Hooray! I'm finally getting some comments for the first time from other folks in the blogosphere. Thanks to swagy and domestika for taking the time to stop by and drop me a line; do me a favor and swing by A Swag Man's Notes and so you wannabee a Domestik Goddess and check them out. Swagy's blog is a little like mine, but a lot more focused and literate. Domestika, meanwhile, is a sort of "Frugal Gourmet"-type blogger, except she replaces "frugal gourmet" with "home and garden on a budget."
That being said, their comments have exposed a glaring flaw in my blog. It's not so evident when you go to the "post a comment" page (which is where you end up when you click on "0 comments" below most of these posts).
However, when you pull up an individual post (for instance, clicking on the first link in this particular post will take you to the post in question. Clicking on the # sign to the left of "posted by Brandon G." at the end of each post will do the same), the comments section looks like it's been hijacked by the Reader's Digest Large Print edition. It is ugly.
So, I throw the question out to whatever audience there is looking at this:
Any ideas on how to make the comments look more presentable - ideally, in the same size and typeface as my posts? I don't really see any options in the "template" tab of the posting module, and I fear that the answer is going to be, "Well, you're going to have to change your overall template from 'Sand Dollar' to something else." I hate to go that route, but will if I must.
Your thoughts?
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Bonds ennui.
Waves of apathy and ambivalence rush across the Bramble Tamble compound as Barry Bonds inches closer to second place on the all-time home run list. (And, given his rather unremarkable start to the season, I think it’s a little bit silly to assume that the toppling of the all-time home run record is a foregone conclusion.)
Mark McGwire didn't have the same wary eye of America turned on him when he was hitting 70 home runs (not the one that he has now, you know). Neither did Sammy Sosa when he was matching McGwire home run-for-home run and they were chasing Maris together.
It was a good time to be a baseball fan in those days; you almost expect highlights of the McGwire/Sosa race to be shown on TV tinged in sepia tones, they seem so long ago and so golden. The game's post-strike resurgence was nearly complete, to be topped off by Cal Ripken's consecutive-games streak and breathless 15,000-word essays by George Will and David Halberstam on baseball's continued significance to America and how perfect it would be if only they could dig up and reanimate Joe DiMaggio to see it all.
It was only a few years later, of course, that the Jose Canseco book was published – it was to steroids what “Ball Four” was to greenies - and the subsequent Congressional hearings led the same commentators to wonder what we could trust if we couldn't trust baseball.
Listen. I stopped waxing poetic about the game a while back, and will only resume doing so should my son decide he wants to play the game. I'm not one of those people who claim that "as baseball goes, so goes America" (see also: "breathless 15,000-word essays"). Really, I love the game, but America’s pastime is a thing of the past for some of the same reasons that all of the other traditions that we as a nation once shared seem to be on the decline:
1) Too much choice,
2) Too much greed,
3) Too many allegations of cheating,
4) Too much meddling by the game’s caretakers.
All of these do not necessarily apply to baseball, but I’d like to look at each of them and examine how they might apply. I think that if you have one of the four factors listed above, your endeavor can survive (with work). Become infected with two or more of the above illnesses, and your fans will turn on you with utmost alacrity.
Too much meddling by the game’s caretakers: Let me get away from baseball for a moment. A horrible retooling of the Indiana high school basketball tournament (from single-class to multiple classes) has generated a schism between traditionalists who would love to see the tournament reinstated to its past glory and progressives who think that four champions is better than one. I’ve seen both sides of the argument: I was firmly against the concept of class basketball at its inception – recognizing one state champion was plenty for me, thanks - but later, my sister-in-law’s team got hot her junior year and was one game away from playing for a Class A state championship. Realistically, that’s an opportunity that she likely wouldn’t have had if single-class hoops were still in place. I doubt that she or anyone else on that team thinks the experience was cheapened by the fact that they eventually lost to single-A North Vermillion in the semistate instead of losing to Class 3A Washington in the sectional round.
Still, the numbers don’t lie. In the IHSAA’s quest to level the playing field for the smaller schools in the state, it has destroyed the aura that the tournament once had. Attendance is down in almost all aspects (especially in the postseason), and for crying out loud, the state championship games weren’t even on TV unless you were in one of the larger metropolitan areas. Inexcusable!
There is no purer example of “not leaving well enough alone” than in the IHSAA’s meddling in the sport. (Except, of course, for the implementation of Daylight Savings Time in the state.) Class athletics has wrought nothing but destruction on the state basketball landscape.
Baseball, on the other hand, has survived (and, to a point, thrived in spite of) the meddling by the game’s caretakers. Sure, the debate still rages on about the use of the designated hitter, and realignment (both in 1969 and 1994) was a pretty big hit. Interleague play hasn’t brought about the game’s destruction yet, though you can’t help but wonder if it dilutes the novelty of the World Series at least a little bit. And, in spite of the liberal usage of foo-foo colors like teal and purple, the apocalypse is still not nigh.
Attendance is still strong, and while there are a few weak markets in which there is cause for concern (Kansas City, Pittsburgh, anything that Jeffrey Loria touches – more on him in a second), overall, the game is not hampered by shortsighted leadership on either the team level or the league level. Baseball escapes the "meddling" argument.
Too much choice: Back to Indiana basketball for just a moment, then I’ll let it drop: Indiana high school basketball as a whole, was already in decline mode before class basketball reared its ugly head in our state. (Note: this link leads to a lengthy, rather scholarly study of Indiana high school basketball; page 76 contains a particularly insightful quote about the state basketball tournament and society as a whole from former Brooklyn Dodger Carl Erskine. I highly encourage you to at least check that part out, even if you don't particularly care for the overall topic of the piece.)
The adults like to say it’s because there are too many other activities and outlets competing for our kids’ time. And it’s true - the ol’ ball barn isn’t really the place to be on Friday and Saturday nights anymore, which leaves an older, more moribund fanbase to support the local five. The electric atmosphere of a hot gym on a cold winter night is low-wattage, at best (except for only the most intense rivalries).
Back when basketball was the only game in town for a lot of the smaller towns around my area, you might have played baseball or ran track in the spring, but you were only truly considered an athlete if you suited up for the basketball team. There was a fierce air of competitiveness between schools – the enmity between my school, Shoals, and our county rivals from Loogootee was so passionate that a 1975 game ended in a brawl almost before it got started, and the schools didn’t play again for 7 years. Now, thanks to the different camps that kids can go to in the summer, to say nothing of the general shrinking of the world we live in, these kids who formerly wouldn’t have anything to do with one another now are friends. I wouldn’t be more shocked if Tom’s offspring and Jerry’s offspring hung out together to eat cheese and gawk at dogs.
But basketball isn’t the only game in town anymore. It’s harder to get kids to commit to basketball when there is also soccer, wrestling, baseball, cross country, volleyball, gymnastics, golf, track, softball, and even bowling offered as school sports and competing for their time and energy, and that’s just on the high school level. And there are just too many other activities at both our disposal and our kids’ than to take in a high school basketball game.
I think that, to a certain extent, baseball suffers from the same malady. There are 700 other channels in the cable/satellite universe, so only diehards watch the games on TV. Entertainment options abound, and baseball has lost its ability to galvanize a nation because it has to compete. There are still strongholds, of course, especially in the more traditional baseball towns like St. Louis, Chicago and New York (and, to a lesser extent, Cincinnati).
Too much greed: Like most other endeavors, baseball is now a business. It always has been on some level, but no more so than at this point in time. Blame Curt Flood, blame George Steinbrenner, blame the commissioner's office and the player's union for allowing the salaries of players to become exorbitant. There's plenty of blame to go around; look elsewhere if you expect the chicken-egg argument of whose Original Sin it was to be addressed or answered here.
There are black marks all over the game in this regard, though. The continued existence of Jeffrey Loria (who has already screwed Montreal out of the Expos, and is looking to screw South Florida out of the Marlins) hasn’t brought on the apocalypse as feared, but he surely doesn't operate in the "best interests of the game" - a phrase that former commish Bowie Kuhn trotted out when dealing with A's owner Charlie Finley's shenanigans in the 1970s. Steinbrenner, meanwhile, has driven up the ceiling on salaries - or, more precisely, completely dismantled it - spending upwards of $200 million on payroll and forcing other teams to do something similar if they wanted to remain competitive with the Yankees.
It's a given, especially in middle America, that "greed" has replaced "batting average" and "ERA" as the factor that drives baseball. Ask anyone over 50 what they think about baseball these days, and they will likely sigh heavily and begin ranting about "those damned owners" or "those selfish players."
That's two strikes on baseball. Here's a high, hard one:
Too many allegations of cheating: Which brings us full circle: Instead of celebrating a man who is closing in on second place on the all-time home run list, we are rightfully skeptical and, to an extent, scornful of Barry Bonds.
America will turn on a cheater quicker than a wrestler would turn on Hulk Hogan in the '80s. And when you combine the shadow of drug or steroid usage with the allegations of cheating, those who are even rumored to partake in both become Public Pariah #1.
That's why so few trust in, believe in baseball anymore. The gaudy numbers that so many sluggers have put up – think back to when Brady Anderson (Brady Anderson!) hits 50 home runs in a season, having never put out more than 24 in a season before or after 1996 – seem almost magical upon first glance, but upon closer review don't really hold water in the real world. We love our numbers in America, and anyone who inflates those numbers by artificial means deserves all of the derision he can get. Even Roger Maris' 1961 season was riddled with a big asterisk – as if it was his fault that baseball extended the season another 8 games – and the animosity that many fans pointed toward him for daring to challenge The Babe nearly killed him.
Is this to say that Barry Bonds is a cheat? (Does it walk like a duck? Does it talk like a duck?) I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I say this as someone who's not cared for him throughout his career. But my benefit of the doubt is outweighed by what Barry Bonds sees as Barry Bonds' best interests: coming clean about his alleged drug usage (for real, and not with his constant blanket denials) would instantly lead to a near-complete ostracization from the fans - remember what happened to Jason Giambi? - and could certainly lead to his banishment from the game and the loss of his paycheck.
And even though we don't know the whole truth and can only rely on the word of shady associates and authors looking to get rich off the Bonds saga, the mere speculation about his steroid usage is enough to cause his entire career to be put under a microscope, to be picked apart with a fine-toothed comb.
And that's why I'm so ho-hum about Bonds' coming coronation as the new all-time king. We should be leading up to the greatest moment in baseball in the century, and all I can do is stifle a yawn, because it's just not real to me anymore. I suspect that I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Name change:
Henceforth, all references to our "weather radio" will be replaced by references to the "Bajeebus Alarm."
The new mattress that we purchased last weekend sleeps really well, well enough that I can sleep through the guilt of Susie's commission being reduced through her idiocy. Oh, wait, that's not guilt.
It does not sleep well enough, however, for us not to be awakened/frightened by the Bajeebus Alarm's severe weather alert function last night around midnight (and then again at 1, and then again at 1:15).
(I guess that means it's doing its job, then.)
Wife: "That thing scared the bajeebus out of me."
Me: "Oh, you mean when it goes, 'BAJEEBUS BAJEEBUS BAJEEBUS'?"
Hence the new name.
(When the information about the storm follows the alarm, the voice repeats a summary of the weather warning after running through it the first time. This is useful, for I never can hear it the first time over the sound of me crapping myself.)
Why my silence this week? Well, I am working on an epic post about baseball that will bore you to tears (much like that sentence did once you got to "baseball"). Hopefully will post later on this week; it's really unfocused and shoddy and rambling right now.
The new mattress that we purchased last weekend sleeps really well, well enough that I can sleep through the guilt of Susie's commission being reduced through her idiocy. Oh, wait, that's not guilt.
It does not sleep well enough, however, for us not to be awakened/frightened by the Bajeebus Alarm's severe weather alert function last night around midnight (and then again at 1, and then again at 1:15).
(I guess that means it's doing its job, then.)
Wife: "That thing scared the bajeebus out of me."
Me: "Oh, you mean when it goes, 'BAJEEBUS BAJEEBUS BAJEEBUS'?"
Hence the new name.
(When the information about the storm follows the alarm, the voice repeats a summary of the weather warning after running through it the first time. This is useful, for I never can hear it the first time over the sound of me crapping myself.)
Why my silence this week? Well, I am working on an epic post about baseball that will bore you to tears (much like that sentence did once you got to "baseball"). Hopefully will post later on this week; it's really unfocused and shoddy and rambling right now.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
My Sleep Number is "Poor White Trash"
Finally bit the bullet today and did something we've been talking about doing for months: got a new mattress set. We had sent off for literature on that Sleep Number bed that Lindsay Wagner shills on infomercials, but opted instead to go to our local furniture store.
The proprietors of Englert's in Loogootee, IN, will surely be pleased to know that the saleswoman they had on the floor almost immediately talked us out of any business there whatsoever. I believe her name was Susie.
Almost immediately upon our entrance to the showroom floor, Susie greeted us and asked us what we were looking for. We told her that our mattress set was shot, and we were way overdue for a new one. She took us to the bedding section, and we first came upon those TempurPedic foam mattresses that were developed by NASA or whatever. And then came the words that, the more we thought about it afterwards, the more it riled us (paraphrasing, of course, without losing the general gist of what was said):
"These mattresses are probably a little too expensive (implied: "for you") - the inner-spring mattresses are over here."
!
You kinda hope that Susie doesn't work on commission, with bilge like that spewing forth from her oral cavity. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if she did, since she's apparently not sharp enough to get out of working on Saturdays. (And that's not meant as an affront to people who do have to work on the weekends. I'm just saying that if you're going to condescend, you'd better be damn sure you've got a reason to condescend. Yeah, maybe we were a little shoddy-looking - the maid took the latter part of the week off and the laundry on the bedroom floor is about thigh-high now - but for God's sake, you just don't act like you're better than other people based solely on appearances ... especially in any sort of business enterprise.
(I could almost see and understand the condescension if we'd accidentally wandered into a Rolls-Royce dealership looking as we did ... but this is a furniture store in a town of about 3,000 folks, where we put the hoi in the hoi polloi.)
Anyway, we had planned on spending about $1200-$1500 there (which was the lower end of the price range for one of those foam mattresses). Through her misunderstanding of basic selling techniques, Susie talked us out of spending that kind of money. (Wherever he is, Tom Hopkins is hanging his head in shame.) We wouldn't have spent *any* money there if it wasn't for the fact that there's exactly one furniture store in our town, and not too many places would deliver a mattress 30 miles to us free of charge (we don't have a truck big enough to haul one).
We ended up spending about $850 plus tax ... so Susie cost her employer anywhere from $350-$650 gross. Yeah, it's not like they're going to go out of business based on that loss, but perhaps if she'd cared a little more about making us feel welcome in her store and a little less fear about letting rabble like us paw their mattresses ... well, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess, really, we're still the suckers in this story for purchasing a mattress from there anyway. (FYI, we ended up with a Sealy PosturePedic.)
The proprietors of Englert's in Loogootee, IN, will surely be pleased to know that the saleswoman they had on the floor almost immediately talked us out of any business there whatsoever. I believe her name was Susie.
Almost immediately upon our entrance to the showroom floor, Susie greeted us and asked us what we were looking for. We told her that our mattress set was shot, and we were way overdue for a new one. She took us to the bedding section, and we first came upon those TempurPedic foam mattresses that were developed by NASA or whatever. And then came the words that, the more we thought about it afterwards, the more it riled us (paraphrasing, of course, without losing the general gist of what was said):
"These mattresses are probably a little too expensive (implied: "for you") - the inner-spring mattresses are over here."
!
You kinda hope that Susie doesn't work on commission, with bilge like that spewing forth from her oral cavity. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if she did, since she's apparently not sharp enough to get out of working on Saturdays. (And that's not meant as an affront to people who do have to work on the weekends. I'm just saying that if you're going to condescend, you'd better be damn sure you've got a reason to condescend. Yeah, maybe we were a little shoddy-looking - the maid took the latter part of the week off and the laundry on the bedroom floor is about thigh-high now - but for God's sake, you just don't act like you're better than other people based solely on appearances ... especially in any sort of business enterprise.
(I could almost see and understand the condescension if we'd accidentally wandered into a Rolls-Royce dealership looking as we did ... but this is a furniture store in a town of about 3,000 folks, where we put the hoi in the hoi polloi.)
Anyway, we had planned on spending about $1200-$1500 there (which was the lower end of the price range for one of those foam mattresses). Through her misunderstanding of basic selling techniques, Susie talked us out of spending that kind of money. (Wherever he is, Tom Hopkins is hanging his head in shame.) We wouldn't have spent *any* money there if it wasn't for the fact that there's exactly one furniture store in our town, and not too many places would deliver a mattress 30 miles to us free of charge (we don't have a truck big enough to haul one).
We ended up spending about $850 plus tax ... so Susie cost her employer anywhere from $350-$650 gross. Yeah, it's not like they're going to go out of business based on that loss, but perhaps if she'd cared a little more about making us feel welcome in her store and a little less fear about letting rabble like us paw their mattresses ... well, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess, really, we're still the suckers in this story for purchasing a mattress from there anyway. (FYI, we ended up with a Sealy PosturePedic.)
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
In Soviet Russia, steak grills you!
Got the grill out yesterday for the first time this season. Wasn't really planning on doing so until the weekend - really needed to give it all a good scrubbing-down before tossing out the ceremonial first steak. But Wife was all, "You grill!"
I protested; there were no steaks thawed, only chicken breasts - and who makes chicken as their first grilled meal of the year (besides Communists)? But Wife was all, "You grill anyway!"
Oh well. Gives me an excuse to drink on a Tuesday, so I consented. I hope the grilling gods aren't too upset about the transgression. You know, baseball players have to play a few games in spring training before actually starting the season for real. Just the same, I considered what I grilled last night to be a spring training chicken.
(Ouch.)
I protested; there were no steaks thawed, only chicken breasts - and who makes chicken as their first grilled meal of the year (besides Communists)? But Wife was all, "You grill anyway!"
Oh well. Gives me an excuse to drink on a Tuesday, so I consented. I hope the grilling gods aren't too upset about the transgression. You know, baseball players have to play a few games in spring training before actually starting the season for real. Just the same, I considered what I grilled last night to be a spring training chicken.
(Ouch.)
Would you give Andy Dick a room in your house? (An answer to the illegal immigration question.)
There are two distinctly different sides given to the story about the big pro-criminal … errrr … pro-illegal-immigration rallies that took place in cities around the country Monday. (Didn’t have to worry about doing it on a weekend, when the participants would be off work, huh?)
One side is the warm-and-fuzzy human interest story, where the photojournalists took pictures of calm and gentle Mexpatriates waving American flags. There is no violence, no epithets, no anger or hatred shown in the pictures – these pictures show more of a pleading of the case instead of what you normally see at protests (that is to say, general assholishness and thuggery).
The other side is a little more visceral, a little more in step with the normal culture of contemporary protests. “Honkies ...” “Reconquista!” “Bush lied, kids died!” (Just kidding about that last one, but that sign is so funny that it bears posting again ...)
One of the protestors carried a sign that said “Immigration built this country.” And didn’t it – just like rock and roll built this city! However, a key modifier was left off the sign: it was legal immigration that built the country, and not the kind preferred by people who sneak into the country in the dead of night and demand all the rights of Americans without acceptance of any of the responsibilities. (There are enough American citizens who already make that their M.O., anyway.)
We’re all familiar with the accounts of millions of Europeans flooding Ellis Island in the early part of the last century – folks who were searching for a better life away from the potato famines and religious persecution and whatnot, and went through the process to find it. This stands in stark contrast to the process (or lack thereof) detailed in the previous paragraph.
Me? I think we should just give them New Mexico and be done with it. We’re not using it, are we? (Hell, there are enough people in this country who think that New Mexico is a foreign land, anyway.)
Seriously:
Let's suppose that Andy Dick (or John Belushi, or Paris Hilton for you girls in the audience) says to you, "Hey, you have about four acres of open land here that you're not using - I'll just borrow your tent and move in on some of your acreage." And let's say that while private property laws exist, you are essentially powerless to do anything about it, for the authorities are too strapped to do more than shrug and say, "That's too bad." (They are, however, quick to prosecute vigilantes.)
You even fire a few warning shots in the air to scare them off, the way you would a coyote or other stray rabid animal. This, of course, only strengthens Andy Dick's (or Belushi's, or Hilton's) resolve, and he/she digs in for the long haul.
So, you have some unsavory character on your land and living rent-free. They may work, but all of their money is being sent back to their addict friends in New York or Los Angeles. And living with no expenses on your land sounds like a pretty sweet deal to those friends, so next thing you know, you've got a virtual jackass Woodstock in your backyard. (Kinda like the original, no?)
In time, the current situation is no longer good enough for the people living in your yard. So they abandon the tent they were living in and avail themselves to your house, eating your food, wearing your clothes and bedding your spouse (jobs that Americans are unwilling to do, you know). All with no consequences. They get your children addicted to drugs, wreck your car and burn a hole in your mattress. You're going broke - you've got more money going out than coming in because you're supporting this new family that you really can't afford to support - the toilet's sprang a leak, the refrigerator's broke because someone keeps leaving the door open, and three of your windows are broken.
Your complicity - i.e., the fact that you didn't put a bullet in them the minute they set foot on your land because you have this thing about not breaking the law or the Commandments - is construed as an open invitation to continue supporting them, all on your dime. Where does it stop?
"Well, I wouldn't have let it happen in the first place. I'd have put me an electric fence up all along my property line, maybe post some guard dogs there to keep the sumbitches out. And who the hell's Andy Dick, anyway?"
How is illegal immigration any different, then?
One side is the warm-and-fuzzy human interest story, where the photojournalists took pictures of calm and gentle Mexpatriates waving American flags. There is no violence, no epithets, no anger or hatred shown in the pictures – these pictures show more of a pleading of the case instead of what you normally see at protests (that is to say, general assholishness and thuggery).
The other side is a little more visceral, a little more in step with the normal culture of contemporary protests. “Honkies ...” “Reconquista!” “Bush lied, kids died!” (Just kidding about that last one, but that sign is so funny that it bears posting again ...)
One of the protestors carried a sign that said “Immigration built this country.” And didn’t it – just like rock and roll built this city! However, a key modifier was left off the sign: it was legal immigration that built the country, and not the kind preferred by people who sneak into the country in the dead of night and demand all the rights of Americans without acceptance of any of the responsibilities. (There are enough American citizens who already make that their M.O., anyway.)
We’re all familiar with the accounts of millions of Europeans flooding Ellis Island in the early part of the last century – folks who were searching for a better life away from the potato famines and religious persecution and whatnot, and went through the process to find it. This stands in stark contrast to the process (or lack thereof) detailed in the previous paragraph.
Me? I think we should just give them New Mexico and be done with it. We’re not using it, are we? (Hell, there are enough people in this country who think that New Mexico is a foreign land, anyway.)
Seriously:
Let's suppose that Andy Dick (or John Belushi, or Paris Hilton for you girls in the audience) says to you, "Hey, you have about four acres of open land here that you're not using - I'll just borrow your tent and move in on some of your acreage." And let's say that while private property laws exist, you are essentially powerless to do anything about it, for the authorities are too strapped to do more than shrug and say, "That's too bad." (They are, however, quick to prosecute vigilantes.)
You even fire a few warning shots in the air to scare them off, the way you would a coyote or other stray rabid animal. This, of course, only strengthens Andy Dick's (or Belushi's, or Hilton's) resolve, and he/she digs in for the long haul.
So, you have some unsavory character on your land and living rent-free. They may work, but all of their money is being sent back to their addict friends in New York or Los Angeles. And living with no expenses on your land sounds like a pretty sweet deal to those friends, so next thing you know, you've got a virtual jackass Woodstock in your backyard. (Kinda like the original, no?)
In time, the current situation is no longer good enough for the people living in your yard. So they abandon the tent they were living in and avail themselves to your house, eating your food, wearing your clothes and bedding your spouse (jobs that Americans are unwilling to do, you know). All with no consequences. They get your children addicted to drugs, wreck your car and burn a hole in your mattress. You're going broke - you've got more money going out than coming in because you're supporting this new family that you really can't afford to support - the toilet's sprang a leak, the refrigerator's broke because someone keeps leaving the door open, and three of your windows are broken.
Your complicity - i.e., the fact that you didn't put a bullet in them the minute they set foot on your land because you have this thing about not breaking the law or the Commandments - is construed as an open invitation to continue supporting them, all on your dime. Where does it stop?
"Well, I wouldn't have let it happen in the first place. I'd have put me an electric fence up all along my property line, maybe post some guard dogs there to keep the sumbitches out. And who the hell's Andy Dick, anyway?"
How is illegal immigration any different, then?
An inside joke (for K):
Shipmate Pollyanna – He’s proud to be on your team.
Negative Nelly – He’ll be speaking with you about your outlook and how it may be affecting you and your team.
(God, I love that.)
Negative Nelly – He’ll be speaking with you about your outlook and how it may be affecting you and your team.
(God, I love that.)
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Ever considered keeping it in your pants?
Speaking as someone who used to spend lots of time in chatrooms about 8 or 9 years ago, I can say without equivocation that the story of Brian Doyle (the 55-year-old Homeland Security pervert who got busted soliciting an undercover cop who was posing as a 14-year-old girl) is equal parts alarming, unsettling, and disgusting.
I’ll come clean: I did my share of cybergroping in those days. And I also did my share of wound-licking after being told by some girls that I was too old to chat with them (I was in my early-to-mid 20s, some of those girls were anywhere from 16-19). Which makes me even more incredulous about the charges against that sicko DHS employee.
Never once did it cross my mind to try to hit up someone who was still 16 years away from being born. (Laugh, but that’s really the equivalent of what Doyle did, if he had done this when he was 25.)
And even if I weren’t married today, at age 31, I couldn’t imagine trying to “get with” (either virtually or in reality) a 14-year-old girl. Even if I were 21. There comes a point when you just stop having things in common with kids of that age. Did it ever cross Doyle’s mind – even for a second – that maybe something was up? That practically 100 percent of teenaged girls find any man over 30 disgusting? (Come to think of it, so do a majority of women over 30. But that’s another story for another time.)
Naturally, this scandal will add another to the list of black marks against the electronic environment as a place of sickos, weirdos, perverts and creeps. Jackasses like Brian Doyle give the rest of us who use the Internet for above-the-board reasons a bad name.
By and large, the Internet, chatrooms, and social networking sites are safe environments if you use some common sense (which, as noted before, isn’t nearly as common as one might think). Still, even if it weren’t a safe environment, don’t blame the medium for the failings of a few hard-up dirty old men. Perverts will find a way, regardless of the safety controls put on any of their methods of preying on kids.
Don’t blame the kids, either, for exposing themselves to the predatory practices of those worthless pieces of shit. Kids don’t know any better. (Would you blame a rape victim, after all? Would you blame a shooting victim who was murdered unprovoked? Yeah, they might have been in a bad part of town, or put themselves in a compromising situation in the first place, but regardless, they don’t deserve what other ill-meaning people might do to them.)
98 percent of the blame in these cases lies with those subhumans who prey on teenagers and younger. (That number might even be closer to 99; I have to check my math.) I can't spew enough vitriol toward them.
The remaining 2 percent of the blame lies with the parents of these kids. They have zero clue what’s going on with their kids anymore. There is a fine line between, you know, letting your kids do what they want so you can be their friend and – egad! – actual parenting. Too many parents don’t know where that line is, and I’ll even admit that I’m not sure where it is sometimes either, but I know that allowing your kids to get online and post photos and personal information isn’t on the right side of that line.
“But I didn’t know they were doing that – I like to give them their space!”
Idiot.
Yes, you want to give your kids their “space” or whatever, but my God – their turning 14 doesn’t give you the right to tear up your parent card! They’re not “little adults,” and we do them a great disservice by treating them as such. Too many parents want to be buddies with their kids, want to be the “cool parents,” and completely shirk their parenting roles as a result.
But take heart, parents – you’re still only 2 percent responsible for your kids getting in trouble with sexual predators. Maybe even closer to 1 percent – I have to check my math.
I’ll come clean: I did my share of cybergroping in those days. And I also did my share of wound-licking after being told by some girls that I was too old to chat with them (I was in my early-to-mid 20s, some of those girls were anywhere from 16-19). Which makes me even more incredulous about the charges against that sicko DHS employee.
Never once did it cross my mind to try to hit up someone who was still 16 years away from being born. (Laugh, but that’s really the equivalent of what Doyle did, if he had done this when he was 25.)
And even if I weren’t married today, at age 31, I couldn’t imagine trying to “get with” (either virtually or in reality) a 14-year-old girl. Even if I were 21. There comes a point when you just stop having things in common with kids of that age. Did it ever cross Doyle’s mind – even for a second – that maybe something was up? That practically 100 percent of teenaged girls find any man over 30 disgusting? (Come to think of it, so do a majority of women over 30. But that’s another story for another time.)
Naturally, this scandal will add another to the list of black marks against the electronic environment as a place of sickos, weirdos, perverts and creeps. Jackasses like Brian Doyle give the rest of us who use the Internet for above-the-board reasons a bad name.
By and large, the Internet, chatrooms, and social networking sites are safe environments if you use some common sense (which, as noted before, isn’t nearly as common as one might think). Still, even if it weren’t a safe environment, don’t blame the medium for the failings of a few hard-up dirty old men. Perverts will find a way, regardless of the safety controls put on any of their methods of preying on kids.
Don’t blame the kids, either, for exposing themselves to the predatory practices of those worthless pieces of shit. Kids don’t know any better. (Would you blame a rape victim, after all? Would you blame a shooting victim who was murdered unprovoked? Yeah, they might have been in a bad part of town, or put themselves in a compromising situation in the first place, but regardless, they don’t deserve what other ill-meaning people might do to them.)
98 percent of the blame in these cases lies with those subhumans who prey on teenagers and younger. (That number might even be closer to 99; I have to check my math.) I can't spew enough vitriol toward them.
The remaining 2 percent of the blame lies with the parents of these kids. They have zero clue what’s going on with their kids anymore. There is a fine line between, you know, letting your kids do what they want so you can be their friend and – egad! – actual parenting. Too many parents don’t know where that line is, and I’ll even admit that I’m not sure where it is sometimes either, but I know that allowing your kids to get online and post photos and personal information isn’t on the right side of that line.
“But I didn’t know they were doing that – I like to give them their space!”
Idiot.
Yes, you want to give your kids their “space” or whatever, but my God – their turning 14 doesn’t give you the right to tear up your parent card! They’re not “little adults,” and we do them a great disservice by treating them as such. Too many parents want to be buddies with their kids, want to be the “cool parents,” and completely shirk their parenting roles as a result.
But take heart, parents – you’re still only 2 percent responsible for your kids getting in trouble with sexual predators. Maybe even closer to 1 percent – I have to check my math.
Spring (Reprise) ...
Wife worked late last night, so it was up to me to see that Son was retrieved from the sitter. As I got to the street before her house, I saw her in her minivan getting ready to pull out onto the highway - she was going to her daughter's track meet - so I had an inkling of what I was about to witness.
Sure enough, when I pulled into her driveway, I shut the engine off and could hear Son screaming bloody murder inside. (Son has some pretty fierce separation anxiety at times, you see.) "He hates it when she leaves," the sitter's husband said. "When he throws a fit like that, we all just ignore him."
"So do we," I said.
I carried Son out to the truck and got him into the carseat without incident, which was a refreshing change from the normal course of events; most times, harkening back to that "separation anxiety" deal, he'll throw his head back, lock his body up and refuse to be buckled in, which often turns a 30-second task into something a little longer. Last night, though, he offered no resistance, which usually means a good trip home.
About halfway home, after grabbing some grub at Wife's request, my MP3 player kicked up the song "Roam" by the B-52s - a vastly underrated song if there ever was one. The Time Capsule version of the song (a slightly different version from the radio single - I believe it was re-recorded for the compilation) is sung with such zest and fervor that I sound pretty foolish singing along. (No comments from the peanut gallery, please.) This doesn't preclude me from clapping along with the chorus, and when I did (slapping my leg so that I could keep one hand on the wheel - hands on either 2 or 10, says me, althout 3, 9 or 12 are also acceptable), Son handed me his sippy cup and, aping Daddy, also slapped his leg along with the chorus. I'd like to think that it's because "Roam" makes him as happy as it makes me, but I doubt it.
The weekend turned out to be pretty uneventful. Friday's storms were for naught, at least in my little corner of the world. We did manage to get the carport roof unwedged from the trees by hooking a chain to it and pulling it down with our riding lawnmower; the ensuing crash threw such a fright into Son that his bottom lip quivered for a solid 10 minutes afterward.
Oddly, the insurance adjuster did not pay an actual visit to the house, but instead made an estimate over the phone. This boggled my mind, for whatever reason, and made me wish Wife was a little less honest in dealing with them. I don't reckon it would have mattered anyway; unfortunately, our insurance company knows the truth: the carport/shed combo was apparently constructed by the firm Half-Ass and Half-Ass.
Son recovered from his scare later in the afternoon:
Sure enough, when I pulled into her driveway, I shut the engine off and could hear Son screaming bloody murder inside. (Son has some pretty fierce separation anxiety at times, you see.) "He hates it when she leaves," the sitter's husband said. "When he throws a fit like that, we all just ignore him."
"So do we," I said.
I carried Son out to the truck and got him into the carseat without incident, which was a refreshing change from the normal course of events; most times, harkening back to that "separation anxiety" deal, he'll throw his head back, lock his body up and refuse to be buckled in, which often turns a 30-second task into something a little longer. Last night, though, he offered no resistance, which usually means a good trip home.
About halfway home, after grabbing some grub at Wife's request, my MP3 player kicked up the song "Roam" by the B-52s - a vastly underrated song if there ever was one. The Time Capsule version of the song (a slightly different version from the radio single - I believe it was re-recorded for the compilation) is sung with such zest and fervor that I sound pretty foolish singing along. (No comments from the peanut gallery, please.) This doesn't preclude me from clapping along with the chorus, and when I did (slapping my leg so that I could keep one hand on the wheel - hands on either 2 or 10, says me, althout 3, 9 or 12 are also acceptable), Son handed me his sippy cup and, aping Daddy, also slapped his leg along with the chorus. I'd like to think that it's because "Roam" makes him as happy as it makes me, but I doubt it.
The weekend turned out to be pretty uneventful. Friday's storms were for naught, at least in my little corner of the world. We did manage to get the carport roof unwedged from the trees by hooking a chain to it and pulling it down with our riding lawnmower; the ensuing crash threw such a fright into Son that his bottom lip quivered for a solid 10 minutes afterward.
Oddly, the insurance adjuster did not pay an actual visit to the house, but instead made an estimate over the phone. This boggled my mind, for whatever reason, and made me wish Wife was a little less honest in dealing with them. I don't reckon it would have mattered anyway; unfortunately, our insurance company knows the truth: the carport/shed combo was apparently constructed by the firm Half-Ass and Half-Ass.
Son recovered from his scare later in the afternoon:
In celebration of the pleasant weather, we got his trike out. He's at the point where his legs are still a hair too short to pedal, but too long to push it along with his feet without squatting uncomfortably. Since his energy is apparently boundless, though, he doesn't complain. (Except when it comes time to go back inside.)
Monday, April 10, 2006
Copy Editors Provided by Freedom Reins Temporary Copy-Editor Agency
Amazingly, our friends at the Seymour Tribune again (!) used exceedingly poor judgement in writing the headline of the latest story in the Uniontown adult business saga. It'd be one thing if the acronym was also used in the story ... but it wasn't. Just because the acronym of "sexually oriented business" is technically correct ... oh, never mind. (Here's where I wrote about it the first time they used it.)
***
Also on the local journalism front: I'll tell you what got my goat when I was younger: calling things that aren't points "points." For instance, Phil Mickelson did not win the Masters by 2 points on Sunday. St. Louis did not score 3 points in the 9th to win their baseball game. And so on and so forth.
These are generally accepted rules of sportswriting, as well as sports fandom. The Bedford Times-Mail says, "Poop on your generally accepted rules!"
***
Also on the local journalism front: I'll tell you what got my goat when I was younger: calling things that aren't points "points." For instance, Phil Mickelson did not win the Masters by 2 points on Sunday. St. Louis did not score 3 points in the 9th to win their baseball game. And so on and so forth.
These are generally accepted rules of sportswriting, as well as sports fandom. The Bedford Times-Mail says, "Poop on your generally accepted rules!"
Irony, thy name is homophone misuse
Caught along U.S. 231 just south of Haysville (and this was the best shot I could get on the move):
It's not the gigantic red professional sign that caught my eye, of course. (And yes, the sign in question does indeed read "Freedom Reins.")
Friday, April 07, 2006
Tornado threatens campsite; papers strewn about
“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans,” so says the well-worn cliché. And, as we get older, and things like families and mortgages and other adult pastimes crop up in lieu of the things you used to do, like drink with your buddies three nights a week till the wee hours, you find that the things you formerly held dear are harder and harder to come by. You still hold them dear, but only as memories.
Captain and I grew up in the same town, and, after our fairly trivial academic pursuits (in which he was much more successful than I was), eventually ended up in Bloomington in our mid-20s. There were plenty of nights during that time that we spent together, drinking cheap domestic beer and painting the town yellow, trying our damnedest to find new bands to go see, and just generally having a good time, all the time.
I was the first to be domesticated, as I married Mrs. Tamble and moved out of Bloomington, back to the county in which we grew up. Captain stayed in town, moving from apartment to apartment as leases ended, before finally finishing his degree, getting married himself and snagging his first teaching job in the eastern part of the state. I visited him over there exactly once; it was about a 3-hour drive.
So, when I got the news that he was moving back my way, I was pretty excited. But it hasn’t come to pass for various reasons, our spending copious amounts of time together. Not making excuses, just saying.
All of this is a long way of saying that under normal circumstances, I would have declined the invitation he gave me to spend a Friday evening with him, drinking and listening to the new Robert Pollard album, had I known that there would be only little drinking and “listening to the new Pollard album” would be replaced by “camping.”
It’s not that I have anything against camping, it's just that I’m not a particularly outdoorsy type, myself; I tend to think that the Great Outdoors would be a whole lot better if they were inside. And, said camping excursion was threatening to be accompanied by some really rotten spring weather (torrential downpours, thunderstorms, tornado outbreaks, etc.). While I inwardly questioned the wisdom of pitching a tent in what was sure to be doom-laden weather, the fact of the matter remained that the Captain and I see each other about twice a year anymore, and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity when the stars were finally in alignment and both of our schedules allowed us to hang out together for awhile.
I met Captain and Mrs. Captain at their home, and then followed them to a local state park early Friday evening as the skies were already carrying an ominous air about them. The short time that we spent together at the campsite was punctuated by me making smartass comments about the weather as they hurriedly tried to set up camp and build a fire:
- when I saw a tiny break in the stormclouds to the north of us: “Hey, I think that’s what they call ‘the eye.’”
- “Hey, have y’all ever seen that show on Discovery, ‘I Shouldn’t Be Alive’? Just saying.”
As the lightning in the distance started to pick up and the weather more immediately at hand began to worsen, and I made only an itty-bitty effort to help them maintain a fire, half-assedly tossing crumpled phone book pages into the embers that had miraculously recovered from life-support status a mere minutes earlier (punctuating each toss with a "Die Ken Nunn!" in protest of the injury lawyer's mug on the back cover of the phone book), the ranger drove up:
“Do you guys have a radio up here?”
“No.”
“There’s a tornado warning for our county.”
That, of course, was my cue: I gathered my chair and was all, “Time for this ratfink to head out - so long, suckers!” As much in love with the weather as I say I am, I had a close call with a tornado back in November (detailed in an earlier post), and have since come to realize that severe weather is not something to be trifled with. I think the Captain Family understood, but I could sense a little disappointment – maybe it was my disappointment in myself. Or maybe I just confirmed that I was a butthole.
As it turns out, the camping outing was aborted soon after. That's what I call a "happy ending," but I doubt that's what Mrs. Captain had in mind.
Captain and I grew up in the same town, and, after our fairly trivial academic pursuits (in which he was much more successful than I was), eventually ended up in Bloomington in our mid-20s. There were plenty of nights during that time that we spent together, drinking cheap domestic beer and painting the town yellow, trying our damnedest to find new bands to go see, and just generally having a good time, all the time.
I was the first to be domesticated, as I married Mrs. Tamble and moved out of Bloomington, back to the county in which we grew up. Captain stayed in town, moving from apartment to apartment as leases ended, before finally finishing his degree, getting married himself and snagging his first teaching job in the eastern part of the state. I visited him over there exactly once; it was about a 3-hour drive.
So, when I got the news that he was moving back my way, I was pretty excited. But it hasn’t come to pass for various reasons, our spending copious amounts of time together. Not making excuses, just saying.
All of this is a long way of saying that under normal circumstances, I would have declined the invitation he gave me to spend a Friday evening with him, drinking and listening to the new Robert Pollard album, had I known that there would be only little drinking and “listening to the new Pollard album” would be replaced by “camping.”
It’s not that I have anything against camping, it's just that I’m not a particularly outdoorsy type, myself; I tend to think that the Great Outdoors would be a whole lot better if they were inside. And, said camping excursion was threatening to be accompanied by some really rotten spring weather (torrential downpours, thunderstorms, tornado outbreaks, etc.). While I inwardly questioned the wisdom of pitching a tent in what was sure to be doom-laden weather, the fact of the matter remained that the Captain and I see each other about twice a year anymore, and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity when the stars were finally in alignment and both of our schedules allowed us to hang out together for awhile.
I met Captain and Mrs. Captain at their home, and then followed them to a local state park early Friday evening as the skies were already carrying an ominous air about them. The short time that we spent together at the campsite was punctuated by me making smartass comments about the weather as they hurriedly tried to set up camp and build a fire:
- when I saw a tiny break in the stormclouds to the north of us: “Hey, I think that’s what they call ‘the eye.’”
- “Hey, have y’all ever seen that show on Discovery, ‘I Shouldn’t Be Alive’? Just saying.”
As the lightning in the distance started to pick up and the weather more immediately at hand began to worsen, and I made only an itty-bitty effort to help them maintain a fire, half-assedly tossing crumpled phone book pages into the embers that had miraculously recovered from life-support status a mere minutes earlier (punctuating each toss with a "Die Ken Nunn!" in protest of the injury lawyer's mug on the back cover of the phone book), the ranger drove up:
“Do you guys have a radio up here?”
“No.”
“There’s a tornado warning for our county.”
That, of course, was my cue: I gathered my chair and was all, “Time for this ratfink to head out - so long, suckers!” As much in love with the weather as I say I am, I had a close call with a tornado back in November (detailed in an earlier post), and have since come to realize that severe weather is not something to be trifled with. I think the Captain Family understood, but I could sense a little disappointment – maybe it was my disappointment in myself. Or maybe I just confirmed that I was a butthole.
As it turns out, the camping outing was aborted soon after. That's what I call a "happy ending," but I doubt that's what Mrs. Captain had in mind.
A book for the Portable Men's Society:
Moments before his ill-fated camping trip Friday last (more on which I may or may not write later), of which I was a temporary guest, Captain loaned me his copy of Jim Greer’s biography, "Guided by Voices: A Brief History -- Twenty-one Years of Hunting Accidents In The Forests of Rock and Roll." I finished it in mostly one sitting on Saturday night and have collected a few thoughts on it:
As an objective observer - as someone who might not have ever heard of GbV except maybe as a supposedly-fantastic underground band who didn't quite crack the big time, or as someone who might have only heard a smattering of their songs via drunken mixtapes - these are my thoughts:
Ever eaten a cheese pizza or a pack of crackers out of necessity because it was the only thing in the house, and even though you thought it would hit the spot, it was not necessarily as satisfying as it was filling? That was my feeling after reading “Hunting Accidents.”
While the book is over 300 pages long, a third of the length is devoted to various appendices (a GbV discography, a Robert Pollard discography, various set lists and a history of tour dates) that can be culled from various sources on the internet. This brings the actual body of text down to 215 pages ... which was a grand disappointment.
The best parts were when Greer got out of Chris Farley Show mode. Sure, there’s a certain mythology surrounding GbV and the copious drinking. And there's a certain mythology around the real-life folks he sometimes mentions in song - the Monument Clubbers, etc. But I got the feeling that the book wasn't so much about the music as it was about Pollard and the legends attached to him.
HOWEVER ... I am not an objective observer. I am a hardcore fan, and as such, as someone for whom GbV was a huge part of my life for the better part of a decade (is that proper sentence structure?), I thought the book was a great read. I'll still grant that Greer tended to veer off into tangents about the real-life folks I mentioned in the paragraph above; regardless, I thought that those tangents, more often than not, only added color to the story of a kid from Northridge who wasn't like everyone else.
The book is not for a casual fan; it's for the GbV completist. I think that the book was written for people like me and The Captain and Lisa (who is sorely missed): people who devoted much money and car mileage and inner-ear damage following this man and band who were unlike anything else that came around in our lifetimes.
Following GbV, and finding others who were like us, was like being a part of a secret society, except without the hazing. I recall finding this out when The Captain and I were leaving a record store in Bloomington one afternoon, while a couple of members of the band Cadmium Orange were going in. Captain and I were wearing GbV t-shirts, and Jason, the singer of the band, made note of it. We struck up a conversation, and although we had never heard the band, we were pleasantly surprised to have met some kindreds. (We made note to see the band the next time they played out, and we were not disappointed; the Cadmium boys could both rock and throw down.)
Despite its inevitability, there was regardless a sadness when Pollard decided that Half Smiles of the Decomposed would be the last album released under the GbV name. That album, and Jim Greer's book, provide a sense of closure to an era when they couldn't conquer The World, but they conquered ours. Hunting Accidents is a fitting epitaph to that era.
As an objective observer - as someone who might not have ever heard of GbV except maybe as a supposedly-fantastic underground band who didn't quite crack the big time, or as someone who might have only heard a smattering of their songs via drunken mixtapes - these are my thoughts:
Ever eaten a cheese pizza or a pack of crackers out of necessity because it was the only thing in the house, and even though you thought it would hit the spot, it was not necessarily as satisfying as it was filling? That was my feeling after reading “Hunting Accidents.”
While the book is over 300 pages long, a third of the length is devoted to various appendices (a GbV discography, a Robert Pollard discography, various set lists and a history of tour dates) that can be culled from various sources on the internet. This brings the actual body of text down to 215 pages ... which was a grand disappointment.
The best parts were when Greer got out of Chris Farley Show mode. Sure, there’s a certain mythology surrounding GbV and the copious drinking. And there's a certain mythology around the real-life folks he sometimes mentions in song - the Monument Clubbers, etc. But I got the feeling that the book wasn't so much about the music as it was about Pollard and the legends attached to him.
HOWEVER ... I am not an objective observer. I am a hardcore fan, and as such, as someone for whom GbV was a huge part of my life for the better part of a decade (is that proper sentence structure?), I thought the book was a great read. I'll still grant that Greer tended to veer off into tangents about the real-life folks I mentioned in the paragraph above; regardless, I thought that those tangents, more often than not, only added color to the story of a kid from Northridge who wasn't like everyone else.
The book is not for a casual fan; it's for the GbV completist. I think that the book was written for people like me and The Captain and Lisa (who is sorely missed): people who devoted much money and car mileage and inner-ear damage following this man and band who were unlike anything else that came around in our lifetimes.
Following GbV, and finding others who were like us, was like being a part of a secret society, except without the hazing. I recall finding this out when The Captain and I were leaving a record store in Bloomington one afternoon, while a couple of members of the band Cadmium Orange were going in. Captain and I were wearing GbV t-shirts, and Jason, the singer of the band, made note of it. We struck up a conversation, and although we had never heard the band, we were pleasantly surprised to have met some kindreds. (We made note to see the band the next time they played out, and we were not disappointed; the Cadmium boys could both rock and throw down.)
Despite its inevitability, there was regardless a sadness when Pollard decided that Half Smiles of the Decomposed would be the last album released under the GbV name. That album, and Jim Greer's book, provide a sense of closure to an era when they couldn't conquer The World, but they conquered ours. Hunting Accidents is a fitting epitaph to that era.
It didn't sound like any train I've ever heard.
Below is a recounting of my story of the November 15, 2005 tornado:
I left work at 3:35, a little past my normal time, and headed home to get my wallet because I left it on the bookcase by accident that morning. Then I was going to head to Jasper to meet Wife for dinner and pick up Son, since Wife has school on Tuesday nights. Around 3:50, I turned onto Hwy. 231 and headed south, heard the tornado warnings on the radio, and thought that, according to the current information, whatever tornado that was in the area was going to be north/northwest of me, so I figured I was in the clear - I was not aware of the storms that were still in the immediate vicinity to the southwest of me.
Well ... I wasn't in the clear. As I was continued to drive south, the rain intensified something fierce, and as I cleared this small hill just past Raglesville turnoff, I saw something in the field off to the right (to the west/southwest). The sky was a greenish tint in that direction, and there was this thing in the field .... it didn't really occur to me that it might be a funnel cloud that had touched down, and I'll tell you why I felt this way:
I had kept my eyes peeled for a funnel cloud, and was expecting to see something totally different than what I saw - you see on TV how there are these really dark clouds in the sky, and then a really skinny funnel cloud extending down to the ground from those clouds. That's not what it looked like at all. It looked more like a really thick swarm of bees, about 30 or 40 feet wide. I remember thinking, "Huh .... the rain in that one particular spot must be really intense." It didn't occur to me until after the fact that it was something besides very heavy rain (in spite of the myriad warnings crossing the radio by this time).
The highway (and my path) took me directly past it, roughly 100 yards or so away. The rain picked up even more, and I felt like my truck could take off toward Oz at any time. You know how, in the old Tom and Jerry cartoons when Tom's got the s**t scared out of him, you can see his heart trying to beat out of his chest? That's exactly how I felt - my heart had never beat so hard in my life, and every thump-thump just shook me to my core. I could feel it in every square inch of my body.
I know that they say that if you're in a vehicle during a tornado, it would be wise to abandon it, retire to the nearest ditch and cover your head. Of course, I failed to do so, and continued driving despite being blown all over the road. I got to the house, sprinted in, made a note of the pounding rain, the diagonal nature of the trees and how the power lines were essentially stretched taut in my direction, grabbed my wallet and got the hell out, sprinted back to the vehicle and continued my sojourn to Jasper, never looking back.
Once I got to Loogootee, about 7 miles south of the house, about eight or nine emergency vehicles - ambulances, fire trucks, civil defense vehicles - passed me and were just booking it back north. At that time, the radio said that there was "substantial structural damage in Bramble." This is significant because Bramble is the tiny spot-in-the-road community I call home.
I called Wife and we decided that we would skip dinner, and once I met her in Jasper, we would drive back up to see if we still had a house - chances weren't very good that we did, since there are only about 15 houses here, and odds were that if there was damage, we would be included. However, when we got back to Bramble, we both breathed a sigh of relief as we saw that our house still stood with no damage, and none of our neighbors were hit either.
Its path took it about 3/4 of a mile north of the house - as I later learned, that "thick swarm of bees in the field" I saw was an F-3 tornado. There were four houses just absolutely *leveled* right there, probably but moments after I drove past, but no one was seriously hurt, thank God.
I've never been through anything like it, and don't care to ever again. I thought I was going to die. Not "die," like, "Oh my God, I would just die if she saw me with this awful haircut!" The other kind, where you cash in your chips at the end.
About two hours after the original storm, I saw Wife off to class and went to go see Son at the sitter's in Jasper. We decided to keep him at the sitter's since it wasn't clear as to when power would be back on, and it was going to get cold that night. Just as I was leaving and starting the vehicle back up, the tornado sirens went off - there was a tornado warning in Jasper. Simultaneously - and Hollywood would never accept such a story because it's so far-fetched, but I swear on a stack of Bibles that it is true - they said on the radio that there was another funnel cloud sighted near Bramble, this one to the south of the house. Fortunately, that one did not come to pass.
What did I learn from this experience? Well, I learned what I am prone to do during a tornado or other emergency: panic. Hard.
I left work at 3:35, a little past my normal time, and headed home to get my wallet because I left it on the bookcase by accident that morning. Then I was going to head to Jasper to meet Wife for dinner and pick up Son, since Wife has school on Tuesday nights. Around 3:50, I turned onto Hwy. 231 and headed south, heard the tornado warnings on the radio, and thought that, according to the current information, whatever tornado that was in the area was going to be north/northwest of me, so I figured I was in the clear - I was not aware of the storms that were still in the immediate vicinity to the southwest of me.
Well ... I wasn't in the clear. As I was continued to drive south, the rain intensified something fierce, and as I cleared this small hill just past Raglesville turnoff, I saw something in the field off to the right (to the west/southwest). The sky was a greenish tint in that direction, and there was this thing in the field .... it didn't really occur to me that it might be a funnel cloud that had touched down, and I'll tell you why I felt this way:
I had kept my eyes peeled for a funnel cloud, and was expecting to see something totally different than what I saw - you see on TV how there are these really dark clouds in the sky, and then a really skinny funnel cloud extending down to the ground from those clouds. That's not what it looked like at all. It looked more like a really thick swarm of bees, about 30 or 40 feet wide. I remember thinking, "Huh .... the rain in that one particular spot must be really intense." It didn't occur to me until after the fact that it was something besides very heavy rain (in spite of the myriad warnings crossing the radio by this time).
The highway (and my path) took me directly past it, roughly 100 yards or so away. The rain picked up even more, and I felt like my truck could take off toward Oz at any time. You know how, in the old Tom and Jerry cartoons when Tom's got the s**t scared out of him, you can see his heart trying to beat out of his chest? That's exactly how I felt - my heart had never beat so hard in my life, and every thump-thump just shook me to my core. I could feel it in every square inch of my body.
I know that they say that if you're in a vehicle during a tornado, it would be wise to abandon it, retire to the nearest ditch and cover your head. Of course, I failed to do so, and continued driving despite being blown all over the road. I got to the house, sprinted in, made a note of the pounding rain, the diagonal nature of the trees and how the power lines were essentially stretched taut in my direction, grabbed my wallet and got the hell out, sprinted back to the vehicle and continued my sojourn to Jasper, never looking back.
Once I got to Loogootee, about 7 miles south of the house, about eight or nine emergency vehicles - ambulances, fire trucks, civil defense vehicles - passed me and were just booking it back north. At that time, the radio said that there was "substantial structural damage in Bramble." This is significant because Bramble is the tiny spot-in-the-road community I call home.
I called Wife and we decided that we would skip dinner, and once I met her in Jasper, we would drive back up to see if we still had a house - chances weren't very good that we did, since there are only about 15 houses here, and odds were that if there was damage, we would be included. However, when we got back to Bramble, we both breathed a sigh of relief as we saw that our house still stood with no damage, and none of our neighbors were hit either.
Its path took it about 3/4 of a mile north of the house - as I later learned, that "thick swarm of bees in the field" I saw was an F-3 tornado. There were four houses just absolutely *leveled* right there, probably but moments after I drove past, but no one was seriously hurt, thank God.
I've never been through anything like it, and don't care to ever again. I thought I was going to die. Not "die," like, "Oh my God, I would just die if she saw me with this awful haircut!" The other kind, where you cash in your chips at the end.
About two hours after the original storm, I saw Wife off to class and went to go see Son at the sitter's in Jasper. We decided to keep him at the sitter's since it wasn't clear as to when power would be back on, and it was going to get cold that night. Just as I was leaving and starting the vehicle back up, the tornado sirens went off - there was a tornado warning in Jasper. Simultaneously - and Hollywood would never accept such a story because it's so far-fetched, but I swear on a stack of Bibles that it is true - they said on the radio that there was another funnel cloud sighted near Bramble, this one to the south of the house. Fortunately, that one did not come to pass.
What did I learn from this experience? Well, I learned what I am prone to do during a tornado or other emergency: panic. Hard.
Liveblogging the storm ... (servere [sic] weather!)
Do you recall how, after 9/11, every little anomaly in the normal course of events was cause for a disproportionate, over-the-top overreaction?
That's somewhat akin to how I feel every time threatening weather ... well, threatens. Especially since the tornado of November 15 of last year, and especially since the hurricane-force winds of last Sunday evening.
There is a tornado watch for my area until the middle of this evening. There are also very dark clouds that were just passing north of the compound, but have since enveloped the skies overhead, separate from the storm system that is due to pass through in the evening hours.
I, of course, am in panic mode right now.
Speaking of which, I'll recount my story of the 11/15 tornado in a later post. Right now, I must find hatches, and batten them accordingly. The roof of my carport is still wedged in the trees lining the road; part of me thinks it will be secure, while the other part of me thinks I need to drag my butt out there and somehow secure it to something else more sturdy. By what means, I have no clue. I'm not good at that sort of thing.
Then, I hear thunder in the distance, and think maybe I'll be better off surrounded by all of this electrical equipment. At least I'm inside.
Ahhh, there goes Craig. Tornado warning up near Martinsville. That's not close to home, thankfully.
More later. Lightning visits.
That's somewhat akin to how I feel every time threatening weather ... well, threatens. Especially since the tornado of November 15 of last year, and especially since the hurricane-force winds of last Sunday evening.
There is a tornado watch for my area until the middle of this evening. There are also very dark clouds that were just passing north of the compound, but have since enveloped the skies overhead, separate from the storm system that is due to pass through in the evening hours.
I, of course, am in panic mode right now.
Speaking of which, I'll recount my story of the 11/15 tornado in a later post. Right now, I must find hatches, and batten them accordingly. The roof of my carport is still wedged in the trees lining the road; part of me thinks it will be secure, while the other part of me thinks I need to drag my butt out there and somehow secure it to something else more sturdy. By what means, I have no clue. I'm not good at that sort of thing.
Then, I hear thunder in the distance, and think maybe I'll be better off surrounded by all of this electrical equipment. At least I'm inside.
Ahhh, there goes Craig. Tornado warning up near Martinsville. That's not close to home, thankfully.
More later. Lightning visits.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
NASCAR Nation: Keeping the Muslim man down? (Or: Being intolerant of intolerance)
Another thing I refuse to blog about is the topic of media bias. For every left/liberal site that claims there is no media bias, there are another 100 right/conservative sites that can detail part and parcel alleged media bias. In other words, at last count, there were roughly 1.8 million blogs on the Internet that tackle this weighty topic; it's not my intention to add more heat but no light to the matter. (Besides, I find the topic really tiresome.)
Now: That being said, this report on NBC sending Muslim ringers – i.e., not really Koran-carrying Middle Easterners, but swarthy-looking men who might pass for card-carrying Allah lovers - to Nextel Cup races to detect supposed anti-Muslim bias is quite troubling.
I am no defender of Cup racing anymore, by any stretch. To a certain extent, the sponsors have taken over the sport, and while I can accept that – tell me, what doesn't money drive these days, besides this blog? – I have a much harder time accepting the crass commercialization that goes hand-in-hand with it.
I have a hard time accepting that Coors Light pressured Chip Ganassi to dump geezer Sterling Marlin – who was never really one of my favorites, to be honest - in order to put someone younger in the seat who is more appealing to the watered-down-beer-drinking demographic.
I have a hard time accepting that there's really no dues-paying in the sport as there was in the days of Rudd, Wallace et al, that the seats that high-profile seats that Brian Vickers, Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, David Stremme, Reed Sorenson, etc. now occupy weren't earned so much as they were given.
I have a hard time accepting that Garnier Fructis is a part-time sponsor in the sport.
I have a hard time accepting "Boogity Boogity Boogity!"
I have a hard time accepting a lot of things about NASCAR these days … but that's the old fogey in me coming out. (Change happens – get over it. OK, fine.)
Yet, the stunt that NBC is pulling Рan attempted expos̩ of the NASCAR fanbase as the exclusive home of inbred, bucktoothed, Jesus-lovin', sister-marryin', James-Byrd-draggin', Matthew-Shepard-beatin', furriner-hatin' behavior Рoh, and let's not forget the obligatory "redneck" epithet Рis completely unacceptable, so much so that the previous transgressions I listed in the paragraphs above are truly inconsequential. And you know something? Even if the NASCAR fanbase was all of those things Рand you will find elements of pure, unadulterated jackassery everywhere if you pull from a large enough statistical sample Рwhat, exactly, is NBC's point, other than a half-assed attempt to confirm Blue State America's fears about their countrymen?
Not to veer off into Little Green Footballs land, but you will recall that it wasn't 19 rednecks who hijacked four bass boats and turned them into guided missiles on a certain September day some four-odd years ago. I'm not trying to perpetuate any xenophobia or anything like that – just making a point that if NBC truly wanted to create news (as they are doing with this Muslim sting), they might try sending some Christians to Afghanistan or the Middle East to get a true view of intolerance. I'm just saying.
Now: That being said, this report on NBC sending Muslim ringers – i.e., not really Koran-carrying Middle Easterners, but swarthy-looking men who might pass for card-carrying Allah lovers - to Nextel Cup races to detect supposed anti-Muslim bias is quite troubling.
I am no defender of Cup racing anymore, by any stretch. To a certain extent, the sponsors have taken over the sport, and while I can accept that – tell me, what doesn't money drive these days, besides this blog? – I have a much harder time accepting the crass commercialization that goes hand-in-hand with it.
I have a hard time accepting that Coors Light pressured Chip Ganassi to dump geezer Sterling Marlin – who was never really one of my favorites, to be honest - in order to put someone younger in the seat who is more appealing to the watered-down-beer-drinking demographic.
I have a hard time accepting that there's really no dues-paying in the sport as there was in the days of Rudd, Wallace et al, that the seats that high-profile seats that Brian Vickers, Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, David Stremme, Reed Sorenson, etc. now occupy weren't earned so much as they were given.
I have a hard time accepting that Garnier Fructis is a part-time sponsor in the sport.
I have a hard time accepting "Boogity Boogity Boogity!"
I have a hard time accepting a lot of things about NASCAR these days … but that's the old fogey in me coming out. (Change happens – get over it. OK, fine.)
Yet, the stunt that NBC is pulling Рan attempted expos̩ of the NASCAR fanbase as the exclusive home of inbred, bucktoothed, Jesus-lovin', sister-marryin', James-Byrd-draggin', Matthew-Shepard-beatin', furriner-hatin' behavior Рoh, and let's not forget the obligatory "redneck" epithet Рis completely unacceptable, so much so that the previous transgressions I listed in the paragraphs above are truly inconsequential. And you know something? Even if the NASCAR fanbase was all of those things Рand you will find elements of pure, unadulterated jackassery everywhere if you pull from a large enough statistical sample Рwhat, exactly, is NBC's point, other than a half-assed attempt to confirm Blue State America's fears about their countrymen?
Not to veer off into Little Green Footballs land, but you will recall that it wasn't 19 rednecks who hijacked four bass boats and turned them into guided missiles on a certain September day some four-odd years ago. I'm not trying to perpetuate any xenophobia or anything like that – just making a point that if NBC truly wanted to create news (as they are doing with this Muslim sting), they might try sending some Christians to Afghanistan or the Middle East to get a true view of intolerance. I'm just saying.
Monday, April 03, 2006
When Weather Attacks!
Here are some photos of the storm damage from last night's storm at the Bramble Tamble compound:
The wind ripped up the roof of the carport, which is attached to that rusty old shed ...
... lifted it over my vehicle (which is parked where it was last night), as well as over my wife's vehicle (not pictured here) ...
... and deposited it in this bank of trees about 150 feet away.
The wind ripped up the roof of the carport, which is attached to that rusty old shed ...
... lifted it over my vehicle (which is parked where it was last night), as well as over my wife's vehicle (not pictured here) ...
... and deposited it in this bank of trees about 150 feet away.
Really, we got off pretty light. There's also a little bit of cosmetic damage to the house, but fortunately it's protected from winds from the west by three very old cedar trees. Nothing a little insurance won't fix.
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