...or whoever you are with.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Thursday, November 9, 2006
Autumn Lunchtime Walk
My longing to escape the ruckus of mankind has brought me closer to it today as I visited a park near my workplace over the lunch hour. It is a semi-wooded setting with a pond, teeming with ducks and squirrels. It is surrounded on three sides by residential homes and bordered by a major freeway exchange. So this place where I would go to ponder on the beauty of God's creation is blanketed by the neverending deluge of a million roaring tires. Egads! The earth itself throbs when the big trucks jackbreak. Even the air, which should be filled with the earthy smell of decomposing leaves, carries the faint aroma of a nearby fast food resteraunt.
Yet here still beauty survives. Corralled by asphault walking trails and concrete retaining walls, nature waits patiently for mankind to kill itself off, so that it may start anew.
Yet here still beauty survives. Corralled by asphault walking trails and concrete retaining walls, nature waits patiently for mankind to kill itself off, so that it may start anew.
Friday, October 27, 2006
How Semi-Sweet it was
A notebook jotting from last saturday, written while sitting on a fallen tree somewhere in the middle of the St. Croix state Forest:
Tolkien was not mad when he wrote about trees conversing with one another. Anyone who has spent time in the forest (and has cared to observe) knows that this is an authentic and completely natural occurence.
In the summer they give themselves raucous standing ovations with their emerald gloves, as they sway like drunkards in the warm, narcotic breeze.
In autumn they drop their leaves, each one like a neighborhood watch flyer, creating a communal burglar alarm for the use of all forest residents.
In winter they speak very little, mostly just groans as they rub against each other for warmth.
But in spring they will crack open their buds and don their gloves once more, with all the enthusiasm of a tent-revival crowd about to be born yet again.
I have no idea why, but chocolate always tastes better in the woods.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Get out of town
155 years ago today Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal:
So it is with journeys of the imagination. The truly remarkable destinations can only be reached by undertaking the journey on your own two feet, "Hoofing it" as I have conditioned my son to refer to it. Mental prostheses such as TV, Movies and Video Games cheapen the value of the excursion and convert the remarkable to mundane as the landscape is paved over for these vehicles of the imagination. The landmarks become familar and are blown past thoughtlessly.
There is a lake that I drive past every morning on my way to work. I would not notice it all except that I sit at a red light across the street from it every morning. That same view of the lake every single day has become like the face of a friend to me, one that reflects the mood of the day's weather. Some days the lake gives me nothing but a blank stare, with overcast grey eyes. Other days a Davinci-like smirk, as though the sunfish are swimming in the shallows and their dorsal fins are tickling her cheekbones.
Today is sunny and brisk, the changing of the leaves showing up just in the tops of the trees, like the inevitable grey that appears in the hair. All of this was reflected in the face of the lake, which stares at me every morning from across the street like a lunatic, unable to recollect that we passed each other by in this same fashion yesterday and the day before that.
I quietly post this from behind my monitor at lunchtime and do not discuss it with my colleagues. They would not understand. As the landscape of the imagination is paved over and only universally-recognized landmarks are allowed to remain, the odd little nooks and crannies are shunned by the herd.
An imaginary relationship with a lake is nothing to brag about around the water cooler, unless you would prefer to be left alone. And even though I blend into the crowd, I still harbor my imagination and my private thoughts like contraband. Because after all, even a secret relationship with a lake is better than no relationship at all.
Such is the case with all forbidden loves of the mind; they come streaming through the mire of every day life in technicolor, mottling the forest floor of your thoughts like a rays of sunlight. So delicate that even the slightest cloud in the sky can iterdict them and leave you in the gloom, waiting impatiently for that next sunbeam to break through so that you may bolt down the trail in pursuit.
"The poet must keep himself unstained and aloof. Let him perambulate the bounds of Imagination's provinces, the realm of faery, and not the insignificant boundaries of towns. The excursions of the imagination are so boundless, the limits of the town so petty."Years ago in some journal I myself observed that some of the best places in the world that you can go to you can only reach via gravel roads. I would add that greater still are those places yet beyond, that can only be reached on foot.
So it is with journeys of the imagination. The truly remarkable destinations can only be reached by undertaking the journey on your own two feet, "Hoofing it" as I have conditioned my son to refer to it. Mental prostheses such as TV, Movies and Video Games cheapen the value of the excursion and convert the remarkable to mundane as the landscape is paved over for these vehicles of the imagination. The landmarks become familar and are blown past thoughtlessly.
There is a lake that I drive past every morning on my way to work. I would not notice it all except that I sit at a red light across the street from it every morning. That same view of the lake every single day has become like the face of a friend to me, one that reflects the mood of the day's weather. Some days the lake gives me nothing but a blank stare, with overcast grey eyes. Other days a Davinci-like smirk, as though the sunfish are swimming in the shallows and their dorsal fins are tickling her cheekbones.
Today is sunny and brisk, the changing of the leaves showing up just in the tops of the trees, like the inevitable grey that appears in the hair. All of this was reflected in the face of the lake, which stares at me every morning from across the street like a lunatic, unable to recollect that we passed each other by in this same fashion yesterday and the day before that.
I quietly post this from behind my monitor at lunchtime and do not discuss it with my colleagues. They would not understand. As the landscape of the imagination is paved over and only universally-recognized landmarks are allowed to remain, the odd little nooks and crannies are shunned by the herd.
An imaginary relationship with a lake is nothing to brag about around the water cooler, unless you would prefer to be left alone. And even though I blend into the crowd, I still harbor my imagination and my private thoughts like contraband. Because after all, even a secret relationship with a lake is better than no relationship at all.
Such is the case with all forbidden loves of the mind; they come streaming through the mire of every day life in technicolor, mottling the forest floor of your thoughts like a rays of sunlight. So delicate that even the slightest cloud in the sky can iterdict them and leave you in the gloom, waiting impatiently for that next sunbeam to break through so that you may bolt down the trail in pursuit.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Draw Your Own Conclusions
In a speech on September 12 in Germany The pope enraged Muslims by quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
Since then:
These same muslims that I have talked to are also very quick to point out the ruthlessness of the Christian church (Specifically the Catholics) throughout history from the crusades up until now. As an in-law to the Filipino community I have heard many tales of abuse and exploitations of the Filipino people at the hands of the Catholic church. Each story has left me shaking my head and contemplating Mark 8:36 and thinking to myself that even under the authority of the church, these clergy who terrorized the Filipino people could not have been true Christians.
Perhaps then too not all who claim to be muslims or do violence in the name of Allah are truly muslims.
Oh by the way:
Since then:
- On Sunday 09/17/2006 an Italian nun and her bodyguard were murdered in a children's hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia - The nun was shot three times in the back.
- An al Qaeda group in Egypt called for the German-born pope, who is 79, to be punished by "strict Islamic Shariah law" for insulting their religion.
- An al Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq has vowed war on "worshippers of the cross."
- Seven Catholic churches in the Palestinian territories were vandalized this past weekend.
These same muslims that I have talked to are also very quick to point out the ruthlessness of the Christian church (Specifically the Catholics) throughout history from the crusades up until now. As an in-law to the Filipino community I have heard many tales of abuse and exploitations of the Filipino people at the hands of the Catholic church. Each story has left me shaking my head and contemplating Mark 8:36 and thinking to myself that even under the authority of the church, these clergy who terrorized the Filipino people could not have been true Christians.
Perhaps then too not all who claim to be muslims or do violence in the name of Allah are truly muslims.
Oh by the way:
"Benedict's main point - and few have noted this - is that the West, unless it recovers a vision of God, cannot engage in a fruitful dialogue with the other great cultures of the world, which have a basic religious conviction about reality. Among these great cultures, of course, is Islam. His entire talk was focused on this point."
(Excerpt from an article by Dr . Robert Moynihan)
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
River Hypnosis
The dharma bum posted a nice fly-fishing piece on his blog today. Just reading it left me with river hypnosis, that mild vertigo-like feeling that you get after you've stared at running water for too long. I first experienced it on the rum river in the 90's, skipping spinnerbaits under overhanging trees for smallies from a jonboat. More recently experienced these past two summers an streams in southern MN doing a lot of what the dharma bum described (Especially the part where he 'Indiana-Jonesed' an overhanging branch on a back cast).
His ending point, where he was at the end of his excursion, at the end of his fly fishing for the summer - that we cannot take it with us - Is a universal experience that I think all lovers of the outdoors can personally relate with. In the end, we are just visitors and eventually we have to go home. But the feeling is not unique to fishing - Everyone goes through the same thing at some level whenever they awaken from a particularly nice dream or a meaningful song comes to an end. Fisherman (& their partners) come and go with the seasons, but the land and the stream remain, and the fish that was released or spooked today will be back at his rock tomorrow and life will go on.
I choose to be encouraged by that thought rather than disappointed by it. Allthough that was not always the case.
In my younger years I foolishly considered any time spent on the water (or out in nature in general) to be my own personal experiences, with a beginning to be anticipated and an end to be dreaded. I never realized that my time was just a brief interval in a much larger experience, one that started eons before I was born and will end long after I am dead.
In the end, an "experience" may be the only way that we can rationally describe our finite interactions with things timeless and vast. It's no easy task to shift one's perspective of thinking of an experience as being anything more a minute unit of measurement, describing something that is still going on even now, minutes, days or years later. It's no easy task but it does make for interesting writing.
Music and dreams - Along with any other inspiration to the human spirit - flow like streams in our minds, just as surely as nature goes on around us with or without our participation. The rocks, the silt, the weeds and the fish are all still there, even when our lives take us elsewhere. That's what staring at moving water for hours at a time has taught me.
Bring on ice hole hypnosis!
His ending point, where he was at the end of his excursion, at the end of his fly fishing for the summer - that we cannot take it with us - Is a universal experience that I think all lovers of the outdoors can personally relate with. In the end, we are just visitors and eventually we have to go home. But the feeling is not unique to fishing - Everyone goes through the same thing at some level whenever they awaken from a particularly nice dream or a meaningful song comes to an end. Fisherman (& their partners) come and go with the seasons, but the land and the stream remain, and the fish that was released or spooked today will be back at his rock tomorrow and life will go on.
I choose to be encouraged by that thought rather than disappointed by it. Allthough that was not always the case.
In my younger years I foolishly considered any time spent on the water (or out in nature in general) to be my own personal experiences, with a beginning to be anticipated and an end to be dreaded. I never realized that my time was just a brief interval in a much larger experience, one that started eons before I was born and will end long after I am dead.
In the end, an "experience" may be the only way that we can rationally describe our finite interactions with things timeless and vast. It's no easy task to shift one's perspective of thinking of an experience as being anything more a minute unit of measurement, describing something that is still going on even now, minutes, days or years later. It's no easy task but it does make for interesting writing.
Music and dreams - Along with any other inspiration to the human spirit - flow like streams in our minds, just as surely as nature goes on around us with or without our participation. The rocks, the silt, the weeds and the fish are all still there, even when our lives take us elsewhere. That's what staring at moving water for hours at a time has taught me.
Bring on ice hole hypnosis!
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Bandwidth & Diskspace
I'm getting "up there" in terms of my available disk space with my current hosting package. In an effort to make room I am going to make use of services such as google video. What that means to the four people who read this blog is that instead of seeing an embedded object that is hosted somewhere within the same root directory as the serving page, you will see an embedded object coming from somewhere else, namely google video.
In other words you shouldn't notice any difference, unless you are running Internet explorer with a high security profile.
By the way, why are 60% of you using internet explorer? You really should try Firefox.
While I am on the subject, which one of you is using Linux?
I am watching you through the screen, that's why they call it a monitor.
OK, nerd-talk is over, talk again soon.
In other words you shouldn't notice any difference, unless you are running Internet explorer with a high security profile.
By the way, why are 60% of you using internet explorer? You really should try Firefox.
While I am on the subject, which one of you is using Linux?
I am watching you through the screen, that's why they call it a monitor.
OK, nerd-talk is over, talk again soon.
Friday, September 1, 2006
Perfection
A great quote from Henry David Thoreau,
over at The Blog of Henry David Thoreau:
"Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit."
This quote led me to think of our society's opulence, how we have become perfectionists who dig through the fruit bins looking for the unblemished specimens while spotted fruit gets moved to the side and ultimately is thrown out. All this goes on in our nation on a daily basis while a part of the larger world starves. To meet our demand and to get our dollars the food growers have responded by increasing the use of pesticides, preservatives and artificial fertilizers (Insert Joni Mitchell lyrics here).
I'm part of that system and most likely you are too. I only bring this up because I have been wracking my brain around finding my own way out of the system, to get my family to the point where we can choose what level we will participate in the economy. We are doing quite well for ourselves but I continue to have the uncomfortable awareness that if prices were to skyrocket without a signifigant change in our income or God forbid there was a downturn in our income due to layoff or illness, we would fold up. Not right away, not even in six months (at current market rates), but savings can only last for a finite period and even that is uncertain if you introduce a scenario where the dollar plummets in value.
The gold standard is worthless if nobody is interested in buying any gold. What carries intrinsic value that would survive a market crash? Corn on the stalk, potatoes in the ground and animals in the field.
There are plenty of blogs out there with a lot of people trying to find their own paths away from dependence on the market based economy. This one, my blog, isn't really one of them. It's pretty much an over glorified cat blog. But nevertheless I will continue to document this attempt of mine to shift my paradigm (In between posting pictures of flowers).
inconsistent, obscure and hebephrenic.
That's my promise to you.
PS - That's a really nice service that some poor soul is doing, over at that Thoreau blog. You should really go check it out. I wish that blogging existed back in the days of the founding fathers up through civil war time. I bet Franklin would have cranked out 3-5 posts a day.
over at The Blog of Henry David Thoreau:
"Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit."
This quote led me to think of our society's opulence, how we have become perfectionists who dig through the fruit bins looking for the unblemished specimens while spotted fruit gets moved to the side and ultimately is thrown out. All this goes on in our nation on a daily basis while a part of the larger world starves. To meet our demand and to get our dollars the food growers have responded by increasing the use of pesticides, preservatives and artificial fertilizers (Insert Joni Mitchell lyrics here).
I'm part of that system and most likely you are too. I only bring this up because I have been wracking my brain around finding my own way out of the system, to get my family to the point where we can choose what level we will participate in the economy. We are doing quite well for ourselves but I continue to have the uncomfortable awareness that if prices were to skyrocket without a signifigant change in our income or God forbid there was a downturn in our income due to layoff or illness, we would fold up. Not right away, not even in six months (at current market rates), but savings can only last for a finite period and even that is uncertain if you introduce a scenario where the dollar plummets in value.
The gold standard is worthless if nobody is interested in buying any gold. What carries intrinsic value that would survive a market crash? Corn on the stalk, potatoes in the ground and animals in the field.
There are plenty of blogs out there with a lot of people trying to find their own paths away from dependence on the market based economy. This one, my blog, isn't really one of them. It's pretty much an over glorified cat blog. But nevertheless I will continue to document this attempt of mine to shift my paradigm (In between posting pictures of flowers).
inconsistent, obscure and hebephrenic.
That's my promise to you.
PS - That's a really nice service that some poor soul is doing, over at that Thoreau blog. You should really go check it out. I wish that blogging existed back in the days of the founding fathers up through civil war time. I bet Franklin would have cranked out 3-5 posts a day.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Homebody
While waiting for the coals last night I walked around
my house and this is what I saw.
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
I never knew...
That plants can smile.
Meanwhile, in the garage...
My collection of retired ice fishing utilities. I used an old tobaggan as a wall hanging and attached the various items that I have collected over the years, including a swedish spoon (That actually was what I used for drilling holes for my first two winters), an old Jon-E handwarmer with vintage fuel can, various jigsticks and an old single-mantle lantern (needs a new generator and pump seal)
my house and this is what I saw.
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
Still have a few minutes to kill.
Snow on the mountain is taking nicely.
Bleeding heart, offering up some late-season blooms.
The planter has grown a beard.
I never knew...
That plants can smile.
Meanwhile, in the garage...
My collection of retired ice fishing utilities. I used an old tobaggan as a wall hanging and attached the various items that I have collected over the years, including a swedish spoon (That actually was what I used for drilling holes for my first two winters), an old Jon-E handwarmer with vintage fuel can, various jigsticks and an old single-mantle lantern (needs a new generator and pump seal)
My Bike.
An old Trek Elance 400 that just turned 20 this year.
The child's bike.
Garage sale special, 2 whopping dollars. SCORE!
The wife's bike.
Even cheaper: Free from a friend, including the brain bucket.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
It wasn't Fair
It's not that I have anything against the Minnesota State Fair. It's just that when I thought about going this year I could not think for the life of me of any reason why (Except for end-of-summer tradition) I would want to go there. Plus when you like to eat like I do, it's a good place to stay away from.
So this past weekend we did not:
This is what we did do:
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
So this past weekend we did not:
- Get lost in a crowd
- Eat anything that came on a stick
- Consume unthinkable amounts of grease & carbs
- Go to any concerts featuring washed-up '80's hair bands
- Look at any ponds containing large fish, swimming around in confused, aimless circles
- Collect shopping bags full of brochures for products that we will never purchase
This is what we did do:
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
1.) Both Friday night and Saturday night I listened to two nail-biter baseball games, the way that God intended: On a thirty year-old AM radio while tinkering in the garage.
2.) Saturday night we ate a ridiculously large amount of barbequed ribs. This Fred Flintstone-sized rack also gave us lunches for two days.
3.) After we ate part of a pig (Like pigs), we read about pigs.
4.) On Sunday afternoon we went on a bike ride.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The Spice of Life
Summer blooms continue unabated:
My spice garden looks like a sheep that has been sheared:
This past weekend I tried my hand at dehydrating lemon peel:
Here is that lemon peel being used on the tuna steak that I cooked for us last night. It imparted a zestiness to the fish that was not overpowering. High five to me!
My spice garden looks like a sheep that has been sheared:
This past weekend I tried my hand at dehydrating lemon peel:
Here is that lemon peel being used on the tuna steak that I cooked for us last night. It imparted a zestiness to the fish that was not overpowering. High five to me!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
What can the matter be?
Space.com put out an article about dark matter this week in which astronomers admit that what we can see with our own eyes makes up only a small portion of the universe.
My favorite part of the article:
So in a nutshell, 95% of the universe is an invisible, unknowable force that keeps the other 5% of the universe (That's us and the billions of other galaxies) from falling apart.
...Does that sound like anyone you know?
Link:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060821_dark_matter.html
My favorite part of the article:
A preposterous proposition
The normal matter in the cosmos - atoms that make up stars, planets, air and life - accounts for only a small fraction of what must exist, based on the fact that without an additional source of gravity, galaxies would fly apart and galaxy clusters could not hold together as they do. Nobody knows where all that gravity comes from, so scientists say there must be some invisible stuff out there, which they call dark matter. Its presence is indirectly supported by many observations. Given what's known, this is the makeup of the universe:
* 5 percent normal matter
* 25 percent dark matter
* 70 percent dark energy
So in a nutshell, 95% of the universe is an invisible, unknowable force that keeps the other 5% of the universe (That's us and the billions of other galaxies) from falling apart.
...Does that sound like anyone you know?
Link:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060821_dark_matter.html
Monday, August 21, 2006
The Stork strikes again
My friend Johnna had her son on August 14:
"..He squealed in at 4lbs 6.7oz with a whopping height of 17 1/4 inches. His Apgar Scores were 9/9 and he has been able to breathe on his own without any assistance. He was transferred from the NICU to the Continuing Care Nursery in just 3 days. We just need him to stay awake long enough to eat so he can gain weight."
"..He squealed in at 4lbs 6.7oz with a whopping height of 17 1/4 inches. His Apgar Scores were 9/9 and he has been able to breathe on his own without any assistance. He was transferred from the NICU to the Continuing Care Nursery in just 3 days. We just need him to stay awake long enough to eat so he can gain weight."
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Speeding Ticket
Note to all Twin Cities motorists who travel 694:
Watch your speed, because the 5-0 are using lasers.
This morning:
78 in a 60, first ticket in nearly 7 years. Unexpected expense, conflict within the household and now my budget for the fall trip is otherwise spoken for, as in there isn't going to be one for me this year.
Crap.
Watch your speed, because the 5-0 are using lasers.
This morning:
78 in a 60, first ticket in nearly 7 years. Unexpected expense, conflict within the household and now my budget for the fall trip is otherwise spoken for, as in there isn't going to be one for me this year.
Crap.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Hobgoblins of the mind
For the last two nights the same dream:
The wife, child and I are in some type of industrial building that has been converted into residential lofts. We are being pursued by four hellhounds, large sinister dogs that look like a cross between a great dane and a german shepherd with charcoal grey teeth and red glowing eyes. They stalk us slowly with hackles raised, letting out gutteral growls, woofs and howls. As they systematically block our escape routes without attacking, they force us through corridors that we do not wish to travel. It is clear that they are making sport of us and positioning us for the kill.
We finally panic and bolt into one of the lofts with the hounds in pursuit. The two exit points are an elevator and a doorway at the top of a long flight of metal stairs where we came in. The wife and child take shelter behind the door to the loo and I find myself perched on a timber jutting out from the brick wall, twenty feet or more above the hardwood floor. We are trapped.
I take stock of my situation. The wife and child are safe behind the door for the moment. One of the hellhounds guards the doorway to my family and another sits on the landing, staring me down with a continuous growl. The other two hounds pace back and forth below me, waiting for me to fall. Normal science not applying (This being a dream after all) I am able to maintain my position forever and the scenario is effectively a stalemate.
The two hellhounds below me manage to trap themselves in the elevator. Seeing no alternative, I jump over to the staircase to confront the hound that is guarding me.
As my feet come down on the landing I see that The hellhound is actually a Lhasa Apso. It does not so much charge as it does waddle up to me. I promptly boot the thing like an NFL placekicker, into the brick wall on the far side of the loft. It lands behind a credenza (I have no idea whose place this is) with a thump.
The last hellhound covers the distance in a flash. It has also changed, this one still carrying the german shepherd traits but now looking more like a black lab mix. His teeth are white and his eyes are a puzzled brown. He is a juvenile pup and unsure of himself or my authority. I command him to SIT and he obeys sheepishly, as though he expects to hear a terse word over the slipper that he has been chewing on while I was out.
I call my family out and we pass by the pup unmolested, and the dream ends with us letting ourselves out of the building.
Aside from the fact that I had the same dream two nights in a row, it was hardly remarkable. And what I thought about as I shaved this morning no more so, but nevertheless here it is: That when confronted straight-on rather than surrendered to or evaded, the Hobgoblins of the mind tend to undo themselves on their own, be far weaker than they appear and are subservient to the authority of reason.
The wife, child and I are in some type of industrial building that has been converted into residential lofts. We are being pursued by four hellhounds, large sinister dogs that look like a cross between a great dane and a german shepherd with charcoal grey teeth and red glowing eyes. They stalk us slowly with hackles raised, letting out gutteral growls, woofs and howls. As they systematically block our escape routes without attacking, they force us through corridors that we do not wish to travel. It is clear that they are making sport of us and positioning us for the kill.
We finally panic and bolt into one of the lofts with the hounds in pursuit. The two exit points are an elevator and a doorway at the top of a long flight of metal stairs where we came in. The wife and child take shelter behind the door to the loo and I find myself perched on a timber jutting out from the brick wall, twenty feet or more above the hardwood floor. We are trapped.
I take stock of my situation. The wife and child are safe behind the door for the moment. One of the hellhounds guards the doorway to my family and another sits on the landing, staring me down with a continuous growl. The other two hounds pace back and forth below me, waiting for me to fall. Normal science not applying (This being a dream after all) I am able to maintain my position forever and the scenario is effectively a stalemate.
The two hellhounds below me manage to trap themselves in the elevator. Seeing no alternative, I jump over to the staircase to confront the hound that is guarding me.
As my feet come down on the landing I see that The hellhound is actually a Lhasa Apso. It does not so much charge as it does waddle up to me. I promptly boot the thing like an NFL placekicker, into the brick wall on the far side of the loft. It lands behind a credenza (I have no idea whose place this is) with a thump.
The last hellhound covers the distance in a flash. It has also changed, this one still carrying the german shepherd traits but now looking more like a black lab mix. His teeth are white and his eyes are a puzzled brown. He is a juvenile pup and unsure of himself or my authority. I command him to SIT and he obeys sheepishly, as though he expects to hear a terse word over the slipper that he has been chewing on while I was out.
I call my family out and we pass by the pup unmolested, and the dream ends with us letting ourselves out of the building.
Aside from the fact that I had the same dream two nights in a row, it was hardly remarkable. And what I thought about as I shaved this morning no more so, but nevertheless here it is: That when confronted straight-on rather than surrendered to or evaded, the Hobgoblins of the mind tend to undo themselves on their own, be far weaker than they appear and are subservient to the authority of reason.
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
So Now What?
My first reactions to this my "Oh Crap" moment were guilt and shame, followed up with an anger chaser. Yes, I have been told that we are running out of oil, just as I have been told that the hydrocarbon emissions are wreaking serious havoc on our atmosphere - It's one thing to know these things and quite another to know these things, if you follow. The problem is that these impending crises are treated more as a footnote rather than as a main subject, because the notion of radically changing our materialistic American lifestyle is not a popular topic in most circles (Why, now that's Commie-talk!).
To hear Bush tell us that we are addicted to oil and then not offer any leadership (Much less a tangible plan) for solving the problem is not for our own benefit. It is positioning for himself to be able to say "I told you so" later without having to deal with the problem now. He's protecting his legacy instead of us.
In my adulthood I have journeyed across the American political spectrums, and my passions have ranged from a "Just leave me alone" brand of ignorance to a "Somebody (other than me) should do something" type of caring to "A pox on both your houses" attitude of political withdrawl.
If you think about politics in America long enough you're bound to have an "Oh Crap" moment there too. It's all about popularity. Not a lot of Americans are going to vote for someone who tells them that they need to stop driving, to stop buying junk from overseas and to begin preparing to live a lot more localized sustainable existence. To survive in American politics you need to be a good whistler, because there are a lot of graveyards out there. Or, to paraphrase Richard Dreyfuss from the movie "Jaws," "We are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites us on the ass."
All this talk brings to mind 1 Corinthians 2:
"your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."
I don't know what type of insight I will be able to offer on the subjects of Peak oil and the inevitable decline in American lifestyle that will result from it. Right now I am calmly trying to dispel the knee-jerk reaction of thinking that the sky is going to fall tomorrow, so that when I do write about it I won't sound like a raving lunatic.
To hear Bush tell us that we are addicted to oil and then not offer any leadership (Much less a tangible plan) for solving the problem is not for our own benefit. It is positioning for himself to be able to say "I told you so" later without having to deal with the problem now. He's protecting his legacy instead of us.
In my adulthood I have journeyed across the American political spectrums, and my passions have ranged from a "Just leave me alone" brand of ignorance to a "Somebody (other than me) should do something" type of caring to "A pox on both your houses" attitude of political withdrawl.
If you think about politics in America long enough you're bound to have an "Oh Crap" moment there too. It's all about popularity. Not a lot of Americans are going to vote for someone who tells them that they need to stop driving, to stop buying junk from overseas and to begin preparing to live a lot more localized sustainable existence. To survive in American politics you need to be a good whistler, because there are a lot of graveyards out there. Or, to paraphrase Richard Dreyfuss from the movie "Jaws," "We are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites us on the ass."
All this talk brings to mind 1 Corinthians 2:
"your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."
I don't know what type of insight I will be able to offer on the subjects of Peak oil and the inevitable decline in American lifestyle that will result from it. Right now I am calmly trying to dispel the knee-jerk reaction of thinking that the sky is going to fall tomorrow, so that when I do write about it I won't sound like a raving lunatic.
Monday, August 7, 2006
"Oh Crap" moment
Do you know what an "Oh Crap!" moment is?
For me the most illustrative example I can take from my childhood is when I would find myself on a roller coaster, right before hitting the peak on that first big hill. The point where I would come to my senses and realize that I was moments away from taking a seriously scary-ass plunge down the other side of the hill.
It is a moment of clarity, where you realize that you are totally dependant on a whole slew of people that you don't know - The engineer who designed the coaster, the greasemonkey who takes care of it, the administrator in charge of paying the greasemonkey, et al - The point is, you got yourself into this mess and now you are going to have to ride it out and pray that everybody else has done their jobs.
"America is addicted to oil"
-George W. Bush
Who, me?
Pretty much everything I consume is procured by oil, and a startling amount of the crap I buy is made from the stuff. And such is the case with pretty much everyone I know personally. Most people who care to think about such things agree that oil is a finite resource. But if it's going to run out someday, how much do we have left and why isn't that information being talked about or made readily available?
The answer could lay in the notion that the earth, if farmed in a pre-industrial (Read: non-mechanized) capacity, can yield enough crops to feed about a billion people. With modern agribusiness, using mechanization and chemicals, we are straining to feed 6 billion people now, with the population growth showing no signs of slowing. Without trying to sound like a black helicopter lunatic from the fringe, I would submit to the four people who read this blog that there is the makings of a global crisis - If not within my own lifetime at least within my son's. Not talking about a global crisis that could wipe out 5 billion people is probably only partially a lunatic fringe conspiracy. I would say moreover it's not talked about because such an event is unspeakable.
Now my thoughts turn to home, where my heart is. My house is a suburban McMansion (It is quite modest by suburban McMansion standards, but nevertheless a palace compared to a homestead in rural Kentucky). It is heated with gas, depends on electricity for cooking & food storage and is serviced by city water & sewer. What this translates to (On the other side of the hill) is a dwelling that is isolated by great distance from my place of work, completely dependant on the grid. There are no alternatives in terms of heat, water, or waste removal. The real kick in the nuts is that my neighborhood is built on an old sod farm. The builders put about two inches of topsoil down on top of a bed of sand and laid sod. So in effect it is still a sod farm, one with houses. One that is costly in terms of the amount of water needed to keep the grass alive due to the poor water retention of the soil. I only bring this up because as attractive the thought of subsistence farming on my own land in order to augment my food supply, the simple fact is that as it is right now my land could not grow much besides a bumper crop of tumbleweed if it came right down to it.
Oh Crap.
I'll be posting more on this vein in the months to come. I feel as though I have been awakened, to the sound of something rattling around downstairs. I cannot in good conscience go back to sleep without investigating the sound that has brought me out of my dreaming. I sense that it is most likely that I will never go back to sleep again.
For me the most illustrative example I can take from my childhood is when I would find myself on a roller coaster, right before hitting the peak on that first big hill. The point where I would come to my senses and realize that I was moments away from taking a seriously scary-ass plunge down the other side of the hill.
It is a moment of clarity, where you realize that you are totally dependant on a whole slew of people that you don't know - The engineer who designed the coaster, the greasemonkey who takes care of it, the administrator in charge of paying the greasemonkey, et al - The point is, you got yourself into this mess and now you are going to have to ride it out and pray that everybody else has done their jobs.
"America is addicted to oil"
-George W. Bush
Who, me?
Pretty much everything I consume is procured by oil, and a startling amount of the crap I buy is made from the stuff. And such is the case with pretty much everyone I know personally. Most people who care to think about such things agree that oil is a finite resource. But if it's going to run out someday, how much do we have left and why isn't that information being talked about or made readily available?
The answer could lay in the notion that the earth, if farmed in a pre-industrial (Read: non-mechanized) capacity, can yield enough crops to feed about a billion people. With modern agribusiness, using mechanization and chemicals, we are straining to feed 6 billion people now, with the population growth showing no signs of slowing. Without trying to sound like a black helicopter lunatic from the fringe, I would submit to the four people who read this blog that there is the makings of a global crisis - If not within my own lifetime at least within my son's. Not talking about a global crisis that could wipe out 5 billion people is probably only partially a lunatic fringe conspiracy. I would say moreover it's not talked about because such an event is unspeakable.
Now my thoughts turn to home, where my heart is. My house is a suburban McMansion (It is quite modest by suburban McMansion standards, but nevertheless a palace compared to a homestead in rural Kentucky). It is heated with gas, depends on electricity for cooking & food storage and is serviced by city water & sewer. What this translates to (On the other side of the hill) is a dwelling that is isolated by great distance from my place of work, completely dependant on the grid. There are no alternatives in terms of heat, water, or waste removal. The real kick in the nuts is that my neighborhood is built on an old sod farm. The builders put about two inches of topsoil down on top of a bed of sand and laid sod. So in effect it is still a sod farm, one with houses. One that is costly in terms of the amount of water needed to keep the grass alive due to the poor water retention of the soil. I only bring this up because as attractive the thought of subsistence farming on my own land in order to augment my food supply, the simple fact is that as it is right now my land could not grow much besides a bumper crop of tumbleweed if it came right down to it.
Oh Crap.
I'll be posting more on this vein in the months to come. I feel as though I have been awakened, to the sound of something rattling around downstairs. I cannot in good conscience go back to sleep without investigating the sound that has brought me out of my dreaming. I sense that it is most likely that I will never go back to sleep again.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
"What'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest..."
-Bob Dylan
I went fishing this past Saturday and this is what I saw.
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
The Big River.
Roadside photo, taken between Winona and Wabasha.
The sun, setting over a Farm.
Taken from a moving vehicle somewhere between
Red Wing and Miesville
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest..."
-Bob Dylan
I went fishing this past Saturday and this is what I saw.
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
My kind of sign.
Storm Clouds looming to the North...
...but balmy skies to the south.
The catch of the day.
I got this rainbow trout with a black Wooly Bugger.
Maybe keeping him wasn't the most sporting thing to do, but he sure tasted good cooked fresh, stuffed with herbs and blanched in butter & lemon juice.
The Big River.
Roadside photo, taken between Winona and Wabasha.
The sun, setting over a Farm.
Taken from a moving vehicle somewhere between
Red Wing and Miesville
A cool cloud formation.
Also taken from a moving vehicle somewhere between
Red Wing and Miesville.
The sun, setting over a corn field.
I pulled over to get this shot. Taken North of Miesville
(Home of the Miesville Mudhens).
The sun's last gasp.
Taken from a moving vehicle North of Cottage Grove.
Monday, July 24, 2006
One Minute of Silence
Pictures and a post about my saturday fishing trip are still forthcoming. In the meantime, please enjoy my version of a show about nothing:
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Dropping eaves
I visited my mother's grave last night for the first time since winter. The summer drought had yellowed the new sod. I weeded the crabgrass and the creeping charlie away from the headstone and considered how pleased she would be that I was spending my visit gardening, even in this limited form.
My mother was a simple person. She didn't have much to say about politics, war, crime & punishment, or the multitude of social issues that we face in the dawn of the 21st century. But weeding crabgrass was something that she could really get behind.
I wanted to talk to her but I admit that my own lack of understanding in the way of how this world and the next interact with eachother left me feeling unsure of myself. I began speaking as though I were leaving a message on an answering machine belonging to someone I did not know.
"Just thought I'd stop by," I started, testing the water. It seemed no more ackward than talking to her when she had been alive and unconscious, so I continued. "I know that you're not here, but on the off-chance that God lets you listen in, I thought-"
My disclaimer was stopped cold when by chance I glanced up at the nearby cross. It is actually a bell tower, about a three-story high structure. Perched on the head of the cross was a huge crow, looking down at me. He was holding his wings away from his body in order to regulate his body temperature in the heat of the summer evening. It gave the appearance that he was cupping his wings to his ears in order to hear me better.
I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it again and swallowed. The whole scene left me speechless.
After a momentary staredown another crow flew by. My would-be eavesdropper hopped off into the air and flew away with his mate, leaving me at the foot of the cross, to write this down.
My mother was a simple person. She didn't have much to say about politics, war, crime & punishment, or the multitude of social issues that we face in the dawn of the 21st century. But weeding crabgrass was something that she could really get behind.
I wanted to talk to her but I admit that my own lack of understanding in the way of how this world and the next interact with eachother left me feeling unsure of myself. I began speaking as though I were leaving a message on an answering machine belonging to someone I did not know.
"Just thought I'd stop by," I started, testing the water. It seemed no more ackward than talking to her when she had been alive and unconscious, so I continued. "I know that you're not here, but on the off-chance that God lets you listen in, I thought-"
My disclaimer was stopped cold when by chance I glanced up at the nearby cross. It is actually a bell tower, about a three-story high structure. Perched on the head of the cross was a huge crow, looking down at me. He was holding his wings away from his body in order to regulate his body temperature in the heat of the summer evening. It gave the appearance that he was cupping his wings to his ears in order to hear me better.
I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it again and swallowed. The whole scene left me speechless.
After a momentary staredown another crow flew by. My would-be eavesdropper hopped off into the air and flew away with his mate, leaving me at the foot of the cross, to write this down.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Better Late than Never
I'm finally going fishing for the first time this summer.
It happens Saturday - come rain, shine, hell or high water.
It happens Saturday - come rain, shine, hell or high water.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Storkified
I just found out that Julie, my former colleague,
had her baby last week:
Hello all-
After much anticipation (and I dare say a bit of work on my part), Jackson
Charles came into our lives on Wednesday July 5th at 6:07am, weighing in at 6 pounds 5 ounces and measuring 19 inches... Thought you might all enjoy a sneak peak. The first photo is for those of you dying to see me pregnant. It was actually taken after my water broke on the 4th of July, I had just taken a shower and was drying my hair in preparation to leave for the hospital. The others are just adorable pictures of the little man, including one I hope I don't get put on a watch list for of his first bath, taken this morning...
Enjoy!
Julie and Andy (and Jack)
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
God's Phone Number
'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'
Jeremiah 33:3
Lotis Key-Kabigting portraying the prophet Jeremiah
at Bethany Baptist church on June 27, 2006.
Click to enlarge (Opens in a new window):
Jeremiah is known as "The weeping prophet."
It is one thing to read words on a page and know that 2700 years ago a man suffered scorn, ridicule and imprisonment, all at the hands of those he was sent to save, simply for delivering a message. It is quite another to hear his voice brought back from the dead, his anguished and tormented sobs filling the ears of an opulent 21st century audience who could do nothing but squirm uneasily in their seats as the prophet's grieved heart was layed bare before them.
It is one thing to read words on a page and know that God is a jealous God, who will repay the unfaithful with perfect and undiluted justice. It is quite another to hear that righteous anger manifested into an audible sound, even if the delivery method is a mere human voice and only a shadow of the wrathful voice to come.
Jeremiah 33:3
Lotis Key-Kabigting portraying the prophet Jeremiah
at Bethany Baptist church on June 27, 2006.
Click to enlarge (Opens in a new window):
Jeremiah is known as "The weeping prophet."
It is one thing to read words on a page and know that 2700 years ago a man suffered scorn, ridicule and imprisonment, all at the hands of those he was sent to save, simply for delivering a message. It is quite another to hear his voice brought back from the dead, his anguished and tormented sobs filling the ears of an opulent 21st century audience who could do nothing but squirm uneasily in their seats as the prophet's grieved heart was layed bare before them.
It is one thing to read words on a page and know that God is a jealous God, who will repay the unfaithful with perfect and undiluted justice. It is quite another to hear that righteous anger manifested into an audible sound, even if the delivery method is a mere human voice and only a shadow of the wrathful voice to come.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
Flower Power
Lunchtime sights from an outdoor shopping mall
near where I work.
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
Petunias
Planters near a fountain
Thursday, June 22, 2006
For good measure
Attila & Bernadette got married back in October.
They've done it again, this time in a church.
Congratulations again!
They've done it again, this time in a church.
Congratulations again!
Friday, June 16, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Summer Drink
Here is a photo of our household's official 2006 summer beverage (Recipe below)
In a pitcher mix:
In a pitcher mix:
- Crystal-Lite Ice Tea Mix (Select flavor based on type of fruit that you are using)
- 1/2 Cup Orange Juice (Optional)
- Top off with Water
- Sliced Peaches or nectarines (Skin-on for me, thanks)
- Sliced Kiwi (No skin, blech)
- Raspberries
- Blackberries
- Blueberries
- ANY Berries
- You get the idea....
Shields up!
The Toyota caught a pretty good sized rock across the windshield yesterday - It's in the shop getting fixed today.It's pretty unnerving when a big truck kicks up a birds egg-sized rock, and you watch it take a long and lazy arc directly toward your face in slow motion.
I'm not ashamed to admit that my hands went up and I ducked a little. Whether or not I screamed like a woman is none of your business.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
A Good Orange
Lunchtime sketchwork, hardly a masterpiece.
Click on photo to enlarge (Opens in a new window)
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
The world around us
We took a walk last week and this is what we saw.
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
Our Neighborhood -
On the swing -
Mass Planting -
Making a living -
An entrepreneur sets up shop -
Our Planter in front of our house -
Closeup of a daisy -
The new hydrandgea is thriving -
Out back - a closeup of a petunia -
Marigolds, Petunia, Salvia -
Closeup of Marigolds -
Closeup of a purple Salvia -
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