Going a Little Too Far

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you pretty much know how I'm going to vote in the upcoming Presidential Election. Of all of the candidates running for President in the primaries, I got EXACTLY the match up I was looking for. However, I've been down on McCain pretty much since the "lipstick on a pig" thing. Unless there's some MAJOR revelation in the next few days, I'll vote for Obama.

Having said that, though, I received another personalized email yesterday, supposedly directly from Barack himself, that's really ticked me off. Here's the email:

Bryan -- The next 6 days are going to be the toughest we've seen, and I need your support to reach as many voters as possible.

Will you donate $100 or more today to strengthen this movement for the final push? This campaign is in your hands.

Thank you for everything you're doing,
Barack

Here's my problem with this email: The Obama campaign has LOTS of money already, so much so that they were able to blow it on a 30 minute nationally aired infomercial two nights ago (which I saw all of about 45 seconds of, by the way). They're basically LOOKING for ways to spend their money at this point. Why in the world are they still asking me for MORE money?

Like I said, I still plan to vote for him, but I find this "personal email" irritating.

Here's the supposedly $5 million ad...

A Word I Never Spell Correctly

I'm hoping that--by creating this blog post--I will forever rid myself of this spelling deficiency...

I can never spell the word "judgment" correctly on a first try. I always want to spell it "judgement." It makes more sense to me. What's the problem with "judgement" anyway? Are linguists afraid we'll pronounce it JUDGE-a-MENT? That's crazy!

Anyway, I'm really just trying to get this in my brain, so indulge me here and let me do some drill and practice really quickly:

judgment judgment judgment judgment judgment judgment

Wow, that was harder than I thought it would be. I kept typing the "e" even though I was telling myself not to. I had to backspace and correct on the first two "judgment"'s, and then I had to type VERY SLOOOWWLY on the remaining ones.

And I'm sorry, but they all still look wrong to me!

Maybe I'm British. I just looked it up online, and "judgement" is the correct British spelling while "judgment" is the correct American spelling.

As hard as it's going to be for me to get this weirdo American spelling in my head, it might just be easier for me to become an expatriate and move to London.

A Sarah Palin Explosion!

Don't know whether this is funny or just sad...though I kind of lean toward the latter.

My wife has a friend, by the way, who has a similar look to Sarah Palin (More than some of the ladies in this video!). My wife thought it would be hilarious if this friend went to a costume party as Sarah Palin. The friend decided not to do so and said she was glad she didn't. Apparently there were six or seven other women dressed as Sarah Palin at the party.

Yet another piece of evidence for my theory that we're not really individuals after all.


Click here to see the video.

Jesus Was a Democrat (part three)

In earlier posts I explained the situation that first got me thinking about where Jesus would fit in to today's political atmosphere, and I then described the ways in which Jesus's teaching could either be identified as liberal or conservative in nature.

So what's my point in all of this? Do I seriously mean to suggest that Jesus, if alive today, would be a registered member of the Democratic Party?

Of course not. As I mentioned earlier, Jesus was very clear that He wasn't much interested in politics. If He'd been interested in a political revolution, in fact, He either wouldn't have been crucified by the Romans and Jewish leaders or He would have been crucified much sooner, depending upon how successful the Jewish leaders thought He would have been. I guess, though, that's a blog entry for another day.

If I'm not trying to say that Jesus literally WAS a Democrat, then, what was the point of these three blog entries?

Good question. What I think I'm getting at (You need to understand that I'm sort of figuring this out as I type--it was WHY I was typing in the first place) is that, while Jesus wasn't a Democrat, He wasn't a Republican, either. And Republicans don't have a monopoly on Christian ethics.

That might be an obvious statement for some people, but if you are one of those people who see it as an obvious statement, know that not everybody feels that way. For many evangelical Christians that I know, the idea that Jesus would be anything but a Republican is ridiculous. And the idea that--and I seriously believe this--Jesus was actually a LIBERAL and not a CONSERVATIVE, blows those people away! And it's actually made some of them quite angry with me. Which I think is good for them.

And here's why I think those people are confused: because they misunderstand what many liberals believe.


Many conservatives, at least the most radical of the conservatives, believe that all liberals want is the absolute destruction of all ideals and values that have come before. And I guess there are some liberals who would desire that. The anarchists certainly would, and I would think that anarchists would align themselves with liberals more than they would with conservatives. But anarchists aren't the only type of liberals.

Many United States liberals don't see themselves as destroyers of past ideals at all. Rather, to these liberals it is the conservatives who have so perverted the original ideals of the constitution that they no longer recognize those ideals and those ideals no longer look like anything that the founding fathers intended. These liberals see themselves not as destroyers but as correctors! Their hope is that they can restore the intentions of the founding fathers in the changes they would like made.

Jesus was the same way. As I mentioned earlier, Jesus stated that "I have not come to abolish [the Laws or the Prophets] but to fulfill them." It is my contention that Jesus saw the Pharisees and the other Jewish leaders of the time the same way that intelligent liberals today see conservatives, as well-meaning people who nevertheless have abandoned the spirit of the law in favor of the letter of the law. For the Democrats the "law" in question is the Consitution. For Jesus it was the law of the soul, but it's the same concept.

Jesus was NOT a Democrat, but He WAS a liberal.

So let that be the first point I'm trying to make with this trilogy of blog posts.

The second point is this: If Jesus were interested in politics in the 21st century United States, He WOULD be a Democrat.

The Democratic platform has more Christian ideals in it than does the Republican platform. The Democratic platform includes meeting the needs of the weakest in the community via universal health care, social security, and welfare. The Republicans would leave the weakest of our community to their own resources, a sort of Darwinian survival of the fittest strategy. The Democratic platform includes loving (or at least respecting the rights of) all people, no matter their beliefs or their sexual orientation or where their citizenship is. The Republicans can't say the same.

Of course, Jesus was pretty clear that He wanted everyone to be Christian and that He wanted people to follow God's Law, but He was always ready to give those people another chance, to forgive them when they were ready to ask for forgiveness. And I can't imagine that He would deny an immigrant the right to health care or the right to have their children educated just because the person was so anxious to come to this country that he couldn't wait to come legally.

What Godlike ideas to the Republicans have on their side? Tax cuts? Jesus wasn't interested in tax cuts. In Mathew Chapter 22, when confronted about whether or not Jews should pay taxes, Jesus asked whose head was on a coin. When He was told Casear's was on it, He said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's." Tax cuts weren't part of His policy!

What else? Gay marriage? As I mentioned before, the Bible clearly states that homosexuality is a sin, but it ain't Jesus who says this. And right or wrong, I can't believe that Jesus would treat homosexuals with the same vitriol and hatred with which the Christian right sometimes does.

What about abortion? Ah, finally, something real, something that the conservatives do have right and the liberals do have wrong. It's a powerful issue. Thousands of abortions are performed every year, and the Democrats are on the wrong side of this issue. And yes, it is an important issue, so much so that many Christians, including some I've talked to about the previous two blog entries, say that it's the number one issue that factors in to their choices on election day.

Which leads me to this question: Where has that gotten them? Roe versus Wade was decided in 1973. That was 35 years ago. In all that time there have been seven U.S. Presidents. Ford and Nixon were both fairly neutral in their stances regarding abortion, but since then Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II have all been vocal opponents to abortion, while Clinton was the lone advocate.

No, I didn't forget Carter. He's just hard to categorize. He said he personally condemned abortions and abhorred any abortion, but he was not in favor of a constitutional amendment to make abortions illegal. Years after his tenure as President, in 2005, he condemned the Democratic Party for its support of abortion. So he's (fittingly) a tough nut to crack.

My point, though, is this: Of those 35 years since Roe v. Wade, only 8 of the years had a man in the White House who was a vehement supporter of abortion rights. The remaining years saw Presidents who were either against abortion or ambivalent. But after 35 years, we're no closer to ending abortion in American than we ever were, and the reason why is that Congress is never going to put on the Supreme Court a judge they know has a political agenda regarding abortion. No matter what conservatives tell Christians, the next President is NOT going to appoint a judge who will see that Roe v. Wade is overturned. Eight years of President Bush should have proved that.

So Abortion alone should not be a factor when determining who a person is going to vote for as President. And unless a Senator or Representative promises to make it item number one on his/her agenda to end abortion via a Constitutional amendment, then it shouldn't be a factor in determining how to cast your vote in those offices, either. In the end, how a candidate (or a political party) feels about abortion is not going to impact any law, and thus should not be a reason for electing someone to a political office.

I guess to wrap it all up, what I'm getting at here is that I'm tired of being sheepish when I say I'm a supporter of this Democrat or that. It's not a sin against Christianity. Just a sin against the Christian Right.

And I fervently believe that the Christian Right is not truly Christian. It is a scam perpetrated by ultraconservatives to somehow convince naive Christians that their radical, liberal religion is consistent with conservative ideals. In many ways it is not, and I think some of the leaders of the Christian Right are going to be surprised when they meet Jesus. I think this warning from Jesus is for the leaders of the Christian Right:

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?'
Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'

--Mathew Chapter 7

On Being a Sweasy

As I've written about several times on this blog before (See this link and this link), "Sweasy" is not a common last name. The link at the bottom of this post is interesting, although perhaps not earth-shattering in its conclusions. It takes information from the 2000 U.S. Census about the surname of Sweasy and makes several conclusions. You can boil it down to this: There aren't many of us, and we're white, despite what I would like to believe to the contrary.

Anyway, the link can be read by clicking this.

Technical Stuff

This is publishing Sunday morning, but I am typing this on Friday afternoon. I've been at a technology update all day. The update was sponsored by the Kentucky Society for Technology in Education, but most of the actual presenters (actually, ALL of the presenters so far) are technical people from the Kentucky Department of Education.

Listening to them, I feel pretty much the way I imagine the non-techie people in my school district feel when I talk to them. So much of what is being said is jargon, about half of which I understand and half of which I don't. I have a page full of notes about ports and proxies and FTP and all kinds of fun stuff that I'll have to look up later.

In addition to being technical, a lot of the information is bureaucratic and/or political. I guess I should expect that from KDE as it is a BIG part of the state government. A lot of talk about laws and administrative regulations.

Right now, in fact, I am listening (okay, I guess I'm not listening very well since I'm writing this, but that's another story) to a KDE technician describing the law that requires school districts to provide content filtering of Internet websites. Fun stuff.

The best thing about days like this are the breaks or the times in the hallway when I talk with CIO's at other districts. We swap ideas, share horror stories. Fellowship. In many ways these are some of the best days of my job for those reasons, but sitting through presentations like this isn't really exciting.

C'est la vie.

TV Star

Meredith was on the news Friday (for about 2 seconds...in the background...from the side...but hey, she was on!) on Channel 12. Below is a link to the story that will explain everything. When I wrote this at 7:00 PM Friday a video clip was not on the site--I hope that as you read this they've added it. If they have, Meredith can be seen shaking the soldiers' hands as they walk through the hallway.

You can see the link on the Channel 12 website by clicking here.

P.S. As I was typing this, Meredith came in and wanted to add a comment of her own. Here's what she wrote:

It was really cool and the focus was actually on my cousin, Meg. Also, the other guy on there, Jake Etler, is a friend as well.

P.S. I just checked again, and the video IS online. You can click on the link just before the printed story, or you can go directly there by clicking this link.

The Blessings in My Life

Natalie and Meredith got their report cards earlier this week. The purpose of this blog entry is not to brag, but in the process of writing what I'm going to write about I WILL end up bragging anyway:

The girls did fantastic.

They both had straight A's. In fact, they practically both had straight A+'s. And they received the results of their state and national tests as well, and they both did outstanding on them as well.

I never really thought much of the girls' report cards when they were in early elementary school. True, they always got the grade of "IN," which was the highest grade given (It stands for "independent"), but I always assumed that EVERY kid in school was getting mostly IN's, the result of the Lake Wobegon Effect.

But as the kids are getting older and they are STILL getting the highest marks, and as their state and national percentiles are putting them almost always in the 95th percentile or better, I'm starting to realize that this is not simply the Lake Wobegon Effect--my kids are scholastically pretty special.

I was telling my parents about their report cards last night (I am in Frankfort today at a KySTE sponsored technology training, and I spent the night last night with Mom and Dad) and it occurred to me that my kids and their grades are just one of the ways that I am unusually blessed in my life.

I don't deserve the good things in my life. Heck, I guess no one DESERVES anything. But I've been alive now long enough to see lots of people struggle with lots of things, but I have great kids who are healthy, smart, and beautiful, a similarly beautiful wife whom I love and who gets along with me most of the time, a job I love to do, a nice home, good health myself, and enough security that I don't lay awake in bed wondering how to pay for groceries. It's a good life.

I've heard it said before that God will not give us any trials that we aren't able to overcome. If that's true, then I must be a spiritual midget! God must not think I can handle ANYTHING because he hasn't given me any real trials to overcome.

Not that I'm complaining. I suppose the point of this blog entry is just to express my gratitude for the life I've lived so far. I feel truly blessed.

Funny what a report card will teach you.

An Actual Conversation

LISA (said at 7 AM yesterday morning): Now that I'm off caffeine, I'm just as awake now as I am at 12 noon.

BRYAN: So what? THANKS to caffeine, I'm just as awake now as I am at 12 midnight!

My Prediction About the World Series...

...is that I won't watch it.

That's not true, actually. I'll probably, at some point, end up watching an inning or two. But once the Cincinnati Reds fall out of contention for the pennant (which usually happens about mid-May in recent years) I pretty much quit paying attention. And this year once Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey, Jr. were traded there was no sense in even paying attention anyway. At least when those guys were playing I could tune in to hear other fans bash Dunn's strike outs or Griffey's being too old. It just isn't the same to hear people bashing...uh...bashing...I can't think of any of the current players' names right now. That's how sad they are.

So I wish the Phillies and the Rays luck, but I don't really care who wins, and I don't plan to pay a whole lot of attention.

An Unnecessary Warning

I was working out this morning on my elliptical exerciser when I saw a warning that I'd never noticed before in the two and a half years I've been using the machine (No one could ever accuse me of being overly observant). This was printed on the machine in small letters just to the left of the display:

WARNING: If you experience sudden pain, dizziness, or shortness of breath while using this machine, discontinue use immediately and consult a physician.

Two of those three warnings make at least some sense to me. If I experience sudden pain while using the machine I'm almost certainly going to stop. In fact, I probably don't even need a printed warning to tell me to stop. That's what the pain is for!

I also would think it makes sense to stop if you're feeling dizzy, though I'm not sure how you'd tell for certain if you were feeling dizzy while working out strenuously. I would imagine the first sign would be the user falling off the machine. Again, if you've fallen off the machine you've already stopped using the machine and don't need a printed warning.

It's the third warning that makes no sense to me. I have shortness of breath EVERY TIME I USE THE MACHINE! I sort of thought that was the purpose of the machine, to cause me to exert myself until I had shortness of breath. Should I consult a physician EVERY TIME I use the machine?

Some warnings just don't make sense.

Quote of the Day

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree."

--Emily Bronte

(Photo taken and modified by Natalie)

Photo Contest

As I wrote on here previously, about six weeks ago Natalie and I ended up getting lost in Highland Cemetery's nature trails. She and I went back again today, but this time we a) drove to the entrance and b) went on a mission: we each took a digital camera with us and had a contest: who could take the Most Fall-like Photograph.

We each took several dozen photos. Below are six photos, three from each of us. Check 'em out--which is your favorite? If you'd like, you can tell us by clicking on the Comments link at the end of the post.

My Nebulous Audience

As a former teacher of writing for 14 years, I know well the importance of knowing your audience before writing something. I used to stress with students, "You can't possibly begin a piece, even do your pre-writing activities, if you don't know who you're writing to!" For instance, if you were writing a piece about particle physics, you would write very simplistically if you were writing a children's book (How many children's books are about particle physics? Dumb example.), you would be a little more complex if you were writing in a high school physics book, and even more detailed if you were writing a journal article for other particle physicists. If you were writing a light piece for People magazine you'd write an even different piece. Audience is a HUGE variable.

Which is a real problem for me, because I've never really been sure who my audience was when I was writing this blog (That's the nature of posting things wide open for everyone on the Internet), and my intended audience has shifted around over time. When I first started writing this blog, my intended audience was literally NO ONE! I was just checking out the jottit.com website (and later the blogger.com website that I'm currently using) so that if teachers asked about where to blog I could offer them some suggestions. My first posts show my lack of audience. They're basically about nothing (Not that I work real hard on a daily basis to avoid that now!) and were not a whole lot more than words just sort of stuck together. I think the first entry that had any kind of substance was my entry about buying a guitar (I'll give you an update on that soon).

So the audience started as no one, but once I redirected the sweasy.net domain to point to this site then my family members started reading it, and at that point my intended audience shifted. I began writing with the idea in the back of my mind that--if no one else was reading what I wrote--my mom and dad probably were. So my family became my intended audience.



Then I began to have people I knew but I'd never told about the site stop me and tell me they'd really enjoyed what I'd written about the Presidential race or about what I'd written about Sally Field. "You've seen my site?" I'd ask suspiciously. "Yeah," they'd say. "Found it on the Internet." At about the same time I had a couple of anonymous comments placed on the site, and at least one was from someone I'd never met AT ALL! And I suddenly realized that--by allowing blogger to index my site--it could be found and read by an even larger audience. This didn't really impact what I was writing, but it did make me feel like someone was looking over my shoulder. And I guess though it hasn't changed the tone of what I've written, it has changed the subject. There are things going on in my life that I wouldn't post on here because I wouldn't want it to get back to someone that I had written it. But again, I'm not sure I would have posted those things for my mom and dad to see, either!

Over the last couple of days, though, I've become aware of something that HAS changed what I've written on the site. Some of my children's friends are reading my blog and commenting on what they're finding there. They began by commenting on Choco's Blog, which is fine. I created that blog as a silly site, a way of making sure that the memory of Choco (which is the name of the now seven year old imaginary monster that I have pretended to be over the years with my kids) lived on after my children got tired of him. I didn't mind at all that my girls' friends (some of whom have played with Choco before, too) were visiting this page.

But to get to that page, my kids were telling them to just go to sweasy.net. Why not? It's easy to remember, and I have the link to Choco's page running down the right side of the page. It's convenient!

Except that some of the kids' friends are now reading this blog, too, and that changes everything. In fact, I had to make a change to the blog entry that I wrote a couple of days ago. One sentence in that entry as it currently appear reads as follows: "No one ever says, 'Well, thank God Mary was abused repeatedly for six years as a child and now has schizophrenia--she's a much stronger person as a result!'" The original text of this blog entry used much stronger language in place of "abused," but after realizing that some preteens were reading the site I thought, "I can't write that! I have to put in something else!"

Lisa suggested that I change the whole thing to read, "Thank God Mary was hit with a pie in the face repeatedly for six years as a child and now has bad acne," but I felt that sort of took away from the point I was trying to make, so I settled for "abused." It works, but I don't think it's as effective as what I was planning to use.

Part of the problem may be with the title of the site: "Sweasy.net, Home of all things Sweasy." There's really no way that this site can be a portal for everything related to the Sweasy family. I put that up there because at one point I was considering the idea of encouraging ALL of my brothers and sisters to join blogger and then I'd give them rights to this blog and we could ALL add pictures, news, and opinions to the site. But then I changed my mind for two reasons: 1) I rarely see my family and thus do not have time to help them get set up with blogger and using the site, and 2) I became protective of the site as I added content and didn't want others messing around with it.

I might need to create an additional blog, a sweasy.net portal for family pictures and things, and then a personal portal for me to just write about what I want to write about. But I have a couple of problems with that: 1) I don't want to become a guy with a bunch of blogs to update and maintain. I already have two, and I don't want a third. 2)I'd probably want to put a link to that personal blog on the family blog, and that would just put me back where I am now. It would be a little harder for friends of my children to find the site, but they could still find it.

So this is a long blog entry, and the whole point of it is to say that I'm really not sure what it is I want to do with this site, and that's because I really don't know what the audience for the site is.

Great. Here's another example of a teacher not minding his own instruction!

Joe the Plumber

I didn't watch all of the debate two nights ago, so I missed a couple hundred of the references to Joe the Plumber. I DID watch the first 15 minutes or so of the debate, and I managed to hear about three or four references to him in that much time, and I did listen to the last 30 minutes of the debate on the radio, and I heard him mentioned several times then as well.

Yesterday I watched the six minute video that started the whole business, and I have to say that Joe seems like a plant to me. He said in interviews Thursday morning that he hasn't decided on a candidate and that he just wanted to ask one of them a tough question. I don't buy that. This guy is a Republican all the way, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew to state that his business was going to make SLIGHTLY more than $250,000, which would bump him into a higher tax bracket. He was a plant all the way. I think Obama did a relatively good job of answering him, too.

On the other hand, in many ways this whole situation is Obama's fault. Obama basically said nothing in that six minute interview that he hadn't said in the first two debates (and reiterated in Wednesday night's debate as well) with the exception of the one phrase "spread the wealth around." It was a dumb move on his part. I actually think I lean more toward socialistic capitalism than I do pure capitalism (as does anyone else who is in favor of Social Security), but even I know that the phrase "spread the wealth around" is going to push people's buttons. Obama deserves the flack he's receiving for having said it. It was just a slip of the tongue, I think, but it does reveal his socialist leanings.

In the end, though, I don't think Joe the Plumber or this third debate is going to hault Obama's climb. As I predicted a couple of weeks ago, I think it will be clear on Election Day, before anyone ever goes to the polls, that Obama is going to win. The suspense will be by how much. Will it be close or will it be a landslide? Will the Democrats pick up enough seats in Congress that they'll be able to prevent any filibustering? Those will be the questions that will be asked. We'll be able to go to bed on election night knowing who won.

Which is good. We could use that kind of election night after the last couple of elections.

P.S. I bet this guy is getting lots of traffic to his site today. I hope he gets enough business that he, too, can make $250,000 a year as a plumber!

P.P.S. You can watch the critical parts of the video yourself below.

A Well Known Quote That Irritates Me

"That which does not kill me only makes me stronger."

This quotation ticks me off every time I hear someone repeat it. There are two things about this quotation, made by Frederick Nietzsche, that bother me.

1) To begin with, the quote isn't even true. Yes, if I break a bone, when it heals it is actually stronger in that place than it was before, so it works out in that situation. However, I dare you to walk up to someone who's recently had a debilitating stroke and say this quotation to that person. He or she will probably punch you (provided he's able, of course). There are plenty of ways that a person can be not killed but made weaker by it.

And before you start thinking I'm an idiot, I know that the quotation isn't meant to be taken literally. The quotation is meant to be an encouragement for people going through difficult times in their lives. It is meant to suggest that turmoil that we survive becomes integrated into our selves and makes us emotionally stronger people than we were before the turmoil.

The problem is that this idea doesn't work for emotional/personal injury anymore than it works for physical injuries. Yes, some people who go through an emotional crisis--say, losing a job--come out stronger on the other end. Maybe they decide that job wasn't really what they wanted to do anyway. Maybe they learn that they were too focused on their job to start with and they really want to spend more time with their kids. Good for them!

Other people, however, can have a severa trauma and end up emotionally fractured. Schizophrenia is almost always the result of prior trauma, and no one ever says, "Well, thank God Mary was abused repeatedly for six years as a child and now has schizophrenia--she's a much stronger person as a result!"

Maybe I'm wrong, but for a quotation to be worthwhile, it ought to at least be true.

2) The quotation is misused by reckless people. To make matters worse, some people use the quotation as an excuse to practice reckless behavior. One might say to a person who smokes four packs a day, "Dude, you really ought to give up smoking," only to have that person blithely reply, "That which does not kill me only makes me stronger." When a person says something like that, I want to say, "No, it doesn't make you stronger--it gives you cancer! And that might actually kill you anyway, making the whole point moot."

It's just a dumb quotation, and it never should have been repeated and worked into the conciousness of the human race.

Vent Haven Article

Vent Haven was featured in a recent edition of the Cincinnati Business-Courier, which I guess is a newspaper of some type (How about that for crisp, definitive sentence writing?). The link below doesn't include the entire article--only an excerpt, but you've read it all before anyway. The real reason for an article like this is to look at photos of my lovely wife, and one is included in the excerpt.

Click here to see the excerpt.

Flashes from the Haven

I have basically nothing to write about today, so I'll write just a couple of quick bullet points, or as W.S. Berger used to call them, Flashes from the Haven.

FLASH--The Weather

I hate this. It's been, what, 82 degrees the last couple of days? And it's October? This just isn't right. As I've mentioned before, I'm no fan of the heat.

When it got cool a couple of weeks ago we turned off the air conditioner, supposedly for the last time, and the idea of turning it back on in the middle of October just seems wrong to me, but I may not be able to prevent it. I haven't slept well the last two nights.

Maybe I'd do better if I had a ceiling fan in my bedroom. I don't know. I don't think I'm going to get it installed before it gets cool again, so I'm not going to worry about it.

FLASH--Me and My Big Mouth

Sunday night the city of Fort Mitchell sponsored a free night at the Jump Zone, a play area in Florence that usually is NOT free. While I was shopping at Kroger instead of watching the Bengals game I ran into two of Natalie's friends (twins) and their mother. I said hello, and then started to say, "Hey, are you guys going to the Jump Zone tonight?" Then it occurred to me in mid-sentence that if they WEREN'T going I was about to cause a real problem for the mom, so instead I said, "Hey, are you guys going...going...going to the Thing?"

They all asked, "What Thing?" and I whispered into the mom's ear what I meant. I don't think my belated caution helped much, though. As I walked away I could hear the girls shouting at their mom, "What? What Mom? What's the Thing?"

So I owe that mom an apology the next time I see her.

FLASH--Trees coming Down
Yesterday an arborist was at Vent Haven removing three of the large trees in the back yard of the museum grounds. One of the trees was damaged by the storm that blew through a couple of weeks ago, and the others just look kind of scary, with their dying branches and the way they're leaning precariously over one museum building or another, so they're all coming down.

It makes me kind of sad. One of my favorite things about Vent Haven is the mature trees on the grounds. Once these three are down, we will have felled eight of them in the eight years we've been there.

I could look on the bright side and say that this will mean fewer leaves to rake, but these trees that are coming down today (with the exception of the one broken by the storm) are pine trees--they don't have leaves anyway.

Given Up

It took me six weeks, but I finally carried through on my threat: I gave up on the Bengals.

I watched about 1/4 of the game Sunday, and not all at one time. I would just turn the game on and see how things were going, and then I would go off and do something else. And I have to tell you, it was a liberating experience: to feel that it was okay not to care about a team that had given up caring about itself a long time ago.

So what did I do instead of watching the game? How did I use the gift of time that the Bengals had given me as an early Christmas present? I helped Lisa with a computer issue she was having. I cleaned the kitchen. I sat at the kitchen table with Lisa and had a conversation and then made a grocery list, and then I went to Kroger and got the items on the list. I came home and put away all of the items. I had a productive afternoon.

And I have the Bengals to thank for it!

Meredith's Birthday Party

Last weekend Meredith had her birthday party at a local skating rink, the same place where she had her 2005 party . She and her 9 guests (including Natalie) had a very nice time.

I put some photos from the party in a web album which you can access by clicking this link.

Cool Web Link

Found this article two Friday's ago on the Lexington Herald-Leader website. Very cool basement. My favorite part is the fact that he drew logs in the fire on the REAL fireplace.

Click here for the article.

Fall Break

This week has been my school district's Fall Break, which has meant no students (and for the most part, no teachers) in the district all week. It's been nice. I've been able to get a lot done. And I don't think I've mentioned this in any posts on here, but it's been a stressful month and a half for me anyway. Two years ago there were 4 full time positions in the technology department in my district. Due to budget cuts over the last two years we're down to 2 full time positions, myself and a break/fix technician. That technician has been out for the last 6 weeks due to a personal matter, so I've been the SOLE person to manage 1,100 computers and hundreds of other pieces of technology. I've been able to use this week to catch up on some of the work orders that I wasn't getting to due to my normal management responsibilities.

That doesn't mean that I've been working all week, though. I was off Wednesday and I took the day off today because Meredith and Natalie are off school today as well (regional teachers' union meeting day). The entire family is heading to Frankfort to visit my parents, something that we've been too busy to do for the last six weeks (see paragraph one above for only one of the reasons why!).

Wednesday, though, was my favorite day of the Fall Break. It was my favorite day for three reasons: First, it was Meredith's birthday! We actually had a party Saturday at the local skating rink, so we didn't do a whole lot to celebrate her birthday on her actual birthday. Still, though, I wanted to give her a shout out!

The second reason I loved Wednesday so much is that I took off that day to spend the entire time with Lisa. I can't remember the last time we had an entire day together. After dropping the kids off at school, we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We then traveled to the new Ikea furniture store in West Chester, just an exit or two north of I-275 on Interstate I-75 (about 25 minutes away from our house). I was VERY impressed by the store. I'd heard it was a really neat place, and I'd heard that Ikea's were practically tourist destinations in and of themselves, but I wasn't prepared for how a) nice everything was and b) cheap everything was. The furniture was mostly put-it-together-yourself stuff, but it was still very sturdy, and the prices were about 2/3 of what the cheap stuff at a K-Mart or a Wal-Mart would be. And they sell more than just furniture. We went with the intention of just looking, not buying, but we got two sets of glassware, a pair of 118 inch curtains for the window in the stairway, a queen sized blanket for our bed, a mirror for the bathroom, four new seat cushions for our kitchen chairs, and a gee whiz nifty cool bright orange storage thingy (sorry, that's about as technical as I can get on home furnishings) for the girls. Total price: Right at about $150. And despite all of the things we got, we easily decided AGAINST getting twice that much that we saw and really liked.

We had planned to spend the entire day at Ikea (We'd been told that's how long it would take to go through the whole store), but we were actually finished in a couple of hours, so we were back home by 12:30. We had lunch together, just sat on the couch and talked for a while, and then went to Cold Stone Creamery in the Crestview Hills Mall before picking up the girls. It was a very nice morning and afternoon.

The THIRD reason I loved Wednesday happened Wednesday night. The entire family went to the new Bank of Kentucky Center at Northern Kentucky University to see Cirque du Soleil Saltimbanco. Lisa and I had talked about going to see a Cirque du Soleil show for years but we'd never gotten around to it. I was absolutely blown away by the show! As we were leaving the show I told Lisa, "I can't remember the last time I felt like I'd gotten my money's worth out of attending a show. Tonight I feel I did." We paid about $50 a seat after all of the fees were added (which was a steal because the show was mid-week. Prices for the rest of the run are more than twice that), but to see dozens of people doing all kinds of acrobatic tricks? It was worth it. I figured we probably paid a dollar per performer, and I would have done that any day.

Rather than describe it in too much detail I just point you to the link above. On that page is a video that is worth more than the proverbial thousand words.

Meredith and Natalie loved the show, too. Before we left I figured we'd leave at intermission, that they'd want to come home at that point, that they'd be bored. But each segment of the show was so interesting and different. And I thought that perhaps the show would be hard to follow because it was all in French. And some of it WAS in French, but a great deal of it was in gibberish, so it didn't matter--no one knew what they were saying.

So it was a busy day. The only downside of a day like that is that we were all tired. The girls are used to going to bed at 8:00, and we didn't get in until almost 11. So we were all dragging a little yesterday.

But it was worth it.

And the Word of the Day is..."Hypocrite"?

I don't want to get into bashing Roman Catholics, but I just couldn't get over the juxtaposition in this article. In the text of the article the Pope is condemning the accumulation of wealth, but in the picture that accompanies the article (the same picture shown to the right) the Pope is adorned in fancy clothes. I don't know for sure, but knowing what I know about the Vatican, I would guess that some of that gold-colored stuff the Pope is wearing and carrying is, in fact, actual GOLD!

Again, don't think I'm bashing Catholicism. I just found the article ironic. After all, the Pope's got the coolest house on the planet! He rides around in a vehicle named after HIMSELF (I think Batman is the only other guy who can say that)! And he's whisked all around the world in his own private jet (I've never heard of the Pope flying coach)!

Maybe if a poor monk in a monastery had made the point it might have been a little more valid.

Here's the article.

The Bad News Just Keeps Coming

I went to Google News just now, and I was just blown away by the bad news. I mean, I'm a pretty positive guy, but even I've noticed that there have been some SERIOUSLY disturbing news reports lately. Things have been so bad that the hurricane that hit Houston--which people say may be economically more devastating than Katrina--has been pushed off the front page.

Here are two of the main stories from yesterday:
1) Our economy is on the decline. The DOW fell below 10,000 for the first time in four years!
2) Apparently our nation's morals are on the decline as well! Each of the Presidential candidates is complaining that the other isn't ethically fit to be President!

3) And to top it all off, it isn't enough that are economy is in decline, that our nation and its leaders are in decline, or even that--thanks to global warming--our species might be in decline. According to new study release yesterday, our entire class of vertebrates may be in decline!

It's enough to make an optimist feel fatalistic.

More "Almost Me"'s!

Mistyped my own name just now (That's the kind of person I am) and stumbled across

this website!

Ike seems like a nice enough guy. His "patio project" set of photos was especially good. I laughed out loud at the last picture. Glad it was him and not me.

My Job

Here's an article I wasn't planning to read but I stumbled upon it yesterday. I thought, "Wow, this article--especially the first paragraph--pretty much sums up everything I do in my job."

I officially have authority over ONE person in the district, but I have to tell multiple other people every day what to do. It's a delicate thing that I've had to learn on the job. Wish I'd found the article five years ago!

Here's the article.

Nancy Grace

A couple of months ago I mentioned that Ann Curry was one of my least favorite newscasters. The emphasis in that sentence, though, needs to be on the words "one of." She is not my least favorite newscaster. I can easily tell you who that person is. Hands down. No hesitation. As Sarah Palin might say, I don't even blink when I think about it. My least favorite newscaster is Nancy Grace.

Here's how much I don't like her: I swear, if I met Nancy Grace in person, I think I would punch her!

I don't know if it's her annoying hick accent, or the fact that she pretty much insists on keeping her own image on the screen the entire time her show is on. Most likely, it's because it doesn't matter what's going on in the world, be it a financial crisis, a hurricane, Presidential or vice-presidential debates, the topic on Nancy Grace is going to be..."Where is Caylee?"

Nancy Grace, get this straight: I don't even know who Caylee is! And I don't care! All I know is that I'm sick of seeing her on your show every time I flip past it on the remote control. Please, I'm begging you, move on to something else. I mean, pick another missing kid and focus on that kid for a couple of months if you have to. Wean yourself off her if that's what it takes. But get over this missing kid!

Quarterly Report Card

A month ago I made six predictions about the Bengals season. Thought I'd give a quarter of the way check to see how my predictions were coming along.

Prediction 1: The Bengals will go 5-11 this season.
After four games, the Bengals are 0-4. That puts them on a pace to go 0-16 for the season. I vastly underestimated how poorly they would play.

Analysis of My Prediction: So far I am WAY off!

Prediction 2: Chad Johnson will miss 5 games due to injury. There will be plenty of speculation that he's not really injured.
Johnson (or I guess, to be correct, I should call him "Ocho Cinco") has not missed any games, but he certainly has been a non-factor. In four games he's caught 11 passes for less than 100 yards and only one touchdown. I doubt now he'll get injured at all because he isn't really trying. I think he's playing poorly intentionally in hopes that the Bengals will get frustrated and trade him.

Analysis of My Prediction: So far I am WAY off!

Prediction 3: Chris Henry will get suspended for some off the field misdemeanor sometime about week 11 and will be given a lifetime suspension.
It's too soon to tell on this one, but Henry has rejoined the team and may play this weekend. That gives him another 7 weeks or so to get into trouble. Plenty of time!

Analysis of My Prediction: The jury is still out.

Prediction 4: Carson Palmer will have career highs in sacks and interceptions, and will miss a total of three games due to injury.
I've been right on with this one. So far Palmer has three interceptions and has been sacked 9 times. That puts him on pace for 12 interceptions and 36 sacks for the year. The 12 interceptions would be less than the 20 he had in 2007, which was a career high. Keep in mind, though, that he missed one of the four games played so far, so it makes sense that he'd be a little off pace at this point. The 36 sacks would be a record by far.

Palmer has also missed one of the four games due to injury, putting him right on pace to meet my prediction.

Analysis of My Prediction: I nailed it!

Prediction 5: The defense will be the worst ranked defense in the NFL. Some of that ranking will be unfair and really be the fault of the offense as the offense will have been on the field for such a short amount of time that the defense just found itself exhausted by the end of the game.
Currently, the Bengals are ranked 19th out of 32 teams, close to the middle of the pack. It would seem, then, that my prediction was way off, but I think the season as a whole will be like a game. When the offense is ineffective, the defense, no matter how good it is, wears down. I think the Bengals will find that as the season wears on the defense will get worse and worse.

And the second part of my prediction, that the defense would be better than its stats and would be affected by the weak offense, is certainly bearing fruit. If you look at the defensive stats, in fact, that are affected by the offense, you get a very bad opinion of the Bengals defense. Specifically, I'm talking about the number of plays the defense has per game (The Bengals are 29th out of 32), the number of yards per game (19th) and the time of possession (29th). If the offense has a whole bunch of three and outs (which the Bengals lead the NFL in by far this year) then it would be expected that your defense would suffer in these categories.

If, however, you pick three stats that have NOTHING to do with the offense, you get a different story about the Bengals. In yards per play (not game) the Bengals are 10th in the league at 4.9 yards. In penalty yards the Bengals are 17th, which isn't bad considering how much longer they're on the field than the average defense. And the Bengals lead the league in fourth down percentage: Their defense has faced an offense running a play on them on fourth down on four different occasions, and they've stopped the other team every time. No other team with that many attempts against them can make that claim.

So while my prediction about where the Bengals will fall in defensive ranking was wrong, the idea that the defense is suffering because of the offense was dead on. Still, despite that, I have to score this as follows:

Analysis of My Prediction: So far I am WAY off!

Prediction 6: This will be Marvin Lewis's last season with the Bengals. He will not be fired. He and Mike Brown will decide together that it is time for Lewis to leave, and he'll be glad as hell to get out of town.
It's too early to tell about this one, too. But I have a friend who is somehow in the know regarding the Bengals, and he says Mike Brown is going to fire Marvin Lewis before the middle of the season. We'll see.

Analysis of My Prediction: Too soon to Tell

So I only got one prediction right so far. This doesn't bother me, though, for a couple of reasons: 1) Because there is a lot of the season left, and my predictions may yet be proven true. And 2) because it doesn't really matter whether my predictions were perfectly correct. The gist of what I was saying about the Bengals is true. This is a case of where the total of the prediction exceeds the sum of its parts. Because while Palmer hasn't thrown a ton of interceptions yet, and while the defense hasn't fallen to the cellar in the stats columns yet, the main point of my previous blog entry is 100% true: The Bengals are terrible, and it's going to be a long season.

Quote of the Day

In marriage there is no such thing as success--no marriage is ever finally
sucessful. There are only marriages where the spouses are trying and marriages
where the spouses have stopped trying. And no one can tell the difference
between the two by looking.

--Garrison Keillor

October

I know that for the average person summer is the favorite season, and I also know that summer has a lot going for it: The weather is warm enough that one can go outside, the kids are off school, and the pools are open. Picnics, vacations, and family gatherings all add to the festive atmosphere. And as an educator I get some time off in the summer (though not as much as one would think).

The truth, though, is that I barely tolerate the summer. I look forward every year to today, October 1. Starting about July 1 I just try to survive until summer ends. A big part of it is the heat. I think I handle heat and humidity less ably than the average person. If it is above 70 degrees it's really too warm for me, and the truth is I would rather it be about 10 degrees cooler than that.

Heat isn't the only issue, though. I also can't stand all of the bugs, especially at the end of the summer (and even now) when the bugs are everywhere and start to get a little haughty, thinking they are going to take over the world. I really look forward to that first killing frost to give the bugs the smackdown.

And from my perspective, a big chunk of the summer is taken up getting things around here ready for the convention, so summer is not as relaxing as it could be.

I guess all I am saying is that today I am happy. The museum is closed for the season, the leaves are changing colors, and the air is noticably cooler. Soon I might even need a sweatshirt.

I made it through another summer!