February 28, 2009

It's official, thanks to the state legislature. Fellow Kentuckians,

Happy Rare Disease Day!


Now there's something you can get excited about! It's the perfect day to give that special someone you care about a Rare Disease! Just think how excited Dr. House will be when that special someone makes it to his hospital and House gets to try to figure out what's wrong with him/her.


Speaking of House, I'm starting to get tired of the show. It's becoming pretty repetitive. It's a fairly popular one hour drama on the FOX network, but if you've never seen it before, I can summarize what's going to happen in pretty much every episode in a single paragraph:


Someone is going to get deathly sick at the opening of the show. Over the course of the episode Dr. House and his team of doctors will misdiagnose the patient three or four times, almost killing him/her in the process, before finally figuring out what's wrong with about 4 minutes left in the show. Meanwhile, Dr. House will walk around the hospital abusing prescription drugs and being an absolute a**hole for most of the show, only to end the show redeeming himself by either a) being uncharacteristically nice to someone, b) crying in pain due to his debilitating physical problem or c) playing a beautiful piece on the piano. Almost always the patient survives, though once or twice a season they kill the poor person just to keep us viewers on our toes.


Sorry if I gave away anything about next week's show.

Not a Joke

A couple of weeks ago I tried to make a joke out of some of the bills that were being proposed in this year's state legislature, including a law about unpasteurized goat milk. And in the time since I've actually stumbled across a few more humorous legislative items, including a resolution to make February 26th of this year "Kentucky Hospice Day," and another to make February 28th "Rare Disease Day." Which seems backward to me, by the way. Seems like the rare disease ought to come before the trip to hospice. But no matter.

There is one bill, however, that is no laughing matter to me. Kentucky's Senate Bill 68, the so-called "Act Relating to the Welfare of Adopted and Foster Care Children," if passed, will forbid non-married sexual partners who are living together from adopting or fostering a child.

I have three specific problems with this bill. First and foremost, there's the old expression of "calling a spade a spade." This bill should NOT be called "An Act Relating to the Welfare of Adopted and Foster Care Children." It should be called "An Act Prohibiting Gay Couples from Adopting or Fostering Children," because that's what it's designed to do. Let's not beat around the bush with wishy-washy names: since gay marriage is not legal in the state of Kentucky, passage of this bill will mean that any homosexual couple living together will be necessarily prohibited from adopting children. So the first thing that bothers me is that the title of the bill and the supposed intent of the bill are deceptive.

The second thing that bothers me, and this is more important, is that the real intent behind the bill is stupid. Supporters argue that studies show a home that has a married couple at the center is the best kind of home for a child to be raised in. As a general rule that MAY be true (or it may not, but I'm not going to debate that today), but that doesn't mean it holds true in all cases. I happen to know a lesbian couple who have a couple of adopted children, and I guarantee you, no matter how hard you tried, you would not find a couple who were more loving or more involved in their children's lives, nor would you find two children any better adjusted. I find the idea that those two children would necessarily have been better off in the home of any married couple--including a married couple with one alcoholic spouse and another abusive one--offensive.

The third thing that bothers me about this bill is that I'm not sure the crafters of this bill have fully considered the consequences of its passage. For one thing, it is not only homosexual couples who are being prohibited from adopting children--ANY sexual couple living together but not married is prohibited. This means that if my wife and I both died that our children could not be adopted by my wife's sister if she were living with a boyfriend. Rather than have that happen, the crafters of this bill would have my children go into foster care in a stranger's home. It doesn't make sense. This bill ties the hands of an adoption agency. It would be the same as making it illegal for a police officer to stop an attacking criminal with a rock. Sure, a TASER or a billy club might be a better choice, but in a pinch, if a rock is all you have, you want to be able to throw it.

Notice that so far I haven't even taken a stand on whether homosexuality is right or wrong, or on whether or not gays should be allowed to marry. That's because--as interesting as those conversations might be--they're not really relevant here. The legislation, as it's written, eliminates too many positive possibilities for adoption in an attempt to make it impossible for one group to adopt.

And I'm sorry that I don't have a joke to tell about this bill. But it's not funny. Frankly, that it's even being considered by the legislature makes me embarrassed to be a Kentuckian. I hope and pray that it dies in committee.

Ash Wednesday

I was watching the Nightly News on NBC last night when I twice saw Vice President Joe Biden with a big mark on his forehead. The first time, which was Biden sitting around a table at some kind of meeting, I thought maybe there was something wrong with the TV, or maybe the camera, but when the mark moved along with Biden I thought perhaps he had some kind of cancerous lesion on his forehead.

It was, a few minutes later in a completely different story, when they showed Biden standing behind Obama at a podium with the SAME smudge on his forehead, that I understood what it was: Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and Biden, being the good Catholic that I now assume he is, went to Mass yesterday and had the sign of the cross made in ash on his forehead.

As he stood behind the podium looking smug, it reminded me of a time in my life when I looked similarly smug as a result of Ash Wednesday. During my junior and senior years of high school, I forged notes from my parents that said that--because I was Roman Catholic--I needed to be excused from school in order to attend noon mass at the Good Shepherd. If there had been more Catholics in my school the administration probably would have known that Ash Wednesday was not a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics, and that if it were that there would be mass in the evening as well as at noon, but I grew up in a part of the country where there weren't too many Catholics. There were maybe 140 in my graduating class; three of us were Catholic. So on that day our junior and senior year all three of us checked out of school to go to mass.

Except that we never went. What would be the fun of telling a lie to get out of school only to then go to mass? We went and ate lunch at a local restaurant, and afterwards stopped at the house of one of the girls and dipped our fingers in the charcoal grill in her garage and then smudged the charcoal on our foreheads. We then headed back to school and spent the rest of the day with the smudges on our foreheads, feeling like we'd gotten something over on somebody, and looking a whole lot like Biden looks in the photo above.

Mom and Dad, I don't think I ever told you any of this before, so all I can say is...I'm sorry. I know I've let you down time and time again, and here's another example. I hope you'll forgive me.

The Uproar Over the Cartoon

Back during the election I wrote about the false sense of outrage that the right had after then Senator Barack Obama stated that you could put lipstick on McCain's health plan but it was still a pig. The right screamed at the time that Obama was making a sexist comment about Alaska governor Sarah Palin. It was a dumb comment then, and it's still a dumb comment.

I'm just as irritated by the people on the left who are screaming racism regarding the cartoon of the shot chimpanzee which appeared last week in the New York Post. For those of you who missed this story (Lucky you!), a cartoon appeared in the Post showing two policemen standing over a chimpanzee who had just been shot. The policemen look down at the chimp and one says to the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill!" Outraged critics have claimed that the chimpanzee is supposed to represent Obama, and that this cartoon is the worst sort of racism. Some have even called for an investigation into the hiring practices of The Post.

But let's get this straight: The chimpanzee is NOT supposed to represent Barack Obama! It's supposed to represent the writers of the stimulus bill. Guess what? That's NOT Barack Obama. He's not a legislator anymore. He's in the executive office now. The chimp is supposed to represent Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid!

Why shoot the chimp, you may wonder. Well, unless you've had your head in the sand, you're probably aware of the chimpanzee that was shot in New York after it mauled a woman. The cartoon is playing off of that story, suggesting that the stimulus package is so stupid that it was crafted by the shot chimp instead of by intelligent members of Congress. Come on, people! Don't you get it? The cartoon is saying that the stimulus package is stupid! That's all. It's not about Barack Obama at all!

Besides, if we assumed for a moment that the chimp WAS meant to represent Barack Obama, what would the point of the cartoon be anyway? That we should assassinate the President of the United States because the stimulus package isn't what we wanted? How dumb is that? It doesn't even make any sense!

And the idea that the New York Post and the creator of this cartoon are guilty of racism and irresponsible behavior is ridiculous. If they're guilty of anything, it would be of creating a cartoon that is, admittedly, able to be misconstrued. Two things make it this way: 1) The chimp story, especially when this cartoon was published, didn't have the national attention that it has now. I will be the first to admit that--if you don't know the story about the chimp mauling the woman--then this cartoon makes NO sense. 2) For better or worse, many people associate the President with the stimulus bill, even though he didn't craft the darned thing himself. Couple that with the fact that so many cartoonists give Obama oversized ears, and this cartoonist did the same thing with the chimp, and it's possible to see how people initially misconstrued the whole thing.

But all it takes is an explanation to clear things up. The idea that this is a racist cartoon really ticks me off. Get over your sensitivity, people. Is it racially insensitive? Without a doubt. But is it racist? No.

Maybe I'm irritated because I've dealt with this same overreaction myself. In the 14 years that I taught English, I taught senior level English about half the time, and in each of those years I taught the William Shakespeare play Macbeth. At the beginning of Act V, the character of Macduff says to another character, "Come, be not a niggard of your speech!" Similarly, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus states that "Nature must obey necessity, Which we will niggard with a little rest." I taught sophomore English EVERY year, and so between the two plays I came across the word at least a couple of times a year.

The word "niggard" sounds just like the capital "N" word but with a "d" at the end, and it means "stingy." But even though I would stop and explain the word and what it meant, on three different occasions over the 14 year period I had to take calls from angry parents, upset that I had used the "N" word in class. I would calmly explain to these enraged parents--who were both black and white, by the way--1) the meaning of the word "niggard," 2) how it is completely unrelated to the "N" word other than in sound, and 3) how I DIDN'T WRITE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! We were just reading Shakespeare! Despite that, though, in all three cases, after my explanation, the parents said something to the effect of, "I don't care about any of that! I still can't believe that you used a racial slur in class!"

When it comes to race in America, reason alone isn't enough to satisfy people who are sitting in wait with their hair-trigger indignity. And that's what this whole NY Post cartoon has reinforced for me.

A Yucky Month

I discovered a few years ago that February, which is kind of a nasty month due to the weather, really affects people in a real way.

I learned this accidentally. Maybe six or seven years ago--I don't remember the exact year--a teacher at the high school where I worked sent an email out stating that she thought it would be a good idea for morale if everyone in the building knew each others' birthdays. That way we could all send each other birthday greetings on our special day, or we could even give secret gifts on that day. She wrote, "If you're willing to participate, please reply with your birth month and birth date. You don't have to include your birth year (We don't want any hard feelings)."

After a moment of contemplation, I wrote back to her, "Dear _____, I actually have no problem at all telling you my birth year. It's 1968. And I'm perfectly willing to tell you my birth date as well--it's the ___th." (I told HER the actual day, but I'm afraid of possible identity thieves out here on the Internet, so I'll leave it blank here.) "What I cannot believe is that you would ask me the MONTH of my birth. What's wrong with you? Do you have no sensitivity at all? I have half a mind to write an official harassment complaint against you."

I received the following reply: "Ha ha! Really, what month were you born in?" I wrote back to her that I couldn't believe that she had asked me a SECOND time, and that I was actually looking for the official harassment form. I never heard from her again (oddly enough!).

However, I came to work on the ___th of May that year and found sitting in my classroom a desk that the librarian had been saying for months she was going to throw away, and that I had been telling her for months that if she ever decided to throw it away that I wanted it because I could take it home and refinish it. Attached to the desk was a note that said "Happy Birthday." I didn't make the connection at first. I thought the librarian had just decided to give me the desk and was saying that it counted as my next birthday present, whenever that birthday occurred. However, when I went to my mailbox in the teacher's lounge I found six or seven birthday cards in my inbox, along with a couple of nice little gifts. And that's when I understood: since I never gave the teacher my birth month, she had just guessed. So as far as anyone at the high school knew, my birthday went from being in February to being in May.

And I've never corrected the high school on this error, and here's why: People are friendlier in May than they are in February, and I get better presents and better cards. And I've had six or seven years now to test this theory, and I tell you it's absolutely true. The Board of Education building and the other five schools in my district all have written down my actual birth date in February, and on that day I get a card from everyone at the Board where I work and maybe one or two other cards from people. And when I see people in the halls at the schools they say "Happy birthday," but they say it in this depressed, morose way, as if they're really not all that happy for me. In May, though, when the weather is warmer, the flowers are out, and the end of the school year is just days away, the faculty at the high school heap cards, gifts, and sincere "Happy Birthdays" upon me. And the whole feeling of my birthday is different.

I supposed I COULD tell the people at the high school the truth, let them know that for the last six or seven years they've had it wrong. My birthday is NOT in May. It's in February. Maybe I owe them the truth.

Naaah!

The Zoo

We didn't really do much this past weekend. Finally, late Sunday, about as restless as I could get, I looked at Lisa and said, "I'm taking the kids to the zoo!"

You might think a day when the high temperature was 30 degrees and there were snow flurries falling was not a good day to go to the zoo, but I beg to differ. In the summer, when everyone else is going to the zoo, it is WAY to crowded. You can hardly even get close to the more popular exhibits, and you can be forced to park so far away that just getting to where the exhibits are can exhaust you.

But yesterday we parked right at the entrance to the zoo (right beside the handicapped spots), could spend as much time at each exhibit as we liked, and saw all of about 15 or 20 other people the entire hour and a half we were there. One of those 15 or 20 people was a zoo worker who was in the process of feeding some penguins and geese in the exhibit at the entrance of the children's zoo, which is the kind of event that will draw a huge, adoring crowd in the summer. But it was just us there yesterday, and he talked with us about the animals while he fed them and then answered our questions until we ran out of things to ask.
It was a nice day.

Facebook and Old Classmates

I've been aware of Facebook almost from the beginning. In late 2005 I created my Facebook account, mostly at the insistence of some parents and district faculty members who felt it was my job as Chief Information Officer to monitor students on Facebook and MySpace to make sure they weren't revealing any personal information. After about a week of that I realized that a) if I just blocked student access to Facebook and MySpace while at school then I wouldn't have to worry about monitoring what the students were putting on those sites during school and that b) it wasn't my business what they were putting on there after school. So I pretty much quit accessing my Facebook account after that.

But right about the end of 2008 I logged back on again, and I've started using it quite a bit in the last couple of months. And a number of things have occurred to me as I've spent time on Facebook, too many things to talk about in a single post. So I'll just deal with one of them today. I came to this realization while browsing old classmates' Facebook pages:

I am inextricably tied to these people that I went to school with.

I would never have thought that three months ago. After all, with the exception of one classmate that I work with and see in a work atmosphere three or four times a year, I never see any of my old classmates anymore. I don't live in Frankfort, where I grew up, and when I go home to visit, I am keenly aware that it is not the same town I grew up in anyway. Like me, it has changed. I wrote on this blog months and months ago, when I went back to the old Capital Plaza Hotel about this time a year ago for a conference and stood where I'd had my prom picture taken, that I felt completely removed from the person I was back then and the people I knew back then.

But after perusing the "Info" pages of dozens of old classmates, and after reading their status updates and looking at their photos, what I'm learning is that--though I haven't been keeping in touch with these people--it doesn't really matter. We've all been living these lives that are amazingly in parallel to one another. We're all pretty much doing the same things. We get up in the morning and most of us need caffeine. Most of us have children, and we're proud of what they're doing and more than willing to share photos of them with the world. We're all a tad heavier than we were in high school. When the big ice storm hit, we all took photos of it, and we all loaded the photos, which pretty much all looked the same*, up onto Facebook. On our Info pages we all list the same favorite TV shows and movies. We all feel compelled to tell you 25 random things about ourselves. We all feel rushed and tired and pulled twelve different ways by life in our late 30's or early 40's. We have been shaped and molded and formed by the generation in which we have lived.

We are simply all more alike than we are different.

--------------------------------

*Though I have to say, some of those photos were PHENOMENAL. Some of us are better photographers than others.

Obama's Elf

A friend sent this my way, and I found it hysterical. From reading the comments, though, a lot of people don't get it. You may not think this funny, but if you don't, at least you will only have wasted 18 seconds:

More on the Stimulus Package

Yesterday I wrote four random thoughts I had about the stimulus package. I forgot to include the fifth random thought, the one that spurred me to write about the package in the first place.

5. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell missed his calling: he should have been a mathematician. He's quoted in the Newsweek issue a couple of weeks ago as saying, "If you started the day Jesus Christ was born and you spent a million dollars every day since then you still would not have spent a trillion dollars."

I read that and thought, Wow, a trillion dollars is a lot of money, a dollar figure I can't really get my head around, and that really puts it in perspective. Then, because I don't take anything on faith, I grabbed a calculator to see if he knew what he was talking about.

Assuming Jesus was born on December 25 of the year 4 B.C.E. (Historians have argued that's the latest Jesus could have been born if the Bible is true), it's been 2011 years (the time from 12/25/4 B.C.E. to 12/25/2008 C.E.) plus 57 days to get us to February 20, 2009. If you do the math, then, that would be 2011 X 365.25 = 734,517.75 days in 2011 years, plus the 57 days to make a grand total of 734,574.75 days since Jesus's birth.

Now, if we multiply 734,574.75 days times a million dollars you get $734,574,750,000, which is $53 billion LESS than the stimulus package just passed.

It's an amazingly large number, and the more I think about the example the less it's helping me, but I can't stop thinking about it, nor about the fact that we passed a stimulus bill of roughly the same size at the end of 2008. And I'll tell you what is even more amazing: After passing stimulus bills like this, smaller packages that are only in double digit billions of dollars seem tiny. But a billion dollars is a thousand million, so a 75 billion dollar mortgage bailout plan will cost 75 thousand million dollars.

It's mind boggling, I tell ya!

One final statistic: I mentioned above that if we spent a million dollars a day since Jesus' birth we would still be $53 billion under the estimated cost of the just-signed stimulus package. If we kept spending a million dollars a day, we would finally erase the $53 billion difference...

...on March 30 of the year 2154.

The Stimulus Package

I've written quite a bit about politics on this blog since I began it last April, but you may have noticed (or maybe you didn't) that I haven't had much of anything to say about the roughly $800 billion federal stimulus package. That's because 1) I haven't made my mind up about the bill (which is the same reason I haven't written about gay marriage yet) and 2) I don't know enough about the package to say anything even remotely intelligent about the thing. However, since appearing intelligent has never been a real goal of mine, and since this seems to be what everyone is talking about, I'll just throw out some random thoughts about the whole thing.

1) It bothers me that there is so little (read "basically no") Republican support for the bill. This is a GIGANTIC expense to the American tax payers, and I think both the right and the left should be on board.

2) On the other hand, maybe the Republicans have just looked at the political landscape and decided that, if they want to get back into power, they HAD to oppose this bill. Think about their alternatives. They're screwed in three out of four alternatives:

• If they HAD worked with Obama in a bipartisan way and the bill had SUCCEEDED in rescuing the economy, Obama would get all of the credit, not them. In two years during the next national elections the voters would remember how Obama had rescued them from the brink of a Depression and they'd vote to keep the Democrats in power.
• If they HAD worked with Obama in a bipartisan way and the bill had FAILED to rescue the economy, Obama would get blamed, sure, but so would they. Obama would argue that if they'd had a problem with the stimulus bill they should have said something when he was trying to get it passed.
• Now that they have NOT worked with Obama, it's possible that the bill may indeed SUCCEED in rescuing the economy. If it does, the Republicans will look like idiots, but will they be any worse off than if they'd worked with Obama? Not really. They seem out of touch now and they'll seem out of touch then.
• The only scenario that works for them is what they might be praying for now: They do NOT work with Obama, and the bill FAILS to rescue the economy. If that happens, the Republicans can put their hands up and say, "None of us voted for this plan! We TRIED to warn you Americans! This isn't our fault!" And the American people will drive the Democrats out of power in two years and Obama out of the White House in four.

So when you get right down to it, what they did might be their only option for survival as a party, and not a reflection on the actual bill.

3) I am so sick of the phrase "shovel ready" to describe projects that can take effect immediately. The first time I heard it I thought, "Wow. Neat phrase!" Apparently so did everyone else because you can't watch a news show anymore without hearing someone say it. It's weird how that works because, as interesting as the phrase is, it's not the only one that could be used. "Hammer ready" works just as well. So does "Backhoe ready." In fact, I kind of like "backhoe ready" better than "shovel ready" anyway. It's more indicative of what will actually happen with a construction project. But you'll never catch anyone on the news saying, "Over 35% of the spending in this stimulus bill is simple pork barrel spending. Only a handful of items are backhoe ready!" Which is a shame.

4) Obama has stumbled a bit in the last few weeks. Heck, that's being too easy on the guy. He has all but fallen on his face. He stuck his hand out at the last second to prevent himself from doing so, but then he slipped again and went down on one knee. Now his hands are scraped and bleeding and he's got a big, round wet spot on the left kneecap area of his suit pants, and his back is hurting a little bit and he's thinking he might need to see a chiropractor again.

Or maybe I'm carrying that analogy a little too far.

The History of the Internet

Here's a video I stumbled upon on YouTube yesterday. It's VERY interesting to me. Most people probably won't care about it, but I love it and wish it had been around when I was teaching my web design class from 2000-2004:

A Day Off

Yesterday was an event that I think I've had about seven times in the last twelve years: an entire day at home alone.

My school district was off for President's Day, but the girls' school district was using the day as a makeup day, and Lisa is still doing her long term sub job at the same school. So I had the whole day to myself.

As I just said, I think I've had maybe six other days like yesterday, and five of them were last year on Spring Break, so it's defintely not something I'm used to. The quiet is so nice. I spent a lot of time actually working, cleaning the house, rearranging some furniture, making a pot roast, being productive. I only left the house once, to get an electronics cable I needed at Wal-Mart. I was only gone for maybe 30 minutes. I didn't want to browse the store; I wanted to get back home to my nothingness.

Despite all of the work that I mentioned above, I actually got a lot LESS done than I thought I would. I had big plans. In addition to everything I mentioned above, I was also going to vacuum the entire house and clean all of the bathrooms.

But things didn't work out that way. They NEVER work out that way. I always imagine when I have an entire day that I can get done about three times as much stuff as I actually get done. I guess I forget about eating meals and stopping to watch TV and stuff like that.

Still, it was a nice day, a chance to get re-energized. I don't have another weekday off work until Spring Break in April. So now, Tuesday morning, after a nice three day weekend, I'm staring at seven weeks of work before another break.

Time to go out there and get at it!

Blu-Ray

I watched my first movie on a Blu-Ray player Saturday night, and I have to say I found it completely distracting. The movie was The Dark Knight, which everyone had told me was awesome. But while I was watching it I kept noticing the resolution instead of following the plot. Batman was standing at the top of a building getting ready to leap off and perform some valiant stunt or another, but I was thinking, "Wow! I can see that guy in the window in the building way off in the distance!" Later, when the Joker was making some threat while in a holding cell, my reaction was, "Look at that! You can see Heath Ledger's acne!"

It reminds me of the first time my family ever had a color TV back when I was a kid. I remember vividly the first show I watched on it: a rerun of The Flintstones. I couldn't begin to tell you what episode it was. I just remember watching it with my sister Ann and being mesmerized by the vibrant colors. I think maybe Ann and I had fooled with the color saturation and turned it WAY up because I remember looking away from the TV and saying to Ann, "Wow! It looks like the whole world is in black and white now," and she agreed with me.

We've come a long way, baby.

Feeling Like a Moron

There are several common occurrences in my life when I feel like a total moron. An example of one is when I'm pushing on a door that very clearly says "Pull." Another happened just the other day when I was at the gas pump. I put my credit card in the machine and waited for it to be validated. After a moment a message appeared saying, "Select grade." I put my credit card away and then began fervently pushing the yellow "87" on the machine, only to realize after about the fifth or sixth push that I was pushing a simple sticker! I was supposed to be pushing the orange unleaded button above it. The only thing that kept me from feeling completely stupid was the fact that I could tell by the wear on the yellow sticker that I wasn't the only person who had done this (click the photo above to enlarge it and see for yourself. There had been plenty of other people before me mindlessly pushing the sticker.).

Just now I had a third experience, one that (I must admit) happens quite a bit more often than the other two. I'm talking about turning the lights off. Normally that's not such a big deal for me. But when 1) the light switch plate contains more than one light switch like the photo on the left does, AND when 2) one of the toggles works in a different direction from the others (maybe you turn off two by toggling the switch down, but the third requires you to toggle the switch up) I am usually completely befuddled. If I'm in a hurry I just start flipping switches randomly, and lights start flashing on and off in a rapid pattern. If I don't slow down and concentrate I think I might be there all day before I get the lights off.

It's in moments like that that I seriously wonder how I got a master's degree.

Another Phrase People Use That Bugs Me

Back a few months ago I wrote about a well known phrase that bothers me every time I hear it: "That which does not kill me only makes me stronger." Today I want to talk about a second phrase people say all of the time, and when I hear it my attention pretty much shuts down because I'm thinking about what the person just said.

The phrase isn't a complete sentence, but rather the beginning of a sentence, and the beginning I'm talking about is "I'll be damned if," followed by something else.

"I'll be damned if" is used, I guess, to express that the speaker really dislikes whatever is going to happen next in the sentence. An example sentence would be something like this, "I'll be damned if Jim is going to get that promotion over me!"

But when someone says something like that, my brain immediately comes back with a question: Really? REALLY? Think about what you're saying here, bud. IF Jim gets that promotion over you, in addition to the unthinkable happening (Jim getting the promotion), you're also condemning yourself to everlasting punishment in the flames of hell. That seems like a double punishment to me!

Wouldn't it make more sense to say something like, "I'll win the 10 million dollar lottery and become blessed with the power to heal if Jim is going to get that promotion over me!" Then you've got a no lose situation. If you get the promotion, bully for you! If Jim gets the promotion, at least you got that whole power to heal thing going for you.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking things in this case...

A Game That Makes a Boring Meeting Fun

Nothing can be more unpleasant than sitting at a meeting where the speaker is trying to be funny but just flat out isn't. It can be a very uncomfortable moment. But if you're a fan of the NBC show The Office, Lisa and I discovered a fun little game you can play that makes the that uncomfortable moment enjoyable:

Just pretend that the person speaking is Michael Scott, Steven Carrell's character from The Office. Suddenly everything the person is saying WILL BE funny!

We discovered this quite by accident watching the weekend edition of the Channel 5 news show. Anchoring the newscast one Saturday morning was an anchorman who had--prior to the discovery of our game--been my least favorite newscaster. The guy's name is Jonathan Hawgood, and what always bothered me about him is that in between every story he feels a psychotic need to try to be funny, but at the same time he seems to have a complete inability to actually BE funny. It used to irritate me to no end. Finally, one Saturday morning when we were sitting on the couch watching the news, I said to Lisa, "You know, that guy kind of looks like Steven Carrell. I wish Michael Scott were doing the news instead of this guy." And then just like that, the guy suddenly became hilarious! He's now my favorite newscaster, and I can't wait for the weekend to come so that I can watch him. (Holy crud! I hope he doesn't google his name and find this! I'd hate for him to become self-conscious!)

Once I started doing that I started doing it whenever someone was trying to be funny, and I've found it works whether the speaker looks like Michael Scott or not.

Just a tip!

Elks Club Presentation

A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry about how Meredith had received a 2nd place designation in an Elks Club region wide essay contest. Last night the Elks Club held a special ceremony to honor the winners. Three 5th/6th graders and four 7th/8th graders were honored.

First, each person was presented with a plaque. You can watch in the video below:



After each student received a plaque, the lodge leader announced that he had a special treat for the students. He presented a lodge member who was also an active member of the United States Navy, and this sailor also had something for each of the students. Again, here's the video:



After the presentations, the lodge leaders gave a brief speech, and several of the principals and teachers in attendance complimented the students and the parents.

And here's the essay that garnered all of the attention:


WHAT FREEDOM MEANS TO ME

By:Meredith Sweasy

To tell you the truth, I don't really know what freedom means. I used to think freedom meant not having that bossy old king who took our money and used it for himself. Some people think it means getting to do whatever they want to do. But I don't think it means either of those things.

If you ask me, freedom goes with responsibility. You can't have one without the other. If you have just freedom, then you really can do whatever you want. But just responsibility means that you have to work and do nothing else.

I never really thought about what it would be like to live in a dictatorship country or one where a war is raging. People say it would be terrible, and I agree. People lose family to protests and violence, hunger and thirst. Who wants to live in a place like that? I don't believe those countries are truly free.

So I guess freedom means a place where I can learn and eat, without violence and protests. It's a place where I can be friends with people of all nations and not be frowned upon for it. But in living there we must be responsible, such as treating people with respect and working hard, so we can keep our freedoms. Otherwise we don't really deserve it. That, to me, is truly what freedom means.

I'm a Nerd...

...and I'm going to prove it with the next sentence I write...

One of the things I do for fun when the Kentucky Legislature is in session is to go to the Legislative Research Commission's website and randomly click on bills to see what's going on. I find quite often that some of the best bills being considered don't get much press.

This year, for instance, House Bill 277 caught my eye. It changes an older law to make it gender neutral. The old law stated (rather sensibly, I think) that if a continuance was granted in a lawsuit, that the plaintiff who CAUSED the continuance would have to pay for the continuance. The original law, however, referred to the plaintiff as "he" or "him," but the new law changes it to "he or she" or "him or her."

I like that bill because--though I don't know this for sure--I'm just willing to bet that some woman forced a continuance, and when the court tried to charge her for the continuance, her lawyer said, "Show me the law that says that SHE has to pay for a continuance!" And no one could. In a few months, though, they'll be able to do so.

House Bill 130 makes the state of Kentucky completely heartless and bad-ass when it comes to the death penalty. Used to be, if you were a murderer under the age of 12 AND you had been abused by the person you murdered, you could expect no more than life in prison. Not any longer. If HB 130 passes, we're gonna kill ya back! Who cares that you're seven years old!

And I started to not even Read House Bill 177. Its title was so funny, I just knew that the bill itself would be a letdown: It's called (and I'm not fibbing here) "An Act Related To Unpasteurized Goat Milk." But I went ahead and read the bill, and I was wrong--the bill's funny, too. It begins by talking about what constitutes a goat milk farmer, how to properly care for goat milk, how to store it, boring stuff like that. But the last paragraph of the bill states that no city or municpality shall create its own laws regarding goat milk.

Seriously, is this an issue? Are cities all over the state rushing out to make goat milk laws? I haven't heard a word from any of the city councils in Northern Kentucky. And I read all of the city council meeting minutes.

Like I said, I'm a nerd.

Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez

I say (and you can quote me) "Ho hum" about the latest fall from grace of two of sports' finest. First, photos of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps surfaced showing him smoking marijuana from a bong (see photo to the right). Then New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez admitted yesterday that he did, indeed, use steroids while playing Major League baseball. Two shining stars struck down so close together.

And my reaction: big deal. I honestly cannot get any real emotional traction from these stories. Am I shocked? No. Famous athletes have been abusing drugs of all kinds for years, and as long as it doesn't hurt their game, most people don't care.

So then, am I outraged? Not really. I don't care one way or another whether Michael Phelps decided to smoke marijuana. As long as he's not driving afterward and not offering any to my kids, I don't care what he does. And as far as Alex Rodriguez goes, the bigger story should not be which slugger IS using steroids, but which ones AREN'T, because that, my friend, would be real news. People shouldn't be pointing fingers at Alex Rodriguez. They should be pointing them at Ken Griffey, Jr. You can tell by looking at that guy that he hasn't been taking steroids. How has HE managed to do it? What' HIS secret?

I guess this all goes back to my post a week ago about my apathy for the Super Bowl this year. I think maybe I'm just done with sports, at least for now, and I simply don't care enough to care anymore.

The Weather

Everything is relative.

In the fall, when the temperature outside drops into the forties at night and the fifties in the day, everyone remarks about how cold it's getting. Some people complain about the winter that is starting to arrive. Others who enjoy the winter (people like me) get excited at the prospect of finally needing a blanket at night to sleep.

On the February side of winter, though, when the thermometers outside get to exactly the same temperatures, it feels like summer. Yesterday I took Natalie to Odyssey of the Mind practice a couple of miles from our house, and I bet we passed 60 people walking along the sidewalks of Beechwood Road and Dixie Highway. Some people were in shorts and t-shirts, enjoying highs in the low fifties, the same temperatures that would have sent them digging through their closets for a windbreaker four months ago.

Lisa went walking through those same streets, and if the yard wasn't so saturated with melted snow I would have gotten out and done some yard work just to be outside.

Even though we know in our minds that spring will eventually arrive, when it's seven degrees below zero--the way it was three weeks ago--our hearts don't believe it. Days like yesterday make us believers again.
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P.S. I also got the Camry out of the driveway yesterday morning! By the end of the day today I would think all of the snow at the bottom of the driveway will be gone.

Quote of the Day (sort of)

I'm writing this late Saturday night, and I don't have a lot of time and don't have anything to say, so my plan was to grab a quick quotation and place it on my site (I've done that a handful of times before.)

I searched and found this quotation:

"He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself."

It was an interesting quotation and I thought I'd use it.

But here's the deal: the quotation was attributed to William Shakespeare. I'm an English major. Not only that, I'm an English major with a love for Shakespeare. As such, I've taken FIVE Shakespeare courses in my life (one in high school, two as an undergrad, and two as a graduate student), and in all of those courses, I had NEVER heard this quote. Now, I haven't read everything that Shakespeare has written, that's true. But I have read ALMOST everything that Shakespeare has ever written, and I think I'd remember this quotation, but I absolutely could not. So I went searching on the Internet. Site after site attributed the quotation to Shakespeare, but not one of them said what work it had come from. A few sites attributed the quotation to Seneca, but none of them said from what work it came, either.

Moreover, the quotation doesn't even SOUND like Shakespeare. To most people not all that familiar with Shakespeare, any sentence that has "thy" or "thou" in it is going to sound like it could have been written by Shakespeare, but trust me--this quotation has several red flags to suggest that it ISN'T Shakespeare. It may actually be a Shakepearian quote, but the odds are about the same as they are of Carrie Underwood singing a hard core rap song.

Anyway, if anyone can tell me where this quote really DOES come from, I'd appreciate it. No one on the Internet seems to know.

And I guess that leads me to what I'm getting at here: You have to take everything on the Internet with a grain of salt. Just because it's there (Even if it's there over and over again, like this quotation is) it doesn't mean it's true.

How I Met Your Mother, part two

Earlier this week I posted a video that I made about my parents. I mentioned that I created another short video about their honeymoon. Thought I'd post it as well:

Snowed in

Two Monday's ago (January 26) I came home from work and parked my car at the top of our driveway. I started to turn off the ignition and then it occurred to me: there was a forecast of significant snow the next day, and if my city called for a snow emergency I would need to get the minivan off of the street. We still haven't cleaned out the garage from our move two months ago so that we could get one of the vehicles into the garage, so I pulled the Camry down to the bottom of the driveway and parked the minivan at the top.

And the Camry has been down there ever since.

When we had 4 inches of snow followed by a 1/2 inch of ice and then another 5 inches of snow it was hard enough just to get the van out of the TOP of the driveway, much less get the Camry out of the bottom of the driveway, so I didn't worry about it. And then this past Tuesday afternoon we got a surprise of an additional 5 inches of snow, and that pretty much doomed us. The car is stuck. Wednesday Lisa came home and said, "Oh, by the way, we're definitely going to need two vehicles tomorrow!" I went outside and dug and dug, chipped and chipped, but the car was going nowhere. After almost an hour of shoveling I managed to get the car an additional foot and a half DOWN the driveway, but it ain't coming up until the snow and ice melt.

Today is supposed to be a nicer day, in the 50's, and so is the rest of the week. I'm hoping that by this coming Monday I'll be able to get the car out of the driveway. At that point it will have been two weeks exactly.

Wish us luck.

Drawing a Blank

Wow. I waited around all day Wednesday for inspiration to strike me regarding today's post, but here it is, Thursday morning, and I've got nothin'.

I guess I could NOT post anything today, but it's been so long since I missed a post (October 9, 2008, t0 be exact) that I'm afraid someone might think something has happened to me. So great! Now this has become another responsibility of mine!

Anyway, here are some random thoughts just to let you know I'm still alive:

Random Thought 1: My school district was off school AGAIN yesterday. That brings the grand total of days we've missed this year to five. FIVE! That's more than we've ever had in the 19 years I've been in the district.

Random Thought 2: Last year, as many of you know, Lisa went back to full time teaching. She quickly realized it was too much for her. She agreed, though, to do a long term sub job (7 weeks) for the teacher who replaced her as that teacher was going on maternity leave. This sub job has sort of reinforced for her that this is too much work.

Random Thought 3: Why can't I pour liquid out of a Mr. Coffee-style carafe without getting it all over the place? Do they intentionally design these coffee pots to a) break if dropped from any height further than 3 inches and b) spill all over the counter when poured? I thankfully don't have a carafe like that at home anymore, but the one at work is driving me crazy.

Random Thought 4: I've pretty much gotten used to the idea of living where we live now rather than at Vent Haven. It's been a long, long time since I took the wrong turn off the interstate and started heading to my old house.

Random Thought 5: I just found out there's only one "f" in "carafe." Thanks, Blogger Spell Checker!

Super Bowl Super Letdown

Don't misunderstand the title of this post. I'm not complaining about the quality of play in this year's Super Bowl. For the last two years the Super Bowl has been an outstanding game, and this year's Super Bowl has to rank up there as one of the great ones of all time.

What I'm writing about today is how little I cared about this year's Super Bowl despite all of the great story lines that came out of this year's game. After all, this was the Arizona Cardinals, a team no one thought even belonged in the playoffs, making it all the way to the Super Bowl. And the Pittsburgh Steelers were going for their records sixth Super Bowl title. Not to mention that the Steelers are in the Bengals' division and thus I had a rooting interest for them. Despite all of that, I never got very enthused about the game.

My interest was so little, in fact, that when Lisa and I ran into some friends at a wedding Friday night who weren't planning to watch the game, we decided to join them in a Super bowl boycott. So instead of watching the game on a big screen at somebody's Super Bowl party, the four of us and our kids met at our house--where we don't have a big screen TV--and played cards instead. Sure, at halftime we watched the big 3-d show (what a letdown) and watched Bruce Springsteen perform (what a bigger letdown), but we didn't watch the first half at all! Once we'd seen the halftime show we just sort of kept the TV on and saw the second half, but despite the exciting conclusion, I never really got into it.

I'm not sure what was different this year. But I have three theories:

1) I think the dreary news of the day--the wars, the economy--may have affected me. It's hard to celebrate when retirement accounts are shrinking and you start counting how many years are left until retirement and wondering if there's any way you'll at least be back to even by then.

2) No matter what happened this year, it was most likely going to be a letdown. After all, last year's Super Bowl will almost certainly go down in history as the greatest Super Bowl of all time. The undefeated Goliath of the New England Patriots, who had mowed down almost every team it had faced and had posted the first 18-0 record ever in the NFL, vanquished by the New York Giants, who--despite their mascot--were playing the "David" role in this story. The escape and throw by Manning...the catch on the helmet by Tyree...even though the Steelers' comeback was just as exciting and just as athletic, it just couldn't compare. Last year when the Giants scored to take the lead late in the game, I leaped out of my seat and screamed in triumph. It was an exciting moment, something that comes along only once a decade or so,* and it was inevitable that this year would pale in comparison.

3) Maybe it's just that I'm getting older. I've seen hundreds of "big games" in my life, from Super Bowls to World Series games to NCAA basketball tournaments to big conference games of all kinds, and I just don't think I can get really excited about them anymore. The transient impermanence of it all strikes me now. How many games can really be "The game of the century"? Just one, right? The rest of these "colossal events" are just one more game, one more block of several hours that I'm never going to get back. Heck, I don't even watch basketball AT ALL anymore, and I only watch a little baseball. I keep up with football because it's my favorite sport, but even as I watch it sometimes I think, "Why am I watching this game that glorifies violence? It's almost as bad as hockey or boxing!" I think I am just getting too old to think sports are important...because I know they're not.

Whatever the reason, I just didn't get very enthused about the big game. And I don't see my attitude changing any time soon.

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*In fact, I remember the last time I got so excited about a game: When the University of Kentucky men's basketball team defeated Duke in the Elite 8 in 1998 after trailing by 18 points early in the second half. As Kentucky kept inching closer and closer to Duke Lisa and I kept inching closer and closer to the TV screen, so that when Kentucky finally hit a three pointer to take the lead we had our noses practically touching the screen. We both jumped into the air screaming and hugging each other--you would have thought we knew somebody on the team!

Economic Stimulus for Dummies!

Here's an example of a blog sending a link to another (much better) blog...

...This weekend I was listening to NPR and I heard a radio story about the "new" economic stimulus package that really blew me away. It was the first time that anyone really explained to me the THEORY behind the economic stimulus in a way that made sense to me.

Note that I emphasized "theory" in the previous sentence. I honestly don't care if $5 billion is going to this project or $22 billion is going to do this other project. The scope and size of these projects all are too vast for my puny little brain to truly grasp. This story is about the idea of the THEORY (note the emphasis again) of what this economic stimulus is supposed to do, and what the risks are concerning it.

And I know what my ultraconservative friends are thinking: NPR! Ugh! It's going to be left-wing drivel, but this is honestly the most balanced, understandable story that I've ever heard, and it's not easy listening, but it ain't hard if you're paying attention, either. If you really want to know the big picture behind this stimulus bill, here's where you can hear it.

Click this link and then click the play button on the Flash bar just beneath the picture. Drag the bar to the 7:45 mark (if you're counting up on the left side. If you're counting down on the right side it's the 15:00 minute). That's where the story begins.
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Update: I just listened to the link that I posted and realized that the entire story is not there, only a sort of Reader's Digest Condensed version. The full story can be downloaded for free as an MP3 here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=373

How I Met Your Mother

No, this entry is not about the TV show How I Met Your Mother. I've never seen the show, so I wouldn't have much to say about it. This entry is about a movie that I made for my parents as Christmas gift a couple of years ago. I scanned several photos of my parents when they were young and then interviewed the two of them about the photos, and then I made the movie below. Thought it about time that I shared it with everyone else:



My initial plan was to scan ALL of my parents' photos and construct a documentary of about 2 hours in length which covered their entire lives. I was going to interview not just my parents, but their brother and sisters and friends, MY brothers and sisters, and anyone else who had a story to tell about them. But then life sort of got in the way of me doing all of this. I DO have a wife and children who needed my time, and I DO have a day job that keeps me busy, so in the end I made this video and one other short video about their honeymoon and that's it. It's still a dream of mine to do the rest, though I'm starting to get the sneaking suspicion that there's no way I'm going to finish it while my parents are still alive. C'est La Vie.

Poor Fella!

It may be snowy out there today, but two Friday's ago was a warm day, and apparently it was warm enough to fool Mother Nature a little bit because there was a swarm of mosquitoes around my car as I was leaving work. I got in the car, started it up, let it warm up for a minute, and then drove out of the parking lot and headed for home. I was maybe a tenth of a mile down the road when I realized I had a stowaway; one of the mosquitoes had ended up in the car with me and was accompanying me to my house.

Once I got home, I did what I always do in that situation: I carefully shooed the little guy out of my car and on his way. And as I did so I thought the same thought I always think at that moment: Poor fella. I bet that guy has NO idea where he is now.

I know it's just an almost mindless insect, but I still can't get out of my head the idea of what's running through its little mind. "Whew," I imagine it saying, "am I glad to get out of there! I kept running into SOMETHING but I couldn't see it. And now I'm free and--hey! What is going on here? Where the hell AM I? What--? What--? Louise? Mom? Uncle Louie? Somebody? Help!"

He's completely lost now. I probably should have just smashed him.