the death of open source multimedia players because Linux would not be allowed to play DVDs. Manufacturers will offer cards. The idea that only Microsoft operating systems will allow television programs is absurd and, frankly, not legal. When faced with something which violates our right to fair use, the answer is to fight it in the courts, as the EFF has done, and with some success.

The right answer is not to pre-emptively bend over to make the ensuing onslaught easier.

If my last resort is to install a $100 time-base corrector to remove macrovision protection from the analog out of my television, then so be it. The VCRs I have include time-based correctors and I would love for someone to challenge in court my right to hook up my VCR to my television. Welcome to the land of FUD.

4 - The time has past

We are talking about events that will not firm up for 4 years. I wouldn't trade my year of PVR ownership for anything. I know those who have had nothing for the past year and congratulate themselves on this 12 month void. I will happily be recording analog video for the next 4 years, for a total of 5 years before this is even an issue for me. That's $100/year of open-source ownership bliss. Or, $8 a month. Top that price point...

After that? I am an optimist. And I will always own the content I pay for. I think there are changes afoot, and I think there is alot of consumer ambivalence, part of the "let's wait and see what we are fed" mentality. For every good source of intelligent debate there is also some mind-numbing crap. Here is one example.

-Ed

News Ticker II

Sorry, again, for the lack of posting.

I just finished my mid-term and have a very funny story about it, my teacher, and me going mental preparing for tests.

Linda's doctor's appointment went well today. Project Lentil is coming along nicely.

I'm so tired, I can't see the keyboard, so I will now quite while I'm ahead.

E_d

News Ticker

The dining room set has been delivered, all looks well, and the sucker even fits in our dining room. That's a first for me.

Mom is staying with us over the weekend. We just finished watching some Monk re-runs by a nice fire.

Mid-terms are next week, followed by a week off of classes. We all know what that means: emotional roller coaster dead ahead!

I took the Christmas tree down today. Pictures coming. It's a long, long story.

I have even had a few good blog entry ideas, but don't expect anything of substance until Monday. I've learned a little bit about insults and intent, introducing children to reason, and understanding that if the happiness you want for others is different than the happiness they get you should still be happy its happiness -- that's right, I'm using my blog as a notepad for future blogs again, it keeps me honest.

Thanks for all the people who keep visiting here on a regular basis. The idea that someone is expecting something in this space spurs me to try and keep putting things in this space -- it is a bit like an anonymous buddy system. Since I get as much catharsis out of these entries as others get entertainment, anyone keeping me writing is also keeping me happy. And for that, I thank you.

-Ed

A rose By Any Other Name

would smell as sweet...

This morning our bed was delivered. We have had the mattress for a few days but it was just sitting on the floor. Today we got the rest of the bed:

We are big fans of the leather headboard, as it gives some back support when sitting up to watch TV, read, or sumo wrestle.

The delivery involved keeping the front door propped open for long, unattended periods of time. What could possibly be wrong with that? I own three cats. Well, actually, I don't own three cats. I live with people who, cumulatively, own three cats. Two belong to my wife and one belongs to my brother-in-law, Brian, who is staying with us until the summer. Three cats and an unattended open door are not good combinations in my dog-filled neighborhood.

Upon realizing this, I proceeded to do a cat inventory. This is accomplished by taking a jar of cat treats and shaking it vigorously until all cats are accounted for:



*shake*shake*shake* In strolls Linda's cat Jerry...
*shake*shake*shake* In strolls Linda's cat Chestduh....
*shake*shake*shake* ....
*shake*shake*shake* ....
*shake*shake*shake* ?????
*shake*shake*shake* !!!!

Brian's cat was not responding. Brian's cat must have gotten outside. Donning a coat and an extra jar of cat treats I started looking in all the familiar exterior places. He wasn't in the bushes in front of the house. He wasn't under the deck. A scan of the neighborhood showed nothing... this was going to require some serious searching.

So, for the next 20 minutes I walked up and down the neighborhood, at 11am, shaking a can of cat treats and yelling his name.

Oh... his name... Brian named his cat "Fat Boy". In all fairness, the cat's name had been Hemmingway until he let himself go.

*shake*shake*shake* FAT BOY!
*shake*shake*shake* COME HERE, FAT BOY!
*shake*shake*shake* FAT BOY!
*shake*shake*shake* FAT FAT FAT FAT BOY!

I should be happy the elderly couple living nearby did not report a strange man, wearing sweatpants and a long coat, walking around the neighborhood, shaking a jar of candy and calling out to obese children.

20 minutes later I was back at the house, sans cat. My mind was going through how I would tell Brian his pet was AWOL... Maybe he wouldn't notice. Maybe, as in the new Jody Foster airplane movie, I could pretend that he had never even had a cat. Fat who? I even considered writing him a "Dear John" letter from the kitten, signed with a pawprint. It was with these thoughts that I re-entered the house -- the house I had searched top-to-bottom for 10 minutes -- to find our overweight object of attention plodding down the steps.

And so began my morning...

_Ed

Like Kings

Years ago I promised Linda that, when she got pregnant, we would purchase a king sized bed. Well, Linda is pregnant and as of a week ago we were still struggling through the evening on our old Queen bed. There really was not much wrong with the ol' gal (the bed, not the Linda) but she had been around for a few years and was showing her lumps.

Part of this was, I realize, my doing. Apparently, sleeping with me is a bit like sleeping with a blender. A blender with an internal body temperature of 105 degrees. I like to think of it as my sleeping chi. Linda likes to think of it as... well.. actually Linda doesn't much like to think of it at all.

As sensitivity to her delicate conditioning, I swore I would relieve her of the need to fall asleep before me and, in general, to insulate her from my nocturnal breakdancing. Now, it just so happens that Linda and I share the same genetic mutation which makes us research things in odd ways. How did we go about building up our mattress knowledge?

Every time we went on vacation... cruises, Disneyworld, the beach, hotels, we would rate our nights sleep and, in doing so, make a note of the kind of mattress. That's right.. the first night out saw us taking up the fitted sheets and scouring the "do not remove" tag for identifying information. Did I say genetic mutation? I meant defect. Either way, it is one that we share.

Our decisive winner? Beautyrests. These things are popular and comfortable. As a man, I cannot formally recommend a firm executive mattress with a soft pillow top. It is simply not something men do. I will, however, say that when Linda undergoes her 20 minute "get comfortable" ritual I don't mind because I don't feel a thing. How this mattress isolates movement is beyond me. For activities other than sleeping (like, um, reading and sumo wrestling) the bed is quiet as a mouse, a far cry from the creaking carnival ride of our old Queen. Best of all, I sleep through the night without a stir.

And our old Queen, faithful guardian of all of our married sleeps before Saturday? We have stuffed her temporarily in a closet. Think of that for a moment... It's a cross between a murphy bed and a pair of pants that's too tight. But the situation is temporary -- by the summer we should have our space issues sorted out.

So, please pardon my jovial mood and self-indulgent post. It's rude, I know, but I'm trying to hurry up as, in two minutes, I will be resting blissfully thinking to myself "It's good to own a king."

_Ed