I’ve officially lost it. I just caught myself checking my own blog to see if I’ve written anything today. (I hadn’t.)

Dagmar feels better today! Yay! She’s back at work… She said she felt better this morning than she has in weeks — she still has a lot of pain, but the “ill” feeling is waning, finally. I’m VERY happy!

What I’ve Learned in the Past Few Days:

1. I now know why there is no such thing as Pork Chop and Pepperoni Pizza. Been there, done that, not gonna do that again.

2. Blog buddy Steakbellie moved up in the rankings — he’s now ranked 18th in the WORLD by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Hey, if you’re gonna do something, might as well be the best at it!

3. Fixing a leaky faucet really CAN take three days.

4. My wife is incredibly strong and resilient.

5. No matter where you are in life, you’re in transition.

6. There is a guy in town here who’s at least partially Irish, goes by the name of Seamus, and hates Guinness. That just ain’t right. But then again, I’m at least partially German and I hate warm potato salad, so I guess I’ll forgive him. And I’ll drink his Guinness.

7. Not much gets done when you’re watching the clock.

8. I’m not saying that I miss playing in a band, but boy do I miss playing in a band.

The Beautiful Dagmar…

Dagmar Update:

Some people have been asking about Dagmar. Well, she’s still ill… She puts on a happy face and goes to work every day, but it’s difficult for her, and she’s in pain. Without going into too much detail, there are abscesses, cysts, and infections involved, and any future operation is much riskier than normal due to her medical history. She’s seen a ton of doctors and specialists, and we’re optimistic that someone will find a way to make her feel better soon. So, she’s not feeling well, but she’s going on with daily life with a smile anyway. She’s one of the strongest people I know.

Airplane Ride:

After talking about Dagmar’s problems, it feels petty for me to write this next piece, but I’m really excited about it…

I got to go on an airplane! A real, live Air Force airplane!

A leadership class I’m attending got a quick tour of the local Air National Guard unit, which switched from fighters to tankers just a few years ago. By a stroke of luck, they took our class on a refueling run. Here are some photos:

You can see all three gazillion photos I took HERE.

Dear world…

According to the Weather Channel it’s going to be 57 degrees and sunny on Saturday. I’m hereby giving you notice that emergencies and crises will NOT be allowed between the hours of noon and 6 p.m. on this coming Saturday. I have a date with my motorcycle. Anyone who wants is welcome to come along, but there shall be riding, and it will be happening Saturday.

I will gladly work 15 hours on Friday, and I will gladly work Saturday morning. I will be happy to work Saturday night once the sun goes down, and I will work on Sunday as long as it takes. But I will NOT work between noon and 6 on Saturday.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Thinking and Rethinking…

I’ve had a little time to think lately. Precious little time, and even less thought, but I might as well share it with ye.

Veggies
Lately I’ve come to like vegetables. I don’t know when this snuck up on me, but maybe it’s part of growing up. I still like me a nice big ol’ pork chop with onions and noodles and ketchup, but now I don’t mind so much if there’s maybe a little corn or peas or something with it. I ate a couple tacos the other day and didn’t bother to pick out the tomato. It’s odd. A rethink.

Booze
If you’ve followed this blog much, you know I have a weakness for tasty beers. Nothing against Miller Lite (which I also enjoy), but I really kinda like Belgian ales, or a nice Guinness… But I had a nifty glass of wine the other day. It tasted pretty good indeed! I think I found a new passion. So I’m not gonna drink beer any more. I’m going to buy a couple books on wine tasting and get me a coupla bottles of the grape. Beer sucks. Wine rules.

The Prez’dent
I caught a bit of the news last night whilst waiting for Dagmar to get home (she promised to make me some nice sautéed bean sprouts to go along with a new bottle of white I found), and happened to see a bit of President George W. Bush’s latest speech. You know, I think I may have misjudged President Bush.

Maybe he’s not the mumbling, bumbling oaf he seems — maybe his brand of genius is simply so far above me that I can’t see his grand vision. Maybe the thousands of people who boo’d him as he threw out the first pitch at a baseball game in Washington DC are all wrong too. (Is there any wonder the poor President rarely makes live appearances in front of anyone other than his most loyal supporters? Every time he steps out in public the uneducated masses voice their disapproval. Makes it hard for him to concentrate.)

Maybe allowing the economy to suffer for a while in order to enrich the oilmen of Texas and the Middle East is all part of a grand plan and we just don’t see it. The President MUST have a reason why he allows this to happen. Maybe if we simply put our noses to the grindstone and unquestioningly follow along, making financial sacrifices in the name of the Republican plan… Well, maybe things will be okay. Maybe Mr. Bush really does know what he’s doing. I know it was a lot for Mr. Bush to ask a generation of young men and women to sacrifice their youth in order to go to Iraq, but I’m sure they (at least those who survived) are happy to give up their veterans’ benefits for the betterment of Big Oil and Haliburton. I mean, the President has a plan, after all – I’m convinced of it.

Oh! And I saw in the newspaper that someone was unhappy with Iowa’s Fifth District Representative, Mr. Steve King. I’ve had time to reconsider his positions, too, and I’ve come to agree with him that people of Hispanic origin really are the same as cattle, and that those pranksters in Abu Ghraib who tortured all them brown Iraqi people really did get the wrong end of the stick. I mean, what’s so bad about pouring phosphoric acid on someone? College prank stuff, really. Oh, and what he said about Obama being unfit for presidential consideration because of his middle name — that really does make sense now that I think of it. I mean, everyone knows that Mr. Obama should have chosen a different name, after all. After further consideration, I feel that Mr. King is the best man to represent Western Iowa in Congress.

Time Warping
I see Google has found a way to retroactively send e-mails. This means that if you forgot to send an e-mail to, say, your boss, you can use g-mail’s new feature to send the e-mail back in time six hours. Genius!

Oh — I Almost Forgot
Today IS April Fool’s Day, you know.

What comes around…

Dagmar and I set aside a certain amount of moolah every month to simply give away. Sometimes the money goes to a charity, sometimes to a friend in need, sometimes it’s split up into several smaller donations, sometimes it goes to a complete stranger. It’s not a lot of money, but hopefully it helps someone somewhere sometime.

Yesterday that very same amount of moolah came back to us in the mail from a very nice family we know. It feels like the cosmos are smiling… The money came just in time to help someone else.

Ow! Ow! Ow!

We bought some of those healthy organic “Vinegar and Sea Salt” chips yesterday. Man, those things will twist your face all up! Holy buckets!

Really? I didn’t know that.

Pet peeve #4,629: television shows that repeat themselves constantly.

I watch a lot of Discovery, Science and History Channel stuff, and I’ve noticed a trend… Not only will they show you the same three-second clip 72 times in a one-hour show, but they repeat themselves before and after each commercial.

An example would be Mythbusters. They will use approximately 92 minutes of the 60 minute show explaining that “Jamie and Adam are now going to ride a buffalo off a cliff to see if buffalo really have wings,” and that “Last we saw Jamie and Adam they were riding a buffalo off a cliff…” and “This week we explore whether buffalo have wings by having Jamie and Adam ride one off a cliff…” It gets to the point where there’s really only 20 minutes of substance and 40 minutes of hearing and seeing the same thing over and over and over again.

Are we really so dense that we need to be told constantly what we’re watching? I thought these were supposed to be the “smart” channels. (Of course it’s hard to tell what you’re watching, actually, because they have so much crap at the bottom of the screen that you can’t see the show…)

Random Thought #1
It’s 5:48 a.m. That’s like, in the morning, when Micky Mouse’s little hand is pointing to the
“five” and his big hand is giving you a rude gesture. I’ve been working on updating a web site for the last hour or so, sitting here huddled over a lukewarm cup of instant coffee, dreaming of riding my motorcycle around the countryside.

I’m also listening to the snow and sleet rattle off the window next to me.

Do you think Mr. Snow Miser realizes that it’s gonna be April next week? Has anyone told him that we’re supposed to be in the 50’s and 60’s by now — NOT the 20’s and 30’s?

Mr. Snow Miser came to visit on Halloween and never left. No offense, Mr. Miser, but golly, it’s time for you to go home… Please. No, really. Go.

Random Thought #2
8:30 a.m.; I’ve been at my lousy stinky rotten day job for half an hour now.

I’m gonna get in trouble for saying this (my wife is more private than I and doesn’t like me sharing such things), but Dagmar’s been terribly ill lately, and I’m worried about her. I hate leaving her home alone when she’s ailing, but my bosses insist that work is more important than my wife. (I shouldn’t say such things, but I’m having a hard time not being resentful today.)

Random Thought #3
9:20 a.m.; A good song just came on the radio (I listen to Pandora.com at work sometimes). “The voice sounds familiar,” I thought. “I love the melody. Way cheesy keyboard though, I’m surprised they let that in the recording without running it through an EQ, or at least turning the velocity down on the board…” Turns out it was a Buddy Holly song I’d never heard (“Take Your Time”). They probably recorded the thing with one microphone dangling in the middle of the room or something — no wonder the keys sounded odd. The other big surprise is that there’s a Buddy Holly song I’d never heard. I bet it was on the flip side of a record I had as a kid and I just never listened to it, being all entranced by whatever was on the “A” side. (And no, I’m not THAT old — I just led a sheltered life.)

And, strangely enough, the song before it was a Foo Fighters thing, and the song after was something by Ozzie. I’m trying to figure out what the three have in common…

Random Thought #4
10:50 a.m.; Whoohoo! An e-mail! Human contact! Aw crud, it was junk mail.

Random Thought #5
11:04 a.m.; Two musical thoughts: Frank Zappa plays everything really really fast on his live albums and it scares me. Observation two: Have you ever noticed that the only real difference (sonically) between Dire Straits and Pink Floyd is the amount of reverb on the instruments? I’ve always liked both bands, mostly for the “deep” sound and quality mix (I could care less what they’re singing about; to be honest I kinda wish they didn’t sing at all — it gets in the way of the instruments), but I never really noticed that the mix is nearly identical for both bands — a nice bass tone, good reverb, and clean percussion. Huh.

Random Thought #6
11:32 a.m.; I’ve lost all interest in work. All I wanna do is go home and see Dagmar and work on my freelance stuff. I’m down to the “sitting and staring” stage. Must be time for lunch, I guess.

Random Thought #7
1:20 p.m.; Took an hour lunch, have been doing my impersonation of a slack-jawed gawker for the last hour, staring at my computer, vacantly.

You know, much as I like Rush, Geddy Lee still sounds like an angry muppet to me. He’s a helluva bassist, but his voice is a bit startling, especially when you’re not expecting it. Here’s a 1975 video of Rush. They were about 20 or 21 at the time…

Oh, and I’ve decided that today I like Dire Straits better than Pink Floyd.

The other day I noticed Sioux City smelled odd. Worse than usual. Turns out our 5th District Representative and high school graduate, Mr. Steve Arnold King, was in town that day. Mr. King wants to make cock-fighting legal in Iowa. He got up in front of Congress one day with a toy model of a wall and asked our government to give Mr. King, his son, and his neighbor $1.5 million a mile to build a 400+ mile wall between the United States and Mexico. Then he said they could string electric wire on the top of the wall — “we do it with cattle all the time.” I guess I always thought Hispanics were human beings… Just lately he said that we shouldn’t vote for Senator Barack Obama because of his middle name. Strong words for a man named after America’s best known traitor. I find the man’s politics disagreeable, I think he relies on creating fear to get himself re-elected, and I plan on voting for Rob Hubler in the fall. Unlike King, Hubler is a college graduate (politics, philosophy and divinity), a veteran (he served in the Navy during the Vietnam era and graduated from the Navy’s Nuclear Power School), and is a minister to boot.

Random Thought #8
2:55 p.m.; To say I’m having trouble focusing on my work would be an understatement. I think I have a popcorn hull stuck in my teeth. It’s maddening. Maddening.

Random Thought #9
3:49 p.m.; Ooh! An e-mail! Contact with humanity! Yay! Oh crud… more junk. I did get a message from my sister earlier today. It made me feel slightly less lonely.

Just over an hour to go until I can go home to check on my beloved Austrian Snowflake and get back to work on my freelance projects. The problem is that after getting up at 4:30 to start working on the computer, then working on another computer from eight to five, well, it’s kinda hard to be motivated to go home and work on the computer some more — even though those are MY customers. I enjoy the work I do at home, but I’m getting tired. The work’s gotta be done, though. I need a weekend. Not to relax, but just a good two-day stretch where I only have to work one job instead of two. Whine whine whine.

The ballast in the fluorescent light above my desk burned out about a month ago. I’ve been sitting in the dark ever since. I can’t convince the boss to fix it. I wish I had a lamp.

Random Thought #10
5:11 p.m.; Home now, wearing my happy pants. Dagmar’s still feeling ill, watching German movies in the other room. I hugged her tight. Back at the computer now… Why does the cat always wanna sit in my lap when I have things to do?

Random Thought #11
6:20 p.m.; The hell with it. I’m gonna take a break and eat. I am, after all, not nearly pudgy enough already. (I’m going by the theory that if your age is greater than your waistline you’re okay. Pass the M&M’s please.)

I’m waiting for the day I find myself dipping M&M’s in melted butter. It’s gonna happen.

Random Thought #12
6:40 p.m.; Hey, when did all the TV stations start covering their screens in logos and promos for the next show and crawlers telling me all sorts of stuff I don’t need to know? This is really starting to bug me — it’s getting to the point where there’s always something hopping up and down in the corner of the screen… It’s hard to watch the show I WANT to watch.

Think maybe we can all band together and send in a petition or something? I think I might write ’em a letter.

“Dear Television Executive: This whole thing about having six logos and a bouncy thing on the TV screen makes me feel frantic and upset. I’ll make you a deal — you tell your people to stop cluttering up my screen and I’ll see what I can do about these voices in my head that are telling me to go pay you a visit in person…”

Oops, soup’s done. Gotta eat now.

Random Thought #13
7:16 p.m.; Back at the computer. I’m feeling really chained to this thing. I wish I could go ride the bike or take some photos or something. Oh well. Work’s gotta be done.

Random Thought #14
9:12 p.m.; The hell with it. I’m gonna go take a nap. My cat just bit me, the big dummy. Good night everyone.

Random Thought #15
4:11 a.m.; Time to start over. Hello computer, hello work…

Thought #1
Hey, two people said they like this “random thought” kinda thing. Since two people constitutes a majority, kind of, if you squint a little, I’ll blog like this once in a while. It’s convenient for me, since I’m having trouble finding time to sit and write…

Thought #2
My pal with the cancer is hoping to make it back to Texas to visit his family there before it’s too late. The Legion Riders are gonna be taking donations to try to get him back there… (He’s one of our members.) He told us a few weeks ago the cancer had come back, but I was pretty surprised to hear how fast it’s growing…

Thought #3
I got my bike outta storage! WHEEEE! I got to ride all of about five miles at lunch today, dressed head-to-toe in leather. It’s cold out there. And I’m a wuss. But even if I can’t ride for another week or two, it feels good to have the bike back in my garage where it belongs.

I always feel bad, though, if I leave it parked for too long. It just sorta sits there, staring morosely at the wall… Maybe I should hang a nice Escher print on the wall in front of it to give it something to look at on chilly days.

Oh, the reason why I’m so sure I won’t be able to ride for a few weeks? Simple. By my utterance of the magical words “Hello, bike shop? I’d like to get my bike out of storage today,” I have doomed this section of the nation to a minimum of three weeks’ crappy weather. It works every time.

Thought #4
I had a bad dream the other day. (I only dream during the day, you know. I’m one of those hypochondrioinsomniacs or whatever. When I’m tired enough to sleep at night I’m too tired to dream.) Anyway, I was running from the monster and I was in a really really big house that was about eight stories tall and had lots of stairs… and I lost my billfold. The monster immediately ate my billfold and then split into two parts — one part credit card executive and one part insurance agent. The two of ’em chased me around and around, slowly chopping off whatever bits and pieces of me they could reach until all I was was three toes and a head, trying vainly to roll away from them. (The symbolism is obscure. I’m still trying to figure it out.)

So today I have a new billfold. One with a chain on it that hooks to my belt. I ain’t having THAT dream again.

Now just you watch — my next dream will end with my billfold falling out of my pocket and dangling from its chain until it tangles around my legs, thus causing me to trip and get eaten by the credit card monster that chases me.

Thought #5
Is it fat in here, or is it just me?

Thought #6
I just heard on the news that an airline pilot lost control of his firearm in midflight and managed to shoot his own airplane for no apparent reason.

Now, I’ve struggled with “the right to keep and bear arms” for quite a while. I grew up in a rural community where just about everyone has a couple shotguns and hunting rifles hanging around the house. My dad gave me my first shotgun when I was, geeze, eight or ten years old, maybe. I also have military training, and many of my friends are veterans. I have no problem letting these people own firearms, as the farmers use them only to hunt with, and veterans don’t take guns or gun ownership lightly — they’ve seen what a bullet can do.

But gosh, I really don’t want EVERYONE to have access to firearms! I mean, the gangbanging idiot down the street who can’t figure out how to pull his pants up — him I don’t want shooting anything at anything. Nor do I want the little old lady down the street to shoot herself in the foot with her own gun trying to defend herself against the hoodlums. So it’s a conundrum.

Let’s try this on for size and see if it fits… How about we make it so that you must get licensed to carry a firearm. To get the license you have to take a class and pass both written and shooting tests. Once you pass, yay! you can carry a firearm (or a member of the class of firearms for which you’ve been tested). Every four years you have to go back and get your license renewed, AND take the tests again. Let’s make the penalty for carrying an unlicensed gun severe enough that it would truly deter people from skipping the process — say, twenty years of labor in the wind turbine factory or something.

I know, I know… it’s a pain in the backside to renew constantly. But the advantages would outweigh the inconvenience, at least to me. The waiting period to buy guns would still be in effect, as would the background checks, but I like the idea of people having to go back every few years in person to renew their license. It keeps people trained in firearm usage (I haven’t fired a shot in over six or seven years — I’d like to have a refresher course myself before I go target shooting again), it reminds people that firearm ownership is a heavy responsibility, AND it gives the clerk at the testing station a chance to look you in the eye to see if you’ve got that whacky gleam in your eye that forebodes something bad happening at the post office tomorrow.

It’s just a thought… Oh, Wait! I just had another! How’s this one? You EARN the right to own a firearm — the only people who can carry a weapon are those trained to by the government. You must either be active duty military or police, or have an Honorable Discharge to own a firearm. You still gotta get licensed and renew the license and all that happy stuff I outlined above… Maybe that’d work…?

Okay, I’ll quit thinking now. Maybe.

Thought #6
A buddy o’ mine sent me a story the other day, one of those where the religious student makes a fool of the atheist professor. It was actually kind of a neat story, and I did like the philosophical meanderings they went through to get to the point where “there is no evil, just the absence of good.” Anyway, in a post-reading-the-story discussion with yet another buddy o’ mine (didn’t know I had two buddies, did you?) I mentioned that the only problem I had was that the story put higher education in a bad light. There’s too much ignorance in the world — the last thing we need is people assuming education is a bad thing… Or that education will lead to Godlessness. Or making a virtue of ignorance and stupidity.

At a glance through history, it seems that both Christianity and Islam has, throughout the ages, tried to either control education or ban it outright. This seems to me to be a fairly transparent ploy to gain and retain power. And it’s easy to do — all you need to do is tell believers that education will strip them of their beliefs and they’ll go to hell (or the equivalent) if they read a certain book or go on to higher learning. And that’s too bad — look where that path has led the fundamental Islamic countries. Christianity has been there as well, just look at the “dark ages.”

The last few days I’ve seen this sort of thinking (or lack thereof) numerous times. I even saw a comedian, Ralphie May, talk about it on TV. His routine was based around the premise that society has been trying to make ourselves stupider through drugs and alcohol for years in order to try to prove the old “ignorance is bliss” adage. “Wanna ‘nother six-pack of dumb-dumb?”

Do we really want to do this to ourselves? I posit the belief that higher education is NOT the enemy of religion, nor is willful ignorance something to be proud of, as seems the case in some facets of today’s society. By downplaying the importance of education we’re putting America at risk in many ways.

Oops, time to go home. Later!

Yet more randomness…

Usually when I blog I like to sit down and hold only a thought long enough to at least finish the sentence I’m on, but I’ve not been able to do that recently for a variety of reasons. Yesterday I just kinda kept Blogger sitting on a corner of my desktop all day and jotted down whatever caught my interest. It worked well, sorta, so I’m gonna do that again today. Lucky you.

Random Thought #1:
If they told Florida and Michigan their votes wouldn’t count if they moved their primaries up, why do Florida and Michigan suddenly feel jilted. It was their decision, and they knew the consequences of their actions when they made their decision. Be adults. Take responsibility. You broke the rules, now you have to pay the consequences.

The big sillies.

Random Thought #2:
Are chipmunks bigger than Smurfs? I wonder if they ever get into territorial battles.

Random Thought #3:
Just heard bad news about a friend with cancer. Three months, maybe six? That’s not long enough. I’m having trouble not crying. Hope there’s time for one more ride through the hills before you go…