i am indi

So, with the Indy 500 tomorrow, I was scouring the Internet for some information so I could write a semi-comprehensive, semi-coherent post about it.

At which point I stumbled upon this.  Can you spot two things wrong with it, the first within 5 seconds?  (And the second after hovering your cursor over the first?)

Grrrrr.  The 500's got a LONG way to go to overcome shit like this.  The page I linked is an insult to those of us smart enough to know the difference, and it's terribly misleading to the casual fan.

I am certain that the proprietors of the site said, "Here, Paul Pierce, since you're not doing anything till the NBA Finals, write up a quick betting guide to the Indianapolis 500.  And put in a picture of cars racing."

P.S. - If you said that the correct answer to the first part is "there is no #8 Budweiser car anymore," please try again.

Powered by ScribeFire.

I said I would add more to the post below from 5-19 (the one that starts out "I'll explain later, but....").

"So... ummmmm, did you hear about the wreck?" I asked my mom on the phone one day last week, knowing full well that she had since, in her younger days, she used to run around with the woman who died in the accident.

Her voice broke a little: "Yeah, I did."

Then she added, "That's some of your family."

Errrrr, what?

So apparently one of the victims in the wreck last week was a distant cousin (at LEAST second or third cousin, if not more). It's all very terrible and all very sad, but I'm not kidding when I tell you that whatever tenuous familial ties I might have had with her DID NOT EVEN REGISTER WITH ME.

That's how close we were. I knew the name, but that's about it. I hadn't seen her since I was MAYBE 6 or 7 years old, and to be honest, I don't have any memories of her whatsoever, just a hazy spectre in my subconscious. I wouldn't have recognized her in the street if I saw her. (Before the accident, anyway.)

And there's no disrespect intended there. I mean, I saw her younger brother a couple of months ago working at a convenience store, and he didn't recognize me either. I guess we're cousins too. But I didn't lose any sleep over it.

But I'll reiterate what I said in my post from 5-19: just because someone is related to you, by blood or by marriage, no matter how close or distant, that does NOT make them your "family." Unless you want to stick strictly to dictionary definitions, I guess.

I'm sorry, it just doesn't. I'm related to some of the most worthless welfare-sucking drains of society who have contributed ZERO POINT SHIT to the world, and I DO NOT consider them "family," in even the most wide-ranging sense of the term.

So, one of the questions I've been struggling with in the last 10 days is this: Does all of this mean there's something wrong with me? When a person I'm "related" to passes away and I can't manage more than a shrug?

Don't get me wrong. I'll be devastated when my dad passes on. I'll be crushed when my mom passes away despite her occasional bouts with herp-a-derp (see my series of tweets about the funeral, or the "that's your family" comment above). The people who are important to me - by blood, by marriage or none of the above - yes, I will feel their loss.

And isn't that more of a definition of "family" than by the crapshoot of genetics or ancestry?

It was only many years after its creation that I found Twitter to be useful.

I read an article about this same subject a couple of weeks ago, but want to expand on it.

I have DirecTV, but my local channels aren't up on the bird yet. Don't know if they ever will be. And ever since the STUPID STUPID STUPID analog-to-digital conversion, getting local channels over-the-air has been an exercise in futility, thanks to the rusted out pole antenna that came with the house. On the night of the Duke-Butler game, I had to run a pair of rabbit ears from my TV to the front stoop and hope it didn't rain. "Frustrating" doesn't begin to describe it. Hope to have something else in place by the time Colts season rolls around.

I mention that to tell you this. We had some pretty hairy severe weather about 90 minutes ago. Since I can't get local TV channels and I shut the computer down once it became apparent that the system that was about to pass over threatened to drop the wrath of God on us in the form of golf-ball-sized hail and tornadoes, I had to rely on the Bajeebus Alarm and my Blackberry to keep me updated.

Only thing is, the National Weather Service doesn't exactly provide up-to-the-minute information on impending severe weather. Sure, they'll give you some lead time - at 4:50, for instance, they'll warn that "severe storms will be near (your town) by 5:15 PM" ("EVERYBODY PANIC" is implicit) - but weather, unfortunately, is not linear. A storm might move in a straight west-to-east line across three states, then start jogging to the northeast or southeast, sparing you of doom, or at least dumping only heavy rain.

So, once you're warned by the weather bureau, you're left to wait and wonder. During a weather event, they may issue an update 15 minutes after the original warning - "the tornado will be near (your town) by 5:10 PM" - but that's it. They deal in the macro, not the micro.

And so it was today that I discovered how useful Twitter can be during severe weather. By searching on #inwx, I was led to #tristatewx, and followed the tweets of Evansville-area meterologists and their teams of storm chasers as they tracked the storm minute-by-minute. Including exhortations to people in certain communities to "TAKE COVER NOW."

And so the tornado warning that was issued for the county immediately to my west, and then to mine (remember, macro, not micro) was augmented by the additional knowledge that the funnel cloud was about 10 miles to my south, instead of bearing down on the palatial BT Estates, as the National Weather Service had originally led me to believe.

This isn't going to cause me to sell my Bajeebus Alarm at my next yard sale, but the big picture provided by the weather radio was augmented by the small strokes provided by various Twitter feeds. Quite useful on a day like today.

You know how, in Brian's Song, Brian Piccolo's health continues to (figuratively) screw him in the ass until he's basically a head and torso lying in a hospital bed dying?

You think Bret Michaels is headed down a similar path? First the diabetes, then that brain hemmorhage he had a couple weeks ago, now a hole in his heart? What next? Leprosy?
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

I'll explain later, but:

Being related to someone by blood or by marriage does NOT make them family.

For instance. The Captain, who I've namedropped frequently here, is not related to me. But he's closest thing to a brother I have. He's family to me. Moreso than any of the myriad distant cousins I have or had.

Just saying, even though I would think it doesn't need saying. Like I said, I'll explain later. (Even though I never do.)
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

6.

Six years ago at this time (around 5am), Wife and I were sitting in an exam room at the hospital. She was at 32 weeks and had woke up in the middle of the night with some pretty severe stomach pains. I had blamed the soup I'd fixed her late the evening before. As it turns out, I just didn't read the label: "CAUTION: MAY INDUCE LABOR," and the decision was made to take her via ambulance from the hospital in Jasper to another hospital about 40 minutes away, in Evansville, where they would likely deliver our baby. St. Mary's was more capable of succeeding with a newborn who was 8 weeks early.

My last vivid memory before he was born a little less than 8 hours later wasn't the fear I'd felt that everything wasn't going to be OK. Rather, it was a heated discussion I'd had with my mom at the hospital in Evansville. We'd started making small talk - in Wife's room at the hospital, mind you - about the primary that had taken place the week before. The particulars escape me at this point, but the gist of it was that I'd noted something peculiar on the Republican ballot.

"Why would you know something like that?" Mom demanded to know.

"Because........ I ........voted on a Republican ballot?" I replied. (Having NEVER voted for a Democrat in my life, which I'd assumed was common knowledge - in spite of the fact that my maternal lineage includes people, living and dead, who were active in local politics on the Democrat side.)

Which should have been the end of the discussion since there were more pressing issues at hand, like the fact that my son was about to be brought into the world, and the calendar did not say JULY.

But no. It was not the end of the discussion.

I had an aunt who was running - on the Democrat ticket, of course - for one of the county offices. Didn't need my vote; I believe she was running unopposed anyway, but it didn't matter if she wasn't, because I wasn't going to vote Democrat even if her primary opponent was bin Laden himself.

Anyway, this pissed my mom off. How dare I not vote for my aunt. Et cetera.

"Your grandma would be turning over in her grave," Mom told me.

"Like she could give less of a fuck. Because she is dead," I replied.

And it was at this point that the nurses made note of the high-risk pregnancy in the room and the spike in her blood pressure, and cleared the room except for me.

Ha.

*****

Well, as you probably know, the story ultimately had a happy ending, and I don't mean the part where my aunt was defeated in her re-election bid four years later.

Despite the fact that he made his debut at 32 weeks and thus spent the first 24 days of his life in the NICU at St. Mary's, My Son Cool turns 6 today. And it's not all been wine and roses - no developmental problems or anything that preemies are susceptible to, thank God! - he's stubborn and spoiled and sweet and mean and smart and demanding and has the attention span of a hummingbird, but I still wouldn't trade him for most of the money in the world.

And it's like he's always been in our home. Truthfully, I have a hard time remembering what our lives were like before he came along. We'd been in our home for three years before he was born. And yet I have a difficult time imagining that he wasn't here. I guess parenting is pretty much all-consuming when it's done right. Not that I'm a perfect parent by any stretch; I curse myself for some of the habits I let him get into during his development (I truly feel like his lack of focus is somehow my fault - too much TV and video games, not enough sleep).

Happy 6th birthday, buddy. Your presence in my life has been rewarding and joyous and heartbreaking, but you are my son and I love you with all my heart.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T