Sunspots

Remember when we blamed everything on sunspots?

The joke actually refers to a phenomena we ought to keep in mind, namely, statistical corellations don't necessarily "prove" anything. They're useful, but they, by themselves, can only point us in the direction of what is actually happening and they really don't tell us what is going on. Too often a statistical correlation is used as "proof" of a theory.

Anyway, what brought that on was -- my external 10GB hard drive failed while we were in Florida. The drive itself was free (to me) -- it came from a friend who said it was a questionable drive in the first place. At any rate, my neighbors have been having problems with spyware on their computer -- they've probably been rooted (taken over, owned), so I'm helping them with that. My mother-in-law had trouble installing the new MSN Messenger update, and I can't seem to connect with her computer anymore with VNC for some reason to help fix it myself. And on top of all of that, my 120GB storage drive at home fizzled out Monday morning.

It's gotta be sunspots.

Well, that drive held most of my digital photographs. And all the music I've ripped from CDs. Not that I couldn't rip it again, but it's a pain. The most important things wer the photographs. And I've been meaning to buy a DVD-R to back up my pictures and MP3's (they can store so much more than CD-R's) but you know I never quite got around to it.

So I bought a piece of software (R-Studio) that allows you to recover files off of damaged drives. I was getting lots of CRC (Cyclical Redundancy Check) errors on it -- which basically means when it tried to read certain spots on the disk and checked to make sure that it read the right thing, in couldn't get the same thing twice so it reported a problem. To make a long story short, the drive is going bad fast -- it's pretty much unusable.

I bought the $80 version of R-Studio, though the $50 NTFS-only version would've done the job (since that's what the format of the disk was). I sprang for the extra $30 because this version will read stuff from any disk format I use, including the old FAT system, SmartMedia, and Compact Flash...

At any rate, I got the pictures and the music off of it. I also ordered a replacement 40GB drive for the 10GB external drive, and I just ordered a new 120GB internal drive AS WELL AS a DVD-RW so I can BACK MY SHIZZIZLE up(!) efficiently.

I made a CD for Mom with the new MSN Messenger client with an AUTORUN file so that it should just start installing when she puts it in the computer. Mailed it to her.

On top of all that, my identity got stolen. Someone got my card number and my ssn and changed my password on a credit card site, changed my address to a New York address, and ordered over $2,000 worth of stuff on it.

Fortunately, the credit card company blocked the attempt. And I no longer have that card. Need to talk to them about their security. I would like someone to have to know at least three things about me on top of my credit card number before they could change my password. Make it a LITTLE more of a challenge.

Now lots of things could've caused that... a trojan sniffer program on my computer, some dishonest employee of a merchant that used my credit card AND then went and found out what my ssn is (it's not really very private these days).... Anyway, I'm fairly careful about these things, and if it can happen to me....

She packed up her bags and she took off down the road
She left me here stranded with the bills she owed
She used my address and my name
Man, that was sure unkind
Sunspot baby, sure had a real good time.

-- Bob Seger

Got a fakebook the other day that has "Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy" in it. I was struggling to figure the bridge out. Everything in that book was in C... I got the bridge, then transposed the whole song into "G", and dropped the diminished chords. Sounds pretty good. What a fun little ditty. I've always liked it. Love the quintessential June Christy/Stan Kenton version of it.

Molly Bowden

We came home to the sad news that local police officer Molly Bowden didn't make it. She was shot about a month ago by some evil freak who felt the cops had it in for him, so he concocted up this fantasy about killing a cop and carried it out.

That freak died the next morning when he shot himself while police tried to apprehend him. Could have saved a lot of people a lot of pain had he decided to do that about 12 hours earlier.

Molly was the daughter of some friends of ours, and we'd had the pleasure of meeting her socially a couple of times. I remember she and Vicki would feed off of each other and just get real goofy. She was a joy to be around. Real neat lady. Anyway, this is not supposed to happen to good people, but as we see too often, it does...

I was coming back from the grocery store today and happened upon a pile of flowers and balloons and such on the side of the road. At first I thought it was another cross and boquette for someone who died in a traffic accident, then I realized it was an unusually large pile of flowers and such. And I remembered the report in the paper and that that must have been where Molly had been shot.

For those of you who don't know about it, you can read the story here.

What a sweet and pretty young lady she was. Our thoughts go out to her family.

Florida

Back from Florida already. Were we ever there? Well, we do have the pictures to prove it.






We drove down on Thursday... made it to Cordele, GA by 11:00pm ET. Got up and did the other 3.5 hours to Ocala, FL, where my Aunt.. you know, the one with the spaghetti sauce? She lives near there.





The one with the twinkling eyes and a certain zeal for life.... That would be the one. She and Ed live in a nice house on a golf course (a pretty nice one -- house and golf course) down in sunny Florida. We, of course, as usual, did our level best to bring inclement weather with us when we visit such places -- the high there on Friday was 58. I think it was 50 in Columbia. Still, we weren't there to sun ourselves, we went to visit.

Friday evening we had dinner at a cool seafood place just down the road a piece by a creek with big cypress trees and spanish moss hanging everywhere. The food and atmosphere were great.

Spanish moss became kind of a fascination with me. I'd only seen it before in Chatanooga, TN, although I knew it was all over the southeast coast of the US. I had to do a little research on it, and I've since found out that it is not a parasite, it is actually an epiphyte like many orchids are -- it grows ON other plants, but only uses that plant for support, not nutrition. It has no roots and feeds out of the air. It has chlorophyll. It is related to pineapples. It can smother a tree -- killing the light it needs, and when wet gets very heavy and can break branches.




We went to Homossossa Springs Saturday and checked out a Manatee preserve where they also had lots of native animals. Got to take a boat ride down Pepper Creek -- kind of reminded me of something out of Crocodile Hunter -- although we saw no crocodiles or alligators or pretty much anything but birds and turtles. But the vegetation was pretty cool. A couple of the pictures above are from there.

I had to go to the Gulf Coast, and we hit it in the afternoon. With the shallow shelf off of the Central Florida coast, there's really no surf -- it could have been a big lake, really. I've seen bigger waves on lakes, truth be told. But there were a couple of flocks of gulls, different kinds, and some sandpipers. A lady and her kids were giving them crackers and they would come take them from their hands.




I got a nice shot of Vicki being swarmed by them in the frenzy. A couple of more nice ones below.




That evening Aunt Pat made us some of the famed spaghetti sauce, and garlic bread served with a cabernet, and it was a great dinner off of our diet.

Oh, the diet -- we've lost 10 lbs apiece, and we were pretty good over the weekend with the exception of some alcohol and the pasta.

Sunday we pretty much putzed around. Put more memory in my Aunt's computer, watched people play golf, sat and talked, and Vicki and I went for a walk in a nearby nature perserve where I took more pictures (imagine that) and we went home for a fabulous steak dinner.




Monday morning we started what was to be another day and a half trip back, but when we realized we could be home by 1:00 AM, we decided to make the mad dash all the way home and took today to recover.

Turns out you can stick to South Beach pretty well while you're out. Hardees, Burger King, and many fast food places as well as Cracker Barrell have options for you. We're back, and back on the diet. I could stand to lose another 2 or 3 lbs, but I'm not too worried about it at this point. Vicki's determined to stay on it, so I'll be eating South Beach food with her for the forseeable future. Won't hurt me a bit.

And one parting shot, the four of us down in Aunt Pat's dining room to prove we were all there...

Diets

I've never been on a diet before. I lost weight through regular exercise (rode my bicycle to work and back most days for about a year) several years ago. I've been working out since and have increased muscle mass -- that helps you burn calories when you're just sitting still.

At any rate, Vickster's wanting to lose weight, and was heavier than I've ever been (part of it's the muscle, but part of it definitely isn't). So, this time through, I decided to go on a diet with her.

Now if you know me, I'm a big proponent of personal responsibility and self-control. And I'm here to tell you that after 4 days, it really isn't easy. But... it is doable.

To quote Mark Knopfler, "Sometimes you gotta be an S.O.B., if you want to make a dream a reality".

And in this case, the person you have to be an S.O.B. with is yourself.

So we're doin' South Beach. It's easier to deal with meals, since you're basically changing the kinds of foods you eat instead of eating less food or starving. But for a guy who's used to being able to grab anything anytime -- especially a beer, the first two (or three) heavily carb restricted weeks is, I must say, tough. I like a bit of whiskey in the evening. The bread in the store smells better than ever. The beer looks fresher somehow, foamier. More refreshing. I'd say the hardest part for me has really been not being able to grab a little glass of whiskey in the evening.

The first day, I was a little hungry by late morning, but not bad. The food is good, but it is a pain to fix -- not really relative to other cooking, but frankly we haven't cooked much in the last few years. So any food preparation, chopping, mixing is more work than we're used to. Cuts into guitar playing time, for sure.

I imagine eventually we'll get used to the recipies and do what we've been doing with other foods. Cook a big dinner, and scarf on it for several days. We're already doing some of that. The fake mashed potatoes (mashed cauliflower) is very good, and we made several days worth. We can cook up a bunch of chicken breasts ahead of time to reheat, and stuff like that. It'll get better. And we won't be on this "75 grams of carbohydrate a day, and as little of it sugar as possible" part forever.

So between wanting some of your favorite things, and the pain of fixing stuff you're not used to fixing, and re-learning shopping habits -- it's not easy. Not only do you have to say "No", to the little voice in your head, you have to argue with it, too. And most importantly, you have to win.

So far, I can say I've won. And it's paying off. Drop your blood sugar to minimal levels, and after a couple of days of depleting your liver's glycogen, your body is left with no choice but to burn fat. And you really have to be a butthead with yourself to keep your blood sugar low. One sugary snack or baked potato or pile of chips or crackers, or beer and you're back to square one.

I weighed myself every morning the week before we started, and the scale was consistent. I went up and down in a 4 lb range, but usually near the bottom of that range. On the morning of the third day, I was down 3 lbs from the bottom of the range. Next day, same thing. Today, another 2 for a total of 5. Pretty slick.

After the first two (maybe three) weeks, we'll switch to the more relaxed phase of the diet. Now, since my goal is only 10 or maybe 12 lbs... I expect I'll be there by the end of phase 1. But I'll keep trying to eat the new kinds of food most of the time -- and I will probably be able to go back to moderate beer/whiskey consumption.

So, here's my dieting tips.

Be an S.O.B. with yourself. Set up rules and follow them. Don't try to rationalize why it's ok this time to have this, or try to figure out how you can eat something more, too, or a boatload of something because its an allowed food. Don't try to bend the rules. The spirit of the diet won't drop fat off of you. The letter of it will.

My other one is, exercise with your diet. It'll work better. It's hard to snack when you're exercising, and your snack drive is much lower after exercise.

Depending on your willpower, pick a flexible diet. It's probably good to pick one with a meal plan if your willpower is low. That way it's easier to tell yourslef 'I am eating this, and that's it'. The more willpower you have, the less flexible diet needs to be, IMHO.

The reason we picked South Beach is -- it's a combination of a short, fairly inflexible (but still varied) diet with meal plans in the book -- followed by a more flexible, sustainable diet that's still low in calories, especially sugar and fat calories. That make sense to me.

Twenty Two Years....

Twenty two years ago, for my 19th birthday, my college roommate and I and another young freshman girl friend of ours got together for a mutual birthday party... all of our birthdays are within one week of each other....

I don't know that any pictures survived from that party, but a year later, we looked something like this:

And what's with the ultra-hip "Ben Stiller playing a cheezy 1970's hipster" look I have there, anyway? Trying to pretend I'm some sort of wild man, I'm sure.

And the next year (below), Mark's looking like the handsome and innocent boy next door, Lois, looking quite fetching in an early "Madonna" sort of way -- and apparently Geraldo Rivera showed up in my place. Good thing I got back in time from raising that safe from the Titanic. I notice I was taking the rare opportunity to at least put my arm around a pretty girl. Screw the cake, man. And no wonder. (Go back to the picture above if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

The years went by, and we did this until we graduated. Mark left town for radio gigs in Kansas, and Lois went to St. Louis to have a string of bad relationships as pennance for all the sins all three of us committed in college. Thank you Lois, you're a savior. The tradition, we all thought, ended when we left school.

But, five or so years later, Mark, fed up with the dusty plains of Kansas and its associated blah radio culture, came back to Columbia to start anew, and get a graduate degree in philosophy. We got an apartment together, and the mutual birthday party was reborn.

Radio called him back and he found a wonderful girl in Cami. I started doing computer support at the University and met Vicki -- who lived in the fourplex we had moved in to. And Lois dumped the last of the butt-heads and her sister hooked her up with this great guy we now all know and love in Mike.

We've pretty much done it every year since. Even when Mark and Cami lived in Texas. We've gone through the growing up of my two step kids, and the births of four new kids in the group, two for Mark, two for Lois, and here we are, forty one years old, still doing it. Well, the parties anyway ;-)

Somehow, it seems to take less alchohol now.

We had a great time. Mike, Mark, and I all play some sort of stringed instrument, and Cami just picked up a guitar and is doing well. We sat around, fetched kids, made food, listened to fascinating narratives by very young children about anything from why the Incredible Hulk can beat anyone up (hint: it's because he's the Incredible Hulk) to how to make little butterflies with beads and an iron.

Stayin' up late, talking, playing music... yeahhhhhhh.

Mark made some killer bbq sauce and grilled up some fantastic chicken & portabellas (in the -20 degree howling windchill outside) Lois deluged us with a ton of very tasty cob salad. We brought our snoopy waffle irons and batter & canadian bacon for one breakfast, while Cami treated us to great breakfast burritos the other morning. Mike made balloon animals for the kids, and put on a cool magic show for everyone Sunday afternoon to top it all off. Laughing. Joking, Strumming, Singing. Cool shizzle.

Happy Birthdays to Us.

(thanks to Lois Lane for the pictures!)

Superglue Bandaid

Cleaned out my old office yesterday -- moving to a new cube.

I've been drinking sparkling water at work... this Mendota stuff that comes in cans. The price is right, and so are the calories. Somehow, sparkling water satisfies as a snack -- the carbon dioxide is kind of filling, the fizz makes you slow down so you enjoy it longer, and water's good for you. Win-win-win.

I had an empty drawer. The first day, I needed a place to toss the can. Don't want to throw it away, you know. Recycling's good. Tossed it in the drawer. Deal with it later.

Four weeks later, as you might imagine, I had quite a drawer full.

So I brought a recycle bag in from home, and started crushing them with my heel. One stomp, and blam! Flat. Most of the time.

I caught one at an angle and it didn't flatten satisfacorily. I reached down with my right hand and grabbed it to squeeze it the rest of the way flat.

My thumb caught on the inside of the tab hole, and I sliced my thumb open but good.

I know what you're thinking. "Sue."

Well, that would be the modern American Way, wouldn't it? But if you know me, you know I think people should take responsibility for their own stupid mistakes, and I try to behave as I expect others to. So I put a bandaid on after holding it tight for a few minutes.

Well, the bandaid kept coming off, plus, because of where the cut is, I had trouble typing. And I have my guitar lesson today. And there's this weekend's jamming with Mike and Mark to consider. And the bandaid wasn't keeping the wound closed either.

Then it hit me... superglue. It's durable. It's fast. It sits on top of the skin, and it will hold the wound closed. And it will allow me to do the things I need to be doing.

So last night, after shedding my fifth lousy bandaid, I cleaned the area, put some superglue on a piece of paper, and closed the wound tightly. Then I simply dipped the wound in the dab of superglue and let it dry a few mintues.

Bam!

All the advantages of a bandaid, and most of the disadvantages are gone. It won't get in the way. It'll actually hold better, allowing for quicker healing. It keeps dirt out. It keeps moisture in. I can type. I can hold a pick, and even strum a guitar. I have to replace or re-enforce it a couple of times a day, but hey.

Just don't let it seep INTO the wound before it dries.

A little post bandaid research suggests that superglues made of octo-cyanocrylate are the least irritating to the skin.

(disclaimer - do this at your own risk. I am doing it at my own risk.)

Prison and Exile

Well, the Bart problem isn't getting any better. I put a rubber runner down over the weekend, and he's just taken to "going" on that. At least it doesn't get in the carpet, but that's not the point. He was supposed to look at it and go "oh, that's not absorbant. I know a better place (hint: how about the litterbox?)"

So last night, I put a mild bleach solution in the carpet cleaner and went over the whole carpet area, and put some fans on it to dry it out. I know. "You'll ruin the carpet." As if the cat pee hasn't already.

It did a pretty good job except for in his favorite spot, which I saturated with enzyme this morning.

Bart spent the night in prision last night. Hey, it's better than a shotgun, which is moving up on my list of solutions. We closed him up in the laundry room where he has access to his food and water and to the litterbox area under the stairs. Got his old basket down from the attic and put a towel in it with a light sprinkling of catnip.

He was meowing loudly this morning. I let him out for about an hour -- watching him carefully. Then I locked him back up. He's going to spend the next several days this way. He's already meowing again. Tough. The alternative is lead to the head, buddy, take your pick.

He might even get exiled to Brian's house for at least a short time period. Even if Brian will take him over the weekend.

He's got to get out of the habit, and I have to eliminate the smells from his "adopted" litter area. I'll also change his litter to something less scented. That might be a part of the problem as well.

Rebates

Oh, how I hate rebates. Normally, I'll go out of my way to avoid them, or only buy the product if the price without the rebate is good enough for me to go ahead and buy it anyway.

But I did go into our cell phone service deal largely because of them, even knowing how much I hate them because they were so substantial and it was something we'd decided we wanted to do.

There were $410 worth of rebates.

The first rebates ($200) I carefully filled everything out and collected all of the necessary materials and mailed them in to T-Mobile and got those rebates right away.

There were two more sets of rebates, though, totaling $210 but there was of course, a catch. I had to wait a certain period of time to redeem each of them.

Now here's the real deal behind rebates. You wonder how the companies can afford to do this -- and the answer is, most of the time, they don't have to. People forget to do it right away before the rebate expires, or they lose one of the littany of pieces of documentation they require.

A typical rebate deal may go like this:

Send in a copy of your original order, a copy of the UPC from the box, and a picture of you wearing a monkey's underwear on your head holding a headline from the New York Times dated precicely 34 days after your invoice (was that the order date on the invoice, or the ship date, or the day you signed for it?). Be sure to be holding the product at a 43 degree angle from the horizon in the photograph. Any visible scratch on the item will invalidate the rebate.

If that date should fall on a thursday, please include the main editorial from section D from the previous Sunday's New York Post. This must not be a copy, but an original printing from the press.

Don't forget to tape the body of a bluebottle fly to the lower right corner of the envelope.

Rebate requests postmarked later than 35 days from the invoice date will be considered void.

This is designed to keep anybody from actually getting the rebate.

I missed the 120 day deadline for $100 worth of rebates, but the other $110 -- there's still time. However, in all my zeal to get everything together and ready to go when the specified dates came, I neglected to include a copy of the UPC from the box -- never mind that I have the order invoice, the number, my 4th month's T-Mobile bill (as requested), which I'm sure all match records they have in their computer anyway.

I HOPE I scanned the UPC into the computer, because I was required to send the UPC's in for the first rebate. No chance of making a copy of those. However, my scanner is a printer/scanner/copier, and I MAY have just used the copy function. I'll have to look tonight.

Otherwise, I've screwed myself out of $210 worth of rebates.

Which was their plan all along.

Another light snow

Just like last week, we had some heavy rains followed by a cold blast, and we woke up this morning to sleet and snow. The snowflakes got big, and it was hard to stop watching the cardinals out the window in the cedar tree in the snow.

I filled up their feeders.

Been scanning in family photos like a madman. I've had them far too long -- some of them got damaged in the great water leak incident of 1998. Fortunately, we saved most of them.

So that we can save goofy-a** pictures like this one of me from Christmas of 1969...





I was going over pictures from Kindergarten and first grade and remembering all the girls I thought were pretty -- yeah, I've always liked 'em. Never knew what that whole cooties thing was all about. Whaddaya MEAN you don't want 'em to touch you? I always liked being around 'em. Especially Diana Nichols... I had it bad for her in first grade. And then there was our pretty family friend Carol Schulte, and Donna Pardo(t?) -- who was so cute it hurt to look at her.

*sigh*

Guess you had to be there.

Got the birthday bash coming up in KC a couple of weekends from now. Lookin' forward to that.

New guy showed up at this week's jam session -- a guy named "Bill" -- he was good. Left Columbia like 30 years ago and has been all around the country, most recently in Boston where he played bluegrass with Ray "Tappet" from Car Talk in a local jamming group they started. I picked up a couple of things by just watching him play.

Here's an odd one -- Bart has been pooping at the bottom of the stairs -- fortunately, it doesn't get IN the carpet -- it's solid and remains on top. Still, not excactly the kind of thing you like to come across. He likes to do it where the wall meets the floor. I put a strip of toilet paper down by the wall night before last to check to see if he was also going "number 1" there, too -- he didn't, but the next morning there was a little pile, but not on the toilet paper, and not where he normally goes when he does it. It was off the end of the toilet paper -- so, he doesn't want to go on the toilet paper. Cool. I went along the rest of the wall with it. Need to break him of that habit.

Lesson today. Still slowly but steadily improving, and I'm trying to go back to playing songs I like on top of that -- just printed out Jonathan Edwards' "Sunshine" -- always one of my favorites -- and it turns out to be quite easy to play.

Well, I'm off....

The last sputterings of the season

Went to Mom and Dad's for our Christmas get-together with them and the brothers. Had a nice turkey dinner and we had a pretty good time.

Mom had Jeff and Joel bring salt in to kick up the water softener that they hadn't been using, and we had a little trouble with that-- the salt got under the tube that protects the float valve from getting jammed by salt -- and -- well, it all had to be cleaned out again. But once that was done everything was ok.

Carrie, a friend of Mom and Dad's, was out. She seems like a nice girl -- probably in her mid 20's, real cute. They say they've "adopted" her... you know dad always wanted a girl.

I brought them a Doris Day Christmas album and some Classical and Big Band Christmas stuff, as well as the Stanley Black "SPAIN" CD. We also brought out a coat tree -- they'd wanted an oak one with oak pegs, not metal. We found a maple one here in town very similarly colored -- for like $30. The places they'd been looking wanted $160. They are quite happy with it.

Mom and dad got us in the drawing -- and we got a bunch of hot spices from Penzey's. Like 8 or 10 bottles of various stuff from crushed red pepper to chipotle.

Had a bit of trouble hooking up my old (better) scanner last night after I cleaned it. One thing lead to another and at one point I had to reboot -- then there was some sort of spyware thing that installed itself on my box -- "Freshbar" -- and I searched all over for how to remove it. Every solution involved a freeware product called "HijackThis" -- which I eventually got and got rid of it.

The clever little b*stard even swapped the names of itself and the google toolbar in the toolbar control list so that if you went to disable Freshbar you actually ended up disabling the Google toolbar instead (however, once you figure this out you can disable Freshbar by disabling the entry that says "Google". That wasn't enough for me, though, I wanted it GONE.)

And I finally did get rid of it. It wasn't for beginners.

And I got the scanner working, though I can't use my 10 foot USB cable for it because it allows too much noise.

So -- I'll be using the shorter cable. I have a lot of old photos from Mom and Dad's that I need to scan for posterity. I opened the scanner and cleaned it out to get rid of that vertical line that was the reason I'd stopped using it. I have an HP Printer/Scanner/Copier, but the scanner (even though it's 2400 DPI) is a very crappy 2400 dpi. My old one is 1200, but the quality is much better. Cleaned the glass, ran another test scan -- I think we're good to go.

Bart took to peeing again at the bottom of the stairs. Oddly, if he were some wild animal that came into the house I'd have no problem just killing him -- but we've had him for 10 years so I feel obligated to find ways to deter him. We can't use the CatScram 9000 there because he has to go through that area to get to his litterbox and food. I'm going to try to build a CatScram 200 -- with a motion sensor and an old hair dryer fan.

He hates hair dryers, and cats won't linger in a place they're being blown on. I hope.

Well, hi-ho. Off to work.

The Holiday Frenzy

The Holiday Frenzy is subsiding. We had a lovely Christmas with Mom & the boys, the traditional oyster stew & cinnamon pears Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day -- the prime rib and red cabage.

Went to see Mark's play on the 23rd -- it was very funny.

Kevin got a digital camera. Brian got stuff for his house, mostly, and some DVDs. Vicki got some jewelry, and a pretty fleece pullover she wanted, along with a pair of Jack Vetraino paintings (prints, actually -- of course).

Me, I got an electric guitar. It was a pawn shop buy, and I knew about it -- it was a fixer-upper, and fix it up I did. It's a Bruno Conqueror -- probably made in the late 1960's (1967?) as a knockoff of a 1950's Gibson 335 ES hollow body electric. It's a nice guitar. I replaced the two volume controls, and added the missing tone controls -- and got some new knobs, and wired the thing correctly with this wiring kit.

Tom & Betty & Joel and Dawn came in for Bro-fest. It was 67 degrees here New Year's Eve, and it is traditional to have a fire going in the fireplace for Bro-Fest. Well, it was too darned hot... so I drilled seven 1.5" holes in some logs, put them on the fire grate, and put little tea lite candles in each hole -- two logs. That was our fire.

A few days ago, I found a Lord of the Rings replica ceramic pipe -- pretty cool. So I had a New Years pipe with the smokers on the balcony.

2005 successfully got here, as you can see.

I've always been fascinated by Tsunamis -- so the dreadful catastrophy that scourged the rim of the Indian Ocean got my mind going again on them. It's just so difficult to imagine the scale of the forces involved. But I found this on the BBC website and it was pretty good.

Right then. Well -- Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Shortest Day of the Year

I grew up listening to Jack Carney's "Saturday Morning Comedy Show" on KMOX 1120 in St. Louis. I was extremely saddened to hear of his untimely passing in 1984, two years after I'd left for college.

He brought relief to my strife and tension-filled teenage years for three hours on Saturday mornings playing old time radio comedy. Every Saturday while doing the Saturday chores from 9-noon, I'd have my trusty portable transistor radio tuned in listening to Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, George and Gracey and the like. And at no time of year was it more special than the two or so saturdays he focused on Christmas Comedy.

One of my favorites was the Christmas Dragnet you'll find on the Dr. Demento CD's --

But Dec 21 never passes without me thinking of a particular routine by, I think, Jack Benny -- where he does a little speal on his show about a holiday that often gets over looked on account of, or because of Christmas. December Twenty-First, the Shortest Day of the Year.

Summing up, he said, "ladies and gentlemen, let us pause as we pay tribute to December 21st, the shortest day of the year -- "

[there is a quick, single-note trumpet blast]

"Thank you".

Christmas is a Comin'

Went out saturday for what I thought would be a 3 or so hour shopping trip which turned into 5 -- well, I went a lot of places. Had a few places to check out for some gift ideas for a couple of people and was largely successful (not giving away what and for whom) -- and there was the grocery shopping for the upcoming traditional dinners. Also got the few cards I send out mailed out (finally).

We're all set for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. Oyster Stew & Cinnamon Pears Christmas Eve, and the Prime Rib & Red Cabbage for Christmas Day. Wrapped most of Vicki's stuff although there IS something I need to do for her other gift -- a little manual labor to keep the cost near our mutual quotas. I still haven't done any cookies -- guess I'll be doing those at night this week.

Vicki's birthday was Saturday. Mom and Dad called her and sang happy birthday to her while I was out. Kevin and Adriene (and Mia) called and sang her happy birthday that morning. I had a couple old family prints made for her and framed them. One of her about 6 years old with her Aunt Vivian at an art museum in Toledo. I never got to meet Aunt Vivian, and I understand I really missed something there. She was obviously a very pretty lady, and her laughter is talked about fondly. She was, apparently, quite a neat person.

The other picture was of Vicki's grandfather (Dad's dad) in front of the old family coal company office in the snow.

We went out to CC Broilers for dinner with the neighbors Friday night for a Vicki Birthday Celebration, and we'll go out with Mom and the boys now that she's here for another celebration tonight. We had Mark and Gretchen over for lunch yesterday. It was cold, and we had a fire going. Had a nice visit.

Kevin and Brian went to the Mizzou/IU basketball game. Astoundingly, Mizzou won on a last second shot. Well, both teams are struggling, so maybe not THAT astounding. I dropped them off and picked them up as the Paige -- ahem "Mizzou" arena is right down the hill -- that way they didn't have to find a parking place.

Brian caught some bug and was over after the game on the couch downstairs. After the guests had left, he called up the stairs "M-o-mmmm. I feel like cr*-*p!". After I laughed out loud, he looked up at me and gave a half smile and said "She usually just takes that and runs with it." Which is true. Moms will always be moms to their kids. Even when the kids are 24. Or 50.

Thursday we're headed to KC for Mark's Play, "XMAS Marks the Spot". And the traditional Bro-Fest will once again be held in Columbia New Years Eve.

All this brings me to a point that has become very clear to me over the past few years and it just keeps getting more and more clear. Christmas, or "The Holidays" (Thanksgiving is much the same way and between it, Christmas, and New Years -- those are "The Holidays") is about celebrating the richness in your life. Yes, Christmas is about the birth of Christ, but I'll get to that in a minute. A lot of the traditions we associate with Christmas and even Thanksgiving to some extent have to do with celebrating being able to survive the winter.

Thanksgiving came from harvest festival traditions, and Christmas -- even before the Birth of Christ was assigned to it (scholars believe he was actually born in June) the people of Europe (especially Northern Europe) picked the coldest, darkest days of the year and made it bright and cheery with their spirit as if to give a big, hearty "HA!" to Winter. Decorating with greens and light and robust colors to celebrate life and light, and having a big feast in a warm house while outside the cold winds blow and the fields lie frozen and barren and the night comes early and the days are cold allows us to measure the extent to which we have conquered Winter.

And, of course, Christmas wouldn't even be called Christmas if not for the traditions surrounding the birth of Christ, which were intricately interwoven with these midwinter traditions -- to which there are some wonderful liturgical tie-ins... Christ, the light of the world, comes when the world has become so bleak, and tells us we can conquer death. He comes in to the world poor, born in a hay feeder in a stable -- and with what? The love of his parents, and some shepherds and these three guys from the East who come and give him gifts to honor him. The gifts were symbolic, and were not what was important.

In my lifetime to this point I have come to understand that the most important things in our lives are the people in our lives. Our family, our friends -- people who care about us, and we care about them. And when I look back on the fond memories of Christmas Past, even my childhood Christmas' (perhaps especially those) -- in the end it wasn't the football or the jersey or the train or the rocket or the camera that made that time of year really special. The gifts our our way of reminding people that we are there, and that we care about them.

It was the extra and often random visits people made to our house, and ours to theirs, and we shared their cookies and nog and conversation; memories -- their lives and ours -- and it was all tied together with this common, festive theme that even the music and decorations echoed --

Yes, I am rich. I have people who care about me. I am warm when it is cold. I have food when it can't be grown. I have heels to kick up and the spirit to do the kicking. I belong here. And it is good.

Deck the Halls

The halls are decked with boughs of holly
Mistletoe hangs at middle hallway
The tree is up - 900 lights!
That make it glow when it is night
A batch of shrub is on the make
Presents bought, but nothing's baked
The lights outside put up with toil
The door's been wrapped with golden foil
Christmas stories read from books
Carols play in all the nooks
Guitars all have a sprig of green
To help them join the Christmas scene
But the crown of all as this verse ends
It's all done for family, and friends!

-- PGL 12/13/2004

Happy Birthday to Jennifer!

Jennifer's one of my oldest friends (ok, friends I've had the longest). She is the friend I've had the longest, come to think of it.

We go back so long, I could post pictures that would really embarrass her (no, not in THAT way -- geez -- just from back when we were both young geeks. Well, me more than her, but... it's not a competition, is it?) if I wanted to but... I won't do that. We have a long and semi-complicated history but have remained in touch all these years. There's something nice about knowing she's out there and we have a clue about how each others' lives are going and we can trace them back to some common points. Hard to explain, but I imagine most people know what I'm talking about.

Jennifer and Tony just had their second baby a month or so ago, Elena -- a sister to Gabriella.

I'll even be a big gent and not say how old she is except that -- she's younger than I am, but not TOO much younger.

So, here's to you, Jennio! Hope you had a good one, and lots more!

snow, snoW, snOW, sNOW, SNOW!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone driving to work Columbia, Missouri this morning after sunrise who was not dumbstruck and giddy from the sheer beauty of what they saw must have something wrong with them.

The light snow that fell last night clung to the longer blades of grass, the trunks of trees, even down to the twigs. They accented everything with a supernaturally white sparkle. It really made me want to turn the car around and go walk in the woods. Wow!

A Christmas Postcard. Too bad I couldn't stop and take pictures.

Pet Driving Peeves

4 out of the last 9 days, I spent approximately 8 hours on the road between here and Fort Wayne, IN.

32 hours.

Most of the time it's fine, and I don't let much stuff bother me. I usually let the more agressive drivers by me when reasonably possible, and I leave a decent cushion between me and the drivers in front of me so I can stop or get out of the way should something come up. I know where I want to be, I know where all the turns and exits are and which lane I need to be in and when I need to be in them.

That being said, here are a few things that really tick me off.

#1 Drivers who don't get out of the lane that's closing when there's construction ahead at the earliest reasonable opportunity. The worst are the ones who zoom ahead in the lane that's closing to the front of the line and then rely on people to let them in. This is what is actually slowing the traffic down to the level that frustrated them enough to do it in the first place. If everybody would just get over as soon as they see what's up ahead, traffic would not stop, and would in fact flow at a reasonable speed. They are not only a part of the problem, they are the biggest part of the problem.

Who do they think they are?

#2 Drivers who think the cushion I leave between me and the car in front of me, especially when I'm in the passing lane, is for them to zoom around in the other lane and squeeze into. Not only can they not seem to get in line and wait their turn, they create a hazard by getting in too close to the car in front of me, and by being too close in front of me for the speed we're all going.

Who do they think they are?

#3 Drivers who believe that they have a God-Given Right to break the speed limit at a faster rate than drivers in front of them. Dude, if I'm in the passing lane passing someone, tough! When I'm around, I'll get over and you can go as fast as the car currently in front of ME will let you. What, the guy in front of you is only breaking the speed limit by 8mph, and you want to break it by 15? I'm sure the judge will be all ears when you file your complaint.

Who do you think you are?

I had a person #2 me when I was actually following too close myself last night. I-70 was nearly bumper-to-bumper in both lanes with Holiday traffic. This guy in a white SUV comes zooming up next to me and there's no way anyone had any business trying to squeeze into the small gap between me and the car in front of me. And yet they turned their signal on and started squeezing in, their left tail light maybe a foot from my right headlight.

I don't usually do this, but I honked a loud honk at "him".

There was a pretty bad 4 car accident by Lake of The Woods that happend just before I got there. A white SUV was involved.

Now of course, I'll never know, but what are the chances, you think, that it was the same one?

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite Holidays. When Vicki and I first met, we'd have Thanksgiving at our house for friends in town who didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving. At first we only had the kids every other year, and it was during their dad's primary custody period so he could pretty much make the rules any year.

However, since the kids have been grown it's been much different, and they have been over every Thanksgiving (except for Kevin when he lived in Michigan and was married to the UBfH) since. Their dad did have somewhere else to go this year, but the previous 4 or 5 years, we even had him over for dinner.

Now we don't cook full meals from scratch very often anymore. Once, maybe twice a week, and then we feed on leftovers the rest of the time. There's a lot of frozen and instant supplements as well.

However, Thanksgiving is different. It's about making everything right, and from the base ingredients. It's the day I celebrate Family, Friends, Food and the means to get it, and our ability to make it. It's almost fun -- it's an art in this day and age of pre-cooked turkey breasts and boxed stuffing, canned cranberry gel and frozen pie. I even make bread.

Now we have compromised a few things -- for instance, the pre-made-and-rolled-out Pilsbury pie crusts... but the filling is home made. Sure, you can make better pie crust, but not much better and with all of the other cooking that day, I consider it a fair compromise. And I do use the bread maker to mix and rise the dough, but then I transfer it to muffin pans or loaf pans for the final rise and baking.

I like to have acoustic background music heavily mixed to the instrumental folk side. Just loud enough so you know its there, but not loud enough to creep into conversation. Larry Pattis, Jerry Douglas, William Ackerman, Philip Aaberg, George Winston, Liz Story and the like -- hand selected stuff so that it's not comatose, but not too over-the-top lively either. I'm going for an autumnal harvest feel. Reflective. Introspective. Cozy. Then later on I try to mix in a little innocuous Christmas music that fits in with that feel

We also always hope for a cold Thanksgiving, because we like to have a fire in the fireplace. This Thanksgiving was perfect. We had a snowstorm the day before (and the leaves were still in full color on the trees in our neighborhood: http://www.missouri.edu/~leithp/fallstorm). It never got out of the 30's outside on Thanksgiving day, and we had a nice fire going all day.

It really was a great Thanksgiving. We had gone and picked Mom up from Fort Wayne the previous weekend and brought her back. Kevin and Brian were both there. Rob & Kathy and Daryl & Deb & Courtney came by for drinks, snacks, and afternoon chit-chat before they went to their Thanksgiving Dinner appointments. Sam & Connie came over for dinner.

Good dinner.

The bad part... I was too full for the pies Vicki had made -- and I consider it a sin not to have pumpkin pie (and real whipped cream, no Cool Whip) on Thanksgiving.

So, to keep from going to Holiday Hell, I had a bite before I went to bed :-)

Gut Reaction

Well, this is Thanksgiving related, anyway, sort of.

We're not used to a lot of rich, fatty foods, but on Thanksgiving (I promise a post on Thanksgiving) we go for the traditional foods, cooked from scratch.

So, last night after taking Mom back, we had leftovers at her house, and of course they were good. I went to bed and fell sound asleep.

I woke up about 2:30am. For some reason, I got that Kinks song "Picture Book" that's being used on some commercial stuck in my head (bad commercial, my father-in-law would say, if you can't remember what it was for). Catchy tune.

Picture book
Pictures of your mama
Taken by your papa
A long time ago

My stomach felt pretty acidic. Vicki had handed me a roll of Rolaids -- but I wasn't sure where they ended up. I got up and rummaged through my bags. Not there. So I went into Mom's bathroom and started rummaging around for some pepto or something. Nada. I thought maybe a glass of water would help.

Picture book
Pictures of your mama
Taken by your papa
A long time ago

Drank the water, laid back down. Started feeling queasy. Went out to the car (34 degrees, boxer shorts, bare feet) to check the car for the roll of Rolaids. Nada. Back in the house, upstairs, to bed. I'm tough. I've toughed worse out. I can manage the night.

Picture book
Pictures of your mama
Taken by your papa
A long time ago

The burn was worse. There has to be something that would counteract the acid. Milk. No. Might make it worse. But it has calcium in it. Calcium! Surely mom takes calcium pills. They'd be down in the pantry, with the baking supplies. Baking Soda!!!!!!!

Mom used to have us mix baking soda and water and drink it for the sour burps when we were kids. Tasted awful. Should work, though... it's a base -- opposite of acid. Cool. Back down stairs (trounce, trounce, trounce trounce...)

Picture book
Pictures of your mama
Taken by your papa
A long time ago

There it is. Ok, used to do like a half teaspoon in a glass of water. Probably need a little more for this. Rounded teaspoon. Not too much water. The more water you have to drink, the longer you have to taste "that taste". Stir, stir...

Slug. Right down the hatch, hardly had to swallow.

Kids, I want you to try an experiment. You'll need an uninflated standard party balloon, about a tablespoon of vinegar, a tablespoon of water, and maybe a half teaspoon of baking soda. And a sink to do this over. And an eyedropper.

Mix the water and baking soda. Put the vinegar in the balloon. Fill the eyedropper with the baking soda/water solution. Hold the balloon in one hand curled in the thumb and forefinger of one hand so you can pinch it off quickly.

There's a valve in the top of your stomach that opens a lot easier into the stomach than the other way -- this keeps your food from coming up when you lay down.

Squirt the baking soda/water solution into the balloon and pinch it off to simulate that valve.

Now before we continue, let me assure you the baking soda worked.

Practically immediately, I felt my stomach begin to expand. And I remembered what else we used to do with baking soda and vinegar. We used to mix it with vinegar in bottles with tight caps to watch the gas build up pressure and blow the cap off.

I knew I'd better start burping, and fast.

Two decent ones, but I could still feel it swelling. I needed a big one, fast. I rushed toward the sink, and a huge bubble of gas blew a bit of food slurry out into the sink. Good one. That helped. A couple more (sans food), and I felt ok. Went upstairs. Went to bed.

Couple more small burps. My stomach felt great. And I fell asleep laughing.

Not even the picture book could keep me awake.

Crankin' Up the Hydro

I melted holes in 9 plastic cups to make baskets for growing media and my lettuce plugs, and cut holes in the lid of the tray I bought to fit them down in. Filled them with the clay "coco puffs" and put the seedlings in and set it up.

I had cracked the tray, I think, probably when I threw it down there, so I had to patch that with some silicon. At any rate, I put 5 gallons of solution in the tray, leaving it about an inch or so below the bottoms of the cup and I put a hypersonic fogger in there to atomize the solution and keep a general fog going in there to supply nutrients and moisture to the plants. We'll see how that works. If it does, I'll run it like that and run a re-supply loop from the bigger reservoir. If it doesn't, I'll do that anyway only I'll leave the water in the tray deeper.

Also finished painting the birdbath with swimming pool paint (the inside) and spray paint (the outside). It's all white now, like marble, and it's out there open for bird business.

I put some wall-sconce lights up on either side of the fireplace... Vick's been wanting those for a while and I saw some at Home Depot -- I bought them and put touch circuitry in them.

Need to go get Mom for Thanksgiving this weekend. And -- I'm off all next week. So there'll be plenty of time to "make it right". That is, Thanksgiving. One of my two favorite holidays. More on that later, probably.