i’ve moved to another place in the room
[and i’m not sure everyone likes it]

don’t ever tell me «just pray about it» as if i am not already working hard at chasing after God. it is too much of a control issue, more of a «my position is correct/more Godly than yours so you better align yourself to mine, and instead of me saying it i'll make it sound like it is a God thing». how sad. seriously, if one more person who disagrees with my choice of candidate tries to use that phrase on me, i will reply with «i will. and i have. really i have — i've been trying to follow jesus pretty hard the last 10 years and listening to the holy spirit, which i believe has led me here and to the candidate i am backing. so maybe YOU should be talking to God and asking why YOU aren't backing the same candidate». okay, i would say that if i was a jerk. it sure would feel good, though. this, plus other things have led me to believe that i have moved to a different place in the room.

years ago i think i was in the same spot in the room with my friends at church [point A above]. similar views on a lot of stuff, seeing all the furniture from mostly the same vantage point, some a little different in height, some a little different on the other 2 axis [axiis?]. i think i quickly moved to point B and was still close enough to everyone that i provided a differing viewpoint of the same objects. they were still quite close and the same object, so it was a good thing. that and that i also see everything and process things a bit different from my friends. not on purpose, that is just how it worked.

over time i think i moved to point C but wasn’t around those at point A as much, and then i moved to point D which is where i currently am [oh yes, there are people all over the place, btw, i'm just talking about some of my friends]. so now i am much further away but still in the same room. lets say that point A is the religious right and point D is the religious left [not really, but just pretend that way — this is my analogy]. am i still in the same room? yes. am i still in the same religious room? yes. do i see things quite a bit differently? yes. can i see the sides of things they can’t see? yes. can i see through a different doorway and see into a different room too [point E] while they still see the «different room» as point F? yes. does any of this matter. no, not so much, unless you are at point A and think i am at point D and that i should «pray about it». God led me here — take it up with him or listen to me — really listen to me and be a bit humble about things. God’s kingdom is a lot larger than your supposed divisions. republicans, democrats, indies and on and on all can be in God’s kingdom. no group is «the» group.

sept 2

we were leaving the theatre after watching «star wars: clone wars» and i asked him what part he like the best. he replied «the whole part»

sept 9

i was chatting with a friend about yarmulkes, the jewish skull cap, after mentioning we should all pitch in and buy kevlar one as he love rob bell and all things jewish:

karen: i wonder if it is offensive to call it a hat

me: or a coaster
"nice coaster, rabbi mishugana"
that settles it, i'm calling them coasters

karen: I'm glad you were able to work that out.

me: it was a temporary internal struggle
the sensible side of me was say "hey.." right when the side that chooses funny totally bitch-slapped the sensible side to death and then ran around the room yelling "wooohoooooooo!"

that same sensible side was also pummeled as the funny part of me wanted to post this. i wonder if i should seek counseling.

sept 9

spencer's first word in the morning was a yelled «penis!» and one of his last words were «would anyone like some hot refreshments?» though it took us a bit to understand what he was saying. he has also taken to using the word «camouflage ».

sept 10

i had previously run across lily allen in youtube but had never listened to her. i wonder why not. sure, i probably don't want my kids listening to her music [yet] but she sure nails the «i like sounds!» part of me, and her british accent helps too. i even hear the lyrics some [just some]

two little clips of musical sunshine in my day: alfie and LDN

another artist is ana laan. as bish said «i think i have a fetish with singers that change languages in the middle of a song» and i do believe her «odana road» is my favorite. i think most of her songs are about sex, but i'm not totally sure. «paradise road» is the one most people like. what do they know.

september something

sarah wants to run the half marathon in phoenix this coming january and we both got new shoes for training. after 3 weeks we know have 10+ runners coming to our house to run on tuesday and thursday and more on saturday. it is a nice change of workouts for me as i have lost that snap with running. i used to be able to run around like a puppy for hours but now i feel as if i can barely walk. running is now helping that. i don't stretch much with cycling and now my body is tight — not in the good «tight» kind of way but in really inflexible. i run with stampy the left foot — not much roll as there is one big contact. i think it has been hurting my hip and my foot was thumping. wonder bre the physical therapist saw me in the church parking lot and told me to get some inserts for greater stability. they work wonderfully. i kept up with jerms last night [he is the fastest of our whole group] and my plan was to stay with him for a mile, which i did [everyone else has been running more but i've been too injured]. he didn't feel all that good and my feet were burning from the inserts [there isn't much more exciting that having your feet forced to run properly] so i walked a bit as did he and after 3 miles i ended up an eighth of a mile behind him.

the other big pain is the heat from running just after work. we've been out in the 90s and high humidity, but the worst was a 4 mile run on the river. i soaked my shirt and as soon as stopped sweat ran off my torso and onto my shorts like little rivers. gross gross gross. maybe not as bad as one of the women that is good and farty when she runs. okay, that isn't bad, just funny.

it will be good to get into running shape, then into sprinting shape.

old photo

this is from balboa park in san diego, probably 18+ years ago. those were the days. who could pass up a big leaf like that? i'm not really naked. i used david blain trickery.

september 11

late last night as i was working on my portfolio allie came wandering down the hall. i asked her what she was doing and she gave no response. she dropped her jammies and sat on the chair in front of one of the computers [we have 4] and i exclaimed «whoa! what are you doing?!?» and she responded «going potty». i replied «not there you aren’t» and she got mad at me and stormed away to the bathroom. i looked over at sarah and she just laughed. the toilet flushed and allie came back down the hall, tapped a few keys on the keyboard and returned to bed. that would have been an interesting mess to discover in the morning.

old note

back when my sister was a lot more like me [read that as you will] she gave me a card in high school. this is how it unfolded. you may remember the mangled playing card from september 05. we had a lot of fun as kids.

notice the «best person sister» signature. my brother would sign letters to my parents with «the good son». such fun. little do they know i've talked my parents into leaving both of them out of their will.

the thirteenth

march, maybe august. we shall see.

running on the thirteenth

i paced sarah on the long saturday run and we did 6 miles together. it was the longest sarah has run as well as running nearly 4 miles of that without stopping. as for stopping, i had to pee a lot. i'm not sure why as i had nothing to drink, and maybe it was the lone margarita at plush coming through but i doubt it. i had to GO. it was not an «i'll wait until the next bathroom» kind of urge. we both ran down into the wash and tried to hide ourselves as best we could but there were people everywhere. about a mile and a half later i had to go again, and then about 3 miles after that. three times. i can ride my bike for 5 hours and drink a gallon of water and not pee for 7. now i don’t like running.

nice clothes

i wore a shirt and tie to church yesterday and spencer asked if he could get a rainbow tie for himself. this comes from the same kid that wore a button down shirt over his t-shirt because he wanted to look handsome. the first comment i got was «hey, it looks like your head got stuck on someone else’s body!» and then i was referred to as sir or doctor. whyfor? i had an interview, a real one for a real job. i had applied at the university in the same center my neighbor works and i never got a call. everyone else got interviewed except me, mostly because my web skills were lacking. then after they went 'round and 'round on what they really needed [a good designer to redo their entire look as well as all their website material] i got called. i'm still a bit behind on the website [css] stuff, but i am not worried about learning it. i know i can, i just wonder if they want me good at everything from the beginning. we shall see.

september 19 – random bits

did i already mention that i want to make shirts that say «shove god, shove others»? i do.

the amazon logo is massively phallic, and even moreso when someone is carrying a big package from them and the logo is placed anatomically better than any kid playing pin the tail on the donkey.

if you really want, i’ll take a photo of me holding a box. er, package.

going is the best word to txt. it is. i love to enter that word. i'm sure there are other fun words out there too.

warsaw village band

i would love to see this group perform [olive saw them in seattle i believe]. such a fun sound and i still have no idea what they are singing. take a listen at a short sample of «clear water», and it is best with really good speakers or headphones. they have some videos on youtube too.

heck, lets not leave russia out: i check out englishrussia every few days to see «something cool that happens daily on 1/6th of the earth's surface» as they say. the site is about as slow as it gets, but there is always something worth seeing over there such as the star sower or mother motherland. i have yet to go through the entire site. oh yeah, look at the russian woodpecker [it is not a bird, nor it is naughty.] my brother and sister in law called us one morning to let us know that they were looking out on their street and watching tanks set up around the russian white house. not so white anymore.

the doodler

i went to spencer’s parent-teacher meeting and plenty of funny stories [other than his meds aren’t lasting all day — that isn’t a funny story]. he has just started reading out loud with us at home as before he would turn to us and say «you read it». at school he would be called upon and he would confidentally respond «skip» and leave the teacher unsure what to do. he also draws trains on all of his papers. sometimes he’ll draw on them while he is being given instruction and he will fail to find out what he is supposed to do. other times the teacher will walk by and he’ll attempt to erase his drawings. he is being given a book for his drawings and he is not allowed to draw anywhere else. as for drawings, he drew this at church. it was a pre-cut shape, so he made a boy [himself?] on one side and then this version of darth vader which looks a lot like a blackened c3po.

viking restaurants

if there ever was a viking restaurant, it wouldn’t have a kitchen and all you would do is order a plate. you would then run out to any of the other restaurants nearby and take the food away from their customers. you would run back and eat their food in the viking restaurant. i think it would work, just as long as nobody burned down a nearby restaurant.

whammy 1: same job

funny how the parting gift for being first runner up in a job interview is staying at your old job. two interviews, plenty of homework and 6 pages of notes and doodles, working late at night on getting my portfolio and shape and what i have now is a nice portfolio and the same job. dissapointing to say the least.

whammy 2: skin cancer

an hour before i found out about whammy 1 i find out that i officially have skin cancer. it isn't the kind where you are standing on the porch ringing the doorbell of a home and thinking «wait, who lives in this house again? oh crap, it it Death's. this is the suck» but more like i'm trick or treating down the block and working my way towards his house. as david said, «death always has the worst candy» which is true. it isn’t bad cancer but that means i will be seeing the dermatologist quite often. my grandmother died of skin cancer and my dad has been getting large chunks cut out the last few years [like 6" long and such]. as i set up their new lcd tv/dvd/vhs/antenna on sunday he mentioned he doesn’t expect to see 70. he is 67.5 right now. that is hope for you. lets not get into the «my parents may not be around much longer» discussion.

random doodle idea

i think i am going to draw a picture of well to do mothers breastfeeding together in a nice park and call it «meals on heels». that and a toaster being pulled by 8 toast reindeer and rudolf the jam covered toast. i need to doodle. i also need to work on my website skills as that is what most assuredly lost my the last job interview. so now i have 3 sites in the works plus a 4th that i am fixing. i'll figure this out.

whammy 3: whoops, it was me

turns out my interview was horrible — i had no clue. the general feeling after it was that i was an arrogant woman hater. go figure. i do have to work on my portfolio and portfolio skills as i’ve been enlightened that both of those were very bad too. i’m not sure if i did anything good in the interview. hooray for whammy #3

spenglar is on fire

spencer’s meds aren’t working as well and it made for a really crazy weekend with me trying to keep the kids out of sarah’s hair as she had gobs of schoolwork to do. he didn’t have meds either day and he was out of control. i coined the new phrase «spencer's brain is on fire and nobody can get in their to help put it out — we just have to let it burn» which is somewhat true. his neurons are firing away and only the meds will stop it. UBOs they say, Unidentified Bright Objects in his head.

oct2 — boys on the lam

spencer found a stick on the playground and did what naturally comes to a boy holding a stick — hitting and poking. detention! trevor forgot his bio at home. detention! we have a family of miscreants.

oct3 gone baby gone

thanks to a team of overqualified surgeons, my basal cell carcinoma was successfully removed from my neck. yeah, it just sounds worse than it is. it was more like getting a mole cut out, and they really did stitch it up well. i’m not allowed to pull out the stitches [2 layers, i believe] and i can’t get it wet. i suppose they don’t want an unsightly scar, but that area used to be an unsightly mole. the scar is far cooler looking, if only i would have one. my face is still numb. i think they used 50ccs of anesthesia on me. my cheek bone to my collar bone is a big slab of rubber that is not my own. is it wrong for me to say that i am a cancer survivor? i am going to have a cancer run tomorrow, «the first annual dann river park run» or «the best dann run. ever.» ah well

as they were cutting and stitching [it is close to 2 inches long] i asked if i could remove the stitches myself and they said no as they don’t want an unattractive scar. i said something like «minutes ago it was an unattractive mole that had turned into cancer — a scar would be cool» and then i showed them the big scar on my finger. they both stopped to poke and prod my finger scar — see, i know scars are cool. i’m afraid they don’t know how cool scars are.

pepper pots goes for a run

corcor started cross country a little late and she totally has a distance runners body. once she gets some strength and endurance she should be good. out of the huge pack she was in 12th after the first lap and then walked a fair amount and got 14th. if she had kept running she would have stayed with all the slower girls that ran the whole time and probably moved up to 10th. i was never very good at running. if i could take what i know now [or in college] then maybe i would have done a lot better. corcor is also taller than everyone and looks like pepper pots from ironman. our neighbor girl just barely beat courtney. they had some sudanese boys run ahead of the kids [they were ex townsend runners] and the were beautiful to watch. in the 6th grade race one boy busted out and everyone was all «ooo» and i was all «haha» and i was right — he faded less than a quarter mile in. 7th graders: one boy ran past the high school sudanese rabbit at the beginning and everyone was now all «haha» and i was all «ooo» and i was right again. freaking little kid was somewhere in the 5 minute range if not less. the 2nd place kid was in the middle of the parking lot when this kid finished. i only wish i could run that fast. the olympics quite shamed me — their marathoners were running 4 times the distance at twice the speed.

as for my running, not only have i discovered with the now-functioning heart rate monitor that i have been loafing on my bike but all my old injuries are coming back to visit. i think i may be nearly done with all that and feeling good about running. the last thing is that my gluteus medius are quite weak. they help hold the legs in line while on one leg as well as keep it in line. my bike riding doesn't help with all that, so they got puny. riding my bike makes my butt look big, but it sure doesn't help with the medius muscle. once i strengthen that, i hope running is pain free.

oct4-5

after a 7 mile run i went to help my parents tile their house. 13x13" tiles, 614 of them, and a huge room where all the lines need to be dead on. we spent an hour planning out the tiles and got to work, putting down 54 in one hour. on the second day i discovered that my dad puts all the tiles in the correct spot but he twists each a half a degree so they never line up quite right. time for more couches and throw rugs! we’ll get it all done soon enough and now i've been giving him 2-tylenol nights. he sleeps much better now. this should keep him of the streets after dark, vandalizing mailboxes and tagging walls.

oct 7, 3 miles in 23 minutes

that isn’t bad at 7:40 miles. i had to walk a bit, too, as i had the biggest stitch in my side. jerms and i took off way too fast but i wanted to see what we could do. at a mile+ in i couldn’t keep that pace up so jerms took off. he said later that if i had been able to stick with him i could have kept his pace up there. next time i will. on thursday we are going to take an easy jog to a high school and time ourselves for a mile. it would be nice to break 7 minutes as that is what we think the first of our 3 were. i was a bit tired as i had rushed home at 10am to go home and pick up a car so that i could get a sick kid from school. with the 20+mph headwind i was only doing 13mph at times.

crash crash

i keep forgetting to write this up. when i ride in to work with my neighbors [and i don’t work with them *sniff sniff*] i have to go through some anti-vehicle barricades. the right side is quite large for bikes and pedestrians, but the left side is very thin. i usually choose the left side. some cyclist was trying to keep up with me and after i passed through the barricade i heard them explode as they didn’t clear it. *snicker*

why do some cyclists have this huge chip on their shoulder? if i am on a recovery day and just noodling around then good on you for being the first person to the next stop sign. i’ll go slow because i can. every pedal stroke is not a race.

oct 7 baby shower

we were at some friend’s house for a baby shower and the father-to-be and the host were talking:

father-to-be: i noticed that you have all the dawson’s creek dvds...

host: yeah, it is my wife’s. i don't watch that crap.

ftb: you know if you wanted, we could put in season 5

host: no really, it is my wife’s. i wouldn’t watch that stuff

ftb: but if you did, on disc 3

host: i won’t. wife’s crap

ftb: HEY! what i am trying to tell you is that i was on dawson’s creek for several episodes and you could see me acting.

host: okay, maybe we could.

so much fun. i see famous people.

oct 9 — 1 mile!

after a night of falling asleep while crashly told us about her life, i took my beat up body and we did 1 mile loop around our neighborhood. a 1 mile TIMED loop as all the high school fields were being used by freshman or jv football teams. i was pretty fatigued [as was jerms] and i never got my heart rate up that high. it was still a good run, watching jerms ahead of me with good form while i powered my way through the run as if i was running through a parade of little kids.

jerms 6.28
me 6.34
hummingbird & davis 7.20
sassysquatch 7.27

not bad for our first test. i was hoping i would be under 7 and i was. let us see if we can get our times down enough to run a 5k in under 21 minutes. that would be a good goal. i’m not about the endurance part, i’m about getting it over with as quickly as possible.

oct 10

i had something good to say, but it is gone. i am sleepy and work no longer keeps my interest. i have been enjoying lenka, especially the first two songs on the myspace page. are you surprised that it is a female vocalist? kerli’s first song is like a russian britney. maybe.

oct 10 — short painful runs

big mike the coach offered up a training schedule that includes both fartleks and interval training. oh, to do 200m intervals at my 6.30 minute pace, take 5 to 10 seconds rest and do it again. then do 400s and 800s. 6x200, 4x400, 2x800, all at mile pace. then i can start taking a few seconds off and do more, like 10x200 and 4x800. if i run a race, i want to get it over as quickly as possible.

oct 11 — long dumb runs

corcor had a race early in the morning which meant sarah and i could not run with everyone else. i looked up where santa rita highschool was and calculated the distance. 9 miles exactly. i could do that. i would run out there and watch her race along with sarah and get a lift home. that made the route look really odd, a big jagged scar across tucson that wasn’t just a 3.5 mile out and back route. off i went, adding 23% to the longest run i have done since high school.

so i ran, uphill and straight into a 13mph headwind with 25mph gusts. i wasn’t all that thrilled about the run and was tempted to call it in a few times. i finished in an hour thirty two but i was help up by plenty of traffic lights. the music on my phone kept me going and though i really enjoy beck’s «timebomb» [i played it 4 times] it has a pace that slows down my stride. as i neared santa rita my music was interrupted by sarah calling in to find out where i was and that i missed corcor coming in 33 out of 71 girls. crap. good intentions, poor execution.

oct 12 — the day

i teach a group at 9.15 with an odd mix, then direct our next group at 10.45, heading right into a directors meeting which was hilarious. just as i was about to throw a ketchup packet at ken, sarah yells «no» at me as if i was 3. maybe i am. ken makes a comment later and i look up with eyes pleading «how about now?» and i was shot down again. get home at 3 or so, take the liz home and then beat a level for spencer on the xbox so that he can continue. i go to lay down for a bit and maggie the dog is dropped off and my girls return from playing at a neighbors house — with all 3 of the neighbors. back up and off to fix the trampoline as it is finally cool enough and it will get some of the kids out of the house. sarah comes home from shopping and our neighbor lisa comes over. she had picked out some hair color on saturday and sarah colored it for her. her bleached blonde hair now had streaks of bright orange in it. maybe a 14 year old girl in a movie might like it, but no, i looked bad. as sarah made dinner and studied i worked on removing the color in her hair [oooh it was getting brittle] and drove off to get some sort of color to cover it all up as sally’s the hair color place was closed. she takes the bottles and heads off to color her hair and i think we ate dinner at 7.10 or so. i was cooked. i started up fable while sarah studied and she was done as well. we were asleep by 9.20.

[addendum: our lows have been in the 60s. the following morning the low was 38 and i had to break out my cold weather commuting gear a lot earlier than i had wanted. i wasn’t even sure what i was to wear. i am used to a progression, not a rapid snap. where were the 50s and 40s? i like those temps]

oct 14

cold, flat tire, not enough food for lunch and an ending of a day i am not sure about. so it goes.

a friend of corcor rides her bike 2 miles to our house every morning and the two of them walk up the street and get a third friend to walk with to the bus stop. i over heard the two of them talking, and corcor says «what i like most about riding the bus is that we can sit together and talk and we can still crochet. your scarf is getting really long»

not pokemon or glittergloss or hannah montana but crocheting. that it was grandmas do, i suppose. she really picked it up in ukraine.

big vehicle wrap fun

two WWE trucks [wrestling] parked across the street at the holiday inn. a month or so ago 4 espn trucks parked across the road. central american countries have a lower GDP than the money wrapped up in high end hd editing equipment hiding inside them. they were huge vehicle wraps and i wanted to see how they did it [we print out miles of banners but never a full vehicle wrap. i think it costs $30k to wrap a city bus]. there were all kinds of selection flaws on the trailer as well as oddly placed ports on the trailer right in the middle of wrestler’s mouths. the whole wrap was too tempting so we did what junior high boys would have done — take photos of ourselves. click on each for a larger version.

from me youth

in elementary school a kid moved from nyc to tucson and was surprised how many puerto ricans there were in tucson. go figure. i do not know my racial identification clues — we never had a very large pool to play in here.

oh, and a photo of a sunset. i like to take photos of weird cloud formations, things that if i drew them everyone would think i was stupid and had no clue how clouds worked. we get funky ones at times. i'm sure there is an explanation for this but part of the sky was lighter, exactly like the photo shows. maybe one big sun beam?

daily urls

i frequent drawn.ca as well as http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/ for my doodlage fix, videosift.com and liveleak.com for videos [though liveleak seems to have gotten violent/deadly over the past year] and englishrussia.com too. gmail, facebook, cnn, wired and the weather round out my day. there you have it.

oct 16 — the fair

the carnival was a blast and i was more woozy than usual. this photo of spenglar watching a ride was priceless.

if it wasn’t so brightly lit in the back he might have well been the little kid that wandered onto the fair or circus grounds to watch them set up, marvelling in the sights and sounds on some october evening in the midwest. dress him up in 1930's clothes he very well could have been from a different time. awestruck boy, filled with wonder. go spencer.

arizona vs #25 cal = 45 to 27 point victory

30+ of us went to saturday’s game and is was great for so many reasons. my dad came along and i think he really enjoyed it. i’m not sure when he last went to a game, plus the crowd and energy. he hung out with us as we tailgated and played football. i’m starting to feel my age some but we still had a good game of goofing off. rohret tipped his own pass which proceeded to bounce off his head and then finally found a resting place in a one handed snag. later kevlar attempted to best me with his disc throwing skills — that boy can chuck a disc. we walked the half mile to the game and our group was cut in half by the entrance of the band. we sat on the short bleachers in the southern end zone with all the crazies. i knew it was going to be a good night when the kickers practicing before the game booted one long and into our section. i look over and kevlar has it. he turns and hurls it further up the stands and we all chanted «over over» and in short notice it was tossed over the top of the stadium onto 6th street — just like my dad said when he attended games in the early 60s. it was a great game for scoring and we cheered ourselves hoarse. good times.

we were right next to the thin strand of cal fans [they wear clothes that make them look like honey bees] and their half dozen cheerleaders and mascot. what a dorky mascot. i started calling him mccain. i can see why he and the stanford tree fight — they are at the bottom of mascots, the very antithesis of toughness. the bear was doing some strange lunge move and mild-mannered gowler yells out «hey bear, is that how you take it?» and we all laugh and it gets quiet. gowler said that. i say in a calm voice, «gowler, you said a naughty» and he turns around with a red face and asks if i am going to put his name on the board. a little bit later the cheers are taking a knee on the grass and davis yells out «hey, the grazz isn’t for grazing» and it doesn’t faze them until he yells it again and adds «hey ladies» to the beginning. he received a half dozen mean looks. davis even made another forum about the rowdiness in the redzone.

1) These guys and gals are crazy. I have been kicked out twice from AZ stadium for being too loud and I guess obnoxious. These people say things that even make me blush.

They had the Cal mascot flipping them off and grabbing his crotch and doing the air hump. They got on poor Ty Willingham (during warm ups of the UDub game)so bad it almost made you cry.

The best line though was when the Cal cheerleaders went to one knee on the grass and one of them yelled, "hey girls the grass is not for grazing" Everyone of those girls looked over.

you do have to remember that these girls are also all pasty white. even the non-white girls are really white. my new skin cancer self knows this is a good thing, but pretty much every student here is really really dark. i think their girls glow in the dark. i’ll not repeat what someone followed davis' comment up with but davis said he would be laughing about it for a long time. but the bear, the bear. look at this poor guy. hunched over, no muscle tone — he’ll never make it through the winter.

we won, we ate a lot of food, we hung out in the parking lot a bit after the game. it was good. we did stand the entire time on our bleacher seats and they were not stable. imagine standing for 4 hours on a log. it kept swaying back and forth and we fell on each other quite a lot. we would score and then we would fall down. sitting during half time was a relief. the second half didn’t seem as bad, but boy oh boy were we sore the following days. my hips still hurt 3 days later

thickness

i am scanning in some images for the u of a, all pulled from their yearbooks. it is not hard to see that americans have gotten a lot larger by comparing them to photos from 40 and 50 years ago. i haven’t found a single image of anyone above a healthy bmi. i am sure there are some, and i know it is college and most people are still thin at that time, but it is rather sad. i am no exception.

christmas ’09

i know one gift i wouldn’t mind getting [other than the pulaski i have yet to get, even though it is impractical]: green day’s music videos. the hard part is i would prefer the music videos and not the live shows. i'm not sure if they have some of their latest videos on anything, but i also want the only stuff like minority.

thinking of that, i might not mind some of u2s videos, especially if they have the fun ones like sweetest thing.

funny IMs

i made a mistake on spelling and i corrected it in a funny and improper way. someone had told me that obama was the antichrist so i corrected them: sammy hagar is the antichrist.

hummingbird: who is sammy and why are we saying no?

me: sammy hagar
someone told me obama is the anti-christ so i corrected them: sammy haggar is the anti chrits

shrist

christ!

[that last one i wasn't trying to spell it - i was swearing]

will that get me in trouble?

oct 21

we just came back from a visit with a neuropsychologist to get spencer’s results. his IQ is just fine and some of his stuff is in the upper percentiles [80s and such] and the ranges are really wide for what is okay, such as 30 to 80th percentile. spencer got plenty in the «clinically dangerous» section, some eights and some that were less than 1%. it came as no surprise and it was good to know what these areas are. he picked up a lot of my visual skills [he kicks but with puzzles and building things] but he is lacking in social skills. he cannot pick up on verbal and non-verbal cues. one of these was kind of interesting, the «theory of mind». loosely explained, if you gave a kid a box of skittles and asked them what was in the box before they opened it they would answer «skittles». they would then open it to see that it was not full of skittles but full of thumbtacks. oooh. then ask the kid «if we closed up the box and your mom comes in, what would she think is in the box. a kid that understands that what he is thinking is NOT what everyone else is thinking and answers «skittles» has a grasp on the theory of mind. a kid that doesn’t would answer «thumbtacks». we will have to work on social skills with him. come to mention it, i can think of some other «adults» that could stand to learn a few things or two about both social cues and what others are thinking [which differs from how they think everyone else is seeing it].

in the end, spenglar has PDD, pervasive development disorder which is a wide ranging thing that includes autism, asperger's, childhood disintegrative order [sarah's teacher has only seen one kid with that - scary], Rett's and then just whatever else fits under the umbrella.

from the medicinenet website:

General symptoms that may be present to some degree in a child with a PDD include:

Difficulty with verbal communication, including problems using and understanding language

Difficulty with non-verbal communication, such as gestures and facial expressions

Difficulty with social interaction, including relating to people and to his or her surroundings

Unusual ways of playing with toys and other objects

Difficulty adjusting to changes in routine or familiar surroundings

Repetitive body movements or patterns of behavior, such as hand flapping, spinning and head banging

Changing response to sound (The child may be very sensitive to some noises and seem to not hear others.)

Temper tantrums

Difficulty sleeping

Aggressive behavior

Fearfulness or anxiety (nervousness)

some of those describe spencer rather well. we will see what we can do to help him.

oct23

i just built me an obama. it didn’t take too long. i do wonder how the election will play out. there seems to be a whole lot more fear and prejudice than i thought. is it both an age and region thing? where was i reading that any country that attempts to protect itself from attack will spend itself out of existence. too much to read, too little time.

china!

advil came back from china with goodies, one of which was an art and design magazine [currently quarrantined by google/firefox] with a rather large section with all sorts of olympic images and graphics. clothing guides, signage — so much good stuff. there is the olympic logo we have all seen, but they had logos for the torch relay, environment, culture, volunteer, environment and on and on. china did a great job with imagery — i am quite impressed.

small.notes

i have a friend that is just a hair under the weather with meds and such, so i am going to send them a text a day. it will always be goofy. this one is flashback to my friend todd who told a story similar to this:

once upon a time there was a little sugar cookie nambed wendel. he loved his little cookie jar. one day he saw the light — literally — and a hand reached in and he was taken out and eaten. the end.

i hope these little notes will be good fun for them. maybe i'll make a whole website of goofy little stories. here is note #2:

there were 3 little pigs, all brothers. the first pig was very good. he was polite and he shared his toys with the others. the second little pig was also very good. he was very good at listening and making the others feel heard. the third little pig, not so much. he sold his two brothers to oscar mayer. i met the two on a hotdog bun at a baseball game and i would agree — they WERE good little pigs.

note #3:

there once was a boy who liked to take a lot of photos and would not stop. good for him. the end

dreamage 10.28

i had a fantastic dream where a wave came in and crashed through the beach house we were in, taking out all the people in the water and those laying out. i had a really cool camera, though. it was shaped like a small pair of binoculars and i could rewind the whole day, freeze and zoom in and out and pan from all angles. talk about a cool camera.

note #4

there once was a beautiful swan that laid several egg. the first hatched and boy oh boy was it ugly. she quickly made the other eggs into an omelette and had a really good breakfast and made her ugly kid do the dishes. the end.

10.31

growing up/change is like wearing clothes. certain things fit, try them out for a while and wear them around, then some things don't fit, and others don't go well with others, and some are seasonal. it seems like we should all be changing our clothes much more often rather than sticking to the clothes we first thought were cool. we should change. in other words, not growing/staying immature makes us look goofy and dated.

post election

well, it was fun, i wasn’t surprised that obama won and it is pretty cool. too bad there are a lot of sore losers and boy can they complain. somehow the world is coming to the end, but maybe it was just bush bringing it closer [dig dig]. i did not gloat - obama has got to be crazy to want to be the president, but i do believe he may be able to do it in a new way that works. he has already shown it in his campaign:

The power of the Obama operation could be measured: doubling the turnout at the Iowa caucuses, raising twice as much money as any other candidate in history, organizing volunteers by the millions. (In Florida alone: 65 offices, paid staff of 350, active e-mail list of 650,000, 25,000 volunteers on any weekend day.) The ultimate test would come Nov. 4. In the meantime, there were indications of a great storm brewing. At the end of August, as Hurricane Gustav threatened the coast of Texas, the Obama campaign called the Red Cross to say it would be routing donations to it via the Red Cross home page. Get your servers ready—our guys can be pretty nuts, Team Obama said. Sure, sure, whatever, the Red Cross responded. We've been through 9/11, Katrina, we can handle it. The surge of Obama dollars crashed the Red Cross Web site in less than 15 minutes.

i have a problem that seems to be accelerating yet again. my clothes don’t fit, or at least my old ones wear poorly on my body. it isn’t a fitting problem with my body getting larger or thinner [sigh] but that it is a “fitting” problem where it doesn’t look correct on me. no, it isn’t a style problem either, that my clothes are destined for a second hand store, still being worn while they are a dozen seasons past due. they just don’t “fit”. i can’t say those clothes are me anymore. they are me from the past, me in prior years with different thoughts and beliefs. i have gone through a lot of clothes over the years, changing them as i have changed.

they were well suited clothes back when i listened to my parents as i thought they could do no wrong. i changed those out to something more cynical when i realized they weren’t perfect. years later i changed out of those clothes when i understood how much grace they extended me thoughout my youth. they were well suited for when i was first married with very little understanding of how to be a selfless husband and to pursue my wife instead of my own goals. i have repeatedly changed clothes as i have learned to love and cherish my wife, each jump in maturity dictacting a change in what i wear. they were well suited for my first child and how i cared for her and loved her, but by the time we had our 4th child after many miscarriages, those old clothes would never fit.

the truth is, though i may have fond memories of living in those clothes, i can’t beat myself up for what i wore and how i was at those times. i was who i was. sure, i wish i was able to wear something different, but nobody could help dress me. i'm just glad i’m not in those clothes anymore. i meet far too many people wearing clothes that have long since worn thin, held together by whatever means as they just can’t part with what they are wearing. the reality is, we should always be changing clothes. every few months i see the world and God a bit differently, and i change. my beliefs are not static or perfect and what i clothe myself change. my either/or clothes were discarded for my both/and clothes. my understanding of the rules clothes made way for my grace and love clothes. my “it has to be this way!” and stomping around and giving black eyes to those i was to care for were tossed out for my comfy slippers and “i am glad you are here” outfit. i am not sure if i retain many of my old clothes as i change but i am not so worried about my clothes as i am about who i am. i am going where God wants me to go, and i want to be dressed properly. each day my outfit is a little different, sometimes it is a lot different.

trust God to be your tailor.