April, 2008
The Other Sweasys on the Net
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
I've owned this sweasy.net domain since January of 2001, and in that time I've been curious about the sweasy.com and sweasy.org web pages. The sweasy.com web page was registered just a few months earlier than mine by a William Sweasy from Red Wing, Minnesota. He has the domain registered through 2012. It's been different things over the years. Currently it is this weird site advertising an apparent photography company called "Visual Epic Productions." One of the photos is a speed limit sign, but it's been changed to say "Sweas Limit." And if you pass over the photos on the right the alternative text pops up which says "Photography by William Sweasy."
Sweasy.org doesn't appear to be anything right now. If you click the link it will take you to a placeholder page. The whois database says that sweasy.org is owned by a Bill Sweasy, again from Red Wing, Minnesota, who is officially a member of the "Adventurer's Club." If you're wondering if Bill Sweasy is the same person as William Sweasy, I'd have to go with almost certainly. The reason I say that is that when you register a site you have to provide an email address for contacts. The email address listed for the sweasy.org site? Bill@sweasy.com.
So I wonder: Am I a bane in Bill's side? Does he just wish I'd let the sweasy.net domain die so that he could grab it? Or maybe he'd like to let me have the sweasy.com and .org sites? You never know.
By the way, there seem to be a lot of Sweasys living in and around Red Wing, Minnesota. They seem to have been instrumental in the history of the Red Wing Shoe Company. Probably not as big a deal as Sweasy's Grocery.
The sweasy.org site expires in January of 2009. I'll be watching, Bill.
Midlife Crisis
Monday, April 28
As some of you may know, I turned 40 in February, so I guess it was inevitable: A midlife crisis. As I look at it now, though, I feel pretty good about it. It's a pretty cheap midlife crisis. I mean, come on: An affair could wreck my marriage, a new Ferrari would be expensive, and a motorcycle could get me killed. So all in all, this wasn't bad.
It all began with Meredith joining the elementary band. She plays the clarinet. A small piece of her clarinet (the ligature) broke, and I had to go to a local music store to purchase the $5 piece. While I was standing in line waiting to be helped, I looked around the store. And I almost can't believe what came out of my mouth: When the man behind the counter asked if I needed help, I said, "Yes, I need a ligature for a b flat clarinet...and THAT guitar!"
It was a complete impulse buy, and that's why I think of it as my midlife crisis.
Well, it was mostly an impluse buy. To be honest, I'd been turning the idea around in my head ever since we got rid of our piano (It was ugly, old, the heaviest piano I've ever seen, and it wouldn't hold its tune for a week). And Natalie had gotten a child's guitar as a Christmas present three Christmas's ago, and since that time I'd been considering learning to play so that I could teach her. So purchasing a guitar wasn't an impulse, but purchasing THAT guitar certainly was.
Luckily, I chose a beginner's guitar (The owner said some of the string guitars on the same wall were over a thousand dollars). Natalie and I checked a bunch of books and videos about guitar playing out of the library last week, and we've been plugging away at it. I can play all of about two chords fairly well, and I've learned to tune a guitar, and that's about as far as I've gotten. I don't want to get too far ahead of Natalie and frustrate her, so for the most part I only play when she's around. However, this past Friday, as I mentioned in my last post, everyone was out of the house except me, and I spent about an hour and a half playing by myself, reading ahead in the book and playing some songs from a beginner's book. It was fun.
Until, that is, I stopped playing. I injured my left shoulder (rotator cuff injury) about 6 weeks ago, and I'd say it was about 90% healed Friday night, but still pretty weak. It never occurred to me that locking my shoulder and holding the neck of the guitar for 90 minutes would be a strain, and I was so intent on playing music that I wasn't really paying attention to my shoulder. When I finally put the guitar down I found I could barely move my shoulder, and now I'm not back to square one with the injury, but it ain't better, neither! It hurts again to lift my arm over my head.
Talk about midlife crises!
Getting Ready at the Haven
Saturday, April 26, 2008
It's the last weekend of April, and that means that Lisa is out in the buildings getting Vent Haven ready to open. May 1 is Thursday, and I think Lisa has one tour right away, so we don't have any option but to get things ready.
Everybody around here is tired. The girls each had a sleepover last night and so stayed up WAY too late. It was nice for Lisa and me to have some time alone. We went to the Montgomery Inn and had dinner, and then Lisa went out to Beechwood's prom! She stayed out until after midnight dancing! So everybody is pretty zonked.
Hillary Clinton
Friday, April 25, 2008
I don't like Hillary Clinton. I can say that with authority now. Six months ago when she was the "clear front runner" for the Democratic party I remember feeling a slight dislike for her. But I told myself those were residual feelings that were really more about her husband than her. "I'll give her a fair chance," I told myself.
If anything, I've given her TOO MUCH of a break, telling myself every time she's done something bad that I'm not really bothered by whatever it was as much as I was bothered by the fact that she was a Clinton, but now I think I've finally decided. I don't like her. She's a liar who will do anything to get the nomination. She has ALMOST no chance of winning the Democratic nomination, ABSOLUTELY no chance of winning the Presidential election if she were nominated*, but she keeps on running, hammering Obama and hurting him with every day she stays in the race, forcing him to spend money on her while McCain walks around free to raise money and build a network.
At one point about six weeks ago someone asked me who I liked in the election, and I said, in all honesty, that I was actually pretty satisfied with the three remaining candidates. A lot has changed in six weeks. I'm down to two now.
*Of course, what do I know? I haven't voted for the winning Presidential candidate since 1988, so I guess I'm not really in touch with what the rest of America wants. Wait, that's not true. I DID vote for Bush in 2000, so I guess I did vote for the winner once. Of course, I guess that depends on how you look at it, too!
Floor Refinishing
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
This past weekend we had the hardwood floor of the entryway of the museum house refinished. It made for a kind of chaotic weekend. There were people in our house for a lot of the time, and the rest of the time the floor was drying and we couldn't walk on it, which meant that the kids were either trapped upstairs or downstairs. Saturday night we all camped in the living room. By "all" I mean everyone but me. I leaped across the chasm separating the living room from the steps and went to sleep in a real bed.
This week is state testing in Kentucky, so that's what's on everyone's minds. The girls are doing it, Lisa is administering it, and I'm having to work my days around it so that I don't disturb people who are doing either of the above. Fun, fun, fun.
