Education

Today's lesson, girls and boys, is about education. Not education in general, it's more like when your mom used to ask you what you learned when you came home from school each day. Today I learned 4 things.

Thing Number 1)

Previously, I learned that when you need to remove 56 years worth of rust from an old Chevy pickup frame, a tool like this makes the job go much faster. Today I learned that you REALLY want to keep your fingers out of this tool when it is running.

Thing Number 2)

A year and a half ago when I built the shop I purchased a first aid kit and hung it on the wall in there. It was somewhat ironical that Monday (that would be the day before yesterday) I was doing some cleaning, noticed the first aid kit hanging there and had a moment of reflection when I pondered what might be inside the kit and whether it would ever get used. Today I learned what the inside of the kit looked like (it looked like this and had everything I needed)

Thing Number 3)



This is actually a self portrait showing the front of my shirt. It is cropped so you can see the little spears of wire sticking out of me. I already knew the spinning wire wheel does that to you. Today I learned that so many are hitting you that you might not notice one that sticks in your head just below your hair line (but someone at McDonnalds will tell you about it when you stop in to get your lunch)

Thing Number 4)

My fourth and final thing I learned today is that this (another self portrait)...

...is not enough protection (although it seems like a lot - look, I even have ear plugs for the noise). I now wear leather gloves too!

A Laugh Out Loud Moment

So I'm cutting 2 inch angle iron for a project I'm working on. Sparks are flying everywhere as they always do but I've done this so many times in the past week that I really don't mind being bathed in the fire.

That was when I smelled the burning hair.

You would think this post would be about the burning hair, but it isn't. I clearly remember having a conscious thought. It was:

"I am in the middle of a shower of sparks and I smell burning hair ... that can't be good".

Obviously I stopped cutting and patted my head down to smother any fire that was going on up there but by the time I finished ensuring I wasn't on fire anymore I pondered the thought that triggered the fire prevention activity and started laughing so hard that I had to take pause before returning to my task.

Now if I can just work that into a conversation with another human being...

"I am in the middle of a shower of sparks and I smell burning hair ... that can't be good".

Who Gets to Decide?

Man's best friend.

Shortly after I woke this morning Michelle told me that the dog (or dogs - we are dog sitting for Mandy and Jack) had managed to pee in four separate places during the night. All four spots were in the room with the dog door (mere feet from the great outdoors). As she exited for work she asked me if I would rake the poop up in the yard today too.

So I'm on my hands and knees with a rag and Clorox water cleaning up last night's fun and games when I look up and I see this:




It was at that point I began to wonder who decided Newbie was my best friend.

You see, I went to Home Depot yesterday to get something they didn't have. As I was exiting the store empty handed I walked by a display of safety glasses and pondered the shower of sparks I seem to be taking daily now that I've taken up metal working as a new hobby. I decided to buy two pairs of new safety glasses so I would have an extra should someone want to watch me work at some future point.

When I got home I wanted to clean the house up some (Michelle was returning from a solo week of vacation) but knowing my feeble 50+ year old mind, I realized that failure to put the new glasses in the shop would result in them being hopelessly lost (without too much grief from me as I probably wouldn't even remember that I purchased them in the first place). To dodge that scenario I hung them on the knob of the back door where I was sure to see them the next time I was heading out to the shop.

You can probably guess the rest. At some point during the night my "best friend" decided to help me out by ripping through the bottom of the bag, taking both pairs of plastic safety glasses out into the yard, and, being unable to write a love note, put the only real signature he had on them.

Time passes.

I get the rake and start taking on the virtual sea of puppy droppings. It's been a week and these two dogs are a remarkable factory. If only they were dropping car parts in the yard. I'd have a hummer by now. I'm sure of it.

When Michelle left she tried to soften the request by saying she just wanted me to rake the bountiful harvest into a pile, I didn't need to pick it up. Considering this I appriciated the gesture but also knew there was no good reason to leave the job undone once I got a nice deep pile. As I grumbled about the fact that I didn't get to vote on Newbie being my best friend, I headed into the garage to get a shovel.

I found the shovel, walked back to the yard, opened the gate to see Jack's best friend rolling in the pile.

It was then that I knew I had to go public in the blogosphere and ask the question. Who gets to decide?

Pointless and Amazing

I've done this thing from time to time when I find a very liberal political discussion, and I participate. I do it because I think I will be amused by the exchange of ideas and the debate will grow me. I think I'm done doing it.

Actually it surprises me how bitter, angry and condescending many folks on the left are. I go in and make bold statements about the issues and the responses typically include personal insults, shots at my family, sweeping derogatory generalizations about republicans and ALWAYS include attacks on my intelligence.

My approach was typically to enter the conversation with something provocative to get their attention, then after they react and respond engage in a friendly, polite, and hopefully intense dialog.

Let's say, for example, I found a thread that was addressing the roll-back of the Bush tax cuts. The liberal folks would be going on and on about how the rich are evil and must pay more while they themselves are having a hard time and should pay less and get more help from the government. In the thread there seem to be folks who believe if we all pay, say, 15% in taxes, it isn't right because the "rich" aren't paying pay more (and they should). They think they should be paying 5% and the rich should be paying 40%.

I must admit it isn't clear to me why the rich must pay more but let's set that aside for a moment. I would want to argue that 15% of $20,000 was $3,000 and 15% of a million was $150,000 so the gal making a million would pay 7.5 times the $20,000 yearly salary as an annual tax (and that is MORE). If we had an equal percentage the folks who make more still pay more.

So I would enter the thread and my provocative attention getter (to ensure folks would want to read my second post to the thread which makes the point above) would be something like "If you expect people who make over $250,000 to pay 40% of their income in taxes you should be willing to stand up and pay 40% yourself or you should sit down and shut up".

The response is actually fairly universal and predictable. They will start by calling me a jackass. (I believe the last thread it was "You are an evil greedy jackass") and then they would set into personal attacks like "You are a horrible, despicable human being" and "You are what is wrong with this country" or "you should be jailed (or killed or some other horrible fate)." They will ALWAYS tell me I'm uneducated and not as smart as them.

I will then put up my second post making my point about fiscal policy and adding that they really don't know me well enough to make judgments about my intelligence and greed. I rarely get through the second round without sweeping generalizations about the evils of "people like me" and additional personal attacks. I can more or less count on being called a bigot in round two and it is not uncommon for them to start taking shots at my family. The last round one of them got on my face book page, saw that I read Sarah Palin's commentaries and then attacked me because I would have to be ignorant and a bigot if I didn't hate her.

I am flawed if I am not smart enough to hate someone.

It is amazing.

Lest I distort the truth it is important that I say there are some folks who will stick with the issues. Some will tell me that they think the rich should pay more because a 50% tax won't have an effect on their standard of living where as someone who is making $30,000 a year could not survive on $15,000 (thus providing the dialog and debate I was originally seeking) but I've never engaged in one of these discussions where someone didn't put all their energy into hating me (sometimes in scary ways).

So I have decided my last such discussion was my last such discussion. I've decided the whole thing is fairly pointless. I'm not going to convince them of anything. They are elite and could never hear the words of an ignorant, greedy bigot such as me. For my part, I love the debate but I've decided it isn't worth all the negative energy. I typically spend 75% of my responses addressing attacks on me as a person rather than discussing the issues. If I can't discuss the issues the participation is pointless. The negative energy is pointless. Entering a dialog with people who are too elite to hear my side is pointless. Talking with people who hate me so much that they can't discuss the issues without insulting me and my family is ... well, pointless.

It's truly amazing.

Living a Life of Tolerance

First of all let's be clear. I don't give a crap who got here first. You only get to lay claim to "ownership" if you can hold on to what you think is yours and if you are strong enough to protect it. If you aren't strong someone stronger may come along and take it away from you. If that happens, you need to stop pouting, get over it and adapt. The world changed, you big baby, and feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to benefit you OR your kind. I say assimilate. Figure the new world order out and find a place in that world.

Now if you aren't too stupid or too lazy and you actually make an effort to assimilate, I'm the kind of guy who will respect you for it and I will begin to practice tolerance. I will honor you in your new environment. Heck, I might even lend a helping hand even if it means I have to go against the establishment to support you.

This isn't theory. This is real. Let me tell you my story.

Michelle doesn't like them. Well, in all fairness that isn't completely true. She likes them ok, just not in our neighborhood. I on the other hand, I figure they have as much right to be here as I do so I've practiced tolerance for years. She is nervous that they will vandalize our house and she blames them for some past damage. I'm not sure if the damage was from them but even if it was, the one who did the damage probably doesn't represent the views of the rest of them enough that we should be making sweeping judgments about all of them so I still argue for tolerance. Recently I went a step farther (even though my wife was opposed).

I decided to help them out by providing some food. Michelle thinks it is a bad move because that will just bring more of them in and the chance of vandalism increases but I'm committed so...

I build a squirrel feeder outside my window. It has two screws through it and I put corn cobs on the screws (one fresh, one dried). I like to watch them come around and chew on the corn (except when the dog sees it then I DON'T like the chaos that occurs when Newbie freaks out) and I get that they may try to burrow another hole in my eaves so they can build a next but I still think that we need to share our resources.

I know, I know these squirrels are are lower on the food chain than we are and I could just kill them but hey! I'm living a life of tolerance.

50 Things Abou Me

My niece Maggie did a post like this and it looked amusing so I thought I would do one too. Here's fifty things about me (in no particular order).

1. Like many people who are pushing 53 years old, I'm overweight and could stand to lose 50 pounds.

2. I really enjoy photography, have a nice digital SLR, and have taken over 15,000 pictures in the last decade. I only show people around 1,700 of them, though.

3. I do all the cooking at our house. My wife does the laundry.

4. I'm done paying for college and weddings so I've reached a point in my life where I don't need the next promotion or pay raise. As a result my work is focused on what amuses me rather than getting my boss' attention.

5. I believe that being in debt is not a good thing so I (we) paid everything off and now I save up for big purchases rather than borrowing the money. Perhaps that is part of the reason I don't need the next promotion or pay raise.

6. I like to travel but have done enough of it that I don't like to do a great deal of it.

7. I've been to every state in the USA but one.

8. I've been to every continent in the world but one.

9. One day I will visit the 7th continent but I'll never visit the 50th state.

10. If I die before my wife she will have me cremated and scatter the ashes in the state I haven't been to.

11. If I die after my wife, my kids will bury me with a head stone that says "Having a great time, wish you were here".

12. I got picked on by bullies a lot when I was growing up.

13. I am a black belt in Taekwondo.

14. I won 2nd in sparring at the national Taekwondo championships in 2003.

15. I have jumped out of an airplane (with a parachute)

16. At one time I had an FAA instructor ticket for a specific type of ultra-light aircraft but I am no longer current. I still fly sometimes.

17. My kids really impress me. My son is smarter that I am and my daughter is a better person than I am. I suppose that means I've had the best possible parenting experience because nothing is more valuable than having your kids end up better than you are.

18. My son is very much like my wife and my daughter is very much like me in most things. The exception is the trait of focus on others. In that area my son is like me and my daughter is like my wife.

19. I have ridden in the MS-150 (150+ mile bike ride to raise money) in all but one of the last 8 years. The year I missed was because my doctor told me I couldn't ride. I drove a support van that year.

20. I have had an AK47 pointed in my face in a threatening way in the middle east.

21. I once paid a bribe so I would be allowed to enter a place where Christians were forbidden (Muslims only).

22. I once bribed a police officer (in Egypt) so he would allow me to buy train tickets without a passport.

23. One time when I was in Egypt I had my driver slap a camera out of my hands and on to the floorboards because he spotted armed guards on an overpass and feared they would think I was taking pictures of the presidential palace and shoot into the car.

24. I have walked on the great wall of China with my daughter.

25. I have gone up the Eiffel Tower with my daughter.

26. I have visited the house where Ann Frank hid from the Nazi's with my daughter.

27. I have stood at the base of the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado with my daughter (actually at one point we laid on the ground together there).

28. I have stood on the deck of a cruise ship with my daughter watching the coast guard helicopter medivac a medical emergency off.

29. I attended a super bowl where I watched the Denver Broncos win their first world championship.

30. I attended game 6 of the NBA Championships where I watched the Boston Celtics clinch the World Championship (and I got to attend the team after party)

31. I attended the game where Nolan Ryan pitched his 7th no-hitter.

32. I have a shop in my backyard with an automotive lift in it. As I type this it has a 54 Chevy pickup on it (the frame of the pickup is about 7 feet off the ground).

33. I once petted a kangaroo (and not in a zoo).

34. I once climbed to the top of Devils Tower. I think it is scariest thing I have ever done (I have a significant fear of heights).

35. I have been playing disc golf (sometimes called Frisbee golf) for over 16 years. I play most Saturdays. In all those rounds, I have had 1 (count it, one) hole in one.

36. I work for the 10th largest company in the country (39th largest in the world).

37. When I was 15 I got my first GM car. When I turn 55 I will be driving my last GM car.

38. I have owned a 69 Z28 Camaro and a 65 Mustang convertible.

39. I donated to 2 political candidates this year. Neither one was in the state where I reside.

40. I often say that if Christians spent as much time helping non-Christians as they did sending other Christians to hell, Jesus would have come back years ago because we would be done.

41. I once had a massive pulmonary embolism and spent about 2 weeks in ICU. I had to sit still the first 48 hours (while they were pumping me full of heparin) - That was the reason the doctor wouldn't let me ride the MS-150 that year.

42. There are many political arguments these days about making the rich pay more. Having been all over the world I have come to believe you would be hard pressed to find ANYBODY in this country that isn't rich so I'm in favor of a flat tax where we all pay the same.

43. I don't have a bucket list but I'm thinking about writing one. If I do, one of the thing in it will be to coordinate an effort to donate 10,000 pounds to meat to the folks who could use a little help.

44. My wife got a new Yorkie (that's a dog for those of you who were wondering) when her old dog died. I probably like this dog more than any other dog she has ever had.

45. My wife's new dog barks too much.

46. I don't think I could tell you what my favorite food is. It is rare to find one I don't care for.

47. I really don't like it when someone who is driving down the road stops traffic to let someone out. I believe the person who does that thinks they are doing a good thing by creating an inconvenience for half a dozen (or more) people behind them so that they can create a convenience for a single person. I believe it is stupid to think it is a good to be inconsiderate to many people so you can be considerate to one.

48. I think it is cute when someone from a small town complains about heavy traffic in their town or another small town. The people in Houston, Boston, Washington DC and Denver understand what I'm talking about. That said, the word "heavy" is relative. If you live in Upton Wyoming I'm sure Gillette Wyoming has heavy traffic. The comment isn't wrong - but it is still cute.

49. I'm really comfortable with people who disagree with me. Truth be told, I have no doubt that dissenting views make life better and more interesting.

50. I am all for tolerance but think acceptance goes too far. I need to tolerate your right to think what you want to think (as long as it isn't hurting anybody else). I also support a world that tolerates you doing what you want to do (again, with your freedom stopping prior to damaging others). I do not, however, support a social view that tells me I need to accept your views. That's just stupid. If you are wrong, if you are ignorant, or if you are into things I don't want to connect with there is just no good reason for me to accept your view. I respect your right to a different view but if you want to force me to accept something I don't agree with I'm going to push back.

Harry Potter and The Mosque at Ground Zero

I read a lot of books but a children's fantasy about an orphan witch would not be a likely choice for me.

When the first book of the Harry Potter series came out it created quite an emotional stir and people at my church were going on and on about how it would lure children into a relationship with Satan himself. It was quite the emotional ruckus.

People kept asking me what I though about it and finally I decided to read the book and form an opinion. Well, long story short it ended up costing me the enough time to read 7 books. The series was quite a compelling read and I'm still feeling my secure in the salvation of my soul.

I could have opened this post with the same discussion about The Da Vinci Code. Another book that had the Christian community all wound up and rattled. Another read that left me wondering why people could get upset over such things.

I am currently engaged in a couple of Facebook discussions about the mosque at ground zero. When the dust settles, Facebook isn't a great forum for such things because the quantity of text has a limit that always seems to distract me.

My participation in the thread started when I threw a simple question into an emotional post about the mosque. I simply asked "Is it a mosque or a community center?". The response was something like "Jim, I hope you are kidding..." or some such thing.

The truly striking thing about Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code was that so many people were upset and angry. During discussions with the angry people I would ask them if they read the books and I would get responses like "I would never read such a horrible thing!" or "I don't have to read it, I've heard plenty already".

Let me tell you something (and here comes the whole point of this post), you can't know what you think about an issue - ESPECIALLY an emotional issue before you do your own research.

As a side note (and for no extra charge) for those who haven't noticed yet, religion and politics are typically emotional.

Most of our political info comes from the press. The press makes their living by getting you interested in engaging to learn more. I'll present two headlines. You decide which you would be more likely to engage in:

Religious group to build cultural center in lower Manhattan.

or

Muslim Extremists to build Mosque at Ground Zero

I'm selling advertising time on a web page or radio and I want to tell my sponsors that people will be plugged in strongly enough to make it past the commercial break, I need the raw emotion. The same is probably true for our religious leaders. It serves them well to have their followers emotionally connected to an issue now and then.

The title that is shocking serves the ultimate goal and if you don't pay attention and find out what is really going on you can find yourself all fired up ready to enter a battle with casualties. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of a guy that is inclined to avoid a battle because there might be casualties. As I age, however, I learn that often the casualties aren't really necessary.

Rather than dilute my point here, which is you need to get all the facts prior to forming an opinion, I will put detail on my current views about the mosque at ground zero into another post. The truth is I still don't know enough about motive and funding to have a definitive view yet but the preliminary checking leads me to believe we're collecting ammunition over a YMCA rather than a temple to worship the acts of Bin Laden.

...and the Harry Potter books? Great story but I might be slow to let younger children read the later volumes. The series got kind of dark as it matured. The good thing about these books is they will help your children learn to love reading. The stories are quite wonderful. If you want to be really safe you could balance it by spending some time with your children in the Bible reviewing scripture around what God says about witches and witchcraft. Do that and you've planted a seed to help them grow into an adult that does what this post is urging. -- Oh, and if they are afraid of the dark, tell them Voldemort is real. That should be a hoot!

We're In Training

Let's start with the basics. I'm a few months away from my 53rd birthday and do computers for a living so I spend much (most) of my life sitting (when I'm not sleeping). I stand 6'5" tall and tip the scales a touch over 280 pounds.

My exercise life isn't as good as it once was. I used to run 5 miles after work every day. I hated running but I did it anyway. I once finished a triathlon and used to run multiple 10k races every year.

Today...not so much.

But I DO know how to train and I do it at least once a year. Every year I ride the MS-150 which is now called "Bike MS".

For those who don't know, it is a 150+ mile bike ride over 2 days to raise money for MS research. Our whole family does it. The training starts mid-November and I train until May when the ride happens.

The point isn't that I did a triathlon when I was younger or that I ride Bike MS now. The point is that I know what training is.

And we're currently training.

Oddly, I didn't plan on training. I just noticed it, pondered it, and confirmed without a doubt that we (we being Michelle and I) are definitely in training.

We had ice cream every night this week. That's rare for us these days. Ice cream isn't rare. We have that every now and then but we almost always go out because we rarely keep the stuff in our house.

A couple of days ago I realized that starting the middle of last week we were eating ice cream every night.

The thing that brought it all together for me was what happened last night.

Mandy came by and wanted to do some horse trading for some of my home-made Italian sausage. I didn't really need a horse so I told her to pick up a couple of pounds of Blue Bell pralines and cream. She brought back a half gallon. I handed it to my wife (with a spoon of course) and I went to the freezer and snagged a pint of mint chocolate chip.

We both sat in the living room and ate the ice cream. As we happily munched and slurped it occurred to me that we started our new routine last Tuesdays with Popsicles. Then Wednesday we had a pint of cookies and cream but it took us 2 days to finish it. Friday we got two pints and finished them off by Sunday night. Michelle got us another pint on Sunday and then Mandy brought the half gallon on Monday (or maybe Tuesday - there has been so much ice cream that it escapes me).

See - that's how it is when you train. You start out small and work your way up. Looking back on the ice cream consumption that is just what we were doing ... and then it hit me.

We're leaving on a 7 day cruise this weekend. Unlimited food. Unlimited deserts. It just wouldn't be prudent to hit something like that cold turkey. You need to work up to it.

The truly great thing about this is that it reminds me that this civilized life can't take the raw animal survival instincts away from us. For some reason ducks know they need to fly south before winter gets here. Dogs get all restless before a tornado strikes. Pregnant women get this nesting instinct thing just before a baby is born and apparently we fat 50 year olds instinctively know when it is time to eat ice cream and train for an upcoming vacation.

Alone Time

I found myself alone this morning so I decided to get some HP work done. I went to the local college and got a study room in the library.

It's my first "alone time" since Barb died and when I realized I didn't have to be the tough guy with a clear mind providing support I found myself crying as if Tia had just died.

Students started walking by the window and looking in with concern on their faces.

Finally I had to put a sign on the door that said I flunked my summer mid-term. Now I'm just getting encouraging nods and knowing glances.

I knew it was coming, (part 1)

You have two dogs living together you're going to have a fight. Watching Newbie I was confident it was coming...and it came.

It as a bit different than I thought. The puppy was in Maggie's face, barking up a storm. Maggie's tail was wagging and suddenly Newbie more or less jumped on Maggie's back. Apparently that was too much and it was on.

Michelle was in the middle of it (she as actually petting Maggie when it started). She grabbed Maggie and pulled her off but couldn't seem to stop the ruckus.

I jumped from my chair, grabbed Newbie, and stopped the fight ... for about a nanosecond. Before I knew it Newbie squirmed free, hit the floor and took a flying leap right back onto Maggie's back growling, barking and biting.

I reacquired control, took a couple of steps and put Newbie on his back in a submissive position. I got in his face, showed my teeth and scolded the dog then held him until his heart rate slowed down.

Newbie went to time out and we praised Maggie (who never got a hold of Newbie - not sure if that was Maggie's choice or not).

Now I know Newbie is much more aggressive than Tia and have no doubt that a point in time is coming where Maggie will have to teach the puppy about how the world really works.

It's unfortunate. I hope we can postpone it until a time when the vet office is open.

Dog Protocol

After 13 days of withdrawal, Mandy's mother-in-law and my wife went to PetsMart where a rescue org was showing their clients.

They found 3 dogs. I quickly eliminated the long white haired one because it sheds. The second was a puppy (8 weeks I think) and I was apprehensive (but not so much to argue against). The third was a Yorkie that was a year and a half old. I agreed that the pup would probably make a good pet and she agreed to let me name him.

I chose the name "Newbie" because there was something about Newbie Yorkie that amused my simple (and slightly bent) mind.

Anyway, this post isn't about that. Not with a title like "Dog Protocol".

Here's the interesting thing. My daughter is on holiday in Colorado so we're babysitting the grand dog. As a quick history you probably need to know that Maggie (Mandy's dog) was quick to tear little chunks off of our last dog (15 year old and grumpy) from time to time. We assumed Maggie was a bit intolerant with other dogs.

So here's the protocol stuff. The pup did at least three things that we assumed would be followed by a swift lesson from Maggie. The first was growling at Maggie as she approached the dog bowl. The second was standing on the couch, towering over Maggie, who isn't allowed on the couch (Mandy's rules not ours but we enforce them) and barking when Maggie got close. Finally, in the the most significant and daring display of all, Newbie ran across the room and as she rocketed by Maggie she grabbed one of Maggie's ears and used it to slingshot to a stop.

Result number one (dog bowl growl) - Michelle and I were both in the middle of that one right away so if I say Maggie didn't "let him have it" it would be true but maybe because of the intervention of a higher power.

Result number two (taking a dominant stance from the couch). The first time this happened we stopped it right away but Newbie was up and down (perpetual motion, that one) and he seemed to like the game of getting into Maggie's face from above her. Each iteration Michelle and I did less and less to stop it. Maggie was wagging her tail and the fight never happened.

The third was the most amazing to me. The puppy was running around the house. Sometimes racing past Maggie who didn't seem to react much then it happened so quickly I could do little more than watch. Newbie shot past the chair and as he rocketed by Maggie he grabbed one of her ears and held on well enough to stop his momentum. The ear hold spun him around so he was nose to nose with Maggie as he stopped. He let go of the ear and Maggie began swinging her tail wildly and quickly stuffed her nose into his butt.

All I can say is that's now how it worked with Tia.

I'm thinking there must be some kind of "I'm just playing so don't kill me" smell that comes out of a puppy's butt. I've thought it over and that's the logical conclusion.

On the Subject of Meat...

What did you do on your holiday weekend?

Besides killing the dog, I ground up meat. I started with over 60 pounds of brisket and 50 pounds of pork and made this.

42 pounds of it is Italian sausage. The rest is hamburger.

Go ahead you vegetarians, roll over in your graves (assuming you are dead or happen to be laying in your grave)

Doggie Respect?

By now most of you know Tia died earlier this week.


Day before yesterday I grabbed Tia's bed from our bedroom and moved it into my office (because Michelle had taken the old one out and washed it). Prior to Monday - this was my babysitting status:

So Tia died and I moved the bed. Every day since Maggie (the one on the left looking at us with Satan's gaze) comes over for dogie day care but the routine is changed. Now, instead of coming into the office and crashing with Tia (I assume they do it so they can keep an eye on me and insure we won't bring yet ANOTHER dog here) she comes in for a quick interaction and leaves.

I hear her run around the house some and then it's quiet. When she's not outside I can find her in Tia's room (enclosed patio for you that aren't familiar) in the bed beside Tia's outside bed.

She doesn't hang out in the office with me anymore.

So that left me with two questions.

Was she hanging out with Tia while I had delusions of grandeur?

Would she rather be in here but was staying off Tia's bed out of respect for Tia's territory?

The second question is strange. Really strange (assuming you know Maggie).

Back in the day Maggie would take everything away from Tia. Her bed, her toys, her food and water. If Tia wanted to go to bed Maggie would literally block her access and if Tia tried to get by Maggie would beat the crap out of her. Really nasty beatings.

Over the last year or two, though, things have mellowed and the dogs had become quite good friends. Now if Tia is on the bed under my table (as in the picture above) Maggie would go somewhere else. Sometimes she would join Tia in bed (as in the above picture). Back in the day Maggie would ABSOLUTELY take the bed away from Tia and make her leave.

But she wouldn't get on the bed anymore. Wouldn't even sleep in my office. But why?

So...

Today (a few hours ago) I laid on the floor and called Maggie on to Tia's bed. She did the whole submissive thing (even peed on the floor a bit) but I kept insisting she come on the bed with me. Finally she did. I petted her and explained that Tia was dead and Maggie could sleep there now (like talking to a dog makes any sense). I scratched her a bit and then went back to work. Maggie got up and left the office.

You would think nothing changed but I just turned around and what did I see?

I have no idea. You tell me.

Putting The Dog Down

We had this little dog for the last 15 years right up through yesterday. My daughter wrote a blog post that my sister read. My sister sent a little message of condolence. It was simple. All it said was:

I Just read on fb that you had to put Tia down and i wanted to tell you how sorry I am. She was a wonderful member of your family.
Love,
Vickie

Yesterday I was playing the role of the big strong man. Today, I'm finally alone for the first time and as I look over at the empty dog bed by the wall of my home office and consume a box of Kleenex bawling like a little girl, I realize I need to write a response. This is not a response to Vickie, it's really a letter to me about who I chose as a life partner.

Putting The Dog Down

I need to tell Vickie she was mistaken.

Frisky died after 12 years, we had Snoopy for 7 years, Cody for 9 and a number the black Labs all seemed to move away after two or three. With a duration of more than 15 years Tia was with us longer than any pet I've ever had and if one thing was ever true, it is this, you never put Tia down.

Mandy put her down. In her blog tribute to Tia Mandy reminds us that Tia wasn't the smartest or bravest animal on the planet and you have to admit. If you're a dog, that's kind of a put down.

I put that dog down. I bet a week never went by when I didn't remind her how stupid she was . I've cursed her for getting light brown hair on all of my dark blue suits. I've called her the dumbest animal on the face of the planet. I've told her natural selection was frustrated because we kept screwing with the natural order of things by keeping her alive. I started calling her peepers because of all the times she would get nervous, lose control of her bladder and give me an opportunity to remind you that small dogs can't be house broken. I've said she is the only dog on the face of the planet that was dumb enough be hit by a car twice. I've called her a wuss, accused her of faking her hearing loss and as one final insult I will say that for her to give unconditional love to someone who verbally abuses her like that, well that's monumental stupid.

Ever since HP sent me to work from home Tia has been right here sleeping in my office so she could be near me. For a decade and a half every time I was in the living room reminding her how little value she had she would run over and crawl in my lap as if to say:

"I think all these insults amuse you and I love you so much that nothing is better for me than making you happy so while you're at it, don't forget the one about me being afraid of, well, of everything. That one seems to perk you up."

Yes, I've put Tia down.

The vet put Tia down when she helped us end the pain that Tia was hobbling through every time she would struggle to get up and waddle to the door when Maggie would tell her you got home.

Yes. Mandy put Tia down. The vet put Tia down and I definitely put Tia down but Michelle, if you only remember one thing about that dog, remember this. In 15 years YOU never put Tia down.

When I was on a rant about the two inch spot on the floor resulting from someone scaring the dog you were Perry Mason pleading her innocence as you ran for the Folex and paper towels.

When Mandy would rant about how stupid the dog was for bristling as Maggie walked by you would grab Tia, protect her, and explain to Mandy that Tia was older and needed her space.

Tia was never wrong to you. You never saw her as being stupid or timid. You weren't angry that she shed on your clean cloths, you were just in the market for a lint roller.

You put blankets and beds everywhere she might happen to lay down. You ran the air conditioner on the patio, regardless of the cost, to make "Tia's Room" the coolest room in the house so the dog would be more comfortable.

In the final weeks when Tia felt horrible and couldn't eat, you managed to open at least one can of every kind of food in the pantry on the outside chance that Tia would be willing to ingest a teaspoon of that particular sustenance.

Put her down? Michelle you opened a can of green beans and she ate one (count it one) bean. Then, the next day you opened another can on the outside chance she would eat another bean (you got her to eat half a bean as I recall so you figured the can was a good investment).

These past few weeks I would wake up in the middle of the night and you would be on the floor with one hand on the dog because your touch would bring Tia some comfort in the turmoil of her last days. Nothing was more important to you than trying to love Tia half as much as Tia loved you (let's face it, though we could all out smart her, nobody could out love that stupid little mutt)
And the final day, understanding that Tia has been dependant on you her whole life and that Tia trusted you completely, you once again took the completely selfless route. When every vet office was closed for the holiday you made me get up way too early and help you search for a place that could help her.

When the vet told you treatment would be crazy expensive you didn't even blink. Later, when the vet told you her kidneys were gone, and that she would never experience another day when she didn't suffer, you did it again.

You wanted nothing more than to keep her with you forever, even if it meant sleepless nights on the floor and opening a can of peas to see if you could get Tia to eat one of those. You wanted to keep her but that wasn't the best thing for Tia so you did what would hurt you the most.

Nope. My analysis is complete and one thing is sure. You never put that dog down. You always lifted her up.

...and at no extra charge...A rant!

Let me start with a couple pictures of my "done all by my self haircut"


Both are self portraits taken with my Nikon using a 18-200 zoom lens.



Now, just so we're clear this rant will not be about my new haircut. What I want to passionately discuss is the nature of using the on-camera flash with a bigger than small lens.



If you look at the bottom of these pictures you will see a dark place, kind of an arch of shadow, near the middle.



Here's what happens. The flash is right on the top of the camera. The lens pokes out far enough that it blocks the light and throws a shadow on the bottom of the picture. This happens mostly with three of my lenses; the 70-300 zoom, the 18-200 zoom, and my 10-24 mm ultra wide angle.



The best solution would be to point the flash at the ceiling and bounce the light on the subject (which would be me) but the built-in flash doesn't point at the ceiling.



The answer, then, is a new flash. I have chosen the Nikon SB-400 so I can bounce the flash if I need to and even if I don't, it sits high enough above the camera to eliminate that annoying "Expensive Lens" shadow.

This Time I'll Take Responsibility

My mother loves to tell a story about when I was a wee little sprout. I don't remember it so I can only repeat it as hear-say.

Apparently I came home from school with a big chunk of my hair cut away. She asked me who cut my hair and I insisted I didn't know. After an appropriate amount of time sweating a true confession out of me I admitted that I was sitting sitting in a room when someone I didn't know ran into the room, cut a chunk out of my hair, and ran away.

As I understand the story, I never copped to the fact that perhaps I had something to do with the hair cut.

Now move forward with me, if you will, 40 or 45 years. You get to today and today I will stand in judgement taking full responsibility. Before I tell you all of it, let me give you some background.

Over the years the cost of a haircut has been steadily rising. I used to pay just under two dollars in my earliest memories. These days a haircut is a $15 or $20 deal. Even more if you want a "good" one.

Probably 5 or 6 months ago we were at Target and I noticed you could buy a set of barber clippers for $20. I remember thinking "Hey, that's about the price of a haircut" so I purchased a set.

My thinking was that if I had Michelle cut my hair every other time I could cover the cost of the clippers in less than two months.

My thinking was sound. As it turned out, I have learned I could have Michelle trim the hair up two times between "Real" haircuts and nobody would notice. I was at a point of getting a "real" haircut about every 3rd month.

Now it's July in Texas and July in Texas is HOT. I decided I needed a short haircut and with Tina's wedding behind us I really don't have any "public" times for months. I have been pondering an experiment where I put on the biggest guard (#9) and just do a buzz cut. How would that work?

Michelle has been hesitant and here I was are a full week from the time we were on the beach in Boston with Ajax and Tiki and my hair was too long and too hot.

So...

I took the clippers out in the back yard, took off my shirt, closed my eyes and 4 minutes (and another $20 saved) later I was in the shower getting rid the short pieces that might make me itch.

Here's what I did...

My Version of Joseph in the Prision

So can anyone interpret dreams? I had one that lasted pretty much all night.

I'm wondering around a park and this brown duck is following me. All the other ducks at the park are white. Every now and then I almost step off a ledge (just a few feet) into the muddy water of a lake (but I never do) and realize I have to solve a data center problem.

I wake up thinking about the problem (and the duck). Then I go back to sleep and it all starts again. A while later I'm awake again thinking about a new data center problem (and the same duck).

What does that mean? Did God give me a vision?

Little Guy With A Bit Mouth - Part 2

I walk back in to see that Dr Pepper brick wall lady is now blocking a new pair of people. The 30 something woman politely asks the angry wall if she can get by. The wall informs the nice lady that she's not moving until they fix the Dr Pepper.

As the confused 30 something woman is deciding whether to execute a beverage-less exit, I step in.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I ask, my voice more puzzled than angry "Do you own this store? Do you own this soda fountain? Did your parents fail to teach you not to bully others when you don't get your way?"

"I see you have a free refill cup there in your hand. Can I then assume that you are trying to destroy customer satisfaction for this establishment because you are angry that they can't provide your free drink fast enough? I bet if you asked any of the people you are blocking they would tell you they have no problem with Racetrac but that they think you are an obnoxious ass who doesn't fit well in society. Finally, darling, I would like to offer this bit of free advice. Fat people like you and me, we shouldn't be drinking that sugared stuff. You really should try the diet kind. Less chance of diabetes, less weight gain and most importantly, there won't be so much of you in the way when others are trying to move around the store. Think about it -- maybe Dr Pepper running out was divine intervention!"

Fire flashes in her eyes. She takes a step in my direction (fortunately opening up a hole giving soda access to two formerly blocked customers).

"You better step back, you son of a bitch, or I will take you down hard" she spits out.

I place both hands in my back pockets and reply.

"Really? We're going to do this 5th grade style? You're the playground bully and you're going to take me down hard? Well (pause for effect) that works for me. Tell you what, take your best shot and I promise I'll keep my hands behind me. I'm betting you move slow enough that this is going to be a non event".

As she reaches in her purse I hear my wife reminding me that I'm probably going to get shot some day and as I'm pondering how I should react if she comes out with a can of pepper spray she produces a cell phone.

"If you don't leave this store right now I'm going to dial 911" she threatens with a menacing grin.

"Do it. Please do it. I'm begging you! I can just hear the radio call now!"

"One Adam 12, One Adam 12, see the woman. Racetrac convenience store corner of Greenville and Bethany. Customer accused of trying to move a pile of crap out of the soda isle. Proceed code 20."

She looks shocked. "You don't believe me? You DON'T BELIEVE ME?"

(now as many of you know, my stories are typically not word-for-word accurate. I always try to capture the gist but also exercise a bit of creative license for entertainment value. I tell you this because I want you to understand that this next part, as unbelievable as it will seem, is absolutely true)

She actually dials the number. I see her fingers press a single digit followed by two presses of another digit and she puts the phone to her ear. I have to admit that I don't know if the phone was on or if she pressed the send button, but the thing she said made me think...well, judge for yourself...

"Hello, Police?" She stares straight into my eyes. "I'm at the Racetrac on Bethany and there is a man here being rude to me"

No kidding. She actually dialed, she actually said "Hello Police" and she actually reported that a man "was being rude" to her.

Sometimes truth is bigger than fiction. You just can't make this stuff up. I was so impressed by the "Hello Police, I'm at the Racetrac and there is a man being rude to me" that I just HAD to write this story.

Well, reader, we peaked. The confrontation pretty much fizzled from there. I suggested a police force that would give me a ticket for "being rude" might put her in the penitentiary for being stupid. I also offered that dialing 911 when there wasn't a true emergency might actually get one of us arrested and that even though I was a very busy guy, it would be worth the wait to see which one of us the police would be interested in.

About that time a store employee (who was hanging out to monitor the confrontation, much like the 5th grade kids gather to watch the bully beat up the nerd) suggested that even without a 911 call the police might be interested in the video from the isle blocking thing and suddenly wall lady remembered an appointment she was late for.

I followed her to her car, begging her to stay and watch me leave in hand-cuffs but alas, she got in her dilapidated PT Cruiser and left (to my best recollection - without a Dr Pepper refill)

Life. A collection of strange and wonderful stories. Sum up all the bad parts and little gems like this make it totally worth it. I'm just saying.

Little Guy With a Big Mouth - Part 1

Remember that Jimmy Buffet song, Margarettaville? It starts out with "It's nobody's fault" and progresses through "It could be my fault" to "It's my own damn fault".

The "Little guy with a big mount" reference takes me back to my school years when I used to get picked on a lot. Now I'm not saying that anyone deserves to get punched but I expect I could have kept the old yapper shut more and been a touch more invisible. Had I done that I probably wouldn't have gotten punched so much.

It happened again yesterday. Well, not the getting punched part but I was definately the little guy with the big mouth.

It's rare now. It's hard for me to be the little guy when I'm just so darn big but this woman, she was EASILY twice my size (sideways anyway). The confrontation was...well, I guess it was "special".

First you need some background. I'm at the Racetrac. Now for those of you who don't know, Racetrac is much like a Mini Mart or a 7-11. It's a convenience store / gas station. They are running a wonderful promotion where you spend $6.99 on a 22 oz insulated mug and they let you refill it for free all summer long (I've refilled mine 93 times so far - I'm shooting for the Guniess book). Anyway, that's all the background you need.

So I go into Racetrac to fill my cup. I round the corner to get to the soda fountain with my spiffy "fill it as much as you want" cup. I'm a happy guy about to get yet another free soda.

To my immediate right there is a woman with a child filling up a drink. Directly in front of me there is this battleship of a woman standing with her hands on her hips. One elbo is in the corn chips, the other is about 7 inches past the line completed by the woman/child combo filling the drinks.

I notice the arm with the elbow in the corn chips has a "free refill" cup in it (everyone is doing it).

In my judgement a quick arm retraction followed by a half step to the right and I can scoot right by and get to the diet coke so with a big smile I say those magic words "Excuse me please!"

Wall woman pushes her arms out another inch or two, furrows her brow and states "I'm standing here waiting becasue they are out of Dr. Pepper".

"So you are..." I respond, not yet aware that the stand isn't a waiting stance but an agressive attempt to block me from the isle "...so can I get by?".

"I'm not moving until they change the thing and I can get some Dr Pepper" she states boldly.

"Let me get this straight. You are not going to let me get to the soda machine unless or until you get them to change the Dr Pepper surup?" I ask (still polite but now with puzzled face instead of a smile).

"I'm not moving" she states and glares at me.

In an obvious gesture I roll my eyes, back track around the corn chip rack, down the cookie isle, past the donut dispenser and the front counter, around the corner to the other side of the soda machine where although I can't reach the caffine free diet coke, I can get to the other kind.

I fill my cup, pop the lid on and start through the hole to the right of the Dr Pepper protest lady (the hole vacated now that the woman with the little kid have vacated) and as I do the human road block does a studder step to try and block my way.

Decision point. I could accelerate one step, get by and be on my way or I could stop and do the little guy with a big mouth thing.

Surprise! I do the accelerated step narrowly miss the approaching elbow but making it by. I go out to my truck, put the new refill in my cup holder and then I stop and reflect a moment.

The big mouth guy took over. I closed the door on my SUV and headed back in.

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion to our exciting story (and post a comment if you are amused so far).

Death & Reserection

Death

Either you are terrified by it or you are not paying attention. I know this is about you because you are reading this. It's about your computer. Imagine you are creating a document and FLASH! The computer screen goes dark.

You reboot. It runs about 90 seconds and blanks out again. You never get to the point where you need to log on. It always blanks out and you can't get in anymore.

That's what happened to me Thursday at 4:50 p.m. As most of you would, my mind goes straight to "what did I lose". It had been just over a week since my last major backup. I had some minor backup files on a memory stick and a portable hard drive but my mind was stuck on what I might have lost.

Later that night I discovered I could interrupt the boot process, get to a command prompt, and copy a file or two before the machine augered in. After many re-boots I managed to snag all the files that were not current in my backup.

I was lucky (mostly because I had backups because of past times when I lost it all) but my computer was still just as dead.

Resurrection

The next day I started the task of getting to root cause. The technical details should be boring for you so we will jump right to the bottom line. It was the video card that died. Here's why...

There is this fan on the video card that keeps it cool. The fan stopped turning. The board would get hot and shut down. When it shut down the screen would blank out.

In finding it I had to blow on the card the whole time the computer was coming up. Doing that I accomplished two things. First, I got the computer to stay up long enough to backup the rest of my files. Second I got such a head rush that I nearly fell down.

I looked things up and found that I had 24 days left on my warranty. After 2 and a half hours on the phone with a guy from India who didn't want to start with a solution and was confused by big words like "data buss" and "cooling fan" I finally got HP to ship a new card. They would ship the card next day but unfortunately I had to wait 2 weeks for a tech to come put it in.

Why, you might ask, would I need a tech to put it in when I removed it (and the memory and many other components) during my troubleshooting efforts? I would ask that too but they wanted to charge me for the card if I installed it myself. If their guy puts it in they paid for everything (so they get to pay their guy for a house call).

So will I accept two weeks without a computer while I waited for the guy? Perhaps a mere mortal would but for me, it wasn't the right option.

I figured out that all I needed to do was blow on the card for 2 weeks the way I blew on it during my full backup. So that's what I'm doing...

The case is on the desktop with the case open (heat rises) so I can blow on the video card.

...and this is how I blow in it (I didn't like the head rush that almost made me fall down).

Actually - The problem was he didn't talk enough

I have to do a bit of a self reprimand here. I've done a post of facebook every now and then but I've been terrible at writing posts for a while.

Now I've got some excuses and some aren't really all that bad but I'll not bore you with them. Well, I'll tell you about one of them. About a year ago I purchased a new "home" computer (my old that I got in 2001 one had died). About that time HP asked me to move out of the office and work from home. As it worked out my new "home" computer became a work computer.

Well the other day my home computer died and I had to set up another configruation for a work comptuer. As it happened I've been looking at tablet PCs and I found just the right one so I purchased it and now I'm setting it up a a "Totally Personal Computer". No work stuff.

I'm also setting it up outside the office so it can't get sucked into the work ifrastructure.

Hopefully it will support my new goal to write a minimum of 3-5 posts per week.

I expect you can't expect many readers if you don't write...

Yours for only $25,000

Some folks go to Wal-mart or a bike shop and end up with the same thing. Me, I save up $25,000 and build a little workshop where I can build it myself, almost for free (I spent about a dollar and a half on clamps, another dollar on the rubber pad). What I ended up with was a stereo for my bicycle (because everyone needs tunes on the bike).

When my family rides a bike it isn't a quick lap around the block. A short ride is 8 or 9 miles. A long ride is more like 60 miles. That means a bike ride takes hours. I've been thinking for a while that miles on the bike would be nicer with FM Radio or listening to my CDs.

Here's my solution.

It started with an idea and a piece of sheet metal. I fashioned a bracket that looked like this:

I mount the bracket to the bike using a couple of hose clamps ($1.42 worth).


Then I put wire an old bungee to the bracket (note the holes in the top for the bungee). This will hold the music machine on the bike in a way that will allow me to take it off easily.


Add a set of portable stereo speakers (with volume control of course - first class all the way)

I put in a rubber pad so things don't all vibrate as we hit the rough parts of the road...

Add the FM Radio / MP3 Player (this one is a Creative Labs Zen):

Hold it in place with the bungee, wire it up (a big job of plugging the speakers into the Zen):




...and you end up with a sweet ride with a GPS, FM Radio, and 8 gigabytes of classic rock to get me down the road.

When I took my test drive I pushed the play button and REO Speedwagon started singing "Keep Pushing On" to me. I expect I will stop at that big hill just prior to the finish line on Sunday, find that song, and put it on repeat for the trek up that last hill (when my legs are rubber and I'm breathing hard). It will take me past the finish!

Have you made your MS 150 donation to my little daughter? If you want to support me in my ride (while listening to tunes and sweating profusely because I'm fat) please use this link...

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=5987570&fr_id=13371&pg=personal

Unplanned Vacation Stop

They start their day just like we do. Sometimes they are really upbeat anticipating another of the little things. Maybe a grandchild just took some first steps. Maybe UPS was bringing an eagerly anticipated package today with a tool or a new cook book.

They get dressed like they always do. They start working through their task list like they always do. Right up until it happens the day is routine.

Less than a dozen hours later a complete stranger meets them for the first time. The stranger notices the little things like the fact they got a hair cut earlier in the day. Judging by the way they are dressed the stranger could speculate on what kind of a day they had planned, but speculation is all the stranger has.

The stranger's day was interrupted by them. It is the cause of another unplanned late night followed by an early morning. The stranger knows that tomorrow will be one of those days we all endure from time to them when we are running a quart low on sleep.

The stranger, however, doesn't mind. The hour and a half they had together started with intense focus on the task at hand and finishes right after the harvested organ is placed in the container for shipment. The stranger thanks them, right out loud, for the kindness and forethought that made the whole procedure possible. It's a thank you from the heart knowing that in less than 24 hours a completely different stranger will have the single most horrible nightmare of THEIR life end because of this precious gift that cost everything.

Unexpected, tragic, generous, loving. All at the same time.

As the stranger drives away they ponder the cloths, the hair cut, the unknown variables of appointments missed and the extremes of the family grief that will never be known. Powerful emotions that are held in a reservoir behind a dam of respect for this angel that had the presence to think of others before it was too late.

When real organ donation is witnessed it is a powerful, powerful thing. Perhaps a prayer of thanks for the giver would be a good use of your time right about now.

Apparently She Wasn't a Single Mom

We have this nest right outside our window. Every year Michelle enjoys watching the cycle. Earlier I posted a picture as a bird sat on the nest and hid from me as I tried to take a picture.



Today she had a visitor. Apparently she isn't alone in this project.

Much Better Than It Looks

Here's what it looks like when you throw a belt and then drive on it a while.

Normally I suppose this would be a bad thing but we got lucky. Michelle's tire blew on the way home but it managed to do it as she turned on the last street coming toward our house (so she was going quite slow)...But that wasn't the good part.

The good part was we had a warranty and although the tire was pretty warn Discount tire gave us a 50% pro-rate and we got replacement tires (2 of them) for about $35 each. Sometimes bad luck is still good.

This might be fun!

Here's a new feature. Try and guess what this is a picture of! Do your entry and in a couple of days I'll post a perspective that might help your guess.

Maybe THIS way I can get some comments.

I Guess It Used to be Green

It's finally warming up in Texas and I'm doing out door things again. I played two rounds of disc golf this week. I threw 5 (count em, five!) discs in the water (very windy on the Allen course this weekend) and Michelle walked 5, in the Walk MS.

Then this afternoon I got back out in the shop. My old truck is still there so I started working on it again. I finished sanding the bumper, pulled off the emblems and took out the head lights. Next I started sanding. As you can see, red isn't the original color (no real surprise there - red wasn't a color option in 1954.

Earth Hour

I got an email today. It said the following:

Hi Everyone

Earth Hour 2010 will take place on Saturday March 27, 2010 from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, wherever you are in the world. This is the invite for you to do your part by turning off your lights and minimizing energy usage during Earth Hour.
For more check it out at http://www.earthhour.org/homepage.aspx?o=ignore

Enjoy the darkness!!

I wrote right back! Here's my response!

Seriously? Didn't you take any physics? Energy can't be consumed, only converted. The way I see it, energy is bored most of the time and it's our job to entertain it. Imagine spending 2.4 billion years tied up in a hydro-carbon state and totally bored. They dig you up. Still bored. Truck ride to the hopper. Still bored. Loaded on the train. Still bored (but granted all this is better than the 2 billion years in the ground). Now you get to the coal fired power plant and the good stuff starts.

You get to be converted to heat and then excite some bored water molecule so much that it converts from liquid to gas. The water then "pays it forward" by spinning a turbine and helping some other poor schmoe out in the ether get to be converted into electricity, travel across a wire, converted again into light, then shot back out into the ether. Excitement for the energy in the magnetic induction. Excitement for the water molecule. Excitement for the kinetic energy in the turbine bearings getting converted to heat because of friction.

I'm not making this up. In physics they even talk about molecules getting excited as thing heat up because they get to move around more.

You want to do the earth a favor? For crying out loud! The whole darn thing is made of matter and matter is made up of energy (just ask those folks who split the atom). Do the earth a favor by doing your part (even though your part is small) in offering the earth a little excitement!

Get out there and convert some hydro-carbon!

Photography Lesson #3 - Depth of Field

Michelle and I are working our way through a photography class together. This assignment was about playing with lighting and shooting a still life. I came up with three things worth writing about in doing this assignment. My first one is about depth of field.

This is essentially the same picture. I had the camera on a tripod and took the picture with a small aperture (F22) and a large one (F1.8). This made for different shutter speeds but the depth of field change makes it a completely different picture.

This first picture (to me, anyway) is a photo of a the front of my pickup with some tools in front of it. My eye goes right to the Chevy emblem, then to the yellow sander.

Aperture is f/22

I want to show you the same picture with different depth of field. When I look at this picture the pickup more or less goes away. Sure, it's still there but because if it out of focus my eye goes straight to the sander (probably because it's yellow) and from there to the dust mask. The picture becomes something different. It is now a still life picture of tools.

Aperture is f/1.8

Your choices in depth of field have everything about what your picture becomes. I can make you look at different things by using focus, but only if I'm controlling depth of field. When everything is in focus other factors decide where you look.

If you're convinced depth of field is all about controlling where people look, you are not completely right. Depth of field done correctly will make you look where I want you to look but sometimes, when you turn all the control over to the camera you can create a picture that can only be described as "bad". Let me show you what I mean...

If you look at this picture it is just annoying. At first glance you might not even realize why. The composition is wrong because there is too much stuff in the frame and it isn't arranged correctly. As a result the picture is cluttered in confusing. That is annoying but is not as the focus problem.

Your eye is drawn to the yellow sander but it's not in focus. The whole front row is fuzzy and annoying. The dust mask in the back is kind of in focus but even it is off a bit. I half pressed the shutter button 3 times (making it choose different spots to focus on). Ultimately when I took the picture I had let it "choose" to focus on the stripping tool in the right rear corner.

Look at the enlarged version of this picture. The stripping disk is in great focus but it's such a minor part of the composition it does nothing but make this bad picture worse.

In summary, the learning point here is that you can use depth of field to control what folks are looking at in your photographs. Done correctly it's a nice tool for turning your pictures into whatever you want them to be but done wrong it can make your pictures really bad.

In Case You're Wondering...

Kroger had pork picnics for 88 cents a pound (limit 2). Fiesta had pork butt for 77 cents a pound (limit 3). I read the ad and kept seeing the word "Sausage". I'm down to my last 5 pounds of Italian.

We got all 5 (2 from Kroger, 3 from Fiesta). Total weight (still in the package) was 45 pounds. Michelle and I boned it out and cut it into chunks that will fit in my meat grinder. The loss was 13.3% and we just put 39 pounds of "ready to grind" pork into the freezer.

This means we're going to have lots of sausage at the Crawfords so for a limited time I'll play "let's make a deal". I will trade 2 pounds of my home made sausage (Italian, Breakfast, Polish, Bratwurst or William Tell Polish) for a whole chicken (don't care how small or big) which I will donate to the food bank.

Those of you who have tried my sausage - stop drooling on yourselves. Those of you who haven't tried it...this window is rare. People who try my sausage often ask to buy some. I always give the same answer:

"I don't sell it. If I sell the stuff it stops being a hobby and starts being work" That means this offer is not only a limited time - it's finite in nature. You snooze you lose.

Photography Lesson #2 - Using Shutter Speed

Use The Shutter to Show Motion

I suppose most photographers already get that to freeze motion in a picture like this you must use a fast shutter speed. In this case I cranked the ISO up to 6400, put on my low light prime lens and took the shot at one five hundredth of a second.

1/500th second @ f1.8

There is another technique where you can use shutter speed for on the other end of the scale - showing motion.

Last weekend Michelle and I went out on a photo expedition. We were taking pictures of a windmill (see Photography Lesson #1 - The Magic 15). While we were shooting a very gentle breeze was blowing. The blades on the windmill were lazily turning at a speed of maybe a single revolution every half minute to a minute. By shooting a picture of them with a 1/125th shutter speed all motion was gone:

1/125th Second - f8 - ISO-200

I then decided I wanted a picture that showed some blade motion. To do this I needed a much slower shutter speed. As it turned out, there was far too much light during the bright part of the day to get the effect I wanted. In a situation like this you could use a .9 neutral density filter which does not change any of the colors but adds 4 f-stops of "darkness" to the picture. Using such a filter would have allowed the shutter speed I needed but in this case I didn't have one so I had to wait until the sun was starting to set (and there was less direct sunlight).

1/10 second - f32 - ISO 100

As you can see from this picture, changing the shutter speed to a tenth of a second gives the impression that the blades are turning. I hand held the camera for the 1/125th exposure above but needed a tripod to shoot the tenth of a second shutter speed.

Increasing the time the aperture is open will suggest even more motion. In this final picture, the shutter speed is twice as long (1/5th second) as it is in the picture above: